In December 1978, the government of Guyana held a six-day inquest into the deaths of Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones and more than 900 of his followers who died the previous month in Jonestown. This PDF is a transcript of that inquest.
The transcript includes testimony from Guyana’s Assistant Commissioner of Crime, C.A. “Skip” Roberts; Guyana’s chief pathologist Dr. Leslie Mootoo; several local Guyanese government and police officials; Jonestown survivors Odell Rhodes, Stanley Clayton, Tim Carter, Mike Carter, and Mike Prokes; and Temple member Herbert Newell.
The document concludes with a one-page finding of the coroner’s jury that Jones “and persons unknown” were responsible for the deaths in Jonestown. The jury also named only two people – Ann Elizabeth Moore, who died of a gunshot wound, and Maria Katsaris who “drank the brew” – as suicide victims.
This is the best available copy of this document. The blacked-out deletions were made by the FBI but are being challenged in litigation. There are also two pages missing from the original.
Guyana Inquest, RYMUR 89-4286-1840, pp. 5-51.
PDF
Text