'Dead Files': Detective-Psychic Team Investigates Ghostly Presences

Oct. 31, 2011— -- Amy Allan, a psychic medium, sees dead people. Steve Di Schiavi was a New York City homicide detective for 23 years. Together the team investigates strange and mysterious cases.

Their unusual paranormal partnership is the subject of the hit Travel Channel show, "The Dead Files," which is based on a simple concept -- Allan and Di Schiavi investigate cases on their own, with no contact with each other, and then compare notes at the end.

A "no nonsense" cop, Di Schiavi never expected to be talking about ghouls and ghosts, and called his partnership with Allan a "big transformation for a guy like me."

When Allan, who says she can "see and hear dead people like I can see and hear you," investigates a ghostly presence, she said she will get a strange feeling.

"There is a huge adrenaline that my body really can't handle," she said.

In one episode of "The Dead Files," the duo investigated Plan B restaurant in Asbury Park, N.J. Owner Jeffery Haveson complained of strange bumps, weird voices and a creepy feeling pervading the restaurant basement.

"Immediately I look around because I feel like it should be someone right next to me, speaking to me, and there's nobody around," Haveson said to the camera. "Makes my hair stand up."

When Di Schiavi went back and checked police records, he discovered there had been a brutal murder in the basement 14 years earlier -- a laborer in an antique shop killed the owner, bashing him in the head with a hammer. Di Schiavi interviewed the cop that worked on the case, who told him that the laborer stood over the owner and hit him in the head while he was lying on the ground.

Allan, without speaking to Di Schiavi first, went into the restaurant basement to check it out for herself.

"There's like an anger and despair," she said. "One is despair and one is anger and the anger is pounding the despair. These are people."

Di Schiavi then went to the local prison where the convicted murderer was being held. Meanwhile Allan worked with a sketch artist to come up with a face for the angry presence she felt in the basement. When they compared notes and pictures later, the similarities were striking.

"First I was like, is this a joke?'" Di Schiavi said after he saw the results. "This is impossible. I just interviewed this guy. I said, 'I just talked to this guy in prison.'"

Allan explained that even a living person can leave energy behind that could haunt the restaurant basement, but that was only half of what she discovered.

"Something did happen down here," she said. "It's like a hole, this nasty thing is there. Oh, I don't like it, not good.

"There's something like growling at me to my left," Allan continued as she moved around the room. "There's something laughing and growling and touching my arm. I'm not getting a human form with this thing. This is like ... evil."

She explained that in Catholicism, evil presences such as the one she is feeling would be referred to as a demon and they are extremely rare -- Allan said she has only encountered them in a handful of situations.

"It's capable of manipulating an individual's thoughts and emotions," she said. "It can take on any form that would unnerve someone, taking the opportunity to latch onto a person who is ready to snap and letting them go for it."

Haveson is scared and asked the medium: "Can this be affecting me inside these four walls and can it follow me outside these four walls?"

"Yes to both," Allan replied.

Haveson allowed "Nightline" cameras to follow them to his house to see if there was any trace of the demon. He told "Nightline" that he had been hearing stomping in his attic after taping the "Dead Files" episode.

Allan may not have found the demon there, but she said she found the spirits of dead children and a dying old man that could be behind the noises.