The concept of a serial killer is scary enough, but what about a killer who amasses a following? There’s something really frightening about cult leaders who kill with the help of their followers or sometimes, even compel or charm their followers into killing for them. What kind of human being has the ability to get others to follow him without question, even to death… or murder?

              

David Koresh is probably the most famous cult leader in recent memory. Koresh rose to power in the Branch Davidian cult in Texas in the 1980s and became its leader, claiming that he was a modern-day version of the Persian king Cyrus and a son of God. Koresh was a believer in polygamy—for himself if not his followers—and many of the brides he took were under-aged girls. In 1993, the FBI raided the Mount Carmel Center, the Waco, Texas home of the Branch Davidians. The raid resulted in ten deaths—and a standoff with the heavily-armed Davidians holed up inside Mount Carmel that lasted for fifty-one days. When the FBI finally decided to move on the cult, a fire broke out and over seventy Davidians perished. In the aftermath, over twenty of the bodies were discovered to have gunshot wounds—including that of Koresh.

                

Cult leader Jeffrey Don Lundgren turned on his own followers. After splitting with the church he grew up in, a Mormon sect known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), Lundgren proclaimed himself a prophet and started his own religious group in Kirtland, Ohio. Enraged when two of his followers, Dennis and Karen Avery, didn’t want to move into his house and turn over all of their money to him, he concocted a plot to murder both them and their three daughters with the help of several of his followers. After the bodies were discovered, a manhunt ensued and Lundgren and his followers were eventually tracked down and arrested. Lundgren was executed in October of 2006.

                  

Arguably the most well known cult leader of them all, Charles Manson assembled his “Family” in the latter half of the ‘60s in California, eventually settling near Los Angeles. In August of 1969, after being a part of the murder of Gary Hinman, Manson sent several of his followers to the house rented by director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time. Four Family members brutally stabbed Tate and three of her friends to death. Manson accompanied his followers on the next killing mission, the slaying of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. The connection of a member of the Manson Family to Gary Hinman’s murder led police to Manson, who was arrested with a group of his followers. Manson was found guilty of murder and conspiracy, but his death sentence was reduced to life in prison. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Tate and LaBianca murders, and Manson’s name and legacy still remains very much in the headlines—most recently with the release of Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, the Manson Family member who threatened President Gerald Ford with a gun in 1975.

How do these cult leaders get followers willing to kill and even die for them? What do you think it is it about these men that draws people to them?