[Editor’s note: This article is part of a special report by the November 18 Project. The table of contents for the report is here.]
I’ve always had an interest in the Jonestown tragedy. I was five years old when it happened and remember the sensationalized news coverage. Over the years I’ve done quite a bit of reading, research, and consumption of media regarding the event. Several years ago while browsing YouTube for Jonestown news coverage, I came across the footage shot by NBC cameraman Bob Brown during Congressman Leo Ryan’s visit to Jonestown. The images were certainly compelling, giving off a surreal, almost found-footage quality. While watching, I wondered who were the people in the footage, besides Jim Jones and those in Ryan’s delegation.
Using the “Who Died” section of this website, I tried to match people I spotted with those listed, and to make corrections where they were needed. For example, I was particularly intrigued by the emcee of the November 17th entertainment. At least one source – Peoples Temple attorney Mark Lane – claimed the emcee was Garry Dartez “Poncho” Johnson, but after some study, I was able to identify him as Greg “J.J. Tumbles” Watkins. That led me down a rabbit hole, so to speak, of trying to identify more and more people.
I started studying the footage and the photos on the Jonestown Institute website, the Peoples Temple Flickr account, the California Historical Society digital archive, and anywhere else I could find in an attempt to identify people. I would also seek out groups on Facebook to see if others had identified people I had not. I reached out to Shannon Howard, the host of Transmissions from Jonestown and we began corresponding and working on trying to identify people and a few other projects. She shared the extended NBC footage with me, which includes more footage from November 17, and I was able to identify a few more people from that. I was able to get some more leads from Fielding McGehee directly and some survivors and former members, both directly and indirectly. Through Shannon, I met Joel X. Thomas and Brian Holtz, who have helped us identify others we were unable to. In 2023, McGehee asked us to come up with a “definitive” timeline of events, a transcript of Q042, and identification of individuals on the NBC footage. While we will probably never be able to identify everyone seen, we have identified many.
Synopsis
[Editor’s note: A more detailed shot-by-shot analysis of this footage by Adrian Whicker, Shannon Howard, Joel X. Thomas, and Brian Holtz appears here.]
The footage begins with Congressman Leo Ryan’s delegation arriving at Timehri International Airport in Georgetown, Guyana, on November 17th, 1978. The group appears to be in generally good spirits, but there is definitely an air of tension and anxiety on the part of some of the Concerned Relatives. The group then boards the plane, and there is some footage of the flight to Port Kaituma – including a flyover of Jonestown.
Upon landing, the group is met by a delegation of local Guyanese officials and some Peoples Temple representatives. After a period of negotiation – some accounts say it was as long as three hours – Congressman Ryan and the rest of his delegation are finally allowed to enter Jonestown. Only Gordon Lindsay, a British freelance journalist who is known to be working on an article for the tabloid National Enquirer, is denied entry, and he is forced to fly back to Georgetown.
Once the group arrives in Jonestown, members of the Concerned Relatives are finally able to meet with their family members who live there. That night, the Jonestown community meets at the pavilion for a performance of music and dance, featuring the Jonestown Express, and spirits run high, both among residents and the congressional delegation. Congressman Ryan is invited to give a speech to the community, which is greeted with a roar of applause. Meanwhile, in a conversation with the press correspondents, Jim Jones boasts of his physical similarities to the young John Victor Stoen, the son of former Peoples Temple member Grace Stoen and the subject of a contentious paternity battle between Jim Jones and Tim Stoen.
After the evening’s entertainment – but off-camera – the entire Ryan party returns to Port Kaituma to spend the night. The congressman’s original plan apparently was to fly back to Georgetown the next day, but reporters and the NBC camera crew complain that the delays caused by the negotiations to enter Jonestown precluded then from interviewing residents and getting shooting footage during the daylight. The Jonestown leadership agrees to let the delegation return the next day.
Upon their arrival in Jonestown on November 18 around 11 am, the journalists accompany Marceline Jones and several other residents on a tour of the settlement. Around noon, tension engulfs the settlement when the Parks family – longtime members of Peoples Temple – announces their desire to leave Jonestown with Congressman Ryan. NBC correspondent Don Harris proceeds to interview the Cobb, Houston, and Katsaris families, while the other journalists make a break toward the Jane Pittman Gardens dormitory to investigate concerns of overcrowded living conditions. There is a sense of dread on many faces around the pavilion. Tension is felt around the compound illustrated by a distant person running along the walkway, an agitated man who appears to be looking for others at the dispatch office, and a person bent over in exasperation on the walkway.
Jones pleads with the Parks family to stay. Soon after, Don Harris confronts Jones in a hostile interview, further escalating tensions. A massive storm blows through, raising concerns and forcing everyone into tight quarters. Members of the Bogue and Simon families then announce their intention to leave. Eventually, the Ryan delegation and the defectors move toward the truck to depart. Marceline Jones calls for Bonnie Simon, who screams out in anguish as her husband and father-in-law attempt to leave with her children. The Ryan Party and defectors board the truck, as does Larry Layton, who is posing as a defector. Jones consults with his lieutenants and attorneys as the truck driver backs the truck into a ditch.
At that point, there is an off-camera knife attack on Leo Ryan, which bloodies his shirt. Differing accounts say the blood was Ryan’s, while others say it was that of his assailant, Don “Ujara” Sly. Following the attack – and back on camera – Ryan and others walk towards the truck. The truck meanders toward the Temple gate. Ryan’s party unloads from the truck in Port Kaituma and Don Harris does a brief interview with Ryan. As the Ryan Party is waiting to board the planes, a Temple tractor can be seen arriving in the background, and a few Temple members approach and begin questioning members of the Ryan Party and shooing away the Guyanese onlookers.
After boarding begins, we see the brief footage of the airstrip shooting.
(Adrian Whicker is a researcher and librarian with masters degrees library science and American history with a focus on 1960s and 1970s American cultural and political history. His contributions for the jonestown report and tape transcripts may be found here. He may be reached at adrianwhicker@gmail.com.)