In March 2000, 33-year-old John Barker from Arkansas, USA, was shot to death, and while the police arrested someone, it remained unclear what had really happened. Many years later, John Barker’s relatives, including his great-nephew Braden, who was only 7 years old at the time, came to the cemetery to visit the graves of their deceased relatives. Suddenly, Braden, who had never been to John Barker’s grave and didn’t even know where it was, ran ahead of everyone to his gravestone. He reached it, fell to his knees, and sobbed bitterly. He knew nothing about his great-uncle, having been born after his death, and the family never spoke about John Barker. So, his behavior shocked everyone.
But even more, the relatives were astonished when Braden started talking about John Barker as if he had known him in a past life. According to Morgan, Braden’s mother, after the incident at the cemetery, her son changed significantly. “He told me, ‘Mommy, only his body lies here, but not his soul.’ He also said that he sees John in his dreams every night and feels like he is John in those dreams,” Morgan recently recounted on the television show “The Ghost Inside My Child,” which is dedicated to paranormal events related to children.
When Morgan strictly told Braden that this couldn’t be possible because he had never known Uncle John, the boy had a genuine meltdown, screaming, “Yes, I was there the night he was killed!” “None of us ever spoke a word about Uncle John, his death, or anything else in conversations with Braden. Braden wasn’t even alive when his uncle John was killed. That’s why it was so strange when Braden started saying unusual things.”
Then it got even stranger when Braden began talking to his great-grandmother Hennessey (John Barker’s mother), not as a grandmother but specifically as MOMMY. “Two of my other children call me mommy, and John also called me mommy. And then Braden raised his little hand, placed it on my chin, and said, ‘Mommy, it’s me.’ John used to always put his hands on my face just like that,” Hennessey recalls, not hiding her tears.
A week later, after this incident, Braden fell out of bed and got hurt. When his mother Morgan approached him and asked where it hurt, the boy suddenly told her, “Uncle John was in pain. Mommy, he was killed; he was shot in the back. He didn’t even know this would happen.” Morgan couldn’t believe it. The police had told her at the time that John was shot in the chest, not the back. However, Braden was persistent. He claimed the killer approached John closely, pressed a gun to his back, and shot him.
Then it was John’s brother, named Kerry, who tried to make sure Braden wasn’t joking. Once, during a conversation with him, Braden mentioned that they had gone fishing together in their childhood but brought home not fish, but a bunch of headless fish, which they hid in a red-and-white refrigerator. “That’s when I believed that John had returned in Braden’s body. I know Braden is my brother. There’s no doubt about it,” says Kerry.
This made Kerry review John’s clothes that he wore on the night of his murder, which the police had returned after closing the investigation. He discovered that the shirt was badly torn specifically in the front, not the back, which would be logical if John had actually been shot in the back and not in the chest.
Then Braden directly pointed to the person who shot John. This happened when he was visiting his aunt on the farm and saw a man working in the field. He told his aunt, “That’s the guy who shot me.” However, this person was not involved in the investigation that took place after John’s murder, and the police arrested a completely different suspect. This, along with the traces of the bullet on the shirt, prompted Braden’s family to file a request for a review of the case. But they received no response.
“We all want justice for the man who lives in our hearts. Even if we can’t achieve the reopening of the case, I need to find a way to calm my son… I want Braden to be able to forgive and let go,” says Morgan. Braden himself speaks directly about what is happening to him: “I walk in dreams like John; I behave badly like John… John can talk through me. I don’t feel like him, but when he comes through me and stays within me, I feel like I’m a ghost.”
At this moment, after the airing of this program, Braden’s family is still waiting for an official response from the police about whether the case of John Barker’s murder will be reopened.
