THE horrific discovery of 48 corpses in farm buildings in the remote village of Cheiry and two burned chalets in the town of Salvan, on 5 October 1994, sent shockwaves through Switzerland.
The victims were all part of a mysterious sect – the Order of the Solar Temple – and the authorities initially believed the deaths were a mass suicide.
Joseph Di Mambro was the leader of the Order of the Solar Temple[/caption]
The Order of the Solar Temple where 23 bodies were found dead[/caption]
But, as more deaths were discovered, it quickly became a transatlantic murder investigation which gripped the world.
Two cult leaders were quickly identified as the charismatic Dr Luc Jouret and swindler Jo Di Mambro and international arrest warrants were issued.
In a bizarre twist the case took on an international dimension when, nearly 4,000 miles from Switzerland, in the village of Morin-Heights, Canada, the charred remains of two more cult members were found.
The homemade fuses that started the fires were identical to those used at the Swiss locations.
As the story grew increasingly macabre, the Quebec police made another, terrible discovery – the stabbed corpses of two more followers and their three-month-old baby son.
A few days after the bodies were found at Salvan, investigators identified both cult leaders Jo di Mambro and Luc Jouret among the dead found.
Now a new BBC documentary, Sirius: An Apocalyptic Order, tells how chance encounters, forensic analysis and a growing archive of strange and disturbing evidence began to shed light on the cult.
‘Transitting to Sirius’
Testimony from former cult members confirmed that followers believed the act of suicide would transport them to the star Sirius and a glorious afterlife.
The investigation also uncovered financial misconduct, disturbing deception and power struggles within the cult hierarchies.
Police examine the forest clearing where many were found dead[/caption]
It seemed that while some of the victims of Cheiry, Salvan and Morin-Heights took their lives to transit to Sirius, others – including Mambro’s own son Elie – may have been murdered because they had become a threat to the order as a whole.
Cult leaders Di Mambro and Jouret were revealed to be men with very different personalities and backgrounds but united in their creation of the cult.
Over 15 years, they recruited more than 600 followers who gave money, labour and obedience.
Di Mambro and Jouret sold them a dream of living in a utopian community where they would grow healthy food, live a healthy life and one day they would ‘transit’ to Sirius to reap the benefits of a glorious after life.
Singer and former member Evelynne Brunner says: “We were always told that one day or another we would have to transit someday.
“We would ask to be reunited and maybe we would all go together to Sirius or whatever.
“The brothers would say ‘Great, we are going to transit.’ But it was never about doing it. Never.
“It was a bit of a fairytale, another planet that would welcome us. It was a little hard to swallow.”
Actor and former cult member Yannick Jaulin adds: “When I think about it today I think ‘For real, guys? You were really nuts. You wanted to believe it.’ ”
Leaders ‘collected Ferraris’
Many of the members were intelligent and wealthy and somehow, brainwashed by the cult doctrines, they donated thousands – which was spent in dubious fashion.
So while the followers led frugal lives, sharing one bathroom between 14 people, their leaders were living in the lap of luxury.
Journalist Arnaud Bedat says: “While the followers were breaking rocks and growing lettuce, the leaders were really enjoying themselves.
“They travelled first class, they went to beautiful hotels, famous restaurants.
“For more than ten years the cult leaders lived in opulence accumulating villas all over the world, collecting Ferraris and Lamborghinis with the followers’ money.”
‘Cosmic child king’
Di Mambro also took a young lover, Dominique Bellaton who, at 21, was 46 years his junior.
When she became pregnant, in 1982, he declared the baby was “the Christ of the New Generation” and, when Dominique gave birth to a girl, he declared the child an “Avatar” – a male stuck in a female body.
Calling her Emmanuelle – the female version of Christ’s messianic name Emmanuel – he dressed her as a boy and referred to her with male pronouns, declaring she was the “Avatar-Messiah” who would lead them to the planet.
He also made her wear a helmet and gloves at all times to protect her purity as the “Cosmic child.”
When she turned 12 Emmanuelle gravitated towards normal teen culture, including pop bands, and was increasingly rebellious over the strict cult rules.
At around the same time, Yannick and others started realising that something was amiss and left the cult.
Police chief Pierre Nedigger says: “Many of the Solar Temple members gave fortunes to the cult and they wanted to get their money back.”
With their empire under threat, paranoid Di Mambro and Jouret started to monitor everyone by tapping their phones.
With no new members, other followers quitting the cult and those that remained questioning their motives, the leaders started to realise their game was up.
Pierre Nidegger explains: “All of this finally got them to say: ‘We’re going to leave and do the transit to Sirius.’”
Journalist Arnaud Bedat says: “The ’94 massacre was, on the one hand, a mass suicide and, on the other, clear and unquestionable murder.”
Murdered ‘anti-Christ’ baby
One of the key members of the cult to leave was Tony Dutoit – he was the master of special effects and had used music and communication techniques which helped Di Mambro convince followers that he was communicating with the spirit world and higher masters.
Before he left, he also confirmed to Di Mambro’s son Elie that the apparitions were fake. After confiding in other cult members, Elie was branded a traitor.
Yannick says: “When Tony left he fled to Quebec. He revealed information about the special effects he did for Di Mambro.”
Cult members began to realise the powers they thought they had witnessed had been rigged and were all fake.
Jo Di Mambro saw this as a huge betrayal – and sent two killers to execute the Dutoits.
He also ordered the death of their three-month-old baby, who he deemed the “Antichrist” after the couple ignored his command not to have children.
He was further enraged by the child being named Christopher Emmanuel and claimed the infant was a threat to his ‘Messiah’ daughter.
Most infamous cults
Inside the most infamous cults in the world…
The NXIVM Cult – Pronounced “nexium,” this New York cult, led by Keith Raniere, claimed to be a self-help group. However, women and girls as young as 15 were emotionally and sexually abused, trafficked and subjected to forced labour, and referred to as sex slaves. They were also permanently branded with Raniere’s initials. Raniere is currently serving a 120-year sentence for sex trafficking and racketeering charges. He was also ordered to pay a $1,750,000 fine. His deputy Clare Bronfman was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Manson Family – Charles Manson predicted a violent race war, and planned to have his Manson Family hide out during this before emerging to take control when it was over. To help instigate this race war, Manson ordered his followers to carry out murders, intending them to be blamed on black people. In August 1968, family members repeatedly stabbed several people to death, including actress Sharon Tate. Manson and his cohorts were sentenced to death, but got life in prison. Manson died in prison in 2017.
Order of the Solar Temple – Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret founded the Order of the Solar Temple in Geneva in 1984, with Jouret claiming to be both Christ and the reincarnation of one member of the 14th century order. In 1994, Di Mambro and Jouret said the end was near and in order to enter a higher spiritual plane, 53 members of the order committed suicide or were murdered in Canada and Switzerland. The buildings they owned were also set on fire after the deaths, and Di Mambro and Jouret’s remains were found. It was later revealed that Di Mambro had recently ordered the murder of an infant he believed to be the anti-Christ.
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God – Founded by four ex-Roman Catholic priests, two ex-nuns and one ex-prostitute, MRTCG predicted the apocalypse would occur on Dec. 31, 1999. However, when the end of the world didn’t come that day, the leaders quickly altered their prediction to March 17, 2000. When the day arrived, police discovered an explosion and fire had killed hundreds of the group’s members. Although at first this was assumed to be a mass suicide, the evidence and subsequent uncovering of more bodies at other sites soon pointed to murder. It was never determined whether the leaders killed themselves or fled the country
Angel’s Landing – Led by Lou Castro, who claimed to be a “centuries-old angel” who could see the future and cure diseases. He convinced a lot of his followers that he had to have sex with young girls (usually their daughters) in order to remain alive. Over a period of seven years, six “accidental” deaths resulted in steep insurance payments – which funded the commune. Castro was arrested in 2010 and charged with multiple rape counts, first-degree murder, criminal sodomy, aggravated assault, and sexual exploitation of a child, among other charges. He was eventually convicted on all counts and sentenced to two life terms, with an additional 46 months added on
After stabbing all three to death in a ritualistic slaughter, the assassins – Joel Egger and Dominique Bellaton – returned to Europe and met up with Luc Louret in Cheiry, Switzerland.
“Cheiry was the traitors,” explains Arnaud Bedat. “All the traitors of the Solar Temple were executed one after the other by Joel Egger, who held the weapon.
“We are sure of it. By Luc Jouret who probably held it too.
“But we know the man who gave the orders, the great orchestrator was Jo Di Mambro who was taking care of all this from Salvan, of managing he murders in Cheiry.”
The victims in Cheiry had been put to sleep with a strong sedative and then shot.
Once the murders in Cheiry had been completed, Egger and Jouret travelled to Salvan.
“Their bodies were later found along with Jo Di Mambro’s and 22 others.
It is believed that it was Jouret who mixed the deadly cocktail of drugs.
Arnaud Bedat says: “So Salvan was the grand finale, the highlight.
“It was the hardcore, the headliners, the die-hards, the extremists, the fundamentalists, who all voluntarily decided to end it and go towards their deaths.”
Pierre Nidegger adds: “It was two different deaths, the one with the victims and the violence in Cheiry, and the other with the real ‘transit’ in the sense of their doctrine in Salvan.”
16 dead bodies in star
Cult members standing in a circle[/caption]
But this was not the end of the story – or the cult.
14 months after the first massacres, 16 people, including three young children, were reported missing in the remote French region area of Vercors.
Very quickly, they were identified as members of the Order of the Solar Temple.
Eight days after their disappearance, 16 incinerated bodies were found in remote woodland, in the small sleepy village of Saint-Pierre-de-Chérennes.
The bodies of the victims were gathered in the shape of a star with the remains of a huge bonfire at its centre.
French investigators built on the Swiss and Canadian research into the Order of the Solar Temple – and discovered it had been re-established by surviving members.
It was suspected that two of the followers – French architect Andre Friedli and police detective Jean-Pierre Lardanchet – had drugged the others before shooting themselves.
Then suspicions fell on a former cult member – the Swiss conductor Michel Tabachnik – who it was claimed had played a central role in the sect.
Despite denying being instrumental in the cult, he was arrested in 1996.
Tragic house fire
Michel Tabachnik was arrested for criminal conspiracy[/caption]
In March 1997 tragedy struck again in Canada when five people believed to be involved in the cult were killed in a house fire.
But the horrors of their final hours were to be revealed by three children who survived.
The adults had taken their own lives to join their cult brethren who they believe have already started a new eternal life on planet Sirius.
But the children had to negotiate with their parents to escape the suicide ritual.
It wasn’t until 2001 that Michel Tabachnik was tried for ‘criminal conspiracy’.
However, he was cleared in court on the basis that there had been no conclusive proof found of any involvement, and his writings accused of influencing the members into death were deemed unlikely to have influenced them.
The public prosecutor appealed the criminal court’s decision, and Tabachnik was tried again in a second trial beginning 24 October 2006.
The appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling, and he was acquitted a second time in December 2006.
He says: “I have friends who say, ‘What were you doing there?’
“I explain myself, I justify myself. My entire life is justifying myself for something I didn’t do.”
The Order of the Solar Temple was responsible for taking 74 lives but no-one has ever been brought to justice.
Sirius: An Apocalyptic Order is on BBC4 from tonight at 10pm