132. Jonestown Massacre: Jim Jones, Peoples Temple & the 1978 Tragedy

SPEAKER_01 0:07

There's something about the word cult that makes most of us immediately think, I would never fall for that. We imagine the kind of person who would follow a cult leader as someone gullible, someone weak-minded, someone who can't think for themselves. But that's one of the most dangerous misconceptions about cults. Because cult leaders don't usually walk into a room announcing, hello, I'm here to control your life. And they certainly don't begin by asking you to die for them. They begin by telling you what you want to hear. They make promises. They may promise you a better life or offer you a sense of belonging. They may tell you that you're part of something bigger than yourself. They may promise justice in an unjust world. They may tell you they can heal you, protect you, or lead you to a better future. And little by little, the relationship changes. What began as trust becomes dependence. What began as community becomes isolation. What began as admiration becomes obedience. And eventually the leader's voice becomes more important than your own. There isn't one simple checklist that can tell us whether an organization is a cult, but there are warning signs we see again and again in destructive groups. A charismatic leader who demands unquestioning loyalty, an us versus them mentality, the idea that everyone outside the group is corrupt, evil, ignorant, or dangerous, the discouragement of questions and criticism, control over who members associate with, what information they receive, how they spend their money, and sometimes even where they live. Confessions and secrets that can later be used to manipulate or shame members. And perhaps the biggest warning sign of all, when the leader begins placing himself above the rules he expects everyone else to follow. Because that's when the movement stops being about an idea and starts becoming about a person. In the 1960s and 70s, America was going through enormous upheaval. The civil rights movement was confronting centuries of racial segregation and inequality. The Vietnam War was dividing the country and sending young Americans overseas to fight a war that many of them did not even believe in. College campuses erupted in protest. The counterculture rejected many of the traditional institutions their parents had trusted. And in the middle of all that came a preacher named Jim Jones. Jones wasn't initially selling people a death cult. He was selling them Marxism, packaged as Christianity. He preached racial equality at a time when segregation was still a very real part of American life. He attracted black Americans who had been active in the civil rights movement, and he attracted white liberals and progressives. He spoke about helping the poor. He talked about creating a community where people could live together, share resources, and take care of one another. In California, People's Temple attracted middle class professionals as well as people struggling economically. Jones built political connections. He donated to causes. San Francisco's liberal political establishment even found value in having his organization on its side. In other words, Jim Jones didn't look like the villain of this story. He looked like the solution to a lot of problems people were facing. And that's something I want you to remember as you listen to this story. Because the question you should ask is how did Jim Jones earn people's trust in the first place? How did he gain so much control over the people who followed him? How did people who had families, careers, intelligence, convictions, and lives of their own become so dependent upon one man that leaving him could feel more frightening than staying? And how did that movement eventually end up thousands of miles from the United States in a remote patch of jungle in Guyana called Jonestown? On November 18th, 1978, the world would learn the answer in the most horrifying way imaginable.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

I'm Darlene and I'm Melody. This is Hard Times and True Crimes. Okay, so before we get into today's show, we just wanted to take a minute to thank you guys so much. We've gotten some of the kindest messages and fan mail from you guys lately, and we just absolutely love reading them. One listener recently told us that we were her true crime comfort food. And I think that might be one of our favorite compliments we've ever gotten.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

It is. We should put that on one of our t-shirts.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Oh my gosh, yes, we should. I love it. It really does mean so much to us that you take the time to listen, share the show, and send us those sweet messages. So if you enjoy hard times and true crimes and haven't already, we'd love it if you take just a second and leave us a rating and review wherever you listen. It's such a small thing, but it really does help other people find the show and helps us continue to grow. So grab your true crime comfort food and let's get into today's story. Okay, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

I know you know about this case, as most of our listeners will, but I don't know if you'll know as many of the details as you think you do. Because this was one of those that I knew I've known this story my whole life, or so I thought. So I'm gonna tell you the story about Jim Jones.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Oh, I'm so excited to hear this, and I don't know a lot about it. So I'm yeah, this is great. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

So let's just dive right in. Jim Jones was born May 13th, 1931, to James Thurman Jones and Lynette Putnam. Jim's father was a disabled war veteran who had fought in World War I.

unknown 6:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

The family struggled financially, losing their home when they could not afford to pay their mortgage payments. And so their extended family, in an effort to help them, they purchased this like small, crude shack in Lynn, Indiana, so that the family would have a place to stay. Now it was very crude. It had no plumbing, no electricity, and even at times food was so scarce that the family had to forage in the nearby forest and fields just to eat. Oh wow. According to most reports, Jim's mother Lyneta had no strong maternal instincts at all, and Jim was neglected as a child. With his father's health problems keeping him hospitalized a good bit of the time, and his mother having to work to bring in what little she could, Jim was unsupervised much of the time, wandering the streets of his small community. But many of the church ladies had compassion and tried to help out by giving him food when they saw him out and about, and they would collect clothing for him and things of that nature. That's sad. One such lady was the local Nazarene church's pastor's wife, Myrtle Kennedy, and she really wanted to help Jim as much as she could. She gave him a Bible and she encouraged him to read it, and she, you know, tried to just give him spiritual guidance. Right. Now, Jim, he enjoyed church for the most part. At times he said he wanted to be a preacher. He would attend several of the churches in town. Like he would go to church several times a week, going to a service here and a service there. And at home he would even practice delivering sermons. But his mother, who had no respect for moral living at all, she was disappointed when she caught him doing that, and she tried to put a stop to it. Really? She d had no use for that. So was this when he was a teenager or like a smaller kid? This is when he was a younger child. Yeah. So Jim had an affinity for Pentecostal preaching. Okay. Me too, Jim. Perhaps it was that charismatic oration or the lively worship. But it was just something he was pulled to. And according to childhood friends, he was obsessed with religion and death. Many times when he would be with his friends, he would want to play like he was reenacting funerals.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Oh my gosh, that's weird.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, it was I mean, I we're kind of religious. I guess he may, I guess some people may would say that we were that way too. That's what I was thinking. Well, now, even though she didn't ha his mother didn't have this great use for any morality, she would beat him with a belt when he got caught stealing or cursing. Although most agreed that his proclivity for swearing and profanity actually came from her. Oh gosh. As he grew older, he started becoming more interested in socialist doctrine, following the writings of Hitler, Stalin, and Karl Marx.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

And just like you said a minute ago, it's a little weird. So his strange behavior did make him odd. And it was kind of hard for him to find friends. So he just began reading all the time and pouring himself into studying books and social issues. As his behavior became more concerning, a lot of the parents in town would kind of keep their kids away from Jim. And in his own words, he said he often felt very alone. Now, when he started noticing some racism against some uh bat some black people at a baseball game, it really bothered him. And his father actually was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. And he and his father kind of, you know, they butted heads about that. Wow. And so that ended up causing a rift between them that didn't heal, really, they didn't even speak for many years.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

So he was reading about Hitler, but he wasn't necessarily like idolizing him in that way or thinking that he that he was right.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

And he uh he agreed with some of his practices and methods. Jim Jones is like a study in controversy.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

I know what you're talking about. Like what's the word? No, not conflicting, but but not controversy, but a lot of his views contrasted with one another.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Okay. Or like contradicted each other. Yes. Okay. And and it was like that his whole life. And you will see that. You'll see threads of that throughout this whole story, actually.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

But he was not racist. No, he he actually you'll you'll see in this story, he does a lot to help the black community. He's not racist. Okay. So eventually his parents divorced and he ended up moving to Richmond, Indiana with his mother. And once that divorce happened, the extended family, which was on his father's side, they quit helping them financially. So at this point, Jones is a teen and he starts looking for a job to help support him, he and his mother. And he takes a job at Reed Hospital in 1946.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

And that's where he met a nurse in training by the name of Marceline Baldwin. He graduated high school with honors in 1948, and then he attended Indiana University, Bloomington, with the intention of becoming a doctor. Okay. He didn't stay very long before he changed his mind. During this time is when he really began to espouse communist views and a lot of other radical political leanings. He began a relationship with Marceline, and she was a Methodist. Okay. So their different denominational beliefs kind of caused them to quarrel. Sure. He actually disagreed with the racial segregation policy of her church.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Because again, you gotta think this was back in the 1940s. Right. They did get married, and once they were married in 1949, their disagreements became stronger, and it kind of caused a little bit of a strain in their marriage at that point. Even while he preferred the full gospel tabernacle, he attended the Methodist church with her. But this was one of those studies of of contrast I was talking about with him because even while he was attending all those churches and so interested in religion, he was pushing her to accept atheism. What? Yeah, he's again, it's just it's a weird thing. Later, it would be said that Jones emotionally and psychologically abused Marcelin throughout their whole marriage. Here's an example of that. He would test her loyalty, not just once, but a few times. He would tell her that one of her friends or her family had died suddenly. Oh my gosh. And she would be distraught, and then he would be comforting her. And then once she kind of had absorbed it and kind of was over the shock of it, he would tell her, Well, it wasn't actually true. That is so weird. That is so weird, but also cruel. In 1951, Jim and Marcelin moved to Indianapolis where he took night classes at Butler University. It was during this time that he began to attend Communist Party gatherings. And as he became more and more involved, he began to ask himself how he could demonstrate his Marxism. And the answer he landed on was to infiltrate the church. Wow. Okay. That's interesting. So in early 1952, Jim made the decision to become a Methodist minister with the goal of putting his socialist beliefs into practice. There was this one Methodist superintendent who actually supported Jones and helped him get started, although he knew that Jim was a communist.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

That's so weird.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I bet he had a super charismatic personality. He did, which is how I think a lot of cult leaders are. So he began in the Methodist Church as a student pastor. And one of his first projects was to create a playground that was not divided by race, but where all the races could play together. But in early 1954, Jim was let go from that position as a student pastor due to stealing church funds. Oh, interesting. Now his version of that story was not that he was let go, but rather that he left because the church wouldn't allow him to integrate African Americans into the congregation. Okay. And that wouldn't be the first or last time he would that his narrative was a little different than what the others was. After this, Jim would find himself involved in the Pentecostal church, specifically the healing revivals and something called the Ladder Rain Movement. Have you heard of that? Yes. Okay. So I had not heard of that. I looked it up, but it in case our listeners haven't heard of it, it was this controversial movement that began in the late 40s and it spread very quickly. And there was these revivals and these healing services, and it was very popular among the charismatic movement. Yes. And that suited Jim's already charismatic personality.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

A lot of people confuse like traditional Pentecostals with charismatics, and there is a difference. Just so you know. I mean, because I know that they both like speak speak in tongues and and some of those things, but charismatics are charismatic.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

A whole other level. Yes. Well, and I will say this you'll come to see that no matter what the denomination or anything Jim was, Jim did his own thing. Oh yeah. And it didn't always follow what that denomination approved of.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Most there there are so many that I feel like there's a type of man who they go to all sorts of different denominations like that, and they disagree with this or that or this or that. And so I feel like it's so that they never really have to come under any submission of any denomination or any authority. Or any authority. And so they just come up with their own reasons to disagree. And I don't know if if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

It makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

And women too. There are women, I say men, but yeah, women that do.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

So then Jim finally decided he wanted to establish his own church, which he did. It was called Wings of Healing. And his wife Marcelin left the Methodist church and joined Jim and his work. This healing convention took place in 1956 and it had over 11,000 attendees. And wow. At this point, Jones was portrayed as being supernaturally gifted. And after this convention that he was a part of, it wasn't just him, it was other charismatic speakers and so forth. So after that convention, his church really started growing rapidly. And he ended up renaming it People's Temple Christian Church Full Gospel. But in reality, there was nothing truly Christian about it. And Jim Jones had basically found a way to invoke Christianity for personal gain. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Do you think he believed what he was preaching, or do you think that he genuinely did it to control people?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I'm going to ask you that question at the end. Okay. And that question has been debated. Okay. And so once you hear the whole story, I want to know what you think. Because that's a very good question. Jim found that he was able to successfully recruit many African American members to his church, and he quickly was drawing crowds of over a thousand attendees regularly. And soon he ended up changing the name of his church just simply to People's Temple. One key doctrine of that latter reign movement that he was kind of operating under at that point was the key doctrine of manifested sons of God, which promoted the belief that man could become manifestations of God himself with supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. Jim Jones welcomed and promoted that description of himself. A false prophet, Jones would claim to be the return of the prophet Elijah, and later would even claim to be a manifestation of Christ. Wow. So blatantly scary. But even as Jones's religious, political, and social beliefs became more and more absurd, he separated from the Latter Rain movement and began a search for an organization that would more willingly accept his ideas. So very similar to what you were just describing, you know, he started finding problems with that. He's kind of forming his own religion. And he found another church that would kind of accept his ideas, and that was called the Disciples of Christ. Jones began making a name for himself when he very publicly worked to desegregate restaurants, churches, police departments, and so forth. And then he and Marcelin also brought their social policies into their personal lives when they adopted several non-white children. And he called them his Rainbow Family. In 1954, they adopted Agnes. She was part Native American. In 1959, they adopted three Korean American children named Lou, Stephanie, and Suzanne. And they also encouraged their temple members to adopt children from war-torn Korea. Stephanie, one of the ones they adopted, she sadly died in a car crash in 1959 at the age of five. Oh. And they and they had not had her long. And then also in 1959, that same year in June, they had their only biological child, Stephen Gandhi.

unknown 20:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

And then in 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child that they named Jim Jones Jr. And then they went on to adopt a white son later who whose name was Timothy Glenn Tupper. Timothy's mother was a temple member. Later on, Jim would father another child named Jim John, and they called him Chemo. And he had that child with one of the other temple members named Carolyn Leighton. And we'll talk about her a little bit more in that relationship later. Okay. So in 1961, Jim was noticeably becoming more paranoid that the U.S. was going to be destroyed by a nuclear attack. Because if if you remember your history back in the 60s, there was a lot of talk on like if social media was around back then, you would see all kinds of TikToks about it, right? So he began to look for a way to escape the destruction that he was sure was imminent. At that point, he traveled to South America to look for a possible location for people's temple that was away from impending doom. He and his family were gone for about two years during that time, leaving a man named Archie James in charge of the temple. When Jones received word that the membership had dropped off considerably, along with the donations that was funding his trip. He felt guilty for staying away. He made a return in an attempt to keep the temple from total collapse without his leadership. Once he arrived back in Indiana, he found that the temple was indeed in dire financial straits, and much of that was due to the fact that they had been sending all their resources to him in South America to pay for that lifestyle. Jones began to rebuild his membership and the financial resources. And he also began prophesying that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15th, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth. But at that point, he decided that the temple had to move to Northern California for safety. In July 1965, the members began their move to Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukaya. The temple's associate pastor, Russell Winberg, he tried to warn members that Jones was abandoning Christianity. He stayed behind to take over the Indianapolis location after Jones left with a core group of his followers. Now these people quit their jobs, sold their things, gave him their money, and just followed him right out there. Now that nuclear event that was prophesied for July 15th obviously never came. You would think most people would realize. Right, because you would think, okay, well, there's a false prophet. Like if you didn't know before, now you should. But he was still able to grow his following to over 300 members by 1969. So he had started with that 140 that went with them, and now they're up to 300. Now, once they were in California, he slowly began to leak some of his real views, the communist ones. And he started being more outspoken about his true beliefs regarding Christianity. And again, he began kind of developing his own religion at this point. He's taken bits and pieces of the various dom denominations, the latter reign and divine economic socialism, and then his own personal communist views. He came up with a word for them, apostolic socialism. Oh, okay. He rejected the Bible as a tool to oppress women and non-whites. And at this point, he brazenly and openly claimed to be God. Oh my gosh. Here is just one of his quotes. And I have to say, I don't even like quoting it. It scares me to even quote these words. But he says, What you need to believe in is what you can see. If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. If you see me as your father, I'll be your father. For those of you that don't have a father. If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. Oh my gosh. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God. That is yeah, out there. And at this point, he uh began referring to himself as father, and people who followed him called him father. And that just yeah, it is scary that people have the balls to do that. I probably shouldn't say that.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Or how many like needy people there are, because I can't imagine like going to another man and calling them that father.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

He baptized converts in the holy name of socialism. Oh my god. I know he explained man being born into sin like this. If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, or fascist America, you're born into sin. If you're born into socialist America, you're not born into sin. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, he this guy was literally just pulling anything out of his hat, dressing it up in this motivational talk, and creating his own cult. And yet he would still use the Bible when it benefited him. Of course. He likened living the Acts of the Apostles to his communal living views because he wants to push this community.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

But I bet when it came to having sex with women outside of marriage, I bet he didn't go to the Bible for that one. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yeah, and we will get to that because you know that happened. This is what you brought up before. Even today, people are still divided over whether he really believed all this talk that he put out there or was he just manipulating his followers. At times he claimed to be an atheist or agnostic. He couldn't decide what he believed, and it could change depending on who he was talking to. And that just sounds like classic manipulation to me. In an interview in 1967, his wife Marcelin stated that he was trying to promote his socialist worldview by mobilizing religion. After moving to California, he began using illicit drugs, increasing his paranoia. He would warn his followers that their enemies were trying to destroy them. But again, the enemy changed depending on the day. At times it was the government, the KKK, Nazis, or redneck vigilantes. And then his control of his followers' lives began to take on a whole new dimension. Members who joined the church would turn over all of their assets to the church, or rather, to Jones. Members who worked outside of the church turned over all of their income for the good of the group. But we know, I mean, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now Jones began disciplining members who didn't completely agree with his vision or adhere strictly to the temple's rules. He began determining who could get married and who could have sex. Even if it was a married couple, he could tell them they couldn't have sex. He forced some women to get abortions. And if you had a child, sometimes he would take that child and have that child live with another family because he just decided as a group that was one, this this couple needs a child, so I'm gonna give it to them. Oh my goodness. And then also, like you said, he manipulated many of those women into sleeping with him and actually raped some of the male members of the group. Oh my god, I did not know that. Yes. His discipline was actually terrible abuse. Wow. During discipline, some were given reduced food rations, some were given harsher work schedules, public ridicule, humiliations, and beating. And yet, he still knew how to make his views attractive, especially to students and racial minorities. Despite the hardship of living in the commune, the numbers still grew. And then he relocated his temple again, this time to San Francisco, which was a hotbed of racial protest. And his cult was now thriving in the thousands, like tw more than 2,300. Wow. And over 36,000 people at that time were receiving his fundraising newsletter. Jones's farce went even further. He would hold revivals and healing meetings, claiming to heal people from cancer and other illnesses. Inside, members of his inner circle of followers knew the truth that these were staged healings, sometimes consisting of rotten chicken gizzards that he claimed were tumors that had been coughed up or passed. Oh my gosh. One member actually said they they were sent to his house to get something from his closet. And while there, they smelled something really terrible. And they found a bag in his closet when they opened it. It was a bunch of rotten chicken that he was using for these meetings. And that was what he was calling a tumor. That is terrible. Beyond bizarre and just yeah. And Jones was gaining political influence with prominent local and state politicians. At one point, he was the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Oh. I didn't know if you could reference your job here, but how interesting is that?

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yes, I work for the Housing Authority at that point. Okay. Wow. So I well, I guess that's San Francisco.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

I was gonna say, how did he, but yeah. Yeah. Well, he was able to establish connections with key political figures, including Walter Mondale and at that time First Lady Rosalind Carter. So this Carolyn Leighton that I ref referenced earlier, she had come to the commune with her husband. But at one point, Jim decided they should be more than just temple members. He ended up taking Carolyn to live with him. And Marcelin, she stayed, I guess, in another room somewhere. She knew what was going on. And then basically told Carolyn's husband, you know, he gave him a different role, and that guy took it and re happily and just went on as if nothing out of the ordinary. What in the world? The inner circle would have these meetings, and some of the members said it got really bizarre because he would like question them about their sex lives and want to know all these details that he had no business knowing, and then would want and like it would just be really humiliating for the people sitting there. I mean, it was just crazy stuff. There were some people who were starting to like get tired of that, and they were not quite so happy with the commune as they thought they would be, and they were starting to want out, but they realized it wasn't so easy to just leave at this point because many of them had sold everything they had. Yeah, that's true. You know, and they didn't have anywhere to go. Plus, when you when you do try to get out of a cult, it is made very difficult. Right. They had to secretly plan an escape. So at one point, a group of eight people did defect out of the commune, and later on he would call them the gang of eight. Oh gracious. Now Jones' own daughter, Suzanne, had grown up and gotten married, and even she defected. She and her husband, Mike, they became disillusioned with Jones the more his drug addiction grew. He was a paranoid control freak. And there's this story that he may have made some kind of passes at his own daughter, and she was appalled and like recoiled from that, but she never told her husband at that time. And and he didn't tell her about his feelings toward Jones. But then the day came when her husband finally had had enough, Mike, and he defected and he went and hid out somewhere. And so six days later, she quit going to meetings at the temple and she hid out with her husband. Jones had his wife Marcelin try to convince Suzanne to come back, but she refused. And so they became estranged. And once he realized his daughter Suzanne wasn't going to return, he started treating her as a traitor. He actually made accusations from the pulpit about her being an operative for the government. He told all kinds of lies about her and he said the temple was better off without her, and then he cut her out of his will. Wow. So as he begins to exert more and more control over his followers, and he was kind of shaken up over those who had escaped, he didn't like that. He suspected that some other members may not be as loyal as he thought they should be. So he had them sign a blank document, just sign their name to this piece of paper. It was like this affidavit. And he threatened them, like if you defect, I can write down any accusation on this document that you've already signed, and I'll show it to the assembly, or you know, he could use it for any kind of blackmail. That's crazy. He would go to any lengths to prevent criticism of his group. But once those eight members were out, they started talking about these accusations of this physical and sexual abuse against the temple's leadership. And the media got wind of it. So this investigation, these reporters start investigating and looking into this. And Jones began to panic. He didn't want any negative news about the temple getting out because he thought that would destroy everything he had carefully curated, right? That's when he decided to move the community once again because he wanted to thwart this investigation. Move ahead into October of 1973. The group decided to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana, South America. Now, Guyana was a socialist country, and the Guyanese government offered them 3,000 acres of rainforest near the Venezuelan border for just 25 cents per acre. Oh, goodness. And in return, the commune would would cultivate at least half of that leased land. So this was a win-win for the Guyana government because they were in this boundary dispute over that land with Venezuela. Yeah. And if Americans were inhabiting that land, then they knew Venezuela would not dare invade them for fear of the military retaliation from the U.S. So that's why they made such a good deal with them. Okay. And Jones had the, he envisioned living in the jungle in this self-sustaining commune, cut off from the rest of the world. His plan was to send 500 volunteers first to start building his town. And this project became known as Jonestown. Jones referred to it as the Promised Land. He gave speeches in which he drew parallels between slaves in America and the Jews. In his scenario, he was their Moses. Building Jonestown would take a lot of money. And in order to get the funds, he demanded 35% of the non-communal members' salaries. So if you weren't in the commune and hadn't already sold everything and given it to them, and you're working outside, but you're still going to the temple, then you had to give 35% of your salary. That is crazy it's crazy to me that people did it. Yeah, because I want you to know not like some of these people were lawyers, therapists, they're smart people, doctors. Yeah. That's so surprising. And of course, he wanted everybody to go full communal so that he got everything. Right. Made sure they knew every circ every sacrifice brought them closer to the glorious life in the Promised Land. He promoted it as a socialist paradise and a sanctuary from the media hit pieces. When the first pioneers arrived in mid-March 1974, they found only jungle, trees, rivers, and no roads. They stayed in Port Coyuma while they were trying to access their jungle land, and it was proving more difficult than they thought. They finally cleared a 25 foot wide road to get to their land. Jones didn't realize that soil in the rainforest was poor and would not grow crops very well. Finally, some locals showed them how to grow local crops that they did that we don't actually have here in the U.S., but there's still not much. And the truth was their meals consisted mainly of rice, rice water soup, and just some beans when they had them.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

That's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Yeah. And when I say their meals, I'm only referring to the members. Jones, of course, had more substantial fare. He was eating meat, chocolate, bread. Wow. Well, because he had low blood sugar problems. Okay. Yeah. And those in his inner circle were also allowed to eat from his stash. Sometimes. And most of these people believed that they were relocating out of their own free will. But when some of them arrived there and realized they couldn't leave of their own free will, they started to become concerned. Once they got there, temple members were working six grueling days a week, 12-hour days, with only an hour for lunch. And then after the after their work day was over, they were expected to participate in several hours of activities at the pavilion in the evenings. These activities sometimes were like classes on socialism. Sometimes it was just listening to Jones read the news, which he always put a spin on. It was only favorable stories toward communism, and he would cast the U.S. as a villain. He probably slept all day, so he was ready to go whenever they got off work. Yeah, well, he was in a drug-induced for some time. I've already told you about Carolyn Leighton. And she became Jones's right-hand man from that point on and secretly his lover. I don't know how secret it could have been, but so in the spring of 1974, Carolyn, oh, let me back up and say something. Also at this time, his inner circle and this leadership, while he's promoting all of this racial equality and and drawing in a large part of the black community because under the guise of helping them, it's interesting to note that his inner circle and all the leadership were all white.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

You have to question how much does he really Right. Like you wonder what that was really all about. In the spring of 1974, Carolyn Leighton disappeared for a while. Jones told everyone that she was in Mexico to buy parts for an atomic bomb. But before she could get the final piece, she had been caught and thrown into a Mexican prison. In reality, Carolyn was pregnant with Jones' baby and was staying with her parents. Her parents, John and Barbara, didn't really like the idea of Jim Jones and Carolyn being with them, but they had to accept him in hopes that they'd be able to see their future grandchild. In January of 75, Carolyn went into labor and James John was born. Now Jones did not give his last name to the baby. I guess he's still trying to keep up this pretense that they're not lovers or whatever, but and he's still married to Marcelin. He had Carolyn marry Mike Prokes. So instead of letting her marry her real husband or whatever, whose name was Larry, he makes her marry this other guy. And it was a marriage on paper only. They actually never lived together. But they gave the baby the name James John Proaks.

unknown 40:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

And they called him Chemo, which was Hawaiian for Jim. When she returned, she claimed that she had adopted her cousin's unwanted son. And rumors arose that she had been raped while she was in that Mexican prison and had gotten pregnant because of it. But a lot of those people knew that Jones started that rumor. And of course, Jones made an exception for baby chemo because usually after the age of six months, all children were raised communally. But chemo got to stay with his mother. At this time, Jones is splitting his time between the commune and Jonestown and the people's temple in San Francisco because not everybody has moved out there. They're still trying to get it ready. But once again, Jim was facing some resistance from his own household. His son Stephen was rebelling a little bit. He was, I think, an older teenager at this point. And so finally, Marcelin rented Stephen his own apartment. And now they're still in the States. They haven't come all the way to Guyana yet. And Jones didn't like the idea of Stephen having that apartment. He was concerned that Stephen might defect and would take some of his friends with him. As had become his way of dealing with troublesome members, he sent him to Guyana. He told Stephen it was just for a week. But once they arrived, Jones manipulated him into agreeing to stay and then he left the next morning to return to the U.S. without Stephen. Wow. Prior to this, he had been making trips back and forth to oversee things and to keep his California temple members interested in the move. Once in Jonestown, his drug use had amped up, and he also quickly just completely dropped his Christian veneer for good. Now that he was beyond the reach of law enforcement, he could do and say whatever he pleased. His followers let him believe he was in complete control, but in reality he was strung out most of the time, and his inner circle, along with Marcelin, were the ones running the compound and carrying out his wishes. Jones's paranoia had him constantly worried and raving about the upcoming article that he had heard this magazine was doing about him, it's New West magazine. And his worries were not unfounded because when that article came out titled Why Jim Jones Should Be Investigated, it outlined those abuse allegations, coerced confessions, financial extortion, and fake healings. It brought a lot of unwanted scrutiny and it shattered Jones' public image as a respected charitable church leader. The group had also brought 130 foster kids to Guyana. The temple had been caring for them for the state in exchange for funds. So it's kind of like they were like this charitable orphanage type thing. Wow. Of course they're getting money for these kids. And they took them to Guyana. Slave labor, probably. Yes. So officials recognized the temple needs to be investigated. By August of 77, several government agencies were looking into Jim Jones and the People's Temple. The Jonestown leadership were also hustling children out of the country, not always with the permission of their custodial parents. Jones required members to give the temple power of attorney over their children. That's so scary. And then, like I told you, he would place them in other families as he saw fit. But now these investigations by the media is getting closer attention brought to the cult. Right. And so he's really getting antsy and he really wants to get all of those members to Guyana as soon as he can. So he had originally planned like a 10-year plan to get it done, but now he's convinced that there's an impending government raid coming, and he's like, I gotta step this up a little quicker. So he put out this propaganda video for his temple members in California, promising the paradise awaiting for them there. Using fear, he also convinced them that they were going to be put in concentration camps if they stayed in the U.S. A lot of the times the people were not allowed outside media. It was only what he allowed in, probably some of which he made up on his own. So he had a lot of people convinced that they were already rounding up black people and putting them in concentration camps. So they were afraid. He's making them want to go to Guyana. But the compound is nowhere near ready to house that many people. Now he's hoping to be fully relocated by February of 1978. He would tell people, well, you can just go visit for a few weeks, and if you want to come back, you can. Just like Stephen had been told. And once they got there, they weren't allowed to return. As one former member put it, one never knew when Father would call them home to the promised land. Oh my gosh, that was crazy. Temple guards may show up at their home at any time and let them know it was time to go. And they left immediately, literally right that minute. The guards would help them pack, would deal the guards would deal with their upset family members, and one was there to deal with the members who were resistant to go at all. That's wild. To get to Jonestown, they had to fly to Georgetown first and then get on a boat to the next little town, and then from there get on this flatbed truck pulled by a tractor and go all the way through hours through the jungle. I mean it was quite a haul. And then they would arrive, and the cottages didn't look anything like the film that he had produced. There weren't these cute little fences and flower beds, and what they found were small, cramped plywood cottages that would fit two people, but were crammed with four. Sometimes as many as thirteen people were squeezed into those residences. Wow. They had shuttered windows, but no glass or screens. When it rained, which they're in the jungle, so it was almost daily. The windows had to be shuttered just to keep water from pooling onto the floor. And there's no breeze. So it's humid like a sauna. And then when the rain would stop, they could open the shutters, but the bugs would swarm out. That's what I was about to say. I bet they had mosquitoes. Can you imagine how miserable that was? And then the roofs were made out of this corrugated metal, so it was hot as an oven during the day. So this was no promised land. And of course, Jones's cottage by comparison had window screens and glass, a window AC unit, and his fridge, which was stocked with all the food that I told you about earlier. He had a soft double bed, no hard bunk beds like the cottages. And Marcel, too, she had her own cottage. But Jones lived in his cottage separately with his two assistants, Maria and Carolyn, and they waited on him hand in foot. Once they had over 400 people that he had gotten relocated, and we already said, you know, the housing wasn't sufficient. Well the outhouses weren't sufficient either. There was one twelve foot structure and it was divided in half. Each side seated up to 16 people side by side, and there was no privacy, not even between the sexes. Everybody used the outhouse. That's terrible. Can you? I mean, I I literally just can't even imagine that. I can't either. And I'm and I just keep thinking, who would fall for this? Yes. But again, I think they didn't know what they were going into getting there. Right. And of course, Jones had his own private facility for himself with a real toilet. Of course he did. And real toilet paper. While his residents only had magazine pages and leaves.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

That's so sad that people would subject themselves to that.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

I just can't really fathom it. And while they had plenty of water for drinking, there was not enough for showering. These were primitive conditions. And so newcomers obviously were disappointed, but they decided to make the best of it because many of them still thought that they would be returning home in a few months. Right. But when they had arrived, their passports had been taken for safekeeping, and personal items had been taken from their luggage and distributed among others in the community equally. No critical words about Jonestown were allowed outside the walls. Mail was censored coming in and going out. Guards patrolled the walls. No one dared criticize living conditions or complain about decisions made because you would be punished and it was severe. I told you about those discipline meetings. Yes. Sometimes those could last until 3 a.m. Members could expect to be beaten with a leather strap.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Humiliated in front of the group, shouted down, any number of cruel things. He made this one teenage boy who had they were trying to learn how to grow stuff there, and he had determined that he could grow his own watermelons. He figured out so he was growing his own watermelons. And when they found out, he made that that poor kid eat a whole plate of hot peppers. And so this teenage kid with his throat flaming and his tongue swollen managed to choke out the words, thank you, Father. Oh my gosh. Is it because he wasn't sharing? Like why? Yes. It was he was growing his own watermelons and it wasn't for the community. And even though he did manage to choke out those words at the discipline meeting of thank you, father, inside he was seething in anger and he hated Jim Jones. I bet. And more and more people were becoming they were starting to realize this is not what I was promised. Jim Jones himself finally left California for good in June of 1977. The community had its own pharmacy with thousands of doses of various medications. Jonestown's doctor, Larry Schott, had ordered it all through separate purchases with various companies. They were stockpiling it. This doctor, he was the only doctor in the commune in Guyana. And he had arrived at the temple, like he was a this strung out druggie. He had tracks in his arm and stuff. Oh wow. And so Jones put him through drug rehab, which is ironic seeing how Jones was himself addicted to drugs. But he put Larry through drug rehab and then sent him to medical school so that he could become the doctor. And then he brought him over to Guyana. So at age 29, Larry shot the the youngest and actually the only doctor on the compound. And remember those loyalty tests he gave Marcelin? Well, that year he tried a loyalty test on his members. One evening he offered them a special treat of wine. Normally he forbade all alcohol. And so everyone was kind of excited and they enjoyed their wine. And right after they all finished it, Jones informed them that it had poison in it. And some of those people lay down ready to die for him. Others tried to run for a doctor. And Jones just sat quietly by and observed. He was watching to see who accepted their fate and who was resistant. And then after 45 minutes, he announced actually there's no poison in it. It was all just a ruse to see who could be trusted. And this was also his way of kind of introducing the idea of them welcoming death. He coined this term called revolutionary suicide. He was just kind of getting them used to that idea of laying down their lives, quote unquote, for the cause. At this point, Jim Jones' health was starting to decline very rapidly. He was in constant pain. Some of that was due to the drugs. That's what I was wondering. Okay. That as one of his members said, you don't tell God he has a drug problem. Right. Jones continued to come up with ways to fleece his congregation in order to observe how much they would resist or tolerate from him. He had his son Jimmy fake an assassination attempt on him. One night while they're all at the pavilion having their meetings, his son is out in the woods in the jungle and he fires a gun, which startles everyone. And Jones cried out, claiming to be hit. He claimed it was the CIA's mercenary army, and he told the residents they're surrounded and under attack. Oh my gosh. And it was all this manufactured event just to keep his followers fearful of outsiders and obedient to Jim. These trials, because he did this more than once, would come to be known as white nights. The longest one lasted for six straight days, with the members thinking they were surrounded by mercenaries and being attacked by outside forces and staying up all night in the pavilion. They were struggling for collective survival. They would form a line around the camp and they would stand guard for hours at a time.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

All for an imaginary enemy. Drones would be screaming hysterically into the PA system. And then some of them were more fearful of him than they were of the enemy. Right. And some of them suspected it was fate. But he reassured his followers, telling them, keep calm, just keep calm. And the whole thing was completely made up. That is nuts. That is absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

By 1978, his inner circle was having an increasingly hard time keeping his drug abuse and health problems a secret. And the press in the U.S. was hearing more stories coming from concerned relatives of members in Jonestown. They were pushing for investigations into human rights violations and child abuse and asking U.S. officials for help. Jones could tell his dream was unraveling. He began planting seeds in his followers' minds about planning their own death. Father took suicide votes at every meeting. People were afraid to vote against him, so they all dutifully voted that they would die revolutionaries' death, even though many did not want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

He just didn't like the idea that after he died, his followers may speak to the press about him and tell what really had happened at that settlement. So he began asking a handful of his most loyal followers to research ways to kill all of the residents. And they did research it. In one meeting, they had all the suggestions. They said we could gather them all in the pavilion and take them out one by one and shoot them. Or we could just gather them all and release poison gas. We could let the adults. We could let the adults choose their own death. Or we could just give them cyanide, one of the most rapidly working poison. But it's painful. Yeah. But it's quick. So the doctor began researching how much cyanide would be needed. The commune doctor placed an order for a pound of cyanide, which was enough to kill 1,800 people at the cost of just $8.85. Around this time, in November of 1978, a container arrived at the commune that was not on the inventory list. It had a skull and crossbones on it, and it was put in the Jonestown warehouse. A few of the members saw it and wondered what it was. So in August of 1978, Democrat Senator Leo Ryan from San Mateo, California, agreed to look into conditions at Jonestown. He was a tenacious congressman. He put together a group of his staff, some of the concerned relatives, and members of the press to go with him to investigate. As Congressman Leo Ryan planned his visit, Jones was resistant, but the Guyanese officials urged him to acquiesce to the U.S. government. On November 6th of 1978, the Jonestown basketball team left for Georgetown. They had a little basketball team and they would play the Guyanese teams. And they left for Georgetown to go play some exhibition games. That night, Jones told his group that the congressmen wanted to come. And the residents remember they're fearful of the government because they think they're going to take their children, although Jones had already been doing this. But Congressman Ryan did come and he arrived for his fact-finding mission. He had planned to have interviews of the followers with their concerned relatives. And on Friday, November 17th, Ryan encouraged Jones to open the settlement and let the world see that they're no threat. Right. Okay. But of course, you know, prior to that, they had to clean up some stuff and try to make it look as good as possible. They were going to put on this just this pretend eye because what they were doing. So the reporters who traveled with the congressman, they were peppering Jim with questions. And during interviews with various members, some of them were concerned that the settlement was bugged. So the interviewers made this pre-made card that asked them if you want to leave, just nod your head. So while they were talking to them, they would just kind of show them that card. Wow, that's smart. They gave them a tour of the commune. And of course, instead of their regular fare of rice and beans, now that they're given this special meal that night, it was all for show, but they got barbecue pork and biscuits and collard greens and fruit punch. And they had music and dancing instead of suicide votes. The residents appeared healthy and happy and their own just talking about how much they love the place. And NBC actually captured this entire interview on film. When Jones was asked the hard questions, like about his suicide talk that they had heard of, he claimed he didn't say that. He had only said that they would rather commit suicide than have to kill to defend themselves from outside attacks. But even during this interview, Jones was stumbling and slurring his words. He was sweaty and ashen looking. You could tell he was not well. During this visit, Don Harris was like a reporter, maybe a photographer, I don't remember which one, but he was with NBC. One of the members thought he was the congressman, and he came up and he slipped him a note. And it was from a group of members who wanted to defect, but they were fearful. Right. And they were asking for the congressman's help to leave the group. The congressman's trying to let get Jim to agree to that. Jones, of course, is not acting like they're being kept there. Right. He's like, Yeah. So he offers them $5,000 to stay, and they refused. They wanted to get their chance and get out of there. And some of them had caught wind of the poison that had been found, and they were more eager to get out than ever. Sure. So finally Jones made he made this pretense of blessing their leaving. He was trying to be charming and persuade them to stay. And he said, Well, you can come back anytime you want. Other people heard about the defectors, and so they they come to the pavilion. And so Jones is kind of getting worried. More and more people are going to find the courage to leave with the congressman. And they and they did. All in all, 20 people were desiring to go. So many that the the congressmen had to order another plane to get them home. Some of them, when they were sent back to their cottage to pack their things so they could leave with that group, were so fearful that they had to get people to come with them because they were afraid they were going to be intimidated when they got back to their cottage. They asked Jones if he had any guns, to which he denied. No, we don't have guns. We I banned guns, which was complete bull crap. The congressman had sent some of his group on and he stayed behind. He was going to try to mediate between some of the families who were being divided. He thought he could help them get their kids out because, see, somebody some of those defectors wanted to leave, and Jones has control of their children, and they didn't want to leave without their children. Right. And so the congressman was going to try to mediate that. But that wasn't really going so well. And during that time, one of the commune members named Don Sly, he attempted to attack the congressman. He grabbed him by the neck and he threatened him with a knife. But some of the attorneys tackled him and they got the knife away. It was like kind of like chaos for a few minutes. And then the security guards dragged the attacker away. Everybody knew that Jones actually had been the ones who had instigated that attack because no one would do anything that drastic without father's permission. After that attack, he realizes I really need to be getting out of here. So he leaves and he has 15 of the other of 15 more of the members. And once the group left, Marceline got on the PA system and then she announced to everybody, oh, everything's well, go back to your cottages, it's all good. In the meantime, AIDS had prepared a large metal tub with grape flavor aid, poisoned with several drugs, sedatives, and cyanide. The congressman's group arrived back at the airport in Port Kaituma. As they were boarding the planes, a truck from the commune pulled back in and opened fire. You did not know that. You didn't know that? No. For a few minutes it was just like everything was in a panic. Pure chaos. People were terrified. And then just as suddenly the gunmen left and they drove away grinning and making victory signs. But in that chaos, they had killed NBC cameraman Bob Brown. Oh my goodness. Reporter Don Harris, photographer Greg Robinson, and Congressman Leo Ryan. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:48

I did I don't know how I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

He had been hit in the neck with that initial barrage of gunfire. And then while he was trying to shield himself, one of the Jonestown men came and shot him point blank in the head. He's actually the only congressman to be assassinated while in office. Yeah, so he went there for that mission and didn't make it back.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

That's so sad. And what about all of the you know, the people who were members, like the defectors?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

So some of them had already gotten on the plane. Okay. Some of them didn't make it, some of them were killed during that shooting, but the ones who had already gotten in the plane did not die. And the pilots were in the plane. So the two pilots converged in one plane and they started heading towards Georgetown and they radioed ahead. And then the people who had survived began to come out of the plane and they ran out into the jungle. And some of them had already run out there for cover. Nobody really knew what to do. Sure. Like some had run away, some had just like lain down in the plane, some were still outside the plane and were killed. It was just crazy. Meanwhile, Jones's sons, who had been away playing those games, they were gathering for a phone call with their father who was back at the settlement. And when they heard what had happened, they couldn't believe what was going on while they were gone. And they weren't really sure if their dad was lying about it or not because he lied so much. But now Jones was on the radio talking about this revolutionary suicide. Stephen and Tim Jones and Johnny Cobb, one of their friends, headed to the American Embassy. And that's where they heard that the shooting was confirmed by the embassy. So police arrived at the embassy and they are interrogating everybody that has anything to do with that settlement. They don't know that Jones' sons don't really agree with him. Right. The authorities, they summoned some planes from Georgetown to go back and evacuate the wounded that are still left at the airport. But by now it was dark. And see, the airstrip didn't have lights for a plane to land. Oh, that's so sad. So they had to wait until the next day. And until then, all they could do was shelter the wounded and then cover the bodies of the ones who had died. At 4 p.m. that same afternoon, which this was November 18th, 1978. I'm not sure if I said that before. Jones called everyone to the pavilion once again. And they were told about the defectors. Jones took the stage while armed guards patrolled the perimeter. And at this point, Jones had a tape recorder running. He told them the enemy was coming to attack them. He encouraged them, be kind to your children and yourselves and take this potion. He said, There's no way you're going to survive. When the government finds out the congressman's dead, they're going to come and kill all of us. So just go ahead and do it. He said, There's no way you're going to survive anyway. And when some people actually spoke out against him, like, no, we don't want to do that. He would turn off the tape recorder because he didn't he wanted this recording to live in infamy. But he didn't want it to sound like people disagreed with him. So during this time, he did that like over 20 times. Wow. He didn't want those voices to be saved in posterity. It's simple, he told him. You don't have convulsions with it, and it's easy. So AIDS brought the steel vat of grape-flavored Kool-Aid from the kitchen. Someone brought out paper cups. Nurses were there with syringes. Jones called for the children to die first. Oh my gosh. The guards trained their guns on the members, and no one had a choice between suicide or living. They would all be forced to take the poison one way or another. The only choice left to them was death by poison or gunshot. Mothers were asked to bring their babies forward. They used a syringe to squeeze the poison into the baby's mouth. And then they watched within minutes as their babies foamed at the mouth, convulsed, and fought for breath. I cannot even wrap my mind around that. Nurses finally had to give up trying to convince them to surrender their babies. And instead, the temple guards would just have to. The babies from their mother's arms.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Oh, that is heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:03

It really is heartbreaking. And now the followers they're weeping, they're panicking. Some are screaming, some are hysterical. But within minutes, all 33 babies that had been born in Jonestown were dead. Oh my gosh. And then it was the older children's turn. They resisted. They were screaming no. But the nurses forced the liquid in them. Most of the mothers willingly drank the Kool-Aid once their children had been taken. And then they just wandered out into the field to die. So by 6 45, most of the children and many of the mothers were dead. Jones instructed the rest of the community to line up. His words were met with pleading and tears. And he urged them to lay down their lives with dignity. By 9 p.m., only about a hundred of the 900 followers were still alive. Jones said, We didn't commit suicide. We committed an act of revolutionary suicide, protesting the conditions of an inhuman world. And that's where his tape recording ended. Final residents didn't want to die, and nurses walked among them, plunging the syringes into their arms, even while some still fought back. By 1045, almost everyone was dead. And then the nurses went to their cottages and they found anyone who had not attended the meeting and administered the poison to them. And then the guards took the poison. Now Jim Jones did not take the poison. He had someone shoot him. He was found slumped with a gunshot in the right temple with a 38 Smith and Wesson revolver. And then most likely Marslin was the last one to kill herself. And then Jonestown was silent. So in the end, they all, every one of them, the ones that were there at the at the commune that day. There was one lady, her name was if she was an elderly black lady. Her name was Hyacinth. And she had been called to the meeting, but she had not gone. She was just tired and didn't feel like going. Her sister went, but she just wasn't gonna go. And when she started hearing all the commotion outside, she had crawled under her bed and hidden. Wow. When she came out finally, and she walked out and she saw all the people laying dead around her, and she realized she was there. It was like totally quiet. And so finally she was rescued, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:28

Oh my god. So one person out of every wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

And they're considered murder victims. Yes. Some of the remaining members, estimated around 125 people or more, were unwillingly injected based on the marks on their arms and other signs of struggle. And then some had taken it willingly because they felt they had no choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

Some drank the Kool-Aid voluntarily based on Jones's lies.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:54

He told them their children were going to be tortured, taken away, that the officials were coming any minute to take them. One of Jones's most ardent followers, her name was Annie. She was 24 years old. She was Carolyn Leighton's sister. She left a suicide note that read, We died because you would not let us live in peace.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:14

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

So she went to her grave believing, still believing that. When authorities arrived on Sunday, they found scattered bodies, death everywhere. The initial count was around 400 people. 13 members and 39 other members who had not been in Jonestown when it occurred were arrested because again, they didn't know if they had a part in this. Sure. Jones's sons were arrested for a little while. The Guyanese prime minister gave a speech about the massacre and finally said 909 people had died. Oh my word. And then they read a list of the dead. But today, in Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery, is a mass grave where 400 of the victims are buried. Most of those were children. And the media published dozens of photographs of the event in national publications. There were still hundreds of members in the U.S. who had not relocated. Yeah. And so crowds were picketing at the San Francisco Temple Building because they were outraged about this. Papers were filed to dissolve the organization. The US government froze its assets and were surprised to hear that Jones had stashed away seven million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:31

And as people were starving, eating rice and rice water.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:35

Rice and rice water. Of course, the government cleaned all of that money. All the bodies were deemed suicides and no further investigation was done. The press called Jim Jones the most notorious cult leader of all time. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1983, President Reagan posthumously, I don't know how to say this word, I've tried a hundred times. Posthumously or posthumously, anyway, after he was dead, President Reagan awarded Congressman Leo Ryan the Congressional Gold Medal for courage in the line of duty. He deserved it. He did. What a terrible story. So terrible. And like I said, that's why I've always just thought I knew the story. And then when I read the story, it actually was a book I read, Death in the Jungle, that I listened to on audiobook. And as I started listening to it, I thought, oh golly, I didn't know this story like I thought. And I need to tell this one on the podcast. But it's it's almost unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:38

It really is that he could have had that much support. I believe probably maybe because of probably because of his childhood. I think he was probably a narc, you know, narcissistic and uh, you know, obviously a sociopath. And so everybody was kind of uh there for him. And if they you know, if he couldn't get any use out of them, then they were useless. And he really didn't see any value in in anybody else, except for to feed his own ego and you know, for him.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:19

So I'm gonna ask you the question that you asked me at the beginning. Do you think he really believed those things he was teaching, or do you think he was all it was at all him just using it to manipulate people?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:32

Maybe initially, like maybe when he was younger and he was really trying to figure things out, but then I mean it just sounds like he was, I don't know, it sounds demonic to me. Like it's just yeah, like you know, something else just took over. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:50

And what do you make of Marcel and his wife, who just willingly let him take all these other women and and she watched everything. And she actually, let me say this, she did try to get her kids out of there. She sent her sons to that basketball game. Jim did not want them to go, and she sent them because she knew that was coming. And yet all those other people and their kids were there. So I don't think she's innocent in this at all. She was calling the shallow he was calling the shots, but she was making it happen behind the scenes, and yet got her own children out of the way. So what do you make of that?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:28

I mean it's really easy sometimes to give women a a pass. And so part of me wants to think, like, well, maybe she just had like that almost like that battered win woman syndrome, like she was, you know, a product of his manipulation as well. And she may have been, I mean, you would have to be, you would have to like all of those people would have had to have been just so blind from his you know manipulation, but at the same time, like you said, you know, she was able to act and get her own kids out of there. So yeah. So it's crazy. It's that's a crazy story.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:13

And it reminds me like well, this week we've been hearing about the Micah Miller, the documentary came out on Netflix. Yes, it's all over the media, all over social media. I haven't got to see it yet. Okay, I won't give you any spoilers, but the John Paul Miller, I mean, he's one of those guys who is obviously narcissistic. I don't even know what kind of socio psychopath, but I don't even know what you would call him. But pure evil, it's demonic. And but he's another one who has a lot of pull on people, and you sit there and you look at it and you think, how can these people still be going to his church? Right. How can these people be following him? He is obviously a wolf in sheep's clothing. Can you not see this?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

But but I do believe that charismatic people are often very persuasive, and uh, you know, it's not like these people well, but like you were saying, there were you know smart people in his, you know, following him, but I just think these people are just very persuasive, and that's why we have to be really careful, I think, and just you know, con we need to just be praying for discernment.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

That's the word I was getting I was hoping discernment, that's the key. We have to be discerning. And we we had we talked a little bit this week at our small group for church about discernment. We were talking about what it means, right? And one lady said that she used to think it just meant knowing the difference between right and wrong, and then she read another definition that said knowing the difference between right and almost right. Yes, yeah, there's always a little because sometimes it can sound really good and right, and then I even read another definition that I thought made really good sense would be all being able to tell the difference between deception and truth. And um, we we could all stand to be a little more discerning. Absolutely. Those were some hard times. Yes, they were. Drink the Kool-Aid. You've probably used that phrase before. Maybe you've said someone is drinking the Kool-Aid when they're blindly devoted to a politician. We simply mean that someone has accepted a belief or followed a group without questioning it. But that phrase has a horrifying history and one little detail that often gets lost. It wasn't actually Kool-Aid that was primarily used at Jonestown. It was Flavor Aid, a similar powdered fruit drink. But Kool-Aid was the much more recognizable brand, and both names became associated with the event at Jonestown. It took a harmless children's drink and turned it into one of the darkest metaphors in the English language. And after Jonestown, drinking the Kool-Aid became shorthand for the kind of blind obedience that can lead people to surrender their own judgment to someone else. When we say someone has drunk the Kool-Aid, what we're really saying is they trusted the leader. They believed him and they stopped questioning and they surrendered their judgment. And that's what makes the story of Jim Jones so disturbing.