Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 6, 1994 TAG: 9410060043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHEIRY, SWITZERLAND LENGTH: Medium
Some were dressed in red, black and white ceremonial robes. Twenty had bullets in their heads. Ten of them also had plastic garbage bags tied around their necks with cords, and some had their hands bound.
In three ski chalets 90 miles away, police discovered more bodies, badly burned by fires apparently set by remote control.
In all, authorities found 48 bodies on Wednesday, and indications of a mass murder-suicide by a cult they hadn't known existed. The scenes were reminiscent of last year's fiery standoff between U.S. federal agents and Branch Davidian cult members near Waco, Texas, in which more than 85 people died.
Clues led to Canada, where two bodies were found on Tuesday in the charred wreckage of an unexplained arson. Police said the owner of the burned duplex, Luc Jouret, led apocalyptic cults in both Canada and Switzerland and had rented one of the ski chalets where the bodies were found.
Investigators said the fires in both countries were set off by remote-controlled electrical devices triggered by a timer or a telephone call.
Officials said the Swiss cult was called the Order of the Solar Tradition, a group that draws on Roman Catholicism and predicts the end of the world. In Morin Heights, Quebec, it was called Order of the Solar Temple.
Jouret represents ``an occult tradition with strong apocalyptic elements,'' said Johannes Aagaard, head of a European cult-monitoring organization based in Aarhus, Denmark. ``He expects doomsday to be coming soon.''
Jouret, who is Belgian, was believed to have fled to Switzerland last year after being charged with weapons possession and conspiracy in Canada. Police said they did not know if he was among the people found dead Wednesday.
Authorities were not ruling out the possibility that some of the victims were executed, investigating judge Andre Piller said.
``We are still reeling from what we found,'' he said after inspecting the underground chapel. ``When we first walked in it looked like a wax museum. The bodies were lying in a circle with their heads outward.''
On the wall of the chapel was a picture of a long-haired, bearded man with a cape and a rose.
A cassette tape attached to the door of the chapel explained some of the group's spiritual beliefs, Piller said, but gave no reason for the killings.
Police said they also found literature referring to a sect called the Cross and Rose, believed to be an offshoot of the same group.
The farmhouse, perched on a wooded hill over the village of Cheiry, 45 miles northeast of Geneva, was sealed off from reporters.
The bodies of 23 people, including a 10-year-old boy, were found at the farm. In addition to the 21 people found in the chapel, the body of Albert Giacobino, 70, was found in an adjoining house and another body was found in the farmhouse kitchen.
Villagers considered Giacobino the farm's owner, but the property was listed in the name of ``The Agricultural Research Firm of Cheiry,'' whose ownership was unclear.
It also was not clear whether Giacobino had anything to do with the cult. No other victims were identified. Authorities said most of the victims were Swiss, French or Canadian.
by CNB