Joseph Di Mambro | |
|---|---|
 Di Mambro at Brisbane Airport, 1993 | |
| Born | Joseph Léonce Di Mambro 19 August 1924 Pont-Saint-Esprit, France |
| Died | 5 October 1994 (aged 70) Salvan, Valais, Switzerland |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Organization | Order of the Solar Temple |
| Spouse |
Unknown
(m. 1944, divorced)Hélène Ghersi
(m. 1966, divorced)Joselyne Duplessis
(m. 1977; death 1994) |
| Children | 5 |
Joseph Léonce Di Mambro (19 August 1924 – 5 October 1994) was a French religious leader who founded and led the Order of the Solar Temple with Luc Jouret. Di Mambro had been associated with a variety of esoteric groups before founding OTS. He was previously convicted of several counts of fraud, including impersonation of a psychiatrist, leading him to flee France in the 1970s. He founded the Solar Temple with Jouret in 1984. He committed suicide in the Swiss village of Salvan on 5 October 1994 as part of a mass murder–suicide.
Following stressors within the group, including Jouret's arrest for directing members to illegally buy silencers in Canada, Di Mambro and Jouret became increasingly paranoid, and the group's ideological concept of "transiting" to another dimension would grow more prominent. He then died of poison he injected into himself, alongside 24 other members in Salvan. While Jouret was considered by the public to be the figurehead of the group, Di Mambro was the true head of the organization.