The People Behind Cult Murders

The People Behind Cult Murders PDF Author: Pete Schauer
Publisher: Enslow Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 0766076113
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
High school psychology students will read about what motivates the criminals behind cult murders. After introducing the wide range of cults that exist in the world, this book focuses on those cults that often feature violence, abuse, ritual death, and mass murder. Religious, doomsday, and terrorist cults are just some of the cults covered in this detailed book. Historical accounts of cult murders are followed by descriptions of the psychology of the minds of cult leaders and followers.

Killer Cults

Killer Cults PDF Author: Stephen Singular
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
ISBN: 1454939435
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
What’s scarier than a murderer? Someone with the charisma to compel others to kill for them . . . or to kill themselves. Meet these cult leaders—and get an inside look at their beliefs and how they controlled others. Some cults, led by leaders like Charlie Manson, Jim Jones, and David Koresh, are notorious. But others are less well known, such as Shoko Asahara and his doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo, who orchestrated the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Or Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret, who founded the Order of the Solar Temple, a doomsday cult that led to the death of 51 members by murder or suicide. Then there is Marshall Applewhite, leader of Heaven’s Gate, who, along with 38 followers, killed themselves in the belief that the Hale-Bopp comet signaled the arrival of a spaceship that would transport them to a higher plane of existence. What makes cult leaders so compelling is their often-unfathomable power over their adherents. Why do people kill others or themselves for a questionable set of beliefs? Killer Cults tells the stories behind both famous and unfamiliar cults, and the people behind them. Across a series of profiles, we learn the jaw-dropping truth behind some of the most mystifying and deadly cults, and their leaders, all of whom led their followers down a dark, murderous path.

PEOPLE True Crime Stories

PEOPLE True Crime Stories PDF Author: The Editors of PEOPLE
Publisher: Time Home Entertainment
ISBN: 1547845813
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Book Description
The Editors of PEOPLE Magazine present True Crime: Cults.

The Kirtland Massacre

The Kirtland Massacre PDF Author: Cynthia S. Sasse
Publisher: Zebra Books
ISBN: 9780821739860
Category : Cults
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
Co-authored by an assistant prosecutor of the case, this is an incisive look at Jeffrey Lundgren, a self-proclaimed prophet of a deviant death cult, loosely based on the Book of the Mormon, who drove his followers to commit atrocious crimes--including the "blood sacrifice" murder of an innocent family. Features 14 pages of dramatic photographs. Fine.

Cauldron of Blood

Cauldron of Blood PDF Author: Jim Schutze
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504081935
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
“Death, drugs and the occult meet in grisly inquiry at the Mexican border” in this true crime account of a mass murder by a serial killing cult leader (The New York Times). When Mark Kilroy vanished while on spring break in Matamoros, Mexico, the search for the missing pre-med student led to a gruesome discovery on a lonely stretch of land called Rancho Santa Elena: a mass grave containing Mark’s mutilated corpse along with the remains of thirteen other people. The investigation uncovered how the victims were brutally killed at the hands of drug trafficker and cult leader Adolpho Constanzo, known by his followers as El Padrino, or The Godfather. Constanzo was a serial killer who, along with his followers, tortured and cannibalized innocent people in the barbaric religious ritual of human sacrifice. Written by critically acclaimed journalist Jim Schutze, Cauldron of Blood is a must-read for true-crime fans.

Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple

Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple PDF Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781544874845
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64

Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the cult and the massacre *Includes Jim Jones' quotes about his life and the massacre *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." - Jim Jones The United States has never had a shortage of cults based on religious teachings and charismatic leaders, but perhaps none are as infamous as Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, which remain notorious for the mass murder-suicide event in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978, during which nearly 900 people drank cyanide-laced Flavor Aid, including nearly 300 children. To this day, "drinking the Kool-Aid" is a popular phrase in America to refer to people who blindly follow a person or idea without thought, and the event at Jonestown was the deadliest deliberate act involving Americans in history until the 9/11 attacks. In addition to those deaths, Peoples Temple members also murdered a handful of others on the same day, including journalists, a member trying to leave Jonestown, and Congressman Leo Ryan. Almost from birth, Jones believed he had a higher calling, and after being immersed in various Christian churches and both political and religious doctrine, Jones founded the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955, when he was still in his mid-20s. While that might have been an unusual course in life for most Americans, Jones was hardly the first to take such a path, and indeed, his group expanded at a remarkable pace in the 1960s, which included a move to California after Jones claimed to foresee a nuclear attack on Chicago and the destruction of Indianapolis. By the 1970s, services at the group's Temple attracted thousands of visitors, even as Jones increasingly criticized Christianity and the Bible. Of course, none of the previous locations earned the notoriety of Jonestown, which the Peoples Temple established in Guyana along the northern coast of South America in the mid-'70s. Meant to be a "socialist paradise" and "sanctuary" from America's "creeping fascism," over 900 members headed to the new settlement by 1978. That November, Congressman Leo Ryan arrived in Jonestown to investigate various claims about the Peoples Temple and met with some members who wished to defect from the group. In response, Jones issued a tape decrying outsiders' efforts and directing members to commit suicide, and when some pushed back, he chided them: "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Survivors described the ensuing event, during which children drank the poison first and were followed by parents who lay down to die as a family. Others indicated that Jones had simulated mass suicides on a couple of other occasions before to test members' loyalty as well, so people remained unsure whether the event was real, even as Jones told them, "I tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguished cries...death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you - if you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight." Although many began to worry once they saw the poison take effect in others, most of those who drank the poison were dead within 5 minutes, while Jones apparently shot himself in the head. Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple: The History of the Most Notorious Cult and Mass Murder-Suicide in American History chronicles the notorious cult and the mass murder-suicide. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Peoples Temple like never before.

Deadly Cults

Deadly Cults PDF Author: Robert L. Snow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313057613
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
How does a Vampire Cult differ from a Satanic Cult? How do seemingly normal or ordinary citizens suddenly find themselves committed to a group whose leader promotes criminal activities and isolation from families and friends? What should you do if a loved one becomes indoctrinated by a potentially dangerous cult? This book focuses on various cults and their often criminal belief systems. Most readers are shocked by stories of mass suicides and ritualized cult killings, but few understand how such crimes come to be committed. Snow, a seasoned police officer with experience working on cult crimes, examines those cults that commit offenses from murder and fraud to kidnapping and sexual assault. By providing specific accounts of dangerous cults and their destructive acts, Snow illustrates how seemingly innocent groups can turn pernicious when under the sway of a charismatic leader with an agenda, or when members take things too far. He offers advice on how to avoid falling victim to cult indoctrination, concluding with chapters on how to identify cults, how to protect yourself and your family, and what to do if a loved one is ensnared by such a group.

Evil Harvest

Evil Harvest PDF Author: Rod Colvin
Publisher: Addicus Books
ISBN: 1936374609
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
On a peaceful August morning in 1985, grim-face FBI agents led a dawn raid on an eighty-acre farm outside Rulo, Nebraska, said to be occupied by a gorup of religious survivalists led by the charismatic Mike Ryan. What they found on the farm shocked even experience investigators. For months Ryan's Nebraska neighbors spoke in whispers of gunfire in the night, the disappearance of women and children, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. But little did the locals know what was happening to those Mike Ryan decided to punish for their “sins.” In Evil Harvest, Rod Colvin re-creates a chilling story of torture, hate, and perversion, and how good, ordinary people could be pulled into a destructive, religious cult—a cult that committed unthinkable acts in the name of God.

Cults That Kill

Cults That Kill PDF Author: Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Agsar
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1612438814
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
A true crime author explores what happens when cults cross the line in this anthology of false prophets, true believers, and tragic consequences. Thousands of religious, political and self-improvement cults are active around the world, and an estimated two to five million Americans have been involved in a cult at some point in their lives. While not all cults are destructive, these stories demonstrate how unwavering faith in an infallible leader can lead lay the groundwork for criminal acts a heinous as murder or mass suicide. True crime author Joan Biddlecombe Agsar uncovers what really happened inside some of modern history’s most notorious cults, including: • The Manson Family Hippie devotees turn violent to manifest God’s race war • The Peoples Temple Hundreds of utopia seekers meet their end in the Guyanese jungle by ingesting a cyanide-laced drink • The Vampire Clan Teenagers consume blood and bludgeon an unsuspecting Florida couple to death • Heaven’s Gate Nike-adorned disciples commit suicide to transport onto a spaceship approaching • Earth Silvia Meraz Moreno’s Santa Muerte Cult Members collect sacrificial blood by slicing open victims’ veins while their hearts are still beating

The Kirtland Massacre

The Kirtland Massacre PDF Author: Cynthia S. Sasse
Publisher: Zebra Books
ISBN: 9780821739860
Category : Cults
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
Co-authored by an assistant prosecutor of the case, this is an incisive look at Jeffrey Lundgren, a self-proclaimed prophet of a deviant death cult, loosely based on the Book of the Mormon, who drove his followers to commit atrocious crimes--including the "blood sacrifice" murder of an innocent family. Features 14 pages of dramatic photographs. Fine.