With confirmation that two key members of a doomsday cult were among the 53 people found dead last week, hopes for unraveling the mystery surrounding the deaths remain with the cult's leader.
There has been no sign of cult leader Luc Jouret since fires in two Swiss villages Oct. 4 revealed the deaths of 48 members of the Order of the Solar Temple cult. Another five cult members were found dead in Canada.On Tuesday, Swiss police said the cult's financial controller, Camille Pilet, was among 23 found in a remote farmhouse in Cheiry. A police statement did not give the cause of death.
Police on Monday confirmed the cult's mastermind, Joseph di Mambro, a 70-year-old French Canadian, was among the bodies found in chalets in
Granges-SurSalvan. Pilet, a 68-year-old Swiss national, was closely linked to Jouret, prompting Swiss media to speculate that it was likely the charismatic leader was also among the dead rather than on the run.
Police have issued an international arrest warrant for Jouret, a 46-year-old Belgian.
The police statement Tuesday also confirmed that a .22-caliber pistol discovered at a burned-out chalet had been used in the farmhouse shootings in
Cheiry. More than 50 bullets were pumped into the bodies found at the farmhouse, and initial investigations indicate the victims may have been murdered instead of committing suicide. None of the 25 charred corpses found in two chalets were shot.
This has given rise to theories that someone shot cult followers in the farmhouse and then drove to the chalets, 90 minutes away. Both the farmhouse and chalets were set on fire by a self-igniting device.
Adding to the murder-suicide question, police said they found 23 aluminium sachets at the farmhouse. Twenty-one were empty and the other two contained an unidentified powder.
The five cult members who died in Canada were found in an apartment owned by di Mambro. Police said three of them - including a baby - were murdered.
Montreal La Presse reported Wednesday that two cult members found dead in Switzerland carried out those murders.