And, as seen with the Perkins family, the Buffalo church - known
internally as the "Buffalo org," for "organization" - opposes
psychiatry.
Elli Perkins' devoted opposition may have proven fatal.
"Elli was adamant about not allowing psychotropic drugs," said Dawn
Pastva of Kenmore, a longtime friend of the family. "She said it was
against all the (Church of Scientology) tenets, and psychiatry was the
equivalent of the devil."
On the morning of March 13, 2003 - L. Ron Hubbard's birthday - Jeremy
Perkins went into his family's kitchen, grabbed a 12-inch knife and
hid it behind his back.
In his delusional state, he was suspicious of his parents' decision to
send him that afternoon to live for a while with someone in the
Southern Tier.
He thought the vitamin pills his mother wanted him to take were making
him worse. And he believed his mother possessed an evil eye.
Elli Perkins, a Scientologist for more than 30 years, was talking on
the telephone when Jeremy pushed her into a bedroom.
He stabbed her 77 times.
Perkins was arrested that morning and held without bond. A grand jury
indicted him three months later on second-degree murder and weapons
charges.
Rejecting psychiatry
Scientology's anti-psychiatry position reaches back to the medical establishment's dismissal of Hubbard's 1950 book, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health." That book laid the foundation for Scientology. "Books like this do harm by their grandiose promises to troubled persons, and by their oversimplification of human psychological problems," psychologist Rollo May wrote in the New York Times shortly after its publication. Hubbard believed the psychiatry profession was composed of "psychotic criminals" and was convinced it was behind criticisms leveled against Scientology. That view remains unchanged today among church leaders. "Psychiatry attacks us because they know our technology works," said Teresa Reger of East Aurora, president of the Buffalo church. "They are making billions of dollars on drugging people, electroshocking them, and basically maiming and harming them." The group's anti-psychiatry outlook extends to the emerging bioinformatics hub in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, just blocks from the church. "I think (bioinformatics) is absolutely terrible," Reger said. "The drugging of America is the downfall of America, and that's what that represents." That view was prominent in a graphic exhibition at the Langston Hughes Institute, on High Street, in September, and one that briefly appeared last Monday in Old County Hall, both set up by a Scientology spinoff group. It warned that millions of children were being given "cocaine-like drugs" for behavioral and learning disorders. "Mental illness does not exist, just like God does not exist in my view," said Thomas Szasz, a Syracuse psychiatrist often touted by the church. "The public has a need for it to exist, because it gives them an easy way to deal with such things." The Perkins family practiced Scientology devotedly and was steeped in its anti-psychiatry beliefs. Donald Perkins, Jeremy's father, had been a staff member in the Buffalo church in the 1970s. Elli Perkins was an advanced Scientologist, and an upper-level "auditor," or spiritual counselor, and part-time staffer about to go full time. Jeremy's older sister, Danielle Carlson, is a high-level auditor, and her husband, Jeffrey Carlson, is the Buffalo org's executive director. Family members declined to be interviewed for this story. Scientology's Reger said she didn't believe Scientology should be singled out as a religion because it rejects psychiatry. "The only thing our religion is trying to do is bring people together. We help people stay away from drugs, repair their marriages, and we teach kids how to read," Reger said.Jeremy's life
Jeremy Perkins had a friendly and easygoing, even timid demeanor. He was artistically inclined, like Elli, a glass painter who depicted scenes of plants and rural life. Perkins had learning problems that caused him to repeat the first grade. He later dropped out of Williamsville North High School. He enjoyed playing the drums, sometimes practicing with a couple of friends. Perkins installed siding for his father's business and was a good worker until late summer 2002, according to a defense attorney. Jeremy's declining performance had made him such a risk to his own safety that his father fired him. Most troubling to Donald Perkins was that he found his son not responding well to questions. Around the same time, Perkins was arrested at the University at Buffalo after scuffling with campus police. He blamed his presence on voices telling him to find "Diana, the Roman Goddess" in the school parking lot. Ron Epstein, a next-door neighbor and close friend, said Jeremy Perkins was taken to three hospitals in a short time span for psychiatric evaluation - Buffalo General Hospital, Erie County Medical Center and Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital's emergency room. And a letter Danielle Perkins Carlson sent to The News Saturday claimed her brother had been given psychiatric evaluations on at least three different occasions. "My parents also took him to a neurologist who again said he was, "just off in his own little world and no danger to himself or others,' " she wrote. The letter failed to give any specific details, and she declined to be interviewed. John R. Nuchereno, Perkins' court-appointed attorney, said he was told that Perkins was taken to two local hospitals for CT scans. But he insisted the family, including Danielle, never told him of additional psychiatric care. "I only knew what the family and Jeremy provided me with, and what they provided me with was that he had no psychiatric evaluation or psychiatric treatment in the past," he said. Nuchereno also said the family continued to reject treatment with psychotropic drugs. In the eight months before the killing, Jeremy suffered hallucinations, imagined space aliens were pursuing him and thought he was rock singer Jim Morrison. The Perkinses thought Jeremy's erratic behavior may have been the result of a head injury suffered while working on his truck. Elli also wondered if her son could have been slipped a hallucinogenic drug at a club a week later. "They were trying to think of everything that wasn't a psychological problem," Pastva said. "As his behavior became bizarre, it was clear he needed psychiatric care," Nuchereno said. "That's when the vitamin therapy started."Sinking deeper
Elli Perkins sought help by contacting Dr. Conrad Maulfair Jr. of the holistic Maulfair Medical Center in Topton, Pa. Maulfair, a Scientologist, requested a sample of Jeremy's hair to diagnose his condition. After a family visit, Maulfair said Perkins had a high level of arsenic and toxic metals, including titanium, in his system, and he recommended an expensive intravenous therapy, said Nuchereno. R.P. Singh, a forensic psychiatrist in Rochester, later examined Perkins on behalf of the court. "There is no science that supports any treatment that is based on hair samples," Singh said. Maulfair, through his wife, declined requests for an interview. Elli Perkins decided to prepare her own vitamin supplements, Nuchereno said, but they appeared to have little effect on Jeremy's decline. Ron Epstein, a next-door neighbor and close friend, Epstein, the neighbor, said the Perkins family made "hundreds" of phone calls in an effort to help their son. "They pursued every avenue open to them through their belief system," Epstein said. "Although they, as Scientologists, didn't agree with psychiatry, I think they had reached a point that alternative medicine wasn't working and were willing to go beyond that." Two days before Jeremy's attack, Elli Perkins called the church seeking help for him, said Anne-Marie Dunning, then the church's "ethics officer." She said Carlson, Jeremy's brother-in-law and the executive director, told her to tell Elli to keep him busy. Jeremy had been classified by the Buffalo church as a Potential Trouble Source Type III, Dunning said. Hubbard had stated that was a person who is "entirely psychotic" and for whom there was "no treatment of a mental nature." Reger at first denied to The Buffalo News that Perkins had ever been a Scientologist or taken Scientology classes. Later, she admitted he had been a member. In fact, Perkins had taken Scientology courses in Buffalo as late as 2002, according to Dunning. He signed a "billion-year contract" (the church believes in reincarnation and the contract is for future lives) to work for an elite branch of Scientology in Los Angeles in the late-1990s, Dunning said, although he appears not to have done so. Scientology's Source Magazine revealed he took a course in 1999 aboard the church's 500-passenger ship in the Caribbean Sea. And he, along with others of his immediate family, was also a lifetime member of the International Association of Scientologists, Dunning said.Damage control
Scientology presents an unwaveringly shiny, upbeat public image, reinforced through its literature, videos and public presentations.
Corrections2/1/2005Sunday's article on the Church of Scientology stated Elli Perkins' killing occurred after the opening of its new building in Buffalo. The killing occurred before. |
