Stepfather Says Claire Headley’s Lies About Her Life Caused Rift in Family

TRANSCRIPT:

I actually did speak to Claire the last time I saw her, which was at my wife’s mother’s funeral.

We had a discussion about why we’re unwilling to speak to her. It’s a personal decision that we made because we are in such disagreement with the lies and route of extortion that she’s on to try to get money out of the Church for making up these fictitious stories. So that is the reason that we’re not willing to be in touch with her or her husband, Marc.

Claire and Marc’s behavior, specifically, is not something that we’re willing to condone or have any agreement with whatsoever, because it’s fictitious. She didn’t have a life of abuse in her professional life working for the Church. It’s not true. She was not entrapped or bound in any way whatsoever. She had lots of freedom, spent lots of time in our house, spent—had vacations with us, etc., etc. It’s regrettable, it’s unfortunate, it’s something that no family member really likes. But the simple fact is that there are disagreements that occur between family members and sometimes they’re so basic and so significant that it causes a split or a rift.

Listen: Two weeks before they actually departed, they were at our house for, over Christmas, you know, which was very common. We would spend Christmas Day or Christmas evening together. They had their own car at that time and so they were free to come and go as they wished. We didn’t always take—you know, my daughters play sports, and Claire would come down from Gold to go to a softball game or a track meet for my son and, you know, we have loads of family pictures of meals together and holidays together. And they would send us pictures—Claire and Marc would send us pictures of ski trips and jet skis, you know, riding around in a lake or something. You know, they had a very nice life. You know, she was always extremely well dressed and used to tell us, you know, about their exercise track or, you know, the things that they—facilities that they had at Gold for the employees. The food was fantastic, she said, always. So, you know, this life that she is now trying to portray was not the one that she lived at that time.

We’re not willing to be associated with someone who’s in rabid disagreement with something that we truly believe in and have seen the workability in. And I cannot believe that Claire does not know that because she had her own experiences. I just happened to come across a poem that she had written to me sometime before she left and it is about the beauty of doing the work that she was doing.

So, you can’t kind of go back and change the memories or the experiences that you had. They are what they were.