{"id":128044,"date":"2024-08-25T16:07:32","date_gmt":"2024-08-25T23:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=128044"},"modified":"2024-08-27T12:50:50","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T19:50:50","slug":"the-language-of-death-was-everywhere-for-michigan-woman-family-in-jonestown","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=128044","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The language of death was everywhere\u2019 for Michigan woman, family in Jonestown"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: This article is republished courtesy of MLive.com. The original article appears <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

(MLive.com editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: This is the fourth installment of a five-part series on the life of Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields (nee Miller), who was among 918 people who died in a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown and other Guyana locations on Nov. 18, 1978.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
An aerial view of Jonestown. Photo courtesy of Special Collections & University Archives, San Diego State University Library. Cole Waterman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BAY CITY, MI \u2014 If Jonestown was teetering on collapse, the final push came with the arrival of U.S. Rep. Leo J. Ryan on Nov. 17, 1978, just 10 days after Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields\u2019 husband Donald claimed he was \u201cwell and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining the Rev. Jim Jones\u2019 Peoples Temple movement around 1976, Shirlee, Donald and their two children arrived in Jonestown, Guyana, the following July. Meanwhile, concerned relatives of Jonestown inhabitants were beseeching officials for an investigation, alleging their loved ones were subject to abuse and being held in the isolated compound against their will.<\/p>\n

Fearing intrusion, Jones kept his town at a heightened state, at times enacting mass suicide drills dubbed White Nights.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a long, slow slide as the community deteriorated and collapsed within itself,\u201d said Fielding M. \u201cMac\u201d McGehee III, a researcher and a leading authority on Jonestown. \u201cThe language of death was everywhere. For them (death) was not a big step. It was a slow, incremental thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

On, Nov. 18, 1978, Jim Jones led his followers in a mass murder-suicide that resulted in the death of more than 900 people.<\/p>\n

Ryan led an investigative delegation to Jonestown in response to numerous complaints of human rights violations. His party consisted of newspaper and TV reporters and several relatives of Peoples Temple members.<\/p>\n

Shirlee and Donald Fields were on a list of 162 residents authorized to speak to the guests as a \u201ccommunity task force,\u201d\u00a0according to a document<\/a>\u00a0recovered from the town. They were to put on a strong, positive public face and keep \u201cnegative, erratic\u201d residents away from visitors. Families were encouraged to spend more time together than they normally might \u201cto be visible as nuclear family groups,\u201d the document states.<\/p>\n

Amid applause from the congregation, the delegation was treated to musical performances by house band Jonestown Express and served dinner in the town\u2019s pavilion. After mingling with residents, Ryan took to the stage with microphone in hand, as seen in\u00a0video footage<\/a>\u00a0recorded reporters and featured in the 2018 documentary \u201cJonestown: Terror in the Jungle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestions have been raised about your operation here,\u201d Ryan told the crowd. \u201cWhatever the comments are, there are some people here who believe this is the best thing that ever happened to them in their whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those gathered rose and erupted in more applause and cheers.<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 son, Stephan G. Jones, told MLive he was not in Jonestown that day as he and some of his brothers were with the town\u2019s basketball team in Georgetown for a scrimmage with the Guyanese national team. He contends most residents were motivated by fear to do what his father and other leaders demanded or expected of them.<\/p>\n

While in Georgetown, Stephan Jones received a radio transmission from his father ordering him and his teammates to return to Jonestown. He refused, much to his father\u2019s anger.<\/p>\n

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Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields and her family, who died in Jonestown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSadly, we refused to return to Jonestown because we selfishly were enjoying some freedom from dad\u2019s madness, our growing camaraderie against him, and playing basketball,\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd we somewhat deludedly believed him to be too much of a coward to go through with his many-times threatened mass suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though NBC recorded hours of video footage of the visit, if their cameras captured the Fieldses, they did not stand out.<\/p>\n

The fa\u00e7ade crumbled when a Temple member slipped a note to the visitors requesting help in leaving. The next morning, more people said they wanted to leave. Jones grew surly and a loyalist attacked Ryan with a knife, survivors recounted. Cameramen captured\u00a0the upheaval\u00a0<\/a>as the mood soured.<\/p>\n

The Ryan delegation, joined by 15 defectors and one loyalist posing as a defector, hurriedly left Jonestown for an airstrip in Port Kaituma. Not long after, several of Jones\u2019 guards drove up and opened fire on the group, video footage recorded by an NBC cameraman shows.<\/p>\n

Ryan, three journalists, and one defector died from their wounds. Nine others were wounded but survived.<\/p>\n

Jones had called a meeting in Jonestown\u2019s pavilion as this scenario unfolded. In a 44-minute recording, he informs the crowd Ryan will be killed and tells them American and Guyanese military forces will come down on them, take their children, and torture them.<\/p>\n

\u201cJones tended to react rather than act,\u201d McGehee said. \u201cHis move to Guyana was in reaction to bad publicity. His decision on which date to die was in reaction to Leo Ryan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cDeath Tape\u201d of the mass death is among the most unsettling recordings in existence. It was recorded in part over\u00a0a slowed, warbled version<\/a>\u00a0of the Delfonics\u2019 song \u201cI\u2019m Sorry,\u201d adding to its surreal quality.<\/p>\n

On the tape, Jones decries traitors and liars and urges his followers to commit \u201crevolutionary suicide.\u201d While many shout in agreement, one woman, identified by researchers as\u00a0Christine Miller<\/a>, opposes this and presses Jones for alternatives, which he disregards. He tells his followers without him, their lives have no meaning.<\/p>\n

Once word reaches him that Ryan has been killed, Jones instructs his followers to drink \u201cmedicine\u201d \u2014 a concoction of Flavor Aid, cyanide, and tranquilizers. He falsely assures them it will be like going to sleep and that the children should take it first. In fact, death by cyanide poisoning is a lengthy, painful ordeal.<\/p>\n

Several women individually address Jones, many expressing their gratitude. Most remain unidentified and none sound like Shirlee.<\/p>\n

As the tape progresses, children can he heard weeping and screaming. Jones chastises parents for not keeping their kids calm as they \u201cstep over to the next plane\u201d and harangues others for not laying down their lives willingly. He even harangues his own wife for resisting; she too would die there.<\/p>\n

Voices gradually grow quieter until all fades to silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t commit suicide,\u201d Jones says, as the tape hisses to a close. \u201cWe committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGehee said it\u2019s likely Temple leaders conferred with Don Fields and leaned on his pharmacist\u2019s knowledge to determine the poison\u2019s dosages. Without a doubt, he knew of the cyanide\u2019s presence in Jonestown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf (the town doctor) would have had that conversation with anybody, it would have been Don Fields,\u201d McGehee said.<\/p>\n

(Cole Waterman is a Michigan-based crime reporter with a long-held interest in Peoples Temple and Jonestown who has submitted numerous primary source transcripts from the FBI\u2019s FOIA files to the site beginning in the fall of 2023. He can be reached at\u00a0<\/em>Cole_Waterman@mlive.com<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Editor\u2019s note: This article is republished courtesy of MLive.com. The original article appears here.) (MLive.com editor\u2019s note: This is the fourth installment of a five-part series on the life of Bay City native Shirlee A. Fields (nee Miller), who was among 918 people who died in a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown and other Guyana locations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":128015,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-128044","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128044"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128087,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128044\/revisions\/128087"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/128015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}