Early Timeline

1970s: Don and Elli Perkins go "Clear". Don Perkins' clear number is 19906; Elli's is 13072 (data collected by Ida Camburn.) Elli later made it to OT V (Operating Thetan level 5), also known as Audited NOTs, and Don was OT IV. To reach this level of spiritual advancement, Scientology had taught them to make telepathic contact with the spirits of murdered space aliens.

1998: Jeremy creates an I Am A Scientologist cookie-cutter web page which is published by Scientology at www.our-home.org.

Jeremy's sister, Danielle Perkins Carlson, demonstrates an E-Meter at the Church of Scientology of Buffalo.

ca. 1995-1996: Jeremy's sister, Danielle Perkins, a Scientologist her entire life, marries Jeff Carlson. Jeff eventually becomes ED (Executive Director) of the Buffalo Org. In the photo at right, Danielle is shown demonstrating a Scientology E-meter.

1999: Jeremy and his family take courses on the Freewinds. Jeremy completes the "OT Debug Service" and the "State of Man Congress Course". The Freewinds is a high security environment: Scientologists must be vetted by their local Org before they are permitted to travel to the ship, which remains in the Carribean and never enters American waters.

The OT debug service is a "Freewinds only" type service designed to find out "why" a person is not moving up The Bridge and through the OT levels. The service first started being delivered in 1995. (The "tech" that is used is HCOPL 23 August 1979R, Issue I, revised 23 Aug 1984, entitled "Debug Tech". There is also a 13 page "Debug Tech Checklist" and by means of all things Scientological, one is questioned either on or off the E-meter to find out why one is not producing products or in the case of the OT Debug, why one is not moving up the Bridge. The cost is roughly $5,000.)

1999: Danielle Perkins Carlson is ordered to the FLAG Land Base in Clearwater, Florida for three years of Scientology training. Her husband Jeff does not go with her, and only gets to see her a few times during that period.

ca. 2000: Jeremy signs a Sea Org contract and flies out to Los Angeles to enter the Sea Organization, whose members dedicate themselves to working for the Church of Scientology over multiple lifetimes for the next one billion years. After three months, he is rejected and sent back home due to his mental problems.

May 13, 2001: Jeremy files a Knowledge Report on Fred Lennox, complaining that Fred hasn't shown up for his Scientology coursework. Fred and Jeremy are "twins" on the course, meaning they are supposed to do two-person Scientology exercises with each other.

2001: Ann-Marie Dunning twins with Jeremy on one of the Scientology courses he was taking. They did TRs (Scientology Training Routines) together. Dunning said later she was "deathly afraid" of Jeremy; he "had a vibe about him" that terrified her, and she said the look in his eye reminded her of Charles Manson.

Early 2002: Jeremy injures his head while working on his truck, which some people think contributed to his worsening mental state. He starts acting bizarrely. Jeremy is eventually labeled "PTS Type III" (Scientology jargon for "psychotic"), and a notice is added to his ethics folder by his mother Elli. As a consequence, he is no longer permitted to take Scientology courses, and is banned from the building. Scientologists knew not to talk about Jeremy; anyone who asked after him was told "it's not any of your business."

2002: Jeremy develops clear signs of schizophrenia, including hearing voices and talking to people who aren't there. (This was reported by Glenn Gramigna, a fellow Scientologist and long-time friend of the family.)

2002: Elli, Don, and Jeff want Glenda Rose, a Scientologist chiropractor, to examine Jeremy and prescribe vitamins for him, but Rose refuses because Jeremy had "gone crazy". She does assist the family in watching him, but won't treat him for fear of legal liability.

May 2002: Jeremy is arrested for trespassing on the University at Buffalo campus. He's hearing voices and tells the police officers he is acting under the direction of the Roman goddess Diana. He remains in custody, in a holding center, for two weeks. Elli is adamant about Jeremy not getting a psych evaluation because of her religious beliefs. She brings documentation, including a Scientology release form (see The Lisa Clause) stating that he objected to mental health treatment. Because of this documentation, the authorities agreed to allow Jeremy to skip the evaluation. Eventually he is released.

2002: At the suggestion of Jeff Carlson, Elli Perkins seeks help for Jeremy from Dr. Conrad Maulfair, an osteopath and fellow Scientologist in Topton, Pennsylvania. Maulfair requests a sample of Jeremy's hair, which he sends out for analysis. See the Quackwatch.org page on commercial hair analysis for background on the hair analysis scam. Here's a quote from that page:

In 1986, Doctor's Data, a Chicago-based laboratory agreed to stop accepting human hair specimens from New York State unless it can obtain a permit from the New York State Department of Health. The company also agreed to pay $25,000 in costs and penalties. Action was taken because a bogus "nutrition consultant" had been using the test as a basis for prescribing vitamins, minerals, and other supplements.

After they visit his clinic, Maulfair tells Elli that her son is suffering from high levels of arsenic and toxic metals in his system, for which he recommends a course of intravenous therapy. (A source familiar with the case later said that Maulfair recommended ten treatments at $1,000 each.) Most likely this was the chelation therapy advertised on Maulfair's web site, hardly an appropriate remedy for schizophrenia. See the Quackwatch page on chelation therapy for a critique.

Elli decides to instead treat Jeremy with a mixture of vitamins that she assembles herself.

December, 2002: Scientology purchases the former Buffalo Catholic Institute at Virginia and Main Streets and announces plans to move there after extensive renovations. Ironically, Jeremy is permitted to help with the renovations to the new building, despite being banned from the current one.

March, 2003: Elli makes plans to send Jeremy to a facility in Springville, New York: a farm whose owner takes people in when they need to get away from stressful situations for a few days. The owner is not a Scientologist, and has no medical training. He has agreed to use the assists in the Scientology Handbook if Jeremy "gets out of hand". This is his first experience with Scientologists. Jeremy is supposed to arrive on the evening of March 13. March 11, 2003: Anne-Marie Dunning, Ethics Officer at the Buffalo Org, receives a phone call from Elli Perkins. The call is a cry for help: Elli doesn't know what to do with Jeremy. Anne-Marie can't help her; while she is on hold, Jeff Carlson tells Anne-Marie to advise Elli to keep Jeremy busy -- "Give him MEST work to do". Elli says she'd already started on that. ("MEST work" is Scientology slang for manual labor. MEST stands for Matter, Energy, Space, and Time.)

The Day of the Murder: March 13, 2003

9:45-10:15 am Elli Perkins is on the phone with her best friend of 30 years, a female Scientology "public" (parishioner) of the Buffalo Org. Jeremy comes out of the shower, gets a knife from a drawer in the kitchen, and attacks her, pushing her into her bedroom where he stabs her to death. The woman hears the attack and calls the police and the Buffalo Org.

Jeff Carlson goes out to the house.

10:30am Police arrive and interview Jeremy. 1:30 pm Jeremy gives a written statement, and signs search waivers for his person, his clothing, and his room.

Afternoon: The Scientologist public who was on the phone with Elli when she was killed is contacted by OSA staff from New York City, who tell her not to talk to any reporters, but to cooperate with the police when they arrive to interview her.

6:00 pm A 5-7 person crisis management team from New York City flies in to Buffalo to orchestrate the cover-up. One was Pam Vilinsky, from the New York Org and OSA (Office of Special Affairs), and another was a man named Minalfi (spelling uncertain) who was a Class XII auditor and Scientology minister. Two men from Florida also flew up, both OT auditors. They were brought in to "handle" Don right there in the Org.

At the Buffalo Org, Pam Vilinsky requests Jeremy's ethics folder. Anne Marie Dunning had a key to the room; she went in and got it, and gave it to Vilinsky. She never saw the folder again. His PC folder might not even have been at the Org, because Jeremy had been receiving auditing down at FLAG.

The Cover-Up Begins

March 14: Don Perkins is called to the Org, and held for hours in a room guarded by Sea Org staffers Mary Lou Reile (the mother of CoS Buffalo President Teresa Reger) stood guard over the auditing area so no one could go back there.

March 14-21: the Buffalo Org offers "group processing" to help publics grieving over Elli's death. They do "locationals" and other group auditing processes: "look at this wall", "look at your shoes", "say hello to someone", "point at this object". Parishioners are also offered opportunities to talk to any of the ministers, but the Org staff aren't permitted to participate in any of this. They have to go on working.

March 22: A Saturday afternoon memorial service for Elli is held at the Buffalo Org. Bob Bolt, a public and a Scientology minister who does most of the Sunday services at the org, officiates.

Late March: The Scientology "public" who was on the phone with Elli goes out to Los Angeles. She was scheduled to go in May for auditing, but her time is moved up to March, and she leaves a couple of weeks after Elli's death.

April 7-10, 2003: Jeremy undergoes a mental status evaluation by Joseph W. Liebergall, Ph.D., and a psychiatric assessment by Brian S. Joseph, M.D., indicating chronic paranoid schizophrenia. Read their reports.

April 11, 2003: Scientologist Glenn Gramigna publishes a remembrance of Elli in which he talks about her spirituality and her opposition to the use of drugs to treat mental disorders, but carefully omits any mention of the word "Scientology".

April, 2003: Danielle Perkins Carlson stays in town for about 5 weeks, then returns to Clearwater to resume her training at FLAG.

April, 2003: An article at AlternativeMentalHealth.com, a web site operated by a Scientology-affiliated quack group called Safe Harbor, describes a woman who recently sought help for her psychotic son, but ended up being killed by him. Is this Elli Perkins?

June 3, 2003: Jeremy Perkins is indicted for second degree murder. His court-appointed attorney is John Nuchereno.

Jule 29, 2003: Judge Shirley Troutman finds Jeremy Perkins "not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect."

The Cover-Up Continues

November 2003: Don Perkins' completion of the False Purpose Rundown is reported in issue 145 of Source, the magazine of the Flag Land Base. Scientology is keeping him firmly clasped in its tentacles.

2003, November 16: Cult leader David Miscavige presides over the grand opening of the new home of the Church of Scientology of Buffalo. Buffalo News reporter Mark Sommer covers the event, and meets Jenna Elfman and Teresa Reger. Scientology doesn't want to say who funded the acquisition and renovation of the new building, but Sommer later discovers it was Scientologist Joseph Sgroi.

January 27, 2004: Jeremy Perkins is committed to a state hospital due to his continued suffering from a "dangerous mental disorder".

May 2004: Don Perkins completes New OT V at FLAG, as reported in issue 155 of Source, the magazine of the FLAG Land Base. This was the same level Elli had reached before her death.

2004: Teresa Reger lies to Mark Sommer, claiming Jeremy Perkins was never a Scientologist and never took any courses at the Buffalo Org. Sommer knows better. He's pursuing the story, and the failure of the cover-up is only a matter of time.

January 30, 2005: Mark Sommer blows the lid off the Jeremy Perkins story.

Some time in 2005: Scientology issues its FLAG World Tour DVD, with a clip of Danielle Perkins Carlson saying "Any PC who sits down in front of me, I know I can do something to help that person. I know that I can take that person's aberrations and use standard tech, apply it to that person. And, I can make that person saner." Further evidence that Scientologists have no sense of irony.

October 28, 2006: CBS 48 Hours Mystery airs TV documentary, Scientology: A question of Faith, detailing the Perkins murder and Scientology's attempted cover-up. Watch it online.)