Word: cults
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Switzerland and one in Canada where 53 of his followers and their children died. Police in two countries are trying to find out whether the deaths were mass suicide, mass murder or some bizarre combination of the two. An international arrest warrant has been issued for Jouret and fellow cult leader Joseph di Mambro, a 70-year-old French Canadian called "the Dictator" or "Napoleon" by some in the sect...
...signs of foul play, at least some of the deaths may have been suicides, part of one more episode in cult pathology to put beside the weird tragedies at Jonestown, Guyana, and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. A victim was found with a letter to her family explaining that she had come to Switzerland to die. Jean-Francois Mayer, a Swiss authority on cults, made public three letters he said were posted to him by cult members before the fire. "We are leaving this earth," read one, "to rediscover, lucidly and freely, a dimension of truth and absoluteness...
Swiss investigators have identified the badly burned body of Luc Jouret -- the big cheese in the Order of the Solar Temple cult whose 50 plus members were found dead in Switzerland and Canada last week. Jouret's whereabouts had so far been unknown and police even had a warrant out for his arrest for murdering some of his followers. Police did, however, nab another suspected cult member: Patrick Vuarnet, the son of the French skiing champion Jean Vuarnet, who won the 1960 Olympic downhill and now heads the upscale eyeglass company. He was taken into custody in connection with...
With the positive ID of Jouret's death, the mystery of the cult doesn't get any closer to being solved -- it just deepens, says TIME Switzerland reporter Robert Kroon. There's still the question of who benefited from the undoubtedly large sums of money that the cult collected from its members. Swiss media are reporting a transfer of $93 million to an Australian bank account held by one cult figure. "This was obviously a cult with a double life," says Kroon. "But you wouldn't think that the leaders would collect all this money and then kill themselves...
Swiss investigators are convinced that a significant number of the 48 cult members found dead in two villages did not commit suicide but were murdered, according to TIME Switzerland reporter Robert Kroon. Reason: In one location police found several suitcases all packed, as if the members had "traveled from elsewhere for a meeting of the sect," says Kroon. "Police sources tell me they think it's peculiar that people would have their bags packed before they get ready to die." Investigators also tell Kroon that they think the deaths are related to disagreements within the cult. Another indication of murder...