Former relative denounces Grants Pass evangelist

Oregonian/February 28, 1999

MEDFORD -- The former daughter-in-law of conservative Grants Pass spiritual leader Roy Masters is about to accuse him on national television of violence against her and her daughters.

A Los Angeles producer says Lisa Masters of Grants Pass is scheduled to appear Thursday on "Extra," a nationally syndicated news show.

"I just want people to know he's dangerous," Lisa Masters said in her home last week. "I just thought, 'I know a lot about this man; I'll just turn around and let him have it.' "

Lisa Masters told "Extra" producer Frank Snepp that the controversial radio personality punched her once while she was married to his son, David Masters, and that Roy Masters slapped her daughters in 1997 while they visited his home.

She said she considered the incidents consistent with what she says is a long history of Masters' denigration of women. "He's said on the radio there's a time women have to be restrained and even slapped," she said.

Snepp said that he talked to both Roy and David Masters on the phone during two visits to Grants Pass but that neither would let him put them on camera. Roy Masters declined to be interviewed by the Medford Mail-Tribune. David Masters was out of town.

Roy Masters' spokeswoman, his daughter, Dianne Masters, 42, said the radio personality denies Lisa Masters' charges.

"She's a disgruntled wife," Dianne Masters said Thursday. "She's using every possible way of getting back at her husband and my dad."

Snepp said Roy and David Masters backed out of an interview with "Extra."

Roy Masters is a radio preacher and former professional hypnotist who moved to the United States from England in 1949. His real name was Reuben Obermeister.

He moved to Josephine County from Southern California 20 years ago. Estimates of the number of supporters of his Foundation for Human Understanding in Josephine County range from 1,500 to several thousand. Many moved there after Masters told listeners to move to Southern Oregon to escape what he said was the inevitable collapse of a sick society.