Some Cult Members Had Been Castrated -- Brother Of Actress On `Star Trek' Was Among 39 Suicides

SAN DIEGO - The Heaven's Gate suicide cult not only shunned sex, but some males in the group, including the aging leader, had been castrated in apparent pursuit of their ideal of androgynous immortality, the medical examiner revealed yesterday.

Dr. Brian Blackbourne said the castrations were done long before the 39 men and women methodically killed themselves in the belief that they would take a spaceship ride in a UFO trailing the Hale-Bopp comet.

Also, he said, toxicology results showed at least two of the victims of the mass suicide discovered Wednesday took a less than lethal concoction of barbiturates and booze. Blackbourne has said that plastic bags found in the trash might have been used to suffocate them.

No official causes of death have been determined, but Sheriff's Lt. Jerry Lipscomb said there was no suspicion of anything but suicide.

"Overdose and suffocation, self-inflicted," he said. "Nothing in this investigation that would suggest anything but."

Relatives of 30 of the dead had been notified by yesterday with the help of more than 1,000 calls to a toll-free police line.

Among the relatives was actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on the original "Star Trek" and has been promoting a line of telephone psychics. She was shocked and under sedation at the news that her brother, Thomas Nichols, was among the dead, said her manager, Jim Meecham.

Nichols said on "Larry King Live" yesterday that her brother had been talking about the comet that would come some day as early as 1994.

"He made his choices, and we respect those choices," she told King, adding that she felt it ironic that they chose Hale-Bopp, "this wonderful celestial event," as the trigger for the decision to die.

The bodies - 21 women and 18 men - were laid out in ritual fashion, arms at their sides, face and chest draped in diamond-shaped purple shrouds.

Cult members had told acquaintances that leader Marshall Applewhite, 66, preached strongly against the pleasures of the flesh. Renting a $1.3 million Rancho Santa Fe mansion, his followers prepared for their ascension by avoiding cigarettes, booze and sex.

Even strong emotions were avoided as "too human." Bodies were merely "vehicles," and sex was called "vehicular gratification."

In his writings, Applewhite preached that when they left their "containers" and entered heaven aboard a UFO, his followers would not need mouths to eat or noses to smell and would look like gray-skinned "space aliens."

In the house, investigators discovered pictures of a dome-headed alien they apparently thought they would encounter by killing themselves and joining a UFO they believed is traveling behind the comet Hale-Bopp.

"It's the head of an alien, like you see in `The X-Files,' " the medical examiner said.

Both male and female members affected a unisex look: buzz-cut hair and shapeless black shirts with mandarin collars. People who had contact with the members said they referred to themselves as monks.

Blackbourne refined earlier descriptions of the meticulously planned suicide. Reading from what he described as a "little blue binder" found at the scene, he described how the cult members apparently killed themselves in stages over two or more days.

"Fifteen classmates, eight assistants, then 15 more and eight assistants, then help each other," he read.

Blackbourne acknowledged that some relatives were upset that officials released a two-minute videotape shot inside the mansion that showed investigators walking through the death scene, pointing to the bodies.

Information from the New York Daily News is included in this report.