Kyle Brennan Stories

                                            Kyle Brennan 1986-2007

 

Clearwater, August of 2006: Locked Out, Kyle Befriends a Trio of Unlikely Angels

When Kyle returned home to Charlottesville after his tumultuous visit to Clearwater, Florida, in August of 2006 he related the following: One evening in Clearwater, Kyle—who enjoyed a good cup of coffee—went out to a Starbucks. This particular shop is just down the block from the apartment Kyle’s father, Tom Brennan, had rented at 423 Cleveland Street.

Kyle said that when he returned, the apartment building’s outer door was locked. He tried to call his father who was inside at the time, but Brennan had turned off his cell phone. This meant, of course, that Kyle was locked out for the night.

Heading back towards the coffee shop, Kyle was approached by a disheveled man begging for money. Kyle gave him five dollars, and the man asked: “Are you one of those f---ing Scientologists?” Taken aback for just a split second, Kyle replied, “If I was, I wouldn't have been able to give you that five."  

During the conversation that followed, Kyle discovered that the man was a homeless veteran, and that he was living in a park not far from Cleveland Street. Kyle had a soft spot in his heart for veterans. Military personnel, and law enforcement officers, were Kyle’s heroes. Back home in Charlottesville, Kyle enjoyed attending military events. He loved hanging out with veterans, and would often draw them out so he could hear their stories.

Kyle and the old veteran, enjoying each other’s company, sat up against the building, under a flickering light. Two Clearwater police officers, spotting the unusual couple—an older man down on his luck, and a well-dressed 20-year-old—stopped and asked Kyle if he was OK. When Kyle told them about being locked out, the policemen tried to open the outer door. Finding it sealed tight, they told Kyle to stay close by as they would check up on him throughout the night while they were on duty. This promise they kept. The two officers—who Kyle later said were great guys—actually spent their break time that night chatting with Kyle. The homeless vet stayed out on the sidewalk with Kyle all night long. The two passed the time talking war stories.

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Clearwater, August of 2006: Kyle Under Pressure to Join Scientology

In June of 2006 Kyle’s father, Tom Brennan, first learned that Kyle was seeing a psychiatrist in Charlottesville. Brennan was very unhappy about it, but I didn’t think much of it at the time as he was not directly involved in his son’s life.

Soon after this Kyle and I started receiving letters—and anti-psychiatry hate literature—from the Church of Scientology about the evils of psychiatry and psychotherapeutic drugs. I found these annoying, but I didn’t think much of it. At the time I regarded Scientology as a goofy, harmless organization.

In July of 2006, Tom Brennan convinced Kyle that he should come and stay with him in Florida at his apartment. He promised Kyle that he would take him to look at the Florida State and the University of South Florida campuses.

Kyle traveled to Florida the following month, arriving on August 15. Within three days he called me complaining that his father had duped him. Brennan at the time didn’t even have an apartment—he had lied to Kyle.

Instead, Brennan was living in Tampa, in what Kyle called a “Scientology flop-house.” Kyle said he felt uncomfortable being around Scientologists. They have their own vocabulary, he told me, and they were pressuring him to take a Scientology personality test—something he absolutely refused to do. 

Within a few days of this conversation Brennan and Kyle moved from Tampa into an apartment at 423 Cleveland Street in downtown Clearwater. This place is near the old Fort Harrison Hotel, Scientology’s main headquarters. Things seemed to be going a little better after their move from the flop-house.

Within a week I received another distressing call from Kyle. I could hear a lot of noise at the other end of the phone line, and I asked, "Kyle, are you on campus?"

“Hell no,” he responded, “I'm at a mall watching my father make an ass out of himself. He's chasing people down trying to sell them L. Ron Hubbard books.” (A third-rate science fiction writer, Hubbard founded Scientology in the 1950s.)

“Kyle,” I said, “you’re kidding about this, right?"

“Heck no, Mom,” came his answer. “ Please . . . tell me that I'm not sharing the same DNA with this dude.”

Kyle told me again that his father had duped him. Brennan, Kyle said, had no intention of taking him to look at colleges. Furthermore, according to Kyle, Brennan said that a college education was a waste of money, and that what he needed to improve his life was to get involved with Scientology.  

Kyle wanted no part of Scientology. Despite this, however, Tom Brennan and his Scientologist girlfriend, Wendy Jill Borden, had been placing a great deal of pressure on Kyle to take a personality test. (Borden was a staffer at the New York City Org—or Scientology “church”—in Clearwater for training. Borden and Brennan were introduced by their mutual friend Denise Miscavige Gentile, the twin sister of the organization’s head. The two married soon after Kyle returned to Charlottesville in September.)

At this point Kyle wanted to come home. He wanted to go back to school in Charlottesville, at Piedmont Virginia Community College, but the fall semester was already underway. He asked me if I would talk with his professors to see if he could start the semester late, as he did not want to waste any more time.

Kyle called again the following day. He was upset. The previous evening, everybody in the apartment—Kyle, Brennan, and Borden—had gotten into a huge argument. Kyle said they were pushing him to pay for a personality test, and they wanted him to take Scientology courses. They also told Kyle that his mother was “evil” for allowing him to see a psychiatrist. Kyle told me that the argument had been extremely heated. At one point, Kyle said, he told Brennan and his girlfriend what he really thought of Scientology—he thought it was ludicrous—and also how he felt about his father spending all of his money on it.

When Kyle returned home he said that he had overheard Borden tell his father he was now “an enemy of their church.”

Kyle returned home without telling his father he was leaving—he took a cab to the airport on September 7 and left without saying goodbye.

Kyle Brennan-April 2, 1986-February 16, 2007

In 2007 my forward-looking 20-year-old son, Kyle Brennan, died in Clearwater, Florida, under extremely suspicious circumstances while visiting his Scientologist father. (Clearwater, of course, is the site of Scientology’s headquarters.) We lost the subsequent wrongful-death lawsuit we filed against Kyle’s father, prominent Scientologists who were involved, and the Church of Scientology itself. Because of the legal expenses incurred, we’ve yet to purchase a proper headstone for our beloved son. Will you help us?

 

 

Gerald & Denise Miscavige Gentile,"The Pajama Game"

 

Gerald Gentile, in an attempt to keep his wife away from the Brennan apartment—the crime scene—on the evening Kyle died, stated that his wife did not go near the apartment. Instead, said Gentile, she waited outside near their parked vehicle because she was in her pajamas.

This, of course, contradicts the early statements made to Detective Stephen Bohling by the Gentiles. In those interviews, according to this upstanding Scientology couple, Denise stayed home and only Gerald went to the Brennan apartment.

Gerald Gentile’s feeble attempt at helping his wife distance herself from the apartment backfired when Denise was deposed. In her deposition she stated under oath that she was walking in front of the Coachman Building,chain-smoking cigarettes while conversing with people.

The sight of middle-aged Denise Miscavige Gentile—the sister of Scientology leader David Miscavige—walking around in her pajamas on a cold damp night in downtown Clearwater would most certainly have been memorable.

Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t memorable enough for Clearwater Police Officer Jonathan Yuen, the first officer on the scene, a public servant who’s duty-bound to remember and record details. During his deposition, Yuen stated that a “couple” showed up at the Brennan apartment during his 10- to 20-minute investigation of Kyle’s death, but when pressed for details he was unable to recall any specifics.
      
Excerpt from the Clearwater Police Report: Denise Miscavige Gentile



CWPR: Gerald Gentile Interview



Excerpt from the CWPR



Excerpt from the deposition of Gerald Gentile







Excerpt from the depostion of Denise Miscavige Gentile









Excerpt from the Depostion of Detective Stephen Bohling



Officer Jonathan Yuen Deposition





Excerpt from the deposition of Gerald Gentile

 

Kyle Brennan's Computer--A Tangled Web (part III)

How do you catch someone in their tangled web of lies? By shining the light of truth on the multitude of inconsistencies.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement (or FDLE) Agent Barbara Mendez studied Kyle Brennan’s computer after it was handed over to her by Clearwater Police Detective Stephen Bohling. In her report, “Barbara”—as she was referred to by the detective—stated that no files had been deleted. Kyle’s family, however, knew this was untrue. His college professors, for example, had stated that Kyle had been submitting school work after he left home in the autumn of 2006. Kyle, they said, had completed his courses and his final exams—online—with this very same computer. And Kyle saved everything.

None of these papers, Kyle’s school papers and stories, were ever recovered. Also: Scientologist Gerald Gentile—in his convoluted explanation as to how and why he had possession of Kyle’s computer—admitted that he had accidentally deleted files! Yet, in spite of Gentile’s testimony, in spite of the truth, Agent Mendez stated that she could not determine if files had been deleted.

A case of incompetence, you say? Perhaps. . . .

But let’s add to this “computer-file” confusion. Let’s add a few more tangled strands. Detective Bohling, in his narrative regarding Kyle’s PC (as written in the Clearwater Police Report), evidently took creative liberty when attributing certain statements to FDLE Agent Mendez. During her deposition, when Agent Mendez read how she was quoted in the Clearwater Police Report—how Bohling had quoted her—she vehemently denied making the statements. At this moment in her deposition, the FDLE agent seemed vexed, annoyed that she had unwittingly become entangled.

Read the excerpts from the agent’s deposition and you’ll certainly be as confounded as she was. Could this be another example of Clearwater Police Detective Stephen Bohling fabricating evidence in order to protect the sister and brother-in-law of David Miscavige? If Kyle’s case had gone to trial, imagine the massive embarrassment, the circus-like spectacle, of Detective Bohling attempting the impossible task of extricating himself from his fiction-filled police report, his tangled web.
 
We were all taught as children that policemen are here “To Protect and Serve.” They’re supposed to be “serving” the people by “protecting” the innocent, the weak, the helpless, those members of our society who cannot stand up for themselves. This includes, of course, those who’ve perished under extremely suspicious circumstances. In Clearwater, Florida, however, “Protect and Serve” appears to mean “serve” the wealthy and the corrupt, “protect” their interests. The interests of a twenty-year-old who ran afoul of powerful Scientologists be damned.

Excerpt from the Deposition of Detective Stephen Bohling.







Excerpt from the Deposition of Gerald Gentile.



Clearwater Police Report-page 28



Testimony of Agent Barbara Mendez-Florida Department of Law Enforcement.









Excerpt from the Deposition of Detective Bohling.



Declaration of Mia Brennan