going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

grabbing a sh with my fucking hands! Or cramming the hook down their fucking
throats!”
That was the end of the fishing trip.
After Quentin’s suicide and Mary Sue’s prison sentence, the remainder of Hubbard’s
family broke apart. His oldest daughter, Diana, had been Hubbard’s main supporter. She
and her husband, Jonathan Horwich, lived at Flag Base in the Fort Harrison penthouse
in Clearwater, with their daughter, Roanne. As her father became increasingly remote,
Diana decided to try her luck as a singer and songwriter. She released a soft-jazz album
titled LifeTimes in 1979, using notable Scientologist musicians, including Chick Corea
and Stanley Clarke, as backup. The cover features her in a black dress, lips parted, arms
crossed, her pale shoulders hunched, and her waist-length red hair stirring in the breeze.
Although the album received little notice, Diana decided to leave her husband, and the
Sea Org, and marry John Ryan, a public Scientologist who had produced her record. She
moved to Los Angeles to dedicate herself to music. Horwich agreed to the divorce, but he
refused to part with Roanne, who was two years old at the time. Hubbard strongly
supported this decision, but Mary Sue was opposed. She wanted her granddaughter to be
nearby, and she began agitating for Diana to gain custody.
Several missions were sent to bargain with Diana, but she was unmoved. Finally,
Jesse Prince got the assignment. “It was a do or die mission,” he recalled. If he didn’t
succeed in gaining clear custody of Roanne for Horwich, he would be sent back to the
RPF. For whatever reason, Diana signed the release he put in front of her. Hubbard was
thrilled. He rewarded Prince with a leather coat, a gold chain, some cash, and an M14
assault rifle.
Suzette, Diana’s younger sister, was increasingly disaected. Quentin’s death had
been a blow, but the fact that there had been no ceremony afterward—his name was
essentially erased from family history—left her embittered and wary. She longed for the
warmth of her Saint Hill childhood, when her mother would read to her and her father
would laugh and toss her in the air. Those days were long gone. The forces pulling her
family apart were far too powerful for her to resist. She wanted nothing more than to
walk away and start a family of her own. But that was not so easily done. She had tried
to elope with another Sea Org member she had met years before, in Washington. “We
had fallen in love and wanted to get married and live together for the rest of our lives,”
her suitor, Arnaldo Lerma, later said. He ew to Clearwater; they got blood tests and a
marriage license. Suzette then confessed the plan in an auditing session. “She spilled the
beans and I got arrested—well, detained,” Lerma said. “I remember being in a room
with a chair and a light bulb and two guys outside the door. I was interrogated for
several hours. I was not struck, hit, or physically abused. However, what I do remember
is the deal I was oered: ‘We will give you a guarantee of safe passage out of the state
of Florida with all body parts attached if you tell Suzette Hubbard the marriage is o.’ ”
Lerma did as he was told, leaving the church as well. Later, when Hubbard learned
about another man Suzette was interested in, he paid him to leave her alone. She was
isolated and desperately lonely.
She did nally get married to a Scientologist named Michael Titmus, in 1980, when