When the news of the Heaven's Gate suicides hit the stands it was America's new obsession. We wanted to know more about the "wackos" who killed themselves at the same time in order to catch a ride in a UFO We wanted to know what Heaven's Gate was and why the cult members killed themselves. Most importantly, however, we wanted to know if the Heaven's Gate suicides were a once in a lifetime occurrence or a starting point of a new tradition.
             The unnaturally calm voice of former cult member Rio DiAngelo was the first to notify authorities of the mass suicide by members of the Heaven's Gate cult (LaMotte. "Calm Call"). DiAngelo went into detail with the emergency dispatcher, describing the distribution of the bodies in the mansion. San Diego County sheriff's deputies did not respond to DiAngelo's call until a follow-up call two hours after the original notification (LaMotte. "Calm Call"). When the police arrived they found a very disturbing site in the mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The body count of the dead cult members was 39 people. 21 women and 18 men voluntarily committed suicide in three groups on three successive days starting on March 23 1997 (Religious Tolerance). The cult members committed suicide over a few days in late March 1997. They died in shifts, with some members helping others take a lethal cocktail of Phenobarbital and vodka before downing their own doses of the fatal mixture ("One Year Later"). The recipe that the cult members used seem to come from a book written by Derek Humphry, titled "Final Exit". The book listed many different recipes for suicide concoctions. However, the concoctions were meant for the dying to use for a painless death. Humphry says, "I regret it-a serious misuse of my book. Just like guns are misused for murder, my book has been misused here" (qtd. in LaMotte. "Deputies Find Guns&quo...