Visits to ‘See God’ Quickly Bring Tragedy : Temple: A family grieves for a dead girl and a mother in a coma. The two had attended the services only one week.

Jesus Moreno says he thought it was a good thing when his mother began going to the temple down the street.

“She said the people there prayed and saw God,” Moreno recalled late Thursday inside Social Security Hospital No. 20 here. “She was happy to go there.”

Now Moreno, his father, Ramon, and his six brothers and sisters are distraught and angry: Their mother, Consuelo Ponce Ramirez, 46, is among three people who are in comas, apparently after being poisoned or asphyxiated during a religious ceremony at the makeshift temple.

His sister, Consuelo Moreno Ponce, 14, was among 12 who died there.

“What happened was a crime,” an angry Moreno said as he paced the corridors of the hospital with family members.

Much remains unknown about the shadowy sect whose members met at uneven intervals in the temple--a house in a poor neighborhood here. The sect’s leader, Federico Padres Mejia, is among those in a coma and may not survive, doctors said.

Discounting initial reports of a mass suicide, authorities speculated late Thursday that the deaths and injuries were likely the result of an accident.

For the Moreno family, however, that explanation holds little weight. Their sister was murdered, they believe, and their mother is near death because of a deliberate act.

It was a week ago, Moreno said, when his mother first began going to the small temple, occasionally bringing her daughter. He said his mother had heard about the sect from workers at a neighborhood tortilla shop.

“They told her (Mejia) made miracles and that he made people well,” Moreno explained as he attempted to come to grips with the tragedy. “She heard they could see God there.”

On Wednesday night, relatives said, the mother and sister left for the temple at about 6 p.m. It was the mother’s third visit. The site is about one block from their home in Colonia Mariano Matamoros, a poor neighborhood of migrants from the Mexican interior.

On previous visits, family members said, the mother had returned after an hour or so of praying. When mother and daughter didn’t return home promptly Wednesday night, 18-year-old Victor Moreno went to look for them.

“We were worried about them,” he said. “They had never stayed out so long before.”

On arriving at the home, Victor Moreno said he could hear a commotion inside. “They were crying, praying, screaming,” the younger Moreno recalled.

His path was blocked by a woman he believes was the daughter of Mejia, the sect’s leader.

“She said that I couldn’t come in because Jesus Christ had descended,” he said. He went home.

At about 7 a.m. Thursday, Jesus Moreno said he went to the house. All was quiet inside. The woman still was posted outside.

“She said that their spirits had ascended to the sky and that it would be bad to wake them,” Jesus Moreno said.

“I thought they were sleeping.”

A few hours later, watching from his window, Jesus Moreno saw the police gathered at the site. He ran to the house and discovered the horrifying truth.