When in Danger, Distance Yourself; The Gentile-Brennan Friendship

When questioned by Detective Stephen Bohling, Gerald Gentile repeatedly attempted to distance himself from Tom Brennan. Gentile referred to Brennan as an acquaintance, someone he only knew “through his wife.” Gentile also stated that Brennan had never called him, and that Brennan probably did not even know his phone number. Was he telling the truth?

Brennan, on the other hand, characterized his relationship with Gentile quite differently. On page 19 of the Clearwater Police Report, for example, Brennan referred to Gentile as a “close friend.” According to Brennan’s attorney, Paul Johnson, too, Brennan considered Gerald Gentile a friend and referred to him as such when speaking with Detective Bohling. Brennan also stated that—the night his only son, Kyle, died—he called Gentile after calling “Chaplain Denise” and that he asked Gentile to come to the apartment to give him support. This would have been an odd, and most likely an ungranted request if Gentile were a mere acquaintance. That these two were indeed friends—and that Brennan had Gentile’s phone number and had called him many times—is proven by a simple fact: During police questioning, Detective Bohling asked Brennan to “please call his friend Jerry and give him the message to contact him [Bohling] at the CWPD.” Bohling claimed that his calls to Gentile went unanswered, so from February 28, 2008, to April 1 of the same year, the detective repeatedly asked Brennan to contact Gentile on his behalf.

In the police interviews Gentile also attempted to distance himself from the bloody Brennan apartment, the crime scene. In the police report, on page 41, Gerald Gentile told Bohling that on the evening that Kyle died he returned home “Um, after 11 or 12.” These times, of course, don’t line up with statements that were given by his wife, Denise Miscavige Gentile, or by Tom Brennan. Why would Gentile offer up a different version of the events? To distance himself from Tom Brennan.

Detective Bohling never questioned these discrepancies.

CWPR:page 19