A Trifecta of Injustice

The Death of Kyle Brennan

First described by Sigmund Freud, “compartmentalization” is a coping mechanism that helps people deal with trauma, grief, and emotional distress. Instead of addressing troubling issues head-on, people will often separate and file these stressors in psychological lockboxes, allowing them to focus on specific tasks without being overwhelmed. In this manner, compartmentalizing provides relief—it enables an individual to function in everyday life. After losing my son Kyle, I quickly learned it was imperative to master this mental tactic. My life had become an escalating nightmare; pigeonholing my horrors became a necessary means of survival and self-preservation.

Most importantly, compartmentalizing helped me deal with what happened next.

In the spring of 2007—six weeks after Kyle’s death and but a few days after what would have been his twenty-first birthday—a phone call to the Clearwater Police Department set in motion a previously unthinkable sequence of events. It began with me asking basic questions about the circumstances surrounding Kyle’s untimely passing. My son, at the time of his death, the night of February 16, was visiting his father, Tom Brennan. An avid Scientologist, Brennan was sharing the apartment with fellow Scientologist Eddie Childers, who may have had critical information about the weapon that killed Kyle.

The details of what happened that evening didn’t appear to be on the up and up. For example, family members were given contradictory information, and the unprofessional behavior of the Clearwater police detective presiding over the investigation of Kyle’s death was troubling.

What followed became an additional source of pain and unimaginable frustration. In my attempt to uncover the truth, I discovered a pattern of behavior throughout law enforcement—an underlying reluctance to pursue a case involving the Church of Scientology. Surprisingly, this disinclination was consistent all across the agencies whose members had sworn to protect and defend: the Clearwater Police Department (the CPD), the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (the FDLE), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI).

It started, of course, with the Clearwater Police. My later complaints to the FDLE and the FBI focused primarily on one detective employed in that department—Stephen Bohling. For starters, he blatantly ignored standard police procedures. He never visited the apartment where my son died, and he never questioned the conflicting stories told by the Scientologists involved (Scientologists who were at the apartment where Kyle died when the police arrived). Detective Bohling lied when he told us that a gunshot residue (or GSR) test had not been performed on my son’s hands. We later learned that a GSR test had been done, but Bohling testified he withheld it from being analyzed (and it subsequently—and mysteriously—went missing). The list pertaining to Stephen Bohling’s incompetence, lies, and perjury is long, provable, and documented.  

Most police departments have an internal affairs division responsible for investigating misconduct allegations and disciplining officers who misuse their power to fabricate evidence—not so, evidently, in Clearwater, Florida, home to the worldwide headquarters of the Church of Scientology.

Since moving into downtown Clearwater under an assumed name in 1975, the Church has had a long and controversial history with the city’s police. As Scientology grew in Clearwater, it often hired local off-duty police officers as a private security force. Detective Bohling was one of those police officers on Scientology’s part-time payroll. During the discovery phase of Kyle’s case, Bohling stated under oath that he was friends with the Church of Scientology’s legal director, Sarah Heller (who, incidentally, sat alongside the Scientology lawyers observing and taking notes during the depositions). Wasn’t this a conflict of interest? Based on this “friendship” and his part-time employment status, shouldn’t Bohling have had another detective investigate my son’s death? How had these relationships affected the investigation and civil suit proceedings?

The weeks passed with no follow-up call from Detective Bohling. Left with no answers to my numerous questions, I contacted him in August 2007 for an update. When I asked the detective if he’d asked Brennan when the ammunition for the weapon was purchased, Bohling responded angrily and callously. He said that “as far as he was concerned, if Kyle’s father bought the ammunition on the day he died, threw it on the bed with the weapon, and told Kyle to go play with it, that would be fine with him.”

Bohling’s indifference and unprofessional behavior were deeply troubling. My main takeaway from that conversation was that I needed to create a paper trail to document our interactions. Nothing is worse than being right about a situation and being unable to prove it. At that point, I knew any complaints I made about Detective Bohling would result in a he-said-she-said standoff. I needed to document his behavior. Assume nothing—corroborate everything.

In the autumn of 2008, with the two-year statute of limitations looming, my son’s case remained open. Even with my lawyer tracking the investigation, no new information was forthcoming, including the much-needed update regarding an interview with Scientologist Eddie Childers. (This is when I learned that Bohling never followed up with his search for Tom Brennan’s roommate. I felt that an interview with Childers would have been crucial to the investigation.) I feared the statute of limitations would expire before I could review the police report. Troubled by the situation, I contacted Senators Bill Nelson (of Florida) and Jim Webb (of Virginia) to voice my concerns. In my experience dealing with the Clearwater Police, these senators were the only public servants who willingly helped me. The case closed soon afterward.

In 2012, I filed a complaint regarding Kyle’s death investigation with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). From there, it traveled to the Executive Office of the Governor during the reign of Rick Scott. Susan L. Smith, the Criminal Justice Liaison working in Governor Scott’s legal office, was given my documents. A heated argument now ensued between these two Florida entities, with Smith saying it was the FDLE’s responsibility to investigate my complaint and the FDLE retorting, “You tell Smith she’s not putting this case on us!” My complaint got lost in the shuffle, caught up in a never-ending legal loop of going nowhere.

Early in the investigation of Kyle’s death, I firmly believed that the Clearwater Police Department was not conducting a proper investigation of his death. I contacted the FBI, and this initial correspondence provided much-needed documentation. It was necessary, even though I had little to no expectation that it would culminate in Bohling’s removal. 

According to the U.S. Department of Justice website, its mission is to enforce federal laws, seek just punishment for the guilty, and ensure justice’s fair and impartial administration. The DOJ administers the criminal laws “with the highest level of truth and morals to conduct fair and equal administration of the law to everyone, without corruption, favor, greed, or prejudice for those who practice law and enforce justice.”

The FBI office was casual, except for the intimidating walk-through metal detector that greeted you when you first entered. A long utilitarian table dominated the small room. The agent I spoke with was polite and businesslike. The interview lasted just over an hour. Resting on my lap were several thick file folders.

“Are those files for me?” asked the agent as I rose out of the chair to leave.

“They are,” I responded. “The documents in the folders will corroborate everything we’ve discussed today. I’ve also attached a letter from an agent who worked undercover with the Department of Justice. He carefully analyzed the Clearwater Police Report and Detective Stephen Bohling’s investigative procedures. He concluded that the investigation was replete with conflicts of interest or mishandled investigative procedures.”

“Can I see that letter?” After quickly reading it, she agitatedly exclaimed, “I’m calling Florida today!” 

A month after my first visit to the FBI, I received a follow-up call asking if I had additional documentation or evidence to give them. Of course, I complied.

Two years had come and gone when a letter from the Department of Justice in Washington arrived at my home. The brief paragraph stated that they had received the case file regarding Kyle’s death investigation. It also advised that they were not obligated to tell me how they would proceed with the investigation or, if at all. The DOJ also said they did not want me to speak publicly about the situation. This correspondence certainly could have been perceived as intimidating. And may silence some, but I’m not one of those people.

What I discovered is deeply unsettling—a broken justice system. I never suspected malfeasance in dealing with the FDLE and the FBI. Yet again and again, the message came through loud and clear: trepidation and fear led to an unwillingness to investigate the Church of Scientology. Police agencies, public figures, and most politicians do not want to tangle with the Church, even if it means overlooking criminal behavior. Over the years, the organization’s First Amendment protection—along with its reputation for threatening destruction to anyone who crosses its path—has served them well.

Someone, somewhere, has information needed to end this criminal enterprise masquerading as a religion. Someone, somewhere, sometime, will stand up and say, “Enough!”

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“In keeping silent about evil,” wrote Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, “in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand-fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age; we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

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https://thetruthforkylebrennan.com/attorney-general-pam-bondi-fdle-documents/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

Copyright © 2026 Victoria L. Britton