When I read this old report of the shooting in the Oregon org by Jairus Godeka in l996 I was reminded of the trial here in Hemet where Ken Hoden mentioned this shooting while he was on the stand. I do believe Hoden was never told the truth that Godeka was a member of $cientology and was very upset with the fact that he could not get his money back. I wonder if anyone visits Godeka while he is doing jail time. It is so sad when someone snaps after giving so much of their energy and money to this organization and like many he very likely thought he was "saving the world." This is one more sad story.

The CCHR works diligently to DO IN psychiatry when perhaps a good psychiatrist could have helped this poor man and saved the lady from such a horrible outcome.

Subject: _The_Oregonian_ on Jairus Godeka
Date: 1996/09/28

SHOOTING SPOTLIGHTS SCIENTOLOGY

The Suspect: Jairus Godeka holds church [sic] responsible for shattering his American dream

by Brian Smith & Phil Manzano

He came form Kenya in 1979 to ``accomplish something in America," he said, his hopes fueled by high expectations from friends and family.

But Jairus Godeka felt his dream fade to ``gloom and doom," after he was introduced to the Church of Scientology in 1980, he told police.

That belief may explain why Godeka is accused of shooting and wounding four people - Helen Burke, Carlos Colon, Stevne Crandell and Jim Stone - and starting a fire in the Church of Scientology office in downtown Portland on Wednesday.

Interviews with friends, acquaintences and former in-laws, and an examination of police records, reveal a man who was hard-working and earnest but whose past is plagued by alcohol abuse, violent behavior, a broken marriage and financial problems.

They also show a man obsessed by the belief that his torubles all stem from the Church of Scientology.

A judge entered a not-guilty plea for Godeka Thursday, after he was arrainged in the Justice Center in Portland on charges of attempted aggravated murder, arson, kidnapping, assault and burglary.

The turn of events shocked at least one friend, who described Godeka as a gentle man who was ``mild-mannered and had a great desire to please everyone" - someone who was far from crazy and worked hard to make a fledgling business successful.

Police records, however, show another side: one of violence, drunkenness an dobsession.

In a long, sometimes rambling statement to police in February, Godeka detailed a variety of grievances he had with Scientology and said how for years he felt the organization should be made to pay $50,000 for ruining in life.

Born in Kenya in 1958, Godeka said he came to the United States on a visa.

Godeka's in-laws, who asked that their names not be used, said Thursday that he came to study business administration at a college in Vancouver, Wash., several years ago.

[The only college in Vancouver at the time was Clark Community College. - G.]

They said he and his estranged wife, Christina, met while he was a student. The two married in Vancouver and lived there for three or four months before moving to Portland.

About five years into the marriage, they said, Godeka found Scientology.

A month after he did, the in-laws said, Godeka sold his belongings, including a stereo the couple owned, and left his wife.

``The Church of Scientology told him he had to cleanse or purify himself and to leave her," Christina's mother said. ``He was fine until he got involved with that church."

The mother described Godeka as ``intelligent, hard-working and honest."

``It's not like he'd just go bonkers. He was looking for help, someone to just listen to him," she said.

After the breakup, he moved to San Francisco, where, he told police, he had a business called Phoenix Lighting.

Max Adelson, who provided an answering service to Godeka in San Francisco, remembers how hard the Kenyan worked.

Adelson, who describes himself as a friend, said Godeka went door-to-door selling light fixures and for a time found success.

``He was all business, mild mannered, very gentle and had a great desire to please everybody," Adleson said. ``he's a nice pleasant guy that tried to make a living.

``This (shooting) startled the hell out of us."

In court documents and police records, Godeka listed his address in San Francisco as the Cadillac Hotel at 380 Eddy St.

The four-story building, converted inot single rooms that rent for $225 a month - $175 without a bathroom - sits in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, a run-down area palgued by vagrancy, prostitution and drug use.

For Geodeka, the hotel had one convenience: it sat five blocks from San Frnacisco's Church of Scientology office on McAllister Street.

Over the next few years, Godeka shuttled between San Francisco and Portland, where he lived in several places. But no matter where he lived, he could not seem to escape his obsession with the church.

In his statement to police, Godeka said he bercame attracted to Scientology after a session at the Portland branch to familiarize himself with the gorup's philosophies.

He then took a free personality test and bought some books.

At some point, however, he began to feel that several church employees were controlling his mind, he said.

One person particularly torubled him: Burke, the receptionist at the Portland branch, who would become one fo his gunshot victims.

``It was Helen," he said in one interview with police. ``Helen's kept me a prisoner all these years." Burke, who is in serious condition, could not be reached for comment.

[Sometimes the haste that articles are written in combines with the boilerplate style reporters use and it creates the queerly ironic effect demonstrated in that last sentence. - G.]

By December 1995, court records began to show traffic arrests such as drunken driving, driving with an open container and driving without insurance.

Godeka told police that he began to believe the organization had somehow kept his sister from coming to America to get her master's degree.

He told police the church had caused his lighting business $100,000 in damages, and that he had failed himself, his family and his friends.

``He said that he was embarrassed because of the expectations of his family and friends tohat he was to accomplish something in America" but didn't, Portland Police detective Wiliam Johnson wrote in one report.

As usual, Scientology was to blame.

Godeka first demanded money in 1994 in a call to Angela Mann, spokeswoman for the Portland banch, police reports indicate.

[She was also one of the CoS spokespeople shown on Channel 12 news last night. - G.]

Meanwhile, during trips to San Francisco, Godeka made threats to workers at the Scientology office there.

Then, in January 1996, while back in Portland, he cased the downtown Scientology office at Southwest Salmon street and Broadway for two weeks and began placing phone calls again.

Police records show the first came Feb. 1, when he told Burke that he would kill everyone in the office unless the church came up with $50,000.

He called again, several times, on Feb. 5, witht he same threats.

He was arrested that day at the Travel Inn motel at 800 E. Burnside St. A hotel clerk said Godeka had been drunk and obnoxious.

[That motel is located in a run-down neighborhood of S.E. Portland, just across the river from downtown. A 30 minute walk from the scene of the crime.]

To the officers, however, Godeka was polite and helpful.

In fact, he said, he knew who had sent them.

When officer K.S. Leighton asked how, Godeka didn't hesitate.

``Because they're using you," he replied.

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Staff writers Chastity Pratt and Peter Farrell contributed to this report.

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