The bodies were found in various rooms of the villa, each person was lying on their back with their hands by their sides as if asleep, and all except two had a purple shroud covering their heads. All members were in their regimentary tunics and wearing their Nike™ trainers.
It became apparent that the 39 people had committed suicide in three separate sittings over the course of a few days. Fifteen on the first day, 15 on the following day and the final nine on the third day. The careful way in which each shift had died concluded that it was definitely planned. There were no signs of distress and one of the first officers on the scene even described what he encountered as being rather serene and tranquil.
The suicide was very ritualistic and each person died in the same way they had lived within Heaven’s Gate, in a very ordered fashion.
Some members assisted others with their death, cleaned up, and then went off to take their own lethal cocktail. In each top pocket of the 39 bodies was a five dollar note a few coins and a recipe for death. The recipe said:
Take the little package of pudding or apple sauce, and eat a couple of teaspoons to make room to put the medicine in and stir it. Eat it quickly, drink this vodka mixture and then lay back and rest quietly.
After autopsies it turned out that the ‘medicine’ the recipe referred to was phenobarbital which is an anti-seizure drug that in a high enough dose and mixed with alcohol can cause death. The drug would also make its user extremely drowsy, so plastic bags had been used as part of the ritual to make sure death came either from poisoning or suffocation. The last two bodies to die still had the plastic bags over their heads. All other members had died with plastic bags on their heads, but these had been subsequently removed and replaced with purple shrouds by the remaining members. The last two members alive must have removed the bags from the the other seven in their group and then killed themselves.
FAREWELL
In the house, along with around ten computers, investigators found video tapes that had been made in the weeks prior to the suicide. There was a statement from each of the 39 members. each stating their joy and excitement at leaving their earthly vehicles in order to board the heavenly ship that would take them to the higher level. One such video statement from a crew member known as Stmody stated that:
We watch a lot of Star Trek, a lot of Star Wars, it's just like going on a holodeck...we've been on a holodeck, we've been in an astronaut training program . . . we figured out a day equals one thousand years . . . played it out mathematically . . . it’s roughly 30 minutes . . .we’ve been training on a holodeck for 30 minutes, now it's time to stop and put into practice what we've learned . . . so we take off the virtual reality helmet, we take off the vehicle that we've used for this task. We just set it aside, go back out of the holodeck to reality to be with the other members in the craft, in the heavens.
Each member seemed totally at ease with what they were about to do, in their minds – however the thought had got there – they were about to take part in a perfectly normal and reasonable act. An act that was much more than suicide, it was departure. Departure on a new journey to a more fulfiling and enlightening place.
Whether the Heaven’s Gate ever reached their destination remains to be seen, but maybe the important thing is that in their minds they were about to succeed and that was contentment enough? On the other hand, had they never met Bo and Peep the 38 crew members would have become wolves instead of sheep and hunted and fought for a decent life on Earth as it was the only one they were going to get.
David Koresh
Sent to Earth by God?
What really happened at Waco?
Vernon Wayne Howell was born on August 17, 1959, in Houston, Texas. The son of an unmarried teenage mother, Vernon never knew his father and was brought up by his grandparents. His childhood was quite a lonely one and often got teased by other children who called him ‘Vernie’.
Whilst at high school he was diagnosed as having dyslexia, but by the ninth grade he had dropped out. Although he had no interest in school Vernon was a keen guitarist, with a great love for women. He was also very interested in Biblical scriptures and although he had no formal religious training apart from what he had learnt at his mother’s Seventh-day Adventist Church, he had the remarkable talent of being able to recite and explain long passages of Biblical scriptures.
In 1979, after getting expelled from the church for being a bad influence on other young members, Vernon moved to Hollywood with the idea of making it as a rock guitarist. By this point in his life he had gained a lot of confidence as well as a theatrical and assertive nature that would be expected of a try hard rock star. But two years later, after realising just how difficult it was to make it in the music industry, he returned to the state of Texas and moved to Waco.
Howell joined the Mount Carmel religious Center and it wasn’t long before other members were taken in by his extraordinary way of being able to teach and explain complex scriptures to them.
It was here that Howell met Lois Roden. Roden was the amiable 67-year-old leader of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist group – which descended from a schism in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Lois Roden had become leader of the Branch Davidians when her husband, Benjamin Roden had died in 1978. The year before in 1977 Lois Roden claimed to have had a vision in which she saw the Holy Spirit. Roden claims that she had learnt from this vision that the Holy Spirit was a female.
Howell and Roden soon embarked on an intense sexual relationship and eventually moved in together. Howell got deeper and deeper into the thoughts and beliefs of the Branch Davidians and the couple even travelled to Israel on a pilgrimage for their beliefs. It was on this trip, in Jerusalem, that Vernon claimed that he was given a direct revelation about the Seven Seals together with the knowledge and ability to teach it to the world. Vernon was rapidly working himself into a position of influence and had Lois completely on side.
VIRGIN BRIDES
In 1984, at the age of 24, Vernon Howell married a 14-year-old named Rachel Jones and it soon became apparent that he was a womanizing sexual deviant with the need to satisfy physical lust. He may not have stayed faithful to his relationship with Lois Roden but he did stay faithful to her Davidian cause.
When Louis Roden died in 1986, a battle for power began between Vernon and Roden’s son George as to who was to become the new leader of the Davidians. The majority of the Branch Davidians’ members sided with George Roden and at gun point Vernon Howell and his meagre following were forced off the Mount Carmel sight.
By this time Howell had acquired two more wives. In March 1986 13-year-old Karen Doyle became his second wife and then five months later he wed 12-year-old Michelle Jones in secret.
Howell relocated his group in Palestine, Texas as an offshoot of the Davidians with the intent of being a peaceful and religious commune; or so it was thought. That was until 1987 when Vernon and seven of his trusted followers returned to Mount Carmel in full camouflage gear. They had nine guns and 400 rounds of ammunition and by the end of the siege George Roden was left with gunshot wounds to his chest.