Case File: Heaven’s Gate: Marshall Applewhite

Marshall Applewhite, born in 1931 in Spur, Texas, had a troubled upbringing. His father, a Presbyterian minister, rejected Applewhite when he told him that he was gay. 

Applewhite studied philosophy at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and married Anne Pearce in 1952, the year of his graduation. The couple would soon have two children, Mark and Lane. 

Applewhite pursued his interest in musical theater and scratched out a living teaching music at various schools, including the University of Alabama. He lost his job there, however, reportedly due to an affair with a grad student. The revelation also ended his marriage in 1968.

Applewhite struggled financially—especially after losing another job in 1970 due to a liaison with another student, this time at the University of St. Thomas in Houston—and his insecurity about his homosexuality took a severe emotional toll on him. In 1972, his life took a dramatic turn when he met Bonnie Nettles, a nurse with an interest in paranormal affairs such as alien astronauts, seances, astrology and the occult, while being hospitalized for a heart blockage.

Together, Applewhite and Nettles explored a wide range of spiritual beliefs that borrowed from sources as disparate as sci-fi novels, the writings of St. Francis of Assisi, reports of extraterrestrials and the Book of Revelation. The pair formed a platonic relationship and in 1973 began traveling around the United States—after Nettles abandoned her four children—seeking converts to their newfound religious beliefs.

They had some small successes, finding a handful of followers in California, Oregon, Colorado and other western states. The members of the Heaven’s Gate cult—their mishmash of beliefs combined Gnostic Christianity, New Age spiritualism and UFO mysticism—had once seemed destined to lead normal, stable lives. But upon joining Applewhite and Nettles on a quest for eternal transcendence, they had unwittingly signed their own death warrants.

The group went through numerous changes in their early years: At one point, they were known as Human Individual Metamorphosis, or HIM, and their belief system was as flexible as their names. Applewhite began using the name Do (pronounced “doe”), and Nettles was called Ti (“tee”).

Followers were told that their bodies were merely vehicles for their souls, and the Earth was spiritually corrupt, due in part to the influence of evil “Luciferians,” aliens who sowed discord and promoted false religions. Only by living pure lives could the select followers of Heaven’s Gate transcend their earthly realm and ascend into a heavenly “Next Level” of existence.

Applewhite advocated an extreme level of purity for his followers: Following his own castration, seven other men in Heaven’s Gate also underwent voluntary castration. All sexual activity and drug use was banned, and most followers were required to cut off contact with families and friends. Members of the group also adopted short hairstyles and androgynous clothing similar to the costumes seen on the television show Star Trek. (Ironically, one of the members of Heaven’s Gate, Thomas Nichols, was the brother of actress Nichelle Nichols, famous for her role as Uhura in the original Star Trek television series and films.)

Nettles died of cancer in 1985, leaving Applewhite as the cult’s leader. Over time, the group grew smaller, quieter and more reclusive. Heaven’s Gate was an early adopter of Internet technology, and by the 1990s was developing websites for outside clients under the business name Higher Source; this work became an important source of revenue for the cult.

In 1996, the group rented a spacious mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. Shortly thereafter, they recorded a pair of video messages claiming that a last chance to leave a corrupt Earth was approaching. When the Hale-Bopp comet became visible to the naked eye in 1996, Applewhite—now in his mid-60s and in failing health—latched onto its arrival as proof that his esoteric beliefs were correct, and the comet was the harbinger of eternal salvation for him and his followers.

Nettles, Applewhite preached, would be on a spaceship that was trailing the comet, and she would welcome the members of Heaven’s Gate onto an elusive Next Level of existence. The only way to get there, according to Applewhite, was for members to leave the “vehicle” of their physical bodies to ascend onto the arriving spaceship before the closing of “heaven’s gate.”

Hale-Bopp was expected to reach its shortest distance from Earth around March 22, 1997. In preparation, members of Heaven’s Gate recorded farewell video messages in which several followers expressed their excitement at their upcoming departure.

On March 22, the first of 39 suicides began with cult members taking phenobarbital mixed with applesauce or pudding and washing it down with vodka. After each death, the remaining members would arrange the bodies in beds with purple shrouds covering their heads and torsos.

Followers were also wearing identical black Nike Decades shoes. (Among shoe aficionados, Nike Decades are now considered collectors’ items.)

Before the last suicides, packages were mailed out to people affiliated with the group: They contained farewell videotapes and letters explaining that members “have exited our vehicles.”

Among the recipients was Rio DiAngelo, a Heaven’s Gate follower who lived in Los Angeles. He got a ride to Rancho Santa Fe and was the first to find the bodies. DiAngelo was also the anonymous 911 caller who tipped off police to the mass suicide.

San Diego County Sheriff's Office Detective Rick Scully, who investigated the house after the suicides, was sharply critical of Applewhite. “In my opinion, he's the most evil man I have ever encountered,” he said. “In my mind, he's one murderer, and they're 38 victims.”

The discovery of the bodies in Rancho Santa Fe set off a media frenzy: Reporters, satellite trucks and news teams flocked to the once-quiet neighborhood, causing the local security patrol to block access to the area.

The suicides in Southern California were followed by others around the world. Three former members of Heaven’s Gate died by suicide in the year after the Rancho Santa Fe deaths.

Five people from an unaffiliated group known as the Order of the Solar Temple also died by suicide on March 22, a strange coincidence, although members of the group had also committed mass suicide in 1994 and 1995.

Some experts decried the deaths as more than just suicide. Cult researcher Janja Lalich referred to the Heaven’s Gate deaths as murder, given that the members were kept isolated and were offered only “bounded choice,” limited to what cult leader Applewhite authorized.

Though thoroughly discredited, the Heaven’s Gate organization still exists, albeit in a much-diminished form. Maintained by former members, the Heaven’s Gate website—with outdated, 1990s-style graphics—contains video transcripts, press releases and excerpts from their book, Heaven’s Gate: The Door to the Physical Kingdom Level Above Human.