It was originally believed that Di Mambro and Jouret had planned these murders with no intention of taking their own lives, but instead lying low and then emerging when the dust had settled to spend the money their followers had donated to their cause. It was therefore surprising when their bodies were discovered amongst the dead in Switzerland. They died separately, Jouret first at Chiery, and Di Mambro afterwards at Granges-sur-Salvan. It appears that they had genuinely believed their own prophecies and predictions.
DUTOIT MURDERS
The reasons for the first murder, that of the Dutoit couple and their son in Quebec, soon became known. Tony Dutoit used to help Di Mambro with one of his greatest ‘tricks’ – creating the illusion of conjuring up the elders of the Order to materialise before the assembled followers in their communal enlightenment rituals. This was all achieved with the use of lasers, and it was not long before Dutoit became disillusioned with this fraudulent practice and the false claims which Di Mambro was making. He disclosed the secret of this ‘phenomenon’ to other members of the group and then tried to claim back some of the money which he’d donated to the Order. Nicki Dutoit, Tony’s wife, also displeased Di Mambro by becoming pregnant. Di Mambro had forbidden this as he did not want any children to threaten his daughter’s prophesised place as the new messiah. They therefore left for Quebec, where they had their son. Di Mambro heard of the birth of their baby, and declared him to be the anti-Christ. The child, and their parents who were clearly trying to stand in the way of spiritual progression with their disobedience, had to be disposed of.
With the damage Dutoit did in exposing Di Mambro and having the audacity to defect, it was clear to see why he became Di Mambro’s first victim.
GRENOBLE, FRANCE
One year passed without incident before another mass suicide was committed. This time, 16 people were found dead near Grenoble in France. Not all of them had departed willingly it seemed, as one woman had suffered a broken jaw, indicating a struggle. Fourteen of the bodies, lay together in the same circular arrangement as the bodies in Switzerland, but two bodies lay separately. These, it is believed, were the bodies of two people whose responsibility it had been to shoot the weak and to start the fire. All the deceased had been members of the Solar Temple, and the incident was therefore immediately linked to the preceding three mass suicides.
But the families of the victims of Grenoble were not satisfied that the perpetrators had all died. They believed that some of the group were still at large.
Police monitored the behaviour of the remaining members of the group carefully the following year, especially during the solstice and equinox seasons, but nothing aroused their suspicion, and there were no reported fires or suicides. They believed that the practice of the Solar Temple had finally come to an end.
It hadn’t. One last journey to Sirius was made on March 22, 1997, from St. Casimir, Quebec. It was almost a failed attempt as the fire-starting devices did not go off. Having been given this reprieve though, the children in the group begged for their lives and were allowed to leave. They were released on the condition that they took sleeping pills and went to stay in a neighbouring workshop. They knew that their parents would be dead when they awoke. A second attempt was made, and this time it was successful. This took the total number of followers who had taken their lives to 74.
MICHAEL TABACHNIK
With continued pressure from the families of the Grenoble victims, the police led a search for the remaining members of the Order of the Solar Temple and uncovered several of the leaders. One of whom was the Swiss musician, Michael Tabachnik. He went to trial for his involvement in what was now being termed a criminal organization and for his alleged knowledge of the murders before they occurred. Apparently lined up to be Di Mambro’s successor, Tabachnik had written quite a lot of the group’s literature and had declared the final mission of the group just before the first deaths happened. This, the prosecutors claimed, meant that he was conditioning people to die. Tabachnik’s own wife had died in the Cheiry suicide.
Tabachnik, it was asserted, had travelled with Di Mambro to Egypt and it was there that they had taken the decision together to found the Golden Way. The principles of this sect were the same – members would achieve peace only in death. When they recruited Luc Jouret, the Golden Way became the Order of the Solar Temple.
Tabachnik pleaded not guilty to all charges. He said that he had not been a member of the Order for over five years, and claimed to have had no knowledge of the intended mass suicides. A lack of hard evidence to prove otherwise meant that Tabachnik was found not guilty.
With no high-profile arrests the commotion surrounding the sect died down, and it is now believed to be more or less dissolved. If there are any members still practising the beliefs of Jo Di Mambro, they are certainly not considered a threat, and are of no concern to the authorities. The ritual of mass suicide and murder perpetrated by the Order of the Solar Temple is believed to be defunct.
Movement For The Restoration Of The Ten Commandments
In the late 1980s Credonia Mwerinde was in a cave just outside the Ugandan town of Kanungu when another vision of the Virgin Mary seemingly came to her.
Mwerinde, who was born on July 30, 1952, was a daughter of a Roman Catholic catechist. She was a school drop out who had had a number of unsuccessful and unhappy marriages and ended up as a prostitute in the Kanungu trading centre.
It was while being involved in this age-old profession that she met a local man who wished to take her on as his seventh wife. Again, her marriage turned sour, this time due to her inability to conceive, even though she had three children from previous relationships. It was during this time that Mwerinde started to get blinding visions from the Virgin Mary. Her current barrenness the Virgin said, was caused by a decision of Mary herself to ‘withhold’ the unborn child.
VIRGIN MARY
The Virgin Mary started to appear regularly to Mwerinde, in her bedroom, on the sides of rocks and in the caves – which she returned to time and time again.
Credonia tried to convince the Vatican of these miracles that had so unselfishly appeared to her, but there was not enough evidence or credibility for the Vatican to take it any further. Luckily for Ms Mwerinde a failed politician by the name of Joseph Kibwetere was on hand to listen and believe every word that she said.
LOVING FATHER?
Joseph Kibwetere had lived peacefully within the luscious green countryside of southern Uganda. He was a loving father and husband who rarely argued with his family and was known by many Ugandans for ‘his piety, his prayer and his good works’. He was active in Ugandan politics and was a devout Roman Catholic from which he founded a Catholic school and became a supervisor for other schools in the region.
It is reported that from as early as 1984, Kibwetere was having visions and frequently hearing conversations, between Jesus and the Virgin Mary. In these conversations, the Virgin Mary complained about the world’s lack of regard for the Ten Commandments and prophesied that the world would end on December 31, 1999.
MEETING OF MINDS
Kibwetere joined his ideas and prophecies together with similar-thinking excommunicated Roman Catholic priests Joseph Kasapurari, John Kamagara, Dominic Kataribabo and two excommunicated nuns. There are conflicting stories as to when exactly their group was founded but in 1994 they registered as a non-governmental organisation.
When Joseph Kibwetere met the self-styled visionary Credonia Mwerinde he believed wholeheartedly about her revelations and asked her to come and live with him and his wife. Mwerinde continued to have visions of the Virgin Mary and word started to spread about these amazing apparitions. Many people, mostly those suffering from infertility started to arrive at Kibwetere’s house with the hope of reaching the Virgin Mary through the human form of Mwerinde. Over the months, more and more people seeking retribution and answers, started to stay at the Kibweteres’ home and the group began to call themselves ‘The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God’. The group kept growing and at one time had increased to several thousand members with followers even in the neighbouring country of Rwanda. This caused Kibwetere’s relationship with his own wife and
