Scientology deaths raise questions

[Tampa Tribune 8 December 1997]

12/8/97 -- 12:48 AM

Scientology deaths raise questions By JEFF STIDHAM and WILLIAM YELVERTON of The Tampa Tribune

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CLEARWATER - The deaths of at least eight members of the Church of Scientology since 1980 have left families and in some cases authorities looking for answers, a newspaper reported Sunday.

``We are getting old,'' Mary Frei, the mother of one of the people who died, told the St. Petersburg Times. ``We'd like to have the truth about what happened. But I don't know. Maybe we'll never get it.''

The most prominent of the eight cases is Lisa McPherson, 36, who died Dec. 5, 1995.

After 17 days at Scientology's Fort Harrison Hotel, she was taken to a hospital by church staff where she was pronounced dead soon after her arrival.

But seven other Scientologists who were in apparently sound health died suddenly after coming to Clearwater for training or counseling, the Times reported.

Joan Wood, medical examiner in Pinellas County, reviewed autopsy reports of the seven deaths.

She said the causes of death may never be known for some of them. In some cases, Wood was not sure what caused the deaths, but she could rule out foul play. With others, Wood thinks more investigation is needed.

The deaths examined by the Times include:

-- Margarit Winkelmann, 51, who walked fully clothed into Clearwater Bay and drowned herself in January 1980.

-- Josephus A. Havenith, 45, who died in February 1980 at the Fort Harrison Hotel in a bathtub filled with water so hot it burned his skin off.

-- Andreas Ostertag, 38, head of the Scientology mission in Stuttgart, Germany, who apparently drowned while swimming to a sailboat anchored off of Fort Desoto Park in 1985.

-- Peter E. Frei, 37, who was found floating in a Dunedin waterway in June 1988 several days before the Church of Scientology reported him missing from his room at the Fort Harrison Hotel.

-- Heribert Pfaff, 31, who died of an apparent seizure in the Fort Harrison Hotel in August 1988 after he quit taking medication that controlled his seizures.

-- Roger Nind, 49, a Scientologist who was reportedly trying to get a $70,000 refund, arrived in Clearwater from Australia in October 1992 and was killed in an accident on Cleveland Street the next day.

-- Carrie Slaughterbeck, 23, who was found dead in her Clearwater apartment in March 1997.

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