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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Fair Game. Hello, Mickey. Hi, Lily.

It's lovely to see you again or hear you as well, sir. I'm so excited today because we have a special guest from my home country. Yes.

He is an award winning journalist and a current affairs reporter for the ABC and the author of a pretty incredible book titled Fair Game The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia, which seems very appropriate for this podcast.

Right. Welcome from sunny Sydney. Hi, Steve Kanaan. Hi, Michael. Great to be here.

Mike, his accent is so much better than yours, though it is a true Australian accent as opposed to your mongrel English Florida type like mine.

Mine is a mongrel accent. As a pure bred mongrel, though, what does. But if I go to Australia, they call me a Yank.

Oh, OK.

So you don't say so to for their from their perspective, you've lost it completely.

Completely, 100 percent.

But I love your accent Mike. I'm just busting balls. OK. Welcome. Steve, thank you so very much. My pleasure. Great to be on your podcast, which I've been listening to and loving. Oh, thank you so much. We appreciate all the support that we can get.

You know, Steve, I obviously have read your book and have dealt with you over the years, and I know your story fairly well, but I'd love it if you would just start at the very beginning. How did you get involved at all with Scientology as a journalist in Australia? So it was 2010, I was working on a program on ABC TV called Lateline. I was looking for a story and I really knew nothing about Scientology. And a colleague of mine, Quentin McDermott, had done a big exposé on a program here called Four Corners called The X Files that you can watch online if you want to.

Very good story about Scientology. And he had a couple of leads that he couldn't follow up on for that program and he generously pass them on to me. And so those two stories ended up being on the program. Lateline one was about Scarlett Hanna, who was the daughter of the president of the Church of Scientology in Australia, and she grew up in the Cadet Org, the Children's Sea Org, and she described what a toxic environment that was like, how she was separated from her family.

And in her words, she described how they were treated like cattle. Now, the second story I did was about a woman called Carmen Rainer, who, as an 11 year old child, had been sexually abused by her Scientologist stepfather. And she told me that she'd been coached to lie to police and community services about that abuse and that she'd been coached by a woman, you know, called Jan Eastgate, who was the international, became the international head of Scientology's anti psychiatry front group.

Now, I should point out that Jenny denies those allegations, but I did those two stories and I did those two stories and I was amazed at the blowback. They threatened to sue me. They threatened to injunct the program. They even at one point claimed I breached their copyright because I used one of Scarlet Hannah's dad's photographs. They wrote to write to the managing director of the ABC. They accused me of fraternizing with cyber terrorist groups. And what they meant by that was that I'd interviewed somebody from Anonymous outside a protest outside the Church of Scientology.

They put complaints in about me. And you know what I thought? I thought, wow, you guys have got a lot to hide. If you're coming after me like this, I'm going to keep looking into you because you've got something to hide. And I want to find out what that is.

And I want to ask you, because you are a journalist, you've done many stories. Have you ever received such a bit of reaction from an organisation calling itself a church?

I've never had a reaction like that from anybody, it was like a full frontal assault on every level, and I'm not saying it was intimidating, but it was just so over the top. And so, no, I haven't not certainly not from a religious organization. And I'll tell you what, if you do a story exposing, for example, child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, there will be admissions of wrongdoing. When you do a story about the Church of Scientology, they never admit to anything.

Never that they've done wrong. They never do. I mean, if you if if a journalist interviewed somebody from the Church of Scientology, the question you should ask them is, have you done anything wrong ever? And they will never I will never point anything out. Right. We'll never put anything out because they refuse to tell the truth about what's going on and they refuse to do anything that they would believe would give them bad public relations.

And the reason for that, for for people, the reason for that is because Scientology is written down and everybody looks to a book and. And what does L. Ron Hubbard say? What does L. Ron Hubbard say? Scientology appearance. That's how they raise their children.

What Scientology say, which is that Ron Hubbard say the L. Ron Hubbard says never, never admit to anything.

And if someone is attacking you and their definition of attack is doing a story on Scientology, going to the police, telling the truth about Scientology, this is considered an attack, doing a welfare check on a family member that's considered an attack, telling your own story, considered an attack.

They don't know any other way. That is what Scientology says to do, which is never defend, always attack. And so they're just following the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard. And that's Sea Org members, that Scientology PR machine, that's Oza, that's celebrity Scientologist.

And the best insight I got into that was when I was doing those first stories somebody suggested I read the introductory introduction to Scientology Ethics and I went through its internal justice system, which is high crimes, crimes, misdemeanors and errors. And that pretty much told me everything I knew I needed to know about Scientology, because in high crimes, the worst crimes in Scientology, most of them relate to public relations about testifying before a public commission, speaking out about Scientology.

There's also some in there about issues around copyright. OK, so but if you look at when I was doing this story on a young woman who a girl sorry, 11 year old girl who'd been sexually abused and that being covered up. Well, the closest thing I could see that in Scientology's internal justice system was something they described is not a term I would use. Seducing a minor, seducing a minor is statutory rape. That that is only a crime in Scientology's internal justice system.

That's that's at the same level as Hickling, a Scientology lecturer. Sure. But in Scientology, is internal justice system speaking out about Scientology? That's worse than that, right? Right.

And by the way, when we're talking about crimes and misdemeanors and all these things, these are internal. These are internal. It's not that they report to the police. That's not what we're talking about.

I want I want to make sure that everybody understands that that's seducing a minor, seducing a minor. Sounds like a crime, but it is. Right, but not in Scientology. In Scientology, it is considered a crime on paper or however, they are not enough to report to the police that that is a high crime in Scientology, by the way, to report anyone to the police, a Scientologist.

And they figure and they they think, as we all believe, that whatever is wrong with the child molester or pedophile in Scientology will be fixed in Scientology.

It will not be fixed with Warg, as they call it, non-singing, a derogatory term for a Scientology, non Scientologist with warg law. And so they think they're above warg law. So I don't want everybody to be under the impression.

At least one other point on that and that story involving Carmen Rainer as an 11 year old girl. She was told the reason she'd been abused as a child because she must have been bad in a previous life crap that she pulled it in from a previous life. Yes. So it was her fault, not the perpetrator's fault, that they're blaming an 11 year old girl for child sexual abuse.

And like you did the story in 2010. Right. And the policies still exist and Scientology is still existing and Scientology is still hiding up these crimes. And when I say hiding up, I mean, they believe that.

What? They're doing is fixing the world, they believe they're saving mankind, so I'm not I don't want to imply that the only way for legal purposes that they believe that they're doing that right, Mike?

They don't believe that they're hiding a crime.

They believe that they are doing better. They're doing better than the justice system could do. They are doing a more efficient, more humane, more compassionate approach to dealing with the problems of of activities of people than anybody else can do and anybody else could ever do. Right.

And that's yeah. It's it's so fascinating to hear Steve talk about these examples, because we've heard exactly the same thing over and over again and over.

And people start to go, well, you guys just keep harping on the same old stuff over and over and over. Well, that's because it keeps going on. It doesn't change.

And because you're right today.

And and but what is purposeful is what Steve mentioned is Scientologists believe and they justify the lying to the authorities about these crimes that are taking place because they they believe that lying about it will be the only hope for that rapist abuser or pedophile.

Right. They believe that justifies the lying. That justifies protecting Scientology. And yes, of course.

And the one other thing that goes along with this, that Steve is familiar with this and we must eradicate the bad, evil merchants of chaos, the psychiatrists or whatever, from the face of planet Earth, because those people are bent on everybody's destruction.

So there's no there's no holds barred, no rules of engagement, nothing. When it comes to a journalist exposing Scientology, they are literally fair game when it comes to anybody who is speaking out. They are literally fair game.

And, you know, Steve, talking about what happened to him just after one story is the here is the playbook that Scientology has of this is what you do with a journalist. Right. It's incredible.

And and then I remember you telling me back then or in your book, Steve, that Virginia Stewart, another one of my old friends and a spokesperson for Scientology in Sydney, had come out and made a big to do about.

There's no such thing as disconnection.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. She and she, too. I think I asked her a question or I made a point about the Church of Scientology routinely separating children from their parents. And she said that that doesn't go on. And then I got an email from her father who said, hang on a second. Yeah, I haven't spoken to her for about 20 years. And I was just and he was living in Switzerland at the time. And we were getting a camera crew over there to to interview him.

And then suddenly they must have found out that that was going on. And so Virginia contacted her father and he said, sorry, I've got to call this interview off because suddenly I've got contact with my daughter, the daughter that I love, and I don't want to jeopardise that. So the Church of Scientology, once again, this is about public relations allowed. A public spokesperson who was obviously disconnected from her father to suddenly reconnect with her father because that would be good for public relations.

Right. And I wondered how they stay connected. Well, unfortunately, he died soon after, so I wasn't sure how long that lasted. But yeah, it just goes to show you, it all relates to the PR and then what happened with the stories that you were doing?

Whatever happened or charges ever brought to bear? No, probably not, because Scientology, anybody who was witness to this would have just lied and been trained how to lie to the authorities or write false statements that this didn't happen.

Well, in one instance with Jenny Zenescope, there were charges laid, but they were later dropped and it was difficult for the Director of Public Prosecutions to get a prosecution, I think, because for a number of reasons that I can't really go into. But those charges, those charges were dropped. Certainly other stories I did were mostly about abuse going on in the rehabilitation project force in Sydney, where basically David Miscavige used Australia as a as what it was set up for, you know, 250 years ago, a penal colony.

He was dumping Scientologists in Sydney, in western Sydney, in the OPF. And so I did stories on that, in particular relating to a professional footballer called Chris Guider, who ended up being in the in the Sea Org and moving to the US. And Chris talked about in that story about the violence of David Miscavige. And it was one of the first times I think that that was broadcast on TV. And I still remember that classic Scientology tactic of the stack of affidavits arriving saying, no, this never happened.

No, this never happened. No, this never happened. Right. And what I did was I rang the Church of Scientology in the US and I said, I want to talk to each of these people who've signed an affidavit because I want to test their claims. How do I know that this person actually signed the affidavit or if they did so well, they did it under duress or not. And what do you think happened? They wouldn't put me through to them.

Of course they would not. I would not allow they would not allow me to test those claims. So we ran with the story and nothing ever happened. I didn't source or anything or they just denied that David Miscavige would ever be involved in beating people up or asking for other people to beat people up.

And then after that, you broke another story with full USCA Paris, who's Chris Guiders wife. That's wrong about her being imprisoned on the Freewinds, which is the Scientology ship, and ultimately sent to a prison camp in Sydney.

And we're talking about the RPF, which probably, Steve, probably better if you if you explain what the RPF is, because, you know, Mike and I are always explaining it, but it's nice to hear somebody who wasn't a Scientologist.

Yeah, exactly. OK, layman's terms. OK, well, I would describe it as a punishment camp for people who step out of line and they're denied rights. They can only eat certain things. They have to labour. It's a I would say it's virtually a form of enslavement. I mean, they refer to it as being some kind of what's the term?

It's a ability to project force, right?

Yeah. And they say it's consensual and all the rest. But, you know, people are locked up and it's abuse, it's physical and mental abuse. And I've spoken to people who've been in the RPF for over a decade and a completely traumatised by their experience. And it's once again part of that punishment culture and that kind of snitching culture to within Scientology, where somebody is constantly fearful that somebody will dob them in about something and they could be punished.

Right. And so the anticipation of the punishment can sometimes be worse than the punishment itself because it stops people behaving rationally and standing up for people like you would want in any institution. You want people when they see abuse, abuse of power, just go. Hang on. That's wrong. Yeah, but with with a punishment culture like this, that doesn't happen because that person gets punished.

Well, most of Scientology the teachings is that so it is not like a separate thing. Most of Scientology is about punishment. The beginning courses of Scientology, the carrot that I, you know, see it as these are little carrots because they're, you know, innocuous courses on communication and, you know, integrity and basic basic things that everybody could agree to.

Right. So it seems as though it's innocuous and and helpful. Right. If you go from not being able to communicate with somebody and look in their eye when you're speaking or acknowledge people properly. Right. So if you you don't have those basics of life, you know, that is what lures you in. But then as you get like you, you're talking about the ethics book. One of the staples in Scientology is that ethics book. And, you know, you learn pretty quickly that it's an us versus them and them have no rights in Scientology.

And they have you don't learn empathy. You don't learn those things that you're speaking of, Steve, of sticking up for anybody that isn't in Scientology.

But there is no sticking up for and it's it literally is every man for himself. Yeah, it is survival of the the.

Fittest in a sort of a very twisted fashion of the fittest being the one who can fit in best with the rules and regulations and what the the mores of the organization and the group are.

And if you stick your head out and protest or do or say anything that is unacceptable, you are quickly brought back to Earth with a big thud.

And the you know, this is just part of the but it it's it's sort of distilled in the OPF.

But the RPF is actually a distillation of all of Scientology.

You know, it's it's like a microcosm of all the bad bits all jammed together in in a very concentrated form and, you know, stories of people.

And what they've had to endure in the RPF are horrifying and and numerous.

I mean, there's many of them.

In fact, your book starts out with the story of one guy who escaped from the RPF. And I'd like you to just tell us a little bit about that, Steve.

We before we get to that, I just want to say that Steve has interviewed over 200 Scientologists. And then you wrote a book called Fair Game, like Monk said, The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia, and that was published in 2006.

So it's not even like Steve you did and you did some interviews back in 2010. I mean, you've really stayed with this. And I find that with people who are so incensed by Scientology and what goes on and what has been going on. When you look at the history of this and fair game and all the crimes of Scientology's committed and cover it up, I think people who get a hold of a story like this and like people like you, Stephen, it's not it's not many.

But there are a few of you out there who have continued to expose Scientology. There's you.

There's Brian Seymour, there's Sweeney, Tony Ortega, Alex Gibney, Lawrence Wright.

Like you think about the image on two hands.

Probably I can count. Right. But there's just some people that just keep going because it is continuing to happen and it just hasn't stopped.

And so, you know, Mike and I and I know countless people who have been victims of Scientology. Thank you for continuing to expose Scientology for what they're doing.

Well, it is a hard issue to let go because you say the abuse of people and you know that it won't change because L. Ron Hubbard is considered the source. And whatever he said at a certain point in history remains the same. It's an organization that is unable to reform because of its origins. Right. And and so you're compelled to keep doing stories about them. I, to a large degree, have probably let go in the last few years because I feel like I've said most of what I wanted to say in that book.

But at the same time, I'm always available to follow up another story. If I think it's worth doing Scientology to a large degree, it just can't recruit in Australia anymore. And I believe there's a few factors in that. And one is that there's been so much negative publicity about Scientology and I don't know, negative publicity.

You mean true about. No, negative. Yeah, I don't know. You're right. You're right. You're right. And you're so right to be on that all the time. Steve, I'm always. Yeah. All right. We're a team of truth. The truth. It's the truth.

And I really enjoyed listening to Richard B-R and your previous podcast because he was a real trailblazer with that article he wrote in Time magazine in 1991. Yes. And what was different from then is that Scientology could use that tactic of suing time, scaring every other newspaper editor, every other TV broadcast network about doing another story. But when the Internet comes along. Yes. And then suddenly you see all these stories and you have people publishing information in the early days of the Internet on Usenet, what they call Usenet groups like Religion of Scientology, Scientology could no longer control that.

And so if you're a let's face it, there's two types of Scientologists. This is in my view, there's people who are born into it and there's people who are recruited into it. And they're mostly recruited between the ages of 18 to twenty five, which is when the frontal lobes of your brain aren't fully developed. That's the rational part of your brain. You are open to ideas. You're searching and also you want to change the world. And Scientology in its own way offers that.

And that age group is also the same age group. Bear in mind that I. ISIS recruits in that used to recruit First World War Front frontline soldiers in it's that kind of sheer age group where you take risks, where you're vulnerable, emotionally vulnerable as well. Now eighteen to twenty five. Now, if if they're thinking about Scientology, they'll get online and they'll Google it and they'll see every horror story. And as you point out, the truth.

So I just think the Internet has killed its business model. And yes, there are still people, but the numbers are diminishing. And I think a lot of that has had to do with truthful stories getting out there by journalists. And that helps.

Yes. A family of five brutally killed in their sleep in the companion podcast Biomax, as the murders at White House Farm, you'll hear from those involved in the making of the series and the real life events on which the drama is based. Stream the murders at White House Farm now on Biomax and subscribe and listen to the murders at White House Farm, the podcast on the I Heart radio app, Biomax, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Plouffe. And I'm Steve Schmidt. We're the host of Battleground, a new podcast from the recount. In 2008, I ran Senator John McCain's campaign for president, David Manege. Senator Obama's in battleground.

We're going state by state and giving you in-depth reporting on the Trump and Biden strategies so that you understand what they're doing and more importantly, why they're doing it.

Listen, a battleground on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Steve, I'd like to chat just for a second about the first time we met, because it was quite an experience.

It sure was. I remember it well. In fact, I wish I was recording it like it was for a podcast because it would have made a very entertaining podcast our day we spent together. Why?

Tell us. Tell us. I don't know the story, so I want to hear it. When I got a book contract, one of the first things I did was in 2012, go to the US. First stop, I went to New York, your hometown, Leah, and then I went to Florida and I flew down to Tampa Airport and Mike picked me up at Tampa Airport and I flew down there specifically to go and meet Mike. And I remember well, in fact, I remember Mike picking me up at the airport and within five minutes we were basically communicating, as Australian men do, with each other.

We were basically just taking the piss out of each other and having a good laugh. And Mike took me to a dinner and we had had a meal. And I remember telling him, I've got some information for you that I might you might find interesting. And he said, Oh, what's that? And I said, Well, I know where they were spying on you. I know the house, the address where the Church of Scientology put a private investigator and took the photos that Mike knew.

Well, there was a particular photo where he was talking to the two journalists from the St. Pete Times. I think that was Marty there, as well as Marty Rathbun in that conversation.

It was it was Marty Rathbun, me, Joe Childs and Tom Tobin.

Yeah.

So I had the address of where they were spying on Mike because left Mike and Marty, both high ranking executives and Scientology had left Scientology and were speaking out.

Yeah, exactly. So I had the address and and and Mike was very excited about this. And he said, OK, let's go. And you could I've spoken to a number of former intelligence agents over the years and I never lose their training. And I felt like Mike clicked back into the Office of Special Affairs and we were suddenly going there and he he pulled into the driveway. He didn't just park out the front in a very subtle fashion. He went boldly, pulled into the driveway, straight up to the garage door.

And because what I'd been told was, was that there were cameras placed under the awning above the door and an awning around the side.

So we got out there in Miami and I swear, this is all of us spy all to spy on Mike diagonally opposite from his house. Yeah. And so we go up to this house and I said, OK, I was told there was a camera here. And we look up and we see two bolt holes drilled in the awning. So where a camera was attached and I said, OK, I was told there was another one around the side.

And we go that same again, two bullet holes drilled into that morning. So what the intelligence that I've been given had been right. And what the story was that a woman who was mentioned on one of your previous podcast called Heather McAdoo moved into that house specifically to not only spy on Mike and Chrissie, but basically infiltrate their lives to a degree that I think, Mark, that she ended up going to a baby shower for Christie, is that right?

Yeah, they became friends, yes.

Yeah. And they moved somebody. And Leah, who was, of course, the story that had a child the same age as Christie's child and Mike's child and and ingratiated themselves into those lives. And it didn't end there. Of course, Mike then wanted to take me to the other house that she'd moved into. When Mike and Kristi moved to another part of Florida, yeah, and then we went there as well and checked out that place and she said there's nothing you could do about this.

Right.

You just kind of have to live with People's Scientology, spying on you and infiltrating your lies mean because people ask that, like, well, I would have destroyed the camera and I would, you know, well, OK, that would be great for Scientology because then they could turn around and say, this lunatic destroyed my property.

And this is where they spent. This is where they spend their money to save money. Exactly. To fair game people to move into houses. They buy houses, everybody.

It's not like, you know, this is exactly right, Steve. Exactly right. This is all money, all this surveillance, all this wasted time. Just to simply fair game. A former senior executive of Scientology and were just just on the air, just on the point of tax free status as well.

We were talking before about how there's no compassion as a culture of punishment. Sure. That people who have something wrong with them are blamed for pulling it in from a previous life. Sure, that means they don't believe in charity. And so what is the basis of tax deductible tax? Tax benefit? You're a charity. Yes, but you're a charitable organization. Yes. So how does an organization that doesn't believe in charity, that punishes people, that actually says that if you're unemployed or you're disabled or that you have learning difficulties or whatever, that it's your fault from a previous life, how do they get charity status?

You are asking great questions. I think the IRS should answer that. I think the IRS should ask Scientology that.

But they're fully well aware of what Scientology isn't doing with their tax exempt money. They just don't want to deal with it because they're the ones who granted it and they know what they did.

They knew they were and that. Yeah, and they granted it only because they wanted the harassment to stop. So they rewarded the Church of Scientology for harassing them by giving them tax free status.

Yes, that's exactly right. Hey, see, Steve, you you know your stuff, man.

Yeah, I'm really impressed. Yeah, I did. I immersed myself in it for a few years. It took me four years to write the book. And I thought it was important to understand it, not just to hear people's stories, but to understand it and understand the motivations and to understand what Hubbard wrote and what he said. And because everything goes back to him, I mean, Miscavige is taken and turned it up to the nth degree and increase the punishment.

But a lot of people think that David Miscavige invented punishment into Scientology. But that's just not true. L. Ron Hubbard used to work on the Apollo, used to put small children into the chain locker as punishment, isolate them from their parents. Hubbard was in on the punishment, too. So remember, it goes back to him, of course.

And remember that L. Ron Hubbard teaches and believes that children are not children, that they are spiritual, old spiritual beings and little bodies. And they've come back so that he believes that their Sea Org members and Scientologists that have come back to continue their mission of making the planet 80 percent of the planet Scientologists. So they don't I mean, there's policies written about, you know, if you tell the truth about Scientology and publicly speak out against the abusive practices of Scientology, you are considered an enemy, a suppressive person.

That's what the label is.

And L. Ron Hubbard says, hey, it doesn't matter if your child is suppressive, is oppressive and you treat them as such. And the same with punishment in Scientology. He believes that children are to be punished the same as adults because he believes that they are adults. And so all Scientologists believe that. And all Scientologists raise their children as old spiritual beings and a little body. So it's going to continue in that way because that's the teachings of Scientology.

But let's move on, Mike, from there, because you had all these bullet points. I want you to make sure you get to them.

Yeah.

What's interesting is that Steve and I had a an interesting discussion about Scientology in Australia, because obviously this is something that's kind of near and dear to my heart of my parents got involved in Scientology in Australia when Hubbard was first went there in the late 50s. And then I was raised in the in the era of the Victorian governmental inquiry in Australia.

And I was saying to Steve at the time, look, Australia has a huge part in the history of Scientology and the formulation of Hubbard's worldview.

Yeah, it was the first country where Scientology was at a government investigation and was literally banned. The practice of Scientology was banned in the state of Victoria.

Right. But then it was also the first country where the highest court in the land recognised Scientology as a religion. Right.

And in fact, it may be still the only country where that is the case.

It's also the first country where there was a bunch of journalists who pushed back on Scientology and didn't put up with the with the fair gaming tactics.

Right.

There were a whole bunch of Scientologists who had a very prominent role in the history of Scientology, ranging from Yvonne Jentsch, who founded Celebrity Centre and her daughters, Terry and Janice, who were very important in the early years of the organisation and were like Hubbards right hand assistants.

And then there was the, you know, Rupert Murdoch and his involvement from my old hometown.

And what was what was his involvement?

Rupert Murdoch was well, he started, as you know, News Corp, which is now Fox, and he started from Adelaide, Australia, with the Evening News in Adelaide.

And he was considered by Scientology and Hubbard to be one of the main suppressive persons on planet Earth.

Why? Because he was a media baron. And the media, all media are the enemies of Scientology, right? Every one of them.

And so Hubbard had listed down, you know, Cecil King, Rupert Murdoch, a bunch of these media barons who were the suppressive, who were trying to prevent Scientology from growing in the world.

And Rupert Murdoch figured very prominently in that list and over the years didn't have a lot of nice things to say about Scientology.

And neither did his news organizations like.

There was also, you know, obviously, James Packer, who came along later, who was interestingly the some of the other huge media baron in Australia, Kerry Packer, who was sort of it was Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, the two big gorillas of Australian media.

And James Packer became best buddies with Tom Cruise.

And, of course, it was Nicole Kidman who was Australian and Julian Assange who did big WikiLeaks stuff on on.

So there was this all of this Australians sort of, I don't know, influence or interaction.

And Hubbard claimed to have been in Brisbane during the war and was a great war hero and all of these things and sort of now Steve spent four years and sort of pull all this together into an incredible book about fair game and even traces the history of the Guardian's office and a lot of the fair game tactics to what had happened in Australia.

I'm sorry, Steve.

I'm ranting and I'm realize I'm rambling. This is your book. You should be talking.

I'm like, oh, thank you, Mike and Mike and Mike. Mike, I've got to give you credit for pointing out these links to me early on. And that's really what motivated me to write this book and to try and pull these strands together. You mentioned Hubbard being in 1942. He did serve briefly in Australia during the war. Hubbard took ages to try. He had a pretty inglorious war record. And he claimed at one point in the nineteen fifties that he helped saved Australia from the Japanese during World War Two.

But if you look up his war record, that's a complete crock. He spent less than two months in Brisbane. He got sent home for insubordination. When he got sent home, he owed money to a local menswear store. He owned a machine gun to the Australian military. He'd been sent home for insubordination. One of his superiors described him as garrulous and he said, well, you know, like full of himself.

And he later claimed, well, there's two different versions of events. The Church of Scientology will say that he won anywhere between twenty one and twenty seven war medals, including a apocalypse, which is just ridiculous. It's just not true. He got four more war medals, the ones you get just from serving, not from actually doing anything special. And how it also came up with this extraordinary tale that he was machine gunned in the back by the Japanese in Java and that he then got into a dinghy and rode to Australia from Java.

Now, I got the maps out and worked out that he would have done that. That's that's a thousand miles or six hundred kilometres for people who use the Australian system. And so he was in a dinghy by himself rowing for six hundred kilometres in the monsoon season in shark infested waters and somehow made it to Australia. So there you go. That's that's a classic Hubbard story that just does not stack up. It's not true. Sure. And also, like lying about your war record is one of the lowest things you could ever do in the US.

I think you call it being a valid faith. And there's now laws that you could prosecute. If Hubbard was alive today, you could prosecute him for being a Evalyn fee, for lying about his war record and exaggerating his war record. The Rupert Murdoch stuff I found just fascinating because in the nineteen sixties and Mike pointed out that he started off with a newspaper in Adelaide and then he bought a newspaper in Sydney called The Daily Mirror. And when he bought that newspaper, he got another tabloid muckraking paper called Truth, and it started crusading against Scientology, mostly as a consumer issue, mostly saying these people have been ripped off and they deserve to have their money back.

And at all times they referred to it as bunk homology. And this had a bit of a role in leading to the inquiry, the first public inquiry anywhere in the world into Scientology, which led to the ban in Victoria. And then the Scientologists wanted to get Murdoch. And I found evidence in my research that they conducted a spying operation against Rupert Murdoch where they hired a private investigator to get information on him. And this was in nineteen sixty eight.

Now, I tracked down the private investigator and leave his name, I swear it, straight out of a Hollywood film. His name was Rex Beaver and Rex Baiba Private. I kept the best records I've ever seen and of anybody. And when I finally got on to him, I rang everybody who had the name Beevor in western Sydney and left messages on their machines.

And finally, one day I got this call from somebody said, It's Rex, Peter here. Rex, I am so, so glad to hear from you because I didn't even know if the guy was alive. Right.

And. I said, I'm ringing you about a job you did about 50 years ago, I don't know whether you remember it or not. It goes on Trami, I think about the Church of Scientology and this is pause and you discuss how could I forget it? Now, not only does Rex remember. This particular job that he had, he kept. Incredible notes, he kept his pay slips, he kept his payslips from the Church of Scientology. So, my God, the Scientologists, as they do, denied it.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We never spied on Rupert Murdoch. And it's like, oh, really? Well, I've got the payslips. And so Rex was hired to spy on Rupert Murdoch. They took him into the Church of Scientology in Sydney. All he did really was answer an ad in the newspaper saying private investigator wanted. And he went in there and they gave him a security check.

So that means they're asking him, you know, are you a communist? Are you a homosexual? Have you ever had ill intentions about L. Ron Hubbard? And he's just thinking, who are these weirdos? Right. Right. So he then says, OK, I need the money, so I'll take the job. And so he starts gathering, gathering information about Rupert Murdoch. But what he does is he goes and meets with Rupert Murdoch and says, hey, I've been hired by the Church of Scientology to spy on you.

Do you want me to play double agent, pretend that I'm still spying on you, but actually spy on them and then help you get a story?

And if that sounds sensational and so far so good, Murdoch then helps Rex with a bit of intel, feeds it back to the Scientologists. And then a few weeks later, when Rupert's got enough on the Scientologists, they splashed on the front page of The Daily Mirror in Sydney about this spying operation. Now, the Scientologists never forgot that. And remember, your podcast is about fair game. If you go back to Hubbard in nineteen fifty nine when he wrote the Manual of Justice.

Yeah. What was that line in there where he said some people attacked Scientology. I never forget always even the score. Is that the right term, Mark, that you quoted it perfectly.

Now we just talk about that for one second manual. And Justice is a set of directives written for the Guardian's Office, now called the Office of Special Affairs, which is the dirty tricks Department of Scientology. And you are talking about one of those policies in Scientology that is still used today. Right. And actually, it even predated the Guardian's Office.

Oh, really? I tell that 59. I didn't know that. And it was it was for the people who work directly for Hubbard in what he called at the time, his personal office, the Hubbard Communications Office.

Understood. OK, so fast forward decades later, the Scientologists want to even the score. And Marty Rathbun, back when he was talking to journalists still, and he was very helpful to me and provided me with certain information. And he told me that he'd gone through the files of Scientology in California, the intelligence files, and Rupert Murdoch was up there with the head of pharmaceutical companies and and prominent psychiatrists, as you know, the most evil people, according to the Scientologists, because they believe that he helped create this inquiry in Victoria that triggered the ban and everything else.

And so Marty told me. That David Miscavige. Him and Tom Cruise had a conversation about how they could help recruit James Packer to the Church of Scientology, James Packer was very close friends with Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, and that if they could get James in. And James could work on Lochlan and they could get Lochlyn in, then the Church of Scientology and the term was could get get its claws into News Corp and seek revenge on Rupert Murdoch.

Now, they got James Packer in and by all accounts. Well, Marty Rathbun told me that he felt it was quite Scientology was quite helpful to James Packer at that stage in his life, but they certainly didn't get Lachlan Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch, you'll remember, tweeted about Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise and and everyone was going, why is Murdoch tweeting about them and about them being evil and a creepy cult, not knowing this history going back to the 1960s?

Sure. But but Lachlan Murdoch said in a quote to The Daily Beast, You know, I tend to agree with my father on this, but I don't tweet about it, you know, so they were never going to get Lachlan because he was very skeptical of the Church of Scientology, as Rupert was. So you can see this, can't you? You can see this vengeful we must not only attack, but we're going to get revenge on them.

40 or 50 years ago for a slight back in the 1960s, that operation didn't work on on Lachlan Murdoch. But, hey, they tried it and it went straight to the top. It went straight to David Miscavige.

Right.

And and, Steve, something else that I found absolutely fascinating in your book was the fact that what started the Victorian government inquiry was Elrond Hubbard's obstinate refusal to give one man his money back, literally, right?

That's right. There was a guy called Philip one, and he. Was so like L. Ron Hubbard, I can't begin to tell you, he himself was a scam artist. He himself had an appallingly disgraceful military record. He was even into science fiction. He was a cartoonist for a while, but he stole a whole lot of cartoons from an American cartoon, published them in an Australian book and thought he would get away with it. But no, he was a plagiarist.

He was just he was the world's worst scam artist. And it's nothing more. A scam artist hates them being ripped off by another scam artist. And so and so when he started Scientology to make money because he thought someone sold it to him as a way he could make more money. But after he joined the Church of Scientology, his business went bankrupt and he was suddenly working as an auditor in the Church of Scientology.

Or was the Scientology? Yeah, it was working at a Scientology council in Melbourne, earning very little money. And he's going, hang on a second. He had an epiphany since I since I started getting involved in Scientology, I lost all this money. My life is falling apart. What is going on here, and he's asked for a refund and I got the letters, I've got the letters that you can look at in the in the book where he wrote to L.

Ron Hubbard there in the ER in the Victorian archives. And it's this hilarious collision of two mad people. It reminds me of when you play when you play football. Each side has a mad person on their side and they always find them, find each other in the first five minutes of the game. They just they're drawn to each other in this magnetic force field. Sure, it was these two mad people are drawn together and they're writing crazy letters, except one has more insight about Scientology than most people ever have, the way he describes what a racket it is.

And he asked for his money back. And one of words, Offsiders says, Sahaba, just give him his money back. He's going to cause you problems. He's going to cause you problems. Hubbard only has one gear. He can only attack his his critics. He cannot it there's no nuance. There's no ability to compromise. So what? So Hubbard goes, no, no, no. And he's writing these abusive, offensive letters back to one.

So what does one do? He starts talking to politicians, writing letters to the medical establishment, and that all that triggers the Victorian inquiry, which which goes for 15 months, which leads to the ban in Victoria. And then later, what's interesting is there's a journalist called Alex Mitchell. He's still around. He's an Australian journalist, is the only man I ever know who tried to interview L. Ron Hubbard at a urinal at a casino in Corfu. L.

Ron Hubbard, while he was taking a piss, refused to be interviewed about it, gives you an insight into what an intrepid reporter Alex Mitchell is. Anyway, Alex took the Victorian report. Yeah, when he moved to London and he handed it around to every reporter in Fleet Street in the British newspapers that then started to pop up in reports about Scientology in the UK. Then a British politician called Little Lord Bail. Neil gets up in the parliament and starts speaking out about Scientology.

What happens then? Hubbard, who's living in Saint Hill Manor in the English countryside at this time. Yeah, sets up what is called the investigations unit. If Scientology and they hire a private investigator to dig up dirt on Lord bail. Neil, now, once again, it backfires because that investigator. Decides he doesn't like the Scientologists and goes to the press and exposes the story about a private investigator, him being hired to spy on a British parliamentarian who's speaking out about Scientology.

So what happens then? Hubbard goes, well, we're not going to hire private investigators anymore. We're going to set up the Guardian's office. So that's where the Guardian's office comes from, this of this process going right back to the disgruntled customer. Hubbard should have given giving his money back to triggering an inquiry that then feeds into the British press to Lord Bail. Neal, who speaks out in Parliament. Hubbard can't handle it. He overreaches once again.

And the history of Scientology is this. His history of overreaching by Hubbard and his followers. And it causes more problems than it's worth. And that leads to the Guardian's office, which leads to the stories that you've been covering on this podcast, things like what happened to the Paulette Cooper.

Right. So at the time you spoke to your speech, me like we were just saying, Marty Rathbun was on the right side of this fight at one point until he got a house and went back into Scientology.

Now his job is attacking his friends. But in the book, which I hope people buy and read, you talk about wiretapping Nicole Kidman and and then Marty Rathbun discovered the main upset had been what?

What can you just explain this part? Because I am 100 percent understand that. Maybe you want to.

Let's let Steve explain it, because Marty Rathbun spoke to you and he revealed information that nobody else had gotten at that time about the break up of Tom and Nicole.

Right.

Yeah. And really, when I watched Going Clear, Alex Gibney excellent documentary about Scientology, he interviewed Marty Rathbun and man who gave bits of information away about. What happened where the Church of Scientology was involved in helping spy on Nicole Kidman during the break up of her marriage with her and Tom Cruise? Right. And. I was really interested and according to that version of events, Tom said that he wanted her calls recorded by now by. Why? Well, it's hard to know what was going because you could and, you know, I tell people that all the time, you know, I hate to listen because I don't I don't talk about other actors in the business because, listen, we can all be assholes, right?

Like we all, you know, are yelling about, like, where's my bagel? I asked for a specific sesame. OK, so I'm not talking about the assholes.

We're all entitled narcissistic assholes in this business.

But what people don't understand the reason why I go on about Tom Cruise. I knew him personally because he was the reason I left Scientology. And so for that, I am grateful. However, I saw a side of Scientology and the power of Tom Cruise and what he does to Scientologists who work for him, who know him. And I had it was the beginning of the end for me when I saw that, you know, I was a by the book Scientologist.

Right.

And so if I saw the technology of L. Ron Hubbard was being abused, I didn't care if you were Tom Cruise or this one or that one.

I still apply the technology that I knew. And what I was under the assumption of was that there is nobody special in Scientology. But I saw that that did not apply to Tom Cruise because he was best friends with David Miscavige, a key part of the equation.

And the relationship between Cruise and Miscavige is key here. But a key part of this story is, is that Nicole Kidman got Tom Cruise to drift from Scientology. He was missing for a few years, particularly when I was shooting Eyes Wide shot in the UK. Sure. And. Nicole Kidman, as you know, Leah, is a very smart, rational woman. Her father was a psychologist. She was raised by a feminist mother, politically active. She's very switched on character.

And, yes, she did do certain levels of Scientology, but I think she was exposed to the truth of it. And she got out and she got she convinced Tom to get out and he was away. But what she didn't realize at the time was that Michael Donovan paid up Scientologist reporting directly to David Miscavige, is working for Tom Cruise and reporting back everything that's going on in that house, going on in that relationship to the Church of Scientology, to David Miscavige.

Exactly. To David Miscavige. And Marty Rathbun gave me details about this about Donovan's role in spying on Tom and Nicole and feeding the information back to Miscavige. Sure. And so while Nicole had got him to drift from Scientology, they've got this Scientology agent in their lives and Nicole doesn't really know about this. Well, so here's the thing.

What's happening is that Tom is getting further and further away from Scientology, which would have been a great thing for him and it wouldn't be a great thing for him even today, so that he could have a relationship with his daughter Suri, and that their adopted kids, Connor and Bella, could have a relationship with their mom, Nicole.

So I think it'd be a great thing.

But here's what happens when somebody is labeled somebody who might be a potential trouble to David Miscavige and take away their star, which is Tom Cruise.

Right. They are now on an all out attack against Nicole. So they what conspire to meaning David Miscavige to get Tom away from the cult that conspire to break up the relationship.

And what did he tell you that would more than help you? Well, Donovan Tovan helps get Tom back for auditing and then they start planting the seeds in his head about, you know, breaking up and all the rest of it. And and then that's when Tom, according to this version of events and Burt Fields, Tom's lawyer, denies it, that Tom wanted Nicole spied on the calls recorded now, but Fields worked with a legendary P.I. in the US called Anthony Pellicano, who went to jail for tapping people's phones at the telephone exchange.

I think it was. And now Bert Fields deny that they use Pellicano. Marty Rathbun told me that he didn't want Pellicano involved, but the private investigator, that phones were tapped and in going clear, he discloses this. But I'm in my head, I'm thinking, OK, so if it's true that Tom wants her phone tapped, what does he want to know about? So I asked Marty, was he worried about someone in particular? And I could just hear Marty drag on a cigarette and he says, Russell Crowe, Russell Crowe is a really good friend of Nicole Kidman, has been so for years now.

Marty told me that there was nothing untoward because he apparently had access to the recordings and also his phone conversations as to Nicole's, you know, confidential Scientology auditing.

Yeah, he would he would have for sure. So he said there was nothing untoward, but he said that that was a motivating factor, that Cruz wanted to know what Crowe was saying to Nicole Kidman. And Marty told me that old Crowe was doing doing was being a good friend to Cole in a time of crisis. But but it's just so all pervasive. You can't get it. Even if you decide to leave Scientology and you get your partner to leave Scientology, they infiltrate your lives, they tap your phones.

They have people working for you, spying on you and feeding information back to the head of Scientology. Right. It's just so insidious.

I want to just add, James Packer is still friends with Tom Davis, who used to be the former spokesperson of Scientology. He's not in the Sea Org anymore, but he's still a Scientologist.

And I think that this is just my opinion, Mike and Steve, but I believe that Brian Seymour's documentary that was about to come out, his investigative report on Scientology and the fair gaming of Paul Haggis, had a lot to do with the connection of Tom Cruise being friends with Packer and being friends with Tom Davis. I think that had a lot to do with that particular show not airing. That's just my opinion. But go ahead, Steve. Did you want to add anything?

I was just going to say this about Tommy Davis did work for James Packer and James Packer has been close with Kerry Stokes, who's the head of the Seven Network, who Brian works for. Like, I don't know, the ins and outs of that story, but neither do I. But, hey, why why do they suddenly kill a program after putting a promotional trailer out there and having it online to mention it was it was vetted in January.

Like no one's airing a story on Scientology that's not legally vetted, like nobody will ever.

And the history will ever do a show about Scientology that's not vetted legally.

And to be at the eleventh hour pulling a show that was vetted in January, going to air in July. Right, Mike?

Yeah, not to mention that the Brian has done dozens of stories over the years that have gone to air and he hasn't been sued. And the Church of Scientology hasn't sued for a very long time in relation to media stories. I don't know what's going on, but it looks like there's been pressure.

You know, Steve, I'm not sure if you actually realized, but that then the the subsequent events to Lord Bell Neil and the formation of the Guardian's office was the ban on Hubbard being able to enter Britain and the destruction of the sea organisation.

Exactly. And of course, the sale and the sale is is is described as this kind of Hubbards discovery tour and his research. But he's on the run. That's what is on the run from the authorities. He has to leave the UK because they're closing in on him and they banned students coming in to Britain and studying Scientology. And Hubbard is saying the writing on the wall. And so he forms the Sea Org and they hit the seas and, you know, he's on the run just because I want to promote a few other things, because I really think people should read your book.

There's some other fascinating stuff in there. You got Terri Gamboa to talk to you and Terry has not spoken to anybody. And she told you the story of. Her departure from the sea organization and then the fact that that Dave LaBeau was sent in to spy on her and her sister Janice in Las Vegas and actually worked for and with them, Dave LaBeau, the private investigator who spent like three years tailing me, who tailed Marty Rathbun, who who started out after Terry and Janice, Bob Mintern.

And was on Bob Mintern for years, Dave LaBeau was, and that story of Terry is an astonishing story because I don't know if you even know this, Leah Terry, like, they not only had a house opposite me, Terry was such a threat to David Miscavige and the IRS tax exemption because what she knew from her position, yeah, she was lured to go live on a horse farm in Australia wi with to get her out of the country.

I see.

Literally a guy was set up, a multimillionaire fake multimillionaire set up with a horse stud in Australia. And this is because Terry loves horses. So she was lured to go on.

This incredible deal will fly you home to Australia. You can live on this ranch. You'll be completely in control of it. It's all funded by this wealthy guy from Thailand or something.

She was literally gotten out of the country, right? She could, which is, by the way, still happening today.

You know, I'm aware of certain things that are going I mean, this is very normal for Scientology.

If you were named as a person to of interest to talk to in any case in Scientology, all of a sudden that person is shipped off to another country where authorities cannot reach them.

And this is continuing on today. Right.

The difference with Terry, though, was she wasn't under their control anymore. She left. So they spent literally millions and millions of dollars establishing this elaborate scheme and scam for the sole purpose of getting Terri Gamboa out of the United States like millions.

And the reason why she was a threat was that was she was a trustee and she didn't even realize it at the time, which made meant she had incredible power. Some people even argue that the three trustees had power to kick out Miscavige. And so her name was on key documents that the Church of Scientology at the time had given to the IRS in the US when when they're trying to get tax free status. And she was out of Scientology. So if the IRS had done their job, looked her up and called her and found her, it could have derailed their whole program to get tax free status.

So that's why they moved her out of out of the country and put her on a horse farm with this elaborate ruse that, you know, this millionaire guy had a proposal for them. But talking to Terry was fantastic. And I just convincing her to talk was a big deal because she'd never spoken to anybody. And in fact, you remember the famous Ted Koppel interview with David Miscavige. Mike knows that well because he went to the studio that day.

That's as far as I can remember. Yep, yep. Yes. So I never I know I don't think anyone knows this, but Ted Koppel rang Terri Gamboa after she'd got out and wanted her to go on to Nightline and debate David Miscavige during that TV appearance. Sure. But she was on. Yeah, but she was not in the kind of state that she felt that she could do it. She'd got out of Scientology. She wanted a quiet life.

She didn't want to, you know, set off that explosion, exploding device by going on and debating Miscavige. But so she was very skeptical of talking to journalists. And I still remember I was at a certain kind of anti Scientology conference in Toronto. I flew into Las Vegas and I, first of all, met Janis at an All You Can Eat Buffet and a very low rent casino on the outskirts of Las Vegas. And I spoke to Janis, her sister, and then.

I said, Janice told me, you can call Terry now on this number. And so Terry says to me, OK, I'm going to meet you on the third floor. I'm driving a certain type of car. Make sure you're not tailed. So she picks me up on the third floor of this car park because as Mike points out, Dave LaBeau had actually infiltrated the business. So, of course, she has good reason to fear still being followed 30 years.

And so she then takes me to a cheesecake shop in an industrial part of Las Vegas. And we sit down and we start talking. And so she starts, she says, OK, I want to see some of what you've written. And so I show her a chapter where I talk about L. Ron Hubbard living in Tangier and taking a lot of drugs. And she's reading it and she's going, I didn't know about this. Oh, this is interesting.

Yeah. And so then she can see that I've done my research. And so then she agrees to go on the record with me, which was very gutsy given the power that she held within that organization and the potential blowback that she could have got. Sure. And she told me her incredible story. And it's amazing because she was one of Hubbard's original Commodore's messages on on the boat she used to light cigarettes, Pallone's trousers, send these messages out to all Hubbards in the early days of the OR was on a ship called the Apollo.

Right, Mike? And yep. And by the way, Janis wrote a book, we should mention that she called The Jukebox. OK, we should also put those up.

I will. And so they were able to tell the Janis Antaria and also their brother Peter were able to tell their incredible escape stories of getting out of the Sea Org and being tailed and followed. And he was working for their company called CitiMortgage, and he was working as a private investigator. He was never closing any sales. Janice and Terry got a bit suspicious of the fact that he was never closing any sales. And there was someone working for the company, I think, who got drunk with him one day.

And Dave told him, I'm not actually here is a mortgage broker. I moved to Las Vegas on an operation. I'm a private investigator. And he took him back to his house and showed him all these private investigation equipment. And so that guy then pass that on to Janice Shaw and then they were able to expose LaBeau, who's made so much money out of this, and he hasn't retired and isn't living on an island somewhere.

I mean, is it I mean, is the definition of dirty money. I don't know what that could be. And that goes for that.

And I should say this, that that goes for every piece of shit P.I. who takes money from Scientology. And I'm saying this from experience. What I'm going through right now, which I'm not going to talk about because, you know, you don't let everybody know what's going down. But when you take jobs for Scientology, understand as a as a private investigator, what you're doing is you are stalking, harassing victims of serious abuse. You're you're stalking victims of horrific crimes.

These are people who were abused in Scientology. These are people who were molested and Scientology raped in Scientology, physically, mentally abused, lost their families.

And they have the courage to speak out, which is why they're on the radar of Scientology and why they're being fair game by Scientology. So I say this to current peers and people who are being hired by Scientology. I don't know how you sleep at night doing what you do to people who are brave enough to speak out. Sorry, Steve.

What what I would say later is I 100 percent agree with you on that, but I would like them to follow the lead of Rexhepi, the I love Beaver, I love church and take the Church of Scientology is money and act as double agents and spy on them and feed it back. Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

1000 percent perfect. Any parting words, Steve, that you'd like to say about Fair Game?

Well, it's been great being on and I just think it's terrific that you guys don't let go because as we've discussed, the Church of Scientology will not change its ways and David Miscavige continues to play that role. And no, there's no accountability and there's no justice. And, you know, like I discovered the most awful things when I was researching my book of human trafficking, forced abortions, slavery, cover up and child sexual abuse. What are the worst things imaginable?

Yes. And yet Miscavige still sits in that room and is allowed to get away. Yeah, drinking is Scotch with these ridiculously priced starched shirts and is preposterous, you know, uniforms and everything else. And he still gets to gets away with it. And look, I just think it's terrific that you guys are not letting it go.

Thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your book and thank you for continuing to talk to us, because you know what? A lot of people go, hey, listen, I did that. I'm not. What is he to do with it? I got fair game. I don't want to private is around my house. I don't want them trying to get my job.

So we really appreciate when people are willing to continue to expose Scientology for what they do.

And we thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much, Steve. It's terrific to talk to you again. Yeah. Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, Leah. It's been great. Who could be responsible for murdering a family of five in the most horrific way imaginable?

That's what occurred when quiet night in Essex, England, in 1985, when police ruled that 28 year old Sheila Cofell murdered her parents and six year old twin boys before killing herself as evidence continued to surface. However, the truth revealed something even more sinister. I'm Lauren Bright. Pachuco. Join me as we go behind the crime scenes of the new HBO series, the murders at White House Farm, as well as the infamous real life events that inspired it.

We'll talk to the people involved with the series and the case itself and find out why suspicion started to shift from Sheila to someone else and reflect on the fallout for all involved stream the murders at White House Farm now on Biomax and subscribe and listen to the murders at White House Farm, the podcast on the radio app, Biomax, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.