Grieving families around the nation began Friday to plan funerals for relatives they long ago had lost to the Heaven's Gate cult, which promised disciples they could evolve into bald space aliens by severing all links to modern society and human desires.
Medical examiners working around the clock confirmed that the cult members had died after ingesting the anti-seizure drug phenobarbital and drinking alcohol. But at least a few of the victims did not have lethal levels of phenobarbital in their blood; these may have died from suffocation, as they apparently placed plastic bags over their heads, authorities said.Several of the male cult members had been castrated long before the suicides - in keeping with their belief that in order to ascend into the next level, they needed not only to remain celibate but also to prove they had no need for reproductive organs.
As autopsies continued, investigators emphasized that they saw no indication of murder - and no hint that any cult members survived the mass suicide.
The 39 victims seemed to be the only active members of the Heaven's Gate cult. The group had no other chapters elsewhere despite grand dreams of expanding overseas, San Diego County Sheriff's Lt. Jerry Lipscomb said.
"We cannot tie this group to any other one in the world," Lipscomb said.
Founded more than two decades ago by former music teacher Marshall Applewhite - who died in the mass suicide - the group attracted all types of members, of all ages and races.
About two dozen of the cult members appeared to have joined the group in the mid-1970s and stuck with it until its final act.
Cult members called each other "brothers" and "sisters." Meanwhile, their true relatives fretted and feared, baffled by the bizarre ideology that had snatched them away from mainstream society.
Yvonne McCurdy-Hill, for example, made just one 10-second phone call to her mother after joining the cult last summer. A postal supervisor in Cincinnati, McCurdy-Hill abandoned her family shortly after she gave birth to twin girls. She also had three older boys, said the Rev. H.L. Harvey, a family friend and pastor at the New Friendship Baptist Church.
Joining Heaven's Gate, as McCurdy did, meant adopting a nomadic life. The group moved often, from state to state. Until June, they lived in New Mexico, occupying a 40-acre compound in the Manzano Mountains about 50 miles southeast of Albuquerque.
Last summer, the group moved to San Diego County, renting a low-slung modern home that looks somewhat like a spaceship.
A neighbor, Anthony Demopoulos, recalled the Heaven's Gate members as "so spacey, when you talked to them, it was like talking to a wall or something." They stayed there just a few months before moving into the million-dollar mansion in Rancho Santa Fe where they died.
To go with their nomadic lifestyle, the cult members adopted new names, all with three letters. And they systematically masked their movements, registering their Web sites and drivers' licenses under bogus addresses and aliases.
Despite the difficulties, San Diego authorities managed to track down relatives of at least 30 of the victims.
A few of the families learned of the deaths from watching television broadcasts of the cult's farewell tape. On that video, 38 Heaven's Gate members assure viewers that they were killing themselves of their own free will to escape the corrupt drudgery of Earth and enter a higher realm.
One of the few tasks still facing the Sheriff's Department is to match up the faces on the video with the bodies on the morgue. Local investigators have asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the state Attorney General's Office for help in searching the cult's computers and tracking down hard-to-find relatives.
San Diego County Undersheriff Jack Drown said his team still hopes to find out how and where the cult obtained so much pheno-barbitol. A prescription drug available in generic as well as brand-name medications, it is commonly prescribed for seizure disorders.
Autopsies revealed the castrations, which one official said had been performed so long ago that all the scars had healed. Applewhite, the group's leader, was among those castrated, apparently in conformance with his ideology.
The Heaven's Gate teachings instruct followers to neuter their "vehicles," or bodies, if they hope to transform into alien bodies and hitch a UFO ride into the astral bliss he called the Kingdom of Heaven. One of the group's Internet communiques explains: "It seems you could not inherit one of those (more advanced) bodies until you no longer have any use for activities involving the reproductive organs."
Heaven's Gate members had apparently been planning their suicide for some time. One recently gave an alien medallion to a friend at a local carwash and told him he would be going away on a trip.
And three members who worked as computer consultants for the Arrowhead Group insurance company in San Diego left their jobs last month, although they were offered additional work, because they said they had to prepare for a trip. Among their preparations: getting glasses fixed and boxing up belongings.
*****
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Partial list of cult members
Thirty-nine people, 21 women and 18 men, found dead after a mass suicide in California's San Diego County were 26 to 72 years old with drivers' licenses from nine states. Relatives seeking information can contact the San Diego County coroner's office at 1-800-600-0646.
Names of dead whose families have been notified:
Marshall Herff Applewhite (aka Elder Jonathan), 66, no license
Nancy Dianne Nelson, 45, Arizona
Thomas Alva Nichols, 59, Arizona
Margaret Ella Richter, 46, California
Erika Ernst, 40, California
David Geoffery Moore, 41, California
David Cabot Van Sinderen, 48, California
Dana Tracey Abreo, 35, (female) Denver
Ladonna Ann Brugato, 40, Englewood, Colo.
Jacqueline Opal Leonard, 71, Littleton, Colo.
Raymond Alan Bowers, 45, Florida
Suzanne Sylvia Cooke, 54, Minnesota
John M. Craig (aka Logan Lahson), 63, New Mexico
Margaret June Bull, 53, New Mexico
Susan Elizabeth Nora Paup, 54, New Mexico
Brian Alan Schaaf, 40, New Mexico
Joyce Angela Skalla, 58, New Mexico
Gary Jordan St. Louis, 44, New Mexico
Yvonne McCurdy-Hill, 39, Ohio
Robert John Arancio, 46, Texas
Cheryl Elaine Butcher, 43, Texas
Michael Howard Carrier, 48, Texas
Betty Eldrie Deal, 64, Texas
Jeffrey Howard Lewis, 41, Texas
Norma Jeane Nelson, 59, Texas
Susan Frances Strom, 44, Texas
Denise June Thurman, 44, Texas
Darwin Lee Johnson, 42, Orem, Utah
Gail Renee Maeder, 28, Salt Lake City
Joel Peter McCormick, 29, Salt Lake City