Sylvia Browne - Television and Radio Appearances - The Montel Williams Show

Browne was a weekly guest on The Montel Williams Show for many years. In episode known as "Sylvia Wednesdays," she took questions from audience members asking for advice about health, love, and finance, as well as information about deceased or missing loved ones. In 2000, Brill's Content "examined ten recent Montel Williams programs that highlighted Browne's work as a psychic detective (as opposed to her ideas about "the afterlife," for example), spanning 35 cases. In 21, the details were too vague to be verified. Of the remaining 14, law enforcement officials or family members say that Browne had played no useful role."

In 2002, Browne told Gwendolyn Krewson that her daughter Holly, who had been missing for seven years, was living in Hollywood, California and working as an exotic dancer in a nightclub. In 2006, dental records were used to positively identify a body found in 1996 in San Diego, California as that of Holly Krewson.

Browne stated that Ryan Katcher, a nineteen-year-old who disappeared during the night in November 2000 in Illinois, had been murdered and could be found in an iron mine shaft a few miles away from the Katcher home. Katcher was later found in his truck in a pond in Illinois and had died of drowning.

In 1999, Browne told Audrey Sanderford that her six year old granddaughter Opal Jo Jennings had been taken from Tarrant County, Texas to Japan and forced into "slavery" in a town she named as "Kukouro" or "Kukoura". No such town exists in Japan. In August of the same year, Richard Lee Franks was arrested and charged with Jennings' abduction and murder; he was convicted the next year. Jennings' remains were found in December 2003, and autopsy revealed that she had died from trauma to the head within hours of being abducted.

In 2002, Browne told Lynda McClelland's daughters that their mother had been abducted by a man with the initials "MJ" and taken to Orlando, Florida but that she was still alive. McClelland's body was found buried less than two miles from her home in Pennsylvania. The man charged and convicted for the murder was David Repasky, McClelland's son-in-law. He had been present for the reading.

In 2003, Browne claimed that eleven year old Shawn Hornbeck had been abducted by a very tall man with long black dreadlocks and a blue sedan, and that his body could be found near two large, jagged boulders in a wooded area about 20 miles southwest of Richwoods. Her claims led to numerous people calling in with tips regarding possible spottings of the rock formations Browne had mentioned. Hornbeck was found alive four years later, having been abducted by a white man with short brown hair who drove a small white Nissan pickup. Browne told the New York Daily News, "I'm terribly sorry that this happened, but I think my body of work stands by itself. I've broken case after case...I think it's cruel to jump on this one case in which I was wrong."

In 2006, Browne told the fiancée of murder victim Robert Hayes that he had been robbed by a man at a casino for his poker winnings and that there was video evidence. However, police later revealed that Hayes was having an affair and was robbed by the woman and three other people in a setup at an ATM. There were no press reports about him going to a casino or playing poker. She predicted the crime would take a "good two years" to resolve, but the case and trial happened within a year of Hayes's death.

In January 2007, Anderson Cooper reported on Browne's 2003 claims and interviewed the Hornbeck parents, Randi, and Browne critic Robert S. Lancaster. Browne declined to be interviewed. Hornbeck’s parents, Pam and Craig Akers, reported that in order to “talk to additionally,” they would have had to pay her standard fee. Craig Akers recalled the standard fee as $700 for one hour. Browne’s business manager issued a statement denying that Browne has ever charged a fee for her work on a missing person’s case.

In August 2007, the Montel Williams Show was awarded The Truly Terrible Television (TTTV) Award for peddling pseudoscience and superstition to its audience for every episode that has showcased Sylvia Browne. Other winners have been Psychic Detectives, Paranormal State and SciFi's Ghost Hunters.

In June 2008, Ofcom ruled that ITV2 "breached standards with a repeat of the Montel Williams Show in which a 'desperate' couple were told by a psychic their missing son was dead - even though he turned up alive last year." The ruling concerned "breaching rule 2.1 of the Broadcasting Code, which relates to protecting viewers against offensive material."

On December 29, 2009 at the Gibson Amphitheater at Universal Studios Los Angeles, skeptic and mentalist Mark Edward approached the microphone during the question portion of Sylvia Browne's show and said he had been hearing voices in his head, they were giving him the names...Opal Jo Jennings...Terrence Farrell...Holly Krewson and the Sago Miners. Browne could not tell that he was lying and explained that the voices were his spirit guides.