By BEN FOX
Associated Press Writer SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Armed with cash and a taste
for the macabre, Cathee Shultz and J.D. Healy hope to buy a relic from
the worst mass suicide in American history.
The couple,
owners of a bizarre shrine known as the Museum of Death, say they will
be among the expected hundreds at a Nov. 20 auction of property belonging
to 39 Heaven's Gate cult members who committed suicide at a mansion
in Rancho Santa Fe.
Anyone looking
for arm patches embossed with the group's logo or artwork featuring
space aliens, however, should stay home.
Other than
the famed bunk beds, few if any of the items -- televisions, VCRs, kitchen
utensils, furniture, sleeping bags, a trampoline and a fax machine --
have much connection to what happened March 26, 1997, at the cult's
rented home. That doesn't matter to Shultz and her husband. ``Even if
it's just a linen napkin, we hope to get something,'' said Shultz, 37,
who plans to move their museum from San Diego to Hollywood in January.
The item the couple most wants is one of the 20 bunk-bed frames. The
cultists were found in the beds poisoned to death from a mixture of
applesauce, vodka and barbiturates. They were dressed in black outfits
with ``Away Team'' patches, Nike tennis shoes, purple shrouds and a
plastic bag over their heads. The cultists left a video message saying
they were shedding their ``earthly containers'' to join a spaceship
trailing the tail of the Hale Bopp comet. Shultz and her husband have
already acquired from an anonymous donor one of the outfits, she said.
A bunk bed would allow them to create an exhibit duplicating one of
the rooms in the house. ``I'm doing it because it's weird and I like
that kind of stuff, but I'm a historian, too,'' Shultz said. All the
cult's intellectual property, including the writings of its leader Marshall
Applewhite and anything bearing the cult's logo, were given to two former
cult members, Mark and Sarah King of Phoenix, as part of a legal settlement
earlier this year with San Diego County. ``They didn't want those things
to be part of any ghoulish auction,'' said Jillyn Hess-Verdon, a lawyer
for the Kings. The county administrator is listing the sale as that
of the John Craig Estate, named for a cult member, to downplay its connection
to the mass suicide. The estate has been appraised at $50,000, but the
sale could generate more. Proceeds will go to the cultists' families.
``We have no idea who will show up or how much they'll offer,'' said
Kent Schirmer, head of the property division of the county administrator's
office. ``We don't know if people will put a premium on it just because
of the incident.'' In June, a developer bought the seven-bedroom home
where the mass suicide occurred for $668,000 -- less than half of what
the two-story home was listed for before the deaths. Relatives of the
cult members dislike the idea of the Museum of Death creating an exhibit
of the suicide and hope the auction passes without much notice, said
Nancie Brown, whose son, David Moore, 40, died with the cult. ``This
is another step toward closure,'' said Brown, a semiretired teacher
in northern California. ``Nobody wants the auction to be some kind of
a scene, something that's going to be bring more bad publicity.'' Randy
Bell, an Irvine, Calif., real estate appraiser who specializes in establishing
the value of ``stigmatized'' property, said the cult members are not
widely admired, so their belongings wouldn't likely appreciate in value.
``There may be some people looking for a cheap deal on a VCR, but the
fact that it belonged to Heaven's Gate won't mean much,'' Bell said.