Victoria Britton's testimony regarding Detective Stephen Bohling

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

TAMPA DIVISION

ESTATE OF KYLE THOMAS BRENNAN,

by and through its Administrator,

Victoria L. Britton,

Plaintiff,

vs. Case No. 8:09-cv-00264-T-23-EAS

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY

FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, INC.,

DENISE MISCAVIGE GENTILE,

GERALD GENTILE, and

THOMAS BRENNAN,

Defendants.

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DECLARATION OF VICTORIA L BRITTON ON DETECTIVE STEPHEN BOHLING

The undersigned, Victoria L. Britton, declares the following:

1. I am over the age of 18, the mother of Kyle Brennan, and the court appointed Administrator of his Virginia estate. The following is based upon my personal knowledge and interactions with Detective Stephen Bohling of the Clearwater Police Department and his investigation into the death of my son, Kyle.

2. I left 3 voice-mail messages for Bohling in the first week of April 2007,and he called me back the afternoon of April 5. In the 56-minute conversation that followed I asked Detective Bohling if he had questioned Tom Brennan about when Brennan had purchased the ammunition for the weapon that killed my son. Bohling responded that it is not against

the law in the State of Florida to buy ammunition for a gun. Bohling added that, as far as he was concerned, if Brennan went out on the day Kyle died, bought the ammunition and threw it on the bed along with the gun, and then told Kyle he could go play with it, that would be fine with him. I later found out this to be against Florida law when it concerns a disabled adult.

3. On April 5 I told Bohling that on February 15–one day before his death–Kyle had walked into a Wachovia Bank in Clearwater and made a counter deposit so that his savings account would remain open. (We know this because his account statement was mailed home to the Charlottesville address.) I asked him if this sounded like someone

planning on taking his life.

4. On April 5 I also told Bohling that Tom Brennan had informed me that he had wanted Kyle out of the apartment the day before he died–February 15. Brennan said that his church was placing a lot of pressure on him. I said to Bohling that I wanted to know what had happened. What could have transpired, or gone so wrong on the last day of my son’s life?

5. Over 4 months passed with no calls or correspondence from Detective Bohling. I initiated a 37-minute phone call to him on August 22, 2007. During this conversation I asked Bohling to investigate the following: A voice message was found on Kyle’s cell phone after it was returned home to his family. It was from Tom Brennan. In it Brennan is telling Kyle in a sarcastic manner that Kyle needs to take the vitamins that he has bought

him. Brennan says they are the only thing that can help Kyle. I explain to the detective that this would have been very upsetting to Kyle and could he please question Tom Brennan about this. Bohling’s response was that it is not illegal in the State of Florida for Tom Brennan to purchase vitamins for his son. (But Brennan’s insistence on Kyle taking his

vitamins is consistent with the Church of Scientology’s rejection of psychiatry and psychiatric medication–they have people instead ingesting large amounts of vitamins and supplements.)

6. In this conversation I also told Detective Bohling that I had directly asked Tom Brennan to not interfere with Kyle’s taking of his medication. Tom Brennan had lied to me when he said he had not seen Kyle’s bottle of Lexapro. I asked the detective to question Kyle’s father as to why he had lied to me about this. Bohling’s response was that there is no law in the State of Florida against a father wanting his son to improve his life with a healthy diet and vitamins.

7. I next told Detective Bohling that on Kyle’s cell phone bill we discovered that he had called several legal offices while staying with his father. Later, after the cell phone had been returned to Charlottesville, a family member redailed one of the numbers and the secretary who answered remembered receiving a voice-mail message from a young man saying that he needed help. She also said that the youngman sounded very distraught and had forgotten to leave a call back number.

8. The last part of the August 22 conversation was very unsettling. I told Bohling that I was having a difficult time understanding how a father could leave his child on the floor for over forty- minutes before calling for help–treating him as if he was no more than a pile of dirty laundry. At this, Detective Stephen Bohling laughed out loud in a sardonic manner.

He apologized, but he was still laughing. It was during a December 19, 2007, conversation with Medical Investigator Marti Scholl that I learned the source of Detective Bohling’s humor. Scholl, on December 19, abruptly informed me that my son’s shattered head had been found resting inside of a laundry basket.

9. On page 42 of Detective Stephen Bohlings deposition, Bohling claims that I accused him of ‘being a member of The Church of Scientology,” of being paid by the Church of Scientology, and that the police department was being paid off by the church. These allegations, beyond being untrue, are ludicrous. In the few conversations that I would have

with detective Stephen Bohling, I only wanted to find out the truth and to make sense of the inconsistencies surrounding the death of my son. Detective Bohling was not interested.

I declare under penalties of perjury, that the forgoing is true.