On March 26, 1997, an anonymous caller directed police to a mansion outside San Diego where authorities soon discovered the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil.
Detective Rick Scully, with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, was the lead investigator in the Heaven’s Gate case who responded to the crime scene where 39 bodies were found on March 26, 1997.
"We lived like we were living in a monastery. We were all celibate individuals, looking forward to self advancement," said DiAngelo. According to former friends and colleagues, she said the voices in his head may be spirits from above telling him he one day could be a divine teacher.Heaven's Gate co-founder Bonnie Lou Nettles, known as Ti, aand Marshall Herff Applewhite, known as Do.
Over the course of several years, Applewhite and Nettles required their followers to adhere to increasingly more strange and severe rules, including severing all contact with family and friends and encouraging the adoption of an asexual appearance. In later years, some members of the group underwent castration.