When 20-year-old Kyle
Brennan stepped into the office of psychiatrist Dr. Stephen McNamara in
Charlottesville, Virginia, in early January 2006, he could not have imagined
that his life would end just 13 months later as an Enemy of the Church of
Scientology.
Kyle died from a gunshot
wound to the head on Friday, February 16, 2007. (It has been estimated that his
time of death was 11:00 p.m.) Kyle’s body was found in the apartment of his Scientologist
father, Tom Brennan, in Clearwater, Florida, the center of the Scientology
universe.
Clearwater Police Department
Officer Jonathan Yuen arrived at the Brennan apartment shortly after midnight
on the morning of Saturday, February 17. Already on the scene, fire department
first responders declared Kyle dead at 12:10 am.
The circumstances
surrounding Kyle’s death are highly suspicious. Kyle was found on the floor of
his father’s bedroom, not his. In Kyle’s bedroom, the bedding was stripped from
the bed. His bags were packed even though, according to his father, he wasn’t
planning on traveling anytime soon.
Tom Brennan’s .357 Magnum
was found near Kyle’s body, but Forensic
Specialist Jennifer McCabe
did not find the bullet that killed Kyle.
The police did not find the
box of ammunition for the .357, which they allege was used to kill Kyle. And
they did not find Kyle’s laptop—it had been removed from the apartment before
they arrived. Kyle’s fingerprints were nowhere to be found on over 14 separate
pieces of evidence at the scene including the weapon and 10 rounds of ammunition.
Tom Brennan had moved from
Lehigh Acres near Ft. Myers about 140 miles down the Florida Gulf Coast from
Clearwater, and became a staff member of the West Tampa Scientology org in
2005. (“Org” is short for “organization” and refers to a local center where
Scientologists undergo training.)
Within a few months he fell
under the spell of a Scientology celebrity in Clearwater—Denise Miscavige
Gentile, the twin sister of Scientology leader David Miscavige. In May 2006 she
became Brennan’s Scientology “auditor” or Scientology psychotherapist.
On February 16, 2007,
Brennan was working selling Scientology literature at the Florida State Fair in
Tampa. He later told police that he arrived home, found Kyle dead, and—instead
of immediately dialing 911—called Denise Miscavige Gentile first to ask her
what to do. (The 911 call went out just after midnight.)
The police report states
that Brennan returned home “near midnight,” but Brennan—since the death of his
only son—has told various stories of that evening, stories with differing
timelines.
He first told Kyle’s family
in Charlottesville that he got home at 10:30 after having dinner with some
friends. This version, of course, puts him in his apartment at the time of
Kyle’s death. Brennan later changed his time of arrival to 11:20.
Denise’s husband Jerry
Gentile—in a report dated the day after Kyle’s death to the international
headquarters in Los Angeles of Scientology’s intelligence agency, the Office of
Special Affairs (OSA)—says that he and Denise both went to Tom’s apartment.
Later they would lie under oath and say that only Jerry went, arriving shortly
after Officer Yuen was at the scene.
Around 3:00 p.m. that
afternoon (Saturday, February 17), Clearwater Police Department Detective
Stephen Bohling began his investigation. The police did not seal off Brennan’s
apartment to wait for his inspection. He never went to the apartment to
investigate the scene personally.
Forensic Investigator
Jennifer McCabe and Medical Investigator Marti Scholl had arrived at the scene
shortly 20 – 30 minutes after Jonathan Yuen. McCabe swabbed Kyle’s hands for a
Gun Shot Residue (GSR) test to see if Kyle had pulled the trigger on the weapon
that killed him. Bohling later blocked processing of the GSR, and lied to
Kyle’s family telling them that the GSR test had not been done.
Without fingerprints,
without the bullet, and without a GSR test it is impossible to determine
whether Kyle’s death was a suicide or a homicide. Without this evidence it’s
also impossible to determine whether Brennan’s .357 was used to kill Kyle.
In violent deaths such as
Kyle’ - deaths featuring a suspicious lack of evidence - Florida statutes
demand that the police investigation consider the possibility of homicide. But
Detective Bohling ignored statutory requirements and declared Kyle’s suspicious
death a suicide.
Bohling based his
determination of suicide on the finding of Marti Scholl. She, however, said
that she had declared Kyle’s death a suicide because she had been informed that there was a suicide
note [by the police]. Detective Bohling, under oath, later stated that there was no suicide note.
Kyle’s mother Victoria
Britton, his step-father Rick Britton, and his older brother Scott, could not
get straight answers from either Brennan or Detective Bohling to the most basic
questions about what had happened to Kyle.
No one from the police
department called Victoria to inform her, as next of kin, that Kyle had died,
nor did they request her permission to perform an autopsy.
The family’s suspicions
deepened when Brennan returned Kyle’s laptop and they discovered that all of
Kyle’s documents—everything—had been deleted. Kyle was a prolific writer and a
conscientious student. He saved everything he wrote.
Bohling continued to
stonewall Kyle’s family for the next year and a half. He kept the investigation
open. Victoria had to appeal to elected officials to get Bohling to close the
investigation before the expiration of the statute of limitations two years
after Kyle’s death.
In February 2009, Victoria
Britton—as the executor of the Estate of Kyle Brennan—filed a wrongful-death
lawsuit in federal court in Florida. The suit names as defendants Tom Brennan,
Denise Miscavige Gentile and Jerry Gentile, the Church of Scientology, and Flag
(the organization that runs
Scientology in Clearwater).
In December 2011, US Federal
Court Judge Stephen Merryday dismissed the case and granted the Scientology
defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Victoria’s lawyer Luke Lirot filed an
appeal in February 2012.
In a comment on Merryday’s
dismissal and Lirot’s appeal, lawyer Scott Pilutik writes:
The
essence of Lirot's argument is that Judge Merryday wrongly usurped the jury's
role in deciding matters of fact at the summary judgment stage; a judge may
only decide matters of law in a motion for summary judgment, and Merryday
exceeded his authority at this stage by deciding matters of witness credibility
and rejecting the jury's role in plausibly inferring the defendants' liability
from the evidence presented. … In other words, Merryday conducted the full
trial in his head, rather than letting the jury decide whether, for instance,
Lance Marcor's testimony was credible.
Final oral arguments before
a panel of three federal judges will be heard in the Appeals Court in
Jacksonville, Florida, on the morning of Friday, September 14. The judges’
decision is expected to be announced sometime after Thanksgiving.
How Kyle Brennan became an Enemy of Scientology
Though the public—thanks to
Tom Cruise’s rants—is somewhat aware of Scientology’s opposition to psychiatry,
very few realize the depths of destructive hatred Scientologists bear towards
psychiatry and psychiatric patients.
For the new millennium,
Denise’s brother David Miscavige set down the following as a prime objective
for all Scientologists: “the total eradication of psychiatry in all its forms.”
He added, “Let’s get rid of psychiatry, and let’s bring Scientology to every
man, woman and child on this planet.”
Scientology doesn’t want to
simply reform psychiatry. It wants to destroy psychiatry and the mental health
professions, and replace them with indoctrination into Scientology and the
organization’s own brand of psychotherapy called “auditing.”
Scientology’s hatred of
psychiatry is extreme and vicious. Scientologists believe that psychiatrists
caused the Holocaust, 9/11 and the killings at Columbine. They believe there is
an epidemic of psychiatrists raping their patients. They believe psychiatric
medications are pure poison.
Kyle was diagnosed by Dr.
McNamara with only mild depression and social anxiety, conditions not uncommon
in college students. He prescribed him the anti-depressant Lexapro and
continued therapy with him. Kyle talked with Dr. McNamara by phone and gave him
permission to discuss anything with his parents. Dr. McNamara met with Kyle—to
see how he was doing on the medication—every three months.
Kyle was functioning
effectively with therapy and medication. He continued his studies as a
second-semester freshman at Piedmont Virginia Community College where he
studied art and took humanities courses. He continued to write short stories,
reflections, and poetry—all of which he saved on his laptop. He particularly
enjoyed writing horror stories. Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King were his
literary mentors.
Kyle was looking forward to
his future, and discussed with Dr. McNamara his desire to take a trip to visit
schools he could transfer to after his sophomore year. He was eager to travel
on his own for the first time in his life.
His life was working well
until June of 2006 when he received a fateful invitation from Brennan to come
and live with him in Clearwater, Florida, for a semester.
The Church of Scientology: “Suppressive Persons,” “Handling,” and
“Disconnection”
Scientologists live with a
Doomsday worldview. They believe that all of human civilization has passed the
stage of no return and is hurtling towards decay and disaster because
psychiatrists control not only the mental health professions but all societal
institutions, worldwide.
In this bleak outlook,
Scientologists believe themselves under constant attack by persons and
institutions seeking, at every turn, to suppress and thwart Scientology’s
efforts for “planetary salvage.”
They believe these
“Suppressive Persons” (or SPs) are everywhere, including within the Church of
Scientology itself. For this reason the Church’s intelligence and security
agency—the Office of Special Affairs (OSA)—is ever on the alert for internal
sabotage by SPs.
OSA carries out frequent
security checks and interrogations to ensure their members’ loyalty to L. Ron
Hubbard (the Church of Scientology’s founder) and David Miscavige (its current
leader).
To Scientologists, SPs are
not merely ideological enemies of their Church. Their very being is capable of
contaminating a Scientologist, causing him to make errors, have accidents, and
become sick.
It doesn’t take much to
become an SP. A grandmother who expresses unhappiness about her granddaughter
becoming a Scientologist, for example, would be considered an SP.
Strict Scientology
procedures demand that a Scientologist “handle or disconnect” from an SP.
“Handling,” in Scientology jargon, means “removing counter-intention from the
environment and removing other-intention.”
In English, this means
reducing opposition to L. Ron Hubbard—and his teachings—to zero, and then
turning the subject’s interest away from everything else in order to focus on
Hubbard, Scientology, and the interests of the Church of Scientology. If a
Scientologist fails at “handling” an SP, he is then required to
“disconnect”—that is, permanently break off all communication.
There are families in which
loving mothers have not seen or heard from their children in five, ten, and in
one case thirty-five years. Because of Scientology, these children were forced
to disconnect. To these Scientology-controlled offspring their mothers are
virtually dead.
If a Scientologist fails to
disconnect he faces a severe penalty: he is forbidden from being audited or
taking courses, and his progress in Scientology is blocked.
Tom Brennan tricks Kyle and lies to him
When Brennan first learned,
in June 2006, that Kyle was a psychiatric patient, he was faced with the
requirement to “handle” him. Denise Miscavige Gentile had just become his
auditor, and he could not continue his therapy with her unless he handled his
son or disconnected from him.
Hubbard had written what’s
called a “fair game” policy for the handling of SPs. According to the founder,
SPs may be “tricked, lied to, sued, or destroyed.” In true Scientology fashion,
Brennan proceeded to lie to Kyle, trick him, and eventually to destroy him.
Knowing of Kyle’s plans to
transfer out of Charlottesville to an out-of-state college, Brennan invited
Kyle to live with him in Clearwater for a semester. Denise employed Tom as a
handyman for six of her rental properties and referred him to a realty company
that soon became a major client.
Brennan promised Kyle that
he would have a comfortable place to stay, and a $15-an-hour job working for
him in his handyman business. He also promised he would show Kyle around the
campus of the University of South Florida to see if he wanted to transfer
there.
Kyle was overjoyed. Victoria
gave her consent, but told Brennan not to interfere with Kyle’s Lexapro
regimen. She wanted to make sure that Kyle continued taking it.
Kyle arrived on August 15,
2006, and spent the next three weeks in the exclusive company of Denise’s
circle of Scientologists. (This included Wendy Jill Borden—a second-generation
Scientologist from New York taking advanced training in Florida—who Denise had
introduced to Brennan. They married shortly after Kyle’s
visit.)
Immediately after arriving,
Kyle learned that there was no comfortable place to stay. Instead he had to
sleep on a sofa in what he called “a Scientology flop house” on Habana Avenue
in Tampa near the West Tampa Scientology Org where Tom worked. There was no job.
Kyle later told his family
that he was duped by Brennan. Brennan had lured Kyle to Clearwater for the sole
purpose of handling him. (This had begun in June. Since that time, back in
Charlottesville, Kyle and Victoria had been inundated with a steady stream of
Scientology anti-psychiatry propaganda.)
Tom soon moved from Habana
Avenue into a two-bedroom apartment at 323 Cleveland Street. Kyle stayed in one
bedroom while Brennan and Wendy occupied the other. (It was in this latter
bedroom—Brennan’s bedroom—that Kyle’s body was found six months later during
his second visit to Clearwater.)
Downtown Clearwater is
Scientology-occupied territory. Brennan’s apartment building is located near
the corner of Cleveland St. and Ft. Harrison Avenue. The Coachman Building—where
Denise, Wendy, and Tom Brennan took their Scientology training—is located on
another corner.
A block further south on Fort
Harrison Avenue stands the Fort Harrison Hotel, where well-heeled
Scientologists from all over the world receive their high-priced auditing and
training in a resort atmosphere. The entire Clearwater operation is run by the
Flag Organization, where Denise training as a student auditor.
The first attempt to “handle” Kyle
Kyle—who thought of
Scientologists as damaged people—was subjected to handling the entire three
weeks he was in Clearwater. There was no $15-an-hour job. Instead, Brennan and
Wendy pressured him to take Scientology’s bogus personality test. From this
they hoped to leverage Kyle into taking courses and studying Scientology.
Kyle resisted these efforts.
One day—after witnessing Brennan hawking Scientology literature at a local
mall—Kyle called Victoria saying, “Mom, tell me I am not sharing DNA with this
dude! He is making an ass of himself!”
Oblivious, Brennan continued
his attempt at handling his son. This led to a heated argument on September 5
that resulted in Kyle fleeing Clearwater in terror on September 7. In this
quarrel, Brennan told Kyle that he was wasting his time with college and that Scientology
was all he needed to succeed in life.
Brennan said that Victoria
was destroying him with Dr. McNamara and his medication, and that McNamara
would eventually publish Kyle’s patient records on the Internet.
Kyle fought back saying that
only an idiot would believe in anything L. Ron Hubbard had to say. After retreating
to his room, Kyle overheard Brennan and Wendy discussing him. They referred to
Kyle as an SP and an Enemy of the Church of Scientology.
Exhausted, Kyle laid down
for a nap. Brennan entered his room and stood next to the bed, holding a heavy
piece of office equipment over Kyle’s head. Startled awake—and seeing heavy
object hovering above him—he was terrified. He called Victoria to get him home
to Charlottesville immediately.
Hurricane Ernesto was
threatening the Florida Gulf Coast so Victoria was unable to book a flight the
following day. Kyle flew home instead on September 7. For his last two nights
in the apartment, Kyle put furniture against his door to protect himself from
Brennan. When he left he did not say goodbye.
Kyle plans for his journey
When Kyle returned home to
Charlottesville, he told his family what had happened, saying, “You have no
idea of what Scientology has done to my father.”
Victoria had hastily
re-enrolled him in his junior college, and Kyle returned to his normal life. He
continued to write with his usual assiduousness, worked hard on two art
classes, and took meticulous notes for his online Sociology class.
Kyle was an investor—he was
smart about money and conservative in his spending. He continued to invest in
gold and silver coins. He had around $8,000 in savings and coins.
Brennan’s vicious attempts
at handling Kyle had come as a shock. In order to interfere with Kyle’s therapy
and medication, Brennan had deceived and betrayed him. Back at home, Kyle asked
Victoria to assure him that she would never do anything to harm him. His
ability to trust Brennan had been shattered. This had shaken his ability to
trust his family as well.
Over the next two months
Kyle decided that he needed to get away on his own. Getting away would give him
the opportunity to look at other schools. Kyle talked this over with Dr.
McNamara.
The Ivy Gardens fire
Tom Brennan and Victoria had
separated in 1998 when Kyle was twelve. They later divorced. After the
separation, Brennan started over in Scientology and had to retake the basic
courses.
He would have needed
auditing to sort through his issues with his family and his return to
Scientology.
Brennan had first read L.
Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics—the book that
launched Scientology in 1950—when he was 19 years old. As Scientology’s
fundamental textbook, Dianetics: The
Modern Science of Mental Health established auditing as Hubbard’s
replacement for standard psychotherapy.
In his early twenties
Brennan had worked in Miami as a chef, and had been a member of the Miami org
for two years.
Starting over would have
been expensive. Brennan frequently drove the 120 miles up to the Washington,
DC, Founding Church to undergo his re-indoctrination. He even persuaded Kyle to
visit the org when he was 16 years old. Kyle didn’t like it.
While they were together,
Victoria and Tom Brennan had jointly run a lucrative family catering business
called Breton’s. After the separation, Victoria withdrew from operational and
legal involvement. In lieu of alimony she was to receive her regular salary, and
share of the profits, in order to support Kyle until he was 18.
Sometime after their
separation, Brennan started embezzling money from the company. Alerted to the
embezzlements by the firm’s accountant, Victoria went to the company office and
checked the financial records. Tom responded by moving the business papers to
his apartment in the nearby Ivy Gardens complex.
In early April of 2000,
Brennan tossed a lit cigarette into a wastepaper basket in his apartment. The
resulting fire gutted the apartment and destroyed the Breton’s business papers.
It also destroyed the apartments occupied by three University of Virginia
first-year law students and rendered eight
people homeless.
Kyle’s oldest brother Scott,
who was 25 at the time, lived in an apartment in a different part of the
complex. He had done clerical work on the papers in Brennan’s Ivy Gardens
apartment, and had been disturbed to see evidence of Brennan’s wrongdoing.
Hearing the fire trucks,
Scott came running. He was sickened when he realized the fire had started in
Brennan’s apartment. Finding Tom Brennan in the crowd of onlookers, Scott asked
him what was going on. Brennan crushed out a cigarette underfoot and walked off
without saying anything.
Ivy Gardens sued Brennan.
The fire was declared accidental—even though it was determined that it had
originated in Brennan’s wastepaper basket—and the claims were settled through
the insurance company.
Kyle was in high school—he
was 14-years-old—when he learned about Brennan’s embezzling and the Ivy Gardens
fire. Both of these took place while Tom Brennan was furthering his commitment
to Scientology.
Preparations for the journey
Kyle had more than enough in
savings and gold and silver coins to finance his journey. One thing remained:
he had to lay in a supply of Lexapro.
Knowing that Victoria was
going to refill his prescription on the day after Thanksgiving—amid the throng
of Black Friday shoppers—Kyle cleverly went to a different pharmacy and also
refilled the prescription. He now had a two-month supply of his medication.
And so Kyle set out on his
journey the Friday after Thanksgiving. He departed without telling anyone where
he was going or what he was doing.
Kyle spent the next two
months working through the cognitive complexities of family trust and their
dense emotions. When he resolved these issues he felt regret at the anguish he
had inflicted on his family, particularly on his mother. (All of this Kyle
later expressed to Victoria’s brother—Gary Robinson of Ft. Myers, Florida—in a
two-and-one-half hour phone conversation.)
Iowa and California
Detective Bohling and the
Scientology lawyers defamed Kyle repeatedly after his death. The lawyers
described Kyle on his cross-country trip as “wandering aimlessly about.”
This is completely false,
however, as Kyle had carefully planned his journey. His plan was to visit
schools in Iowa—he evidently liked that part of the country because the crime
rate is low—and then take in the San Diego, California, area where Tom
Brennan’s sisters lived.
Kyle flew from Charlottesville
to Waterloo, Iowa. There were colleges in the area that interested him. He
established himself in a motel for the month of December.
He was friendly as he
usually was, and chatted with the motel desk clerk about visiting schools and
weighing alternatives for education and work. Kyle continued to work on his
online Sociology course and completed it before Christmas.
Worried about Kyle mainly
because he was traveling with a considerable amount of cash and valuable coins,
Victoria located him three days after he left. (Studying the search history on
the family computer, it was quickly discovered that Kyle had frequently googled
schools in the Waterloo area. Calls to the motels near Hawkeye Community
College proved successful.)
Over the phone she told Kyle
that the family was not angry at him and that they loved him. He could take all
the time he needed to think things through. Victoria also told him to buy a
cell phone and have the bills sent home to Charlottesville. (When they arrived,
the family was thus able to see where Kyle had been. From these bills it was
later learned that Kyle had called numerous FBI offices.)
Jeff Attwood: A
compassionate FBI agent
In early January Kyle left
Waterloo and traveled to Des Moines. He walked into the local office of the FBI
and met with Special Agent Jeff Attwood. Kyle talked about Tom Brennan’s
crimes. He also related the struggles he was going through—sorting things out
on his own—and that he needed some help. Attwood gave him the name of a local facility.
When Agent Attwood asked for
contact information, Kyle gave him the Charlottesville number. He told Attwood
that if something should happen to him the agent should call Victoria and his
brother Sean. Kyle said they were the people closest to him.
Attwood recognized that Kyle
Brennan was no ordinary runaway. He phoned Victoria and told her that Kyle—who
he described as well-spoken with good manners—was a little rumpled, but
basically okay. Had he thought Kyle was in some sort of psychological crisis he
would have never let him leave his office.
San Diego: Aunt Carrie’s fight with Brennan about psychiatry
Kyle had long wanted to
visit California. He spoke with his father, and Brennan arranged for him to
stay with his sister, Carrie Brennan Farrell, and her husband, Jeff Ferrell, in
San Diego. Kyle barely knew them—he hadn’t seen them since he was twelve.
As in Iowa, Kyle talked
about his options for the future, and Carrie wrote down for him the number of a
Coast Guard recruiter. He also talked about the psychologically rough time he
was going through, and how much the Lexapro helped him. Carrie gave him the
name of a local therapist.
Carrie talked to Brennan and
told him of her concern that Kyle get competent professional help. Naturally,
this phone conversation brought out Brennan’s ludicrous Scientology-based
dogma. They had the biggest fight of their lives as Brennan went into an
all-out anti-psychiatry hate rant.
Maui
Kyle called his uncle, Gary
Robinson—a man Kyle respected and trusted—when he was in San Diego. Gary
suggested that Kyle vacation in Maui to take in the beaches and check out the
girls.
Kyle thought this was a
great idea and booked a flight to Maui. It was the height of the season, and
Kyle was as reluctant as ever to spend money unnecessarily. He spent just one
night in a hotel and then went to Wal-Mart and bought a tent and camping gear
so he could camp out on the beach. The receipts from these purchases Kyle
diligently saved.
When Victoria discovered
Kyle had gone to Maui she got the Maui police to look for him. The police
reported back that he was in good shape. Kyle’s eyes were clear, they said. He
was calm and talkative and had no fear of the police. Kyle told them that he
wanted to call his mother but his cell phone battery had run out.
On February 5, 2007, Kyle
was assaulted by someone trying to steal his backpack. He immediately called
911 and filed a report. He also called the Clearwater Police Department to let
them know he was coming to Clearwater and them to bre informed in case anything
should happen to him while he was there.
The importance of Gary Robinson
The assault caused Kyle to
rethink his plans. The bouncing around had now turned into something of an
ordeal. Kyle decided he was tired of traveling. He wanted to go home and get
back to school.
He decided to visit Tom
Brennan in Clearwater on his way home to Charlottesville. Over the phone
Brennan agreed, and Kyle bought his ticket.
Unfortunately, Kyle missed
his flight. Needing a friendly voice to talk to, Kyle called his uncle Gary and
spoke with him for two and a half hours.
During this call, Kyle
expressed his regret at the anguish his journey had caused his family,
particularly Victoria. He spoke at length about his plans for the future.
He told Gary he still had
all of his gold coins with him. (When, after Kyle’s death, Brennan shipped
Kyle’s belongings to his home in Charlottesville, all of the gold coins were
missing.)
Most importantly, Kyle told
Gary he was taking Lexapro every day. He explained that on his journey he had
been spacing out the doses because he was afraid of running out. Gary assured
him he that he need not worry because he could get all the refills he needed
now that he was on his way home.
Kyle continued taking the
Lexapro every day until Tom Brennan seized it from him and locked it in the
trunk of his BMW 318i the day before Kyle’s death or perhaps a day earlier.
The second handling and Kyle’s death
Kyle arrived in Clearwater
late on the night of Wednesday, February 7, 2007. He died nine days later on
the night of Friday, February 16. Kyle had returned to the apartment where Tom
Brennan and Wendy had tried to “handle” him for being an SP and an Enemy of
Scientology. Kyle was back in the room where Brennan had terrorized him six
months earlier.
Brennan and Denise attempted
to handle Kyle throughout this second visit to Clearwater. Pressure was
mounting on them from Scientology officials to handle Kyle once and for all
since they had failed the previous August.
From Brennan’s apartment
Kyle called Ivy Gardens in Charlottesville, and continued to call FBI offices.
When Brennan discovered this—on February 13, three days before Kyle’s death—he
confronted Kyle and demanded to know what he was doing. Kyle refused to tell
him.
By Wednesday, February 14,
Tom Brennan was frantic because now he was in grave trouble. Kyle’s contacting
the FBI constituted a serious threat to Brennan, Denise
Miscavige, and the Church of Scientology itself. This
was far more serious than Kyle’s use of Lexapro.
Kyle was now a double
threat. Kyle’s psychiatric treatment, and use of a psychotropic drug, made him
an obvious SP, an Enemy of Scientology. But Kyle’s whistle blowing to the
FBI—and the uncertainty over what exactly Kyle told the federal agents—must
have infuriated his Scientology-obsessed father. (Later it was learned, through
the Flag documents demanded by the court, that Tom Brennan—that week—had been ordered
officially to “handle” his son, Kyle Brennan.)
Questions marks
This important case is now
approaching its final stages. In Jacksonville, Florida, on September 14, Luke
Lirot—the attorney for the Estate of Kyle Brennan—will argue an appeal before a
three-judge federal panel. Journalists and the public are encouraged
to attend. We hope the oral arguments will spark more media and public
interest.
On the fifth anniversary of
Kyle’s death the God Discussion website interviewed
Lirot regarding the case for an hour and a half on its Thursday night radio
show. In the interview, Lirot stated that the scene of Kyle’s death, and
Detective Bohling’s investigation and police report raise many question marks.
Here are but a few: the
fairly obvious evidence tampering that took place after Kyle’s death (these are
felonies); the entanglement of Denise Miscavige Gentile and the lying done to
cover up her involvement (felonies when told under oath); Detective Bohling’s relationship
with Scientology’s intelligence agency, his Scientology-biased investigation
and mendacious police report (more felonies).
This massive lying has a
single purpose: to isolate Denise Miscavige from any connection with Kyle’s
death and to do so by defaming Kyle Brennan posthumously as a deteriorating,
delusional paranoid schizophrenic instead of the mildly depressed 20-year-old
college student he was, struggling with the trauma inflicted by his father on
him as an Enemy of Scientology.
These are the subject of
Part Two of our series The death of 20-year-old Kyle
Brennan as an Enemy of the Church of Scientology: Detective
Bohling covers up Kyle Brennan’s death for Denise Miscavige.
____________________________________________
Help get justice for Kyle Brennan!
Victoria Britton has taken
on the arrogance and power of Scientology to find out the truth about Kyle’s
death so that no mother will ever have to suffer the loss of another child to
Scientology.
Luke Lirot is representing
Kyle’s estate pro bono, but there have many costs she must bear herself
including filing fees and depositions.
You can help get justice for
Kyle by supporting her with messages of encouragement and by sending her money
to help pay for costs of this important case.
Or you can write her and
mail a check to:
Victoria Britton
c/o Friends of Kyle Britton
3144 Ridgefield Rd
Charlottesville, VA 22911
Thank you for your
generosity.
- Justin Ross
______________________________________________
Sources
Court filings and especially
depositions form the primary source for the narrative of Kyle’s targeting as an
Enemy of Scientology and his suspicious death. These are found at Scientology
Lawsuits: Kyle Brennan
Foremost in importance is Victoria
Britton’s Chronology written from her notes. They provide crucial
background on Kyle, Brennan’s attack on him for being a psychiatric patient,
the Ivy Gardens fire, and his final journey.
The Second
Declaration of Lance Marcor provides detailed explanation of strict
Scientology procedures that Tom Brennan and Denise Miscavige had to comply with
under penalty of punishment. Marcor is a former Flag Organization executive
with 18 years of experience managing Flag personnel.
Detective Stephen Bohling’s
investigative report forms the faulty foundation of Brennan and Denise
Miscavige’s defense against their involvement in Kyle’s death. Bohling
falsifies Dr. McNamara’s diagnosis of Kyle, accommodates the Scientology
defendants and lawyers at every turn, and lies repeatedly about critical
events. Bohling’s lies are exposed in his
deposition.
The depositions of Tom
Brennan and Denise
Miscavige Gentile reveal essential lies told about the purchase of
ammunition for Tom’s .357 Magnum, the time of Kyle’s death, and Scientology’s
role in his death.
For further reading
Wikipedia articles are a good resource. Scientology is so
controversial that articles give a balanced presentation with a wealth of links
to sources.
