Anonymous asked this question on 4/25/2000:

What did Lisa McPherson do wrong that the Church of Scientology murdered her? Was it the fact that she became psychotic and needed a psychartist that the Church tied her down, forced drugs down her throat and allowed her to die? How does Scientology justify her murder to members and what do members think of this? From what I read in the NY Times they treated her just like a psychatric patient, so doesn't this make Scientology just as disgusting as psychartry?

desertphile gave this response on 4/25/2000:

First off, I highly object to the "tone" of your question. The Church of Scientology did not "MURDER" Ms. McPherson: they killed her accidently. Murder implies intent to homicide. Please make that distinction. The Church has not been charged with her death, either "murder" or otherwise. It is charged with practicing medicine without a liscence (which is self-evident according to their own testimony), and neglect of a disabled adult (which is also self-evidence according to their own testimony). Her actual death is being addressed in the civil suit, not the criminal one. The Church is not on trial for "murder."

The coroner has only five options available to her for the cause of death: "homicide," "accident," "suicide," "natural," and "unknown." The coronor first listed the cause as "unknown," and she changed it later to "accident." This changes nothing regarding both the civil and the criminal trails, since no one was claiming Ms. McPherson's death was anything other than an accident. It was never considered a homicide, nor a suicide, nor "natural" (i.e., old age). Oddly enough, many coronors list diseases under the "accidental" category and not the "natural" gategory.

To address your question of why they accidently killed her would take a great deal of time and effort for me to cover. I will briefly state why, and you can look over the web site at http://holysmoke.org/lm/lm.htm (which I just found a few days ago and has quickly become my favorate site).

Lisa McPherson went "Potential Trouble Source Type Three," which means the services she was receiving "drove her psychotic." A PTS-3 is considered a public relations liability, so such a person is hidden and put in isolation (called "baby watch" and "The Introspection Rundown"). They are released from isolation once they can write a cohearent request to be released. Ms. McPherson was not able to write such a request, but she certainly screamed it enough (according to Church testimony), and she fought like hell to escape her captors (also according to Church testimony). The reason they forced drugs down her throat was to keep her from harming herself and her captors in her struggle to escape. It appears that the last three dayes of her life she lay in a coma while the cockroaches fed on her body.

You then asked me how the Church justifies this. "Religious Freedom." They see the criminal and the civil trial as "religious persecution." The drugs they forced down her throat with a turkey baster was called "spiritual sustenance."

NOTE that I am NOT a doctor, when reading the following.

Finally, you asked me about psychiatric treatment and if the Church of Scientology treated her as real physicians would. No, of course not. A doctor would have sedated her and put her on an IV of glucose and saline to get her rehydrated and her blood sugar level up. Since she was psychotic, a physician has the right and duty to do this even if she refuses: she was not competent to give concent NOR refusal: only her guardian (closest living family member in her case) could have told a physician to deny her treatment.

After she was stablized (five or ten days, whatever), she could have had an interview with a psychologist. Based on that evaluation, the psychologist might have had a psychiatrist interview her.

The cause of her psychotic episode was abuse and brainwashing done to her over a long time span before she showed symptoms of psychosis. Most mental illnesses are "kindled," which means that the disease caused by stressors is cummulative but does not express itself until after a tolerance threshhold is crossed damage-wise. The actual illness is specific to neural pathways being physically "rewired" by trama / stressors, where a particular type of synapse neurotransmitter is replaced by a different type. The more stress, the more the type is changed, and the more damage to the brain.

The Church of Scientology claims to believe that this damage to the brain does NOT occur (even though the evidence is quite conclusive that it does). Since getting actual help for Ms. McPherson would have "invalidated the Tech," no actual help for her was acquired.

If this does not answer your question, please feel free to ask for more specific information.

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