Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

As soon as the purchase papers had been signed, a working party from the Los Angeles RPF
moved in to begin renovations and improvements. Hubbard had decided he would live in Rifle and
wanted the house painted white throughout, with white tiles on the floor and all white furniture.
Telex machines were installed in the main house, but it was intended that the ranch would be
insulated as much as possible from the Church of Scientology. Everyone living and working there
was given a cover name, warned not to use Scientology words or bring Scientology books on to the
property.
The Hubbards moved in at the beginning of October 1976 and began to enjoy a new life of
tranquillity on their ranch in the desert. The messengers noticed a change in the Commodore; he
was much more relaxed than formerly and usually in good spirits. But on the morning of
Wednesday, 17 November, as Doreen Smith was running across the Rifle to begin her watch, she
could hear him shouting at the top of his voice: 'That stupid fucking kid! That stupid fucking kid!
Look what he's done to me! Stupid fucking . . .' As she got closer, she could hear another unearthly,
chilling noise. It was Mary Sue keening, barely drawing breath, but emitting a terrible endless
scream.
When she entered the house, the messenger she was relieving was in tears. She sobbed out the
awful news: 'Quentin's killed himself.'
Quentin had been found in Las Vegas at 0832 hours on 28 October, slumped over the steeringwheel
of a white Pontiac parked off Sunset Road alongside the perimeter fence of McCarran Airport
at the end of the north-south runway. All the car windows were rolled up and a white vacuum
cleaner tube led from the passenger's vent window to the exhaust tail pipe. Tissue papers had
been stuffed into the window opening around the tube and the car's engine was still running.
Officer Bruns of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was first on the scene. He
wrenched open both the car doors and ascertained that the young man inside was still alive,
though unconscious, probably because the tube had fallen off the tail pipe. He carried no
identification of any kind and there were no licence plates on the car. There was nothing in the car
but a Grundig portable radio, a black tote bag containing miscellaneous clothing and an open,
partly consumed, bottle of tequila. 'The vehicle appeared as though the subject might have been
sleeping in it,' the police report noted. 'The subject himself was very unkempt, his clothing was dirty,
and would be possibly described as a vagrant type subject. A white male, appeared in his mid to
late 20s. The subject was transported to Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital via Mercy Ambulance
. . .'[9]
As no one knew who he was, Quentin was admitted to hospital as 'John Doe'. The only identifying
marks that the hospital could record were his red hair and red moustache. He never regained
consciousness and died at 2115 on 12 November. The police records listed him as a 'possible
suicide'.
On Monday, 15 November, the Las Vegas coroner's office began making attempts to establish
'John Doe's' identity. His car, which had been impounded, was re-checked and a Florida Highway
Patrol smog sticker was found, along with a vehicle identification number. A telex to the Florida
department of motor vehicles came up with the information that the vehicle was registered to a
Quentin Hubbard of 210 South Fort Harrison Avenue, Clearwater. Descriptions of the car and the
dead man were telexed to Clearwater police department with a request that the information be
checked.
At 8.40 pm that same day, a man called Dick Weigand telephoned the deputy coroner from Los