That spring, Shelly returned from a Freewinds voyage before her husband did, and in his absence she decided to arrange the Org Board herself. There were no settled posts, executives were still churning in the Hole, and the management structure was a mess. Taking matters into her own hands, Shelly made a number of appointments.
Soon after her husband came back, Shelly’s mood visibly changed. Her brother-in-law, John Brousseau, observed that she looked cowed: “The bulldog was gone.” Shortly before she disappeared, she asked Mike Rinder if Dave still had his wedding ring on. Then she vanished. Although a missing-person report has been filed, the Los Angeles Police Department will not comment on her whereabouts. She was escorted to her father’s funeral in August 2007. That’s the last time she was seen in public. Former Sea Org members say she is being guarded at a church facility in Running Springs, California, near Lake Arrowhead, one of the several repositories for Hubbard’s writings. It gets cold there in the winter. Miscavige sent Shelly a sweater and a pair of gloves for Christmas.
In November 2007, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes married in a fifteenth-century castle outside of Rome. Among the celebrities attending were Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Jenna Elfman, and even Brooke Shields. Once again, David Miscavige served as the best man.
* * *
1 Cruise’s attorney says that Sea Org members were not directed to salute him and that he has had many cordial exchanges with them.
2 According to Tommy Davis, “From their perspective, it was the least they could do to express their affection.”
3 According to Tommy Davis, “These incidents are pure fantasy by Tom De Vocht.”
4 The case against Cartwright was settled out of court.
5 Cruise’s attorney notes, “Mr. Cruise has never expressed anything but support and respect for the work on Battlefield Earth.”
6 Cruise’s attorney says Cruise did not complain about not having a girlfriend at the opening of the church in Madrid.
7 The church has stated, “Scientology ministers maintain and practice a code of conduct known as the Auditor’s Code. The Auditor’s Code provides standards to ensure that priest-penitent communications remain strictly confidential. All such information is kept strictly confidential by a Scientology minister and the Church.”
8 Cruise’s attorney says that this conversation never took place. According to Tommy Davis: “Katy did not lose her friend because she admitted she was gay, she lost her friend because Katy lied to her about being gay.”
9 Several sources independently told me of Boniadi’s experiences with Tom Cruise. All their recollections were consistent. Cruise’s attorney says that no Scientology executives set him up with girlfriends, and that no female Scientologist that Cruise dated moved into his home.
10 Also in the exhibit is a photograph of Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, known as Abu Dadah, who is described as a psychiatrist and the mastermind of the Madrid train bombings in 2004. Yarkas, an al-Qaeda fund-raiser, was a used-car salesman who had little or nothing to do with the Madrid bombings. In a list of 218 international known Islamist militants, the only one who ever studied psychology was Ali Mohammed, an Egyptian operative who helped plan the American Embassy bombings in 1998. “Psychologists are conspicuous by their absence,” Steffen Hertog, a lecturer in comparative politics at the London School of Economics, wrote me in a private communication. “The pattern is similar for other types of extremist groups: Among 215 leading German Nazis with known higher education, there are only 2 psychologists, compared to 71 lawyers.” In another Citizens Commission on Human Rights report, titled “Chaos and Terror: Manufactured by Psychiatry” (www.cchrstl.org/documents/terror.pdf), the supposed mastermind of the Madrid bombings is now said to be “Moroccan psychiatrist Abu Hafizah.” No such person exists on the list of known Islamist terrorists, nor is anyone by that name attached to the Madrid bombings.
11 The church denies Brousseau’s account. Cruise’s attorney denies that his client ever saw Miscavige’s motorcycle and claims,“We have photographic evidence showing the actual painter doing the job. It’s not Mr. Brousseau.” However, the attorney did not provide the photos. Brousseau did provide photos of the work he says he did on each of Cruise’s vehicles he claimed to have worked on.
10
The Investigation