[Editor’s note: This transcript is part of a special report by the November 18 Project. The table of contents for the report is here.]
[This transcript was created by volunteer researchers Shannon Howard [SH], Adrian Whicker [AW], Joel X. Thomas [JXT], and Brian Holtz [BH].
[If you use this transcript, we kindly ask that you credit The Jonestown Institute and the volunteer researchers who created it.
[This document will be periodically updated as new information becomes available. We welcome any additions or corrections to our work. radiojonestown@gmail.com.
[The Death Tape audio we used for the creation of this transcript can be found both here and here.
[For a detailed timeline following the State Department and FBI’s chain of evidence log for the death tape leading to its eventual leak to the public, go here.
[When we could not agree on what we heard, we put those variations into a spreadsheet. The variations also appear as separately numbered footnotes throughout the transcript, with the text of the variations following the transcript’s contextual footnotes.]
[Recorder On]
[Ghosting music][1]
[Microphone on]
[Tape edit][2]
Jim Jones: How very much I’ve loved you. How very much I’ve tried my best to give you [Radio interference] the good life. Mmmmmm.
Crowd: “That’s right!” [Applause]
Jones: (Heavy breath) [ghosting music throughout] But in spite of all of that I’ve tried, a handful of our people, with their lies, have made our life impossible. [Children crying and cooing in background] There’s no way to detach our self from what’s happened today. Not only – we’re in a compound situation. Not only are there those who have left and committed the betrayal of the century – some have stolen children from others – and they’re in pursuit right now to kill them, because they stole their children. And we – we are sitting here waiting on a powder keg. I don’t think this is what we want to do with our babies. I don’t think that’s what we had in mind to do with our babies. It was said by the greatest of prophets from time immemorial: “No man lay – takes my life from me; I lay my life down”[3]
Crowd: Right!
Jones: So, to – to sit here and wait for wh – the catastrophe that’s going to happen on that airplane – it’s going to be a catastrophe, almost happened here. Almost happened – The congressman[4] was nearly killed here. But you can’t steal people’s children.
Crowd: That’s right.
Jones: You can’t take off with people’s children without expecting a [emphatic] violent reaction.
Crowd: Right! [murmuring]
Jones: And that’s not so unfamiliar to us either, if we – even if we were Judeo-Christian – if we weren’t communists.
Child: Daddy!
Jones: The world – the kingdom suffereth violence and the violent shall take it by force.[5]
Man: Right
Jones: If we can’t live in peace, then let’s die in peace.
Crowd: “Right”! [Applause]
Jones: [Music ghosting throughout] (Weary) We’ve been so betrayed (sigh). We have been so terribly betrayed. But we’ve tried and as Jack Beam often said, I don’t know where he is at right this moment. Where’s Jack? He said if this only worked one day, it was worthwhile.
Crowd: “Yeah!” “That’s right!” “Yeah!” [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: [Unintelligible] Cuz what’s going to happen here in a matter of a few minutes is that one of those people[6] on that plane is gonna – gonna shoot the pilot. I know that. I didn’t plan it, but I know it’s gonna happen. They’re gonna shoot that pilot, and down comes that plane into the jungle. And we had better not have any of our children left when it’s over, cause they’ll parachute in here on us.
[Baby cooing] [Pause]
Jones: I’m telling you just as plain as I know how to tell you. I’ve never lied to you.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: [Emphatic] I never have lied to you.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: I know… that’s what’s gonna happen. That’s what it intends to do, and he [Larry Layton] will do it. He’ll do it. Fortunately being so bewildered with many, many p – pressures on my brain, seeing all these people behave so treasonous – it was just too much for me to put together, but uh, uh, I now know what he was telling me and it’ll happen. If the plane gets in the air even. (Pause, child crying) So my opinion is that we be kind to children and be kind to seniors and take the potion like they used to take in ancient Greece, and step over quietly, because we are not committing suicide: it’s a revolutionary act
Crowd: Right.
Jones: We can’t go back. They won’t leave us alone. They’re now going back to tell more lies, which means more congressmen. And there’s no way, no way we can survive. Hmm? [Voice too soft]
Jones: Anybody wishes…
[Microphone off/on]
Jones: Anyone that has any dissenting opinion, please speak. (Pause. Music ghosting) Yes.
[Microphone off]
[Tape edit]
Jones: [music ghosting throughout] You can have an opportunity, but if our children [chokes] are left, we’re going to have them butchered. We can make a strike, but we’ll be striking against people[7] that we – we don’t want to strike against. We wan– we’d like to get the people who caused this stuff, and some – if some people here are p – prepared and know how to do that, to go in town[8] and get Timothy Stoen, but there’s no plane. There’s no plane. You can’t catch a plane in time. [child crying throughout]
[Tapping on microphone]
Jones: He’s responsible for it.
Woman: That’s right.
Jones: He brought these people to us.[9] He and Deanna Mertle. But people in San Francisco[10] will not – not be idle over this. [Pause] They’ll not take our death in vain; you know? [Pause] Yes, Christine? [child crying and cooing throughout]
Christine Miller: Is it too late for Russia?
Jones: [Inhaling] Here’s why it’s too late for Russia. They killed. They started to kill. That’s why it makes it too late for Russia. Otherwise I’d said, “Russia, you bet your life.” [licks lips or drinks] But it’s too late. I can’t control these people. They’re out there. They’ve gone with their guns and it’s too late. [Pause] [Weary tone] And once we kill anybody – at least that’s the way I’ve always – I’ve always put my lot with you. If one of my people do something, it’s me. [Pause]
Crowd: That’s right.
Jones: And they[11] say I don’t – I don’t have to take the blame for this, but I can’t – I don’t – I don’t live that way. They[12] said deliver up Ujara [Don Sly], who tried to get the man [Ryan] back here.[13] Ujara, whose wi – mother’s [wife Neva Sly & mother Delitha Sly] been lying on him and lying on him and trying to break up this family. And they’ve all[14] agreed to kill us by any means necessary. You think I’m going to deliver them Ujara? Not on your life. [Children crying and cooing throughout]
Crowd: No!
Jones: No.
Ujara [Don Sly]: If there is any way that if I go that it’ll help…
Jones: No. You’re not going. You’re not going.
Crowd: No! No!
Jones: You’re not going. I can’t live that way. [Emphatic] I cannot live that way. I’ve lived with – for all, and I’ll die for all.
Crowd: Yeah, that’s right! [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: I’ve been living on hope for a long time, Christine, and I appreciate – You’ve always been a very good agitator; I like agitation, because you got to see two sides of one issue, two sides of a question. But what those people[15] are gonna get done, what they get through, will make our life worse than hell. They’ll make us – make the Russians not accept us. When they get through lying. They told so many lies between there and that truck that we are – we are done-in as far as any other alternative.
[Microphone #2 handed back to Christine Miller]
Miller: Well, I say let’s make an air – airlift to Russia. That’s what I say. I don’t think nothing is impossible–
Jones: Well, how we gonna airli–
Miller: – if you believe it. Well, I…
Jones: How are you gonna airlift to Russia?
Miller: Well, I thought he[16]– they said if we got in an emergency, they gave you a code to let them know.
Jones: No, they didn’t. They gave us a code that they’d let us know of an issue, not us create an issue for them. They said if we – if they saw the country coming down they’d create, they’d give us a code. They’d give us a code. You can check on there and see if it’s on the code. You can… check with Russia to see if they’ll take us in immediately, otherwise we die. I don’t know what else you say to these people. But to me, death is not a– death is not a fearful thing. It’s living that’s treacherous.
Crowd: Right! [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: I have never, never, never, never seen anything like this before in my life. I’ve never seen people take the law uh, and do uh – in their own hands and provoke us and try to purposely agitate murder of children. There is no use – Christine, it’s just not – it’s just not worth living like this. Not worth living like this.
Crowd: Right! (Woman says something unintelligible …”they used us…”)
Miller: I think that there were too few who left for twelve hundred people to give them their lives for those people that left.
Jones: You know how many left?
Miller: [Casually] Hmmm, twenty-odd.[17] That’s – That’s a small amount com– com– compared to… (Jones speaks over)
Jones: [Somewhat mockingly] Twenty-odd, twenty-odd.
Miller: Compared to what’s here.
Jones: Twenty-odd. But d– what’s gonna happen when they don’t leave? [Pause] I hope that they could leave. But what’s gonna happen when they – when they don’t leave?
Miller: You mean the people here?
Jones: Yeah. What’s going to happen to us when they don’t leave, when they get on the plane and the plane goes down?
Miller: I don’t think it’ll go down.
Jones: You don’t think it’ll go down?
Crowd: “Yes–” “Yes it will.” (Murmurs, restless shouting)
Jones: I – I wish I could tell you were right, but I’m right.
Crowd: “Yes!” “Thank you.”
Jones: There’s one man [Layton] there who blames, and rightfully so, Debbie Blakey for the murder [emphatic] – for the murder of his mother – and he’ll sh – he’ll stop that pilot by any means necessary.
Crowd: “That’s right!” “He will”
Jones: He’ll do it.[18]
Crowd: “That’s right!”
Jones: That plane’ll come out of the air. There’s no way you fly a plane without a pilot.
Miller: I wasn’t speaking about that plane. I was speaking about the plane for us to go to Russia.
Jones: How – (Sighs in frustration)
Crowd: Stirs, murmurs. “How you get there?”
Jones: – To Russia? You think Russia’s gonna want – no, it’s not gonna, it’s, it’s, it’s – We’re not, uh you think Russia’s gonna want us with all this stigma?
Woman in crowd: No.
Miller: We hav…
Jones: We had – we (speaks over Miller) – we had some value, but now we don’t have any value.
Miller: Well, I don’t see it like that. I mean, I feel like that as long as there’s life, there’s hope. [Jones inhales deeply] That’s my faith.
Jones: Well – someday everybody dies. Some place that hope runs out, because everybody dies.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: I haven’t seen anybody yet didn’t die.
Miller (tries to speak): Not…
Jones: And I’d like to choose my own kind of death for a change. I’m tired of being tormented to hell, that’s what I’m tired of.
Crowd: “That’s right!” “Tired, tired.” [Pause]
Jones: Tired of it.
Crowd: [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: – twelve hundred people’s lives in my hands, and I certainly don’t want your life in my hands. But I’m going to tell you, Christine, without me, life has no meaning.
Crowd: [Applause] “Right!”
Jones: I’m the best friend you’ll ever have.
Crowd: [Applause] “That’s right!”
Jones: I want, want, I have to pay – I’m standing with Ujara. I’m standing with those people. They’re part of me. I can detach myself. My attorney says detach myself. No, no, no, no, no, no. I never detached myself from any of your troubles.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: I’ve always taken your troubles right on my shoulders.
Crowd: Right!
Jones: And I’m not going to change that now. It’s too late. I’ve been running too long. Not going to change now.
Man: All right Dad!
Crowd: [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Maybe the next time you’ll get to go to Russia. The next time `round.[19] This is – what I’m talking about now is the dispensation of judgment. This is a revolutionary su – it’s a revolutionary suicide council. I’m not talking about self– self-destruction. I’m talking about what – we have no other road. I will take your – your call. We will put it to the Russians. And I can tell you the answer now, because I’m a prophet.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: Call the Russians and tell them, and see if they’ll take us.[20]
[Music ghosting throughout]
Miller: Not that I’m afraid to die, by no means.[21]
Jones: I don’t think you are. I don’t think you are.
Miller: But uh… [Long pause] I look at our babies and I think they deserve to live–
Jones: [inhales] I agree
Miller: – you know?
Jones: But they – but also they deserve what’s more, they deserve peace.
Crowd: That’s right. (murmuring)
Miller: We all came here for peace.
Jones: And we’ve, have we had it?
Crowd (One person says “Yeah”) “No!”
Miller: No.
Jones: I tried to give it to you. I’ve laid down my life, practically. I’ve practically died every day to give you peace. And you still not had any peace. You look better than I’ve seen you in a long while, but it’s still not the kind of peace that I wanted to give you. Say…Uh – A person’s a fool who continues to say that you’re winning when you’re losing.
Crowd: That’s right! [Pause] [Someone says something too soft]
Jones: Win one, lose two. What? [Pause; woman calling out something from the crowd] I didn’t hear you, ma’am. You’ll have to speak up. Ma’am, you’ll have to speak up.
Mary Darden: I said hope is lost, let’s die, we dying anyway.[Variant1]
Jones: That’s a sweet thought. Who said that? [Pause]
Crowd: Mary Darden![Variant2]
Jones: C –Come on up and speak it again, honey. [slurring heavily] Stand up and say about, talk about it.
[Tape edit]
Jones: …is taking off? No plane is taking off. [Pause] It’s suicide. They have done it. Stoen has done it. But somebody ought to, somebody, can they talk – Can they not talk to San Francisco to see that Stoen does not get by with this infamy–
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: –this is infamy. He has done the thing he wanted to do.
Woman: So true!
Jones: Have us destroyed.
Woman: That’s right. [Pause]
Another Woman: Can you say it?
Miller: When you – when you – when we destroy ourselves, we’re defeated.
Jones: We’re not defeated.
Miller: We let them, the enemy, defeat us.
Jones: Did you see – did you see, I will live to fight no more forever?[22]
Miller: Yes, I saw that.
Jones: Did you not have some sense of pride and victory in that man?[23] That he would not subject himself to the will and whim of people who tell – that they’re gonna to come in whenever they please and push into our house. Come when they please, take who they want to, talk to who they want to – does… this is not living?
Crowd: No!
Jones: That’s not living to me. That’s not freedom. That’s not the kind of freedom I sought.
[Music ghosting throughout]
Miller: But I think where they made their mistake is when they stopped to rest. (Jones sips his drink) If they had gone on, they would’ve made it. But they stopped – to rest. [Child coughing].
Jim McElvane[24]: Chris…
[Tape edit]
JIm McElvane: …It’s over sister, it’s over. We’ve made that day. We made a beautiful day, and let’s make it a beautiful day. That’s what I say.
Crowd: [Applause] “That’s right!”
[Tape edit]
Jones: We win. We win when we go down. Tim Stoen has nobody else to hate. He has nobody else to hate. Then he’ll destroy himself. I’m speaking here not, as, uh, the administrator; I’m speaking as a prophet today. I wouldn’ta step in this seat and talk so serious if I didn’t know what I was talking about. If there’s any way to call back the immense amount of damage that’s going to be done, but I cannot separate myself from the pain of my people. And you can’t either, Christine, if you stop to think about it. You can’t separate yourself. We’ve walked too long together.
Adult coughs.
Miller: I, I know that. But I still think, as an individual, I have a right to–
Jones: You do, and I’m listening.
Miller: –what I think, what I feel. And I think we all have a right to our own destiny as individuals.
Jones: Right. [Inhales].
Miller: And I think
Jones: Right.
Miller: I have a right to choose mine, and everybody else has a right to choose theirs.
Crowd: Murmurs, “Oh!”
Jones: Mmm-hmm.
Miller: You know? [Woman cries out something]
Jones: Mmm-hmm. [Lue Ester Lewis: “Why don’t she leave?”] I’m not criticizing–
Lue Ester Lewis[25]: Why don’t you [she?] leave then?
Jones: What’s that?
Lue Ester Lewis: She talk like she wanna leave, why don’t she just go ahead! [child crying] Your own individual life, that’s what you’re saying.
Miller: That’s what I…
[Tape edit]
Jones: …said today. That’s what 20 people said today with their lives.
Miller: I think I still have a right to my own opinion.
Crowd: Stirs, shouting “No! shhhh!”
Jones: I– I’m not taking it from you. I’m not taking it from you.
McElvane: Christine–
Voice in crowd: Do you wanna leave?
McElvane: –you’re only standing here because he was here in the first place.
Crowd: Right!
McElvane: So, I don’t know what you’re talking about, having an individual life. Your life has been extended to the day that you’re standing there, because of him.
Crowd: “Right!” [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: …Voice back there she has as much right to speak as anybody else, too. What did you say, Lue E [Lue Ester Lewis]?
[Tape edit]
Jones: Well, you’ll regret that this very day if you don’t die. You’ll regret it if you do, don… you don’t die. You’ll regret it.
[Microphone #2 handed back to Christine Miller]
Miller [pleading]: Dad, you’ve saved too many people.
[Ghosting music throughout]
Jones: I’ve saved them. I saved them, but I made my example. I made my expression. I made my manifestation, and the world was ready – not ready for me. Paul said, “I was a man born out of due season.”[26] I’ve been born out of due season, just like all we are, and the best testimony we can make is to leave this goddamn world.
Crowd: [Raucous applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Peace, peace.[27]
Lue Ester Lewis [disdainful]: You must be scared to die!
[Microphone #2 on]
Miller: I’m not talking to her. Will you let – Will you – will you let her or let me talk?
Lewis [angry, off mic]: Well, I’m talking to you! I’m talking to you! (Continued unintelligible)
Jones: You’re talking. Keep talking.
Miller: Would you make her sit down and let me talk while I’m on the floor or let her talk?
Lewis [angry, off mic]: ”I’m gonna stand on the line…stand on the other…”
Jones: [Tape edit] [admonishingly] It’s not proper to tell the leader what to do, it really isn’t.
Crowd [angry]: Stirs, unintelligible loud voices
Jones: I’ve – I’ve listened to you. You asked me about Russia. I’m right now making a call to Russia. What more do you suggest? I’m listening to you.
Crowd stirring
Jones: If Russia gives me one slight bit of encouragement. I just now instructed him to go there and do that.[28]
Lewis [angry]: And you wouldn’t be no fucking good in Russia, goddamn it!
Voice: “Y’all should go–”
Woman: “Why didn’t you get on that truck?”
Disruption in Crowd. Woman’s voice “[Unintelligible: possibly “arrested”)[29]
[Tape edit]
Johnny Brown Jones: All right now, everybody hold it! We didn’t come – Hold it! Hold it! Hold it! Hold it! [crowd seems frenzied]
[Tape edit]
Jones: –A stronger maintain[30]. [voices; glasses/dishes rattling? Moving tables?] To lay down your burdens. I’m gonna lay down my burdens. Down by the riverside.[31] So we lay them down here in the side of Guyana. What’s the difference?
Crowd: [Applause] [Pause]
Jones: No man didn’t take our life. Right now. They haven’t taken it. But when they start parachuting out of the air, they’ll – they’ll shoot some of our innocent babies. I’m not lying – I don’t wanna see this– Christine. But they gotta shoot me to get through to some of these people. I’m not letting them take Ujara. Can you let them take Ujara?
Crowd: No, no, no, no.
[Microphone #2 on]
Miller: You mean you wanna see John[32] die?
Jones: What’s that?
Miller: You mean you want to see John, the little one and Kimo[33] [Unintelligible]…
Jones [shocked]: I want to see –
[Tapping on microphone]
Crowd [Frenzied, angry, stirring, shouting and disruption] Astonished woman: “She said!?” [Unintelligible] Another woman “What’s a matter with…”
[Tapping on microphone]
[Microphone #2 handed to Marceline Jones]
Jones: I, I– Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace…
Marceline Jones: Christine, are you saying that you think he thinks more of them than other children here?
Jones [shaken]: John– John
Marceline Jones: Cause that’s what you’re saying.
Jones: – you’re acting, do you think I’d put John’s life above others? If I put John’s life above others, I wouldn’t be standing with Ujara. I’d send John out–out, he could go out on the driveway tonight. [Voice strained]
[Microphone #2 handed back to Christine Miller]
Miller [worried]: I called his name because he’s young, they’re young.
Jones [defensive]: I know, but he’s no –he’s no different to me than any of these children here. He’s just one of my children. I don’t prefer one above another. I don’t prefer him above Ujara. I can’t do that. I can’t separate myself from your actions or his actions.
Yells coming from crowd; Woman: “Never has”
Jones: If you’d done something wrong, I’d stand with you. If they wanted to come and get you, they’d have to take me.
Crowd: “That’s right!”
Woman 1 [Sounds like a middle aged African American woman. Weepy]: Dad, we’re all ready to go. If you tell us we have to give our lives now, we’re ready. I’m pretty sure all the rest of the sisters and brothers are with me.
Crowd: Cheering
[Tape edit]
Jones: Some months I’ve tried to keep this thing from happening. But I now see it’s the will – it’s the will of Sovereign Being that this happen to us. That WE lay down our lives in protest against what’s being done. That we lay down our lives to protest in what’s being done. The criminality of people. (Radio bleed: I…R…unintelligible) The cruelty of people. Who walked out of here today? Did you notice who walked out?
Crowd: Yeah
Jones: Mostly white people.[34]
Crowd: [Stirs] That’s right!
Woman in Crowd: White asses.
[Music ghosting throughout]
Jones: Mostly white people walked. [Pause; woman in crowd (sounds younger): “James & Thom [Bogue]”] I’m so grateful for the ones that didn’t – those who knew who they are [Radio Interference, sound bleed: “Come in?”] –
Crowd: Right.
Jones: I just know that there –there –there’s no point – there’s no point to this. We ha– we are born before our time[35].
Crowd: Cheers “That’s right!” “Right!”)
Jones: They won’t accept us, and I don’t think we should sit here and take any more time–
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: –for our children to be endangered. Because if they come after our children, and – and we give them our children, then our children will suffer forever.
Crowd: That’s right! [emphatic applause from one person]
[Microphone #2 handed back to Christine Miller]
Miller [Frazzled]: [Unintelligible] anybody with a different idea…
Jones: I have no quarrel with you coming up. I like you. I personally like you very much.
Miller [shaken]: But these people gets hostile when you try and –
Jones: Oh, well, some people do – but then, you know, you– you, jus… some people do. Put it that way – I’m not hostile.
Woman 2: (..can explain? …)
Woman 3[36]: [unintelligible] –somebody…they done started shit![Variant3]
Jones: You had to be honest, and you stayed, and if you’da be – you wanted to run, you’d have run with them ’cause anybody could’ve run today they would have wanted to. I know you’re not a runner. And I, I would – I’d – your life is precious to me. It’s as precious as John’s. [child squeals]
[Microphone #2 off]
Jones: And I don’t – what I do I do with weight and justice and judgment. [child crying] I’m – I have weighed it against all evidence.
[Music ghosting throughout]
Cough in crowd. Child crying.
[Long pause]
Miller: Ok. That’s all I’ve got to say.
Jones: What comes now, folks? What comes now?[37]
Man: [Emphatic and clipped]: Everybody hold it!
McElvane: Sit down now, stay seated. [Emphatic] Stay seated!
Crowd: Stirs, frenzied
Jones: Stay peace. Stay peace. Stay peace. Stay peace. Stay peace. What’s come? Don’t let – Take Dwyer[38] on down to the mi – East House. (Heavy breath) [shushing] Take Dwyer on down to the East House and be seated.
Possibly Garnett Johnson[39]: [on mic with authority]: Everybody be quiet, please.
[Tape edit]
Jones: Show you’ve got some respect for our lives.
Woman in crowd: Shut up!
[Microphone #2 on]
McElvane: That means sit down, sit down. Sit down!
[Possible tape edit]
Jones: I know. [Pause] [Groans]
(Shortwave radio bleed: Do you copy?)
Jones: I tried so very, very hard. They’re trying over here to see what can may–what can happen in Los Angeles.[40]Who is it?
(Shortwave radio bleed: Do you copy?)
[Music ghosting throughout]
[Two Voices to Jones; a woman][41]: “Bob [unintelligible] must’a drive the truck, [Unintelligible] mostly security people.”[Variant4]
Man<[42]: Stan[43] [Unintelligible] sent out [unintelligible] with about ten of our folks on it”.
Woman: Carol.[44]
Jones: Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him [Pause].
(Shortwave radio bleed: Do you copy?)
[Noises like items being placed on a table or individual claps in background]
Voices: –goin’ to get Ujara.[45]
Jones: Dwyer?
Man (Possibly Johnny Brown Jones or Joe Wilson): Ujara?[46]
Jones: I’m not talking about Ujara. I said [Emphatic] Dwyer. Ain’t nobody gonna take Ujara. I’m not lettin’ ’em take Ujara. [Pause] Gather in, folks. It’s easy, it’s easy.[47]
(Shortwave radio bleed: Do you copy?)
Jones: Yes, my love.
[Tape silence for several seconds other than ghosted music]
[Microphone Handed to Woman 5]
Woman 5 (elderly African American female): At one time, I felt just like Christine felt.
(Shortwave radio bleed: Do you copy?)
Woman 5: But after today I don’t feel anything because the biggest majority of the people that left here were white, and I know, it really hurt my heart because –
Jones: Broke your heart, didn’t it?
(Shortwave radio bleed: Do you copy?)
Woman 5: It broke my heart, to think that all of these years that these white people had been with us
(Shortwave radio bleed: Do you copy?)
Woman 5: –and they’re not a part of us. So, we might as well end it now, because I don’t see –
Jones: It’s too late, you must quit talking. (Microphone #2 off) The congressman has been murdered.[48]
[Ghosted music]
[Microphone #1 off]
[Microphone #1 on]
Jones: Sta… [another voice in background, unintelligible]
[Tape edit]
Woman 6: We ready…
Male: Be quiet.
[Tape edit]
Voices: It’s over. It’s over…
Woman 6 (exasperated): It’s all over…
Jones: It’s all over, all over. [Pause] What a legacy, what a legacy. But the Red Brigade’s[49] the only one that’s ever made any sense anyway.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: They invaded our privacy. They came into our home. They followed us six thousand miles away. Red Brigade showed them justice. The congressman’s dead.
[Ghosted music only]
Woman: Stop it! (clap or slap) Go ahead take a drink.
[Tape edit]
Woman:..got it
Jones: (Speaks authoritatively) Please get us some medication. It’s simple.
Child screaming/crying
Jones: It’s simple. There’s no convulsions with it. It’s just simple. Just, please get it. Before it’s too late. The GDF[Guyana Defence Force] will be here, I tell you. Get movin’, get movin’, get movin’.
Unintelligible voices[50]
Woman 7 (younger, African American female, frantic, pleading): Shut up, shut up now! Who are you [Unintelligible]…[Variant5]
Jones: (More excited) Don’t be afraid to die. If these people land out here. They’ll – they’ll torture some of our children here. They’ll torture our people. They’ll torture our seniors. We cannot have this.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: Are you going to separate yourself from whoever shot the congressman? I don’t know who shot him.
Crowd: No. No. Hell No! No! Hell No!
[Microphone off/on and/or tape edit]
Jones: … speak her peace. And those who had a right to go, and they had a right to – How many are dead? [Pause] Aw, God Almighty, God Almighty…
Male voice to Jones: Patty Parks is dead. [shhh!][51]
Jones: Hmm?
Male voice: Patty Parks is dead.
Jones: Patty Parks is dead?
(Shortwave radio bleed: do you copy?)
[Tape edit]
[Child blurts out “hey look!” – shhh!]
[Very low male voice: “Get in line by me.” Female responds unintelligibly]
[Tape edit]
Woman 8 [Younger white female]: …you and the others to endure long enough in a safe place to write about [Jones: hmmm] the goodness of Jim Jones.
Jones: [Despairing] I don’t know how in the world they’re ever going to write about us. It’s just too late. It’s too late. The congressman’s dead. The congressman’s aide’s dead.[52] Many of our traitors are dead.[53] They’re all layin’ out there dead.[54]
Crowd: Right on! Good! Good!
Jones: Hmm? I didn’t, but – but my people did
Ostensibly Woman 8 said Jones didn’t kill them
Jones: My people did. They’re my people.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: –and they – they’ve been provoked too much.
Crowd [emphatic]: That’s right!
Jones: They’ve been provoked too much. What’s happened here’s been too – it’s been an act of provocation.
Woman 9 (younger, African-American female): They did it theirself!
Voice: That’s right! [unintelligible] what you asked for)
Woman 9: They did it! If they’d given us our right to [unintelligible].[Variant6]
Mary “Ruby” Johnson Rodgers: Any ways…
Jones: Yes.
Mary “Ruby” Johnson Rodgers (crying): If there’s any ways possible to, uh, have them to give Ted something to take him, I’m satisfied, okay?
Jones: What’s that?
Mary Johnson Rodgers: I said, if there’s any way you can do to have them to give Ted something so he won’t have to– let him go too, okay? And I’m satisfied.
Jones: Yes. That’s fine.
Voice in crowd: Ted Holliday.[55]
Jones: Okay, Ted, yes. Yes. Yes.
Mary Johnson Rodgers: ‘Cause I said I never wanted to live if you died, so this is my prayer – and I appreciate you for everything [Jones mutters something unintelligible]. You are the only[56] – You are the only – You are the only. And I appreciate you –
(Woman whispers close to Jones’ ear and the microphone)
Jones [softly]: OK
Crowd: [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: (Urgent, panicky) Please, please can we hasten? Can we hasten with that medication? You don’t know what you’ve done. [Pause]
Woman 10: (weepy): Dad, I want you to know you’ve given me the happiest days of my life!
Jones: I’ve tried.
[Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Move, please move.
Man[57]: Dad….Wesley [Briedenbach][58] told me there were two GDF [unintelligible; he either says “not” or “guys”] –
[Microphone off/on]
[Tape edit]
[Shushing in crowd]
Jones: They saw it happen and ran into the bush and dropped their machine guns? I never in my life. [Pause] But there’ll be more. [Pause]
[One mic muted]
Woman 11[59]: [Unintelligible]… stop it right there.
[Tape edit]
Jones: You got to move. Are you gonna get that medication here? You’ve got to move.
Voice in crowd: Hurry up!
Jones: Marceline, they got forty minutes.[60]
[Tape edit]
Maria Katsaris: You have to move, and the people that are standing there in the aisles, go stand in the radio room yard. Everybody get behind the table and back this way, okay?
Woman[61]: Please everybody hurry.
[Tape edit]
Jones: There’s nothing to it.
Maria Katsaris: There’s nothing to worry about. Every – Everybody keep calm and try and keep your children calm.
Woman [off mic, low]: Have the older children give love to the little ones that act scared.[62]
Maria Katsaris: [Pause] And, uh, the older children help love the little children an– and reassure them. [Tape edit] Th– they’re aren’t crying from pain. It’s just a little bitter tasting. They’re not crying out of any pain.
[Microphone off]
[Tape edit]
Maria Karsaris: Annie McGowan, can I please see you back – [63]
[Tape edit]
McElvane: …Things I used to do before I came here. So, let me tell you about it. It might make a lot of you feel a little more comfortable. Sit down and be quiet, please. One of the things that I used to do, I used to be a therapist. [voices near mic] And the kind of therapy–
Woman’s voice away from mic [Katsaris or Joyce Touchette]: You gotta keep it moving.”]
McElvane: –that I did had to do with reincarnation in past life situations.
Jones: Yes, yes, yes.
McElvane: And every time anybody had the experience of it– of going into a past life, [child screaming] I was fortunate enough through Father to be able to let them experience it all the way through their death, so to speak. And everybody was so happy when they made that step to the other side.
Jones: When you’re stepping there’s no other thing you can do but step that way. It’s the only way to step.
Microphone off briefly.
McElvane: If…
[Child screaming, crying)
Jones: But the choice is not ours now. It’s out of our hands.
[Children crying and screaming in the background]
McElvane: If you have a body that’s been crippled–
Jones (to the parents and/or nurses): Try to calm them. Tell them it’s just something to give them a little rest, a little rest. Calm the children. [Jones and McElvane talking over each other]
McElvane: –suddenly you have the kind of body that you want to have. It feels good. You’ve never felt so good, family I tell you. You’ve never felt so good as how that feels. (Child cries No!)
Jones: Thank you. [screaming and crying]
[Pause]
Jones: And I do hope that those attorneys [Charles Garry and Mark Lane] will stay where they belong and don’t come up here.[64] [Pause] What is it? [Pause] What happened? What is it?
Man off mic [Jones?]: What’d you say Johnny?
Jones: [Pause] Did what? [unintelligible, boy makes anguished cry] it’s hard, it’s hard, it’s hard but only at first – only at first is it hard. It’s hard only at first. Living – you’re looking at death, it only looks, eh – living is much, much more difficult.
Crowd: That’s right.
Jones: Raising up every morning and not knowing what’s going to be the night’s bringing. It’s much more difficult. [murmuring in crowd] It’s much more difficult.
Voices and crying and coughing [African American female: “Let’s get it over with.”]
Irene Edwards[65]: (Joyous) I just want to uh, say something for everyone that I see that is standing around and uh, crying. This is nothing to cry about. This is something we should all rejoice about. We should be happy about this. [clapping, “right!”] They always told us that we should cry when you’re coming into this world. But when we’re leaving, and we’re leaving it peaceful, I think we should be – we should be happy about this.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: We are.
Irene Edwards: I was just thinking about Jim Jones. He just has suffered and suffered and suffered
Crowd: (clapping) That’s right!
Irene Edwards: We– He is the Avant Garde,[Variant7] and he don’t even have the chance to enjoy hisself here.
Crowd: (clapping) That’s right!
Irene Edwards: I want to say one more thing. Let me say just one more thing. That’s few that’s gone, but many more here. He’s still… That’s not all of us. That’s not all yet. That’s just a few that has got a chance to get to the one, that woul– to tell they stories, and lies to. So, I, I’m looking at so many people crying. I wish you would not cry. [child screaming] And just thank Father. Just thank him.
Crowd: [Sustained applause]
Irene Edwards: I’ve been here about –
Crowd: [Sustained applause]
Edwards: I’ve been here one year and nine months. And I never felt better in my life. Not in San Francisco, but until I came to Jonestown.
Crowd: Right!
Edwards: I’ve enjoyed this life. I had a beautiful life. And I don’t see nothing for us to be crying about.
Crowd: No! Right!
Edwards: We should be happy. At least I am. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Crowd: Weird muffled, edited applause [ghosting music]
Woman 12: (weepy) …wouldn’t be alive today. I just like to thank Dad, ’cause he was the only one that stood up for me when I needed him. And thank you, Dad.
Applause
[Tape edit]
Woman 13: [Unintelligible] I’m glad you’re my brothers and sisters, and I’m glad to be here.
Jones: –don’t have a lot of testimonies. Let’s get on with this…
Woman 13: Okay.
Jones: [Pleading, desperate] Please. For God’s sake, let’s get on with it. We’ve lived – we’ve lived as no other people have lived and loved. [screaming and crying children] We’ve had as much of this world as you’re gonna get. Let’s just be done with it. Let’s be done with the agony of it.
Applause
[Tape edit]
Jones: It’s far, far harder to have to watch you every day, die slowly and from the time you’re a child ’til the time you get gray, you’re dying.
[That’s right!]
[Pause]
[Tape edit])
Jones: …Dishonest, and I’m sure that they’ll – they’ll pay for it. They – They’ll pay for it. This is a revolutionary suicide. This is not a self-destructive suicide.
Child: No!
Jones: So, they’ll pay for this. They brought this upon us. And they’ll pay for that. I – I leave that destiny to them.
Woman with a crying child yelling “Mama!” off mic: Honey you’re all right, you’re all right, you’re all right
[Microphone off]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Who wants to go with their child has a right to go with their child. I think it’s humane. I want to go – I want to see you go, though. I – They can take me and do with me whatever they want to do. I want to see you go. I don’t want to see you go through this hell no more. No more, no more, no more.
Woman 14: Get off my damn seat.
Woman 15: Drink that make you feel good…especially with [Unintelligible].[Variant8]
[Tape edit]
Jones: [Pause] We’re trying. If everybody will relax. The best thing you do is to relax, and you will have no problem. You’ll have no problem with this thing, if you just relax.
[Tape edit]
Man[66]: …[unintelligible] the children here a great deal because of Jim Jones. And the way the children are laying there now, I’d rather see them lay like that than to see them have to die like the Jews did, which was pitiful anyhow
Voice in crowd: That was terrible…suffer?.
Man: And I’d just like to thank Dad for giving us life and also death. And I appreciate the fact the way our children are going. [Screaming boy] Because, like Dad said, when they come in, what they’re gonna do to our children – they’re gonna massacre our children. And also the ones that they take [shhhh!] captured, they’re gonna just let them grow up and be dummies like they want them to be. And not grow up to be a socialist like the one and only Jim Jones.
Crowd: That’s right!
Man: So I’d like – I’d like to thank Dad for the opportunity for letting Jonestown be, not what it could be, [emphatic] but what Jonestown is. Thank you, Dad.
Crowd: [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: …It’s not to be afeared. [Child crying] It is not to be feared. It’s a friend. It’s a friend. [Child crying]
[Tape edit]
Jones: –if you’re sitting there, show your love for one another [children crying, talking].
[Tape edit]
Jones: They just heard they’re coming,[67]don’t let them take him.[68]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Let’s get calm. Let’s get calm. Let’s get calm [children screaming].
Children crying
[Tape edit]
Jones: –to us we had nothing we could do. We can’t– we can’t separate ourselves from our own people.
(Pause, children screaming in anguish. Unintelligible voices, yells)
Man: C’mon, mom! (Overlapping voices and screams) (Recording pause)
[Tape edit]
Jones: For twenty years laying in some old rotten nursing home.
Crowd: Right!
(Microphone off/on)
[Music ghosting]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Taking us through all these anguish years.
Voice in crowd: Oh yeah!
Jones: They took us and put us in chains and that’s nothing. This business – that – that, [stumbles]– there’s no comparison to that, to this (children screaming). They’ve robbed us of our land, and they’ve taken us and driven us until we tried to find ourselves. We tried to find a new beginning. But it’s too late. You can’t separate yourself from your brother and your sister.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: No way I’m going to do it. I wi– I refuse. I don’t know who fired the shot. I don’t know who killed the congressman. But as far as I am concerned, I killed him. You understand what I’m saying? I killed him. He had no business coming. I told him not to come.
Woman 16 [near Jones, possibly Marceline]: That’s right. That’s right…
[Microphone off/on. Long pause follows]
Ghosted music and crying and coughing and screaming and talking
Jones: [Pleading] Die with respect! Die with a degree of dignity! Lay down your life with dignity. (crying and screaming) Don’t lay down with tears and agony. There’s nothing to death. It’s like Mac [Jim McElvane] said, it’s just stepping over into another plane. Don’t – Don’t be this way. Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die.
Crowd: Right!
Jones: No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity.
Crowd: That’s right! Right!
Jones: [Sigh] [Pause]
(coughing and crying)
Jones: Soon we’ll have no choice. Now we have some choice. (crying) Do you think they’re gonna stand – allow this to be done and allow us to get by with this? (Crying)
Jones (off mic): You must be insane.
[Tape edit]
Jones: [Pause] Look children, it’s just something to put you to rest.
[Possible tape edit]
Jones: (Anguished, despairing tone) Oh, God.
Children crying and coughing and a woman screaming. Child says something unintelligible.
[Possible tape edit]
Jones: Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother, please. [Woman yells something hysterically Don’t take my (children?)[69]] Mother, please, please, please. Don’t [screaming] – don’t do this. Don’t do this.
[Tape edit]
Jones: Lay down your life with your child. But don’t do this.
[Blood curdling, hysterical screaming and crying, stirring, sounds like a rush or movement[70] Voices]
[Tape edit]
Voices
Marceline: [Unintelligible; maybe “Volunteering”) all of this to you.[Variant9]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Free at last…. [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Peace. (voices, yelling) Keep your emotions down. Keep your emotions down. (children screaming) Children, it will not hurt. If you’ll be – if you’ll be quiet. If you’ll be quiet.
(2nd mic off)
[Music ghosting, long pause]
Child: No! No! (much screaming)
Jones: It’s never been done before, you say. It’s been done by every tribe in history. [Emphatic] Every tribe facing annihilation.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: All the Indians of the Amazon are doing it right now. They refuse to bring any babies into the world. They kill every child that comes into the world, because they don’t want to live in this kind of a world.
Crowd: That’s right! (screaming, crying)
Jones: So be patient. Be patient. Death is, I tell you, I don’t care how many screams you hear, I don’t care how many anguished cries, (blood curdling screams) death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you – if you knew what was ahead of you, you’d be glad to be stepping over tonight.[71]
(2nd mic off)
Crowd: That’s right. [Applause]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Death, death, death is common to people. And the Eskimos, they take death in their stride. Let’s be dignitif – let’s be dignified. [voices, screaming, yelling] (Reprimands) If you’ll quit tell them they’re dying – if you adults would stop some of this nonsense. Adults! [voices yelling] Adults! Adults! I call on you to stop this nonsense.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: I call on you to quit exciting your children, when all they’re doing is going to a quiet rest.
Crowd: That’s right!
Jones: I call on you to stop this now, if you have any respect at all. Are we black, proud, and socialist, or what are we?
Crowd: Right! Yeah!
Jones: Now stop this nonsense. Don’t carry this on anymore. You’re exciting your children.
Crowd: That’s right!
[Tape edit]
Jones: It’s all over and it’s good.
Crowd: That’s right.
[Tape edit]
Jones: No, no sorrow that it’s all over. I’m glad it’s over.
Crowd: That’s right.
[Tape edit]
Jones: Hurry, hurry, my children. Hurry. All right let us not fall into the hands of the enemy. Hurry, my children. Hurry. There are seniors out here that I’m concerned about. Hurry. I don’t want to leave my seniors to this mess.
[Tape edit]
(Screaming, coughing, yelling, crying) [Pause]
Jones: Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly.
[Tape edit]
Jones: Sisters, good knowing you.
[Tape edit]
Jones: No more pain, Al [Bell, Stahl, Tschetter, Touchette, Simon?].
Crowd: Right!
Jones: No more pain, I said Al. No more pain.
[Voices]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Jim Cobb is laying on the airfield dead at this moment.[72]
Crowd: Enthusiastic applause [Man emphatically yells: “Yeah!]
Jones: Remember the, the [unintelligible voices] – this Oliver[73] woman said she’d come over and kill me if her sons wouldn’ta stop her? These, these are the people[74] – the peddlers of hate. All we’re doing is laying down our life.
[Tape edit]
Jones: We’re not letting them take our life. We’re laying down our life
Crowd: Right!
[Tape edit]
Jones: …not seeking their lives. We just want peace.
[Ghosted music]
[Tape edit]
Billy Oliver: All I would like to say is that my, uhm – my so-called parents[75] is filled with so much hate…
Jones: (Clapping in reprimand, emphatic) Parents, stop this, stop this, stop this, parents! Stop this crying, and hollering!
[Tape edit] (This almost seems like it was placed over Billy Oliver’s comment. Listen to when Billy starts it again, it’s like a tape restarting and the end of hate comes out. Or Billy had his own microphone and he accidentally hit the mute button on the mic, but it still sounds like a restart)
Oliver: …hate and treachery. I think you – you people out here should think about how your relatives was and be glad about, that the childrens are being laid to rest. And all I’d like to say is that I thank Dad for making me strong to stand with it all and make me ready for it.
Crowd: Right! Thank you, Dad.
[Tape edit]
Jones: –talking to them all they’re doing is – All they do is taking a drink to take, to go to sleep. That’s what death is, sleep.
(Screaming and crying)
[Tape edit]
Jones: I’m tired of it. I’m tired of it all.
[Microphone off]
[Tape edit]
Woman 17 (African American): [Most] loving thing we could have ever done, most loving thing all of us could have done, (screaming) and it’s been a pleasure walking with all of you in this revolutionary struggle. (Crying) No other way I would rather go than to give my life for socialism, communism, and I thank Dad very, very much.
Crowd: Yeah (clapping).
[Tape edit]
Woman 18 (Elderly African American): …That Dad’s love and mercy, goodness and kindness, and he bring us to this land of freedom. His love, his mother,[76] was the Advance – the Advance Guard to socialism. And his love and his mercy should go on forever unto the fields of Zion.
[Tape edit]
Jones: Where’s the vat, the vat, the vat? Where’s the vat with the Green Cs eh, C in?
Woman 18: – Go on friends unto the fields of Zion, and thank you, Dad. [Jones and Woman 18 talk over each other]
Woman in crowd [emphatic]: Shhhh! Quiet!
Man in Crowd: Who has that vat?
Jones: …the vat with the green CN– Please? Bring it here so the adults can begin.[77]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Beg you, don’t, don’t fail to follow my advice. You’ll be sorry.
[Tape edit]
Jones: You’ll be sorry.
[Tape edit]
Jones: If we do it, then they do it.
Crowd: That’s right!
[Tape edit]
Jones: You must trust. You have to step across.
[Ghosting music]
Crying
Jones: We used to sing this world was – “This world is not our home”[78] – well, it sure isn’t –
[Tape edit]
Jones: We were saying it sure wasn’t.
Woman 19: That’s right, Dad..
[Tape edit]
Child: I don’t want–
[Tape edit]
Jones: He doesn’t want to – tell him, all he’s doing, if we will tell them, assure these chicken–, can some people assure these children of the relaxation of stepping over to the next plane? We’ve set an example for others. We’ve said – one thousand people who said, we don’t like the way the world is.
Crowd: That’s right!
[Tape edit]
Jones (off mic): Please stop.
[Microphone off]
[Tape edit]
Jones: Take our life from us. We laid it down. We got tired.
Woman 20: Greatest day ever – happy times.
[Tape edit]
Jones: We didn’t commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.
Crowd: Right, right.
Jones: [Groans twice]
[Microphone off]
[Ghosting music and previously recorded radio chatter that is pitched down and playing in reverse. When reversed the name Joe and what sounds like “Joe don’t lie to me” and “over the radio” can be heard.]
(42:42 No more Nov 18 recording on the remaining 100 seconds of tape available with half-speed ghost recording of music.)
Music: Delfonics’s – I’m Sorry, Darrow Fletcher – The Pain Gets a Little Deeper, Jerry Butler – Never Give You Up
Notes
[1] Music ghosts throughout the tape. We will make note of it only when it’s particularly noticeable.
[2] Any time we list tape edit, that could also be a recording pause.
[3] John 10:18.
[5] Matthew 11:12.
[7] Guyana Defense Force/Guyanese.
[9] Concerned Relatives, Ryan Party.
[10] San Francisco Temple members.
[11] Mark Lane & Charles Garry, Temple attorneys.
[12] Lane, Garry, Ryan.
[13] Earlier that afternoon, as Leo Ryan was preparing to depart Jonestown for the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jonestown resident Don Sly/Ujara lunged at him with a knife, bloodying the congressman’s shirt. The attack was a turning point in how Ryan perceived his visit. “It doesn’t change everything, but it changes things,” Ryan told Jones immediately after.
[14] Concerned Relatives, Government
[15] Ryan, journalists, Concerned Relatives.
[16] Ostensibly Soviet Embassy official Feodor Timofeyev, who had visited Jonestown earlier in the year.
[17] At this point in the day 26 people had left Jonestown without Jones’ permission or even knowledge. Two more had been sent away under orders [Herbert Newell and Clifford Gieg]; and three more [Tim and Mike Carter, and Mike Prokes] were preparing to leave at this point under orders. Two more would escape in the next few hours, and two more hid to avoid the ritual.
[18] Jones refers to Larry Layton and his defector sister Debbie Layton Blakey. Their mother Lisa Layton died of cancer in Jonestown three weeks earlier, on Oct 30. Jones said that Debbie’s defection interfered with his miraculous ability to hold off Lisa’s cancer.
[19] Jones is apparently alluding to reincarnation.
[20] There is no evidence that any such call “to Russia” was attempted.
[21] According to Hue Fortson in a deleted scene for the documentary Jonestown Paradise Lost, Jones once pointed his pistol at Miller’s head for standing up to him, and she challenged him to shoot her. This occurred in California, before the migration to Jonestown.
[22] I Will Fight No More Forever. Videotape was recovered in Jonestown by the FBI.
[23] Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.
[24] Chief of Peoples Temple security in San Francisco. Arrived in Jonestown only 2 days earlier.
[25] Identified by eyewitness survivors Odell Rhodes & Stanley Clayton.
[26] 1 Corinthians 15:8
[27] This and the preceding pause and ensuing comments suggests the crowd was growing restless toward Miller.
[28] Not that he was being serious, but is he referring to Carolyn Layton? Harriet Tropp? Marceline Jones? Maria Katsaris? Who else worked the Radio? Or Sharon Amos in Georgetown? Tom Adams was operating radio in San Francisco and Mike Carter in Jonestown, at least up to a point.
[29] Possibly Marceline Jones. It is definitely a white midwestern accent.
[30] This comment out of context doesn’t seem to make sense. We believe the crowd was on the verge of acting against Miller and Johnny Brown Jones and Jim Jones are attempting to avoid a complete breakdown of order.
[31] African American spiritual song.
[32] John Victor Stoen, son of defectors Grace and Tim Stoen, but probably sired by Jones.
[33] Jim Jon “Kimo” Prokes was JJ’s son by his mistress and powerful lieutenant Carolyn Moore Layton, who helped plan the mass poisoning.
[34] In fact, about the same number of African Americans and whites left, albeit without Jones’ knowledge: Besides Monica Bagby, who left with the Ryan Party, Leslie Wagner Wilson, Jakari Wilson, Diane Louie Clark, Richard Clark, Robert Paul, Johnny Franklin, Julius, Sandra, Sonya, Shirelle, and Sharla Evans escaped into the jungle that morning; and Grover Davis and Hyacinth Thrash would feign death, while Odell Rhodes and Stanley Clayton would escape in the next minutes/hours. Whites leaving with the Ryan Party were: Edith, Gerald, Patricia, Dale, Brenda, and Tracy Parks; Chris O’Neal; Jim, Edith, Teena, Juanita, and Tommy Bogue; Harold Cordell; and Vernon Gosney (along with Larry Layton who was apparently sent by Jones). Mike Carter, Tim Carter, and Mike Prokes were sent away by Maria Katsaris and Clifford Gieg had been sent away that morning on the Cudjoe with Herbert Newell, who is African American.
[35] Again referencing 1 Corinthians 15:8
[36] Possibly Tinetra Fain. Sounds very much like her from tape Q807.
[37] 20:05 Evidently the truck and/or tractor has just arrived back from Port Kaituma with the shooters. Odell Rhodes said security chief Johnny Brown Jones approached Jones with news of the airstrip shooting [Feinsod, Ethan. Awake in a Nightmare (W.W. Norton: 1981), 195.] The next minute of the tape records pandemonium apparently caused by 1) the shooting news and 2) the beginning of the poisonings.
[38] Richard Dwyer, US Embassy Official. Dwyer was Deputy Chief of Mission and accompanied Rep. Ryan to Jonestown. Dwyer was not considered a Peoples Temple enemy, presumably because jurisdiction rules and U.S. privacy laws sharply limited how much he could help the Concerned Relatives. He was spared from execution at the airstrip even though he was lying right next to Ryan, who received a point blank coup de grace shot. Dwyer had planned to return to Jonestown from the airstrip, to ensure the arrest of Don Sly and to protect further defectors like Al Simon’s family. After the airstrip shooting he of course did not return to Jonestown and instead called in the Guyana Defence Force.
[39] Audio comparison from Q734 compares favorably. Could also be an African American female with some authority.
[40] San Francisco? Was Los Angeles Temple still extant?
[41] This is at 20:47. This woman has an Appalachian/Ohio River Valley accent.
[42] Probably Johnny Brown Jones, according to Odell Rhodes’ testimony.
[43] Stanley Gieg was the driver of the tractor.
[44] We believe the Carol could refer to Carol McCoy whose partner Ellihue Dennis was a tractor driver in Jonestown and had driven the tractor to Port Kaituma on November 17.
[45] Don Sly aka Ujara was guarding visiting Peoples Temple lawyers Mark Lane and Charles Garry, while waiting to be ordered back to the pavilion for the revolutionary suicide, which is now starting.
[46] One possible theory is that Jones doesn’t see Dwyer. He doesn’t confuse him with Charles Garry as logically posited here; he simply thought Dwyer would be coming back as he said he would. However, that begs the question, did he – or Johnny Jones or Jim McElvane – specifically instruct the airstrip shooters to not harm Dwyer? He was wounded, though not seriously. Otherwise, wouldn’t he have expected the shooters to take out everyone?
One confusing factor is that Tim Carter – who was present at the time – told Shannon Howard that Jones thought Dwyer was coming back on the tractor, but that Marceline, who could see the returning tractor from her vantage point, told Jones that only “our people” were on it. Does this mean that Jones thought the plane was coming down out of the sky – as opposed to what actually happened – or that he knew people were shot and believed Dwyer had returned anyway?
In the final analysis, we don’t know for sure what Jones was thinking when he made the remark.
[47] This is the first evidence of poisoning on the tape. Ruletta Brown Paul (24) went first, poisoning her 18-month-old son Robert Paul Jr (no photo) and then herself. Ruletta’s husband Robert Paul was one of the eleven who had quietly escaped into the jungle that morning. The second woman to poison herself and her one-year-old son Deron was “Michelle Wilson” i.e. Michelle Wagner Fitch (24), sister of Leslie Wagner-Wilson who had also escaped that morning with her own young son. Ruletta and Michelle may have volunteered early out of despair or shame over these family defections.
[48] Stanley Clayton said that one of the returning “Red Brigade” whispered in Jones’ ear the news about the congressman being dead. One source says it was Tom Kice, another says Bob Kice.
[49] Jones admired the Red Brigades, a communist terrorist group that murdered Italian Prime Minister Moro six months earlier. Jones had contingency plans to kidnap U.S. politicians if Jones were jailed. Jonestown security was known as the Red Brigade.
[50] This could be the woman in the next sentence.
[51] Patty Chaffin Parks (44) was ironically the most reluctant November 18 defector. Her mother-in-law Edith Parks had joined Peoples Temple 20 years earlier in Indiana. Edith’s grandson Dale and Dale’s wife Joyce worked in the Jonestown medical clinic. Joyce was away in Caracas, Venezuela, but the rest of the Parks family escaped as defectors on November 18. It’s unclear how Jones’ informant knows Patty was dead. Her body was still on the locked Twin Otter when the shooters left the airstrip. It’s possible her assassin saw his through-the-window head shot find its mark. Or, the shooters could be making a random unsubstantiated claim, as they did for Jim Cobb.
[52] Jackie Speier in fact was not dead, but was severely wounded.
[53] Only Patty Parks was killed. Vernon Gosney, Monica Bagby, and Tommy and Teena Bogue were wounded.
[54] The five killed were Ryan, Patty Parks, NBC’s correspondent Don Harris, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and NBC cameraman Bob Brown. Besides the aforementioned wounded, Richard Dwyer, Beverly Oliver, Anthony Katsaris, NBC sound man Steve Sung, San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman, The Washington Post Latin America correspondent Charles Krause, and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Ron Javers were also wounded.
[55] Ted Holliday was not in Jonestown but was the son of Mary “Ruby” Johnson Rodgers and brother of Poncho Johnson and Irra Jean Johnson. It certainly sounds like the person in the crowd says “Ted Holliday,” but he was an adult back at the San Francisco Temple. Thus Ruby is asking that Ted back in California be poisoned too. She does not mention her oldest son Bennett Rodgers, perhaps because he was not in Peoples Temple.
[56] Mary “Ruby” Rodgers apparently believed in the divinity of Jones.
[57] We believe this may be Don Casanova Sheid.
[58] Wesley Breidenbach was one of the airstrip shooters. At the end of the airstrip were four Guyanese Defense Forces soldiers guarding a disabled GDF plane. They stood by during the shooting, explaining later that Americans shooting Americans was not their problem.
[59] Possibly Maria Katsaris.
[60] Is this about finishing all poisoning before the GDF arrives from Matthews Ridge? Or perhaps a deadline for Marceline’s sons in Georgetown to begin their revenge and suicide assignments?
[61] Likely Joyce Touchette. Other candidates are Sharon Cobb, Marceline Jones, or Judy Ijames. Joyce Touchette and Marceline Jones had similar voices based on Touchette’s voice on Q599.
[62] Again, likely Joyce Touchette, who is named by Stanley Clayton as helping mix the poison and helping administer it.
[63] Annie McGowan was the signatory on several PT financial accounts. She needs to sign off on them. She was an elderly woman to whom Peoples Temple bank accounts were transferred after the 1978 defections of Temple financial secretaries Debbie Layton and Terri Buford. Katsaris and McGowan signed letters leaving PT funds to the Soviet embassy, and Katsaris gave cash and the letters in 3 suitcases to Michael Prokes and Tim and Mike Carter to carry out of JT.
[64] Attorneys Mark Lane and Charles Garry had already been released a few minutes earlier, soon after Don Sly was fetched from guarding them around at 21m00s on the tape.
[65] Irene Edwards (57) and her husband James “Reb” were devoted Temple members originally from the Gulf Coast. Reb could be seen working at the guard shack on the morning of the 18th and talking with Beverly Oliver in the NBC footage when the truck came back from Port Kaituma.
[66] This man sounds similar to a man at 23:40 on side two of tape Q734, but he is unidentified there as well.
[67] GDF, US troops. Evidently he’s saying the radio just heard they’re on the way.
[68] John Victor Stoen.
[69] This woman sounds very much like Bonnie Simon, who that afternoon yelled “Don’t you take my kids!” when her husband tried to take their kids with Ryan. The entire Simon family stayed and died.
[70] Some accounts have guards manhandling Marceline as she protests and Poncho Johnson, her personal bodyguard coming to her aid, fighting off the guards, and saying something to the effect of “you can’t treat Mother this way.” Jones then admonished him and told him to drink the potion. Poncho stood at attention and drank it immediately and then Marceline, resigned to her and everyone else’s fate did the same. This incident on the audio sounds as if it’s possible here, at least the act of drinking it, and almost like it’s a toast to Jones by saying “…all of this to you.” It seems the first mention of the story in a book is Kenneth Wooden’s The Children of Jonestown as reported by Stanley Clayton to the author. There is no further source information. Supposedly, this information was told to Stephan Jones by someone who witnessed it (would have to be Clayton, Odell Rhodes, or Tim Carter). The story seems dubious to us due to other circumstantial evidence and accounts and the fact that the context here is not conclusive, though it’s possible much of the incident was not recorded as there is an edit/mic on/off here.
[71] This is a clue that we are past sundown.
[72] In fact, Concerned Relative Jim Cobb, one of the “8 Revolutionaries” from 1973, was physically uninjured in the airstrip attack. Cobb’s family joined Peoples Temple in Indiana in the 1950s. Cobb lost his mother, brother, and three sisters on November 18. None of the four visiting Concerned Relatives were able to persuade any relatives to leave.
[73] Beverly Oliver, former member of Peoples Temple during the San Francisco era. Member of Ryan Party/Concerned Relatives, and mother of Bruce and William “Billy” Oliver who had just visited with her sons hours before. She was shot in both feet during the Port Kaituma shootings.
[74] Concerned Relatives.
[75] Howard & Beverly Oliver. Beverly made the trip to Jonestown while Howard remained in Georgetown. Howard suffered a stroke after hearing of the deaths of his sons and his wife’s wounding at the airstrip.
[77] We are unsure if Jones is saying green C in or green CN, which is the elemental sign for cyanide.
[78] “This World Is Not My Home.”
Variants
[Variant 1] “I said Hold them close, and die, we die distinguished” [JXT]; Mary Johnson: (Unintelligible) …in time, we die anyway! [BH]
[Variant 2] “Mary Johnson.” [BH]
[Variant 3] “I’m tired of this shit.” [JXT]
[Variant 4] “Bob Carroll…Then move your security” [JXT]; Woman [Marceline?]: Bob, Carl[?], Wesley (driving? brought?) truck, they must be security people.
[Variant 5] Woman 7 (younger, African American female frantic, pleading): Now! Do it now! [SH]; Now! Shoot them [`em] now! [AW, SH]
[Variant 6] Angry Woman: They did it themselves! (Voice: “That’s right!”) They did it! They’ve given up our right to yourselves here. [BH]; Woman 9 (younger, African-American): They did it theirself! (That’s right!) They did it! (Unintelligible “[they] had no right,” “you be worried [about?]”). [BH]; They’ve given up the right to get themselves killed. [SH]
[Variant 7] He is the only god. [JXT]
[Variant 8] Black women’s voices: –make it a quick death, especially if– [BH]
[Variant 9] children out of the SCU [BH]; We’re doing all of this for you. [JXT]