Reading psychic Lucky Belcamino shares her gift...

Though a self-described empath and people person, there are times Reading native Lucky Belcamino gets a little uncomfortable when asked to approach someone for a quick meet-and-greet.

But sometimes, the dead just won’t take no for an answer.

“It’s a gift I embrace,” said Belcamino of her ability to act as a medium between those in afterlife and the living. “But it can also be a curse, because I can’t turn it off. If I’m out grocery shopping, I don’t want to just go and tap someone on the shoulder and say, ‘Excuse me, but your late husband just gave me a message.’”

Since graduating from Reading High School with the Class of 1975, Belcamino has lived quite the life. A one-time server and manager at Burlington’s Paparazzi Restaurant, the Newbury College alumnus briefly ran a part-time catering business featuring her take on classic Italian cuisine.

She’s also been an actress who’s been featured as an extra in Steven King’s Castle Rock series on Hulu and in the 2021 film “The Card Counter” featuring Tiffany Haddish, Willem Dafoe, and Oscar Isaac.

The motorcycle enthusiast, who is the founder and president of the “East Coast Biker Chicks Club”, also enjoyed some success as a professional poker player and finished 12th in the 2006 World Poker Tour’s “No Limit Hold’em” finals at Foxwoods Resort. And when not cruising on a motorcycle, out catering, or raking in a big pot at the casino, the longtime Winchendon, Mass. resident has also found the time to pen a few books and make regular radio appearances.

But of all her accomplishments, Belcamino is most proud of the work she’s done using her family “gift” to pass on unspoken goodbyes and other important messages from the deceased to their loved ones.

And while the affable and easy-going psychic medium has no problem laughing and joking around about uncomfortable encounters with spirits while at the supermarket or running other errands, she takes her craft very seriously.

“Being out there in the public and helping people with these messages, I love being able to be the medium between the living and those in the afterlife,” she explained.

“There are a lot of fakes out there. I don’t like to disparage or talk bad about anybody, but I’m very honest and want to help people out,” she continued. “No matter whether you’re in a public place or a private location, you always have to be respectful of your surroundings. You should never undermine anybody [with a dishonest reading].”

First encounter

The last child of late Reading residents Lorenzo Salvatore and Virginia Belcamino, Lucky says her psychic abilities first manifested when she was a young girl.

Far from being afraid of her first encounter with someone who had passed to the other side, Belcamino explained that her mother had routinely exhibited “extra senses” throughout her childhood. On one such occasion, her mother was standing at a kitchen window washing dishes when a bird flew into a window.

In response, her mother explained that someone had just died.

“Sure enough, a couple hours later, the phone rang and we found out her sister had died,” Belcamino recalled.

Several years later, when she was eight-years-old Belcamino, who had been lovingly nicknamed “Cookie” by her mother, was caught trying to sneak out of her upstairs bedroom to join a get-together being hosted by her parents, who regularly entertained guests from the local American Legion post and from an area college where her father worked.

As was the routine - even then Lucky just loved being around people - Virginia Belcamino rebuked her daughter with a laugh and a smile and escorted her back to her bedroom, which she shared with one of her seven siblings.

“My mom just said ‘cook-a-bug, go back to bed’. And she put me back to bed a couple of times,” she recalled.

Later in the night, Lucky’s bedroom door creaked open. Believing her mother had come upstairs to ensure her daughter wasn’t planning another escape, Lucky turned to show she was still in bed.

Though no one was standing by the threshold, the eight-year-old heard a swooshing sound as if clothing was being rustled. The noise, which was so loud it awoke her sister Jeanne, was soon followed by the sudden appearance of a glowing apparition with a feminine form.

The woman whispered, ‘You have it and will know when to use it”. Then as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone.

Days later, as Lucky was sitting in the kitchen, her mother explained that her sister had told her about their “visitor”. Virginia Belcamino later identified the woman as Lucky’s late grandmother, Dorothy Shattuc Range, who had also manifested strong psychic abilities.

As Virginia explained, when she was a young girl, Dorothy Range had let her daughter know that she too possessed the “gift” by uttering the exact phrase “you have it and will know when to use it.”

Ultimately, Belcamino wouldn’t begin to truly use her psychic abilities in a public setting until about twenty years ago, when she began using her gift to investigate “haunted places” with a group of other psychics and paranormal researchers.

Under the most common scenario, Lucky and her team would be contacted by concerned members of the public who were experienced unexplained events in their homes. After screening those calls to rule out other causes - such as drug use or mental illness - the team would go visit.

Many times, the phenomenon experienced by clients, such as strange lights or knocking sounds, could be attributed to old heating systems or instances where lights from cars passing on a nearby road were being partially reflected through windows or mirrors.

Other times, Belcamino would immediately sense other visitors. Recalling one of her oddest early cases, the RMHS alumnus was contacted by an elderly woman who was living in a historic home in Westminster, Massachusetts.

While trying to figure out the source of the odd occurrences, which included the whispers of disembodied voices and items being knocked off of shelves in several rooms, Lucky was able to make contact with at least three separate spirits.

“She was so grandmotherly and seemed as sincere as it comes,” said the psychic medium of her initial conversation with that client. “And we ended up finding a lot of evidence that she had hauntings. We later came to find out [from historical research] that there were at least three deaths that occurred within the house generations ago.”

Lizzie Borden House

Following those initial investigations, Belcamino would become the co-founder of the New England Paranormal Society, a professional organization created to connect regional psychics and paranormal researchers to one another.

Thanks to connections made through that organization, the Reading native would join up with several others in the field to investigate infamous haunting sites like the Lizzie Borden Bread and Breakfast in Fall River.

Belcamino, became so acquainted with the “spirits” of the Borden house, which was the scene of the grisly 1892 axe murders of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother, that she was asked by the property owner to become the establishment’s “official psychic”.

The Winchendon resident, who just recently moved to Pennsylvania, served in that role for eight years before a bout of cancer sidelined her from continuing on in the role.

Belcamino, whose leukemia is now in remission, has since penned a book on her experiences at the Borden house that’s entitled, “The Borden of Proof: The Lizzie Borden Case Files”.

In the book, which she will be reading excerpts from during a book signing event at Reading Public Library on Oct. 22 from 1 to 3 p.m., the psychic medium shares some of her otherworldly encounters with members of the Borden family and also shares case files from the investigations she and her team conducted at the infamous bed and breakfast.

According to the RMHS alumnus, who in 2019 became the official psychic medium in a “Haunted Hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, she is extremely exited to be returning to her hometown this fall and hopes to reconnect with the friends and family.

“I’m really hoping I can reach some of my friends and extended family in Reading. It’s very meaningful to me to return home, because this is where I grew up. I have some many wonderful, wonderful memories of the town,” she explained.

During the town native’s appearance at the public library on Oct. 22, she will share tales of her experiences in the field and sign copies of her books “The Borden of Proof”, “Paranormal 101: A Guide to Ghost Hunting” and “Murders in a Small Town” (a book based on locations in Reading”. If weather permits, Belcamino hopes to host an outdoor picnic on the front lawn of the Middlesex Avenue facility during the book signing.

The psychic medium will also on Oct. 22 be hosting a special event called “Halloween Dining with the Dead with Lucky” at the American Legion from 6 to 11 p.m. Tickets to the event will cost $50 per person and includes a five-course Italian dinner. Belcamino, who will be joined by several other paranormal investigators, will give a brief lecture about her work and then hold a question-and-answer session. Those looking to purchase tickets can either email Belcamino at luckybelcamino@gmail.com or buy them via payday by typing http://www.paypal.me/ghostchick/50 into a web browser.