Scientology said her father was dead. He’s alive, at its secret HQ. But can she see him?

[Bob Ferris and his daughter Liz]

[Today’s guest article is by Jeffrey Augustine and Vanessa LaRose]

In 2004, former Sea Org member and second-generation Scientologist Liz Ferris called the Golden Era Productions phone line in the Hollywood Guaranty Building. She was asking for her father, Sea Org executive Bob Ferris.

The HGB, on Hollywood Boulevard, is a nerve center for the worldwide Scientology organization, with highly sensitive activity taking part inside.

Liz left the Sea Org after her stint from 1996-2000, but she had remained a Scientologist. She says that in some ways it was only very recently that she woke up that Scientology technology was not "The Key to Life." But one thing she always knew in her heart was that Scientologists were incorrect about their views on sexuality.

She was still allowed to call her father from time to time and they kept in touch a few times a year with pleasant phone calls. He had been accepting (and even supportive) when she had come out to him as a lesbian earlier that year.

This time, however, when she asked for him, the person on the other end of the line simply said, “He’s dead,” and hung up.

Liz was understandably stunned by the news of her father’s death. He was only 54 years old at the time.

New Scientology watchers may be surprised to learn that it is not unusual for Scientology to tell family members that a Sea Org member has died, when they have not. It is also common to keep deaths quiet when Sea Org members or public Scientologists passes away. You may remember when Tony reported on the death of Ann Tidman in 2012, that it had been months after her death in a Scientology apartment building before her family was told about it.

Fast forward to 2023: Liz received a phone call asking her what her plans were for assisting with her father Bob’s “freeloader’s debt.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. since when did Scientology try to collect on the freeloader debts of the dead?

In Scientology, Sea Org members are required to sign billion-year contracts, promising to come back lifetime after lifetime. And one way that the organization keeps members from changing their minds is to threaten to saddle them with a freeloader debt if they leave, billing them for all of the benefits they’d supposedly received while working around the clock. Such debts can run up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, they are legally unenforceable, but often former Sea Org members end up paying at least part of them for fear of being declared an enemy of the church with the label “suppressive person.”

Liz knew what a freeloader’s debt was, but why, she asked, would the church be asking her about a debt supposedly owed by someone who had died 19 years earlier? Liz heard a click on the other end of the call.

Angry, panicked, and heartbroken, Liz began asking around until she heard from another former Sea Org member who told her that her father had not, in fact, died in 2004. They told her that in 2005, he had still been working at Scientology’s Gold Base located in San Jacinto, California.

But was he still alive in 2023? At that point, she reached out to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. An officer from RCSO called Gold Base and inquired about Bob, and he told Liz that an unnamed person at the Base said that Bob Ferris was alive. However, the Sheriff’s Office did not make an actual visit to see if this was true.

Liz decided she would need to go to the base to find out for herself.

She reached out to former second-generation Scientologists Vanessa LaRose and Elysia Hoy after watching their recently launched YouTube channel “Degraded Daughters of Dianetics.” Liz felt that they could understand the challenges she was about to face, and she asked if Vanessa would accompany her to the base.

Vanessa has a BA in psychology from Cal State Long Beach, she’s a certified peer support specialist, and she’s also a mandated reporter in the state of California. Liz also turned to me, Jeffrey Augustine, for additional help.

I’m a private investigator, and I saw this as a missing persons case: Was Bob Ferris dead or alive? If he was alive and 72 years old, what is his physical and mental condition?

On June 10 Liz, her partner, Vanessa, and I made a visit to Gold Base. Liz told me that she did not want to be the daughter who gave up on her father, if there was any possible chance that her father was alive. She wanted him to know that his family outside cares, and will be here for him if he wants to escape.

We met up at the San Jacinto substation of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, and I advised a deputy that we were headed out to Scientology’s Gold Base on a missing persons case. We used an Uber to get there because there is no other safe way to get to the guard booth at the front gate.

Scientology has heavily planted the public walkway next to Highway 79 with thorny desert cactus and plants right down to the highway itself. Highway 79 is a high-speed roadway where the average speeds of vehicles are 55-70 mph. This is Google maps image of the guard booth:

It was obvious to me that the overplanting was done in order to create an unsafe environment to discourage anyone from walking up to the front of the base or the security booth.

Pedestrians risk getting hit and seriously injured or killed by traffic were they to walk to the front of Gold Base from a long distance away where they must park their car. There are other dangers too. In 2008, Scientology protester Anon Orange was tackled and placed under citizen’s arrest by Scientology security officer Danny Dunigan for trespassing.

There are no marked boundaries anywhere and Scientology does not want any foot traffic along Highway 79. Former Gold Base Security Director Gary “Jackson” Morehead agrees, because he was the person who designed the deliberate obstructions when he was in charge of Base security.

Once we arrived, Liz approached the guard booth, identified herself, and asked to see her father Bob. She communicated this information through the speaker on the guard booth. The booth itself is covered in heavily-tinted glass and no one inside can be seen. After about an hour, we had received no communication back from the guard booth. No Scientology official appeared to speak with us. At that point, I called the Sheriff’s Office and asked them to come and conduct an adult welfare check on Bob.

Forty-five minutes later the Sheriff’s Office called back. The deputy said that they had contacted Bob by telephone and spoke with an attorney for the Church who said that Bob did not wish to see his daughter. The deputy said that Bob claimed he might be dealing with a daughter he never knew about, which the deputy seemed to credit.

On the other hand, Bob had told the Sheriff’s Office that he did not want to get a Temporary Restraining Order against his daughter and was not quite sure who this person was. These statements were either contradictory, not truthful, or suggested a diminished mental capacity. There is ample evidence that Bob Ferris knows his daughter Liz. The photo at the top of this article, for example.

The deputy warned me about getting into a trespass situation. I replied that we were on public land and that we would be departing as soon as our Uber arrived. The deputy additionally stated that Gold Base had to get permission from a Scientology attorney to allow Bob Ferris to speak to the Sheriff’s Office.

About a week after our visit, the Sheriff’s Office made an actual face-to-face visit with Bob. The report is not available from the department website. Liz will have to make another long trip to pick up the report in person. Fundraising was just completed to fund this trip. Liz said in a recent podcast that she may never get her father back but has at least paved the way for others to ask to see their missing family members who are in the Sea Org.

— Jeffrey Augustine and Vanessa LaRose

---

Want to help?

You can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail).

---

Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.

Paid subscribers get access to two special podcast series every week…

Up the Bridge: A weekly journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news