Rancho Santa Fe Ca

Police found the bodies of 39 young men, apparently cult members who believed they were sent to Earth as angels, lying dead on their backs Wednesday in a luxurious home here--victims of what authorities said appeared to be a mass suicide. The group they belonged to, called W.W. Higher Source, practiced celibacy and abstained from smoking and drinking, said Milt Silverman Jr., an attorney for the owner of the home where the men died.

THE new Spa at Rancho Valencia sprawls over 16,000 square feet of indoor-outdoor space. But it would be great to be able to measure it in gallons. Beyond scrub-and-rub treatments, the spa has a whole "Water Wellness" menu -- and the pools to prove it. The Aqua Float is the spa's version of Watsu, a form of floating shiatsu massage done in a pool that's kept precisely at a womb-like 98.6 degrees.

Set in a glorious profusion of eucalyptus, this lush community just inland from Del Mar is entangled in the drama of a whodunit that has captured the imaginations of those who live, work and visit here. Everyone, it seems, has solved the mystery of the guilt or innocence of Ian Stuart Spiro.

In Southern California, "reasonably priced" real estate is a relative term. In San Diego County's Rancho Santa Fe, perennially on lists of the nation's wealthiest communities, Whispering Palms is such an oasis. What's it about Rancho Santa Fe -- "the Ranch" to locals -- is a tree-shaded area of trophy estates, horse properties and bridle paths. No cookie-cutter mansions here.

The 39 men and women who died in an apparent mass suicide here left behind mystical computer postings and matter-of-fact videos explaining that they were eager to graduate from their human shells and ascend into heaven on an alien spaceship--and to speed their way, they planned to whip up puddings tainted with coma-inducing sedatives. Authorities investigating the case said Thursday that the victims, who ranged in age from 20 to 72, meticulously planned their deaths.

It may have been by the ghostly light of a computer screen that some of the men and women found dead in the Rancho Santa Fe house-turned-temple first got word of the oft-changing cult now called Heaven's Gate. The group's extensive use of the Internet--as a bulletin board, publishing medium, outreach device, income source and possibly recruiting tool--added a chilling new element to what will likely be remembered as an epoch-marking tragedy.

They were so smart, say their survivors in pain and in puzzlement. So smart. Way too smart to die like this. They were computer whizzes, musicians, a National Merit Scholarship winner, a former Republican candidate for state office, a jewelry store owner who was frightened of death, the daughter of a real estate agent, a father of six. "He was so smart," said Betsy Schultz, a family friend of John M. Craig, a.k.a.

It was planned as a place of light and graceful ease, but for at least 39 members of an obscure, computer-oriented group called W.W. Higher Source, this gated community in the rolling hills of northern San Diego County somehow became the site of a cybernetic dark night of the soul. "It was rented out to some monks or lamas," Carol Kappan said of the house on Rancho Santa Fe's Colina Norte, where the apparent mass suicide occurred. "I never saw them.

One version features the reptilians and the orbs duking it out for control of Pluto. Another has a lucky few humans morphing into bald, dome-headed aliens as they drift off into cosmic bliss. Then there's the psychological drama approach: A youngish set designer, a film biz type, responds to an ad in the L.A.

Mystery shrouded the deaths, but there were also telling signs. The dozens of young men were dressed in black slacks, lying on their backs throughout the hillside mansion, neither trauma nor blood nor struggle in evidence. Whether the 39 people found in a Rancho Santa Fe house died in an orchestrated suicide or fell prey to mass murder wasn't clear late Wednesday. But the victims, said by the homeowner's attorney to belong to an extreme religious group calling itself the W.W.

Here amid the eucalyptus trees, horse trails and multimillion-dollar mansions, where life is unhurried and gracious, residents have a new distinction: They live in the wealthiest community in the United States. With a burst of per capita income to $113,132, Rancho Santa Fe has nosed out Atherton and Woodside in the San Francisco Bay Area, Palm Beach, Fla., Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and other high-living rivals, according to U.S. census data released Tuesday.

A group of homeowners has quietly moved to change the name of the street where 39 Heaven's Gate cult members killed themselves last month. Colina Norte, which drew worldwide attention when the cult committed mass suicide inside a hilltop mansion, will be known as Paseo Victoria, named for a child who lives on the street. Residents confirmed that they had met in recent days to vote on a new name because of continuing concerns about a string of "strange" visitors to their neighborhood.

"Heaven's Gate: The Movie" may soon be coming to the small screen. Reversing its previous stance, ABC said Thursday that it has signed a deal with the Kushner-Locke Co. and InterAct Entertainment Inc. to produce a TV movie focusing on the Heaven's Gate cult and the 39 members who committed suicide last week in Rancho Santa Fe. The proposed film would center on the account of Richard Ford, the lone survivor of Heaven's Gate who left the cult four weeks before the members killed themselves.

Even as they prepared to commit suicide because life in this world was no longer bearable, members of the Heaven's Gate cult enjoyed some earthly pleasures: Gambling in Las Vegas, visiting Sea World, Mexico and San Diego's Wild Animal Park, and taking a bus trip through scenic parts of Northern California and southern Oregon. In Las Vegas, the cultists visited the Stratosphere Hotel amusement park in late February and won more than $20 at the slot machines.

One version features the reptilians and the orbs duking it out for control of Pluto. Another has a lucky few humans morphing into bald, dome-headed aliens as they drift off into cosmic bliss. Then there's the psychological drama approach: A youngish set designer, a film biz type, responds to an ad in the L.A.

Investigators probing the mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe are convinced that the 39 dead constituted the entire Heaven's Gate cult and that the organization had no splinter groups or links to other cults, authorities said Monday. San Diego County Sheriff's Department homicide investigator Lt.

In New York, cult expert Marcia Rudin got more calls than she could possibly answer, forcing her to turn away anxious parents whose children had slipped deep into mysterious sects. In Los Angeles, Debbie Pine dashed from one television interview to another, laying out the warning signs of cult affiliation for a suddenly attentive public.

Employees of a local computer company were stunned to learn that at least two people who once worked beside them were Heaven's Gate cult members who perished in last week's mass suicide. The cult members had car-pooled daily to Subscriber Computing Inc., garbed in baggy pants and shirts buttoned to the neck, former employee Charles Gardner, 42, said Monday. He said that when he saw the names of Susan Elizabeth Nora Paup, 54, and Margaret Ella Richter, 46, in the newspaper, "my jaw just dropped."

Ed Mayers strode across the luscious green grass at the Rancho Santa Fe Country Club and explained how 39 mass suicides could chip holes in the veneer of privacy built by residents of this exclusive enclave known simply as "the Ranch." "This is a place where people live in denial of the rest of the world," said the retired manufacturer, lining up a three-foot putt on a glorious morning. "The Ranch is a place where people practice civility in an uncivil world.