Credonia Mwerinde, Death Toll: probably over 1000. Credonia Mwerinde was a Ugandan former prostitute who founded the "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God". She claimed that Virgin Mary had appeared to her in a vision and told her to found her cult. The sect was an ultra-conservative pseudo-Catholic group that managed to recruit a large number of former priests and nuns, claiming an impending apocalypse and preaching religious restoration through devotion to Mary. At their peak, they may have had as many as 5000 followers. They were based on a family farm that Credonia inherited after the mysterious death of her three brothers, who she may have poisoned one by one. Members were expected to sell their property and possessions and give all their wealth to the cult. Critics of the cult were attacked, their houses or farms burned down with arson attacks, and some may have been murdered. Life in the cult was extremely strict, with members who did not perform to Credonia's expectations receiving vicious beatings (and possibly worse) for their "sins". Mwerinde claimed that the apocalypse would come on January 1st, 2000. When this didn't happen, large numbers of followers began to demand their money back. Mwerinde called a meeting of disaffected followers in a church, locked them in, and set fire to the building; 738 people died. In the official investigation that followed, police found hundreds more bodies in the various compounds of cult, the victims had been stabbed, strangled and poisoned, and were likely cult members who had defied Mwerinde or attempted to leave the sect. Mwerinde did not die with her sect; she fled and has been in hiding ever since. As of this writing, she is still at large.