'Oops, sorry I thought you were a dead person' (7 photos)

Long Island Medium Theresa Caputo channeled voices of the dead in front of thousands of believers at the Essar Centre Wednesday night.

Quite the character with her big blonde hairdo and strong New York accent, Caputo made jokes and even uttered a few salty words while at the same time getting people to open up about deeply traumatic moments in their lives and relaying reassuring messages apparently from their deceased loved ones. 

After a general introduction where she explained her process, Caputo then spent the evening walking through the seated audience “picking up messages” in the form of “thoughts, emotions, signs and symbols”.

Caputo would try to find someone in the crowd that connected with what she was saying and when she did, she would then interact more deeply with that person indicating that she was channeling messages from their lost relative.

Carol Villeneuve was one of those in the crowd that Caputo chose to speak to.

In an interview after the show, Villeneuve opened up about how her 12-year-old daughter, Michelle, died 30 years ago in a horrific murder that included a gunshot wound to the head.

Just before Caputo started speaking to Villeneuve, she put her hand to her own head and addressed the general audience saying she was getting visions of blood covering a face and a feeling or vision about the right side of a face.

“(Caputo) said, ‘Was someone shot?... This is too horrific, I don’t even know if I can talk about this.’ She knew that (my daughter’s) face was so traumatized after the shooting. (Caputo) was so horrified by what she saw she couldn’t speak for a moment,” said Villeneuve

Villeneuve’s friends seemed to draw Caputo’s attention towards Villeneuve and then, after a back and forth, Villeneuve said that the words that Caputo spoke to her finally gave her closure on her 30-year-old trauma.

“It was so surreal. I’m just blown away. This woman is amazing. She knew details like that we tried to get my daughter away from the situation, that we knew the boy, and that my daughter was a very kind person. I feel more at peace right now just knowing that my daughter is okay.”

At one point in the show, Caputo said “everything happens for a reason” and Villeneuve seemed to feel that there must also be a reason why Caputo chose her out of the thousands in the audience.

“When my friend bought us tickets she could have got first row but something told her to sit in the second row, which we did. God works in strange ways. Maybe he felt that I have been going through this too long and that it’s time,” she said.

Villeneuve said that she and her friends drove up from Escanaba, Michigan to see Caputo and they paid $310 per ticket.

Caputo told the crowd that she has “learned that laughter is the best medicine” and throughout the night she certainly had her fair share of jokes and quips that often times would lighten the spirit of someone in tears from some powerful message they were just given.

Some examples:

‘I (ask) spirits ‘Can you give me the Lotto numbers so I can quit talking to dead people?' (but) that ain’t happening!”

“What I do, they don’t teach that in college. I tell people I went to DKS – Don’t Know Sh*t. It’s in Hicksville, Long Island.”

“I’m a practicing Catholic. Even if they don’t agree with me they’ll still take my money.”

“I know when ‘it’ happens you’ll look at me like a deer in headlights. Oh sh*t I’m in Canada, I’m going to say moose.”

At one point she bumped into an audience member and said, “Oops, sorry, I thought you were a dead person.”

Three Caputo fanatics flew in from Thunder Bay and showed up to Wednesday’s event wearing wigs and homemade shirts that, when lined up next to each other, read “We love Theresa”.

“We watch her shows, we have her books – we stalk her!” said Ellie Davies of the group.

Davies, Tessa Monteith, and Jessica Bannon, said that over the last few days they had their own little Caputo adventure.

On Monday they flew from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg, saw her show in Winnipeg that evening, flew back to Thunder Bay the next day, and then after a night in Thunder Bay flew to the Sault via Toronto for Wednesday’s show.

By the time they get back to Thunder Bay today they will have taken eight flights each, spent two nights in hotels, and hundreds of dollars on tickets.

Judging from their big smiles and glowing enthusiasm they didn’t seem to regret any of it.

“She’s just amazing. She talks to the dead!” said Monteith.

Caputo talked for about two hours on Wednesday and out of the reported 3,000 people in the audience she gave personal 'readings' to perhaps 20 or more different individuals.

The general impression from those surveyed in the crowd was that she was at the very least a great entertainer but many walked away sincerely amazed at her ‘spiritual powers’.