Letter Hints at Motives in Cult Murder-Suicide

The first solid clue to the motives behind the murder-suicide of 52 members of an extremist sect in Switzerland and Canada arrived Thursday in a letter to a cult expert. In it the group said it was “leaving this Earth to find a new dimension of truth and absolution, far from the hypocrisies of this world.”

In Canada, police in Quebec province said they found two more charred bodies in the rubble of a building that once served as headquarters for the group, known as the Order of the Solar Temple. In all, 48 bodies have been discovered in two Swiss villages and four in the Canadian town of Morin Heights.

The typewritten letter, included with three other documents in a large yellow envelope, was sent to Jean-Francois Mayer, a prominent specialist in Lausanne, Switzerland, who has studied the apocalyptic group and knew its founder, Luc Jouret.

The envelope was postmarked from Geneva, 30 miles away, but the date was illegible. It was signed “Monsieur D. Part,” an apparent reference to the French word for “depart,” and listed a nonexistent return address in Zurich.

Mayer said he was convinced that the letter and the documents, titled “Transit to the Future,” “The Rose Cross” and “In the Love of Justice,” were from Jouret’s group. The letter complained that Jouret and his sect had been “persecuted” in Canada.

“We have freed ourselves from the burden that day after day had become unbearable,” the letter said. It added that the group was leaving “in order to achieve the seeds of our future generation.”

“I had asked myself until this morning whether this was suicide or murder,” Mayer said Thursday. “Unfortunately, what I read here confirms the hypothesis of collective suicide.”

The Swiss authorities, who were continuing their efforts to identify the victims, did not doubt the authenticity of the letter. But they still suspected that murder, as well as suicide, played a role in the grisly demise of the Swiss, French and Canadian cult members who died in a farmhouse and two Alpine chalets--all outfitted with sophisticated incendiary devices that were triggered by either a timing mechanism or a telephone call.

The fire in Canada was set by the same type of device, authorities said. The four bodies there were badly charred and none has yet been identified.

Officials in the Swiss village of Granges-sur-Salvan, where 25 of the victims were found in the embers of two burned chalets, revealed that at least four of the bodies had been children, one as young as 5 or 6.

Bernard Gieger, the police chief of the Valais canton, or state, which includes this village, told a news conference Thursday that he saw the case “more as a collective murder.” “I formally exclude collective suicide decided by all--that idea is pure cinema,” he said. “You can’t expect children to want to kill themselves.”

In addition, Gieger said police found packed suitcases belonging to the victims in an apartment rented by the group in the village. Most of the dead here appeared to have been drugged or poisoned, Gieger said, and fewer than half suffered burns severe enough to have caused death.

Meanwhile, in Cheiry, Switzerland, where 23 other cult members died of gunshots and suffocation, investigating prosecutor Andre Piller said Thursday that preliminary autopsy results indicate that “a powerful product, not yet identified, was administered by either injection” or intravenous drip.

Piller also backed away from his earlier assertion that the farmhouse victims, 19 of whom were found lying in a circle in an underground chapel, had died in a ritual, collective suicide. “Certain elements make us stay with this theory,” he said, “but others make us think of an execution. We cannot exclude one or the other.”

The prosecutor also said three rifles were recovered at the scene, though none was used in the killings. Fifty-two bullet casings were also found. Of the 23 victims, 20, including a 10-year-old boy, had been shot at least once in the head or chest. About half of the victims also had black plastic garbage bags cinched over their heads.

Meanwhile, the international search continued for Jouret, the 46-year-old homeopathic doctor who authorities and cult experts say led the sect and who may or may not have died with his followers. Jouret, who received his medical degree in Belgium and held Canadian citizenship, practiced medicine in France, just across the border from Geneva, until 1987, when he moved to Canada.

Swiss authorities said Thursday that the Canadian government had asked them to investigate Jouret some months ago, but they had found no reason to arrest him.

Cult experts in Europe said they thought Jouret, if he followed his own apocalyptic teachings, probably died along with his followers in Switzerland or in Canada.

“It would be logical that he died with his disciples,” said Jean Vernette, a Roman Catholic priest in Montauban, France, and author of 30 books on sects. “But, then again, maybe not. He is human and, faced with death, he may not have been able to go that far.”

No one yet knows if Jouret is among the victims of the murder-suicide. Police said they would continue searching for him at least until all the bodies had been identified.

Interpol and Swiss police also said they were searching for two people already questioned in connection with the fires. An official described them as possible “witnesses,” but he declined to say if authorities believe that the two were present at any of the killings.

Jouret had been known to cult experts for more than a decade, though he had recently disappeared from view.

He was described by medical associates Thursday as a charming man and a competent doctor, though some said he often frightened lecture audiences with his talk of apocalypse.

But leaders of associations here that have helped families extricate people from his sect knew Jouret as a rather more dangerous man who directed his attention to wealthy recruits from as far away as the Caribbean island of Martinique. Some sold all their possessions to join the sect.

“He chased families with money--doctors, dentists, civil servants,” said Lucien Zecler, president of Martinique’s Assn. for the Defense of Family and Individuals.

In Granges-sur-Salvan, where no resident can remember a single murder in the once-peaceful town’s history, investigators ended their search of a third burned-out chalet without finding more bodies Thursday.

As cow bells rang in the hillside meadow, arson investigator Jean-Claude Martin stood among the blackened remains of the house and marveled at the skill of the person who set the fires in the three chalets here.

“It’s difficult to talk of logic here,” Martin said. “But the person who did this really knew about fire. It was a complete system. This person was very intelligent.”

The blaze at the chalet, which was the first to catch fire on this mountainside, had been triggered manually, probably by a match, Martin said. Five cars, apparently belonging to sect members, had been parked outside. Inside, police found charred literature, videotapes and other office material in a strongbox and an unscathed scrap of one of Jouret’s checkbooks.

A small, wooden chapel next door did not catch fire. On Thursday, it was still ringed with curtains of red silk, and an altar was inscribed with one of the sect’s names, “The Cross and Rose.”

Unlike in Cheiry, where residents believed that the five permanent residents of the farmhouse were engaged in macrobiotic plant experiments, the residents of Granges-sur-Salvan, population 100, had long been suspicious of the comings and goings at Jouret’s chalets.

Although few residents remember ever seeing Jouret, they recall that many wealthy people, driving expensive cars and dressed nicely, frequented the chalets. The lights in the houses often burned until well past midnight, and several residents suspected that the people were involved in drug dealing.

“I said to my wife, this is not normal, all these elegantly dressed women in our town,” said Leo Buset, 70, a neighbor. The retired insurance investigator added: “Everyone in town thought it was a meeting place for drugs or maybe a sex ring.”

Times staff writer Stanley Meisler in Montreal contributed to this story.