SCIENTOLOGY PRESIDENT’S SON DIES; DEATH OF ALEXANDER JENTZSCH KEPT FROM MOTHER, AN EX-MEMBER

I just received this anguished e-mail from Karen de la Carriere, formerly a member of the Church of Scientology who studied directly under L. Ron Hubbard and who was at one time married to the current (and disappeared) president of the Church of Scientology International, Heber Jentzsch…

My son is DEAD.

My 27 year old son is dead.
Mike Rinder confirmed it and the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office just confirmed it.

His body is lying at the morgue.
They had him disconnect from me 2 years ago and now he is dead never to speak to me again.

Born and Bred in Big Blue

The Church is trying to cover it up.
I will send you death certificate

After the jump: I just got off the phone with Karen, who managed to give me the details before she broke down.

“He had a high fever, and the next morning he was icy cold and he was dead,” she says.

Karen says she just found out a few minutes ago about her son’s death, but was told by the LA County coroner’s office that Alexander Jentzsch, 27, was found dead on Tuesday morning at the home of his wife’s parents in Los Angeles.

“They didn’t inform me. They didn’t inform Heber,” she said.

“I’m going down to the coroner’s office in a few minutes. I have the birth certificate, I can prove I’m the mom, but the coroner said I can’t have him out for a viewing,” she said.

“The dead body of the son of the president of the Church of Scientology has been sitting in a morgue for days, and they didn’t tell me because I’m a declared SP,” Karen said, referring to herself as an excommunicated church member, a “suppressive person.”

She said that two years ago, the church’s Office of Special Affairs — its intelligence and legal affairs wing — had pressured Alexander to “disconnect” from her because of her excommunicated status.

“Two years ago they created a hate website on me, and they put Alexander on the phone, and with OSA in the room — you could hear them in the background — he said, ‘Never phone me, never e-mail me. Until you have your shit together, we can have no communication. Until then we are disconnected.’ He was spoon fed those words,” she says.

“For two years he disconnected from me, and now he’s dead.”

She says that after her son’s death, Alexander’s wife began telling Scientologist Facebook friends about it, and that had eventually got to Mike Rinder, the former church spokesman, who lives in Florida. Rinder did what he could to confirm the matter, and then broke the news to Karen. She then confirmed it this evening with the coroner.

“They’ll never tell Heber,” she says. Her ex-husband, Heber Jentzsch, is still nominally the president of the Church of Scientology, but he hasn’t been seen in public since about 2004, one of several “disappeared” executives of the church.

After we talked, Karen broke down, saying that she had to leave her Los Feliz home to go retrieve her son’s body. She plans to have him cremated.

About a year ago, Karen wrote the following about her son’s involvement with the Office of Special Affairs, and posted it to an independent Scientology website. (I’ve tried to explain some of the jargon.)

Heber and I had a son in 1984 — Alexander Jentzsch. He was born and raised in the Sea Org.

When Alexander was 11 years old (he had left the SO with me in 1990 when he was 6, and had then been regged [pressured by Scientology staff] to return to the SO when he was 10), Heber and I were both located in Los Angeles and Alexander was at Flag [Scientology’s spiritual HQ in Florida]. He was being used as a child slave laborer at the Fort Harrison [the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida], with no schooling or study time – instead cleaning toilets and floors in the Fort Harrison lobby 10-12 hours a day. I called OSA multiple times to tell them this violated the laws of the land. Finally I threatened that if it was not handled I would fly to Clearwater and extract him myself. OSA put him on a plane to Los Angeles within 24 hours.

Alexander was born in Scientology and knows nothing else. The culture is deeply embedded in him.

Fast forward to 3 years ago. Alexander is now married and his wife [name withheld] is pregnant. Pressure is brought to bear for an abortion. It is done skillfully – no heavy threats, but both are both taken off post and made to look at “the greatest good.” The message was loud and clear. Alexander called me multiple times a day as this goes down. All of the while his father, Heber, is uncontactable in lockdown in Miscavige’s Hole [Scientology’s office-prison for executives who have fallen out of favor]. In the end, [name withheld] had an abortion and they were returned to post. But she never gets over it and feels she has committed an overt [a moral transgression] of magnitude.

Three years later she is pregnant again. She really does want to be a mom. But now, times have changed. Claire and Marc Headley and Laura Decrescenzo’s lawsuits, media and the Internet have caused the Church to re-think their enforced abortion policy.

This time Alexander and [name withheld] are routed out with “love,” Kirsten Caetano, in charge of External Security at OSA, befriends Alexander in an unnatural, unheard of way. She arranges for his apartment rent to be paid. Helps arrange and approves him working for a Scientologist owned company at a very high wage, and gives him lots of sympathy and compassion. She strokes his feathers every way she can. He is given $3,500 after he signs a bunch of documents on video. God knows he signed his life away, though of course the documents are worthless and Alexander was not given a copy of what he signed.

Psych Ops

I keep hearing from Alexander how WONDERFUL Kirsten is. She gives him all her phone numbers: berthing, cell and work, and she is just a click away on e-mail. Ahhhhhhhh. Feel the love….

Then Marty and Mike posted the blog on Heber (http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/). Alexander has a huge ongoing upset that Heber has not seen him in 6 YEARS. Even though he is a dedicated Sea Org member and can put up with a lot “for the cause,” it makes no sense to him (it shouldn’t) that he cannot see or talk to his father. It is a BIG button. Heber was born on October 30, 1935. He is 75 years old. And he is incarcerated at Int Base and he has been for years. [Church leader David] Miscavige has not permitted any family time for Heber to see Alexander.

But the magic of Marty’s blog. Within 36 hours of that posting, Heber comes down to Los Angeles and spends 8 hours with Alexander for the first time in 6 years. Heber has a cell phone number he gives Alexander and promises to attend a family re-union of his brothers and sisters in August with Alexander.

Wow, what a change! Thanks Marty and Mike!

Scroll forward to a few days ago. I ask Alexander if he wished Heber “Happy Father’s Day.” He said he had called but could not get through. Heber no longer has a cell phone. And when Heber calls Alexander back he informs him that he will not be going to the family reunion, but will see Alexander next… at Christmas!!

I am outraged and try to communicate about this but Alexander shuts me down. I feel Kirsten’s presence in the comm cycle. How dare I question authority or hint that there may be something wrong in the world of Miscavige! The Thought Police scrambled into action.

Last night, Alexander was directed by his OSA handlers to guide me to an entheta website [“entheta” is negative information] (entheta about Marty, Mike and even me). He actually tried to get me to read entheta about myself! I will not tolerate my son being manipulated against me and when he began screaming at me to “get my shit squared away with OSA or lose him as a son,” I knew that the body snatchers had him firmly in their grasp. For any that think I am in error airing private mother/son stuff on the web, the scene of the church infiltrating and turning my son against me is something that must be exposed.

[Former Scientology spokesman] Mike Rinder went through this when seven people assaulted him in that parking lot. His own daughter, Taryn, was screaming at him for being an SP.

The Internet backlash as a result was enormous. People found the behavior of the C of M appalling and horrifying. But, the leopard cannot change his spots. Just another OSA op. Seems the latest ploy is a new twist on “family leverage” that would make Terl proud. But, once again, they have delivered a massive footbullet. I was content to withdraw my support at the start of 2010 and remain relatively quiet. All that changed yesterday. If OSA thought they would control me by using Alexander as a pawn, it backfired.

Every time Alexander is used by OSA I will faithfully post every detail on the web, so that the “Office of COB” [a reference to Miscavige] can see that the world knows and understands their dirty tricks.

Sometimes it is fun to be underestimated.

But we live in a world of instant digital communication. Marty’s site gets 50,000 hits a WEEK !

We can let sunshine disinfect.

My life is good now. I am highly successful, healthy, wealthy and wise. I have no doubt who my true and dear friends are – they are the people who read this blog every day. And I have no doubt that I will dedicate myself to preventing the destruction of LRH’s legacy by the SP David Miscavige. This is my Doubt Formula announcement.

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Tony Ortega has been the editor in chief of the Village Voice since March, 2007. He started writing about Scientology in 1995. You can catch his alerts at Twitter (@VoiceTonyO), at his Facebook author page, on Pinterest, and even this new Google Plus doohickey.

New readers might want to check out our primer, “What is Scientology?” Another good overview is our series from last summer, “Top 25 People Crippling Scientology.” At the top of every story, you’ll see the “Scientology” category which, if you click on it, will bring up all of our most recent stories.

As for hot subjects we’ve covered here, you may have heard about Debbie Cook, the former church official who rebelled and was sued by Scientology. You might have also heard about the Super Power Building, Scientology’s “Mecca,” whose secrets were revealed here. We also reported how Scientology spied on its own most precious object, Tom Cruise. (We wrote Tom an open letter that he has yet to respond to.) Have you seen a Scientology ad on TV lately? We debunked some of the claims in that 2-minute commercial you might have seen while watching Glee or American Idol.

Other stories have looked at Scientology’s policy of “disconnection” that is tearing families apart. You may also have heard something about the Sea Org experiences of the Paris sisters, Valeska and Melissa, and their friend Ramana Dienes-Browning. We’ve also featured Paulette Cooper, who wrote about Scientology back in the day, and Janet Reitman, Hugh Urban, and the team at the Tampa Bay Times, who write about it today. And there’s plenty more coming.