Artist Jeremy Blake’s Disappearance: Suicide? Scientology?

Update: Blake’s Body Found?

The mysterious circumstances surrounding the apparent double suicide of video artist Jeremy Blake and his filmmaking girlfriend, Theresa Duncan, have conspiracy theorists, uh, theorizing. A story in today’s L.A. Times says that the two “believed they were being stalked and harassed by Scientologists.” Factor in the fact that the couple had been living in a renovated church, plus Blake was last seen walking out in the Atlantic Ocean (and that L. Ron Hubbard once ran his Scientology operations from a headquarters at sea), and you’ve got the early makings of, well, something.

Slate columnist Ron Rosenbaum notes that Duncan’s death has not yet officially been ruled a suicide. And blogger Your New Reality points us toward a post on Duncan’s now sadly silent blog in which she claims the couple were not only being harassed by Scientologists, but by a well-connected Republican donor with ties to the Heritage Foundation too. Stay tuned for further developments. —Drew Pisarra

Bulletin: Theresa Duncan Not Yet Ruled a Suicide [Ron Rosenbaum]
The apparent double suicide of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan [LAT]

Earlier: Artist Jeremy Blake Is Missing