Correspondence between Joe Mazor and Karen Layton

EE-4-F

[Envelope addressed to Karen Layton in Georgetown, Guyana from Joseph Mazor in San Francisco]

September 26, 1978

Dear Karen,

Please excuse and forgive me for not writing as soon as I returned, but business matters were pressing and the time simply flew by. Secondly, I apologize for the legal paper, but my secretary is gone and I can’t find any personal stationery anywhere. However, on the bright side, I received your lovely letter today and it had a very pleasurable effect and my dear, it increased my ego, which is too big already, but I do thank you lovely lady for the compliments, even though they are not true. They say that behind every successful man is a woman pumping up his ego and speaking of charming people. You dear Karen are very charming and lovely lady and I too miss you.

It is now 12:45 AM and in about an hour I have to take a team into Chinatown (Ross Alley) on a little surveillance of some gambling. Our client’s son has been losing his money somewhere and his father feels he is being taken by some professionals and maybe in debt heavily. So we will watch the illegal gambling action for a few hours and see if sonny is a patron of the establishment.

I spoke with Tim [Carter] at the Temple in SF tonight and by now, you probably know that I am going to Europe next week on business and have decided to include Timothy O. Stoen’s activities in my London schedule. Also, ABC has agreed to furnish a camera to document what I might find at the banks and elsewhere. Hopefully, I will hit the jackpot Vegas style and bring back enough material to indict him with, or at least, disbar him.

Although I enjoyed our several conversations on the radio, I am truly sorry that we didn’t spend more time together when I was in Jonestown, and with your permission and approval, I shall remedy that matter when I return in late October or early November. Then I may be spending several days in training the people for security and hopefully make up for the initially short visit.

Hi again, just got back from the surveillance and it is now 5:15 AM. Everything went according to plan and sonny boy did show up and dropped a very healthy hunk of cash in the game. Our team simply walked in and escorted Sonny out and home to Daddy for whatever. I didn’t stay for the parental confrontation. Anyway, he will find another game, particularly if he is addicted.

Karen, I deeply appreciate your concerns for my well-being and I assure you, I am careful in my work, but also remember, it is the danger that makes the work interesting, but I will be extra careful for you. Now lovely lady, I am going to close and address this so that it gets into the mail today, then to bed, until 8:30 AM, when my first appointment arrives.

Please take care of yourself too, I want to see a happy healthy lady when I arrive in Jonestown. Say hello to everyone for me and be good.

Love,
Joseph

—–

October 2, 1978

Dear Joseph,

Thanks so much for your lovely letter. I am sitting here in the radio room now, and I just finished passing some medical traffic to Georgetown about a poor little 9 yr old Guyanese boy who was brought in tonight to get emergency medical care. He had been bitten 2 days before by a poisonous labaria snake, his parents brought him here from downriver in a canoe, and his leg was just awful. His foot was all black and his leg was swollen and very painful. Fortunately, gangrene had not set in, and we treated him with anti-venom and anti-biotics. His temperature was 105, and we got that to come down a few degrees. He is doing much better, and we are flying him into Georgetown tomorrow so he can be hospitalized. The pain was terrible, and he was so brave I couldn’t help but cry. I hope he can stay with us when he’s better – his parents said they’d like him to go to school here.

I can’t say how much I enjoyed your letter – if I succeeded in boosting your ego, you helped mine as well. Seriously, it gave me a real lift, although with your work and opportunities, I half suspected you’d forgotten me already.

I loved your description of “Sonny Boy” – I just hope you will be careful when you do those things. You don’t take enough concern for your own welfare. Though I know you say you’ll take care of yourself, I think you like the danger and excitement and won’t be half careful enough. I hate to lose your friendship before I’ve gotten a chance to really get to know you – as well as I want to – so no obituaries please. Hate to sound like a nagging wife about it, so I will say no more.

By this time, I guess you are back from Europe, and here I hope everything went well, and I hope you have gotten something that will help Mr. Timothy Stoen get his just rewards. I never could stand a hypocrite and he takes the cake in that department.

Both you and I, Joseph, seemed to be globetrotters. In the next couple of months I am going to be doing some purchasing for the clinic here. The episode tonight with the snakebite just pointed up once again the tremendous expense we take on for medicines, antibiotics and other kinds of medical supplies. I guess you could say we literally poured anti-bionics and anti-venom into that little boy’s leg tonight, and believe me, those things are very hard to get. I’m hoping that I will be able to find some good sources in Brazil, and possibly Venezuela. I’m afraid one of the disadvantages of living in a jungle is the lack of a nearby pharmaceutical supply house. Maybe you know of some persons I might contact in those two countries that could help out. If you do, please let me know. One of our nurse-practitioners is taking a patient to Venezuela tomorrow for some very specialized care and I hope she’ll be able to find out some information. I sure don’t relish being a stranger in a strange land [illegible word] for Spanish. Oh well, I’ll manage. But promise me you won’t visit us while I’m gone. I’m not very good at expressing myself in letters, but I am counting on you making up for the very little time you spent with me while you were here last. From the short time we spent together, and from our few conversations I find I have grown very fond of you.

You must take care of yourself, and promise me you will not allow your thirst for excitement blind you to the fact that someone here cares for you very much, and would be deeply hurt if anything happened to you!

Love, Karen