Marshall Applewhite

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Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. (May 17, 1931 – March 26, 1997), known among his followers as "Do" (pronounced "doe"), was the leader of the Heaven's Gate religious group. A self-proclaimed prophet and messiah, he died in the group's mass suicide of 1997.

Early life

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Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. was born in Spur, Texas to Louise Haecker Winfield and Marshall Herff Applewhite, Sr. He had two older sisters, Louise, born 1927, and Jane born 1929 as well as a brother, John Winfield born 1942.^[2] Applewhite's father was a Presbyterian minister who started new churches and moved from place to place in Texas about every three years. Applewhite hoped to follow in his father's footsteps and become a preacher as well, but his sister and father encouraged him to develop his musical talents. Applewhite attended Corpus Christi High School, now known as Roy Miller High School. In high school, Applewhite proved more dedicated to music than religion, and joined the school choir. In 1950, at age 19, Applewhite enrolled at Austin College, where he pursued a degree in Music and Pre-Theology at his father's urging.^{[citation needed]}

In college, Applewhite studied voice and education, fueled by his passion for choir singing. In 1954, upon his graduation, Applewhite was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was stationed in Salzburg, Austria, and then White Sands, New Mexico, where he became a Signal Corps instructor. He was drafted a year after the conflict phase of the Korean War ended, so he did not go to Korea, nor did he see any action while in the service. According to his sister, he was honorably discharged at the rank of Sergeant in 1956 after two years of service.

After he was discharged, Applewhite became a college music teacher. Later, in his thirties, he led a musical career. He played starring roles in stage musicals in Colorado and Texas, was the choir director at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Houston, sang 15 roles with the Houston Grand Opera, and taught music at the University of Alabama. Applewhite married Ann Frances Pearce in a Presbyterian church. He had a son named Mark, born in 1957, and a daughter named Lane Ann, but known as Mary, born in 1959. Applewhite was estranged from his family when his children were young. Applewhite was fired from his job as an adjunct music professor at the University of St. Thomas in 1970. The official reason given by the university was "health problems of an emotional nature".

Bonnie Nettles and Heaven's Gate

In 1972, Applewhite met a 44-year-old nurse named Bonnie Nettles at a Houston psychiatric hospital, which he had voluntarily entered because of depression and hearing voices. Nettles convinced him that they were on earth as aliens and that Armageddon was coming. On August 28, 1974, the 43-year-old Applewhite was arrested in Harlingen, Texas for stealing credit cards.

After Nettles told him that he possessed special astrological attributes, Applewhite declared himself the individual in whose mind was held that of Christ, the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. By 1975 they had begun Total Overcomers Anonymous together, which eventually became Heaven's Gate.

In 1975, Applewhite and Nettles convinced 20 people from Waldport, Oregon to join their group. Applewhite told them there would be an alien appearance by means of a UFO, but when the encounter never happened they left the group. However, more people joined and soon the group had 93 members. Initially, meetings were held in various locations in the Waldport area, and soon spread to multiple meetups at churches, halls, lecture theatres, and new age awareness centers elsewhere; their last public meeting in Oregon being held at Portland State University in Lincoln Hall. Flyers had been posted some time before the actual meeting, but interest was poor and not more than a dozen or so people attended. Over a 9-month period in 1975 Applewhite, Nettles, and small groups of their followers traveled to nearly all 50 of the United States and parts of Canada. The group became more structured, and moved periodically over the years to various locales in California, Colorado, and New Mexico. Finally, Heaven's Gate moved to the mansion at Rancho Santa Fe, California, the site of the group's mass suicide.

Nettles and Applewhite were nicknamed 'Ti and Do' or 'Bo and Peep' or the 'UFO two'. Nettles died in 1985 of cancer and Applewhite led Heaven's Gate alone from her death to his suicide in 1997. At some point, Applewhite had himself surgically castrated.^[3]

Their activities inspired the 1982 TV movie Mysterious Two, with John Forsythe as "He", the Applewhite role.

Heaven's Gate mass suicide

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On March 19, 1997, Marshall Applewhite taped himself speaking of mass suicide and believed "it was the only way to evacuate this Earth". The Heaven's Gate cult opposed suicide but believed they must leave Earth as quickly as possible. After claiming that a space craft was trailing the comet Hale-Bopp, Applewhite convinced 39 followers to commit suicide so that their souls could board the supposed craft. Applewhite believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which Applewhite described as being both physical and spiritual. This and other UFO-related beliefs held by the group have led some observers to characterize the group as a type of UFO religion.

Applewhite committed suicide with 39 other members in Rancho Santa Fe, California by mixing phenobarbitol with applesauce or pudding, then washing it down with vodka. They also placed plastic bags over their heads after ingesting the mix to ensure asphyxiation in case the drugs did not kill them. The cult members, aged between 26 and 72, are believed to have died in three groups, 15 the first day on March 24, 15 the next and nine on the third.^[4]

Member Rio DiAngelo, aka Richard Ford, did not commit suicide. He left the Rancho Santa Fe mansion weeks before the suicides to ensure future dissemination of Heaven's Gate videos and literature. He videotaped the mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. However, the tape was not shown to police until 2002, five years after the event.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Cult suicide
• Doomsday cult
• List of people who have claimed to be Jesus

References

External links

• Heavens Gate Website, still as it was in 1997
• Heaven's Gate initiation tape