Scientology cited in killings

The Sydney Morning Herald/July 10, 2007
By David Braithwaite

The young woman needed psychiatric care, and she knew it. She tried to get help twice, but her Scientologist parents had a religious objection to psychiatric intervention.

They denied her the treatment she wanted, then dosed the 25-year-old with their own medicine, specially imported from the US. Finally, as her mental health worsened three weeks ago, they crumbled and let her take anti-psychotic drugs she had been prescribed.

But it was too late. The unfolding tragedy came to its bloody head at Revesby last Thursday. After an argument with her mother, the young woman was found that afternoon confused and wandering the street with a knife. Inside the family home her father and teenage sister lay dead. On the driveway outside, her mother moaned for help as she bled from stab wounds.

That night in hospital, with her wrists in bandages, the young woman screamed: "I just want a knife. I want more killing. More, I need more. I'm wanting more killing."

This account of the woman's mental disintegration was revealed in court documents in Bankstown Local Court yesterday.

The clearly bewildered woman faced two counts of murder and one charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to murder. Police allege she used a knife to murder her 53-year-old father and critically injure her 52-year-old mother, before she chased and killed her 15-year-old sister. The woman had sought psychiatric help at a hospital late last year, but follow-up treatment was denied by her parents, apparently because they were Scientologists, a mental health report tendered to the court said.

A tenet of Scientology is the rejection of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs, which its website says "actually create insanity and cause violence". Scientology's celebrity practitioners, such as the actor Tom Cruise, have railed against psychiatry. Two years ago he shouted down the US television presenter Matt Lauer for daring to suggest that pharmaceuticals might sometimes help treat psychological disorders.

"You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do … There's no such thing as a chemical imbalance in the body," Cruise said. In another interview he berated the actor Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants after the birth of her child. "These drugs are dangerous. I have actually helped people come off."

But a spokeswoman for Scientology's Australian arm, Vicki Dunstan, said she doubted the family belonged to the church. It had no knowledge of them and had never had contact with them.

The accused woman's siblings - the family cannot be named because one of the victims was a minor - were among a group of about 20 family and supporters who sat quietly in Bankstown Local Court yesterday as she was brought up from the cells, wearing a blue sweatshirt, to make a brief appearance.

Last Thursday the family's neighbour called triple-0 after seeing the accused woman's 52-year-old mother collapsed in a driveway. She told the neighbour her daughter had just killed her husband but that it was not her fault because she was sick.

Soon after, the blood-soaked daughter got into a passing car and asked the driver if he was the person "taking her to Croatia".

When picked up by police, the woman allegedly confessed to the killings. "What have I done? I just butchered my family … I have just butchered my family. I stabbed Dad, Mum and sister. They are all dead."

Later that night, in hospital, where she was being treated for slashed wrists, police said the woman became "very agitated".

"I'm wanting more killing. The knife, the f---ing knife. I've left the knife in the f---ing front door. Die, bitch, die," she yelled before being restrained and sedated.

The psychiatric report tendered to the court was prepared at her bedside at Liverpool Hospital on Sunday by the clinical director of Liverpool and Fairfield Mental Health Services, Mark Cross.

He said she had been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness late last year, but follow-up from Bankstown Hospital's mental health team had apparently been declined by her parents owing to "their alleged Scientology beliefs". She had told him her parents did not want her to take her prescribed drugs.

Dr Cross found evidence of psychosis, auditory hallucinations and delusions, including the belief that people on TV and radio had been talking about her.

She was refused bail and ordered to receive mental health treatment before her next court appearance tomorrow.