Girl ‘in church grip’

Press, 3 November 1981, Page 3

Girl ‘in church grip’

PA New Plymouth The family of a young Taranaki woman fear that she is in the grips of the Moonist church in San Francisco.

Anna-Lyn Hall, aged 21, and her "mother. Mrs Lena Hall, went to San Francisco three weeks ago to persuade Mary-Lee Hall, aged 22. to leave a group affiliated to the Rev. Myung Moon's Unification Church, but said that they how: feared for her safety. “She is” over here in. the United States somewhere." Anna-Lyn said. “.They have, put her in hidihg:'< ? . She and her mother have gained wide media coverage in San Francisco, of their attempt to have Mary-Lee break with the church and return to New Zealand.

The missing girl's father. Mr Lyndsay Hail, a Pungarehu dairy farmer, said on Sunday that Anna-Lyn had been interviewed on" television. several times and the story had been featured daily in. the newspapers.

He himself had received two telephone calls from Mary-Lee at the week-end. “Mary-Lee was very upset and crying," Mr Hall said. “We talked for a time about the church, and I said that she should come home and talk about it. She said she couldnT.come hoihe. I said I couldn't accept that. “Mary ; Lee was very emotional. so . not wanting to press her, I made her give me a solemn oath to ring me the next day (Sunday)." Mr Hall said the change in

his daughter the next day was quite remarkable. “She was very cold and formal — totally without feeling. She said she would not come home and didn't like her mother and sister interfering in her life, and believed that they were under the influence of various pressure groups in San Francisco which had been chipping away at the Moonies for vears."

He believed the telephone calls were made at the instruction of the Collegiate Association for Research of Principals (C.A.R.P.j, the Moon affiliate group his daughter had joined.

Mr Hall said that his daughter went to New York for a holiday in April after living in England for more than two years. He understood she and three friends were met at the airport, or soon after they landed, by some young people who turned out to be members of C.A.R.P. “It is the normal method of approach for this group,” he said. “They have members stationed at airports and bus and railway stations and so on to intercept young travellers.” Mr Hall I said that unless something happened within the next few days. Mrs Hall and Anna-Lyn would have to return to New Zealand without Mary-Lee.