Ex-Cultist Who Tried Suicide Wins Release

SAN DIEGO — A former Heaven’s Gate member who tried to kill himself by swallowing the same drug used in the cult’s mass suicide has persuaded a judge to release him from a psychiatric facility.

Charles Humphrey told KNSD-TV on Wednesday that his opportunity to join the “next level” had passed and that he plans to write a book and go on the speaking circuit.

“That activity [suicide] is not an option for me at this point,” he said. “I felt it was an option at the time, and it may have been an option for a short window of time.

“I feel that short window of time has expired, and that’s one of the reasons I was rejected at this point--along with the fact I still need to do some personal growth.”

Humphrey, 55, of Denver was found unconscious May 6 in an Encinitas motel room along with Wayne Cooke, a former member from Las Vegas who succeeded in killing himself. Both men had swallowed the same drug used by 39 cultists found dead March 26 in a Rancho Santa Fe mansion.

In the mass suicide, Heaven’s Gate leader Marshall Applewhite convinced his followers that by shedding their “containers” they would be taken to paradise aboard a spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet.

In the television interview, Humphrey said he and Cooke tried to follow the same script used in the Rancho Santa Fe suicides. Both took the drug at the same time and did not help each other, he said.

“We mixed a mixture of phenobarbital and applesauce and followed pretty much the same formula as the 39,” Humphrey said. “We had bags that were placed over our heads, and we had the Nike shoes and the whole ball of wax.