In a peculiar sequence of interviews, five-year-old Luke Ruehlman insists that he experienced a past life as Pam Robinson, an African-American woman who perished in a fire at Chicago’s Paxton Hotel in 1993.
Luke’s mother, Erika, recalls that her son began unsettling her when, at the age of two, he started mentioning a mysterious woman named Pam. Perplexed, she inquired about Pam’s identity, prompting Luke to provide a spine-chilling response.
“He turned to me and said, ‘Well, I was,'” she told Fox 8. “[He said] ‘Well, I used to be, but I died and I went up to heaven. I saw God, and then eventually, God pushed me back down, and I was a baby, and you named me Luke.'”
The Ruehlman family, residing in Cincinnati, Ohio, found themselves bewildered. They had never taken their son to Chicago, and they were unfamiliar with anyone named Pam. Erika conducted research, discovering that a Pam Robinson was among the 19 individuals who perished in a hotel fire nearly 30 years ago.
Luke claims to recall jumping from the burning building to his death in 1993 before being reincarnated after meeting God. Erika attests that her son often shared eerie details he “remembered” from his past life.
“He used to say, ‘When I was a girl, I had black hair,’ or he would say, ‘I used to have earrings like that when I was a girl,'” she said.
According to Erika, she can corroborate her son’s extraordinary claims with facts he couldn’t have learned on his own. After disclosing that he used to be called Pam in Chicago, Luke’s mother uncovered an old news story mentioning Pamela Robinson’s death in a fire at the Paxton Hotel in 1993.
Producers of the paranormal investigations TV show “The Ghost Inside My Child” explored Luke’s remarkable claims. In the show’s footage, Luke successfully identified Pamela Robinson from a page of pictures of black women in their 30s.
Convinced by this, Erika reached out to Pamela’s family to learn more about her. While they shared insights into her personality, such as a shared love for Stevie Wonder and an enthusiasm for playing the keyboard, Pamela’s family declined to comment on Erika’s claims when approached by Fox8.