ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 28, 1995 TAG: 9512280066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: GRENOBLE, FRANCE
SOURCE: Associated Press
Sedated, the doomsday cult members lay sleeping on the forest floor, 14 bodies arranged in the shape of a star. Two fellow cult members - including a policeman - shot them and set the bodies on fire.
Then, the two set themselves ablaze and shot themselves in the head. Among the dead lying nearby were the wife and two little daughters of the policeman, and a second police officer.
In announcing the results Wednesday of autopsies on the 16 bodies, prosecutor Jean-Francois Lorans confirmed how, step by step, the members of the Order of the Solar Temple committed their murder-suicide. The ritual echoed the group murder-suicides last year by cult members in Switzerland and Quebec that killed 53.
Lorans said the autopsies clarified that the murders took place shortly after midnight on Saturday. He did not rule out the possibility that others may have been involved.
The charred bodies of cult members were found that day in an Alpine forest near the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Cherennes, 18 miles outside Grenoble in eastern France.
Near the 14 victims lying in the star shape were the bodies of the two killers, police officer Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and another cult member, who has not been identified. Lying at their sides were two service revolvers - Lardanchet's and that of the other officer, Patrick Rostand.
Lorans said earlier Wednesday that the two killers were Lardanchet and Rostand. But later in the day he said an examination of dental records showed that Rostand was among the victims - not the killers.
``This new element changes nothing at this stage of the inquiry. Two men methodically killed the other members of the cult, and then probably killed themselves,'' Lorans said.
The killers used .22-caliber rifles to shoot their victims, then the revolvers to kill themselves, Lorans said. He added that because they had ingested sedatives, the 14 victims were ``lying on their backs, probably in a state of deep sleep'' when they were shot.
Three of the victims were children, including Lardanchet's daughters, ages 2 and 4.
Among the victims was Patrick Vuarnet, 27, son of sunglasses tycoon Jean Vuarnet, the former French ski champion. The third child was the 6-year-old daughter of a friend of Patrick Vuarnet.
Lorans said the 11 adults were killed by bullet wounds to the head and thorax. The three young girls were shot in the forehead.
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