United States Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Memorandum
Date: 11/24/78
To: Mr. Moore
From: J. O. Ingram
Subject: RYMUR
Around 9:50 p.m., 11/23/78, Supervisor [name deleted] advised that he had just been notified by the FBI HQ Command Post that the FBI Disaster Squad at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, had positively identified Reverend Jim Jones through his fingerprints. I immediately placed a phone call to Deputy Assistant Director Conrad Banner, Identification Division, who was in charge of the Disaster Squad at Dover Air Force Base. Banner advised me that the FBI had fingerprinted the body marked as Reverend Jim Jones, and those fingerprints were identical with the fingerprints of James Warren Jones who had been arrested on 12/13/73 by the Los Angeles Police Department for lewd conduct. Banner stated that this was a positive identification based upon fingerprints of Jones in possession of the FBI with the body identified as Reverend Jones from the Peoples Temple in Guyana.
I immediately have conference conversation with Associate Director Adams, Deputy Assistant Director Homer Boynton, and Tom Harrington of the Press Office. Upon receipt of information of the identification of Jones, Mr. Adams advised that he would probably notify the Director and that Boynton and Harrington should promptly release to the press the positive identification. It is noted that the State Department had also intended to announce the identification through fingerprints of Jones.
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