Holy Rollers: Murder and Madness in Oregon's Love Cult
by T. McCracken and Robert B. Blodgett
THE EPILOGUE
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EYES OF WORLD FALL ON WALDPORT
Headline in Waldport's South Lincoln County News, April 1, 1997
***Waldport, Oregon, the setting for the final chapter of Creffield's story, was also the setting for the first chapter of another cult story. In September of 1975, when Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles invited people to a meeting at the Pat Boone Inn where they said they were going to talk about their religious philosophies, over 100 people showed up. Waldport's population at the time was about 700. Ron Sutton, chief criminal deputy for Lincoln County, wasn't one of the attendees. "What I heard it was going to be about was the dumbest thing I ever heard of, and I thought no one would show up," he said later. "I kick myself many times for not going to that meeting."
What Applewhite and Lu Nettles--a music professor and a nurse known as "Bo and Peep," "Do and Ti," and "The Two"--told the assembly was how they were from "a higher realm"--had a personal connection with God. They said that at some point they would be assassinated, lie in the streets for three days, and then "ascend to a higher evolutionary level via a spaceship." Those who followed them, they said, would at the same time also ascend to a higher level via a spaceship. Those who wanted to find this salvation by spaceship were told to "forgo their worldly belongings"--all that is except for their automobiles--leave their families, and follow them to Colorado. About two dozen people did leave town with them--leaving everything behind, some even leaving their children behind. The story made national headlines and the group was dubbed by the media as "The UFO Cult."
And as in Creffield's story, worse was
yet to come.
The assembly at the Pat Boone Inn was the first successful recruitment meeting held for the group that eventually became known as Heaven's Gate. Over the next twenty-two years the group grew, until in 1997 Applewhite and thirty-eight of his flock "abandoned their containers" in a mansion in California at Rancho Santa Fe. Believing the spaceship from "the Level Above Human" that was going to take them to "their world" in the Heavens was trailing Comet Hale-Bopp, they committed mass suicide.
A hundred years from now, will people be familiar with the story of Heaven's Gate or will it be forgotten like Creffield's story? Fifty years from now will a student from Waldport High happen upon an article about the tragedy, and when she asks her parents for more information be told: "Why dredge up the dead? It'll only hurt the living. It was a one-time thing. Nothing like that could happen again. Or, anyhow, it couldn't ever happen again to normal people. Sane people. People like you and me."
***
As was promised--the keys to Heaven's Gate are here again in Ti and Do (The UFO Two) as they were in Jesus and His Father 2000 yrs. ago.
Heading for Heaven's Gate's Internet site in 1997
Chapters from
Holy Rollers: Murder & Madness in Oregon's Love Cult
Part 1: The Seduction
Chapter 1: Trust Me, Brothers And Sisters
(Life Before Creffield [B.C.])
Chapter 2: God, Save Us From Compromising Preachers
(Creffield's Preachings)
Chapter 3: The Flock
(Profiles of the Holy Rollers Were)
Chapter 4: The Holy Rollers
(Things Start to Get Wild on on Kiger Island)
Chapter 5: Housecleaning
(There's a Sacrificial Bonfire)
Chapter 6: Community Concerns
(Officers Visit)
Chapter 7: Esther, The Chosen One
(Creffield Plans to Marry 16-Year- Old)
Chapter 8: Tar and Feathers
(The Men of Corvallis Act)
Chapter 9: Sane People Don’t Go Bareheaded
(Holy Rollers are Committed to the Asylum)
Chapter 10: More Beast Than Man
( Creffield is Arrested)
Chapter 11: God Will Plead Creffield's Case
(Creffield in Court)
Chapter 12: Scandal
(Shocking Testimony at the Trial)
Chapter 13: Calm Before the Storm
(The Holy Rollers Resume their Lives)
Chapter 14: Giving Up The Ghost
(Men are Gunning for Creffield)
Part Two: The People V. Creffield
Chapter 16: The Widow Creffield
Chapter 19: An Inherited Streak of Insanity
Part Three: The Madness
Chapter 23: Seeking Reconciliation
Chapter 24: Another Holy Roller Page One Murder
Chapter 25: What Can Papa Do For You?
Chapter 26: Human Life is Too Cheap In This Community
Chapter 30: The Final Chapter
(What Happened to Everyone Afterwards)
The Epilogue
(Heaven's Gate)
Newspaper Articles about Creffield & the Holy Rollers
1897-1903: B.C. (Before Creffield)
October to December 1903:Holy Rollers Burn Furniture & Pets
January to March, 1904: Holy Rollers Tarred and Feathered
April to June 1904: Holy Rollers are Committed to the Asylum
July 1904: Creffield is Found & Arrested
September 1904: Creffield's Trial
April 1906: Men are Gunning For Creffield
May 1906: Creffield is Murdered, Murderer is Considered a Hero
May 1906: Holy Rollers Found Starving Near Heceta Head
June 1906: George Mitchell's Trial Begins
July 1906: Hurt Testifies of Debauched Wife and Debased Sisters
July 1906: Esther Mitchell Kills Her Brother
August to October 1906: Seattle Prepares for another Big Trial
November 1906: Maud Hurt Creffield Commits Suicide
April 1909-August 1914: Esther Leaves the Asylum
1953 Stewart Holbrook's Murder Without Tears
1951Startling Detective Magazine, Nemesis of the Nudist High Priest
***