https://archive.triblive.com/local/westmoreland/psychic-to-murder-victims-family-you-will-get-closure/
Carol Polo smiled and just as quickly burst into tears on Wednesday when two Butler County psychics asked whether her late daughter, Samantha Lang, enjoyed keeping animals, both stuffed and live, in her purse.
Lang's sister, Rachel Miller, was equally astonished at the question posed by psychic sisters Jean and Suzanne Vincent outside the Derry Township home where Lang was brutally murdered seven years ago.
“Oh my. ... Samantha loved stuffed animals, and also had a live, pet chinchilla that she always stuffed inside her purse and carried everywhere,” Miller said.
After seven years of tips to police and a $50,000 reward failed to bring about an arrest in Lang's killing, family members returned to the crime scene on Wednesday and had the Vincent sisters do a “psychic reading” at the home.
“My emotions are all over the place today,” Polo said. “I'm excited one minute that this may bring us a step closer to solving it, but the next minute I'm sick to my stomach knowing what happened here.
“My hope is that bringing Suzanne and Jean here and getting information to pass along to state police will bring an end to our family's nightmare after seven years,
“Oh my. ... Samantha loved stuffed animals, and also had a live, pet chinchilla that she always stuffed inside her purse and carried everywhere,” Miller said.
After seven years of tips to police and a $50,000 reward failed to bring about an arrest in Lang's killing, family members returned to the crime scene on Wednesday and had the Vincent sisters do a “psychic reading” at the home.
“My emotions are all over the place today,” Polo said. “I'm excited one minute that this may bring us a step closer to solving it, but the next minute I'm sick to my stomach knowing what happened here.
“My hope is that bringing Suzanne and Jean here and getting information to pass along to state police will bring an end to our family's nightmare after seven years,” Polo said.
Last month, Polo and state police at Greensburg announced that a donor has more than doubled the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Lang's killer, raising it to $50,000. That reward stands through Tuesday, Polo said.
The Vincent sisters stood outside the one-story frame home and asked Polo and Miller for personal information about Lang, including her birth date and her job at a landscaping business. They looked at her portrait and personal belongings that family members held.
Clutching a rosary, Suzanne Vincent immediately began describing “markers” she envisioned about Lang.
She quizzed Polo about a garden Lang planned to put in at her mother's home just before she was murdered. As the sisters walked to the back door, they told Polo and Miller they felt that is where Lang's murderer, a male, and a female conspirator entered the house.
“I see a male-female connection. It may have been jealousy,” Jean Vincent said.
Suzanne Vincent told Polo, “Samantha says, ‘Mom, you know who did it.' ”
The Vincents believe the dispute involved money.
“They were ransacking the house, looking for something. The man was (angry) at the whole family. ... not just Samantha,” Suzanne said.
“She had an attitude, too,” Jean said.
State police said someone slashed Lang's throat on March 27, 2007, leaving her to bleed to death in her home.
Lang's body was found about 9 p.m. in the home along Route 982, where she lived with her father and brother. A family friend found her on the floor between the kitchen and living room in a pool of blood with her cellphone nearby, according to police.
Police noted “a strong smell of marijuana” in the home, according to a search warrant affidavit. The house appeared to have been ransacked. A rear door had been forced open, and a gray metal safe was left on a bed. A metal lockbox was found on a back porch, according to police.
Police said the house was a known hub of “drug activity.”
The victim's father, James C. Lang Jr., and her brother, James III, were incarcerated in the Westmoreland County jail at the time of the slaying. Polo and James Lang divorced in 1999.
Lang, a 2004 graduate of Greater Latrobe High School, had started a job at Laurel Nursery in Unity the week she died. She was taking courses at the Western School of Business in Monroeville to become a paralegal.
Jean Vincent had encouraging words for Samantha Lang's relatives Wednesday.
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“I envision they will get caught. ... Someone knows something and will come forward. You will get closure,” she said.
Polo plans to forward information from the psychic reading to state police detectives.
“They have had a lot of tips, but just not enough concrete evidence to make an arrest,” she said.
The Vincent sister did psychic readings in 2005 when Donald Liscak, 27, of Blairsville went missing. Relatives contacted the sisters who said Liscak would be found dead, just off a busy street, near a tree with a split trunk.
Eleven days later, state police found Liscak dead in his sport utility vehicle, which had crashed into a tree in the median of Route 119 in Indiana County. Passing motorists didn't notice the SUV because the impact had splintered the tree's base and knocked it onto the vehicle.
The Vincents also did a reading for the friends of a Blairsville dentist, Dr. John Yelenic, who was murdered at his home in 2006. Former state Trooper Kevin Foley was later convicted of murder in that case. https://archive.triblive.com/local/westmoreland/psychic-to-murder-victims-family-you-will-get-closure/