ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 25, 1995 TAG: 9512260038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: GRENOBLE, FRANCE
SOURCE: Associated Press
Investigators opened a murder investigation Sunday into the deaths of 16 members of a doomsday cult amid suspicions they were shot, drugged or asphyxiated before their bodies were burned.
Three young girls were among those shot to death in the remote Alpine forest, said Prosecutor Jean-Francois Lorans.
``Every body that was found had one or several bullet wounds,'' Lorans told a news conference. Authorities suspect the killers are among the dead, whose bodies were found Saturday near the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Cherennes, 20 miles southwest of Grenoble.
The dead were identified as missing members of the Swiss-based Order of the Solar Temple.
``It could be a multiple murder with two or three suicides,'' he said. That would mirror other rituals by the cult that left 53 dead in Switzerland and Canada in October 1994.
Investigators think the victims took drugs and sedatives, Lorans said. Some victims' faces were covered with plastic bags. French media said authorities were looking for an unidentified cult leader.
Among the dead were Edith Vuarnet, wife of French sunglasses maker Jean Vuarnet, and their son, Patrick Vuarnet. The dead also included a French policeman, his two daughters and another 6-year-old girl.
A Swiss investigator said the Order of the Solar Temple may be outlawed. But French authorities said there is little they can do to stop cults from killing again.
In a search of the remote Alpine area, investigators recovered a shotgun, two revolvers, passports of cult members and four vehicles. They also combed through the charred remains of a huge bonfire that consumed the 16 bodies found in star formation the day before.
The bodies were transported late Saturday to Grenoble, wherew autopsies were to begin Tuesday.
Geneva police had found notes in the residences of four of the missing people wanting to ``see another world.'' The Order of the Solar Temple, which has its roots in centuries-old secret Roman Catholic societies, had members as far away as Australia.
In October 1994, Swiss authorities found the bodies of 48 people in a farm and three chalets consumed by fire. Five more bodies were found in a burned house belonging to a cult leader in Morin Heights, Quebec.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB