Coroner Confirms Cult Death Causes

SAN DIEGO —  With 38 of the 39 bodies claimed by relatives, the county medical examiner made official Friday what investigators had suspected from the beginning: Members of the Heaven’s Gate cult died from the effects of alcohol, phenobarbital and asphyxiation.

In his final report on the mass suicide, Dr. Brian Blackbourne also listed coronary arteriosclerosis as a possible contributory cause in the suicide of cult leader Marshall Herff Applewhite.

At 65, Applewhite showed a degree of coronary restriction that is common to men his age, which may have hastened his death by limiting oxygen to the heart, Blackbourne said.

The cultists, convinced that a spaceship would whisk them from their Rancho Santa Fe mansion to the “next level,” drank vodka and ingested phenobarbital mixed with pudding and applesauce and most apparently put plastic bags on their heads. Five of the 39, including Applewhite, also took an additional painkiller.

Nine plastic bags were found at the mansion, along with a note, “Use plastic bag to be sure.” The cultists are thought to have died over a period of days, with the living cleaning up behind the dead.

Only one cultist, Susan Frances Strom, 44, of Texas, was found with a plastic bag on her body. She was thought by investigators to be possibly the last to die.