On 22 March 1997, five members of the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) committed mass suicide in Saint-Casimir, Quebec, setting their house on fire with them inside.

The two leaders of the group, Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret, had both died in the 1994 transit, but a second mass suicide was orchestrated the next year by the remaining members.

While the children were directly involved, they were ultimately not charged with any crime, as the Ministry of Justice deemed their responsibility lessened by their ingestion of drugs and their influence by the sect.

The Order of the Solar Temple was a religious group active in several French-speaking countries, led by Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret.

[4] It was intended as an "ark of survival" far from urban areas with 100 people to repopulate the Earth following an apocalypse, due to the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, which would destroy Europe.

[28] Marie-Louise Rebaudo, the OTS's astrologer, later claimed that she saw significant changes in his star chart, which showed that he was to move to Quebec to help start the "ark of survival".

For several years after this, she repeatedly tried to get Bruno back, having a "foot inside, but always one outside" the OTS community, but eventually gave up, and began contacting anti-cult groups.

[29] She divorced him and returned to Switzerland, taking their two children with her; while previously Bruno Klaus had been a high-status member, his reputation in the group suffered due to the actions of his wife.

[35] Following the 1994 massacre, Klaus and Didier Quèze were distraught, viewing themselves as having been abandoned by Jouret; according to Bédat they felt rejected by society and were convinced they were being spied on.

[35][34] Didier Quèze was placed under police watch by the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) in July 1996, but nothing beyond that, and he defended himself to the press.

The worst is still possible..."[37][30] Klaus was once quoted in this book on the subject of his romantic relationships, telling how he and Friedli had switched wives at Jouret's suggestion.

[13][42] In a private letter to his relatives left behind, one of the members wrote:[43][44] all the people in the Order were extraordinary, very far from the image of bastards spread by the newspapers.

If only there would have been honest journalists, we would have helped them to write their articles.The letter defends their choice to transit, and asks for forgiveness for the people they may have hurt, but says that they are happy to have accomplished their work, that it was merely moving again, but this time further away.

The same day, the pair mailed the Canadian newspapers La Presse and Le Journal de Montréal a "testament" letter, from a post office in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade; it was stamped on the 21st.

[46] According to Shannon Clusel and Susan J. Palmer, they rationalized the fact that they had not been selected to participate in the earlier "transits" by Jouret and Di Mambro as a kind of "trial period" that had been done to strengthen them.

[51] Early in the morning, one of the teens woke up, and finding the unconscious body of her father, found the setup designed to set the house on fire.

[52] The siblings then succeeded at thwarting the attempt by airing the house out, closing the propane tanks, and removing the rest of the setup – this was all done while their parents were still asleep.

[52] As of the evening, the teenagers were still not decided as to whether they would participate; their parents, however, apparently believed they had agreed to die with them, and proceeded to slip sedatives into their food a second time.

[55] Early in the morning, the teenagers woke up again and went downstairs, finding their father trying to reassemble the ignition system, and Druau dead with a garbage bag over her head.

[59][60] Red rose petals were scattered throughout the room, and while searching the house police found a sword with Pauline Riou's name engraved into the handle and medieval-style clothing.

[17][57] Following the suicides, there was widespread media interest, particularly about the extent of the children's involvement and what had led to the events, with many competing theories; a heated debate on religious freedom in Quebec resulted.

[64] In the immediate aftermath, Arnaud Bédat stated that a fourth massacre was still possible, though he said there were no reliable leads unlike in the Saint-Casimir case, only rumors.

[65] Heaven's Gate happened to be a group with similar beliefs, in both cases believing that suicide would allow their souls to be transported into space.

[47][46] Handwriting analysis was done, as well as toxicology tests on the bodies of the dead and investigation related to the final phone calls made by the members killed.

[73] The Sûreté du Québec gave the Chief Deputy Attorney General discretion as to whether they would be charged, with no expressed opinion in their submitted report, which was atypical compared to common practice.

[36] In his report on the deaths, released 8 October 1997,[57] his single recommendation was the establishment of a committee to study and understand cults, and how to recognize and stop ones that became dangerous.

[55] This was the only OTS transit that left behind survivors (with the possible exception of Thierry Huguenin, who claimed to have escaped the first massacre); it was also the only one that was purely voluntary for those that died.

These are people we can rub shoulders with every day, there isn't something in their face that says, 'I'm part of the Order of the Solar Temple and I have to fly to Sirius on a cosmic journey'.

[36] The lead Sûreté du Québec investigator into the OTS, Jacques St-Pierre, said he had known since the 1994 transit that another could occur in Canada, given many members were disappointed they had not been included in the initial mass suicide.

[36][42] In 2000, the religious scholar Massimo Introvigne wrote that further suicides could not be excluded "as long as even one single person still shares the OTS's ideology".