{"id":123641,"date":"2023-08-02T17:17:38","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T00:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=123641"},"modified":"2024-04-18T12:09:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T19:09:58","slug":"jonestown-community-responds-to-blakey-defection","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=123641","title":{"rendered":"Jonestown Community Responds to Blakey Defection"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the spring of 1978, a number of outside forces were combining to precipitate crisis conditions within Jonestown. These included: the pressures \u2013 by then, six months in duration \u2013 created by the child custody battle over John Victor Stoen; the ongoing US federal government\u2019s threats to the community\u2019s finances, communications, and supplies; and the petition of the Concerned Relatives brought with elaborate fanfare against Jim Jones in mid-April. If there is a watershed moment that spring, however, from which Jonestown\u2019s descent became precipitous and likely irreversible, it would have been May 13.<\/p>\n

That was the day the Jonestown community learned of the defection of longtime trusted aide, financial secretary and confidante Debbie Layton Blakey. While perhaps not quite rivaling the departure of Tim Stoen nine months earlier \u2013 which itself was drawn out over several months when people didn\u2019t know where Stoen was \u2013 the Blakey defection was a significant betrayal of the Temple: she had been in on many of the leadership planning sessions for Jonestown, she knew of the Temple\u2019s contacts with foreign governments, and she knew where many of the foreign bank accounts were.<\/p>\n

May 13 was also Jim Jones\u2019 47th \u00a0birthday.<\/p>\n

The White Night that was held that night in Jonestown ended up being more than a community meeting during which Jones poured out expressions of anger and self-pity in equal measure. It was also a time that everyone in the community was asked to express their loyalty to the cause and their leader, expressions that were put in writing.<\/p>\n

The documents to emerge from the meeting comprised a typed summary of people\u2019s remarks extending over 114 pages, which itself was a compilation of hundreds of pages of handwritten \u2013 sometimes illegible \u2013 notes. In addition, on several occasions, the text notes that a page or a continuation of remarks is missing. The notes apparently responded to a specific list of questions, since the replies follow the subjects under discussion in roughly the same order, but \u2013 aside from one or two replies that write out some of those questions \u2013\u00a0copies of this list have not been located either.<\/p>\n

These transcriptions were made a significant time later \u2013 there are several references to July \u2013 and, given the document\u2019s several different formats, on different occasions. Jann Gurvich is the only identified typist (her name appears several times), although there may have been others.<\/p>\n

The questions people answered were variations on how 18-year-old Chuckie Henderson began his answer:<\/p>\n