The Chicago Paranormal Detectives on “You & Me This Morning”

The best in paranormal investigation television

Roger Marsh

Get ready for a network “dirty little secret” – A&E and its North South Productions show manufacturer are sitting on a hit series.

Paranormal Cops recently had its network launch with six episodes.

And this is no ordinary paranormal show. Forget everything that turns you off to paranormal research in neat little network packages – this one is for real.

Host Ron Fabiani – reached by telephone today – admitted he’s not running around the country hyping “most haunted” properties and seeking out the “paranormally afflicted.”

Fabiani and staff of the very real Chicago Paranormal Detectives (CPD) only take on cases in the greater Chicago area. Clients seek them out and cases are chosen that fit CPD’s investigation criteria. They are all currently Chicago area policemen and they investigate cases using similar methodology.

“We cannot stop being policemen,” Fabiani said. “We’re always asking – where’s the evidence? People may come to us with pre-existing notions. They want to talk to us about demonic possession, or maybe a poltergeist. But we don’t really know that these things exist. Anyone can say that. We investigate the unknown.”

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Investigating the Paranormal

Samantha Newburn

Austin Weinstock & Rob Fabian

Austin Weinstock may be a police officer in the Chicago area, but he’s investigating more than just crimes and corruption.

The Effingham native is part of a six-person team who, free of charge, investigates the paranormal and has begun its own television show on A&E.

He is the son of Steve Weinstock, a private investigator in the Effingham area. Austin’s brother, Adam, is Mattoon’s Deputy Police Chief.

Austin Weinstock followed in the footsteps of his crime-fighting family and became a police officer in the Chicago area in 2005, after serving in the Air Force as a military police officer.

“From a young age, my father was instilling in me how to be a cop,” Weinstock said.

During his free time, Weinstock decided to take on a different angle in police work, and in 2006, he joined a group called Chicago Paranormal Detectives. The group consists of three other police officers and two civilian personnel.

The members look into strange happenings upon the request of others. The team doesn’t solicit work; instead, the group is asked to investigate claims of paranormal activity, Weinstock said.

Sometimes the group will work on two claims a week and other times it’s only two claims a month.

But the team does all its work free of charge, and although group members take an investigative approach to the claims, they do all of the work off-duty.

Weinstock said he investigates claims of paranormal activity just like he would a homicide investigation or other police investigations. The group tries to close in on every angle, follows up on leads and does research.

“We’re police,” Weinstock said. “We help people on the street and off the street, and we do it without charge.”

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ONE-HOUR SERIES PREMIERE ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 19 AT 10:30 PM ET/PT

A&E sets out on a ghost patrol with a team of Chicago-area police officers who spend their off duty hours as paranormal investigators in the new original real-life series “Paranormal Cops.” The six-episode half-hour series kicks off with a special one-hour season premiere on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 10:30 PM ET/PT.

“Paranormal Cops” follows a group of larger-than-life cops who walk one beat during the day as real-life Chicago-area police officers and another at night when they apply their forensic and investigative expertise to paranormal casework. Responding to the pleas of people who are victimized by distressing and inexplicable activities in their homes and workplaces, these cops bring their no-nonsense approach to hunting ghosts and real-life police skills to separate the fact from fiction and often happen upon results much scarier than the paranormal.

In “Casa Madrid,” the one-hour series premiere, the team responds to a store manager who is so distraught over events taking place in the basement of his store that he is ready to quit. An investigation turns up paranormal activity and uncovers that the store was once a notorious hangout and gambling hall frequented by figures from the underworld and host to countless crimes, even murder.