Tina Resch

Tina Resch (also goes by her full name Christina Elaine Boyer, born October 23, 1969) is an American woman, who was a central figure in a series of incidents that came to be called the Columbus poltergeist case. In 1984, alleged telekinesis events at her Columbus, Ohio home drew significant news media interest. A series of color photographs taken by photojournalist Fred Shannon, and published by The Columbus Dispatch, were purported to show Resch sitting in an armchair with a telephone handset and phone cord flying in front of her. Resch's story, and Shannon's photography, were featured on a 1993 episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

Skeptics and debunkers pointed out that much of the proclaimed evidence was anecdotal and thin and declared the case to be a hoax. Paul Kurtz wrote that Resch was "a disturbed teenager" who faked poltergeist phenomena because she "craved attention".

Resch was married and divorced twice, and had a child named Amber Boyer. In 1994, facing a potential death penalty if she agreed to go to trial before jury, Resch instead accepted a plea bargain with prosecutors to being responsible for the death of her three-year-old daughter that had occurred while the daughter was being looked after by her boyfriend, and she was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Alleged poltergeist case Tina Resch is the adopted daughter of Joan and John Resch, who were physically abusive to her. The Resches were well known in Columbus, as they were foster parents who had helped care for 250 children prior to 1984. When she was 14, Tina Resch watched the movie Poltergeist, and shortly afterward the family reported seeing objects fly around their house. Reporter Mike Harden of The Columbus Dispatch was asked to assist the family, and involved photographer Fred Shannon.

Parapsychologist William Roll stayed in the Resch house to investigate the case, and claimed that there had been genuine "spontaneous psychokinesis". but investigated the case and suspected she had faked the alleged poltergeist occurrences. According to Terence Hines:

The Resch poltergeist turned out to be so elusive that no one ever actually saw a single object even start to move of its own accord. This included the newspaper photographer, who found that if he watched an object, it stubbornly refused to budge. So he would hold up his camera and look away... One of the photos obtained in this way was distributed by the Associated Press and touted widely as proof of the reality of the phenomenon. Examined closely, the photographic evidence in this case strongly suggested that Tina was faking the occurrences by simply throwing the phone and other "flying" objects when no one was looking. Randi's careful analysis of the other photos, many unpublished, of Tina and her flying phone strengthen the conclusion that she was faking. The editor of The Columbus Dispatch, Luke Feck, embarrassed by the revelation that he and his paper were taken in by so obvious a fake, refused Randi permission to print the photos he had given him earlier, in an apparent attempt to suppress the evidence of Tina's trickery and the newspaper's credulity." When confronted with the videotape, she claimed she had done it so the reporters would leave. Randi characterized the situation as a hoax by an adolescent girl seeking attention, saying, "examination of available material indicates that fraudulent means or perfectly explainable methods have been employed to provide the media with sensational details about an otherwise trivial matter." Randi examined a roll of photos taken by press photographers and said that they showed the girl's foot hooked beneath a sofa that had purportedly moved by itself, and that the glass in a picture frame that allegedly shattered on its own while in her hands was already broken before she ever picked it up. His conclusion of the case, as he reported in Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1985, was as follows:

The evidence for the validity of poltergeist claims in this case is anecdotal and thin, at best. The evidence against them is, in my estimation, strong and convincing. Boyer and David Herrin, her boyfriend of a few months, were arrested and tried for the murder of Amber. Even as the Unsolved Mysteries segment about Tina Resch premiered on May 19, 1993, Boyer was sitting in jail and awaiting trial. At the time, the Unsolved Mysteries segment made no mention of the criminal charges against her. She entered an Alford plea, in which she pleaded guilty while maintaining her innocence.

In 2004, William Roll collaborated with writer Valerie Storey on a book entitled Unleashed – Of Poltergeists and Murder: The Curious Story of Tina Resch. The book claims Tina possessed telekinetic powers and was innocent in the death of Amber.

Boyer was originally incarcerated at Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia, since 2008, and is currently housed at McRae Correctional Facility in McRae, Georgia. including Resch/Boyer. Five years later, Banning took a sabbatical year during which he started to investigate Christina Boyer's case, suspecting that she may not have not had a fair trial. Banning's attempts to obtain parole for Resch/Boyer resulted in a podcast, published by Dutch public radio. Banning wrote a book in which he explains how and why he became convinced that Resch/Boyer was likely not guilty The Christina Boyer case has also been the subject of a film and a three part documentary. Banning used his connections to form a team that is working on setting Resch/Boyer free, but as of June 2025, Resch/Boyer was still in prison.