Scientology - A Question of Faith

Did A Mother's Faith Contribute To Her Murder?

(CBS) 
“His mother then convinced them to discharge Jeremy, I believe, to her. That she could take care of him,” says assistant Erie County D.A. Ken Case, who prosecuted the Perkins murder.

“Did officials believe she's going to take him to a psychiatrist? She will get him on some sort of medication to control this problem?” Van Sant asked Case.

“That's my understanding, yes,” he replied.

Asked whether Elli intentionally misled people, Case said, "The investigation revealed to us that she felt very strongly against further psychiatric treatment.”

Jeremy was reportedly seen by a neurologist at a hospital, who also recommended anti-psychotic medication. But Nuchereno says the family didn't want that, because it would have been against their beliefs.

"Why would you put somebody like him in the hands of psychiatry, that admits it doesn't know how to actually solve the problems, and the only solution is to drug the person?" asks Jan Eastgate, who investigates psychiatric abuse for the Church of Scientology and aligns herself with other critics of institutional psychiatry, like Professor Jeffrey Schaler of American University, who say schizophrenia shouldn’t even be called a disease.

“There is no disease that Jeremy had called schizophrenia. This is an attempt by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to explain why he did what he did,” says Schaler.

Asked if he believes that drugs can treat mental illness, Schaler says, "Since there’s not such thing as mental illness, there’s no such thing as a medicine for mental illness. Now, can certain drugs change the way a person feels? Of course. But does that mean the person needed that drug?”

Jeremy did get a prescription for one other drug: Lorazepam, a mild anti-anxiety medication with rare instances of violent side-effects. But there is no evidence in the court records Jeremy ever took it and medical experts say that this is not an anti-psychotic drug that effectively treats paranoid schizophrenia.

In a letter to CBS News, an attorney for Don Perkins claimed that Jeremy’s parents “repeatedly took Jeremy to both physicians and mental health practitioners” - including a psychiatrist - “who always released him [to] their care as not dangerous to himself or others.” Jeremy “was prescribed and took psychotropic medications to no avail,” so the “entire premise” of our story is “false.”

But the court records repeatedly state that Jeremy did not receive formal psychiatric treatment, and his father refused to provide further documentation of his claims.

"Clearly there was some professional psychiatric care needed that didn't occur,” says Case.

Whatever else they considered that summer, for the next six months the Perkinses desperately pursued a cure for their son, while abiding by the principles of their faith.

"Battlefield Earth," a popular movie among Scientologists based on an L. Ron Hubbard science fiction novel, stars John Travolta as an evil alien "psychlo" enslaving the human race.

But prosecutor Case says Jeremy came to believe that something like that movie was actually happening in his bedroom.

“He was sleeping in a chair outside of his parents' bedroom because he thought aliens were in his bedroom,” Case says.

In the fall of 2002, the Perkinses drove their 27-year-old son to Dr. Conrad Maulfair, a Scientologist and osteopath in Pennsylvania who promotes natural, drug-free healing methods.

“They had to physically forcibly drag him in there. He didn't appreciate the treatment,” says Case.

Nuchereno says Maulfair’s clinic had an unusual explanation for Jeremy’s symptoms. "They conclude that he was suffering from certain digestive problems, that he had certain chemical toxins in his body. And he needed to be purged of it. And he needed to be energized through vitamin therapy,” he explains.

Asked if vitamin therapy for this profound mental illness is a treatment, Dr. Joseph says, "No, it's nonsense.”

Dr. Maulfair declined to be interviewed for this report. Don Perkins’ lawyer wrote CBS News explaining that Don and Elli “were concerned about the documented dangers of pharmaceutical substances.” The church also provided research highlighting violent side effects of various psychotropic medications. But medical experts, including Dr. Joseph, say those side-effects are rare, and that scientific literature actually shows a decrease in violent behavior when schizophrenics take anti-psychotic drugs.