The TEMPLE OF OCULUS ANUBIS is warranted another entry in its long, strange pantheon. We had resolved many of the more nefarious myths surrounding the Damascus, Oregon compound in our article, “THE TEMPLE OF OCULUS ANUBIS SOLVED" published back in October of 2016. Yes, we can safely say that such of the conjecture and lore – from cannibal cabals to Eyes Wide Shut fan-fiction – had been disproven, much to the chagrin of every laptop-theorist this side of the Mason Dixon. There is no Egyptian Death Cult – just a secretive family with a successful eye-care business and a knack for theatrical Egyptian decor, as we had surmised. However, as I look back at the aforementioned article's byline it's entirely possible that I may have written the cosmic check to come; one that's usually doled out to such a cocksure assessment that it had been "solved". I am humbled to admit that it wasn't: It seems there was something nefarious going on behind the ominous gates, something that was far too real.

The reveal comes from an article published on April 5th from Oregon Live titled, “Eye clinic manager convicted in huge health care fraud: Puppet of father or partner in crime?” 41 year old Anthony Curtis Neal, daughter of widow Sharon Neal (wrongfully cited as 'Neil' in our last article) was prosecuted for health insurance fraud through the Neal family optometry business in Gresham, Oregon. Anthony embezzled around $2.5 million in a decades-long-con that was, allegedly, orchestrated by his late father, Dr. Dean Elton Neal. That money fueled what we have come to know as THE TEMPLE OF OCULUS ANUBIS, reportedly spending around $3 million to construct the still-unfinished compound:

"The unfinished, 35,000-square-foot-house that the Neal family spent millions of dollars to build for son Anthony Neal beside his father Dr. Dean Neal's house in Damascus. (Google Maps)" - Courtesy of OREGON LIVE

The tundra of white collar criminal clichés aren’t without gaudy pizazz: the statues, gates, a helipad and a tennis court, too. Remember those tunnels everyone was so enamored with? Well, the tunnels were simply connecting the houses of the elder and younger Neal’s. But the tax fraud perpetrated by a medical professional, the exploitation of the trust of their patients, and subsequent embezzling of millions isn’t the worst of it.

The jig, as they say, was up when Anthony fired a surgeon at their practice for not subscribing to their practice of fraudulently billing health insurance agencies for unnecessary tests. It was in April, at Anthony Neal’s sentencing, that we now have the most accurate, and chilling, peer behind those Anubis gates and into the secretive family therein. Anthony’s defense spurned the Neal family for his transgression, especially the late Dr. Dean Neal.

Anthony Neal’s defense lawyer claims that not only is Anthony mentally disabled, landing somewhere the autism spectrum, but when 13 years-old, Anthony revealed that he had been raped by a family acquaintance to his father. Dr. Neal refused to report it for fear of tarnishing his image. Ironically, it would be his image that would receive the most degradation in this case. Contrary to the image they portrayed to their patients, Dr. Neal was a long-time victimizer and tyrant to his family. Dr. Neal seemed to be less of a rich-whacky-isolated millionaire in the vein of Howard Hughes and more of a bat-shit—perverse-despot like Caligula, lacking empathy for his loved ones to terrifying degrees as he is alleged to have not only abused his disabled son, but repeatedly bound and raped his wife, Sharon. The latter of which is evidenced by a restraining order Sharon had taken out against Dr. Neal in 1997. Dr. Neal died from a stroke in 2015 with no resolution to his domestic terrorism or financial crimes.

Anthony’s Judge sentenced him today with a year in federal prison and was unsurprisingly ordered to pay millions between insurance agencies and the IRS. Judge Jones finished by advising Anthony, “You are not dumb. You were certainly under the thumb of your father, but you knew right from wrong. So you have culpability.''. Though, the judge was not without surmising that Dr. Dean Neal was "about as evil a person you can imagine, especially involving his disabled son.”

The parallels between greed and its ability to pickle the brain, to contort and sour empathy beyond reprieve, are bountiful. Dr. Neal's reign of terror behind those clandestine gates may not have been preternatural, so to speak, or he may not have been in service of the New World Order, but for all the fanciful fears Oregonians attributed to the Oculus Anubis, they weren’t far off the mark when tuning to the darker side of their suspicions. To quote the podcast SWORD & SCALE, “Sometimes the worst monsters are real” and there are no worse than an abusive father and husband left free to debase and desecrate his family, only to languish without retribution until his natural death.

We’ll leave it at that, for now.