Sheriff’s Office report spells out tragic details of Scientology ‘Clear’ who took her own life

 
We have now obtained a copy of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office report on the death of Kristi Bouck, the 26-year-old Scientologist we told you about last month who ended her life on June 6.

Kristi was from Orange County, California and had been declared Clear by Scientology in 2015, a major milestone for any Scientologist. She and her fiancé had driven across country so that he could take courses at the Flag Land Base, Scientology’s spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida. They rented a house in the nearby town of Dunedin, but just three or four days after they arrived, she died from a gunshot wound to the chest which the county medical examiner declared a suicide.

We now have more details about what happened, but not all of our questions have been answered by the 31-page report sent to us by the sheriff’s office.

Kristi Bouck was a very popular Orange County Scientologist. Her memorial service at the Orange County Ideal Org reportedly drew about 200 people. But despite reaching the state of Clear — when Scientologists believe that the “reactive mind” is cleared away and which founder L. Ron Hubbard proposed would lead to a nearly superhuman state with raised IQ — Kristi had endured bouts of depression well before she made her cross-country trip.

The couple arrived in Dunedin on either Saturday June 2 or Sunday June 3, her fiancé told police. (Although his name appears in the report we chose not to name him in this story because he was found blameless for Bouck’s death by police.) On June 6, he was doing his coursework at the Scientology center into the evening. At 9:25 pm, he received a text from Bouck saying that she had fed the dog and was finished with her own work. Just a few minutes later, at 10:14 pm, the fiancé arrived home, and expected Bouck to be asleep in bed or on the living room couch.

When he didn’t see her, he looked around and noticed that the bathroom light was on and the door was closed. He knocked, and when he didn’t get a response, he opened the door and found Bouck on the floor, bleeding.

She was still alive, and said that she needed help and couldn’t breathe. Her fiance said he frantically tried to find where and how she had been injured, and couldn’t see where the blood was coming from. He noticed a note, but didn’t look at it. He called 911. He did notice a hole in her shirt, he told police, but it never occurred to him that she might have shot herself.

When police arrived, they too weren’t clear how she had been injured and why she had lost so much blood. “I asked where she was bleeding from and she was unable to provide an answer and did not point to any injury,” wrote the first deputy on the scene.

Immediately behind the deputy were medical personnel, who quickly removed the bleeding woman on a stretcher and took her outside the house. Only then did they discover the gunshot wound to her chest. The deputy returned to the bathroom and then found a shell casing in the bathtub, and a .45 pistol sitting on the floor behind the toilet.

On top of the toilet seat was a blood-stained three-page suicide note.

The fiancé’s clothes were bloody, but it was consistent with his attempts to help Bouck when he found her. When the deputy asked him about Bouck’s state of mind, “[He] told me Bouck previously attempted suicide by overdose approximately a year prior to this date in California.”

The contents of Bouck’s note were not included in the report, but another deputy described it this way: “The note was addressed to [the fiancé] and it talked about the writer being sorry for not being able to thrive for herself. The letter talked about depression, lack of working financial issues and even talked about previous suicide attempts. The letter was signed by the decedent.”

Bouck was declared dead when she arrived at Mease Dunedin Hospital. After a thorough examination of the scene and after forensic tests were completed, the medical examiner and the sheriff’s office concluded that Bouck had killed herself.

When we first reported on Bouck’s death last month, we heard from some readers who were suspicious about Bouck being shot in the chest. But we have spoken in the past with law enforcement officers who say that women who shoot themselves are less likely than men to aim for the head. One study we found at the CDC said that women were 47 percent less likely than men to do so.

After seeing the thoroughness of the sheriff’s office report, we have little doubt about their conclusion that Kristi Bouck took her own life with a gunshot wound to the chest.

However, we were disappointed that the report said nothing about the ownership of the firearm and how Bouck came to possess it, something we were naturally curious about.

In our last story, we turned to Scientology technical expert Sunny Pereira for help understanding what Bouck’s death says about Scientology’s claims about superhuman abilities and its “science of the human mind.” And again, we’ve turned to her with the new details we’ve learned from the Sheriff’s Office report.

“From the Scientology view of a Clear, she should not be feeling depressed,” Sunny tells us. “Hubbard asserts that Dianetics can cure what ails man. That’s the promise. That’s the expectation. So as a Clear, her feelings of depression might have confused and upset her. As a Scientologist, she might be concerned that the problem is her. It’s never a question of whether Hubbard’s tech works or not. When you are that deep in, you are convinced Hubbard’s tech is the only path to freedom.

“Many people get confused and upset, thinking ‘the tech doesn’t work on me.’ Many people think they are the only one with that fear, but it’s common. And yes, all Scientologists believe that Hubbard tech is all they need and would never consider getting treatment elsewhere. So seeking other treatment for depression is out of the question. She would only seek help within Scientology itself.

“I can’t say this is still currently the case, but when I was at Flag, people with past suicide attempts were not allowed on the property. So she may have been told that, and it might have been another layer of upset and rejection. I can’t say for sure. When Scientology is everything to you and Flag won’t help you, it can be a big emotional blow. You don’t say in Scientology, ‘she killed herself because she was depressed.’ The word ‘depressed’ is not used within Scientology, except when talking to non-Scientologists. It is not even considered as a mental condition at all.

“In Scientology, she would be considered apathetic, that something was missed on her case. And someone invariably gets in trouble for it. The reason why it happened gets searched for in her case files, and it’s ethics for those responsible. It’s always rapid fire handling. Same day, maybe a couple days after, but non stop until it’s closed out.”

Thank you, Sunny.

We’ve said it in other cases, and we’ll say it again here. Scientology may not have caused this death, but the last thing a depressed young woman should have been involved in was this anti-therapy quackery club.

 
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Scientology, the soft sell version

John P. Capitalist sent us this gem that was posted in the New Haven branch of Meetup.com. We’ve reported in the past about Scientology’s extensive use of Craigslist to lure in newbies, and we suspect they’ve also been using Meetup for a long time as well. But this one seemed especially brazen. Make sure to read that fine print, folks!

All of the meetups for this group will take place at the local Church of Scientology, where I am a volunteer. You can be of any religion to come. For example, I’m a Christian myself. You are not expected to change your religion here. Your divorce or breakup can be devastating, and I understand that, but the important thing now is to move on EMOTIONALLY. That’s why I created this group. I want to help everyone who is still hurting from a divorce or breakup to get over and move on from the betrayal or disappointment. You CAN do it. You just need some help and tools. And to provide for that help and tools, we are going to have meetups. We are going to have some free classes about life improvement, we are going to read some self-help books, and we are going to help you regain your self-confidence, happiness, stability and mental wellness, for these might have taken a hit due to the divorce or breakup. But most importantly, we are going to help you work on having a better future — a better mindset, a better lifestyle, better mental health, and a better future relationship. Join this group now and let’s get started.

 
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Jeffrey Augustine hears Gold Base stories from Marc Headley

 
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MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on August 31, 2018 at 07:00

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GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
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