Message to Kate Coe: How You Got the Theresa Duncan Story - Wrong, Again

Ok, I've been away from the Blog regarding Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake but I've not forgotten to update readers as promised. I'm still short on distraction-free time to post more extensively about the infomation I have come across, so this blog piece will have to suffice for the time being.

Just today I had a few minutes and just happened to be browsing some of the blogs when I saw that the infamous Kate Coe, of Mediabistro's Fishbowl LA and the unjournalistic LA Weekly pieces on Duncan and Blake, had actually replied to something I'd written a while back in reply to Anne Thompson's August 7, 2007 blurb: Suicide Watch: Blake and Duncan Undone by Paranoia blurb over at Thompson on Hollywood .

I seized the opportunity to give Coe a piece of my mind, thereby including some of the information I'd initially reserved for the update blog piece. I just could not help myself. I am a firm believer that, when opportunity knocks, one should answer the door. So I did.

Kate Coe replies to the comment left by me, Mary McConnell August 15, 2007 at 05:30 PM

"Mary-- I talked to Father Morales for several hours on more than one occasion. While Theresa and Jeremy were indeed very distressed, Father Morales saw no evidence of anyone following, stalking or harassing them. I quoted two people who went on the record about the accusatory emails and letters that Duncan and Blake had sent them--both got lawyers, neither had any affiliation with COS.I was stalked by members of a cult--Children of God--two years ago, and I'm extremely familiar with what it's like to find random photos of my license plates, my kid's school and my dog posted on a website, as well as threatening letters sent to my workplace.

Further investigation may indeed prove that some of your assertions are correct. But to accuse everyone who has a view of Theresa Duncan that differs from yours does not make them a tool of LRON. "
Posted by: Kate Coe August 17, 2007 at 09:06 PM

And I take her to task in reply to it ( I've corrected a typo or two here and edited missing information from the original in bold) :

"Kate, if you spent 2 hours speaking to Father Frank Morales, then where is the evidence of it in any of your articles? Nowhere. Nada. Perhaps the reverend did not give you enough meat to help you shore up your story.

There are many people you did not speak to or perhaps did speak to but you've dismissed as credible because you went into this story to malign the reputations of these two people. Good close friends are not necessary for trash articles like yours and Mr. Lee's. Carol "Christine" Nichols is no better than you for alluding to a professional friendship where none existed anymore. Her's ended years before because she was a lousy businesswoman and was pro-scientology. Interesting how she just happened to be the first mole to speak up badly about the two. You must have been frothing at the bit for the July 31st announcement of Jeremy being ID'd so you could get your trash piece up on August 1st. It's almost as if the thought that these 2 people had good loyal friends, and relatives, had never occurred to you.

Search the internet and you will find those who are calling you out on your coverage of these 2.

Here's one for starters: Raymond Doherty's August 09, 2007
A Letter to Kate Coe: How You Got the Theresa Duncan Story - Wrong

Instead of doing the decent thing and getting a balanced story, you with your envious grudge went seeking those they dismissed as unloyal, all the while implying that these bitter losers would make a better story to match you preconceived gossipy article intended to destroy the goodwill they'd created on the internet.

What a glorious moment I am having, being able to finally respond to you, the rabbit who posts trash on others blogs minimizing the largess of these 2 special and well loved people, then running for cover after you've heated things up with your rumormongering.

**Blake's stepfather knows full well about the intended lawsuit Blake and Duncan were set to begin against Scientology. He probably offered to help them, until he found out just who it was that was to be sued. It's bad enough that Blake's mother is a mental health counselor - a fav target of scientology and it's CCHR front group- but the truth is that Arthur C. Delibert works for the very law firm who provided pro bono representation and lost a major case for their client who was being sued relentlessly by The 'church' of scientology and related entities. And Mr & Mrs Delibert probably tried to talk them out of filing their case against such a hyper-litigious and evil organization. This would surely explain Theresa's last* blog quote.

But you never did your research on the possibility that there was truth to the couple being harassed. Perhaps your own fears from your own experience you mentioned made it easy for you to take the easy way out. Good journalism does not do what you did and failed to do. Shame on you for justifying your lousy articles and selfcentered & myopic blog comments.
If you go down in history for the biased and unprofessional work you did on the life and deaths of this couple, it will be of no more surprise to many. Shame on you.

Posted by: Mary McConnell August 27, 2007 at 09:04 AM

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Duncan wrote: "Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips will be on Jay Leno tonight, children of the Staircase. Wayne was harassed by Scientologists after working with Beck Hansen just like Wit and Mr. Wit Of The Staircase were."

The Seattle, WA office of Arthur Delibert's firm, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis,

**Paul Lawrence. CAN's attorney in the Scott case on appeal in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, of the Seattle firm of Preston, Gates and Ellis. Lawrence is also the President of the Washington State American Civil Liberties Union. Preston, Gates and Ellis is representing CAN pro bono. Did Scientology Strike Back? American Lawyer/June 1997by Susan Hansen

Yes. The church of Scientology now owns, uses, and operates as and under the tradmark name " Cult Awareness Network" .

So, when you call the hotline to get information about cults, you are talking to a scientologist but you are not made aware of that fact. Quite deceptive. Very Hubbardian.

If Jeremy Blake's parents tried to convince him NOT to sue the Church of Scientology, I can see why Theresa Duncan might have lost hope and sang this swang song of defeat:

* Wit of The Staircase July 10, 2007 Storytelling On The Staircase :

"A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens--second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths." --Reynolds Price