Jeremy Perkins: Scientology, Untreated Schizophrenia, and Murder

[barbaraann]

From perkinstragedy.org:
On March 13, 2003, Jeremy Perkins, a 28 year old untreated schizophrenic, stabbed his mother Elli 77 times. She bled to death on her bedroom floor. Jeremy is currently being held at Rochester Psychiatric Center, having been found not responsible for Elli's murder by reason of mental disease or defect.

Perkins, his mother and father, his sister, and her husband are all members of the Church of Scientology, a group that believes modern psychiatric medicine derives from an ancient alien civilization's plot to drug and enslave humanity. Scientologists like Tom Cruise vehemently and publicly oppose the pharmacological treatment of mental illness. Unfortunately, Scientology's own brand of therapy, called "auditing", is worthless.

Elli Perkins was a senior auditor (counselor) at the Church of Scientology of Buffalo, New York. Her son-in-law, Jeff Carlson, is the Executive Director of that church. Jeremy himself had taken Scientology courses there, and was even flown out to Los Angeles to join Scientology's paramilitary Sea Organization, although he was promptly sent back home due to his mental problems.

After consulting a Scientologist osteopath, Dr. Conrad Maulfair, Elli was treating Jeremy with vitamins, which he disliked. Within hours of Elli's murder, which occurred on L. Ron Hubbard's birthday, the Church of Scientology initiated a crash cover-up to hide its connections to the case. Jeremy's family has since "disconnected" from him, per Scientology policy. This web site reveals Scientology's true role in the death of Elli Perkins and the destruction of Jeremy's life.
...
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/JeremyPerkins/

Part 1 of a 4-part in-depth article in the Buffalo News:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/JeremyPerkins/Articles/buffalo-news-2005-01-30.html

[Warpy]

1. Healthy people often disbelieve mental illness

and tell clinically depressed people to snap out of it and delusional people who are hearing voices to simply ignore them and focus on reality. If those approaches had any merit at all, we'd have no mental illness.

Personally, I think Scientology needs to come out from behind that "church" protection scam and I think they need to be prosecuted for practicing psychiatry without a license. It's pure quackery.

Ordinarily, I don't give much of a rip which craziness anybody follows, the different ones all look equally nutty to me. However, when they start hurting people, somebody needs to step in. Cults that abuse children need to stop or lose the children; cults that pretend to clear nonexistant psychiatric illness while denying the existence of real psychiatric illness need to be hit with a cease and desist order.

Scientology has been allowed the protection of being called a church for far too long. That's not what it is, and it should be treated accordingly.

[barbaraann]

2. You make some excellent points.

I noticed on their website that they have a Sunday Service link with churchy music. Now I'm very curious about what a Scientology Sunday Service would be like.

[ET Awful]

3. Unless you're willing to pony up some cash, you'll never know. n/t

[woofless]

4. I must be BAD!

"Elli's murder, which occurred on L. Ron Hubbard's birthday" made me laugh out loud literally.

[doodadem]

5. Tom Cruise has been seriously pissing me off lately

With his BS about no such thing as mental illness, and post-partum depression can be "cured" with vitamins. Like Ahnuld, it makes me think I don't much want to watch his movies anymore either.

Cruise is not a doctor, and has never even played one on TV.

[bloom]

6. I would be happy to have everyone pan and ignore him

So that movie producers would give other actors the roles.

Cruise is too annoying for me to want to watch his movies.

[bloom]

7. I was reading in Psychology Today

recently - latest issue - that church-oriented religious counselors of whatever faiths taken together have about as a big of a clientele as traditional psychologists.

I don't have a problem with faith-based counselors as long as they understand their limitations and refer people to psychiatrists when necessary - as that untreated schizophrenic should have been.