User:PARAKANYAA/Sandbox5

On the night of 15 to 16 December 1995, 16 members of the cult the Order of the Solar Temple were killed in a mass murder-suicide in a clearing in the Vercors in France. Two members of the group, Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and André Friedli, shot and killed 14 other members of the group, including three children, before setting the bodies on fire and killing themselves.

This came after the initial 1994 mass suicide of the group, which had killed both of its leaders, Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro

It had been organized by

conspiracy theories

Background
The Order of the Solar Temple was an esoteric and New Age cult that was active throughout

Planning
Writings from the group found by Swiss police had warned that the next mass suicide would occur on a solstice; the 1995 winter solstice occurred on 22 December.

Christiane Bonet

Lardanchet

Patrick Rostan

Massacre
make it written less like... this

On the night of 15 to 16 December 1995, sixteen people - thirteen adults and three children aged 2, 4 and 6 - were immolated in a circular star-formation at a place called Le Trou de l'Enfer (lit. 'The Hellhole') an isolated clearing on the Vercors Massif, near Saint-Pierre-de-Chérennes (Isère) in France.

14 people, including three children, took sedative pills, put plastic bags on their heads and lay in a circle, feet in the middle of the circle. Then Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and André Friedli shot each member in the head one by one with two .22 caliber rifles. After that, they put firewood on the bodies, poured gasoline and set it on fire. Then they both shot themselves in the head with two .357 Magnum revolvers and jumped into the fire. Two women who were mothers of children had broken skulls.

Some of those who died left behind notes where they discussed that they would "see another world". Investigators concluded that of the sixteen dead, at least four had not died willingly. One of the dead was Olympian Edith Bonlieu, who had competed in the women's downhill at the 1956 Winter Olympics.

On 23 December 1995, the 16 bodies were discovered by a gamekeeper.

Aftermath
Jean Vuarnet

Michel Tabachnik

The investigation conducted by the Grenoble Gendarmerie Nationale Research Section, which entrusted technical expertise to the Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale (IRCGN),

The Grenoble Public Prosecutor opened an investigation into murder and criminal conspiracy, with the possibility of external complicity.

destroyed scene

Another mass suicide by members of the group occurred in Canada in 1997.

Gest and Guyard report

response

Lardanchet was presented by other sources as an agent of the Police de l'Air et des Frontières or as a "mole" infiltrated into the order.

Conspiracy theories
due to several strange aspects of the incident, many conspiracy theories

Hermann Delorme

Legal proceedings
On 23 December 1995, during the journal de 13 heures program on the French channel TF1, journalist Gilles Bouleau mentioned that the group had survived and united behind Michel Tabachnik, thus indirectly declaring that Tabachnik was the mastermind behind the Vercors massacre. Later, Arnaud Bédat acquired photos claimed to directly implicate Tabachnik in the OTS's actions. This information was picked up by the media, leading Tabachnik to give a public denial. It was revealed that in September 1994, Tabachnik gave two lectures in Avignon at Di Mambro's request. These lectures were preparatory sessions for the massacres that were to take place in October of the same year. It was later said that Tabachnik had indeed taken part in these conferences, but without knowing the outcome of the massacres, and that it had been a set-up by Di Mambro. Tabachnik later sued Bouleau, unsuccessfully, for defamation.

At the time of the investigation, due to the death of the two leaders in Salvan in 1994, Tabachnik was the only defendant in the case. The examining magistrate considered that Tabachnik, through his writings and his conferences, could have incited followers to commit suicide. He was therefore charged with participation in a criminal conspiracy to commit a crime. In his defense, Tabachnik published ''Bouc émissaire. Dans le piège du Temple Solaire'', with a preface by Pierre Boulez. Claude Giron, a member of the group and a pharmacist, was indicted for criminal conspiracy in February 1997, as he was suspected of supplying the drugs used in the killings to the group. The case against him was dismissed in July of that year. On 17 November 1998, investigating judge Luc Fontaine presented the conclusions of his inquiry into the second massacre.

In the run-up to the criminal court trial against Michel Tabachnik, the families of the victims, all of whom believed it to be a mass suicide, filed a civil action. Having consulted the experts' files, the civil party identified a number of inconsistencies in the investigation, such as the fact that the organic environment around the bodies of the immolated victims was completely intact and showed no trace of fire. The civil party then asked for counter-expertise and questioned the theory of collective suicide. According to Alain Vuarnet, son and brother of two of the victims, who had been conducting a parallel private investigation since 1995, the "collective suicides" of members of the Order of the Solar Temple in December 1995 in the Vercors region have still not been fully explained. He complained about the lack of cooperation from the justice system, which has always refused to investigate the possibility of murder. According to the expert, Professor Gilbert Lavoué, commissioned by Mr. Vuarnet, phosphorus was found at the scene, indicating the use of a flamethrower, which would imply that there had been no suicide, but a staged event. Vuarnet stated, "My father and I remain convinced that it wasn't with a few damp branches that these sixteen bodies were charred to such an extent". The results of the expert analyses revealed "an excess of phosphorus of between 21% and 40%".

Tabachnik's trial
On 13 April 2001, at the Grenoble Museum-Library, which had been transformed for the occasion, the criminal court trial of Michel Tabachnik (defended by Francis Szpiner) for "criminal conspiracy" began. However, the plaintiffs' side split into two camps: one camp, led by Alain Vuarnet, who felt that the trial should not focus on Tabachnik's responsibility but on the investigation itself, which they feel did not go all the way in their research; and another, led by the Union nationale des associations de défense des familles et de l'individu victimes de sectes (UNADFI), who believed that Tabachnik and his writings were the cause of the mass suicides, and that cults must be eradicated.

On the seventh day of the trial, several former OTS members took the stand and testified. Among the testimonies given, some were shocked and angry at the sect and the acts committed, while others remained faithful to Di Mambro and to the transit to Sirius. On the eighth day, Tabachnik was finally interviewed and told of having been manipulated and fooled by Di Mambro. On the tenth day, the prosecutor demanded 5 years' imprisonment for Tabachnik's alleged role in the conditioning of the Temple's followers. On 25 June 2001, the court acquitted Tabachnik, on the basis that there had been no significant proof uncovered "beyond hypotheses" that Tabachnik had orchestrated the killings.

The public prosecutor, still accusing him of having, through his writings, pushed followers into a mass suicide, appealed the criminal court's decision, and Tabachnik was tried again in a second trial beginning 24 October 2006. With this appeal, the plaintiffs, led by Alain Virante, hoped to prove that the investigation by examining magistrate Luc Fontaine had been mistaken, and that the followers had indeed been murdered. At their request, Professor Gilbert Lavoué was asked to extract traces of phosphorus from the victims' exhumed remains. The bodies were found to contain excess phosphorus. In the end, the forensic experts considered that this analysis added nothing new to the case and did not call into question Judge Fontaine's decision. The public prosecutor, considering that Tabachnik was not an active member of the order and that "his responsibility for the deaths had not been established", did not request any sentence against him. He was acquitted a second time in December 2006.