Joseph Di Mambro was a co-founder of the Order of the Solar Temple, an organization whose members died in Switzerland and Canada in October 1994, in France in December 1995 and in Quebec in March 1997. He was 70 when he died, in October 1994, among the dead in the Swiss canton of Valais. He was never charged and never tried, and no court has made a finding against him.
The deaths that October were counted at 53: 48 in two Swiss cantons and five in Quebec. Swiss and Canadian officials said they believed the deaths were "mass murder followed by mass suicide." The Swiss authorities closed their inquiries without a trial.
Di Mambro was a French-Canadian who divided his time between Quebec, France and Switzerland. In 1983 he and the Belgian physician Luc Jouret founded a secret order in Geneva that brought together several earlier groups. It took the name Order of the Solar Temple in 1990. The co-founder was also among the dead in October 1994.
Members came from Switzerland, France and Canada. Over the whole period from 1994 to 1997, 74 members died: 30 Swiss, 30 French and ten Canadians.
On October 5, 1994, Swiss police found 48 dead in two cantons: 23 in canton Fribourg, at Cheiry, and 25 in canton Valais, at Salvan. At about the same time five people died at Morin Heights, in Quebec. The toll across the two countries was 53, and it included at least five children.
Swiss police confirmed on Monday, October 10, that Di Mambro was among the dead in Valais. An international arrest warrant that had been issued for him and Jouret in the first days of the inquiry was therefore never served.
Swiss police said that many of the 48 dead in Switzerland had been murdered. In Quebec, two of the five deaths were thought to be suicides.
The Swiss inquiries ended without a trial. In 2001 the authorities said that those believed responsible were among the dead. A lawyer for an association of the families said the Swiss decisions were provisional and that the files could be reopened if new evidence appeared.
In Quebec, the provincial coroner tabled a report on the 1994 deaths in June 1996. It said that the authorities had limited means of preventing deaths of this kind.
On December 23, 1995, sixteen members died in the Vercors region of France. On March 22, 1997, five members died at St. Casimir, in Quebec.
A French inquiry into the 1995 deaths ended in the trial of a Swiss member of the order. He was tried in Grenoble in April 2001 on a charge of criminal association in connection with the 16 deaths in France. He denied the charge.
On June 25, 2001, the Grenoble court found him not guilty of criminal association. It also cleared him of conspiring to brainwash 74 followers. Prosecutors appealed, and a new trial opened in Grenoble in October 2006. On December 20, 2006, the appeal court upheld the acquittal.
Di Mambro died in October 1994 and was never tried. No court has convicted or acquitted him, and the deaths are attributed only in the terms the Swiss and Canadian authorities used at the time.
1983: Di Mambro and a co-founder found a secret order in Geneva.
1990: The order takes the name Order of the Solar Temple.
October 1994: 48 members die in the Swiss cantons of Valais and Fribourg and five in Quebec.
October 10, 1994: Swiss police confirm Di Mambro is among the dead in Valais.
December 23, 1995: Sixteen members die in the Vercors region of France.
March 22, 1997: Five members die at St. Casimir, Quebec.
June 25, 2001: A Grenoble court acquits a group member of criminal association.
October 2006: The Grenoble appeal trial opens.
December 20, 2006: The appeal court upholds the acquittal.