The Tarot confession
Fortune teller’s client turns up three chilling cards... then he admits he’s just killed flatmate
A MURDERER confessed to a Tarot reader when he drew a series of cards that appeared to reveal his brutal crime.
Star Randel-Hanson picked ‘Death’ and ‘Justice’ from the pack – and broke down when he saw ‘The Devil’.
Realising she was face to face with a killer, clairvoyant Jayne Braiden kept him talking in her seafront shop for an hour until police arrived. Officers then went to the murderer’s flat and found the body of his housemate on the kitchen floor.
Randel- Hanson had knifed Derick Marney and left the corpse for ten days before walking into JJ Tarot in Brighton to ask for a psychic reading.
He picked a total of ten Tarot cards and as they lay before him it seemed he could no longer escape the terrible truth.
Describing the moment the killer confessed, Miss Braiden, 56, said: ‘The first [card] was “The Blasted Tower” which means falling out with someone, a really serious row.
‘Then there was “The Emperor”, the dominant male. Then “The Devil” card means obviously some- thing awful. He broke down and I said to him: “Look I can see here that this is not good, you need to tell me everything, let’s talk”.
‘He said, “It’s terrible, I killed him”. He told me that he killed him but he did not mean to and it was awful.’ Miss Braiden, who has owned her tiny seaside shop for more than 20 years, is more used to dealing with customers hoping to solve family or relationship problems – or just wanting a tantalising glimpse of the future.
Realising she was now dealing with a murderer, the fortune teller calmly told Randel-Hanson, 56, she would have to tell the police and asked if he minded.
She then stepped out of her shop to dial 999 – but was surprised when the call was downgraded to a non-emergency because of suspicions it was a hoax.
As a result, police took an hour to turn up, arriving at 4.44pm.
Miss Braiden said: ‘ The call handler told me it would take up to 55 minutes. I said I cannot hold him here. I thought they would be here in a maximum of 15 minutes.’
Returning to her shop, she asked Randel-Hanson if he wanted a drink – and went out again to buy him a bottle of water from the store next door. ‘I did not raise the alarm to anyone else [on the seafront] because they would have panicked, so I did not say anything to anyone. It would have made the situation worse,’ she said.
‘I gave him the water and then we sat chatting. I closed the top door. I had my truncheon, given to me by a trusty police officer, and a screamer alarm.’
Miss Braiden said she did not feel threatened by the murderer and felt it was her ‘ duty’ to keep him there until police arrived.
While waiting for officers, they ‘changed subjects and laughed at the time police were taking’. She even took notes as they sat at the card table and Randel-Hanson discussed his relationship with Mr Marney and other parts of his life.
The clairvoyant, who returned to work after police had left, said: ‘My friend said, “are you alright”, and I said, ‘I don’t know really. I don’t want to talk about it but there has just been a really odd thing’.
‘The next person to arrive was CID to say they had found the body. I told him, “I knew you would”.’ Randel-Hanson was jailed for life with a minimum of 15 years last week after being convicted of murder at Croydon Crown Court.
Miss Braiden was a key witness during the two-week trial and gave evidence. Jurors heard how Randel-Hanson and Mr Marney, 70, met at a spiritualist church in Brighton. A year later the killer was invited to move in to Mr Marney’s flat ‘for company’.
But Randel-Hanson claimed Mr Marney had sexually assaulted him three times.
He denied murder, but told the court he must have stabbed his flatmate after the older man confronted him as he made some sandwiches.