An UN-Investigated Crime Scene
I want to reiterate up front, with no provisos or qualifications, that this was an UN-investigated crime scene. Even the airstrip survivors’ accounts to the FBI were in an unsworn, third-person interview format, not party to any legal proceeding.
However, it was also a FILMED crime scene. Filmed by Bob Brown, the brave, persistent cameraman from NBC who was killed on site. A film which is so damning to the official story, that it is possible to reconstruct who it wasn’t (namely not “Temple killers”) with certainty from even from the first 5-6 seconds of the film that finally resurfaced decades later on. (See “There Was No Bob Kice.”)
Understand also, that a mandate for ANY crime, much less the assassination of a Congressman(!), would be to show the filmed crime scene to the victims for positive i.d.‘s of the killers. The smallest small-town sheriff would know to do that. Then why not the FBI?
No Viable Eyewitnesses
That was never done PERIOD. Instead, the FBI’s so-called “eyewitness report” sports such rampant contradictions, that the FBI itself named NO ONE from Peoples Temple as the killer of the Congressman. Just twelve possible “candidates” and no proven (or provable!) guilt for ANYONE on their list! (See “Eyewitness Identifications?: The FBI Report Versus the On-Site NBC Film Footage.”)
Indeed, in reading through the 417-page FBI report, one cannot fail to note that the accounts were all different and with NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
Yes, the Temple defectors saw Temple men on the airstrip. They saw Temple men prior to the attack. They may have even seen them after. They had driven the Congressman’s party to the airstrip, so where else would they be?!
However, only ONE claimed to have seen Temple killers in the act of killing. (As in, “I saw _____ shoot ______”.) The rest were falling, fleeing, hiding under plane seats, or simply listed names with contradictory specifics (re accused assassins, time sequence, locations, vehicles) in a mix-and-match hodge-podge.
The reporters did not know the Temple men at all; nor did any of them claim to see ANY Temple man in the act of killing!
But one defector did identify Temple killers? Isn’t one enough? “The government eyewitness,” as the Congressional committee told me personally?
Well, no. Not this one. The only eyewitness who claimed to have seen Temple men in the act of killing, would have had to (as we will demonstrate) see the killings THROUGH THE BODY OF A PLANE!!
Literally! Provably! “The Government Eyewitness” had no line of vision!!
So Whose Accounts Are We Looking At Now?
Now it has come down to this: No, not Laurie Efrein Kahalas against the world’s judgment of what happened. Not at all. It’s come down to the NBC film footage against the account of prime reporter on the scene, Pulitzer-prize-winning Tim Reiterman.
The latter of whom, I would emphasize, did NOT intentionally mislead, nor have I ever said so. But yes, he was provably mistaken.
Nor is “versus” (“Tim Reiterman Versus NBC”) meant to imply any adversarial relationship between Mr. Reiterman and NBC. It is their respective evidence that is irreconcilable.
Just remember, it’s NBC versus Reiterman. That’s what this finally comes down to.
The Process of Discovery
Nor did I start at this point myself back in 1978. Hardly!
Oh, I knew from 1979 on that it wasn’t “Temple killers.” When I saw the ENTIRETY of the NBC on-site assassination film footage on t.v. at the first anniversary in 1979. (For the record, prior to that viewing, I too believed the story about “Temple killers.” I had no reason to believe otherwise. It was the film and the film alone that changed my mind.)
I saw the NBC film footage along with two others:
One was an Army veteran (now deceased) who identified a squad diamond, the standard trained military formation that was used in the attack. (See ”DURING: Tracking the Footwork,“ revealing the squad diamond.) The other was a fellow Temple survivor who peered at the screen and could recognize no one. (See “There Was No Bob Kice,” visually discounting all the main accuseds.)
Good enough at the time for “proof?” Well, perhaps, could I have recorded it. But we did not even have VCR recording options yet, much less modern DVR’s.
But good enough to know? Yes. That it was a professional military hit was horrifyingly clear. There was no chance that ANY non-military group could have pulled this off. This was no chance that this attack was done ad hoc or by untrained vigilantes.
(Note: Both American and Guyanese authorities confirmed that there was NO arms cache in Jonestown — just 39 small weapons — barely enough to support hunting, much less to defend 1200 men, women and children.)
Nor could I obtain the footage then. I was so harassed after I went to D.C. to demand that the Congressional committee blow up the film for correct i.d.’s, that I was frozen in space. I was tailed, tapped, garbage-raided, phone-harassed, mail-blocked– they even harassed my mother. Apparently, “the real crime” was not federal suppression of evidence, but rather a citizen’s anguished inquiry.
So I waited. I did later talk to Steven Reiner, a producer at CBS who did a special marking the tenth anniversary in 1988, which only showed a near-empty pre-departure airstrip. I went to see him in New York and he said that NBC said that that was all they had. That’s what NBC had told CBS at the tenth anniversary.
I continued to wait. Then I called NBC myself in 1998 at the 20th anniversary. They said that NBC had NONE of the assassination scene in their archives. That’s what NBC claimed at the twentieth anniversary.
Then came the retrospective publicity starting in 2005. In late 2006, I obtained a scarce (but highly revealing!) 5-6 seconds of the beginning of the assassination, followed upon by extra NBC footage generally not aired — considered less important, not of value. Yet in fact brimming with vital clues!
By the time I published my book “Snake Dance,” however, at the 20th anniversary in 1998, I had already realized that a key discrepancy was THE VEHICLES. Because the final tape featured just “the truck” — i.e. all that was ever conveyed to Jim Jones — that the attack had allegedly been launched from the Temple truck. Yet reporters’ accounts said that a tractor-trailer had pulled past the truck to launch the attack.
Thus the attack came from a different VEHICLE than what was believed at Jonestown.
Yet that was still thin to go on. I did not even have film footage to back up that much. Not by 1998. Nor might that single discrepancy “cut it” for people. I mean the Temple did have both a truck and a tractor-trailer. Misidentification of a vehicle alone would not have necessarily ruled Peoples Temple out.
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Moreover, I thought that the on-site assassination footage might never resurface. I feared that it had been confiscated.
Thus was I amazed that any on-site proof from NBC did emerge at a later date.
Then the proofs in earnest could finally begin. . . . .
Not Just a Different Vehicle, But An Additional Vehicle on the Airfield
First noted was that it was not an additional Temple vehicle that had been misidentified as carrying the assassins, but an entirely different vehicle! On the surface, a seeming duplicate of the Temple tractor-trailer; but upon closer look, a vehicle not even designed for use on a farm. (See, “The Vehicle Used in the Attack: The Tractor.”)
It was rather designed for military camouflage: No driver’s inset! No elevated steering wheel! No visible driver! Based upon the model of the farm vehicle at Jonestown (a Massey Ferguson tractor, the only one there), but not a farm vehicle at all. (How can you plough a field that you cannot SEE?)
Those proofs are clear. They are already published. A different tractor, a different trailer — even visibly different assassins! (See “The Vehicle Used in the Attack: The Tractor”; “The Vehicle Used in the Attack: The Trailer”; and “There Was No Bob Kice,” respectively.)
Professional Logistics and Execution
There were also planned, practiced, rehearsed logistics for this attack, performed impeccably by military pros. This was hardly the work of amateurs, vigilantes or any ad hoc team.
The requirements for and the execution of this professional hit are revealed in “DURING: The Operational Specs” and “DURING: Tracking the Footwork,” along with step-by-step sequenced moves taken from the film footage itself.
And yes, we do see the squad diamond as well. It was not just the Army veteran sitting next to me in 1979 who spotted the formation, but it is now proven to have been there. (See “DURING: Tracking the Footwork”)
Who Had the Motive?
But didn’t the cultists want the Congressman dead? Well, perhaps some did. Larry Layton apparently did. The rest is assumptions and surmisals. Even Layton could not see the attackers (see panel [6]), much less identify them, much less coordinate with them.
But then again, all anyone ever suggested of the Temple men anyway was a handful of hotheads — hardly a team of military commandos!
(Note: Jim Jones did personally issue seven denials of having “ordered” the hit on the final tape. Nor did anyone hear him “order” the hit. Leaving that particular claim with no proof ever at any time by anyone.)
Meanwhile, if any other party had motive (like the CIA?), that observation hardly originated with me. It was well-known at the time that Congressman Leo Ryan was the leading Congressional nemesis for the CIA. As for example, the Hughes-Ryan Amendment to the Foreign Relations Act of 1974, all but barring CIA “black ops.”
Oh, People Temple itself, isolated in a jungle with no research tools, did not know that; but it was widely known. What was less known, yet sheer common sense (i.e., not just paranoia on the part of an admittedly-crazed leader), was that the Temple was also in the sites of the CIA. For its far-left stance which had garnered acclaim in the States, its budding ties to both Castro’s Cuba and the then-USSR, and with a plan to re-relocate to the latter in the middle of the Cold War!
A perfect set-up for a “kill two birds with one stone” frame. Kill the Congressman, frame it on “the cult crazies,” then HOPE that the crazed leader offs his own.
And with the media stacked against the Temple prior to the Congressional visit at all. Then the crime scene set in the deep dark jungle where no one would even investigate.
But speaking of horror stories, is that not terrible as well? Did America deserve that? Does a United States government agency get to just kill a United States Congressman with impunity? Make the cost of Ryan opposing their “black ops,” the pulling off of a “black ops” to assassinate him?
(See “BEFORE: Preplanning the Frame,” panel [1] to verify the basis for CIA enmity towards the Congressman and the cult leader BOTH.)
The Telltale Advance Step
Note (nor have I ever claimed that), the CIA had no direct role in the deaths by poison at Jonestown. Their role was an indirect one of a) provoking it with the assassination; b) barring needed rescue to the area for twenty hours (for what was a one-hour flight in) pending confirmation of the mass deaths, as per their own log [see “THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH: Barring Entry and Precluding Investigation”]; and c) leaving open what might have happened if the community had NOT offed itself, but instead became “a thousand alibis.”
Bad enough. Yet whatever evil wing nuts in the CIA concocted the assassination plot, it was such an unexpected twist (the public having no clue, with the cultists, defectors, reporters and Congressman clueless as well!) that it fosters incredulity as much as the mass deaths as Jonestown once did.
Well, let’s make this real by filling in a prerequisite step that was hidden at the time:
O.k. It’s a given that key evidentiary proof would be to establish that there were TWO TRACTOR-TRAILERS on the airstrip: one from Jonestown; the other a duplicate — a mind-blowing twist, yes ; but now to be “nailed“ by the combination of the Reiterman schematic and the NBC film footage.
But how to produce a duplicate of an exact vehicle from a remote setting? Someone had to have been there, to have located which vehicle to use for the ruse (namely, how was I driven back and forth to the airstrip?) and to photograph it.
That’s the lynchpin to ground the fantastical claim of “frame by duplication” into reality.
Well, Jonestown had a lot of visitors, nearly always supportive. But there was one suspicious visit just two months prior to the tragedy by a known adversary, one Joseph Mazor, who at the time was both a P.I. (have camera, will travel!) and also expressed interest in making a film about Jonestown (again, have camera, will travel!)
It’s impossible to imagine that Mazor did NOT take photographs in Jonestown, so that is one “mystery solved.” That story has been detailed at length in the section, “BEFORE: Preplanning the Frame.”
Now onto the current proof, “The Master Schematic: Tim Reiterman Versus NBC.”
The Impeccability of Sources
Regrettably I have discovered that whatever the caliber of proofs, people tend not to look. However objective, detailed and complete they may be.
Look. A court of lawwould need look at proofs for objectivity and detail. But not people. They generally do NOT in this heavily loaded subject.
People look more at sources. Who is saying it? Or can we just skip the proofs and impute their motives? They knew the people who died? Then maybe they are making a case “for other reasons,” seeding suspicion before proofs are examined at all.
Especially if there is any other reason to try and discount evidence. Like, let’s say, an aged film with blurred outlines. (Though that’s not dispositive when there is either comparative footage — like something supposedly the same that visibly isn’t; or sequenced footage, such as tracking soldiers’ footwork step by step.) I sometimes get that objection even though tellingly, there are never any alternatives offered! Like someone in the back of a room saying “I can’t see!,” then refusing to move to the front and just LOOK.
But we’re past that now. This particular section highlights NON-credibility for any factors other than material evidence. Like writing off the investigator with no look at the investigation; not looking, then saying “I can’t see!”; citing improbability as a disclaimer up front; everyone claims the opposite so what’s wrong with her, etc.
And why is this section, especially, past all those subjective bars to discovery? Because a) the proofs in this section are free of any technical factors relating to the age, quality and/or visibility of the film footage; b) because the two respective sources are considered the most historically credible; and c) the two respective accounts 1) jointly confirm that there were TWO tractor-trailers on the airstrip (Jonestown had only one such vehicle — not in dispute); and 2) are in an irreconcilable clash!
Oh, I’m the researcher, yes, but I’m “out of” this particular disparity. It is based purely in the two MOST UNIMPEACHABLE sources available: Namely the NBC film footage and prime reporter on-site, Tim Reiterman. Jointly, it is they who starkly re-open the window onto this iconic story.
And It’s Still Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Yet prior to revealing the proof proper, there is one more step needed. Designed to hopefully strip away the extreme prejudice (and understandably so!) regarding this event. To the degree that no one has ever even examined what was “in plain sight”:
There are reasons that conventional jury selection disqualifies potential jurors already bombarded by prejudicial publicity. Despite that yes, tons of people tried are indeed guilty. And yes, a defense attorney wants to weed out anyone who would automatically convict their client, even if that client is guilty as sin.
That all seems obvious, yet there is also a profound grounding in American law of “innocent until proven guilty” — one completely thrown by the boards with Jonestown. It’s partly to protect against lynch mobs; or having rumor mills putting people away, or “they committed one crime so they had to have committed the other”; or maintaining that “evidence doesn’t matter” — that “everyone knows” what happened so why look at evidence at all.
With Jonestown all the more so, as the story is iconic. So let us first level out the playing field, then move on to the evidence:
What It Takes To Dislodge An Iconic Story
We all know what iconic stories are. JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald. 9-1-1 and Al Qaeda. Jonestown and kool-aid.
Well, at least the first two had commissions charged with deciphering the crime. The third, Jonestown, never even had that much. It’s just that this subject has been fortressed with seemingly untouchable impediments:
First: It’s a unique tale of, apparently, “Siamese twins”: 1) murder; 2) suicide = “bizarre murder-suicide ritual.”
Thus the presumption that whoever caused the deaths at Jonestown (namely Jim Jones) must have caused the deaths at the airstrip which preceded them as well. Can’t have one without the other so why even look at proof.
Second: It involved the deaths of children. So we recoil at giving a killer of children ANY “free pass” on the killing of the Congressman. “Guilty or innocent” is discounted up front. If this man (Jim Jones) or those people (the people of Jonestown) killed children, then what was the Congressman to them?
Thus the presumption that “They must have killed him, too“!
Third: The presumption that “Jim Jones ordered” [the killing of the Congressman.]
The problem there is not just the seven denials direct from Jim Jones on the final tape(!):
“1) “I didn’t order the shooting”;
2) “I don’t know who shot the Congressman.”;
3) “I can’t control these people [who did].”;
4) “I waited against all evidence… I tried to prevent all this from
happening.”;
5) “I wish I could call it back.”;
6) “I never wanted to kill anybody.”;
7) “How many are dead?… Oh, God Almighty, God help them…”
Added to this, no one heard Jim Jones “ordering” the airstrip shootings at all. Not anyone who was there and then escaped. Not Stanley Clayton, not Odell Rhodes, not Tim Carter. No one.
Fourth: The fourth iconic objection is “But everyone says…” I mean, weren’t all these people “there”?
Thus, the presumption that how could all those eyewitnesses at the airstrip possibly be wrong? Even though their unquestioned testimonies are a contradictory hodge-podge (See “The FBI Report Versus the On-Site NBC Film Footage”); and worse still, we will now reveal what each could or could not SEE.
Fifth: The fifth iconic objection is “Didn’t Jim Jones take responsibility?” (I.e., that members of his group did it. He was not personally at the airstrip.)
Except that no one has scoured that tape for what Jim Jones said. He was not at the airstrip himself. It is clear from the tape that he was told by others that the Congressman was dead: “I don’t know who shot the Congressman.“ It is clear that he doesn’t know.
In fact, the only one he suggests had access to a gun and was threatening to off the Congressman was Larry Layton, who was at the smaller plane, not the larger one to be carrying the Congressman; nor was Larry with the group of gunmen who attacked the larger plane at all!
All Jim Jones knew was “the truck” and “a gun.” Not a tractor-trailer and six gunmen! He got the story third-hand from debriefers (third-hand) who talked to the returning men from the airstrip (second-hand) who saw that the killings had happened (the killers being “first-hand.”).
Note, there is no evidence to even suggest that the returning men from the airstrip saw the killings with their own eyes. (See proofs to come.) They were just reporting on carnage viewed after the fact, after the killers had fled up-runway — not giving the identity of killers for a crime that they, the Temple men, could not even SEE because it was “around the bend“ (i.e., blocked by the body of the plane.)
Jones then took responsibility in panic, fear, and the presumption of a retaliatory military strike. He obviously did not know how the shootings happened, much less who had fired the fatal shots!
Sixth: “Why would someone take responsibility for what they did NOT do?” Well, this was actually worse: That a community of a thousand people would self-destruct based on buying into their own frame seems too incredible a twist. Yet there is every evidentiary reason to conclude that and no evidentiary reason to conclude otherwise.
But why? Who would do that to themselves? Well, the answers are as shocking as they are simple:
They themselves did not investigate. They were no known intruders into the area. And the vehicle that whizzed by the Temple men on its way to the attack looked like the Jonestown tractor-trailer.
But more, that anyone else might have had it in the Congressman was not on their radar. They thought the CIA had it in for them — for their far-left stance and outreaches to Cuba and the USSR in the middle of the Cold War. They just hadn’t a clue that the CIA had it in for the Congressman. They thought that he was “the government’s guy” — not a feared and hated adversary.
Thus there was no, “Who else could have done this?” They just presumed in an adrenalin panic that it had to have been them.
Presumption Is Not Evidence
Indeed, there is not a single of the above presumptions that withstands the material evidence.
Thus the most basic question was never even addressed. Like, WHO ELSE might have done it? WHO ELSE had it in for both the Congressman and the cultists; and especially, for their leader Jim Jones?
That was unknown at Jonestown; thus WHO ELSE might have done it was not even on their radar. But it is known to us, historically, today. That the CIA had it in for BOTH the Congressman and the cult leader.
That is not the subject of this section per se. But yes, there are answers and they can be found at “BEFORE: Pre-Planning the Frame,“ panel [1]. It’s summed up on one page. I would recommend that the reader look.
On To THE MASTER SCHEMATIC
Perhaps by now, we have addressed enough common presumptions to level the playing field to a place of evidence. Presumptions are not evidence.
But both The Reiterman Schematic and the on-site NBC film footage are evidence. What we are now calling “The Master Schematic,” reporter Tim Reiterman had drawn up a single day following the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. It gives a drawing of the ENTIRE airfield, to clarify from where the attack came, with memory fresh and claims certain.
Although there were never any hearings on the assassination, this is the legal equivalent of Reiterman’s testimony. Were there ever hearings, the standard to hold Mr. Reiterman to would have been HIS OWN reconstruction of the crime scene. It would be this.
Fine and good. Except that the NBC camera photographed the actual crime scene on site, with glaring irreconcilable contradictions vis-à-vis Reiterman — about who did it, what vehicle they were on, and who saw what.
Why is “Reiterman Versus NBC” so damning to the official story?
Reiterman Versus NBC
Me, I might print contrasting pictures of the real Jonestown tractor-trailer versus the duplicated tractor-trailer “until the cows come home,” so to speak.
In people’s minds, that’s still “a double.” Like a celebrity has a double or a politician has a double. So it looked like the Temple tractor-trailer. “Good enough for me.”
In this case, the differences are substantive, provable through photographs, and indeed proven in “The Vehicle Used in the Attack” section of “In Plain Sight.“ Yet however definitive such proofs may appear to be visually, the nail may only be driven in by proving the presence of TWO different vehicles locationally.
In other words, maybe our eyes were fooled (that’s a bit hard to say, since the attack vehicle was filmed broadside, at rest, and in bright sunlight — but people say it)– after all, the NBC footage is not a modern HD film. But what about (allegedly) one vehicle that cannot be in two places at the same time?
Once you prove that it was not just that a vehicle looked different, but that (allegedly) one vehicle was really two, and in two different locations, then that’s a proof that is nailed.
I repeat: Tim Reiterman says that “the Temple tractor-trailer” was in ONE location. Moreover, that the attackers then advanced from that location across the airfield.
As opposed to: The on-site NBC film footage clearly shows the real Temple tractor-trailer IN AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT LOCATION.
No vehicle can be in two places at the same time!! Only TWO vehicles can be in two different places at the same time, which is exactly what we had here:
NBC places the real Jonestown tractor-trailer under the wing flap of the smaller Cessna plane DOWN-RUNWAY, just parked, sitting there, doing nothing, just prior to the attack. “Just prior” meaning all of a minute-and-a-half prior to the attack!! Reiterman, by contrast, places the tractor-trailer used in the attack ACROSS-RUNWAY, barreling across the airfield from a completely different direction!
Not only that: The two respective vehicles were not only sighted in different locations, but since Reiterman looked cross-runway just prior to entering the boarding area (= the same two minutes prior to the attack), the sightings by NBC and by Reiterman were simultaneous! = TWO TRACTOR-TRAILERS!!
Accounts at Right Angles to One Another
“Right angles” is literal:
NBC: The NBC camera lens has the real Jonestown tractor-trailer parked on the same side of the runway as the attack under the wing flap of the smaller, Cessna plane, doing nothing and going nowhere, all of a minute and a half before the attack as per the film‘s own timer. Had it launched the attack, it would have to have been straight-line to the staging area.
Reiterman: The schematic of the attack drawn up by the premiere newsman on site, Tim Reiterman (then of The San Francisco Examiner) shows the allegedly “same” tractor-trailer across the runway, facing and headed in a different direction. It traveled across the runway, then curved around to the left side of the Guyana Airways plane to the staging area for the attack.
In summary, the attack vehicle was BOTH on the opposite side of the runway AND at right angles to the real Jonestown vehicle. Literally.
Fooled. Confused. Misled. Which Was the Whole Point of Duplication!
Let’s now consider what people customarily see People look in the direction they are headed, especially on a short route. They know what they can see. They cannot know what they cannot see.
As Tim Reiterman left the terminal shack and walked to the Guyana Airways plane to board (marker E-1 on panel [2], Reiterman filmed as such on panel [3]), the real Jonestown tractor-trailer was placed sharply to his left, slightly behind him, down-runway and, to boot, on the hidden side of the smaller plane. The duped tractor-trailer that carried the attackers, when spotted prior to the attack, was in front of Reiterman, across the runway.
Real vehicle down-runway on the same side. Duped vehicle across-runway about to attack in a transverse course (marker D on panel [2]).
That’s the most that Reiterman saw of the attack vehicle anyway. He had NO LINE OF VISION to the advancing attackers since he, along with his fellow passengers still on the ground (save for State Department escort Richard Dwyer, considered separately in “DURING: The Operational Specs“) had moved to the passengers’ boarding area on the left side of the plane, where they had NO LINE OF VISION to the approaching attackers.
But prior to the attack and prior to the approach of the attackers (whose approach was visually obstructed by the plane itself!), Reiterman and two other newsmen reported having looked across the runway (NOT down-runway, the location of the real Jonestown vehicle) and spotted a tractor-trailer which Reiterman said was (allegedly) “seen earlier at the mission”:
Except that it (now provably) wasn’t the vehicle “seen earlier at the mission.” That vehicle (namely, the real tractor-trailer from Jonestown) was also on the airstrip yes, but in a visibly different location.
Fooled. Confused. Misled. Was that not the purpose of duplication in the first place?
The NBC camera, by contrast, could not be fooled, confused or misled. It just filmed the real Jonestown tractor-trailer placidly parked under the left wing flap of the Cessna. Going nowhere, doing nothing. What you see is what you get.
Bottom line: Vehicles in different locations. Pointed in different directions. One stationery, under a plane wing, down-runway. The other across the runway, then barreling transverse across the runway.
Nor is it me, Laurie Efrein Kahalas, saying this. It’s NBC and Tim Reiterman. And I do not believe that either the NBC camera or Mr. Reiterman’s pen lied. Rather, they reveal what happened.
How surprised should we be about the hodge-podge of mismatched i.d.‘s in the FBI report now?
The Two-Vehicle Proof
Obviously, no vehicle can be in two places at the same time! Yet both the NBC camera and Tim Reiterman were “right.” And in the only way that they could be:
Namely, yes, there were TWO tractor-trailers on the scene. (Plus, of course, the Temple truck.) One was the real Jonestown vehicle: parked, going nowhere, doing nothing. That was the vehicle filmed by NBC. Down-runway, roughly parallel to the Guyana Airways plane, but further back, on the runway‘s edge. An attack from that vehicle would have to have been straight-line up the runway.
The other vehicle, approaching transverse the runway was the one quasi-duplicated by the CIA to “look like Peoples Temple” while they committed the kill. The one Reiterman was fooled into calling “the vehicle seen earlier at the mission.”
This Materially Affects Who Was Accused As Well
As we will see, presumptions about vehicles also materially affect presumptions about who committed the crime. Now there were provably THREE vehicles on the airstrip at the time: The real Jonestown tractor-trailer, the Jonestown truck, and the duplicate tractor-trailer used in the attack.
Yet there is actually not much confusion about which vehicle the main accuseds (namely Tom Kice, Bob Kice and Joe Wilson) were spotted on: the Temple TRUCK.
(Note: The vehicle snafu was so confusing even to survivors, that the original news report [panel (8)] mentions ONLY “the Peoples Temple truck” in connection with the shootings. Indeed, a later news article had a group of airstrip survivors concocting that Joe Wilson –who has been seen on THE TRUCK– must have somehow detoured back to Jonestown to pick up the tractor-trailer. But how could that be? It wasn’t there! It was already sitting under the wing flap of the Cessna, parked, doing nothing.)
Note, there was never any evidentiary reason to think that the Kices and Wilson had somehow switched from the truck to any tractor-trailer. Indeed, the last they were seen, perhaps two minutes prior to the attack, they had disembarked from the TRUCK spotted across the airfield and were on foot.
Now it is also clear that any inexplicable switching of vehicles (were it even physically possible a minute or so prior to the attack!) would not have even put them on another Temple vehicle, but rather the non-Temple tractor-trailer used in the attack.
It’s one component, but a vital one, as to why the official story would not have survived a single day of serious questioning at a hearing, much less a day at trial.
Now we can directly examine the proofs:
The Master Schematic: Tim Reiterman Versus NBC [1]
Panel 1 is reprinted from a newspaper account at the time. Reiterman had an artist draw up this schematic from Reiterman’s own memory on November 19, 1978, a single day after the killings.
The Reiterman Schematic will be used to prove that neither the reporters, nor defectors, nor the Temple men, nor even the one singled out as “the government eyewitness” could provide any viable, credible eyewitness i.d.‘s of the killers.
This is established LOCATIONALLY, through BLOCKED LINES OF VISION.
The reader is of course also referred back to “Eyewitness Identifications?: The FBI Report Versus the On-Site NBC Film Footage,” for a dissection of the rampant mismatches, never subject to question, that the FBI compiled.
From that we can see WHAT passed as “an investigation.” It is The Reiterman Schematic, however, that will be specific as to WHY none of 23 people interviewed did or could provide i.d.’s that would have survived a single day in court.
The capper, of course, will be the summary page [9] (supported by the section, “There Was No Bob Kice,”) which sums up not just what the alleged eyewitnesses could NOT see, but what any head-on look could not have missed — yet EVERYONE did!!
That is the critical “control” factor, since there is nothing anywhere in the FBI report which matches the unique impossible-to-miss physical descriptions of the assassins!!
In total, who killed the Congressman is not simply NOT “long-settled” at all, but the task of determining that was never even done!!
So we circle back to the beginning: An UN-investigated crime scene.
Let’s now proceed to dissect The Reiterman Schematic and its key role in paring the list of viable eyewitness identifications down to zero.
Then, since zero viability is apparently what we were given in lieu of any real investigation, then yes, it is worth it to dissemble the errors, the falsities, the wrong accusations (however inadvertent) from scratch.
The Reiterman Schematic now becomes the template for this part of the “In Plain Sight” investigation. Mr. Reiterman’s astute and thorough observations were surely what was “in plain sight” for him.
A to J: Marking the Reiterman Schematic Prior to Deconstructing It [2]
Note, we are “home free” on this with markers A and C alone on panel [1]. That is A: the placement of “a” tractor-trailer, namely the one about to be used in the attack, CROSS RUNWAY; versus C: the real Jonestown tractor-trailer filmed by NBC DOWN-RUNWAY parked at rest.
This key proof is confirmed. It just occurred in a larger context — twenty-plus people who claimed that they knew how this happened; the defector contingent accusing the cultists, but with all but one story never publicly quoted; the reporters accusing the cultists as well, even though none identified ANY Temple man in an act of killing (the farthest any reporter got was “an unknown individual“); and with no one even acknowledging tales wildly at odds.
For the moment, however, never even mind that they “each knew differently“ how it had happened — that their accounts don’t match. This section will fell ALL of the accounts in one fell swoop.
Let’s now scour the Reiterman schematic to discover what the various parties could, or conversely, could NOT see! Despite that people may well have simply reported what they saw at some point — just NOT on the attack vehicle, NOT at the time of the attack, and NOT in the process of killing anyone!
Note that since we will be marking up The Reiterman Schematic with notes, the UN-marked schematic appears up front so the reader has it available for ongoing reference (see [1].)
Panel [1] uses the Reiterman schematic to show what was located where by the time of the attack. People, planes, vehicles, assassins.* The same schematic color-coded as to its separate elements, is panel [2].
(*Note: The Reiterman schematic is not error-free, though they are not material to the vehicle-location proofs. The error that is material in relation to lines of vision (namely, the inset on the schematic) is corrected on panel [7] using the NBC film footage, and confirmed as well in The Reiterman Schematic proper.)
The Color-Coded Schematic [2]
Marker A: Matched to The Reiterman Schematic’s “1: Dump truck and tractor-trailer arrive from road to Port Kaituma.” The freeze-frame photo on panel [4] shows how distinguishable was the Temple truck from the tractor-trailer. Two very different vehicles, also spotted by Reiterman separately — as he said, he spotted the Temple truck and “a” tractor-trailer looking much like the one at Jonestown, both vehicles having been spotted across the airfield.
O.k. Reiterman made two surmisals here; understandable, yet inaccurate:
One surmisal was that the tractor-trailer was “the one seen earlier at the mission,” i.e., the Temple tractor-trailer. Then what did the NBC cameraman film sitting under the wing flap of the Cessna, namely the real Temple vehicle at Marker C?
Obviously, the tractor-trailer spotted by Reiterman was not the one “seen earlier at the mission.”
Reiterman’s second surmisal was that the tractor-trailer he spotted cross-runway had arrived “from road [from Jonestown] to Port Kaituma,” also marked at “1“ on The Reiterman Schematic. I.e., the road between Jonestown and the Port Kaituma airstrip.
Again, that was a surmisal. Reiterman was not on the vehicle himself. Nor did he see the vehicle travel that road. He only saw where it landed up.
But where else could it have come from? O.k., look at what Reiterman designated as “Jungle and swamps” at
Marker B: That’s “where else”!
It could not have come from there? Oh my God, of course it could have! Look at the freeze-frame of the thick, lush, towering foliage surrounding that primitive road, on panel [4]. You could hide ANYTHING in there!
All Reiterman knew was that it was on the other side of the airstrip. That’s all. Not how it arrived there.
Marker C: This was the location of the REAL Jonestown tractor-trailer as filmed by NBC (see freeze-frame at “C“ at panel [3]) hidden under the left wing flap of the smaller Cessna plane. Corresponds to Reiterman’s “Cessna. Carrying members of Peoples Temple loaded and ready to taxi.”
In other words, a bulk of the defectors had already boarded and had NO LINE OF VISION to the attackers. Note that even were they on the ground, they still could not have seen: The attackers were directly facing the larger plane, with their backs catty-corner to the Cessna!
Meanwhile, the NBC film footage at Marker C positions the real Jonestown tractor-trailer blocked from view — of EITHER Reiterman at Marker E or the occupants of the Temple truck at Marker A.
f
Thus neither of those two sets of parties (Tim Reiterman or the men from the Temple truck) were positioned to spot that there were TWO tractor-trailers on the airfield. Because the real Jonestown vehicle was hiding on the far side of the smaller plane.
Now, Reiterman’s mistaken surmisal that the tractor-trailer across the runway was “the one seen earlier at the mission” obviously did not affect the impending loss of life — he just mistakenly fingered who did it. But not so the error on the part of the men from the Temple TRUCK. The cost of their error was immense:
Namely, if they knew that there were TWO tractor-trailers on the airfield and that the real Jonestown vehicle was NOT involved in the attack, then they would have had to suspect a frame! The ONLY factor that might have prevented the deaths at Jonestown.
Really? Yes, really:
Note that YES, Jim Jones was over the edge mentally, emotionally, psychiatrically (as well as physically — he was obviously dying) by that point in time. Yet the difference as to whether the Temple had killed the Congressman or an outside party had done it, was still whether the community was doomed to defeat, despair, ad plunging to their deaths if they were the guilty parties; or the mindset of rage, survival and vindication if they were being framed for this.
Why would a community destroy itself if they were innocent of the killings? Fanaticism alone could have spun this differently: Cause celebre, martyrdom, world-wide renown for nailing the CIA!
Jim Jones even pushed panic buttons over expected imminent retaliation for killings that no one knew that the Temple had done! (Someone confessed? “I did it!“? No. We have no suggestion of, much less evidence of that.) He just took other people’s word. To the degree that he thought the attack had come from “the truck and a gun.” He did not even know that there was ANY tractor-trailer involved in the killings!
(For there was yet another gruesome twist — Larry Layton — “the truck and a gun” — who actually was “one lone gunman” — but which also put a cap on looking further.)
However, had he (or any of them) realized that they were being framed, what a powerful incentive to live on! The fact is, WE DON’T KNOW what would have happened had these people realized that they were being framed. WE JUST DON’T KNOW.
(Honestly, we don’t even know what the fate of “a thousand alibis” would have been HAD they lived.)
I realize that everyone wants one-person guilt to dominate this scenario forever. That no one could have possibly caused this except for the sole, 100% guilt of Jim Jones.
I understand ANYONE feeling that way, especially people who lost family members. It’s just that surmisals, assumptions and presumptions (much less hearsay, gossip and rumors!) are not, and have never been evidence.
Let us also not forget that yes, a United States Congressman was killed and IT WAS NEVER INVESTIGATED! And note, not for lack of evidence at all. Just out of suppression of evidence.
Leaving never-prosecuted parties for heinous crimes to this day.
Marker D: This is a trajectory on the Reiterman Schematic rather than a point. The route by which the attackers drove across the runway in a tractor-trailer to launch the fatal attack.
Well, since Reiterman spotted a tractor-trailer across the runway, which vehicle then launched the attack, then this trajectory was yes, apparently the only one possible given the time constraints. Even though Reiterman did not see the attack vehicle on that route. He was already at the passenger’s boarding area on the left side of the Guyana Airways plane with NO LINE OF VISION to the attackers’ approach.
Had Mr. Reiterman actually been observing the approach of the attackers as it was happening, then he might have noticed (as I did from freeze-frames of the attack vehicle) that there was no visible driver at eye level in this vehicle.
Sort of like “a headless horseman.” As demonstrated in “The Vehicle Used in the Attack: The Tractor,” this was a modified tractor with a rebuilt frame designed to conceal the driver’s body. A “real” tractor,” of course, has the driver sticking up into the air where anyone can identify who he is or who he isn’t. Not do-able if you needed to “look like Peoples Temple.” That required camouflage.
Nor did ANYONE at the larger plane claim to have seen the tractor-trailer approaching the staging point for the attack. Since a) the body of the plane blocked their line of vision; and b) the plane’s engines blocked the sound of the approach as well.
By the time NBC cameraman Bob Brown caught the attack vehicle in his camera lens, the driver of the tractor was already disembarking from the front!
Note also, as detailed in “Eyewitness Identifications?: The FBI Report Versus the On-Site NBC Film Footage,” that what everyone who cited the driver of the real Jonestown tractor-trailer (that’s EIGHT total) agreed upon, was that that driver was white, fair-skinned, blond-haired Stan Gieg.
Well, trying to make Gieg the driver of the duplicate vehicle used in the attack, as did eight(!) defectors on the airfield, makes the very case-in-point. Namely, the driver of the attack vehicle tractor was visibly a dark-skinned black man as caught on the NBC film footage! Yet he was yet another assassin “in plain sight” that no one seemed to see!!
Thus it is clear that yes, although this was the trajectory of approach, no one SAW either the driver or the other attackers (in fact, all were hidden from view) travel that route.
Markers E-1, E-2 & E-3: These show the three successive positions of Tim Reiterman on the airfield:
E-1 is Reiterman leaving the small terminal shack to head towards the larger, Guyana Airways plane. It shows the direction Reiterman was facing and his LINE OF VISION OR LACK THEREOF. He wasn’t looking to his far left in a backwards diagonal (much less around the body of that plane!), where he would have had to be looking to spot the real Jonestown tractor-trailer sitting under the left wing of the smaller Cessna plane.
E-2 shows in what direction Reiterman WAS looking, by his own account. NOT down-runway but ACROSS the airfield, spotting two vehicles there — the Temple TRUCK and “a” TRACTOR-TRAILER.
E-3 is where the NBC film footage confirms that ALL of the would-be departing passengers were standing when the attack broke out. No advance line of vision, just a horrifying surprise attack.
Marker F: This shows the trajectory of “the government eyewitness,” namely Jim Cobb, as he fled from the scene when the shots rang out.
Note back-up documentation on panel [8], verifying that Cobb was the eyewitness upon whose testimony the government relied for alleged positive i.d.’s of the shooters. Note that I myself had that confirmed face-to-face with the Congressional committee.
Also note Cobb’s testimony to the FBI — that first he fled fifty yards towards the bush, then turned to “observe killings at [he alleged] point blank range.”
But please read that carefully: No, HE was not at point blank range to the killers. He said that the killers were at point blank range of the victims! He was already fifty yards away!
The possibility that Cobb could accurately provide three positive i.d.’s while FIFTY YARDS AWAY, much less fleeing in a panic to an area behind the other side of the plane, was nil to none. Note that even “fifty yards” was a minimal guess — it was at least fifty yards since reporter Ron Javers in his own account, estimated it as one hundred yards. (“I debated whether to flee one hundred yards into the bush.” And that would have been straight-line, i.e., the shortest route.)
But let at look at something even less contestable: Everyone, including the NBC film footage(!) concurs that the victims were standing on the left side of the plane at the passengers’ boarding area. (Reiterman’s inset drawing of the lay-out of bodies on the ground is reversed, but probably even he would not contest that as per the NBC film footage. [His schematic proper did get it right about the side of the plane that went under attack, so this becomes a moot point.])
Which meant that anyone fleeing into the bush had HIS LINE OF VISION BLOCKED BY THE BODY OF THE PLANE!!
Thus the alleged prize testimony, the government‘s own eyewitness, seems to have had no credibility at all.
Marker G: This marks the location of the defectors, the only people who could have positively i.d.‘ed the Temple men. (Yes, some reporters on site recognized Temple men from the community, but none fingered any in the act of killing — just that they saw them at the airstrip. And again, since they drove the departing party there, where else would they be?!)
The defectors in the Cessna plane, already boarded and “ready to taxi” as The Reiterman Schematic puts it, were people who every last one of them had NO LINE OF VISION TO THE ATTACKERS. The news reports of the day mark even Larry Layton (the only Temple member arrested/charged in the shootings) as shooting from within the smaller plane, NOT in coordination with any gunmen on the ground.
Whatever of the Temple men this group, the bulk of the defectors SAW, they saw them prior to the attack, not as the attack was happening.
The only one left on the ground at the staging area when the shots rang out who even claimed to i.d. anyone in the process of fleeing, was “government eyewitness Jim Cobb,” but we’ve just seen what that testimony appears to be worth.
Marker H: The location of the Temple men across the airfield. This was the most shocking of the alleged “eyewitness” errors, in that it was alleged Temple guilt for the assassination that cascaded into the mass deaths at Jonestown. The men who were to then return to Jonestown with, “We did it!”
But what could they (or conversely, could they NOT) SEE??:
From their vantage point, the real Jonestown tractor-trailer was hidden behind the left wing of the Cessna plane across the airfield. LINE OF VISION TO THE REAL JONESTOWN VEHICLE BLOCKED.
They also could not have seen who was ON the tractor-trailer that whizzed by their left. They viewed it advancing from behind. LINE OF VISION TO ANY ASSAILANTS BLOCKED. (Note, this was “a headless horseman” tractor in any case, with the other occupants hidden in the trailer. But what people mostly register if something whizzes by is just, “I didn‘t get a look at anyone.”)
However, what they likely DID see from the back was that yes, it was a tractor-trailer, so very much like the “real” one from Jonestown, at least in outline form. So why would they think that it was a different, second, or duplicate vehicle? They wouldn’t.
Nor did they view the attack as it happened. The Guyana Airways plane had its boarding area (where the passengers, including the Congressman, were amassed) on the left side, hidden from the view of the Temple men. LINE OF VISION TO THE ATTACK BLOCKED AS WELL.
However, what likely did happen, especially since reporters marked the Kices and Wilson as advancing on foot at the time of the attack, was that the Temple men came onto the crime scene after the gunmen had fled. Viewed the carnage. They even brought back news that the dead included Patty Parks, who had been defecting from Jonestown.
The Congressman himself would have been easy to spot. The only one with whitened hair, and lying face down (but head turned sideways so he was recognizable) at the left wheel of the plane. He had spoken publicly at Jonestown — they knew what he looked like. The newsmen it is unlikely that the Temple men even knew by name.)
In other words, the Temple men had no reason to suspect that the Temple had NOT committed the killings. That would have taken believing the same story that people have trouble absorbing EVEN NOW WITH PROOF: A duplicate tractor-trailer hidden on the airstrip (namely in the adjoining bush), duplicated as a ruse to frame Peoples Temple as the killers.
Marker I: There is no need for a separate illustrative panel, but this area is highlighted because it marks the proximate approach of the attack vehicle. In other words, DIDN’T ANYONE SEE IT AS IT APPROACHED, which might have given time to observe? Not just when the shots rang out, which was time to panic and flee?
The answer to that using the FBI report, is that no, no one did. The plane’s engines were running; the passengers were by then amassed at the back left side of the plane, not the front from which the attackers came; and no, although two reporters said they saw the vehicle across the runway prior to the attack, no one reported seeing the actual approach of the attack vehicle.
Marker J: Marked “Crash of Guyanan plane (guarded by 4 military personnel)” on the lower left hand corner of the schematic; not marked by letter, however, on the panels. This was the last group of people on the airfield; namely, the “four soldiers with M-16s [automatic assault rifles” whom NBC producer on site, Bob Flick, said had “refused to intervene”:
A plane had allegedly crashed and needed “four soldiers with M-16s to guard it”? Well, that was the given excuse for the presence of this overkill of fire power on the airstrip.
The reality, of course, is that planes usually crash somewhere else, not right on an airstrip; indeed, if they should happen to crash on an airstrip, it is the easiest place from which to just clear the wreckage away! Then even in the unlikely event that locals were expected to storm the airfield, let’s say, with a hacksaw to rip off a plane wheel (it does seem unlikely!), surely some single security guard with a pistol would have been MORE than enough protection.
This was, to put it charitably, an inexplicable “overkill.” All we can think is that what if the assassination did NOT “go off without a hitch”? Like the REAL Jonestown tractor-trailer was sitting out in the open at the same time that the DUPLICATED tractor-trailer emerged for the attack, so it was clear that it was NOT Peoples Temple who launched the attack?
Or what if the assassins had to chase the Congressman around or into the plane, taking longer time, more face-to-face contact and were recognized as NOT being from Peoples Temple?
Then the fingers would get pointed right back to the CIA, since their enmity against Congressman Ryan was well-known — not to Peoples Temple, no, but certainly in D.C.
Thus unless letting people out with a story that it was NOT Peoples Temple who killed Leo Ryan was deemed an acceptable risk (I would doubt that), then more firepower might have indeed been “needed.” But the assassins themselves could not be armed with M-16s, just ordinary rifles, because they were supposed to “be Peoples Temple” and Peoples Temple had no M-16s.
Hence the quite peculiar overkill of four soldiers with M-16s right on site when the Congressman was ready to depart. Seeming there for one purpose; likely there for another. Back-up. Turned out to not be “needed,” but there on hand.
Why “EYEwitness” Contains an “EYE”
One last word about eyewitness identifications: There were a lot of people on this scene — defectors and newsmen both. Over twenty people survived. So it has to be puzzling to readers to claim that NONE of them were viable as eyewitnesses.
Well, the section “Eyewitness Identifications?: The FBI Report Versus the On-Site NBC Film Footage” reveals not just that there were no viable eyewitness identifications, but that the FBI report is a hodge-podge mess. Nowhere does it even conclude who committed the killings! Just a list of twelve possible assassins!
The Reiterman Schematic in conjunction with the NBC film footage goes on to detail WHY there were no viable eyewitnesses. Namely, a triangle of cross-airfield locations, also featuring a duplicate vehicle with concealed occupants, and with multiple blocked lines of vision!
But even as a practical evidentiary matter, ONLY ONE, namely Jim Cobb, so much as claimed to see specific Temple men in the act of killing. (Like that he had allegedly “observed” Tom Kice killing reporter Don Harris.)
Oh, there were scattered, “This one was shooting and that one was shooting” but we have no idea from their testimony whether they even personally saw it! Most are NOT prefaced with “I saw….” Legally, that’s the equivalent of hearsay, not eyewitness testimony. And no wonder! — how do you “eyewitness-identify“ when you have no line of vision?
Please reader, understand that the task of an eyewitness is to identify killers. For that purpose, an eyewitness is not made just by being there. Not with ANY crime. It’s not even made by being a victim, such as being shot.
Let’s say someone is shot in the back. They are a victim, yes. But they are not an eyewitness because they did not see the gunman. Or for that matter, if shots rang out and the victim then fell, fled or was hiding under a plane seat. Much less if they were in a location with no line of vision when the shots rang out.
An eyewitness is someone who witnesses a crime directly and sees who did it. That is ALL that qualifies as an eyewitness. Wanting it to have been some particular culprit, having heard a rumor about it, having seen someone before or after, having seen someone anywhere but at the staging area of the crime at the time the crime was committed — NONE of that qualifies for being an eyewitness.
Such alleged “eyewitnesses” are dismissed in a court of law. If the prosecution does not do it themselves prior to trial, the defense attorney does it for them in cross-examination.
No one is, ever has been, or ever will be credited as “an eyewitness” unless they a) had a line of vision; and b) were looking at the killers at the time of the killing.
Which leaves only ONE claimed eyewitness: One Jim Cobb, whose testimony is deemed not credible (see panels [7] & [8].)
And That’s “It”
We now conclude that the combination of the NBC film footage and Tim Reiterman’s schematic proves that there was an additional tractor-trailer on the airfield; and that it was not the REAL Jonestown vehicle, but rather a DUPLICATE that carried the team who committed the attack.
Moreover, no one credibly identified any Temple men in the killings. So it was obviously SOMEONE ELSE — in fact, SIX “someone elses.” In a NON-Temple vehicle. (See, “DURING” Tracking the Footwork.”)
With the only outside party who wanted both Congressman Leo Ryan and Rev. Jim Jones dead being the C.I.A., as detailed in “BEFORE: Preplanning the Frame.”
This is not “a leap,” folks. It’s just an UN-investigated crime scene with wrongly-accused culprits; and with the guilty parties never brought to justice. That’s truly all. That’s “it.”
Mapping the Blocked Lines of Vision (Panels [3] to [9])
[3]: There Were Two Tractors on the Airstrip: One Reiterman Could See, The Other He Could NOT See!!: The duplicated tractor-trailer that Reiterman spotted is at Marker A. Also see BLOCKED LINE OF VISION to the real Jonestown tractor-trailer at Marker C.
[4]: Where Did the Duplicate Tractor-Trailer Used in the Attack Come From? Then Where Did It Go When It “Sped Off”?: What the real Jonestown truck and tractor-trailer looked like. How easy it was to hide the duplicated tractor-trailer in the thick towering foliage adjoining the airstrip.
Next: Completing the Trajectory of the Attack Vehicle. The attack vehicle was pointed UP-RUNWAY at the staging point for the attack. Following the attack, it sped off out of the sight of ANYONE!
[5]: G: The Temple Defectors. Could THEY See the Duplicate Tractor-Trailer Used in the Attack? Much Less See the Attack Itself?: This set of defectors had already boarded the smaller Cessna plane down-runway. That included Vern Gosney, Monica Bagby, the Bogue clan, Dale Parks, and Larry Layton, the lone shooter charged in the killings. (He did not kill, but did wound people.) As Reiterman indicated, this plane was “loaded and ready to taxi.”
Anyone on that plane might well have seen the real Jonestown tractor-trailer parked under the left wing, but were unlikely to have seen the attack vehicle or to have even suspected that there was a SECOND tractor-trailer. If they had, they might have i,d.‘ed the tractor driver as the dark-skinned black man revealed by NBC, not white, blond Stan Gieg, the only man cited as such and repeatedly.
These eyewitnesses were key for convicting Larry Layton of his shootings within their own plane, but would have been scratched from the list for the main attack at the Guyana Airways plane. One freeze-frame from NBC (such as panel [5] right — the front gunman black, not white) sufficient to disqualify.
[6]: H: The Temple Men: What Did They SEE? What Did They Simply PRESUME?: Reportedly, three Temple men had disembarked from the truck parked across the runway and were proceeding on foot. (Tom Kice, Bob Kice, Joe Wilson the most likely for those.) No one noted them as armed; in fact reporter Charles Krause said explicitly that, “They did not appear to be armed.”
When the attack vehicle passed them on its approach to their left, they could only see the BACK of that vehicle and none of the attackers: BLOCKED LINE OF VISION TO THE ATTACKERS.
They also had a BLOCKED LINE OF VISION TO THE REAL JONESTOWN TRACTOR-TRAILER. It was across the runway, not the direction they were heading, and in any case, on the hidden side of the plane.
They could also only see PART of the trajectory to the attack point. INCOMPLETE LINE OF VISION TO THE STAGING AREA OF THE ATTACK. Once the attack vehicle curved around to the front of the plane, the plane’s body blocked their view. Even had the men from the truck caught up to the attack point (most unlikely in 6 seconds!) the killers would have been at no better than a right angle (= 45 degrees for around the bend; another 45 degrees for the steep diagonal from which the attackers charged forwards. (See “DURING: Tracking the Footwork.”)
But even that is moot. Had they been that close, they would have discounted the seven-foot-tall lead assassin, head-to-toe in solid green military camouflage, as being anyone from Peoples Temple at all!!
[7]: Where Were the Victims In Relation to the Plane and Who Was Able to Eyewitness the Killings?: In answer to the second question, technically anyone who saw any gunman advancing to his face would have been able to eyewitness the killings (even if, as for the reporters, not identify Temple men by name):
NBC cameraman Bob Brown. He was slain on site but his camera recorded the assassins on film.
There is ONLY ONE MENTION ANYWHERE of a survivor having eyewitnessed any gunman face-to-face, but it is of “an unknown individual.” (Likely a reporter’s account; but even worse if a defector’s, since it would clinch the unrecognizability of the shooters!)
In answer to the first question, the NBC film footage (including The Reiterman Schematic proper, just not the inset diagram where the bodies are dyslexically transposed) reveals that the attack happened and the bodies were felled on the LEFT side of the plane. Hence anyone eyewitnessing the killings would have had to do so from the LEFT side.
Except that the only Temple defector who claimed that he saw any specific person killing another specific person with his own eyes, did not claim to have done so when the gunmen first attacked! Rather, he FIRST fled into the bush on the RIGHT side of the plane, then looked back and claimed an i.d. that that would have required x-ray vision through the body of the plane!
[8]: F: Government Eyewitness Jim Cobb. Could He See Through The Body of a Plane?: There is not any question that the “government eyewitness” was Jim Cobb. The Congressional committee told me that directly and the names given in the original news report match up with the FBI report as well. The FBI report gives personal backgrounds as well and clearly it is the personal history of Cobb.
As mapped out graphically at [8], Cobb’s testimony (as quoted from the FBI report) has no credibility. He would have had to see through the body of the plane!
[9]: Summary: The FBI Report Was a Hodge-Podge of Contradictory Mismatches. But Now We Can See Why — No One In a Position to Give Peoples Temple I.D.’s Could SEE!!!: This panel reprints the previous panels showing BLOCKED LINES OF VISION. It also features the NBC film of the assassins. Along with their unique impossible-to-miss physical descriptions that NO ONE ANYWHERE IN THE FBI REPORT EVEN NOTICED!!
Note with this panel: It was not just the seven-foot tall lead assassin dressed like a walking rain forest, a description offered by NO ONE in the FBI report! It’s also the excessively short right flank assassin who matches none of the white accuseds, especially either Tom or Bob Kice.
It’s also, for that matter, the left flank assassin as well: He took a long running leap off the back of the trailer, during which his curvature of the spine is trackable freeze-frame by freeze-frame. (See, “DURING: Tracking the Footwork.”) Like a curly-cue moving across the screen.
Except that BOTH Kices (since this assassin was also white) had pre-existing injuries making it impossible for them to hunch over: With Bob Kice, it was his neck, fixing his body into an unnaturally erect posture visible in the photo printed of him at panel [6]. With Tom Kice, he had had back surgery and had to maintain a rigidly-erect posture to avoid pain. He could not have hunched over even if he had wanted to.
The other visible gunman, of course, was the one in front of the tractor, tracked in “DURING: Tracking the Footwork.” Except that anyone who claimed to i.d. the driver of the tractor said that it was blond, white, fair-skinned Stanley Gieg. Well, not this gunman! He was a dark-skinned black man, as also shown at panel [6].
Yet EIGHT “eyewitnesses” said that that man was Stanley and NO ONE said that they saw a black man driving the tractor at all!
By now it is clear that there was NO viability in the alleged eyewitness identifications. To be fair to the eyewitnesses (who were of course traumatized at the time), they were apparently not questioned beyond “Who did you see [on the airstrip, whoever, at any time]?” It is just that that did NOT “an eyewitness report” make. All it did (however unbeknownst to the attestants) was to aid in a cover-up.
“CONCLUSIONS: A) There were NO viable eyewitness identifications; and B) ‘Peoples Temple Killers’ are positively DIS-counted.”
Summary of Panels
[1]: The Master Schematic: Tim Reiterman Versus NBC
[2]: A-I: Marking the Reiterman Schematic Prior to Deconstructing It
[3]: There Were Two Tractor-Trailers on the Airstrip: One Reiterman Could See, The Other He Could NOT See!!:
[4]: Where Did the Duplicate Tractor-Trailer Used in the Attack Come From? Then Where Did It Go When It “Sped Off”?:
[5]: G: The Temple Defectors. Could THEY See the Duplicate Tractor-Trailer Used in the Attack? Much Less See the Attack Itself?
[6]: H: The Temple Men: What Did They SEE? What Did They Simply PRESUME?
[7]: Where Were the Victims In Relation to the Plane and Who Was Able to Eyewitness the Killings?
[8]: F: Government Eyewitness Jim Cobb. Could He See Through The Body of a Plane?
[9]: Summary: The FBI Report Was a Hodge-Podge of Contradictory Mismatches. But Now We Can See Why — No One In a Position to Give Peoples Temple I.D.’s Could SEE!!!