[Editor’s note: The affidavits by members of Peoples Temple criticizing the behavior of Grace Stoen are scattered throughout the records released under the Freedom of Information Act, including at Section B-5-c, Section FF-1, Section FF-7, Section FF-8, and Section FF-9. An alphabetical listing of the Temple members filing affidavits appears here.
[The affidavits below appear on RYMUR pages FF-8, 36A – 49B.]
FF-8-36, A-C, Affidavit by Tim Carter (Handwritten, not notarized)
Affidavit #2
August 17, 1977
I, Timothy J. Carter, do declare the following to be true and correct to the best of my knowledge & recollection.
I want to detail more specifically my physical relationship with Grace Stoen, and some of the specific meetings we had. The first time we ever had physical contact or kissed
was in late September of 1973. It was a Saturday night and Grace was supposed to be in a Planning Commission meeting – it was around 7:30 or 8:00. I was not on the Planning Commission at that time. We met in the alley behind the Los Angeles Temple & then walked through the alley, across Pico Blvd., and further down the alley and stopped and sat on a ledge. We talked a while, holding hands, and kissed, and “French-kissed” each other. She was late for the PC meeting.
The first time we have petted, that I can specifically remember, was one afternoon after going to a luncheon as church representatives, we stopped at her house (on Eastside Calpella Rd., where she lived with Tim Stoen) and made out on her couch. At that time I did fondle her breasts and vagina through her blouse and panty house [hose]. We stopped after about a half-hour.
We had more involved sexual encounters when I would come into her bedroom in the middle
-2-
of the night. I can remember one time specifically when, after making out for a while, and fondling each other, she took all her clothes off, on her own accord. I didn’t feel that having intercourse with her was proper at that time, so I did not remove my clothing. When she saw after a couple of minutes that I was not taking my clothes off, she became almost frantic, stop making out, and put her clothes back on. During this encounter I had fondled and kissed her breasts, and also I touched her vagina.
The night Grace asked me to “make love” to her she again took her clothes off, and I was in my underwear. Our sex play including her masturbating me to orgasm, and my having oral sex with her. It was while I was having oral sex with her she asked me “Will you make love to me even though I’m on my period?”
There were many other times we would engage in simple hugging and kissing, in the car, in the office, and other places. During this whole affair Grace Stoen was legally married to Tim Stoen. John Stoen, her son, would be in the house when I would sneak in at night. One of the other girls, who lived with her at that time, Melanie Breidenbach, knew that we had a relationship of sorts, though she didn’t know
-3-
the extent of it, and used to tease Grace about it.
When the kids were awake at home and we wanted to be together we would take a drive far out on a country road, where we would talk & make out.
Grace was on an ego trip about John being Jim’s son, and made statements to me to that effect, such as she “just happened to be the mother of the leader’s son.” She also told me that if she ever left the church, she would leave John with the church, because she knew that would “be best for him.”
Grace Stoen did admit that she even hated John Stoen during a confrontation we were having on Bus #7. The dialogue was between myself, Grace Stoen, Jim Jones, Sharon Amos, Sandy Bradshaw, Patricia Cartmell, Andy Silver, and I think two others, who I cannot specifically remember at this time. When she was asked, “Isn’t it true that you really hate John?”, Grace Stoen replied “Yes.”
Timothy J. Carter
FF-8-37
Affidavit of Lynetta P. Jones
I, Lynetta P. Jones, being duly sworn, declare:
A number of times while I was living in my son, James Jones’s home in Redwood Valley, California, Grace Stoen called him. I answered the phone myself on several occasions to hear Grace tearfully asking to speak to Jim. These conversations would continue for hours. One could not avoid hearing parts of them just working around the kitchen.
Another time Grace Stoen came to our house in the same state of mind, crying loudly. She even approached the other teenage boys living in the house, trying to tell them her problems. When Jim discovered that she had done this he put a stop to it at once. He had already apprised the entire household of the situation. Grace’s hysteria certainly necessitated this.
John spent many hours with us at the home. He often spent the night and always returned home regretfully. He protested having to go back with Grace on many occasions.
Grace openly stated to me that my son, James Jones was the true father of John.
August 13, 1977
Signed: Lynetta P. Jones
Witness: [illegible]
FF-8-38
Affidavit s/ Carolyn M. Layton
I, Carolyn M. Layton, being duly sworn, declare:
Grace Stoen personally told me many times that Jim Jones was the real father of John Stoen and not Tim Stoen. She also frequently told me of the special love Jim had for John.
/s/ Carolyn M. Layton
Witness: [illegible]
FF-8-39
Affidavit of Christine R. Lucientes
I, Christine R. Lucientes, being duly sworn, declare:
Grace Stoen spoke freely to me of the fact that James W. Jones is the father of her son John V. Stoen. In fact she never indicated to the contrary, ever. Indeed, when she talked to John about his father Jim Jones should refer to him as “your dad.”
Christine R. Lucientes
Dated August 13, 1977
Witnesses: [illegible]
FF-8-40
Affidavit of Patty Cartmell
I, Patty Cartmell, being duly sworn, declare:
I have observed how one Grace Stoen patient Rev. Jim Jones repeatedly for sex. Grace would call me on the phone and cry, and then come over to my house where I lived close to Rev. Jones’ parsonage home. She would ask Jim over and over for sex.
She was aware Jim did not want her in a sexual encounter. Jim was very kind and always compassionate. Grace would still continue on this insane issue of sex. She appeared to be obsessed with wanting sex with Jim Jones. She threatened suicide on numerous occasions.
And then I heard Tim Stoen asked Rev. Jones in the parking lot to have sex with Grace, because he (Tim) was afraid she would leave him and try to hurt the Peoples Temple cause and bring public embarrassment to Jim Jones. So then Jim agreed, and in February or March, 1971, he did have sex with Grace at my house. She got more demanding after that and more threats came from her. Suicide and threats of hurting the cause. Numerous threats to kill her husband were made. Jim had sex with her again, and I helped Grace use a diaphragm. She also took my contraceptive cream, and used two of them as Jim did everything to prevent any pregnancies. He used prophylactics, too. Grace swore she was taking birth control pills, but later laughed and said she wasn’t.
I later heard Tim Stoen say he wanted Grace to have a child by Jim Jones, as he thought that might settle her down. I don’t know just what he meant, but Tim seemed to want to help people, though I wasn’t around enough to know for sure.
When Grace got pregnant that began a nightmare.
Mrs. Patty Cartmell
Dated: 13, August, 1977
Subscribed to and sworn before the
Commissioner of Oaths of the
Republic of Guyana
FF-8-41
Affidavit of June B. Crym
I, June B. Crym, being duly sworn, declare:
That for about six months I worked in the same office with Grace Stoen, during the year 1965 [1975], in Redwood Valley, California. I had worked with her husband Tim for several years in the legal services project of Peoples Temple, and I used to visit their home weekly to pick up work assignments from Tim Stoen.
Grace talked openly to me about her personal feelings and she often talked about raising her son John and the difficulty she had with this strong-willed child. She talked about how bright he was and advanced for his age, and explained on at least two separate occasions to me that “You know, his dad is Jim Jones.” Then she told me never to repeat it to anyone else, although the fact was common knowledge among many church members.
In the times that I picked up work from Tim Stoen, visiting their home over about a five year period, I would often walk into the middle of an argument between Tim and Grace, mostly about the child. Tim said he resented Grace spending time with John, and Grace, forgetting John was in the room, cried back: “What you care, you’re not the father?”
Dated this 20th day of August, 1977.
/s/ June B. Crym
June B. Crym
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-42
Affidavit of Teresa Buford
I, Teresa Buford, being duly sworn, declare:
That I heard Grace Stoen say in the Spring of 1976 that she did not want Tim Stoen to ever have custody of John Stoen. She said this very angrily standing up and pointing her finger at Tim and said that he had no right to John Stoen that he was not the father of John and he would never get custody of him.
Dated this 18th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Teresa Buford
Teresa Buford
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-43, A-B
Affidavit of Richard Tropp
I, Richard Tropp, being duly sworn, declare:
I have on several occasions seen Grace Stoen show extreme states of emotional weakness with regard to her child. She has, at such times, expressed a thoroughly shameful defeatism about her capability to care for the child, and has asked the church to find another mother-figure for the child. She is one of the most emotionally immature persons I’ve ever known, and I would judge her unfit as a parent. Her treatment of her child was mentally cruel. On a number of occasions she would shower the child with affection after seriously reprimanding him. The child could only feel insecure, confused, and unwanted by her. I have seen on many occasions how John (her son) would easily manipulate her into doing his will, and I’ve also seen her show alternate states of rage and remorse with the child that could only result in him feeling insecure. She has expressed on a number of occasions that I can recall, a hostile and cruel attitude towards the child’s natural father, Jim Jones. I feel that she has proven her total unfitness as a mother by foisting off the child on the church while she was a member, and finally by abandoning him a year ago when she left the church with a lover without so much as a word to her son. Grace has personally told me that Jim Jones is the father of her child and that she did not want Tim Stoen to have anything to do with child.
-2-
The man she left with as her lover was a man who never showed any feeling about the child, and with whom the child sincerely afraid.
Dated this 20th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Richard Tropp
Richard Tropp
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-44, A-B
Affidavit of Eugene B. Chaikin
I, Eugene B. Chaikin, being duly sworn, declare:
I have known both Tim Stoen and Grace Gretch [Grech] Stoen since early in 1972. I have spent hundreds of hours speaking with each of them, often about very intimate details of their lives. It is been the custom in Peoples Temple to have counseling sessions to discuss personal problems, but each of them, on occasion, apart and aside from such occasions and not in a setting of any lawyer-client relationship or of professional activity, has spoken to me about their lives. Each is said to me on several occasions that John Victor Stoen is the son of Grace and Jim Jones. I was told that the relationship was one that was demanded of Jim by Grace, that she had insisted on Jim as a lover and Tim as a husband because Grace was extremely concerned with social status, which Tim’s profession allowed. Jim had gone along with the demand by Grace because she insisted at the point of suicide and of doing all manner of harm to his church and its members if he did not comply. Tim knew about it before it started, and had in fact prevailed upon Jim initially to relate to Grace sexually as the only way he could keep his wife. I heard, too, that Grace had threatened him with disclosure of something of which I am not familiar.
When Grace became pregnant, Jim was terribly upset. Many encouraged her to have an abortion, but she refused. When the child came, she either neglected it or gave it to others
-2-
to care for. Often she treated the child with indifference that bordered on cruelty – so that others were eager to assume care of the boy in order to save him from his own mother’s maltreatment. She often ridiculed Tim with the fact that the child was Jim’s and not his. She would treat John either with utter contempt and indifference, or be wildly emotional and smother the child superficial attention, more sexual in nature than affectionate. I never saw John happy in Grace’s care. Not until he spent time with Maria Katsaris who took care of him and gave him consistent, positive support – together with the kindness and genuine care Jim Jones has given him – have I seen John happy. When I last saw him in Guyana, he was more happy and relaxed than I have seen him in all his life.
Dated this 20th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Eugene B. Chaikin
Eugene B. Chaikin
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-45, A-B
Affidavit of Sharon Amos
I, Sharon Amos, being duly sworn, declare:
I was a witness on countless occasions of Grace Stoen stating that Jim Jones was the true father of John Victor Stoen. On one occasion when I was visiting Grace at her home, she said that she had given John a bath and had not properly tested the bathwater in John’s [bathinet] bassinet. She had immersed his foot in the water that was too hot and had burned his foot. She said she had received a phone call from Jim and he had felt very bad that John had this experience as John might associate pain with taking a bath. She said that she often talk to Jim about incidents that happen with John because Jim was John’s real father and understood John better than anyone else did.
She told me that John and Jim were very alike in their personalities, the John had the same type of energy and said she felt the tremendous responsibility that she felt she couldn’t live up to in being the mother of John. She said it was overwhelming and she felt like a failure being John’s mother as she wished she had never had John.
She told me that she hated Tim Stoen and didn’t want him to have anything to do with raising John. She said she couldn’t
-2-
stand Tim and whenever she listened to him talk she felt embarrassed at him and couldn’t stand to hear his voice.
She also told me that she had realized that she wasn’t the type of person to be a mother and that she just couldn’t be satisfied to be home all day with a child.
Dated this 20th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Sharon Amos
Sharon Amos
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-46
Affidavit of Sandra Bradshaw
I, Sandra Bradshaw, being duly sworn, declare:
I live at 2544 Sutter St., San Francisco, California. I have been a member of Peoples Temple for nearly 8 years. I served in the County Probation Department as a Probation Officer for over 7 years.
When I lived at 615 W. Church St., in Ukiah, California, Grace Stoen lived at 400 Oak Park, a few blocks away. We used to take evening walks together with her dogs. She was a very bourgeoise person and superficial, one who had few friends in the church due to her excessive life-style and narcissism. I befriended her as best I could.
It was when she was first pregnant, as she admitted to me that Jim Jones was the father of her child. I have heard her make the statement numerous times since that first admission.
She also talked to me in the months of pregnancy and told me she wanted to have a girl – that she knew she would not be able to relate to a son. Grace was extremely disappointed that she had a male child. This is obviously by the way she related to him. (For instance, she refused to give him his first haircut and let it grow long to make him look like a girl. Someone else had to see that he got a haircut, finally.) In my opinion, Grace was never a conscientious or fit mother.
Dated this 20th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Sandra Bradshaw
Sandra Bradshaw
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-47
Affidavit of Jean Brown
I, Jean Brown, being duly sworn, declare:
That I was present in a meeting of about 8 people sometime during the fall of 1971 when Grace Stoen told the group that Jim Jones was the father of the child she was expecting. I remember the night clearly because there was so much pain involved for all parties when she made this confession. She was very emotional and poured out tremendous hostility against Tim Stoen, whom she felt did not really care for her but only used her as a “pretty wife” to show off in his ambitious political career. Their marriage had been going badly and Tim had not been relating to Grace sexually. Grace swore to those of us in the room that Jim Jones was the father of the expected child.
Dated this 20th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Jean Brown
Jean Brown
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-48
Affidavit of Teresa J. Buford
I, Teresa J. Buford, being duly sworn, declare:
Grace Stoen told me the John Stoen was not sired by Tim Stoen but rather by Jim Jones. This was first told to me with Grace and Jim together one evening in 1973 by the pool of the Redwood Valley church in the evening. Grace told me many times after that about how Jim was concerned about her during her pregnancy and how he would see that she was taking care of herself during the pregnancy and gave her milk on the bus trips to Los Angeles. Grace also told me that she was worried that Tim Stoen was jealous of John being Jim’s son and that she was afraid to leave John alone in the house with Tim because she didn’t know what Tim would do to the child. She told me she was sorry that she had a child and that if she had to do it over again that she would have had an abortion.
Dated this 18th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Teresa J. Buford
Teresa J. Buford
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]
FF-8-49, A-B
Affidavit of Lee Ingram
I, Lee Ingram, being duly sworn, declare:
Grace is a self-centered ego-maniac and in the past would brag about and make known her accomplishments, even if they were other’s deeds.
One such was her marriage to Tim Stoen, a one time member of Peoples Temple and a successful Assistant District Attorney in Mendocino and San Francisco Counties. This was Grace’s penchant to live vicariously through other’s deeds and make claims for how great she was – purely through some dependent attachment.
Grace’s son, John, was fathered by Jim Jones after much verbal counseling was attempted, I designed specifically to help the fragile and intemperant [intemperate] Grace maintain a little sanity. John was another “object” for her to flaunt. On more than one occasion in the course of conversation she’d
-2-
mentioned to me how she was instructing John to respect Tim, his play daddy, but his true devotion should be given to his real father, Jim Jones. This was repeated over and over again – “Yes John, Jim is your dad, he’s your father.”
Dated this 20th day of August, 1977.
/s/ Lee Ingram
Lee Ingram
[Stamp and seal by Notary Public James R. Randolph]