Eva Schoen: Tragedy in Telluride
Prelude to Murder
The U-Haul dynasty was firmly entrenched in two camps: those who supported Joe, Mark and their new leadership direction, and those who didn't.
In 1988, thousands of stock shares were sold to outsiders to raise additional capital, but to ensure their continued voting majority Joe Mark also issued themselves an additional 8,099 shares, for which Joe paid by borrowing money from his children's trust fund.
L.S.'s supporters opposed this turn of events and sued; Amerco countersued. Everything came to a head in 1989 during a shareholders' meeting in Reno. Michael, who was sympathetic to his father and brother Sam, secretly taped the meeting. A non-family shareholder questioned the board's 8,099-share windfall and opined that the sons, as inheritors of the business, not founders, should be more sympathetic to L.S.
Mark Shoen yelled, "Shove it up your ass, shove it up your goddam ass," according to the London Independent. A short time later, Michael got up to leave and Mark saw the tape recorder. He grabbed Michael, attempting to wrest the tape from him. Joe joined in the fray, and both he and Mark began beating Michael in full view of the other shareholders. The police were called, but the matter was never prosecuted. Michael sued his brothers for assault.
It was against this backdrop that Eva was murdered. Joe and Mark's countersuit against their father Sam was scheduled for trial the following month.