Who Is Steve DiSchiavi? The Dead Files Detective Explained

The Dead Files stars medium Amy Allan and former homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi, but what are the detective’s career credentials? The Travel Channel reality show originally premiered in 2011 and has since aired hundreds of episodes. DiSchiavi earned a relatively large social media following because of The Dead Files, primarily because of his no-nonsense attitude and methodical approach when researching paranormal activity cases.

In The Dead Files, DiSchiavi and Allan investigate haunted locations. They are assisted by Matthew Anderson, a cameraman who documents the experiences and “cleans the slate” by removing distractions that could affect the research. He’s married to Allan, who studied under American psychologist and parapsychologist Dr. William Roll. The Dead Files moved from The Travel Channel to Discovery+ in 2021.

DiSchiavi uncovers the facts in The Dead Files and doesn’t actively collaborate with Allan during the initial investigations. Instead, he relies on 21 years of experience as a homicide detective while looking into the history of haunted locations and the residents who reach out to the show. By the end of each episode, DiSchiavi and Allan share their findings and reach a conclusion. Prior to The Dead Files season 8, the retired NYPD investigator explained his reasoning for participating in the show (via The Travel Channel):

“I was asked to do the show, and once I found out it was a paranormal show I said, ‘No, absolutely not, I’m not doing this.’ But when me and the creator, Jim Casey, sat down, we discussed how it could be a detective-oriented investigation on my side. Because I am an open-minded skeptic. I’m not a skeptic of the paranormal. People get this wrong in me; I do believe there’s stuff going on. Do I believe all of it? No. But I do believe there’s something going on. I hope there’s an afterlife. My problem is with the living. I’m a skeptic of them, not the paranormal.”

Per DiSchiavi’s official biography for the sci-fi show, he previously served as the senior investigator for Merrill Lynch’s fraud department and worked as a special investigator for the city of New York. He reportedly grew up in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York (per Affair Post), and spent three years in the U.S. Marine Corps before joining the NYPD. DiSchiavi currently lives in Florida with his wife and daughter, and owns the company Paragon Investigations. Prior to The Dead Files, he portrayed a detective in Gavin O’Connor’s 2008 movie Pride and Glory starring Colin Farrell, Edward Norton, and Jon Voight. DiSchiavi also appeared as D’Angelo in the 2011 short film Stake Out: My Dad’s Rolex, which was written by Chris Orbach – the son of Law & Order actor Jerry Orbach.

In The Dead Files, DiSchiavi’s professional experience gives an authentic feel to each episode. The series often polarizes viewers because of Allan’s commentaries and cerebral instincts, in addition to certain sequences that appear to be staged or include professional actors. From DiSchiavi’s perspective, he wouldn’t continue making The Dead Files if Allan’s methods seemed contrived for television, saying, “I’m a believer in her abilities, not all psychics. I don’t trust a lot of them. A lot of them are snake oil salesmen, in my opinion. But they give people like Amy a bad name. “

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Q.V. Hough
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Q.V. Hough is a senior writer at Screen Rant. He’s also the founding editor at Vague Visages, and has contributed to RogerEbert.com and Fandor.

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