30 Sep 2000

German_Scn_News <german_scn_news@hotmail.com>

A father in cult rage

[A couple of parts are missing because I haven't quite figured out how all the pieces go together, but you'll get the idea. Sorry, some text is the same as has been posted already. This version is rated "R" for violence and nudity.]

Nuernberg, Germany
September 22, 2000
Nuernberger Abendzeitung

[image of man being led away by police if you have a tif viewer you can look at the images in the article that T. Hausherr posted to alt.binaries.scientology.] sub-text: Jakobus N. did not resist as he was brought to the police wagon. The police brought him in for psychiatric evaluation. photo: Manu Meyer

...

by the father of her children. They also suffered under their father. They had to disconnect from their friends; the father forbade any contact to people of their own age. Freya was inducted as a secretary to her father. With her help, he used the internet to spread his deluded ideas. "L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Scientologists, became his greatest enemy: although Hubbard was dead, he said Hubbard was trying to annihilate him from the great beyond," wrote Carla N. on the mental state of her husband. "L. Ron Hubbard, Jakobus thinks, wants to start the Third World War." In order to avoid that, Jakobus N. thereafter proclaimed himself "Ambassador to Mankind." His daughter Freya had to update his internet pages every day; she wouldn't sit down at the computer until after she had taken two hours dictation from her father. That was when she was 14.

Son was assigned to watch his mother

Carla N. earned the family's money by selling her paintings in the pedestrian zones of Nuernberg. Until 1997, Jakobus' delusions visibly increased: "Not only L. Ron Hubbard, but now I wanted to annihilate him, too." He inducted the children for the mother's punishment: "They had to fetch the stick, beat me and torture me by throwing water at me." [missing text here - Wenn sie sich ge- ---] the children suffered, the mother settled down lower. Now she blames herself for that.

Carla N. made a new life for herself and hoped that things were going good for her children. But in 1999 she got a call from the landlord of the house in Mittelfranken. The elderly gentleman described a visit to Jakobus N. in November 1999 because he had not been paying his rent for months: classical music was turned up too loud in the house; Freya - then 19 - was sitting at the table in fear, the musical torment was also in her room. "Turn it down so we can talk." Freya refused; only her father could turn down the volume. Appalled, the man went to the Health Office in Forchheim the same day.

The female doctor there knew that the family's relations were anything but normal. An academic and a psychiatrist were sent to the house. Nobody answered the door and the officials left. One month later, on Nils' 18th birthday, Freya drowned in the bath tub. The state attorney applied for an arrest warrant, but the investigating magistrate did not see adequate suspicion that Jakobus was at fault. He remained free and the police looked for more proof. "Did Jakobus torture her to death?" A question the mother is still asking herself. Friedrich Kraus, the chief state attorney, is also continuing his investigation in Freya's case.

Torture, terror and death

Why did Freya (19) drown in the bath tub

Freya was just 19 when the doctor on emergency duty was called to her death on December 25, 1999. When the medical technician entered the room, a feeling of misgiving came over him. The Bach cantata "Oh Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" boomed deafeningly throughout the house in the small village near Forchheim.

Jakobus N. (51), the father of the deceased, stood motionlessly in the room as did his son Nils (18). No tears or sign of sorrow. A victim of drugs? The doctor looked for puncture marks on the naked body of the girl. "When I touched her I could only think, My God is she cold!" No puncture marks; he doctor called the police. The autopsy showed that Freya N. had drowned. But the circumstances are not clear.

Nine months later her death is still unexplained and the state attorney's office is investigating. Early yesterday the police took the Dutchman Jakobus N. away from his house in handcuffs. The man was committed to the psychiatric ward as a public menace. That is because Jakobus N. succumbed to cult madness. He subjected his wife and children to methods of torture for years. For instance, he tortured his wife Carla (name changed) by drenching her with cold water. The 60-year-old woman said, "What if he had done the same thing with Freya?"

On that December day after Freya's death, Jakobus N. gave the police investigators a letter written by her: "Early this morning I took another ten-minute cold bath" his daughter jotted down the morning of the day she died. How many people voluntarily take a cold bath in winter? And jot it down? Freya's mother, Carla N. (60) has some answers. She fled to the Nuernberg house for women in 1997 after years of torture. When the mother, a painter, met her future husband of 24 years, he was a member of the Scientology sect. (Some prominent members are actors John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.) Jakobus' life goal was to rise to the top of the sect hierarchy, but he was thwarted by the sect leaders.

Jakobus founded an art organization and wanted to promote painters. At the same time he was trying to get a foothold back with the cult, which further frustrated him. He began contriving his own picture of the world.

In the course of the years, the man continued to be plagued with delusions. For instance, Carla N. was supposed to recognize who was telephoning as soon as it rang. When her telepathic powers would fail her, her husband perceived that as an attack; he thought that Carla did not want to support him and was against him - whatever that entailed.

During that time, Freya and Nils were born, then Flavia in 1983. At that time the family was living near Heidelberg. Even though the frail baby had caught a cold and could barely breathe, Jakobus forbade calling a doctor or using nose drops. Carla obeyed as she always did. Ten days after its birth the child died of asphyxiation. The doctor attested to the sudden death of the child.

First attempts at escape failed

"When he asked what had happened I couldn't say anything - I was so intimidated and and blamed myself horribly." She says by that time she was often trying to escape her husband. The attempts failed. He found her and promised that everything would be different.

It was different - it got worse. The hells of the cult madness peaked in the following scene: "Shivering from fear and cold, close to passing out, for two to three hours I had to stand in the bath room while he threw bucket after bucket of cold water at me in one minute intervals." The Dutchman perceived the torture as therapy. When he wanted to "purify" his wife or "punish" her, when she dared look at him - in his opinion - cock-eyed, when she resisted. Whatever she did, she was always "harming" him. His "therapy" also included beating with a 5-foot stick, kicking and throwing down the stairs. She lost track of the abuse in which a finger and nose were broken, her lip was split several times and she had concussion.

So intimidated that she almost thought of her situation as normal, she remained ...

they had not been safe even before the punishment. The children countered that they were not used to it any other way.

Nils was detailed to guard his mother when she went shopping. "If I would have hinted that I wanted to make a break for it, Nils would have called his father. He would have simply obeyed.

On October 17, she managed to escape to the women's home from the pedestrian zone. Why did she not immediately go to the police? "I was terrified of his revenge. Besides that I thought he would treat the children better than he did me." Physical violence, she talked herself out if, the children had not experienced to day - the psycho-terrorism under which ...

It seems as if the case is taken care of for the Forchheim Health Office by Freya's death. Nils remains subject to his father's madness. The reason is that the boy is of age, besides that he had no objection to his living conditions. Whether or not he could defend himself against these conditions does not seem to have occurred to anyone. And: because of the tight accommodation laws, it is difficult to have the father psychiatrically evaluated.

Judge steps in: father now in the psychiatric ward

But now that's happened. N's internet pages are now monitored by the health office. And when it shortly appeared there that Nils, from his father's view, was "destroyed by the devil," the case workers intervened: the expert for commitment summed it up succinctly: the first victim, the mother Carla, escaped by fleeing. The second victim, daughter Freya, dead. The third victim was now possessed by the devil: "I've handled by returning mail." Early yesterday the fire department broke the door down and police took Jakobus away. From the house droned loud classical music.

The evaluation resulted in Jakobus N. being committed to a psychiatric ward. Nils, however, is free. Perhaps he'll find his way back with psychological help.

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