Shawn Hornbeck's father, Craig Akers, has stated that Browne's declaration was "one of the hardest things that we've ever had to hear," and that her misinformation diverted investigators wasting precious police time. When Hornbeck was found alive more than four years later, few of the details given by Browne were correct. Browne responded "No" when asked if he was still alive. Most notably, self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne appeared on The Montel Williams Show and provided the parents of Shawn Hornbeck a detailed description of the abductor and where Hornbeck could be found. The case of Shawn Hornbeck received the attention of psychics after the eleven-year-old went missing on October 6, 2002. A little more than a year after her disappearance, Levy's body was accidentally discovered by a man walking his dog in a remote section of Rock Creek Park. intern Chandra Levy went missing on May 1, 2001, psychics from around the world provided tips suggesting that her body would be found in places such as the basement of a Smithsonian storage building, in the Potomac River, and buried in the Nevada desert among many other possible locations. Despite the vagueness of this claim (the body was not in a shallow grave, water is everywhere in Long Island, and no sign with a G was nearby) the New York Post stated that the "Psychic Nailed it!" "More surprising than the psychic's failure is the fact that this information was described as an amazing success on over 70,000 websites without anyone realizing that she was completely wrong."
In the case of the Long Island serial killer, the psychic said the body would be found in a shallow grave, near water and a sign with a G in it would be nearby. No psychic was ever credited with finding Elizabeth Smart.
Yet, Elizabeth Smart's father, Ed Smart, concluded that: "the family didn’t get any valuable information from psychics." Smart was located by observant witnesses who recognized her abductor from a police photograph. Responding to these tips took "many police hours," according to Salt Lake City Police Chief Lieutenant Chris Burbank. Following the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart on June 5, 2002, the police received as many 9,000 tips from self-proclaimed psychics (and others crediting visions and dreams as their source). Many prominent police cases, often involving missing persons, have received the attention of alleged psychics.