SAN DIEGO — It happened more than 25 years ago inside a Rancho Santa Fe mansion and is still the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil. Thirty-nine members of a cult called Heaven's Gate were found dead after overdosing on anti-depressants mixed with pudding.
We would later learn that they killed themselves believing their souls would board a spaceship following a comet, taking them to another level of existence above human.
We dug deep in our CBS 8 archives and found stories from our original coverage of this bizarre case - from videos of those who took part in the suicide explaining why they planned to participate - to pictures taken by the sheriff’s department showing what their investigators found inside the mansion. We also have several updates, including what ended up happening to the house.
This is about 30 minutes of footage and we put it all together in a special you can watch on CBS8+ free on Roku and Amazon Fire.
- Go to the app store on your Roku or Amazon Fire device
- Search for "CBS 8 San Diego"
- Select the CBS 8+ app
- Download the app to your device for free
Watch Related: San Diego reporter tours Heaven's Gate mansion following cult's mass suicide (Apr 4, 2019)