Karen#1
Well-known member
I’m going deep into the interpersonal dynamics and relationships that flared up between Shelly and me, and Dave and my then-wife, Jennifer Linson De Vocht, over the years — especially leading up to 2005/2006. Just before I left. And just before Shelly Miscavige disappeared.
What if Shelly disappeared on her own accord?
What kind of pressure does it take to make someone disappear?
And who do they become — right before they do?
These are questions I have some personal experience with.
These are also questions I may be able to shed some light on in regards to Shelly Miscavige — someone I considered a personal friend, at least within the limits of a tightly controlled environment that made it nearly impossible to know anyone outside a work relationship.
Being close to Dave or Shelly was like handling dynamite — you never knew when it would ignite in your hand and blow off your face.
Back Story
When I met Jenny Linson, we were both at the Gold Base — back when it was still more cult than prison — the mid and late 1980s.
Per David Miscavige — whom I accidentally ran into at the Cask ’n Cleaver Steakhouse near Hemet one New Year’s Eve — I was “the most eligible bachelor on the entire Int base.”
Back then, the base wasn’t locked down. If the stats were up, we’d go to Friday night movies, dinners out, even dancing. Christmas and New Year’s were always the best — sometimes we’d get two or three days off in a row and head to Big Bear to ski. We got small bonuses. A little cash. A little freedom.
That New Year’s Eve, I went with about nine other guys to the Cask ’n Cleaver for steaks. As we were being seated, I almost turned around — a table nearby was packed with the top brass: Dave and Shelly, Norman Starkey and his wife, Marc Yager and Michelle, Marc Ingber and Liz, and others.
I tried to be invisible, but I heard laughs, then got flagged over.
I walked to the head of the table where Dave sat.
He said, “What the fuck, man!? Per Shelly and Michelle — you’re the most eligible bachelor on the entire base, and you’re here with a group of dudes?!”
In retrospect — he had a point.
After some bull-baiting, I went back to my table. Dave ordered us all a round of drinks: milk. Yes. Milk. We were underage. He wasn’t. Classic Dave — but honestly, something I might’ve done too. It was apropos.
The Wedding
A year or so later on a Christmas break, I was crammed in a white base van full of people and gear, no seats left. Last minute, a new recruit ran up asking for a spot. “NO!” everyone yelled.
Jenny Linson — petite, pretty, someone I’d barely met — climbed over two rows and dropped directly into my lap.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Ah, no… of course not,” I said, surprised. She made herself comfortable.
We laughed and talked the whole ride, spent the day together, and a couple of months later, I asked her to marry me.
I was a virgin and desperate to end it. In the Sea Org, marriage was the only way — unless you wanted a stint in the RPF for “Out 2D.”
She was pretty, curvy, and we got along well. She was my first real love.
She accepted.
The wedding was held at her dad’s house in Santa Monica. I invited Dave out of respect — not because I knew him particularly well. He asked who my best man was. I was too oblivious to realize he was suggesting himself. He declined to come, but made sure others attended so it wouldn’t look too cultish.
Art Linson, her father, invited friends, family, and even a few celebrities.
Jenny and I arrived a day early. By the book — “ethics in” — we didn’t sleep together that night. But I did get to touch her boobs. It felt like a transgression — a thrill and a risk we were both willing to take.
Art was drunk before noon. He slung an arm over my shoulder, a nearly empty bottle of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque in the other hand. No glass.
“Tom, it won’t last more than a year,” he slurred. “But I hope it does.”
He denies that ever happened. I was sober. It did.
To this day, I have the utmost respect for that man — and for his son, John.
An Attempted Recovery
After a short honeymoon in Hawaii, it was back to the grind.
But something had shifted. Dave became intensely interested in Jenny and me — specifically, what he saw as a potential recovery mission for Art Linson. Art had once done “2D counseling” with his wife Barbara (Lilly) — it didn’t go well. He’d been turned off Scientology ever since.
Shelly became increasingly involved with Jenny, who was working in CMO Gold. Shelly was training Messengers, and Jenny became a favorite.
Like a prelude to the Tom Cruise visits to come, the base was prepped for a potential visit from Art. He came. He saw the studios. He met Dave. He was polite but unimpressed — with both the place and the man.
Early Days at the Flag Land Base
By the late 1980s, Jenny and I arrived at Flag. I was assigned as CO CMO Clearwater. Jenny was Deputy CO for internal matters.
We also became the de facto hosts for the Miscaviges during events. I built berthing. Jenny made binders of restaurant ideas, boat trips, sightseeing. We did it all.
Shelly once told me I seemed externally influenced — that I invited them out too much. But if I didn’t invite them, that was noted as disrespectful.
The Relationship
We spent hours together — Shelly, Dave, Jenny, and I — in movie theaters, restaurants, boats, picnics. But I never saw Dave and Shelly kiss. Never saw real intimacy.
Once, on a boat in the Gulf, I saw them cover their heads with a towel. I thought they were getting close — I took photos. Later I found out they were just discussing when to tell us it was time to head back.
All the photos of our many adventures? Confiscated before I left.
Our last Christmas party at the Hacienda was wild. We drank, we danced, we stayed up until dawn. It felt like a rave — close, loose, like we were all rolling on ecstasy. No rules. No roles.
The next day everything changed.
A barrier went up.
No more fun.
Something had shifted.
An Unfinished Beer and Sex Talk
One evening I was told to stop by COB’s Hacienda apartment — alone — when I got home. What that really meant was: “Leave now. And don’t bring Jenny.”
It was earlier than I’d ever left work, but I didn’t question it. The urgency didn’t need to be stated — I felt it.
Dave answered the door. Something in his eyes made the hairs on my neck stand up. Shelly was there too — silent. Her expression mirrored mine: alarm.
Dave offered me a beer. I took it. He guided me into the living room and sat me in a chair. It felt official. Intense. Not personal. The beer only made it worse — like a “relax while I prepare to behead you” kind of moment.
Shelly sat behind him on the couch — still, wide-eyed.
He raised his bottle. Mine was open. His wasn’t.
“Go ahead, drink up!” he said.
Then: “Dude, can you imagine being married and not having sex with your wife?”
Shelly’s head dropped, slowly shaking side to side.
Caught off guard, I hesitated.
“I mean — how many times should a married couple have sex in a week?” Dave asked, pressing me.
I stammered, then said what popped into my head: “Well, sir… if I had my way, two or three times a day.”
That was it. Conversation over.
“Yep. Thanks,” he said, cold and abrupt.
He stood, took my beer, and added: “You can go. Bye.” He escorted me to the door and closed it behind me.
The whole thing lasted maybe four minutes.
I walked home stunned.
What the hell was that about? Me and Jenny? Him and Shelly? All of us?
The next morning, I was told Jenny was being sent on a mission to LA.
After that, I barely saw her — for the next 19 years of our so-called marriage.
She was now part of Dave’s inner circle.
And that didn’t sit well with Shelly.
The Breaking Point
Many things happened between then and this incident in 2005.
A breaking point.
Not long before I would leave for good… and Shelly would disappear.
It was a Friday night. Dave had had an “especially enturbulated day” — though they were all that way by then. Shelly suggested a movie night in the Officers’ Lounge.
It was me, Dave, Shelly, and Lou.
Shelly went to change. She told Lou to do the same — and to grab snacks on the way.
Dave and I sat down with a couple glasses of scotch and a game of backgammon.
A few moments later, Shelly reentered the room — quiet as a whisper.
She wore a silky pajama top that clung to her bare skin — nothing underneath.
She eased onto the couch across from me, behind Dave, directly in my line of sight.
When our eyes met, her already erect nipples seemed to tighten even more.
Reflexively, she reached for the blanket — but then paused.
She let herself be seen.
Her face flickered — seduction blurred by guilt.
I felt lust. And the fear of being caught looking.
Dave, still fixated on the board, asked her something over his shoulder.
Only then did she pull the blanket over herself — but not before one final glance passed between us.
Then it was over.
We never spoke about that moment.
What Came After
But after that, she started talking to me — privately.
Her concerns. Her fears. The constant pressure. The isolation. And her growing hatred toward Jenny.
She was with Dave almost constantly — except when they slept in separate rooms.
I knew the kind of pressure that came with being close to him — I lived it too.
But Shelly lived it all the time. Every hour. Every day.
She was under the same pressure we all were — just multiplied.
And somehow, no one had noticed — until now.
Shelly was afraid. Exhausted. Losing her grip on the one person she’d spent her life protecting — and now barely recognized.
Dave was spiraling.
More violent.
More volatile.
More obsessed — especially with Tom Cruise.
Jenny was rising.
Shelly was fading.
Her belief in Scientology — in Hubbard — was the only strength she had left.
And I was caught in the middle of a four-way collapse — of loyalty, control, fear, and desperation.
Shelly and I saw eye to eye — except on how it would all end.
So maybe Shelly’s disappearance wasn’t what we thought. That Dave locked her up and threw away the key?
Maybe it wasn’t something done to her.
Maybe it was the only thing left she could do — her own protest, her own escape.
Because now I understand something I didn’t back then:
The pressure it takes to make someone disappear…
And who they become — right before they do.
To be continued in Part II: Tom Cruise, Jenny’s Coup, and the Final Straw.
What if Shelly disappeared on her own accord?
What kind of pressure does it take to make someone disappear?
And who do they become — right before they do?
These are questions I have some personal experience with.
These are also questions I may be able to shed some light on in regards to Shelly Miscavige — someone I considered a personal friend, at least within the limits of a tightly controlled environment that made it nearly impossible to know anyone outside a work relationship.
Being close to Dave or Shelly was like handling dynamite — you never knew when it would ignite in your hand and blow off your face.
Back Story
When I met Jenny Linson, we were both at the Gold Base — back when it was still more cult than prison — the mid and late 1980s.
Per David Miscavige — whom I accidentally ran into at the Cask ’n Cleaver Steakhouse near Hemet one New Year’s Eve — I was “the most eligible bachelor on the entire Int base.”
Back then, the base wasn’t locked down. If the stats were up, we’d go to Friday night movies, dinners out, even dancing. Christmas and New Year’s were always the best — sometimes we’d get two or three days off in a row and head to Big Bear to ski. We got small bonuses. A little cash. A little freedom.
That New Year’s Eve, I went with about nine other guys to the Cask ’n Cleaver for steaks. As we were being seated, I almost turned around — a table nearby was packed with the top brass: Dave and Shelly, Norman Starkey and his wife, Marc Yager and Michelle, Marc Ingber and Liz, and others.
I tried to be invisible, but I heard laughs, then got flagged over.
I walked to the head of the table where Dave sat.
He said, “What the fuck, man!? Per Shelly and Michelle — you’re the most eligible bachelor on the entire base, and you’re here with a group of dudes?!”
In retrospect — he had a point.
After some bull-baiting, I went back to my table. Dave ordered us all a round of drinks: milk. Yes. Milk. We were underage. He wasn’t. Classic Dave — but honestly, something I might’ve done too. It was apropos.
The Wedding
A year or so later on a Christmas break, I was crammed in a white base van full of people and gear, no seats left. Last minute, a new recruit ran up asking for a spot. “NO!” everyone yelled.
Jenny Linson — petite, pretty, someone I’d barely met — climbed over two rows and dropped directly into my lap.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Ah, no… of course not,” I said, surprised. She made herself comfortable.
We laughed and talked the whole ride, spent the day together, and a couple of months later, I asked her to marry me.
I was a virgin and desperate to end it. In the Sea Org, marriage was the only way — unless you wanted a stint in the RPF for “Out 2D.”
She was pretty, curvy, and we got along well. She was my first real love.
She accepted.
The wedding was held at her dad’s house in Santa Monica. I invited Dave out of respect — not because I knew him particularly well. He asked who my best man was. I was too oblivious to realize he was suggesting himself. He declined to come, but made sure others attended so it wouldn’t look too cultish.
Art Linson, her father, invited friends, family, and even a few celebrities.
Jenny and I arrived a day early. By the book — “ethics in” — we didn’t sleep together that night. But I did get to touch her boobs. It felt like a transgression — a thrill and a risk we were both willing to take.
Art was drunk before noon. He slung an arm over my shoulder, a nearly empty bottle of Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque in the other hand. No glass.
“Tom, it won’t last more than a year,” he slurred. “But I hope it does.”
He denies that ever happened. I was sober. It did.
To this day, I have the utmost respect for that man — and for his son, John.
An Attempted Recovery
After a short honeymoon in Hawaii, it was back to the grind.
But something had shifted. Dave became intensely interested in Jenny and me — specifically, what he saw as a potential recovery mission for Art Linson. Art had once done “2D counseling” with his wife Barbara (Lilly) — it didn’t go well. He’d been turned off Scientology ever since.
Shelly became increasingly involved with Jenny, who was working in CMO Gold. Shelly was training Messengers, and Jenny became a favorite.
Like a prelude to the Tom Cruise visits to come, the base was prepped for a potential visit from Art. He came. He saw the studios. He met Dave. He was polite but unimpressed — with both the place and the man.
Early Days at the Flag Land Base
By the late 1980s, Jenny and I arrived at Flag. I was assigned as CO CMO Clearwater. Jenny was Deputy CO for internal matters.
We also became the de facto hosts for the Miscaviges during events. I built berthing. Jenny made binders of restaurant ideas, boat trips, sightseeing. We did it all.
Shelly once told me I seemed externally influenced — that I invited them out too much. But if I didn’t invite them, that was noted as disrespectful.
The Relationship
We spent hours together — Shelly, Dave, Jenny, and I — in movie theaters, restaurants, boats, picnics. But I never saw Dave and Shelly kiss. Never saw real intimacy.
Once, on a boat in the Gulf, I saw them cover their heads with a towel. I thought they were getting close — I took photos. Later I found out they were just discussing when to tell us it was time to head back.
All the photos of our many adventures? Confiscated before I left.
Our last Christmas party at the Hacienda was wild. We drank, we danced, we stayed up until dawn. It felt like a rave — close, loose, like we were all rolling on ecstasy. No rules. No roles.
The next day everything changed.
A barrier went up.
No more fun.
Something had shifted.
An Unfinished Beer and Sex Talk
One evening I was told to stop by COB’s Hacienda apartment — alone — when I got home. What that really meant was: “Leave now. And don’t bring Jenny.”
It was earlier than I’d ever left work, but I didn’t question it. The urgency didn’t need to be stated — I felt it.
Dave answered the door. Something in his eyes made the hairs on my neck stand up. Shelly was there too — silent. Her expression mirrored mine: alarm.
Dave offered me a beer. I took it. He guided me into the living room and sat me in a chair. It felt official. Intense. Not personal. The beer only made it worse — like a “relax while I prepare to behead you” kind of moment.
Shelly sat behind him on the couch — still, wide-eyed.
He raised his bottle. Mine was open. His wasn’t.
“Go ahead, drink up!” he said.
Then: “Dude, can you imagine being married and not having sex with your wife?”
Shelly’s head dropped, slowly shaking side to side.
Caught off guard, I hesitated.
“I mean — how many times should a married couple have sex in a week?” Dave asked, pressing me.
I stammered, then said what popped into my head: “Well, sir… if I had my way, two or three times a day.”
That was it. Conversation over.
“Yep. Thanks,” he said, cold and abrupt.
He stood, took my beer, and added: “You can go. Bye.” He escorted me to the door and closed it behind me.
The whole thing lasted maybe four minutes.
I walked home stunned.
What the hell was that about? Me and Jenny? Him and Shelly? All of us?
The next morning, I was told Jenny was being sent on a mission to LA.
After that, I barely saw her — for the next 19 years of our so-called marriage.
She was now part of Dave’s inner circle.
And that didn’t sit well with Shelly.
The Breaking Point
Many things happened between then and this incident in 2005.
A breaking point.
Not long before I would leave for good… and Shelly would disappear.
It was a Friday night. Dave had had an “especially enturbulated day” — though they were all that way by then. Shelly suggested a movie night in the Officers’ Lounge.
It was me, Dave, Shelly, and Lou.
Shelly went to change. She told Lou to do the same — and to grab snacks on the way.
Dave and I sat down with a couple glasses of scotch and a game of backgammon.
A few moments later, Shelly reentered the room — quiet as a whisper.
She wore a silky pajama top that clung to her bare skin — nothing underneath.
She eased onto the couch across from me, behind Dave, directly in my line of sight.
When our eyes met, her already erect nipples seemed to tighten even more.
Reflexively, she reached for the blanket — but then paused.
She let herself be seen.
Her face flickered — seduction blurred by guilt.
I felt lust. And the fear of being caught looking.
Dave, still fixated on the board, asked her something over his shoulder.
Only then did she pull the blanket over herself — but not before one final glance passed between us.
Then it was over.
We never spoke about that moment.
What Came After
But after that, she started talking to me — privately.
Her concerns. Her fears. The constant pressure. The isolation. And her growing hatred toward Jenny.
She was with Dave almost constantly — except when they slept in separate rooms.
I knew the kind of pressure that came with being close to him — I lived it too.
But Shelly lived it all the time. Every hour. Every day.
She was under the same pressure we all were — just multiplied.
And somehow, no one had noticed — until now.
Shelly was afraid. Exhausted. Losing her grip on the one person she’d spent her life protecting — and now barely recognized.
Dave was spiraling.
More violent.
More volatile.
More obsessed — especially with Tom Cruise.
Jenny was rising.
Shelly was fading.
Her belief in Scientology — in Hubbard — was the only strength she had left.
And I was caught in the middle of a four-way collapse — of loyalty, control, fear, and desperation.
Shelly and I saw eye to eye — except on how it would all end.
So maybe Shelly’s disappearance wasn’t what we thought. That Dave locked her up and threw away the key?
Maybe it wasn’t something done to her.
Maybe it was the only thing left she could do — her own protest, her own escape.
Because now I understand something I didn’t back then:
The pressure it takes to make someone disappear…
And who they become — right before they do.
To be continued in Part II: Tom Cruise, Jenny’s Coup, and the Final Straw.
