ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 2, 1997 TAG: 9704020050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Police say they also found a storage building with 3 rifles and five handguns.
Major television networks have expressed interest in basing a fictionalized movie-of-the-week on the mass suicide of 39 cult members in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., agents say.
A top television agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Richard Ford, 43, a former cult member known as Rio who notified the authorities about the suicides, was seeking to sell a television movie called ``The 40th Victim.'' Kushner-Locke, a television production company, is handling the potential deal.
Agents said ABC and CBS had expressed interest in the project, while NBC had rejected it.
``There's a squeamishness about this story,'' one agent said. ``Everyone agrees it's fascinating, but everyone seems to be sort of holding back. It's a bleak story.''
By all accounts, the top movie studios have expressed no interest in a feature film about the Heaven's Gate cult.
It was Ford, a Web site designer at the Interact Entertainment Group in Beverly Hills, Calif., who received a Federal Express package last Tuesday containing two videotapes and a note from group members saying they had committed suicide. The next day, Ford and his employer drove to the group's home in Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego, and discovered the bodies.
Talent agents also said that Bonnie Nettles, the daughter of Bonnie Lu Nettles, a founder of the cult who died 12 years ago, also was seeking to sell her story to television.
In recent years, television networks have used similar news events as the basis for movies, including the mass suicides at Jonestown, Guyana; the shootings at Ruby Ridge, Idaho; and the violent confrontation with the Branch Davidian cult near Waco, Texas.
In other events, police found five handguns, three rifles and ammunition belonging to the cult in two rented storage sheds in San Diego.
Sheriff's detectives serving a search warrant uncovered the collection, said Kent Schirmer, head of the San Diego County public administrator's property division. He did not know what type of rifles were found.
A handgun was also found in a bag cult members packed before committing suicide, a medical examiner's investigator said. According to an ex-member, the gun was used for target practice.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB