Crime: Etta Smith's Fatal Vision

Etta Smith's Fatal Vision

For Etta Louise Smith, the nightmare began shortly before Christmas 1980, when she claims to have had a vision of something white, covered by brush. A Lockheed aerospace worker in Burbank, Calif., Smith does not consider herself a psychic. Yet after she heard radio reports about Nurse Melanie Uribe, 31, who had vanished on her way to work, Smith was convinced she knew where the body could be found. She took her information to the police, who put her off.

Smith then organized a search with two of her young children and a 20-year- old niece. In remote Lopez Canyon, 18...

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