When an American died overseas, it is the responsibility of the U.S. State Department – most oftentimes acting through the U.S. Embassy in the country in which the death occurred – to work with the host government in repatriating the remains. The fact that more than 900 Americans (there were about a dozen Guyanese nationals) died on a single day under unknown circumstances did not relieve the American Embassy in Georgetown of its responsibility. It just made the task more complicated.

This Report of the Death of an American Citizen Abroad was for Mary Pearl Willis, a member of Peoples Temple who died in Jonestown on November 18, 1978. Her body – like those of the other Jonestown dead – was transferred by the end of the month to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware by military transport. As with the others, there was no autopsy in Guyana to determine cause of death, and she was removed Guyana from without a death certificate. An article on the government’s handling of the bodies appears here.

More than half of the remains transported to Dover were identified by the end of December 1978, and Ms. Willis’ body was among them. She was buried in Monroe, Louisiana, the state of her birth, in January 1979.

The American Embassy in Georgetown released its Report of the Death of an American Citizen Abroad for Ms. Willis on April 4, 1979, about four-and-a-half months after her death and three months after her funeral. The cause of death was certified as “Acute cyanide poisoning,” as determined by a Coroner’s Inquest. Both the date and the information contained on the single-page document were typical of most such reports following the Jonestown deaths.

Report of the Death of an American Citizen Abroad, courtesy of Lela Howard, the niece of Mary Pearl Willis