- 7/6/2025
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FunTranscript
00:00Hello?
00:24Hello?
00:25Yes, I need to report an anonymous tip.
00:29Who do I talk to?
00:31Okay, this is regarding what?
00:34This is regarding a mass suicide.
00:46We still say that was one suicide and 38 murders.
00:59Why can't it be an option to go to your Creator the way you feel like you want to go?
01:07Why do you have to wait?
01:09Here's all these people that I love that are now gone, and I just let them know that I love them now.
01:24And I just let them know that, you know, that I love them and I miss them.
01:39Earlier this year, the bodies of 39 men and women were found in this house in San Diego.
02:00They were members of the Heaven's Gate cult.
02:04All had committed suicide, videotaping their last thoughts before they died for the world to hear.
02:11We're so excited, we don't know what to do because we're about to re-enter the level above human.
02:21I couldn't have had a better life than I've had these 21 years.
02:24And if it was good here, I know it's been twice as good when I get up there.
02:28This isn't a troubling circumstance. Don't take it as that. It's just a gateway, just a doorway.
02:34What we're doing is we're going home.
02:37We're going home to those individuals who sent us here to do this task.
02:42And this is the happiest and joyous thing that you can possibly imagine.
02:46We're going home.
02:49The Heaven's Gate cult was started over 20 years ago by a music teacher, Marshall Applewhite, and Bonnie Nettles, a nurse.
03:01Their mutual interest in spirituality brought them together.
03:04But it was a union of the minds alone and not of the flesh.
03:08Both abandoned their lives in Texas and went on a journey across America to find their purpose.
03:14After six months, they had an awakening.
03:19They believed they had been sent to Earth on a special mission.
03:22And they built their philosophy around a fusion of New Ageism, Science Fiction, and Christianity.
03:27What they were to promise their followers was entry to the Kingdom of Heaven without having to die first.
03:34I'm from Kingdom Level Above Human. What does that yield?
03:39That yields immediately that the vast majority say cult, some religious radical, some blasphemous individual that wants to take advantage of people.
03:57Now reborn as Ti and Do, they held a series of public meetings to recruit followers, many of whom were already seeking spiritual meaning.
04:05Michael Conyers was one of the first.
04:08I first saw Ti and Do in a meeting in 1975, and I was just mesmerized.
04:15I think most everyone in the auditorium, and there must have been 500 people, were mesmerized.
04:22The message that Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles had was one that was talking to my Christian heritage, yet in a modern updated way.
04:33Like Mary was, you know, impregnated by being taken up on a spacecraft.
04:40Now as unbelievable as that sounds, that was an answer that was better than, you know, just plain virgin birth.
04:48It was like technical, it had physicality to it.
04:52Another early recruit was Sawyer.
04:56When I first joined the group, it was tremendously exciting and adventurous.
05:01And it was like, I had all this energy to be kind of like an evangelist, and yet I had, before the group, I had no real avenue for that.
05:11The magnetism of Ti and Do also enticed 19-year-old David, Nancy Brown's son.
05:18I couldn't believe that he was really going off to do this, and I had to have some knowledge of why.
05:24I mean, after all, you've spent 18 years raising a child, he was now 19.
05:29And he said, you know, I can't ever picture myself just living a kind of life that most people take to be normal.
05:37I seem to want something more, something different, and I'm not sure what it is.
05:43For David and others like him, the cult seemed to offer a viable alternative.
05:48He did say that he was going to try it, and it might not work for him, and if it didn't, he would come back.
05:55So I, of course, was, you know, hoping for the latter.
05:59Human parents do not possess the offspring they have.
06:05It's a very evil thing for them to think that they are theirs, that they are products of theirs, property of theirs.
06:15Hundreds of young men and women gathered to hear Do's teachings, and they soon found themselves under the spotlight of media attention.
06:22Feeling threatened, Ti and Do decided to take the group underground.
06:27All contact with friends and family ceased.
06:31A rigorous and separate way of life was established, which caused many recruits to drop out.
06:37Those who chose to stay were given new names, and became known as the class.
06:43Their purpose was to prepare for graduation to the next level, the level above human.
06:50The students took their lessons seriously. It was not a life for the faint-hearted.
06:55There was just reams and reams and reams of books on how to do everything.
07:00The idea that I want to really clarify here that it was designed for a person not to think for themselves.
07:09It was designed that you give your will over to what appeared to be a benevolent being who was taking you through a process that would help you come out the other side.
07:23Cult members dedicated themselves to this life willingly.
07:28We used to joke in the class that we were the cult of cults, you know, and we weren't here to be programmed or brainwashed.
07:38We were here to beg to be brainwashed.
07:41Strict obedience and accuracy were demanded for entry to the next level, so every task was regulated and examined by allocated members known as check partners.
07:50Everything was designed to be followed by an exact duplicate.
07:56You were not to come up with, well, I'm going to make the pancakes this big.
08:01There was a mixture, a size, how long you cooked it on one side, how much the burner was on, how many a person got, how the syrup was poured on it, everything.
08:16I mean, to the point where, like, the males, like, I shaved, so you were not to go up with the razor, only down.
08:26As a matter of fact, I had a problem with that, because I always liked to go up.
08:30It requires that you, if you move into that evolutionary kingdom, that you leave behind everything of human ways, human behavior, human ignorance, human misinformation.
08:45The next level was a place without emotion and without gender.
08:51It was a big part of the class to seek androgyny.
08:55That's why the women never wore dresses, never wore jewelry or makeup or anything that would accentuate the body.
09:02Sex was considered too human, and as in many religious orders, it was banned.
09:09I had to resort to driving down the street and just not looking on one side or the other, so that, you know, just looking at a female would inflame the hormones in my body.
09:31And you would just constantly try to find techniques that would eliminate that desire.
09:41But unlike monks and nuns, these men and women weren't segregated.
09:45And not surprisingly, they sometimes found their thoughts slipping into human territory.
09:50If there was a slippage in sexuality, you would say, I had a slippage in sexuality.
09:56If they wanted to know more, they would call you up and say, what was your slippage in sexuality?
10:02But the slippage and having to admit to it, and the shame around it, the defeated feeling, like you almost had to go back to square one, was enough for me, and I think I could speak for everybody, to keep them in check.
10:19The group continued to remain underground, frequently moving from place to place.
10:26It wasn't just anxious parents that Doe was hiding from.
10:30He was very paranoid of the government, of, you know, police.
10:36If there was any hint that we were going to be found out in a neighborhood, or somebody's job, or, you know, Social Security, or whatever, there was a shift.
10:48There was a motion.
10:49Like, we would live 15 people in a house, and there was designated people that could go outside.
10:56And the same people were seen outside all the time.
10:59So it appeared as though there was just a few people living in a house.
11:03So he had elaborate systems of security with all the people that were involved.
11:10In 1985, T, the co-founder of the cult, died of cancer, confounding the theory that you took your body with you to the next level.
11:22Fortunately, the philosophy of the group had already moved on to accommodate her death.
11:28T would pick up an angelic body, and then return to collect the others at a later date, but would continue to communicate with the group by sending messages that only Doe could interpret.
11:41As the years passed, with no word from David, Nancy Brown feared for his safety.
11:47I reached the pit of despair when the Jonestown news broke in 79, and I remember sitting there watching this horrifying sight of bodies scattered around the compound like crumpled leaves.
12:03And I thought, my gosh, I don't know if David's group even lives in this country. Is he still with them? Is he still living? Maybe he got killed in a highway accident. I had no idea.
12:16Nancy was determined to find out, and thanks to her perseverance, limited contact was resumed, and Doe finally decided to allow his students a family visit.
12:27You want me to do some work?
12:34Let's continue with the tour.
12:36Of course, it was absolutely marvelous seeing him. Phone calls are nice, letters are nice, but to actually see and hug him and talk to him and spend a couple of days together was very, very important to me and to all of them.
12:56He looked well, but he looked pale, and he was thin. He explained that they had been fasting. They often experimented with different diets, and the pallor was that they spent a lot of time indoors.
13:13Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you David. Happy birthday to you.
13:21There's twelve candles for twelve brutes a year.
13:25Back a backlog of years.
13:28one evening we had a pretty intense talk and his father and one of his brothers in particular
13:51pressed him pretty hard about his beliefs and his choice and you know it was really clear that
14:00there wasn't anything that was going to dissuade david from what he had chosen
14:15david would say stimulating the attachments to our families and our former lives
14:21detracts us from uh our mission if i were a monk or a priest and i was in a cloistered situation
14:29they only see their families only once a year or less and so we don't feel that we're doing
14:35anything extraordinary in terms of our commitment to our beliefs well i gotta take off today yeah
14:44gotta finally catch the second one about two so
14:51after ten years in the class most members had taken the necessary leap of faith to believe that
14:56doe was quite literally their savior i'll tell you about a kingdom level beyond here and if you want
15:03to go there then you have to follow me because i'm the guy who's got the key at the moment
15:07i believe doe uh compared to jesus uh is a 20th century jesus
15:16in other words whether he was the exact same soul that was incarnate 2 000 years ago and was called
15:23jesus or not is really irrelevant because it's the information that uh he felt was more important not
15:30who he was in particular and some people would say that doe was actually suffering from a great mental
15:38illness and delusional mental illness
15:41yes a great many people said that jesus was suffering from a great mental illness i'm sure
15:49and i don't think doe was suffering for any more of a great mental illness than jesus
15:56but michael conniers was beginning to lose his faith after 13 years in the group thoughts of leaving
16:02had started to enter his mind i think basically was a lack of vitality in my life boredom
16:11i wasn't liking what i was doing and i had more and more doubts of the validity of what i was doing
16:20marshall applewhite asked me how i was doing and whether or not i wanted to go have a visit and i
16:28said sure i'd like to have a visit when i got on that plane i knew i wasn't coming back so i left
16:34after 16 years in the group leanne wolf was experiencing similar doubts
16:42there were times when when i would be alone with myself in the bathroom and just
16:49just beat my just beat my head and just be just angry at myself for not being you know that perfect
16:56person
16:59i did start to doubt who doe was saying that he was not that i doubted his sincerity ever or his belief
17:08in who he what he believed but i was at a point where i was not happy i felt i had reached the depths
17:16of self-hate i had failed the overcoming process i had not succeeded in evolving from the human level
17:23into the next level so you know you left with a package a heavy package of shame and guilt
17:29perhaps it was the loss of several other class members that prompted doe to go public once again in 1994
17:44his aim was not just to recruit new members having accepted that they may need to die to ascend to the
17:50next level the group's public meetings actually had a more sinister purpose we were also hoping that
17:56uh it might accelerate our departure in other words maybe uh some irate christians would think that
18:04we were saying blasphemies and would someone might take a gun and blow us up or something but we definitely
18:11wanted to return uh to the level above human for something but we definitely wanted to return uh to the
18:20level above human the kingdom level above human is not a static place it is a place where growth
18:26continues indefinitely the chief the creator is constantly evolving and there are ones in that
18:33kingdom level who are constantly struggling to keep up with them
18:47one young woman who joined at this time was the daughter of alice and robert mader
18:52gail was just 24. she had left her parents home in long island and gone to live in california hey
18:59gail are you ready for what a big day to entertain you she had a little store out there selling tie-dye
19:06clothes and silver jewelry and stuff and she was doing pretty well for a couple of years and after she
19:14broke up with her boyfriend she decided that she was going to go on a trip a couple of months later we got
19:19one of these recruitment flyers for this group talking about ufos and all that then we knew we
19:24were in trouble that was the first indication that we really knew she was in some kind of group that
19:30we didn't understand it was almost sheer panic because we went months without hearing anything and
19:37it's terrible when she called home uh the one and only phone call in three years a month after we got
19:44the flyer i said hi gail what are you doing and she said did you get my flyer and we said yes and
19:50she said well that's what i'm doing what do you think of it her grandmother asked of galley please
19:54come home says when can you see us just probably never hello honey oh when you're coming home
20:04home i don't know so i never oh no gary you've got to come
20:10i thought you'd say that oh i want to see you so badly here yeah i guess your father wants to say
20:18something hi hi how you doing great how about you all right geez we miss you gail yeah we you know we
20:27don't know what you're doing we're worried about you wait how about coming up for a visit why
20:37oh you can't be that busy come up and see us i'll buy you a ticket we want to see you
20:45you can't be that busy you can't see your family can you oh come on yeah his his out
20:53so what kind of group are you with oh really yeah uh-huh oh that's nice uh-huh you're eating well
21:08you're not getting fat are you good good there's no way i can contact you you have to contact me
21:15okay well keep in contact baby because i love you so much and i miss you awfully
21:20hey how about coming home for christmas oh no no christmas what are you going to do for christmas
21:26i'd love to have you come home for christmas gaily you know how it is
21:29all right don't forget how much i love you first chance you can get come home for a visit bye i love you
21:42now breaking away from the world is not easy it's difficult it's tough and breaking away doesn't mean
21:48that you know i'm going to go live in some place with this little cult and i'll you know spend time
21:56on weekends or at least on holidays with the family that i left because they're my no it means that you
22:03leave that world behind you even become another individual it means that even the mind that you had
22:10as a human is aborted and the soul that was given to you is filled with next level information next level
22:19mind and a new creature is born they got gas but nobody they got gas but it's not till tomorrow morning
22:31the only way of entering doe's promised land was to stay within the confines of the group
22:36few students dared to pass up this unique opportunity and doe reinforced this anxiety
22:43what ended up happening was there was these idle threats from my point of view of fear
22:50that if you miss the boat you may not get another chance
22:58any thought other than what comes from what he called your older member's mind
23:04was not a thought to be allowed in
23:11another new member who joined at this time was richard ford reborn in the cult as rio d'angelo
23:18about 88 i began looking very intensively for my purpose you know what am i here for
23:27why am i on this planet and it led me to a lot of research about everything that involved evolution
23:35not only of the physical but of the spiritual so that led me to a group called a level above human
23:45which was holding a meeting it was their understanding that the earth was designed
23:50as a garden to grow souls and it was as if the creator had this garden as kind of a personal garden
24:00and would plant the seeds harvest the souls and then till the garden
24:10you know spade it under and then plan again and that was the whole purpose of this planet everything sounded so
24:18incredibly believable and very basic and i understood it sound familiar to me
24:26i would do anything that i could do to wake you up if you have
24:34that potential to know that kingdom to be saved from this
24:42spading under
24:42after almost 10 years away from the group michael conius now has a perspective on what was driving doe
24:51he didn't like his homosexuality he was hiding from a piece of himself that he disliked
24:59so he created a myth around that piece that he didn't like you know when you come from a christian
25:05background where your father's a presbyterian minister and you're living in the south where in the 70s
25:11psychologists still considered homosexuality a mental sickness he came to a conclusion about
25:18his body that it was abhorrent
25:24for those students the suppression of their own sexuality through thought alone was proving so
25:29difficult that some felt compelled to take more drastic action castration was not something that
25:35anybody in the class rushed into myself and one other individual were pressing doe for quite a few
25:42years on having that option in order to eliminate our sexuality because we had no desire for it anymore
25:49if your eye offend you pluck it out if you it's the same idea if something is so offensive to you that
25:56your control is threatened by it then why shouldn't you dispose of it if you have that option to do it not
26:02that i have ever talked to anyone into taking that action when it came down to actually doing it
26:10circumstances led up to seroni and i having to decide who was going to go first
26:15and we flipped the coin over that because it was a simple way of putting it in god's hands
26:20but having lost the coin toss i had a lot of frustration after he went through with it and that he was
26:26that he was experiencing the relief from the testosterone going through his system and i was
26:32still having to deal with it all human behavior is really primitive to us it was around this time
26:39that even sawyer a loyal member and often spokesman of the group also decided that it was time to move
26:45on that's basically antitical to jesus's message i was compelled to leave i had some frustration that
26:51we weren't learning lessons fast enough and and that uh the public didn't care about what we had to
26:57say really if god said hey i'm calling you hey david hello you're assuming yeah i don't want you to have
27:03sex anymore it seemed like a number of the students were stagnated uh not able to move ahead on their
27:10weaknesses i felt like i just started to have feelings of wanting to do something else and um just started to
27:20have feelings of wanting to do something else and um it was difficult to deal with that at first because
27:27it was almost like a sense of a divorce i'm glad i didn't have the castration done because my partner
27:34of two years ann marie is expecting and uh i'm excited about that and it's a whole new life for me
27:41to be thinking about being a father i'm happy with the fact that i'm a functional human being in all aspects
27:50of the class rio d'angelo learned the lessons of the class quickly accepting that his body was a
28:06machine a mere vehicle for his soul you don't let the vehicle have its way because the vehicle is
28:12basically a biological computer with its own memory its own ways of doing things and uh as a soul you
28:20have programmed your own soul and developed your own soul kind of a cultivated it and so it's a different
28:28set of software going into the body that's the hardware in computer terms
28:33to function well the vehicle was given regular maintenance including enemas and a special purge
28:43mixed to precise specifications it's called the master cleanser it's a lemonade or limeade
28:52with cayenne pepper and maple syrup which was a b-grade maple syrup this is a dietary
28:59formula we did this off and on over some years but it's basically to cleanse the vehicle to get rid
29:09of a lot of toxins and it works very well by the autumn of 1996 the group had settled in san diego
29:17and was making its money through a business designing computer websites including its own
29:23doe was becoming increasingly depressed and was convinced that the end was near
29:28in san diego if i would title this tape it would be last chance to evacuate planet earth
29:38before it is recycled last chance to evacuate earth before it is recycled
29:50it was through the internet that the group was able to draw in two new recruits
29:54it's yvonne and stephen hill they joined just six months before the suicides
30:01i had became an avid web surfer i stayed on the internet nine to ten hours a day first contact was
30:08done through email um over the internet for some time the hills had been the victims of a series of
30:15anonymous attacks and felt threatened their lives had become intolerable and they were looking for a way
30:21to get out once um we had talked to the members of the cult and they were sympathetic to our situation
30:29um it seemed to be a perfect match they understood what was happening the harassments and our cars
30:38getting tore up and they were very sympathetic to that it was me that wanted to go to into the
30:45cult at first and um she wanted to come because she said that you're not leaving me here you know
30:53the hills had been married for seven years and had four children their twins were just one month old
31:00joining the cult meant leaving everything and everyone behind the cult did not allow children
31:06and we gave them up looking back it's just ridiculous but uh we did it we were um lost our perception or
31:18what you know what to do um we told them that um mommy and daddy's leaving they left the children with
31:27family members and joined the group where they were separated they too had to overcome their sexuality and
31:33attachment to each other i've been in the class will be six months sunday i think i may be the last one
31:43up to this point to have come to be with tando at this time i'm very happy to be here
31:53she changed almost 100 percent at first we got there it seemed to be a big burden lifted off her
32:01she was happy she was totally enamored by the environment you're talking about a million dollar
32:09estate and all the amenities and things that go along with that lifestyle and she just enjoyed it
32:19as yvonne became more drawn in stephen couldn't wait to leave and after just three months returned to
32:25cincinnati alone i knew that she couldn't keep up with that way of life the control manipulation and then
32:33when i left i kind of knew that she would fall she had wanted to go there with me and i knew that if
32:40i left you know that she would have wanted to leave and go with her family to come home to her husband
32:47there's nothing here for me i want to um look forward keep my eye on tando that's my path
32:59stephen is never to see his wife alive again to see her picture
33:04i i couldn't believe that but it's but it's true
33:15you know and i have a lifetime to um to deal with that
33:19my pain is really beyond you know anything i can even explain you know i look at my children and
33:39you know i want to give my life for them you know to do all what i can and that's that's all i have left
33:46right
33:53early this year the hail bop comet made its appearance in the sky
33:58doe took this as the long-awaited sign from t that the time had finally come to evacuate planet earth
34:16this week's before the evacuation rio d'angelo felt compelled to leave doe and the cult
34:45although he claims not to have known what was just about to happen i had this feeling
34:52that it was the same feeling that i had when i joined it was kind of an irresistible feeling that
35:00my focus or my task was different i felt like i had a task to do outside of the class for the class
35:08in some way that i didn't understand um but i talked to doe about it and after an emotional
35:16conversation of how i felt i needed to leave the class to do this task
35:20um he felt that uh it was probably part of the design
35:32although he decided to leave the cult rio retained its belief system
35:37the challenge of life outside the class is mostly having to deal with with the human world
35:46i am using a human vehicle i identify as the soul i don't identify as this vehicle
35:51me as the soul rio d'angelo is is very different than richard ford however because i'm i'm in here
36:02we're kind of working this thing together and it is actually right now this is very odd duality that
36:08that i live with daily rio's task was about to be made clear he was to be the cult's messenger to the
36:16outside world after they had made the ultimate sacrifice and demonstration of their faith let me
36:21say that our mission after they had made the ultimate sacrifice and demonstration of their faith
36:27let me say that our mission here at this time is about to come to a close in the next few days
36:36we came from distant space and even what some might call somewhat of another dimension
36:46and we're about to return from whence we came
36:54two days before the suicides began the members of heaven's gate came to this restaurant
37:01it was the scene of their last supper they all ordered the exact same thing um the menu was set
37:08up ahead of time before they came in um they had all had iced teas to drink um dinner salads beforehand
37:14with tomato vinegar dressing um turkey pot pies from main entree uh cheesecake with blueberries on top
37:21for dessert seemed very nice very friendly really polite no one seemed like depressed at all or anything
37:27like that we're going to stop this tape and we're going to uh tie it together with the tape i want you to see
37:39the class that's sitting in front of me and i'm very proud of these students of the kingdom of heaven
37:48of the kingdom of god of the evolutionary level above human they're about to leave and they're excited about leaving
37:56so anybody would you want to stand up so that we can take a look at your uniform
38:04okay and maybe we can back up a little bit and get a little wider picture of the uniform
38:10okay good uh now come back and if you would and sit down and and uh now if you would uh hold your patch
38:20maybe we can zoom in on the patch great there we go see he says heaven's gate away team and that's
38:28exactly what that means to us we've been away and now we're going back okay thanks jim buddy
38:37i've made the conscious choice to willfully exit this vehicle or body that i'm wearing i'm fully aware
38:44that to stay here to reject the choice to go to the next level to separate from the kingdom of god is
38:51suicide and i feel very very excited about this time and that we'll finally be able to leave as a
38:58class together we've all worked very hard and we've all tried to prove to our older members that we're
39:04worthy of the effort and sacrifice they've made but for those that we've left behind
39:11we're going on to something greater and better and that we hope that someday you will understand this
39:18and you might join us
39:32fellow by the name of richard ford who was an ex-member of the heaven's gate in fact he left
39:40six weeks prior to the mass suicide he had received a suicide note and a farewell tape
39:48from the cult and in essence it said that they were going to take their lives the very following day
39:54he went down to rancho santa fe he went inside he checked the 39 decedents he also took videotape
40:02as he went in he made a 911 call to the sheriff's communication center telling them what his
40:09observations were is one eight two four one colina norte and rancho santa fe okay what happened there
40:20well um i think there was a religious group that committed suicide okay but you don't know when this
40:26may have happened or how many people are involved or any other details right okay we'll go check it
40:31out thank you thank you sir in the letter that they had sent me they told me that there would be a door
40:38open and that i could go through this door
40:44the smell was really strong so i walked a little further and started to see the bodies
40:51on their beds and mattresses around the house and i would call out to see if anybody was still alive
41:03and there was no answer and so i walked around the house videotaping things because i wanted to make
41:11sure that this was portrayed accurate the feeling was very unusual i had never experienced anything
41:19like that before i guess it was a lot of anxiety a lot of you know trying to keep the camera from shaking
41:26and dealing with the emotions you know here's all these people that i i love that are now gone
41:33i feel good for them i'm very happy for them but i miss them you know so it's it's uh it's a lonely
41:45feeling the entire scene was surreal and you know it was hard for me to say to myself there are 39 dead
41:57people in here instead of they're all sleeping because that's what it looked like most of those
42:02decedents looked like they were sleeping in my entire career i've never been exposed to anything
42:08of this magnitude not only is it shocking but it's almost unreal to me that 39 people would take this
42:14way out
42:25the cause of death after the scene examination the autopsy and all the toxicology was completed
42:31was certified as alcohol phenobarbital which is a sedative and hydrocodone which is a painkiller
42:38in which involved in four people associated with the probable use of plastic bags to produce asphyxia
42:45some of them may have been assisted by other persons with the plastic bag but we do not have any
42:50physical evidence on any one individual to prove that premise
42:54the autopsies also showed that eight of the males including doe had been castrated
43:07while the majority of his students lay dead around the house doe and his most trusted followers were
43:13tidying up putting shrouds over the faces of the deceased
43:18they did not die all at the same time there was varying degrees of decomposition they were discovered
43:23on wednesday and i personally believe this probably some of the deaths were on sunday some of them were on
43:29tuesday some in between mr applewhite died i believe on tuesday he was in the last group but he was not the last
43:36one to die because he was covered with a shroud and all very neat in his bed
43:53i've got a really good feeling that they are in the next level that most of them graduated
44:0739 people did not die in vain they they died exactly for what they believed in people die for their
44:12country people die for their spouses their friends uh people die for all kinds of reasons and dying for
44:20your belief system is a valid reason to die especially when you're not hurting anybody else
44:26i saw a desperation in his face i saw a kind of crazed look it wasn't the doe that i really remembered
44:36when i was younger there was more of a liveness and a freshness he looked very weary and and defeated
44:45i feel that he got to a point where he didn't know any other way out that he had created this this
44:50enormous belief system and this this um this structure and this people that were totally totally
44:57committed to him personally he was their god david was 40 when he died and although nancy had lost him
45:07over 20 years before the news still came as a great shock i was glued to the set at two o'clock
45:15they had just started the press conference when the phone rang and i was annoyed because i thought
45:20well you know whoever's calling i'm gonna have to tell them i have to call them back and but the
45:25gentleman said uh whoever's calling i'm gonna have to tell them i have to call them back and but the
45:31gentleman said uh announced his name said i'm from the coroner's office in san diego so i knew immediately
45:39why he called and that all hope was lost
45:48well i've tried to think long and hard about what i'm going to say and i know there's probably not a lot
45:53of time it's hard to know whether to be sad for david about the ending of his life i'm sad for me and
46:01and his family that will get to see him again
46:08but as the coroner told me on the phone he said david had a very serene countenance he looked like he
46:16died peacefully david lived his adult life doing what he wanted to do with people he loved and who loved
46:25him and who's to say whether this was a bad life i'm just very very thankful that
46:34this end of the part of the task is over thank you thank you
46:45the maiders aren't able to be so philosophical gail had only been in the cult for three years and was
46:50just 27 when she died i came home from work one night i turned the tv on half looking and i just
46:56glanced up and i saw one of those flyers just like the one we got go across the screen then they showed
47:01a picture of apple white and i knew we were in trouble when i first got home and he told me i said
47:06oh dear god i paced the floor uncontrollably saying dear god don't let her be there please don't let it be
47:11let her call and say mom i backed out the last minute i'm in the bushes i'm hiding get me out of here
47:16whatever but don't let it be her and then her girlfriend came in and she said god gail's on
47:20that goodbye video and i said no gail couldn't be and she put and it came on and i didn't recognize
47:25gail because she had black circles around her eyes she had aged so much i thought it was a 40 year old
47:30woman but once she opened her mouth to speak the voice was there and i realized it was gail and i
47:34thought oh dear god that wasn't the gail we knew our gail would have never taken her life knowing how much
47:40it would hurt us that was apple white scale yeah i can tell you that doe is the most special dignified
47:50unhuman objective person that you can ever meet that's right he has helped us so much and put up with
47:59so much and never done anything that it seemed even close to the way a human would respond
48:10and i guess that's really all i want to say
48:16we're angry at apple white because not only did he kill her but he killed our future with her
48:22and with any grandchildren we might have had with her and she just had everything to live for
48:26and now i can't believe that she's dead we still say that was one suicide and 38 murders
48:31that was induced suicide really that wasn't suicide in the true sense of the word
48:42leaves an awful big hole in your life
48:45and it's been a big enough hole for three years but now that hole is never going to heal because
48:50she's she's gone i mean the kids supposed to bury the old folks not the other way around
49:06so
49:11so
49:19I have confirmed that 39 people found dead at a mansion near San Diego
49:48committed mass suicide. Their bodies were discovered after an anonymous tip-off, but it's still not clear
49:55how they died. In the words of the officer in charge of the inquiry, the victims took their own lives
50:01in a strange ritual that left them appearing as though they had died peacefully in their sleep.
50:07There were no suicide notes, and none of those who died showed signs of physical injury. However,
50:13an employer of a former sect member claims two videos taped by the 39 victims showed them saying
50:20goodbye, and even citing several saying their bodies will be taken away by UFOs. Earlier it emerged that
50:27there had been members of the religious group. They designed web pages for the computer internet.
50:34This exclusive neighborhood 20 miles outside San Diego was the scene of what police have now
50:39confirmed was a ritual suicide. The 39 men and women in their late teens and 20s were found yesterday
50:46afternoon lying on the floor, each one covered with a triangular purple-colored shroud. According
50:53to the police, there was no blood or any sign of trauma at the scene.
50:57From the appearance, it would appear that it was a mass suicide. Not to say that that's exactly what
51:04happened, and we won't know that for sure until we're able to complete the investigation.
51:08As the bodies were removed in the early hours of this morning, there was still no indication of the
51:13time of death, but neighbors say there's been no sign of activity at the house since last Saturday.
51:19Nor is the cause of death known, but a specialized police team confirmed there was no evidence of
51:24poisonous gases inside the house. Police were initially alerted to the problem in the mansion by a neighbor
51:30who claims to have seen a home video of cult members made before they died.
51:35But they pretty much believed that their souls are eternal and that by the time this video was seen
51:41that they would no longer be on this planet. And they seemed jovial and excited about the next,
51:46this next stage. They felt that they were going to be going to a better place.
51:50As detectives continue their investigation, information is emerging about the group that may have driven
51:56the men and women to their death. Higher Source, an internet design company, is suspected of being
52:02a front for a religious cult. The organization which is said to recruit members on the internet
52:08is believed to have rented this house since October 1996.
52:13At the time I went there, there was probably at least eight or ten people, men and women,
52:16working on these terminals in like a main room. And he did say that they weren't like other religions
52:23that needed outside support. They were self-sufficient and did it through the computer work.
52:28This incident comes just one week after another ritualized suicide in Quebec in which five people
52:34died. However, there is not believed to be any link between the Canadian incident and the deaths
52:39yesterday near San Diego. Mass suicides of cult members are not new. In 1978 in Guyana, Jim Jones ordered
52:49more than 900 of his people's temple movement to drink juice laced with cyanide. More recently,
52:56in Waco, Texas, 80 heavily armed members of the Davidian sect died after setting fire to their
53:02ranch headquarters when it was under siege from the authorities. Their leader, David Koresh, died with
53:07them. In Tokyo, violence was turned on the public with poison gas attacks on the underground. Cult leader
53:14Soko Asara is being tried for these crimes. Only last weekend in Canada, followers of the solar temple
53:21sect killed themselves but failed to persuade teenagers to follow them to the grave. Experts say that in life,
53:28as in death, the young are especially vulnerable to occult manipulations.
53:33So it's a clever system of offering a promise and then making people work hard for salvation, I suppose.
53:40Here in Ireland, Mikey Gard works for the dialogue center which specializes in cults. His work is
53:47funded by the four main churches. He wants a Doyle committee to investigate certain religious groups
53:53which he claims are exploiting people by offering health care and counseling for personal problems.
53:58I think it's time for society to wake up before we, in fact, find ourselves in a comparable situation
54:06to what we found in San Diego earlier this morning.
54:12As traditional religion declines here, the new cults see their opening. Researchers say that if the
54:17European experience is repeated here, those cults could win up to 50,000 Irish members.
54:23The dialogue center is warning about the practices of a minority of the cults. It says it's illegal to
54:28recruit anybody under the age of 18.
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