Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 13, 1994                   TAG: 9410130050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GENEVA                                  LENGTH: Short

NEW LEADS EMERGE IN CULT DEATHS

New clues emerged Wednesday in the deaths last week of 53 members of a doomsday cult, apparently caught in a split between two branches and infighting between cult leaders.

A Montreal newspaper, La Presse, reported that Canadian police suspected Joel Egger and Dominique Bellaton were the killers of a three-member family found stabbed to death in a luxury apartment. Swiss police confirmed that Egger, 35, was one of the charred bodies found in an Alpine chalet. Bellaton, a Canadian woman, hasn't been identified among the dead.

There was reportedly a split between Canadian and Swiss branches of the Order of the Solar Temple, as well as infighting between the cult's leaders believed to be involved in a money-laundering and arms racket.

A Swiss weekly, L'Hebdo, said $93 million in cult money had been transferred to an Australian account held by the secretary of the cult's mastermind, Joseph di Mambro. Di Mambro, a 70-year-old French Canadian, was one of the bodies in the chalets in Granges-Sur-Salvan.

Swiss police have said many of the 48 victims in Switzerland were murdered. Of the five deaths in Canada, two were thought to be suicides.

The cult's apocalyptic Belgian guru, 46-year-old Luc Jouret, is wanted under an international arrest warrant on suspicion of murder and premeditated arson. It is unclear if he is alive or dead.