Cult Members Drugged, Shot, Burned Bodies Found Arranged In Star Pattern In French Forest

Sedated, the doomsday cult members lay sleeping on the forest floor, 14 bodies arranged in the shape of a star. Two fellow cult members - including a policeman - shot them and lit the bodies on fire.

Then, the two set themselves ablaze and shot themselves in the head. Among the dead lying nearby were the wife and two little daughters of the policeman, and a second police officer.

In announcing the results Wednesday of autopsies on the 16 bodies, prosecutor Jean-Francois Lorans confirmed how, step by step, the members of the Order of the Solar Temple committed their murder-suicide. The ritual echoed the simultaneous, group murder-suicides last year by cult members in Switzerland and Quebec that left 53 dead.

Lorans said the autopsies clarified that the murders took place shortly after midnight on Saturday. He refused to rule out the possibility that others may have been involved.

The charred bodies of cult members were found the same day in an Alpine forest near the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Cherennes, 18 miles outside Grenoble in eastern France.

Near the 14 victims lying in the star shape were the bodies of the two killers, police officer Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and another cult member, who has not been identified. Lying at their sides were two service revolvers - Lardanchet’s and that of the other officer, Patrick Rostand.

Lorans said earlier Wednesday that the two killers were Lardanchet and Rostand. But later in the day he said an examination of dental records showed that Rostand was among the victims - not the killers.