Coming Home

RANCHO SANTA FE: Authorities began shipping home the bodies of the 39 cult members, many to families who hadn't seen them in years. None of the cult members had terminal illnesses, San Diego County Medical Examiner Brian Blackbourne confirmed. The issue was raised after a TIME/CNN investigation found that cult leader Marshall Applewhite seemingly had told his followers he was dying of cancer, possibly prompting some to take their lives more from a sense of helplessness than a conviction that their spaceship was waiting. Blackbourne has not yet located relatives of two cult members, Lindley Ayerhart Pease, a 41-year-old man who was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, and 44-year-old Alphonzo Ricardo Foster, who was born in Detroit. Meanwhile, two businessmen have reportedly offered to buy the Rancho Santa Fe house where the cult died for $1 million. They plan to raze the house and start over.