Sun columnist focus of famed hoax

Kirk Baird

Monday, Nov. 11, 2002 | 8:21 a.m.

On the morning of March 30, 1981, John Hinkely attempted to assassinate President Reagan.

Less than 24 hours later, psychic Tamara Rand claimed she had predicted the tragic event more than a month earlier on a talk show hosted by Las Vegas Sun entertainment columnist Dick Maurice.

Within days after the shooting, both NBC and CNN aired footage from the "Dick Maurice Show," in which Rand predicted "gunshots," and a "thud" in Reagan's chest "the last few days of March."

Like Jeane Dixon before her, who is said to have forecast the assassination of President John F. Kennedy several years before it happened, Rand was poised to become a media sensation.

The only problem was, Rand's prediction wasn't true. She and Maurice taped her prognostication on March 31, roughly 24 hours after the assassination attempt.

At first the pair remained adamant that the show had been recorded and aired long before the shooting. But in the face of increased skepticism, as crew members of the talk show came forward to acknowledge the taping occurred after the fact, Maurice himself went public with an admission on April 5, 1981.

In the banner story of 1A in the Las Vegas Sun, Maurice wrote:

"For the past week I have promoted a lie with which I can no longer live. I must confess. My interview with Tamara Rand in which she predicted the assassination attempt of President Ronald Reagan is a lie.

"What happened last week is etched in my mind like the worst nightmare imaginable. It started out as a way of helping a friend. I was convinced that Tamara's career would benefit from an interview with her predictions about the president. I never dreamed it would grow out of hand the way it did.

"I have committed the cardinal sin of a columnist," Maurice went on to write. "I have perpetrated a hoax on the public and I feel very much ashamed."

Maurice kept his job at the Sun, which he held for several years until complications from the AIDS virus forced him to retire. He died in 1989.

Rand at one point began suing those who claimed the prediction was a fraud.

"I never heard what happened to her," said Alex Boese, author of "The Museum of Hoaxes" (Dutton, $19.95). "I assume (the lawsuit) got thrown out because it was so ridiculous.

"She didn't want the hoax to be known, (but) she wanted people all to know she had predicted (the assassination attempt)," he said. "In the end, the publicity did her in."