Top Ten Deadliest Cults

10- The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

The followers of the Ugandan doomsday cult The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God believed that the apocalypse would occur in the year 2000. They fiercely kept the Ten Commandments and supposedly preached the the word of Jesus. The group so feared damnation for accidentally breaking the ninth commandment, to not bear false witness, that they spoke little and used only sign language on some days. Sex was forbidden, soap was forbidden and only one meal consumed Fridays and Mondays.



The group was a break-away Catholic cult that found its origins with Paulo Kashaku, who claimed to have divinely inspired visions. His daughter Credonia Mwerinde (inset) claimed to have similar visions. She, along with Joseph Kibweteere and Bee Tait founded the group in 1980. Though the group had broken with the Catholic Church, it attracted many defrocked priests and nuns, who were given positions of authority.

After frenzied preparations, January 1, 2000, passed without incident. Followers began to lose faith and cult leaders set another date for the end of the world: March 17, 2000. On the big day over 500 worshipers in the town of Kanungu arrived at a church, but soon after, it exploded and burned down. At first it was thought to have been a mass suicide, but when signs of strangulation and poisoning became evident, the cause of death was changed to murder. A search of other cult properties turned up hundreds of bodies, more followers apparently murdered days before the final explosion and fire (pictured).

09- The Chicago Rippers

Robin Gecht (second from left), 30, a former employee of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, and three other men, teenage brothers Andrew (far left) and Thomas Kokoraleis (second from right) and Edward Spreitzer (far right), 21, formed a satanic cult and gang called The Chicago Rippers that is suspected in the 1981 and 1982 disappearances of as many as 18 women. One victim, a teenage prostitute they had left for dead, was able to give a description of her attackers, which led to their arrest. Once in custody all but Gecht confessed to the murders and to having removed one breast from each sacrificial victim, having taken turns raping the open wound, having masturbated onto the breast, chopped it up and eaten it while Gecht read verses from The Satanic Bible.

Though the others were willing to implicate Gecht, investigators were never able to definitively connect him to the murders. He was sentenced to 120 years in prison for kidnapping, rape and mutilation of the prostitute. Andrew Kokoraleis and Edward Spreitzer received the death sentence for their roles in the strangulation murder of Lorraine Borowski, 21, a secretary whose mutilated body was found in a cemetery. Andrew Kokoraleis was executed in 1999. Spreitzer's death sentence was commuted in 2003. Thomas Kokoraleis received a life sentence and may be released on September 30, 2017.

08- Heaven's Gate

The Heaven's Gate cult was a U.F.O. religion that fused some Christian apocalyptic thought with concepts popular in science fiction. Followers believed that the Earth was going to be destroyed in a great "recycling" and that the only way to survive was to leave the planet by evolving to the next level. The cult was founded in the 1970s by Marshall Applewhite (pictured) after he had visions of himself in the Book of Revelation, then as an evolved human relative of Jesus, and finally as an alien being in human form. The cult believed that in order to be eligible to ascend to the next level of existence, members would have to give up all things human: possessions, money, jobs, individuality, sexuality, friends, family and even life itself.

The members decided that if they killed themselves at precisely the right moment they would not die, but would be taken up to an alien spacecraft hidden by the tail of Comet Hale-Bopp then passing near Earth. Interestingly the group funded itself by doing web development. On March 26, 1997, the bodies of Applewhite and 38 of his followers were found dead in the cult's rented mansion. Police believe that they killed themselves in groups over the course of three days. The cultists ingested lethal doses of phenobarbital, though autopsies showed the presence of cyanide and arsenic as well, and put plastic bags over their heads. All the dead were found lying in their bunks dressed identically, down to their "Heaven's Gate Away Team" armbands.

07- Aum Shinrikyo

The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) was founded out of the Tokyo apartment of Shoko Asahara (inset) in 1984 as a yoga meditation class. By 1989 it was granted official status as a religious organization by the Japanese government. By 1995 the group claimed to have over 40,000 members worldwide. The cult's beliefs combine Yoga, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and the writings of Nostradamus. Asahara believed himself to be Japan's fully enlightened "Christ," who could take away sin and would save his followers from the nuclear Armageddon he predicted.

In the 1980s the increasingly controversial cult was accused of forcing members to donate money, holding members captive and of committing at least one murder of one who tried to leave the cult, but retained some popular acceptance. In the 1990s Asahara adopted the view that the U.S. would attack Japan and begin the End Times. The cult's violent tendencies escalated, and they began to stockpile weapons and military hardware. By 1993 members were manufacturing sarin and VX gas.

In March 1995, Asahara received word that the police were planning on raiding his facility. In an effort to distract them, on March 20 he ordered the release of sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system (pictured) killing 13 people, seriously injuring 54 and affecting 980 (possibly more, because many Japanese victims of crime are reluctant to report it). The distraction backfired; police instead raided cult properties all over Japan, discovering explosives, chemical and biological weapons (including anthrax and Ebola cultures), a Russian military helicopter, enough sarin to kill four million people, LSD, methamphetamine, truth serum, millions of dollars in cash and gold, and, shockingly, victims held captive by the cult in cells on the cult's properties. Asahara initially issued statements saying the evidence was manufactured. Ultimately he was arrested, but his attorney insisted he had no knowledge of the sarin attacks due to his declining health. He was tried and sentenced to death by hanging on February 27, 2004. His appeals have been denied. Asahara disassociated himself from the cult, which still exists today as Aleph, in order to prevent its dissolution.

06- The Godfather of Matamoros

Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo (pictured) was a drug dealer, cult leader and serial killer in Mexico City. A follower of the West African religion Palo Mayombe, in 1983 he pledged his soul to Kadiempembe, his religion's equivalent of Satan and decided that he had psychic powers. He got his start reading tarot cards for money in Mexico City and soon seduced Martín Quintana Rodríguez and Omar Chewe Orea Ochoa to take him in and become his servants and disciples. He had as many as 30 tarot clients, some high-ranking law enforcement officials, others high-ranking criminals. He amassed significant wealth but left Mexico City in 1987 after torturing and killed seven members of the Calzada crime family. Police found their mutilated bodies with parts missing, parts that had been used in Constanzo's religious ceremonies.

He moved his operation to Rancho Santa Elena 20 miles outside Matamoros. There, with his high priestess Sara María Aldrete, he continued running and dealing in illegal drugs and pursued his interest in human sacrifice in earnest. In 1988 he tortured and dismembered three men, and the following year four, but became increasingly dissatisfied with the ritual, telling his followers that the victims "must die screaming." The law finally caught up with him in 1989 when he decided to sacrifice Mark Kilroy, an American student in Mexico for spring break. Police found the ranch in an unrelated drug arrest. They searched the ranch and found Kilroy's body, along with 14 others. Constanzo fled to Mexico City, but had one of his disciples shoot him and Quintana Rodríguez before police could arrest them. Sara María Aldrete was arrested and sentenced to 68 years for her part in the murders.

05- Order of the Solar Temple

The Solar Temple cult, founded by Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret in 1984, was a secret society that claimed to be the modern continuation of the Knights Templar. Their beliefs combined concepts of Christianity, the Rosicrucian Order, British occultist Aleister Crowley and New Age philosophy. They were obsessed with death, which they believed to be an illusion that one must pass through with fire in order to reach a new world on another planet.

The cult's mass murders began in October 1994, in Morin Heights, Quebec, with the murder of an infant believed by Di Mambro to be the incarnation of the Antichrist. The child was stabbed repeatedly with a wooden stake. A few days later in Switzerland, Di Mambro held a last supper for the 15 inner-circle members, who died by poison. Thirty others died by gunshot wounds or smothering; and eight died of other causes. Many wore black ceremonial robes and plastic bags over their heads, their bodies positioned in a star formation with feet in the center. The structure in which many of the bodies were found had been set on fire. In Vercors, France, 15 more cultists killed themselves in a similar fashion between December 15 and 16, 1995, and five more in Quebec in March 1997. The total number of deaths attributed to these mass deaths is 74 including children. (Pictured: the remnants of one of the sites in Switzerland.)

04- Paradise

Paradise cult leader Park Soon-ja, 48, called "Benevolent Mother" by her followers, preached that the world was corrupt and about to be destroyed, but that her followers could get to heaven without dying. She and her flock lived and worked in Park's factory, located in an isolated wooded area in Yongin, South Korea, (pictured on map) where they made ornate Korean chests, pottery and toys to sell to tourists. Park told her followers that she spoke for God and that He wanted them to give her all their possessions.

She came to the attention of law enforcement after two former cultists were beaten when they asked for their belongings back. In 1987 Park was under investigation by authorities for allegedly swindling $8.7 million from 220 of her followers. On August 29 Park, her three adult children and 28 others were found dead in the factory by her husband. The bodies were in a pile, many with rope or cloths tied around their necks. The presence of bottles of drugs at the crime scene led police to believe that the cultists ingested the drugs before strangling each other. The last to die hanged himself.

03- The People's Temple

The People's Temple, founded by the Reverend Jim Jones (left), espoused apostolic socialism, preaching that, "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment: socialism." Jones enjoyed greater popular opinion than most cult leaders, obtaining meetings with some high-level political figures of his day, such as Vice President Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. His cult moved around but ultimately established a settlement in Guyana which became known as Jonestown, which was to be their Utopia. "I believe we're the purest communists there are," Jones said, " . . . dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally." It didn't work out.

On November 17, 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan of North Carolina came with members of the American media to retrieve cultists who wanted to leave, and Jones decided that he had failed. He sent follower Larry Layton away with Ryan, ordering Layton to kill Ryan's pilot on the return flight so that the plane would crash and be lost in the jungle. Though Layton did open fire, he did so while the plane was still taxiing on the runway, wounding several. Other passengers disarmed Layton, but other cultists on the ground near the plane opened fire. Ryan and four other passengers were killed, and nine others wounded.

The next day, Jones called a meeting and had his aides prepare a metal vat filled with Flavor Aid poisoned with Valium, chloral hydrate, cyanide and Phenergan. Jones told his followers what he had done and that the congressman was dead. He said that the cult would be raided and all children captured converted to fascism. He urged them all to commit "revolutionary suicide." Many did, and as they began to die others panicked. Some were forced to drink, others managed to get away. Jones was killed with a gunshot wound to the head. In all 918 people died in Jonestown (pictured) and on the airstrip.

02- The Family

The Family was founded by Charles Manson (pictured) in the late 1960s. Manson prophesied an apocalyptic race war, which he dubbed "Helter Skelter," after the Beatles song of the same name. Manson promised to save his Family from the coming conflagration by hiding them in the desert until they could emerge to build their Utopia on the ruins. He told his followers that they were the chosen people who would start the civil war by acts of provocative violence to be blamed on African-Americans.

On August 9, 1969, Manson sent four of his followers to 10050 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles, telling them to kill everyone in the house. They stabbed, shot and bludgeoned five people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate leaving the word "Pigs" written in blood at the scene. On August 10, Manson drove around L.A. and targeted the house at 3301 Waverly Drive for the next set of murders. Manson's followers entered the home, which belonged to Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, killed them, and carved the word "War" in Leno's stomach.

Instead of the anticipated race war, though, 25 Family members found themselves under arrest less than a week later on unrelated charges of grand theft auto. While in holding, cultist Susan Atkins told inmates of her involvement with the Family and the murders, which broke the case. Police charged Manson, Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Charles "Tex" Watson, Leslie Van Houten and Steve "Clem" Grogan with the murders. All were convicted in large part by the testimony of Linda Kasabian. Kasabian had fled to her mother's home in New Hampshire, but turned herself in and confessed. She was offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony for the prosecution

1- Los Hermanos Hernández

In 1962 the brothers Santos and Cayetano Hernández convinced 50 or so residents of the village of Yerba Buena, Mexico (pictured) that they were priests sent by ancient gods to ask for sexual and monetary sacrifices in exchange for a great treasure hidden in the nearby mountains. Tribute from the villagers in the form of money and sex from their followers was duly rendered, but some began to doubt. The brothers introduced prostitute Magdalena Solis and her pimp brother Eleazar as incarnated deities, with a ceremony in a mountain cave, with a theatrical puff of smoke for effect.

Over the following six weeks, eight villagers were beaten to death as part of religious ceremonies, their blood was mixed with chicken blood and consumed by the faithful in something called "el ritual de la sangre." The murders became more complex, with beatings, burning and machetes. A boy, Sebastian Guerrero, 14, witnessed one of the ceremonies and was so scared that he ran the 17 miles to the neighboring town of Villagran to tell authorities what he saw. No one believed him, but they did send an officer back to the scene with the boy. When neither returned, on May 31, 1963, police and soldiers raided the site and found the body of the officer with his heart cut out and the boy hacked to pieces, along with evidence of the other murders. Santos, whose brother had just been killed in an altercation with a villager, died in a shootout with police. Magdalena, her brother and the 12 villagers that remained faithful were captured, disarmed and arrested. Magdalena and Eleazar were tried and convicted of the murders of two villagers, receiving a sentence of 50 years each. The rest were tried on charges of group homicide or lynching and each sentenced to 30 years.
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