Book Excerpt: Ron Miscavige's Memoir, 'Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige and Me'
The father of Scientology leader David Miscavige wrote a book about his life.
— -- For ABC News' reporting on the private investigators hired to follow Ron Miscavige, click here.
The following is excerpted from "Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige and Me," by Ron Miscavige with Dan Koon. Copyright © 2016 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Press, LLC.
PROLOGUE
The pocket t-shirt is a handy item. Cell phones, reading glasses, shopping lists—they all fit neatly inside that little cloth cavity. Of course, if you’ve got your cell phone in there and you bend over, it will more than likely fly out.
In July 2013, I was living in Whitewater, Wisconsin, a town of 14,000 that lies 45 minutes southwest of Milwaukee. One morning, I had to do some shopping at Aldi’s market in nearby Janesville. I came out with my bags and leaned in past the steering wheel to set them on the floor in front of the passenger seat. As I did so, I reached up with my right hand to keep my phone from falling out of my shirt pocket. I’ve done that a million times. After you’ve dumped your cell phone or glasses on the ground once or twice, it becomes an almost automatic action.
There is something called the butterfly effect. Mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz came up with the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon jungle could result in a hurricane some weeks later in the Caribbean.
Little did I know that the simple, automatic action of reaching my hand to my chest was not only being observed but, like the butterfly’s wing, would set in motion events that I, and many others, never expected.About a week later, I was sitting at home in Whitewater one evening when I heard a knock on the door. I answered and was surprised to see an officer from the Whitewater Police Department.
“Are you Ron Miscavige?” he asked.
I don’t have a guilty conscience, but a police officer’s appearance in a place where I have been living for only a few months and asking for me by name sent my antennae up immediately.
“Let’s go to the garage so we can talk privately,” I said.
I had no desire to alarm my mother-in-law unnecessarily. She did not have a clue about why my wife, Becky, and I had suddenly showed up in her life in the spring of 2012, and I was stumped as to what the officer wanted. I closed the front door, went around to the garage and opened it.
“What’s this about?”
“I have some information for you,” he began. “You have been followed by two private investigators hired by the Church of Scientology for the past year.”
“What?! You’ve got to be kidding me!” Physically, this was like being punched in the gut. Emotionally, I was totally shocked.
“No, sir, I am not kidding about this.”
“Jesus Christ, man. I’m being followed?” I could not believe what I was hearing. It was totally out of the blue.
“As far as getting more information about this, you can go to the West Allis police station because they are the ones that arrested one of the PIs.”
