In late March 1997, 39 bodies were found in a rented mansion in the San Diego community of Rancho Santa Fe, California. They all belong to a group called Heaven’s Gate and extremely insular religious movement began in 1975 by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Trousdale Nettles. The couple eventually became known by several names, including Do and To or simple the Two
After Nettles’ death from cancer in 1985, Applewhite followers became increasingly convinced that their physical bodies were just temporary vehicles, they also became sure that their real selves were due to be taken to another more evolved kingdom via space ship trailing the wake of Halley’s comet.
Accordingly, of the three days, the group planned and executed an exit strategy which consisted them splitting into small shifts to take lethal mixtures of phenobarbitone, apple sauce and vodka. They also secured plastic bags over the heads to ensure asphyxiation.
When they were found, of descending an explanatory video—and Rio DiAngelo an ex member who’d left the group just a month earlier. All the bodies were identically dressed in black shirts, black sweatpants and brand new Nike running shoes. They also each worn arm band reading, Heaven’s Gate Away Team.
Each was found lying neatly on their own bunk beds with a suitcase packed plus $5 and some change in their wallets. It seems the group who leave very frugally have taken up this practice to avoid being arrested for vagrancy.
Prior to the discovery of the bodies, little have been known about the groups strict ideals but the death changed all that.
It was discovered that they were not allowed to have sex and in the months before the mass suicide, several of the males had undergone castration, although there are some dispute as to whether this was to better to control their physical impulses or to prepare for their genderless life were expecting on the so called next level.
The groups supported itself by building websites and many of its beliefs and pronouncements can still be accessed via the internet. Marshall Appelwhite believe that the earth was due to be recycled or wiped clean and the only way to survive this process was to leave it immediately.
When he found and Nettles founded the group, they claimed that they themselves had arrived on the planet via UFO and were due to return via process that they could teach to group memories. Applewhite believed that it was Nettles piloting the space ship coming to take them all to the next level.
The youngest to die to was 26 year old Michael Sander and the oldest was Jackie Leonard who is 71. The rest were fairly evenly divided between men and women.
What was less widely reported however is that the events half March weren’t the end of it. Two months after the San Diego deaths, two group members attempted suicide in a similar fashion in a hotel room not far from the Rancho Santa Fe Masion. Wayne Cooke died but Charles Humphrey survived before a successful second attempt in the Arizona desert a year later.
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