Leader’s Suicide Stuns Church : Some Niscience Foundation Members Say Minister Was Grieving Over Charges He Led a Cult and Stole Money

Members of an obscure Glendale-based religious group are in turmoil this week after the suicide of their spiritual leader, who had recently been accused by some former members of running a destructive cult.

Glendale police said Jonathan Murro, 64, hanged himself Saturday in his home on the grounds of the Ann Ree Colton Foundation of Niscience, which he had led since the death of Colton in 1984.

Shocked group members said Tuesday that they were devastated by the loss of their leader, but that they intended to continue to follow his teachings under the direction of the group’s ministers.

One minister said Murro had been despondent over allegations brought against him by former members of the group.

In the last year, the foundation had lost at least a dozen longtime members, who had grown disillusioned with Murro’s leadership and accused him of embezzling money. A spokesman for the Glendale police said there is no investigation of Murro in progress. However, several former members--including one who had sat on the board of directors--recently sent open letters to church adherents, calling Niscience an oppressive, deceptive cult, and urging members to leave. Membership reportedly numbers several hundred.

Some of the former members said this week that they are fearful that they will be blamed for Murro’s suicide. One member said Murro had recently told his followers that he felt as if he were the victim of what Murro called “astral murder.”

Church leaders said they did not blame the former members directly, but said Murro was under great stress as a result of the allegations against him.

Because of the dissension, Murro had suffered severe anxiety attacks, and was briefly hospitalized two weeks ago, Murro’s wife, Lisa Paige Murro, 39, told police.

Before the Murros went to sleep Friday night, Jonathan Murro told his wife that “this is the absolute last day of my life,” according to a police report.

The next morning, Lisa Murro discovered her husband’s body hanging in a closet in their home, which is in the foundation’s complex on Colorado Street, across from the Glendale Galleria. No suicide note was found, the police report said.

Members of the 38-year-old Foundation of Niscience subscribe to an amalgamation of Eastern and Western religious beliefs--including reincarnation--expounded by a charismatic Southerner named Ann Ree Colton. Murro met Colton in Florida, where she had begun a ministry in 1932. They later married, and Murro inherited the leadership when Colton died.

Church members said it is not clear who would take over leadership of the group now.

“It’s so painful,” Niscience minister Tayria Ward said. “He was greatly loved and admired, and respected, and he still is. He was a great teacher of spiritual principles, and he believed and lived what he taught. He had a beautiful love-nature.”

But some former Niscience members paint a different picture. They describe Murro as a dictatorial leader who was obsessed with the treatment he received from group members and who screamed abusively at anyone who questioned his actions.

Former members also allege that Murro took money from church donations for his personal use, although police said they are not investigating such allegations.

Former member Chyrelle Martin said she called the Internal Revenue Service to report that she had regularly witnessed Murro taking money from the religious offerings. IRS spokeswoman Jan Gribbons said she could not comment on whether the agency is investigating the allegations.

However, Ward, who works in the Niscience office, denied that Murro embezzled funds and said he was despondent over the allegations.

“It was terrible,” she said. “It was awful accusations they were making. He did not use church money, and I’ll go to my grave swearing that. We’ve been under attack for a lot of lies.”

Last month, John Goldhammer, 50, who left the church after 15 years, sent a 24-page letter to many active Niscience members, explaining how Murro’s behavior had driven him to leave.

In the letter, Goldhammer said that once he broke away, he realized “how utterly programmed and controlled our thinking had become.”

Goldhammer said he felt compelled to write the letter to try to help longtime friends who were still involved. “I could not leave and just walk away from something I knew to be wrong and evil and damaging to other people. My conscience would not let me walk away from it. It was like leaving a concentration camp and knowing that your friends and family were still there.”

After learning of Goldhammer’s letter, Ward said Murro “was very stressed and very hurt.”

“Like Jesus on the cross, Jonathan was in that state where he felt that God had forsaken him,” she said.

Murro’s critics say he was never able to maintain the level of enthusiasm among members that had been generated by the charismatic Colton, who claimed to receive telepathic instructions from masters whose mission was to unite people with Jesus.

Colton was born in Georgia in 1898. In her autobiography, “Prophet for the Archangels,” Colton wrote that in past lives she had been a martyred Christian, a nun who fled a convent in a time of deep corruption, and a maiden from the lost city of Atlantis.

In 1948, she said, she received telepathic instructions to come to California. In 1953, she and Murro established the foundation in Glendale.

Colton’s followers grew, attracted by her warmth and by her unusual blend of Christianity, Eastern religion, psychology and dream analysis.

Followers were taught that they were engaged in a spiritual quest to reach God, and that the sure path to enlightenment was to adhere to Colton’s teachings. Members--who lived on their own and were expected to hold down jobs--gathered almost every night for spiritual talks and study, on Saturdays for days of fasting and prayer, and Sundays for worship.

Former members said Colton inspired great devotion among her followers, and that while she was alive, they sought her guidance on almost all matters, including whether to date and marry.

Cliff Daniels, a Los Angeles-based cult deprogrammer who has worked with more than 270 people from 40 different cults, said, “I believe that everyone in this group was totally under mind control, that every aspect of their life was being controlled” by Colton.

Murro met Colton in Florida in 1951, when he was 24 years old. In her autobiography, which Murro co-authored, he wrote that he was confused about the direction of his life, and felt bewildered and alone. He began to study with Colton and went on to become her devoted disciple and scribe.

He co-authored several of her books and co-founded the religious group. Niscience minister Ward, who has been in the group 15 years, said Colton always said that when she died “her mantle would pass to Jonathan.”

But Ward and some of the former members suggested that Murro was a reluctant leader and did not feel worthy of carrying on Colton’s legacy.

In the early years of the foundation, Murro had been timid and shy and was often reluctant to speak publicly, recalled Mark Benson, 44. Benson had become involved in the group at the age of 7, because his mother joined it. When Colton was dying, Murro was “terrified at the idea of having to take over,” said Benson, who severed his ties with the group three years ago.

But former members said that after Murro became the leader, he became increasingly abusive, and insisted his followers demonstrate ever-greater devotion.

Murro also asked group members to tithe 20% of their income to Niscience, to pay for a planned expansion of the complex, which now includes a chapel, a preschool, a parsonage, a garden, a meeting room and an office building.

Ward said that “most of us were happy to make that dedication,” and that no members were forced to donate 20%. But former members said Murro spent much of his time in the pulpit berating those who refused.

For most of the long-term members who left last year, the decision to do so was agonizing because they feared they were walking away from the true spiritual path. Most still adhered to Colton’s philosophies, but said they would no longer accept Murro’s behavoir.

“We were supposed to be a Christian ministry, but he was not acting like that,” said Martin, 38, who was an active member of the group for 17 years and worked in the foundation office. “I was scared to death to leave, though. I felt so guilty and had all these doubts. We’d given everything to this; it was my whole life.”

It was only after separating themselves from the group that the former members began to feel they had been involved in a cult, they said.

Daniels, who met with former members several times, said that when they left the foundation, they were “very vulnerable. They were having problems separating illusions from reality, and tremendous identity problems.”

In his letter, Goldhammer wrote that he feels “very sorry for Jonathan, and sees him as the ultimate cult victim, who is mentally ill as a result of his experience.”

After receiving Goldhammer’s letter last month, two Canadian members also decided to leave, and sent letters urging members to “free yourselves from this hypocritical cult and serve God . . . in the real world which God gave us.”

Despite the loss of their leader, Ward said, foundation activities will continue under the direction of the board of directors and the ministers.

Tuesday morning, in an otherwise-empty chapel, a faithful member was in the pulpit reading aloud from Murro’s writings. Ward explained that according to Niscience teachings, the 3 1/2 days immediately after a death are a sacred time. Niscience members have taken turns reading aloud in the chapel around the clock since Murro’s death.

“People are very committed to our work,” she said. “We are trying to live a life dedicated to God.”