John J. Oliver, one of the stars of Court TV's new "Haunting Evidence," doesn't slouch or fidget in his chair during an interview, not even after more than an hour of Q&A.
The control is either a tribute to his martial arts training or his abilities as a psychic -- or both.
"My daily concerns aren't ghosts and UFOs. My daily job is, I'm a tae kwon do instructor," explained Oliver, who owns the International Black Belt Center of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Oliver, who lives in New York, is also a part owner in Richmond's two Aquarian bookshops, which specialize in spiritual and metaphysical matters.
But it's his abilities as a crime-solving medium that has turned him into a TV star, especially in Japan where he's part of a show that's seen by an audience of more than 17 million viewers.
Court TV doesn't command the same kind of audience. But the two shows are similar: cold cases, hot psychics.
On "Haunting Evidence," which airs at 10:30 Wednesdays, Oliver, along with psychic profiler Carla Baron and paranormal investigator Patrick Burns, is given an unsolved case. The three visit the locality where the crime took place and give their impressions. Their findings are turned over to the local police.
On the show, Oliver always seems to be wearing sun-
glasses. He pauses, dramatically, to glean some unseen piece of evidence that comes to him as if in a dream.
"I'm not as serious as I'm portrayed on TV," he confesses during a recent interview inside the Aquarian bookshop in Willow Lawn.
These are, however, serious cases.
Some are missing persons; some are missing persons who turn up dead. One case brought the psychics to Virginia to investigate the 1996 murders of hikers Julianne Williams and Laura "Lollie" Winans in Shenandoah National Park.
Oliver's psychic abilities started when he was a child. According to his Web site, he began consulting with law enforcement officials and private detectives while still a teenager.
It's no wonder that, over his many years of psychic police work -- Oliver is coy about his age -- he has formulated three rules.
Don't deal directly with the family of the victim; there's too much emotion involved. "I cannot do anything for the family because the family can't do anything to move the investigation forward."
Don't deal directly with the family, part 2. "Just by the odds, there's going to be a case where a family member is the perpetrator."
And finally, Oliver can't accept a case unless the request comes from law enforcement officials.
"Then I'm a volunteer like search and rescue teams."
On a series of Japanese TV specials titled "FBI: Psychic Investigators," the producers choose the cases. Three psychics, working separately, investigate the case. They bring their findings to a TV studio, where they're joined by a celebrity panel and the Japanese equivalent of Regis Philbin as moderator.
Even for a professional psychic, it's an unusual experience: a foreign language, different sensibilities, excited studio audience.
But the show has sent him to Paris to investigate Princess Diana's 1997 death. Some fascinations transcend nationalities.
One of Oliver's more interesting psychic experiences took place on the Japanese series. It involved a woman whose son had been missing for 25 years.
After an initial reading gave him the impression the man was alive, Oliver broke his first rule of psychic investigation and visited the woman. While handling a cup her son made as a boy, Oliver blurted out, "You'll be reunited in two weeks."
Oliver was mortified. He doesn't usually make promises, especially ones that specific.
What's next? asked the producers. Oliver's only clue was the vision of a gorilla from his initial reading.
The producers took Oliver to a zoo.
"I'm now watching the gorillas. The cameras are on me. I'm thinking, 'What does this have to do with anything?'"
So he tells them, "This is the wrong gorilla."
Oliver's story continues. We offer the condensed version. He pinpointed Tokyo as the missing man's current home, and, by focusing on smaller and smaller maps, narrowed down possible addresses.
The man was found. In a park across the street from where he lived, there was a sculpture of a gorilla.
Robyn Hutt, creator and executive producer of "Haunting Evidence," was aware of Oliver from another series she produces for Court TV. That series, "Psychic Detectives," documents cases psychics have already worked on with police departments.
During the research for that show, Oliver's name kept coming up over and over again.
"The things that particularly intrigued me is that he started working with police departments at a young age, and that he was a man," Hutt said. "In our research which doesn't mean it's a universal truth -- most of the psychics we encounter are women. There are very few men.
"When I came up with the idea to do 'Haunting Evidence,' John was someone I met with. He's incredibly compelling in person. We immediately thought, we'd like him to be part of the team."
Many of the cases on "Haunting Evidence" take place in small towns and rural areas where you wouldn't expect to find a team of psychic investigators followed by a camera crew.
For example, the show went to southern Arkansas for a case involving a young man found dead near his car.
"Most people didn't know what we were there for. We didn't interact with the community. When we were out for dinner, we were noticed, especially with a film crew. People were nice. But they were curious," recalls Oliver. "When we set up our production, there was quite a bit of drive-by, pickup trucks circling the block."
Oliver had never met Baron and Burns before "Haunting Evidence" began filming.
"The three of us are very different. Patrick calls himself a ghost geek," said Oliver, describing Burns' bank of paranormal-seeking equipment as looking like an ER.
As for Baron, who provides the emotional hook on the show, "we have some major differences," Oliver said. "One way to put it is, she's from Los Angeles. I'm from New York."
Oliver finally allows himself a smile.
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