Word: jouret
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Last week Jouret's words seemed to hang in the air over the ashes at two sites in 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...
...ground floor, including a chapel with mirrored walls and red satin draperies where 22 bodies lay, many cloaked in ceremonial white, gold, red or black robes. Most of the dead were arranged in a circle with their faces looking up at a portrait of a Christlike figure resembling Jouret. While some appeared to wear serene smiles, nearly all had suffered bullet wounds in the head. Ten had plastic bags tied over their heads. Several had their hands bound. In a final note of morbid festivity, the floor was scattered with empty champagne bottles...
About four hours later, in the Alpine village of Granges-sur-Salvan, 50 miles southeast of Cheiry, fires erupted at three adjoining ski chalets, including one that belonged to Jouret. This time police and firemen found 25 bodies, all of them badly burned, including the remains of at least five children. Earlier in the day two men identifying themselves as Jouret and Di Mambro had got a local locksmith to admit them to the house. Both fires had been set off by the same elaborate system, in which plastic bags of gasoline and containers of propane gas were linked...
...Canada were raking through the rubble of a spacious chalet owned by Di Mambro in Morin Heights, 50 miles northwest of Montreal, where five bodies were found. Two were wearing red-and-gold medallions bearing a double-headed eagle and the initials T.S., for Temple Solaire, one name for Jouret's group. Three others -- a Swiss man and his British-born wife, both former sect members, and their three-month-old son -- bore stab wounds...
Many other signs pointed to murder. The gun that fired the fatal shots in Cheiry was gone. One of the victims had been given a powerful drug. Swiss police speculated that Jouret, Di Mambro or both oversaw the death ritual in Cheiry, drove to Salvan to direct the second stage and then fled. "If this is suicide," said Andre Thierrien, a fireman in Cheiry, "then someone must have given them a helping hand." In Salvan, fully packed bags were found in apartments that had been rented by victims, suggesting that some had expected to make conventional departures from town...