{"id":16589,"date":"2013-03-11T00:56:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T00:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=16589"},"modified":"2019-07-20T11:20:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-20T18:20:39","slug":"moore-lasttodie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=16589","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 12 \u2013 \u201cThe Last To Die\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

This chapter (pp. 317-340) from A Sympathetic History of Jonestown: The Moore Family Involvement in the Peoples Temple<\/em><\/a> by Rebecca Moore (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1985) reconstructs the events in Jonestown on November 17 and 18, 1978. The PDF of the chapter appears here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

“If there are angels, you can be sure many have been added to the list.”<\/i>
\nLetter of condolence from Peoples Temple member<\/i><\/p>\n

319<\/p>\n

Jim Jones planned the death of Congressman Ryan as carefully as he planned his own. He knew of the am\u00adbush on the Congressman and his party in advance. He sent Larry Layton on a suicide mission to destroy Ryan\u2019s plane in the air. When he learned there would be two planes, he sent the crew on the trailer to make sure Ryan would be killed.<\/p>\n

The Congressman\u2019s visit enraged him. After he learned that Ryan\u2019s plane was en route to Jonestown on November 17, 1978, Jim announced over the loudspeaker: \u201cAlert, alert. We\u2019re being invaded.\u201d Tim Carter said it was the first time he heard Jim use the word \u201calert\u201d, and it scared him.<\/p>\n

Jim ordered the Jonestown basketball team back to the community. The team had gone to Georgetown to play the Guyana National Team. But the young men refused to return. \u201cWe just laughed at the order and said it was dumb,\u201d said Stephan Jones.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t seem dumb to Jim. Leo Ryan had brought just about every known enemy of Peoples Temple to Guy\u00adana. Tim and Grace Stoen, Mickey Touchette, Nadyne Hous\u00adton, Sherwin Harris, Steven Katsaris, as well as hostile reporters made up Ryan\u2019s entourage. Several who made the trip had sued Peoples Temple. Others had threatened, pub\u00adlicly or privately, to retrieve their relatives by force.<\/p>\n

But as people gathered in the pavilion on the afternoon of the 17th, Marceline Jones argued that the Congressman and relatives should be allowed to come into the community. The group was relaxed, she told Jim, ready for Ryan\u2019s visit. After an hour, Jim relented.<\/p>\n

Ryan met with Mark Lane and Charles Garry that morning, hoping to get Jim\u2019s okay. With no assurance of anything, he announced he would go to Jonestown \u201cwith or without permission and that he would take along the news contingent and some of the Concerned Relatives,\u201d wrote Washington Post reporter Charles Krause. If the Congress\u00adman were turned back at the gate, the NBC news team would be there to record the event. The Concerned Relatives talked among themselves, and sent four to accompany Ryan:<\/p>\n

320<\/p>\n

Jim Cobb, Beverly Oliver, Carol Boyd, and Anthony Kat\u00adsaris, Maria\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n

The relatives were disappointed when the pilot of the Guyana Airways Twin Otter told them he didn\u2019t think he could land on the muddy airstrip at Port Kai\u00adtuma. He flew over Jonestown, and everyone gasped at the size of the project. It looked like a real town, not a jungle camp. The pilot flew over the landing strip a second time and decided he might be able to make it.<\/p>\n

A Guyana police corporal greeted the group leav\u00ading the plane. He told them he was instructed not to let anyone go to Jonestown without Jim\u2019s permission. Lane and Garry met with some Jonestown residents waiting in a truck on the edge of the airstrip. The two lawyers then told Ryan to wait for a couple of hours while they went to the settlement to persuade Jim to let the group in. But five minutes after they left, the truck returned. Ryan, his aide Jackie Speier, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy Richard Dwyer, and a Guyanese official from the Information Ministry, Neville Annibourne, were told they could go in. The others had to wait.<\/p>\n

Ryan arrived in Jonestown, and after taking a brief tour of the place with Marceline, told Jim that journalists and relatives were waiting at Port Kaituma. Although Jim remained reluctant to let them in, Charles Garry convinced him it would be good publicity to grant access.<\/p>\n

Once the reporters reached the pavilion, they be\u00adgan to question Jim. Marceline had told Ryan, Dwyer and Annibourne that Jim was sick. The reporters, however, did not know anything was wrong, although Jim struck them as odd.<\/p>\n

321<\/p>\n

While Jim fulfilled the journalists\u2019 expectations, the community surprised them. It didn\u2019t look anything like the concentration camp they\u2019d anticipated. Charles Krause later wrote:<\/p>\n

I noted immediately that, contrary to what the \u2018Concerned Relatives\u2019 had told us, nobody seemed to be starving. Indeed, every\u00adone seemed quite healthy. I began to walk, alone, up toward the main building at the center of Jonestown, thinking that, consider\u00ading everything, this little place was rather pleasant. I could see how someone might want to live here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After dinner, the Jonestown entertainment commit\u00adtee put on a show of song, dance and comedy for the Con\u00adgressman and his party. Unlike other visitors, however, who enjoyed the performance, Ryan and several reporters thought it was \u201cunnatural\u201d for old people to keep time to the music. Ryan pointed out Tom Kice, Sr., to Krause and observed that Kice\u2019s eyes looked glazed. Tim Reiter\u00adman, a reporter for The San Francisco Examiner<\/em> who\u2019d written critical articles about the Temple, added:<\/p>\n

As I looked around at the benches of people, old and young, clapping and bouncing to rock and jazz, one thing was fresh in my mind: the stories of former members who re\u00adcounted that performances and tours were elaborately staged when politicians and other dignitaries visited the Temple in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t seem that these people were clapping and smiling on command, nor that little children would be pulling dogs\u2019 tails and ears and nudging each other on command, nor that those smiling, foot-thumping enter\u00adtainers with beautiful strong voices backed by horns and guitars were under command.<\/p>\n

Yet there was a slight undercurrent of control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Someone announced that the Jonestown basketball team had just won its game in Georgetown by ten points. Jim jumped to his feet and shook hands with Annibourne. \u201cThat\u2019s a coup,\u201d he said through the applause.<\/p>\n

Marceline took the microphone at one point during the evening and introduced Congressman Ryan to the group<\/p>\n

322<\/p>\n

of residents assembled in the pavilion. Ryan explained that he\u2019d come to talk with a few people whose relatives in the U.S. had asked how they were being treated. He\u2019d already spent time that evening interviewing several Temple members. But, he added, Jonestown seemed to be the best thing that had happened to many of the people there. The group gave him a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

When the show ended, sometime between 10 and 11 that evening, reporters once again questioned Jim, while Ryan met with people he wanted to see. The newsmen asked Jim about beatings, drugs, guns, and the doubts that Peo\u00adples Temple was really a church. Jim answered the hos\u00adtile queries angrily, defensively. He then sent the re\u00adporters back to Port Kaituma, denying their request to spend the night in Jonestown.<\/p>\n

It was late, and the reporters didn\u2019t know where they could stay. They ended up at the Weekend Bar, where local Guyanese told them horror stories. The stories, combined with a note someone handed NBC news reporter Don Harris before he left Jonestown, aroused the jour\u00adnalists\u2019 suspicions.<\/p>\n

Signed by two people, the note said, \u201cPlease help me get out of Jonestown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim was cheerful the next morning as he talked with Congressman Ryan. But when the reporters returned, and demanded to be let into Jane Pittman Place \u2013 one of the dorms for seniors \u2013 Jim grew angry. He wouldn\u2019t let them in. Charles Garry urged him to reconsider, and he finally consented.<\/p>\n

323<\/p>\n

Inside the large, thatched building, one of the first to be constructed at the community, were row after row of bunkbeds. Mark Lane called it a \u201cslave ship\u201d. A more correct comparison would be an army barracks. The building, which we saw, was big enough to accommodate sixty people in two rows of fifteen bunks. There was room for sleeping, but little else.<\/p>\n

When the group got back to the pavilion after the tour, word went around that several Jonestown residents wanted to leave. Ryan informed Jim that a family of six \u2013 the Bogues \u2013 wanted to go with him. Jim replied, \u201cI feel betrayed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly Tommy Bogue had reason to leave. He\u2019d tried to escape at least once already. And he\u2019d spent a lot of time on the learning crew. He stole aluminum roofing sheets and had to dig a latrine through one night, according to an article in The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>. His medical staff supervisor gave him a poor evaluation, and recommended \u201cthat he spend some time in the Nurse\u2019s office doing orthopedic treatments, such as hot packs, foot soaks, etc.\u201d When Ryan offered him the chance to go, he took it.<\/p>\n

Eleven residents had already left Jonestown that day. The group, which included a family of five, said they were going on a picnic. Instead, they walked along the railroad tracks where a train picked them up and took them to Matthews Ridge.<\/p>\n

Everyone could feel the tension, visitors and<\/p>\n

324<\/p>\n

residents alike. Don Harris grilled Jim for 45 minutes, while NBC crew member Bob Brown held a camera in Jim\u2019s face. \u201cHarris peppered him with hard questions about wea\u00adpons, drugs and corporal punishment,\u201d Charles Krause wrote. \u201cAll lies, my friend,\u201d Jim answered. Harris had interviewed Debbie Layton Blakey before the trip. His questions came directly from her accusation.<\/p>\n

The number of people who wanted to leave grew from six to 12 to 14, to as high as 20, according to one report. Ryan\u2019s aide made arrangements to have an\u00adother plane sent to Port Kaituma, since the Twin Otter they\u2019d come on would not hold all the defectors.<\/p>\n

Ryan assured Jim that he would not call for a Congressional investigation of Peoples Temple upon his return. This was little consolation for Jim, as he said farewell to the people departing. In fact, according to Charles Garry:<\/p>\n

When 14 of his people decided to go out with Ryan, Jones went mad. He thought it was a repudiation of his work. I tried to tell him that 14 out of 1200 was damn good. But Jones was desolate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the group of defectors and journalists made their way to the truck that would take them to the air\u00adstrip, a woman ran up and began screaming at her husband. He\u2019d taken their children without telling her. Other families were split, too. If Jim were desolate, other community members were frantic. \u201cIt was devastating,\u201d Tim Carter said at the inquest into Ryan\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Families were broken up on the spot. One man went off and left his wife working in the kitchen and didn\u2019t even tell her he was going. Children were split up from their parents. It was horrible. In a matter of hours, everything had disintegrated. People were stunned. They didn\u2019t know what to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another reason the defections were so devastating was that most of the people leaving had been Temple leaders. The Parks family virtually ran the medical center. The Bogues had been longtime Jonestown residents. Harold Cordell and Vern Gosney had been Temple members for many years, and Cordell had been an officer of the church. No one expected these people to leave.<\/p>\n

The journalists took the defections lightly. They were surprised there weren\u2019t more. Charles Krause thought<\/p>\n

325<\/p>\n

it was a sign of the community\u2019s strength that only 14 [15] wanted to leave.<\/p>\n

It seemed to me that the Peoples Temple had a legitimate purpose, a noble purpose, and was more or less succeeding. The fact that 16 [15] people, most of them members of two families, were homesick and leaving with Ryan didn\u2019t change that view.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the group of church members and newsmen waited on the truck for Ryan, they heard a commotion. They saw the Congressman, Mark Lane and Charles Garry walk quick\u00adly towards them. Lane, they learned, had saved the Con\u00adgressman\u2019s life by thwarting an attacker with a knife. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be alive if it was not for Mark Lane,\u201d Ryan later told reporters.<\/p>\n

Temple member Don Sly had grabbed Ryan from be\u00adhind, shouting that he was going to kill him. Lane wrestled the knife away while Jim looked on. Garry noticed that the attack didn\u2019t upset Jim. Instead, it seemed to amuse him. \u201cIt was just to scare off Ryan,\u201d Garry said.<\/p>\n

Several believe someone manipulated, or ordered, Sly to attack Ryan. Guyana\u2019s Assistant Police Commis\u00adsioner Skip Roberts showed us that if you really wanted to kill someone, you wouldn\u2019t do it by grabbing the vic\u00adtim around the neck and screaming. Instead, he demon\u00adstrated, you simply thrust forward with the knife, and the person is dead.<\/p>\n

After the attack, Jim asked Ryan, \u201cDoes this change everything?\u201d \u201cIt doesn\u2019t change everything,\u201d Ryan responded, \u201cbut it changes things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The truck carrying Ryan and the others began to pullout of Jonestown at 3:15 on November 18. Larry Lay\u00adton ran up after Ryan boarded the truck, and said he wanted to leave too. The other defectors questioned him, as did his wife Karen. All Larry said was, \u201cIt\u2019s just personal.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the group had gone, Jim got on the loud\u00adspeaker. He calmly told people to go to their cottages. The community was shocked and silent. \u201cThe thing that was most noticeable was the quiet,\u201d Mike Prokes said at the inquest.<\/p>\n

Usually Jonestown was a busy, noisy place. You walked around and you heard peo\u00adple doing things. Music playing. People laughing or talking, kids playing. Now there\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

326<\/p>\n

was nothing. People were walking around whis\u00adpering to each other. There was a hush every\u00adwhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A violent and unusual storm subdued the community further. Said Prokes:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen a lot of storms here before, but never one like this one. It came out of nowhere. Congressman Ryan and his party had left a little while before. Suddenly it got very, very dark. And the wind came up like I\u2019ve never seen it here. It blew so hard that dust and stuff blew up in the pavilion so thick you couldn\u2019t see. It rained very hard. And then it was just over.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While the people of Jonestown waited, not knowing what would happen, the tractor-drawn truck took Ryan\u2019s group over muddy roads to the airstrip. Journalists talked with the defectors, but Charles Krause noted:<\/p>\n

None of the other defectors on the truck and none of the people at the commune had con\u00adfirmed any of the horror stories we had gotten from the \u2018Concerned Relatives\u2019 back at Georgetown.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The knife attack on the Congressman concerned U.S. Embassy officer Dwyer. He asked Neville Annibourne to go with him to the Port Kaituma Administrator to report the incident. They rode the short distance in the Peoples Temple truck. As they talked with the Admin\u00adistrator, a trailer with about seven Temple members drove by them on its way to the airstrip. The men who\u2019d driven Dwyer and Annibourne to the Administrator\u2019s turned their rig around and followed.<\/p>\n

By the time the two walked back to the airstrip, two planes had arrived. The Guyana Airways Twin Otter \u2013 the plane that had brought them all to Jonestown -\u00adwas there, as well as a small Cessna. They found a few Guyanese policemen frisking defectors for weapons.<\/p>\n

According to NBC News Field Producer Robert Flick, a scuffle broke out between the defectors and the men who\u2019d arrived on the truck. We believe he re\u00adferred to Larry resisting the search. Several diagrams and reports show that initially the attackers were not near their victims.<\/p>\n

The men in the truck ordered the Guyanese out of<\/p>\n

327<\/p>\n

the way. Then they opened fire. Fifty to 75 blasts from shotguns, rifles and pistols sprayed the area.<\/p>\n

Inside the Twin Otter, which he\u2019d boarded to stow his baggage, Annibourne heard a sound \u201cas if the cult\u00adists were stoning the plane.\u201d People in the plane told him to duck down, and he lay on the floor beside the pilot.<\/p>\n

Inside the Cessna, Larry Layton allegedly fired three shots at defectors before his gun jammed and ex-member Dale Parks took it away. Monica Bagby, the only black who\u2019d decided to leave with Ryan, was seri\u00adously wounded with two bullets in her back. Another defector, Vern Gosney, was also shot.<\/p>\n

Although several people have said Larry fired first, signaling the other gunmen to commence, the pilot of the Cessna claims Larry began after the ambush star\u00adted. We think Larry did not shoot until he heard the gunfire outside. Jim had sent Larry to destroy the plane when it was airborne, not while it was still on the ground. The decision to send gunmen after the Congress\u00adman was spontaneous, added when Jim learned of the second plane. The ambush confused Larry, and he reportedly started shooting.<\/p>\n

The gunfire outside stopped, and Annibourne, in the Twin Otter, looked up. He saw Temple members, \u201cboth black and white,\u201d aiming guns at the group. The shooting began again.<\/p>\n

During the second barrage, the attackers took \u201cspecial pains to put coup de grace shots into Ryan and Brown, the TV cameraman, and [Greg] Robinson, the news\u00adpaper photographer,\u201d The Washington Post reported Novem\u00adber 20. NBC soundman Steve Sung said the men also delib\u00aderately finished off Don Harris. \u201cThe assassins carefully selected their victims,\u201d he said. \u201cThey sought to slay Ryan, but not the State Department official standing beside him.\u201d They also avoided killing Annibourne, who leaped from the Twin Otter and ran to a shed fifty feet down the runway.<\/p>\n

It was Ryan, not the defectors, who enraged Jim. Although the Congressman had praised the project, and hadn\u2019t been disturbed when a few people wanted to leave, Jim decided Ryan could not return to the U.S. He tested Ryan with a phony assassination attempt. The Congress\u00adman still refused to give him a reason to panic. The only explanation for the attack we can propose is that, in the logic of madness, Jim needed a legitimate excuse for initiating the suicide he longed for.<\/p>\n

The press, and the lies it would tell, also an\u00adgered Jim. It was a cameraman, a photographer and a per\u00ad-<\/p>\n

328<\/p>\n

sistent reporter whom he wanted dead. They were the most obvious enemies. Bob Brown, the NBC cameraman, lay next to Steve Sung. Both were wounded. The gunmen came up and shot Brown dead. They left Sung, perhaps because he was Asian-American. It wasn\u2019t what the cameras recorded that bothered Jim, since the gunmen made no attempt to re\u00adcover them. It was the people, and what they\u2019d done to him, that maddened Jim.<\/p>\n

The Concerned Relatives, defectors and other re\u00adporters got caught in the gunfire, but none were singled out for death. A couple of Guyanese soldiers stood at one end of the airstrip, watching the ambush. They did nothing, they later explained, because it was a fight between two groups of Americans.<\/p>\n

It was over in less than twenty minutes. The Cessna took off, carrying the pilots of the disabled Twin Otter, and Monica Bagby. The pilots reported the attack when they returned to Georgetown, and at six o\u2019clock, Prime Minister Burnham telephoned U.S. Am\u00adbassador Burke and asked him to come to his home. By six-fifteen, Jim Schol\u00adlaert, one of Ryan\u2019s aides who\u2019d remained in George\u00adtown, learned of the shoot\u00ading from the U.S. Embassy.<\/p>\n

Richard Dwyer, him\u00adself shot in the hip, took charge of the wounded. Some had fled into the brush and would remain there over\u00adnight. Dwyer and Annibourne placed four seriously in\u00adjured people in a Guyana Defense Force tent at the east\u00adern end of the airstrip. Three members of the Concerned Relatives \u2013 Anthony Katsaris, Carol Boyd and Beverly Oliver \u2013 were wounded, as were three members of the press corps \u2013 Steve Sung, Ron Javers, a reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>, and Tim Reiterman, a San Francisco Examiner<\/em> reporter. Jackie Speier, Ryan\u2019s assis\u00adtant, was badly hurt.<\/p>\n

Dead were Congressman Leo Ryan, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, NBC newsman Don Harris, San Francisco Examiner<\/em> photographer Greg Robinson, and Patricia Parks, a Temple defector.<\/p>\n

Dwyer got out a radio message a little later. Guy\u00adanese officials assured him that soldiers would be sent<\/p>\n

329<\/p>\n

that night. Guyana Defense Force troops were flown to Matthews Ridge and, traveling part way by jeep, part way by foot, reached the Port Kaituma airstrip at dawn.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

About 5 P.M. on November 18, around the time the gunmen attacked Ryan\u2019s party, Jim calmly ordered every\u00adone to come to the pavilion. Tim Carter waited while his wife went to get diapers for their child. \u201cYou don\u2019t stop to pick up diapers if you think you\u2019re going to die,\u201d he observed. Although kitchen workers were usually exempt from community meetings, Lew Jones ordered them to the pavilion. He had a gun in his belt, according to Stanley Clayton, a survivor of the suicides, but it wasn\u2019t drawn. On his way to the pavilion, Tim Carter saw a girl named Shirley Smith, dancing. She had flipped out.<\/p>\n

Maria Katsaris stopped Tim and Mike Carter by the cage of Mr. Muggs, the chimpanzee. She told them Mike Prokes needed help with a suitcase. They had to go to Georgetown with him. According to the Carters, they went back to their houses to pack and later returned to the pavilion.<\/p>\n

Mark Lane and Charles Garry had taken a walk after Ryan left. When they showed up at the pavilion, Jim warned them off. He told them that some people who left with Ryan were \u201cgoing to do terrible things which will reflect on us.\u201d Put under guard in the guest house, Lane and Garry listened to their captors tell them everyone was going to die.<\/p>\n

Jim explained to the assembly that someone was going to shoot the pilot on Ryan\u2019s plane. They had better prepare to die, he said, because the Guyana Defense Force would arrive in 45 minutes. Any survivors they found would be tortured or castrated. \u201cWe better not have any of our children left when it\u2019s over,\u201d he cautioned them.<\/p>\n

Jim had instilled in them a vague respect as well as a fear for the GDF. The group could fight against the fascists, but it couldn\u2019t fight against its black broth\u00aders. On one occasion Jim asked, \u201cDo you want to fight the soldiers that are just following orders?\u201d If they were truly nonviolent, they could not resist in a vio\u00adlent way.<\/p>\n

When the men returned from the airstrip, they whispered to Jim. He entreated people to remain calm and told them not to excite the children. \u201cJones was clever,\u201d Skip Roberts said six months later. \u201cHe had parents kill their children first. Who would want to live after that?\u201d he asked rhetorically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first person who went up was a young mother,\u201d<\/p>\n

330<\/p>\n

according to Odell Rhodes. Rhodes survived by offering to get a stethoscope for Larry Schacht. When the nurse he accompanied went into the medical center, Rhodes hid. That first volunteer<\/p>\n

had a small baby, about one-and-a-half. She administered [the poison] to her own baby, then she took her own. She walked over to a field and sat down. It was hard to be\u00adlieve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet Odell Rhodes came to believe, as the children he\u2019d taught in the Jonestown school died in his arms. Skip Roberts says he always told the media that 270 had been murdered in Jonestown. That was the number of children who died.<\/p>\n

Others who resisted the poison were murdered as well. Rhodes said a girl named Julie Reynolds \u201ckept spitting it out and the nurses kept forcing her to take it.\u201d Journalists reported seeing syringes with needles bent into the arms of victims. Guyana\u2019s chief patholo\u00adgist, Leslie Mootoo, says he found at least 70 people who had been injected. Clayton said Jim pulled reluctant ones forward. Armed guards and men with crossbows circled the pavilion area. .<\/p>\n

Clayton fled the suicides by pretending to search for survivors, and then running away. Like Tommy Bogue, he felt little love for Jonestown by the final day. Jim humiliated him publicly, and at great length, at a community meeting. He called Clayton a \u201cclass enemy\u201d, a \u201cretard\u201d, and a drug pusher. Jim berated him for his relationship with a woman in whom Larry Schacht was in\u00adterested. It\u2019s possible Clayton was beaten, because Jim talked about his torn clothes. But the harsh verbal ex\u00adcoriation may have been sufficient punishment for Stan\u00adley.<\/p>\n

One woman is heard questioning suicide on a tape of the final hour. \u201cIs it too late for Russia?\u201d Christine Miller asked.<\/p>\n

JONES: It\u2019s too late. I can\u2019t control these people. They\u2019ve gone with the guns. And it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

MILLER: Well, I say let\u2019s make an airlift to Russia. I don\u2019t think nothing is im\u00adpossible, if you believe it.<\/p>\n

JONES: How are we going to do that? …<\/p>\n

MILLER: Well, I thought they said if we got in an emergency, they gave you a code to let them know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

331<\/p>\n

JONES: No, they didn\u2019t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although many, like Christine Miller, thought the Soviet Union was an alternative, and that life would be better there than it had been in the United States, Jim didn\u2019t. For him, life was hopeless. Nothing but death would relieve his pain. So he continued talking with Miller:<\/p>\n

JONES: To me, death is not a fearful thing. It\u2019s living that\u2019s cursed. It\u2019s not worth living like this.<\/p>\n

MILLER: I think that there were too few who left for 1200 people to give their lives for those people that left.<\/p>\n

JONES: Do you know how many left?<\/p>\n

MILLER: Oh, 20-odd. That\u2019s small compared to what\u2019s here \u2022\u2022\u2022 I feel like that as long as there\u2019s life, there\u2019s hope.<\/p>\n

JONES: Well, everybody dies. I haven\u2019t seen anybody yet didn\u2019t die. And I like to choose my own kind of death for a change. I\u2019m tired of being tormen\u00adted to hell. Tired of it.<\/p>\n

MILLER: But I look at all the babies and think they deserve to live.<\/p>\n

JONES: But don\u2019t they deserve much more? They deserve peace.<\/p>\n

MILLER: I think we all have a right to our own destiny as individuals. And I have a right to choose mine, and everyone else has a right to choose theirs.<\/p>\n

JONES: The best testimony we can make is to leave this goddamn world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the crowd shouted Christine Miller down.<\/p>\n

In fact, most people died \u201cmore or less willing\u00adly,\u201d said Rhodes. \u201cBasically a lot of the people were sitting, especially the senior people \u2013 just waiting and watching.\u201d Another survivor, 79-year-old Grover Davis, watched the suicides until he decided to hide himself in a ditch. \u201cHe [Jim] didn\u2019t force nobody as far as my knowing,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t see him shooting nobody with no needles and I didn\u2019t hear nobody say they wasn\u2019t willing to take suicide shots \u2026 They were willing to do it.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

332<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cMany of them had a peaceful look, as if they were sleeping,\u201d a reporter for the Guyana Chronicle<\/em> wrote.<\/p>\n

The impression was reinforced by the fact that for the most part they were lying down in family groups, in many cases mothers with children, couples with their arms around each other, and several with bed\u00adsheets pulled over them as in slumber. Most were lying face down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Time Magazine<\/em>\u2019s New York Bureau Chief Donald Neff described it this way:<\/p>\n

Grotesque in their swollenness but looking relaxed as though comforted in their family togetherness. Nearly all of them were on their faces, eerie figures of slumber … There were no marks of violence, no blood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And a U.S. Army spokesman surveying the scene announced that, \u201cThere was no evidence that force was used on the … victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

If people had resisted, there should have been evidence of violence. \u201cI figured if I was going to die, I would die with a bullet in the back of my head,\u201d Stan\u00adley Clayton said. \u201cI was not going to commit suicide.\u201d Only two people were shot, however \u2013 Jim Jones and Annie \u2013 and both were apparent suicides.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that people wanted to die. But for the residents of Jonestown, it was allover. The defections had stunned them. Whole families had left. They learned Ryan was dead, and knew trouble was coming. There might be more separations. Those who had religious convictions believed Jim when he said, \u201cIt\u2019s just stepping over into another plane … If you knew what was ahead of you, you\u2019d be glad of stepping over tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunted by the prospect of torture and suffering Jim described, they spared their children by killing them. Death was an experience they shared together, as they had shared life. We can\u2019t begin to comprehend the feeling that prompted a woman to shout, \u201cThis is nothing to cry about. This is something we could all rejoice about. \u201c<\/p>\n

People lined up, waiting patiently to take the poison. Once they drank it, others led them away from the pavilion to make room for more bodies. The poison took between five and twenty minutes to work. Mixed<\/p>\n

333<\/p>\n

with painkillers and sedatives, the potion was designed to minimize pain. When the crowd grew panicky, Jim spoke through the microphone. \u201cYou must die with dignity,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was mass confusion,\u201d according to Rhodes. \u201cPeo\u00adple were standing in groups, saying goodbye to each other, walking around hugging old friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the deaths began, they couldn\u2019t be stopped. No one halted the process by overturning the tub of poison. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t anyone rush the vat?\u201d Roberts asked us. \u201cBecause they wanted to die. The guards weren\u2019t even necessary at the end.\u201d They were found with their cross\u00adbows and guns, beneath other bodies, according to Rob\u00aderts. The men suspected of killing Ryan and members of his party also died of poison.<\/p>\n

Some have said the participants believed it was a suicide drill. They\u2019d practiced taking cups of Kool-Aid and heard before that they would all die. Jim had taught them how to die. \u201cHow many of you are afraid of death?\u201d he asked them once, \u201c\u2018cause we\u2019ll help you.\u201d A young person testified to the group that<\/p>\n

Life is shit. What Dad says is true, life outside this collective is shit\u2026 I want to die a revolutionary death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his October 16 directive, Jim made clear what he ex\u00adpected of suicide.<\/p>\n

I have no desire to lay my body down and let it rot when I could make an impact against the fascists in the USA if nothing else. And that\u2019s our whole motivation. Peo\u00adple want to have rest and not live so badly. So that\u2019s why I\u2019m sure the religionists are right \u2013 not in the way they think it, but we do survive the grave.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And on November 18, he reassured them that \u201cwe\u2019re going to meet in another place.\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t think the people of Jonestown ever thought it was a drill that day. If Christine Miller had thought it was phony, would she have argued with Jim? Stephan Jones immediately felt a disaster was un\u00adfolding in Jonestown when they found Sharon Amos and her children dead in Georgetown. \u201cWe\u2019d had the suicide drills,\u201d he told Penthouse Magazine, \u201cand I knew some\u00adthing was happening.\u201d Odell Rhodes added, \u201cIt was evi\u00addent that this was not a drill \u2026 People started going into convulsions, foam came from their lips, and many were crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

334<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mark Lane persuaded the guards to free Garry and himself on the assurance that he would tell the story of Jonestown. After asking directions, Lane and Garry bolted into the jungle. As they ran, Lane heard Jim cry, \u201cMother, mother.\u201d He didn\u2019t hear Jim\u2019s complete statement, however, or he would have understood that Jim was chiding people for upsetting their children.<\/p>\n

Mother, mother, please. Don\u2019t do this. Lay down your life with your child. Free at last. Keep your emotions down. Children, it will not hurt. If you be quiet..\u2022 I call on you to quit exciting your children. Stop this nonsense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The charisma Jim must have had to persuade people they should kill their children is inconceivable. Yet he had such power. People trusted and obeyed him, even unto death. And not just the simple folk.<\/p>\n

As people were dying, Tim Carter returned to the pavilion. There, he says, he saw his son dead and his wife dying. He fled to Jim\u2019s cabin. Annie was there, watching Kimo and John Victor Stoen. \u201cWhere does Jim want the children?\u201d Annie asked Maria Katsaris. -We don\u2019t think she left the cabin after that, although Some theorize that she did. The two children died there. We assume she remained with them the whole time, although Odell Rhodes said she helped distribute the poison.<\/p>\n

Maria brought out a suitcase and two handguns. She gave them to Mike Prokes and the Carter brothers, telling them to deliver the bag to the Soviet Embassy in George\u00adtown. The suitcase, stuffed with a quarter million dollars in cash, was too heavy to lug to Port Kaituma. They buried it at the chicken coop, and reportedly pocketed some of the cash themselves.<\/p>\n

Maria chose Tim Carter and Mike Prokes for the errand because they were church leaders. Carter handled customs and shipping, and Prokes coordinated the Temple\u2019s public relations. Prokes had also been to the Soviet Em\u00adbassy before. Mike Carter, who was the radio operator in Jonestown, accompanied his brother and Prokes.<\/p>\n

Jonestown transmitted its decision to die before it shut down its radio communication. Someone in Jones\u00adtown ordered members of the basketball team to kill the Concerned Relatives staying at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown. Sharon Amos and her daughter, Liane Harris, took the call. Sharon apparently instructed the team to go to the Pegasus. At 7:30 P.M., the team met with the Concerned Relatives. Stephan Jones asked Tim Stoen: \u201cWhy are you causing all the deaths?\u201d<\/p>\n

335<\/p>\n

Then, without saying anything to anyone, Sharon took her birth daughter Liane and her two adopted chil\u00addren, Martin and Christa, into the bathroom. She alleged\u00adly asked Charles Beikman to assist her as she cut her children\u2019s throats and then her own. Guyana police arrested Beikman and accused him of the murders.<\/p>\n

In San Francisco, Sandy Bradshaw waited for Caro\u00adlyn to talk on the radio. The last message she got be\u00adfore the line went dead was: \u201cHold on a minute. Carolyn wants to tell you something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hardcore loyalists were the last to die in Jonestown. Thirteen people, including Carolyn, Annie, Maria, and Jim McElvane committed suicide in Jim\u2019s cabin, a quarter mile from the pavilion.<\/p>\n

Before they died, however, they attended to a few last details. They sent Prokes and the Carters on their way, with a note to the Soviet Embassy and letters in\u00adstructing banks to release Peoples Temple assets to the Embassy. They shot Mr. Muggs twice, although the two slugs did not kill the large chimpanzee immediately. Skip Roberts found him alive two days later. They killed two dogs with another two shots.<\/p>\n

Then Jim shot himself, or had someone else do it for him. The New York Times reported that Carolyn \u201chad been assigned by Jones to shoot him if the anticipated suicides were ever carried out.\u201d Either way, it must have been the \u201corgasm of the grave\u201d he\u2019d desired. More than 900 people had died at his bidding.<\/p>\n

The people remaining then gathered in Jim\u2019s cabin. Someone had brought a thermos of the cyanide. Another, a panful. The children, found in their bunks, were probably sleeping, or put to sleep, before being injected. A few adults drank the poison, while others chose injection. A few elected \u201cdouble death\u201d: drinking and injection. They lay on their bunks, on Jim\u2019s bed, or on the floor, and went to sleep.<\/p>\n

Except for Annie. Stanley Clayton said he heard a shot, well after the five earlier ones. Annie lay dead next to the door, the first one inside the cabin as you entered. The last one to die.<\/p>\n

Guyana\u2019s chief pathologist, Dr. Leslie Mootoo orig\u00adinally believed Ann was murdered. He thought the mutila\u00adtion of the left side of her head was the entrance wound. Dr. Mootoo testified at an inquest in Guyana that he felt someone fired a high-powered rifle at Annie as she looked up to see who had entered the cabin.<\/p>\n

An autopsy performed in the U.S. revealed that the entrance wound was located on the right side of Ann\u2019s head. It was an injury consistent with the .357 Magnum<\/p>\n

336<\/p>\n

lying beside her, and consistent with suicide. The autopsy also showed, however, that she had been injected.<\/p>\n

We wanted to believe it was murder. Annie couldn\u2019t have been a willing participant, we told ourselves, she didn\u2019t know what was going on. We hoped that she resis\u00adted, fought, rebelled at the last moment. But it\u2019s im\u00adpossible to believe that, at the end of it all, she did not want to die. \u201cIf she\u2019d lived,\u201d said Skip Roberts, \u201cshe\u2019d have gone crazy after seeing everyone else dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next to the gun lay her notebook. \u201cI am 24 years of age right now and don\u2019t expect to live through the end of this book,\u201d she wrote. Roberts thought that she began the diary after the group learned of Congressman Ryan\u2019s plan to visit. It\u2019s more likely, however, that she wrote it that day, November 18 \u2013 perhaps as the suicides were going on at the pavilion \u2013 since she used the past tense to describe Jonestown:<\/p>\n

I thought I should at least make some attempt to let the world know what Jim Jones is \u2013 OR WAS \u2013 all about.<\/p>\n

It seems that some people and perhaps the majority of people would like to destroy the best thing that ever happened to the 1,200 or so of us who have followed Jim.<\/p>\n

I am at a point right now so embittered against the world that I don\u2019t know why I am writing this. Someone who finds it will be\u00adlieve I am crazy or believe in the barbed wire that does NOT exist in Jonestown.<\/p>\n

It seems that everything good that hap\u00adpens to the world is under constant attack. When I write this, I can expect some mentally fascist person to find it and decide it should be thrown in the trash before anyone gets a chance to hear the truth \u2013 which is what I am now writing about.<\/p>\n

Where can I begin \u2013 JONESTOWN \u2013 the most peaceful, loving community that ever existed, JIM JONES \u2013 the one who made this paradise possible \u2013 much to the contrary of the lies stated about Jim Jones being a power-hungry sadistic, mean person who thought he was God \u2013 of all things.<\/p>\n

I want you who read this to know that Jim was the most honest, loving, caring con\u00adcerned person whom I ever met and knew. His love for animals \u2013 each creature, poisonous snakes, tarantulas. None of them ever bit him<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

337<\/p>\n

because he was such a gentle person. He knew how mean the world was and he took any and every stray animal and took care of each one.<\/p>\n

His love for humans was unsurmountable and it was many of those whom he put his love and trust in that left him and spit in his face. Teresa Buford, Debbie Blakey \u2013 they both wanted sex from him which he was too ill to give. Why should he have to give them sex \u2013 and Tim and Grace Stoen \u2013 also include them. I should know.<\/p>\n

I have spent these last few months tak\u00ading care of Jim\u2019s health. However, it was difficult to take care of anything for him. He always would do it for himself.<\/p>\n

His hatred of racism, sexism, elitism, and mainly classism, is what prompted him to make a new world for the people \u2013 a para\u00addise in the jungle. The children loved it. So [did] everyone else.<\/p>\n

There were no ugly, mean policemen want\u00ading to beat our heads in, no more racist tears from whites and others who thought they were better. No one was made fun of for their appearance \u2013 something no one had control over.<\/p>\n

Meanness and making fun was not allowed. Maybe this is why all the lies were started. Besides this fact, no one was allowed to live higher than anyone else. The United States allowed criticism. The problem being this and not all the side tracks of black power, woman power, Indian power, gay power.<\/p>\n

Jim Jones showed us all this \u2013 that we could live together with our differences, that we are all the same human beings. Luck\u00adily, we are more fortunate than the starving babies of Ethiopia, than the starving babies in the United States.<\/p>\n

What a beautiful place this was. The children loved the jungle, learned about ani\u00admals and plants. There were no cars to run over them; no child-molesters to molest them; nobody to hurt them. They were the freest, most intelligent children I have ever known.<\/p>\n

Seniors had dignity. They had whatever they wanted \u2013 a plot of land for a garden. Seniors were treated with respect \u2013 some\u00adthing they never had in the United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

338<\/p>\n

A rare few were sick, and when they were, they were given the best medical care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the rest of the diary was written in blue ink, the last line appears in black: \u201cWe died be\u00adcause you would not let us live in peace. [Signed] Annie Moore.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Central Intelligence Agency relayed the first word to Washington that there had been mass deaths at Jonestown,\u201d New York Times<\/em> reporter Nicholas M. Horrock wrote on December 1, 1978.<\/p>\n

In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, Novem\u00adber 19, survivors reached the Guyanese army post at Matthews Ridge, a few [30] miles from the Jonestown camp with the story of the deaths. A police officer relayed this immediately to his superiors in Georgetown, the capital \u2026 A Guyanese police official who acts as an agent for the CIA in turn reported it to agency personnel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Defense Department After Action Report confirms that the CIA first informed Defense of the suicides.<\/p>\n

Neville Annibourne said he first heard of the sui\u00adcides on the evening of the 18th, when survivors told police in Port Kaituma about the deaths. Mike Prokes and the Carters could have done so, since they went to the Kaituma docks to meet the Temple boat. The Cudjoe was gone, but the police were there. Skip Roberts said Odell Rhodes was the first to report the suicides to the authorities. Rhodes and Clayton also reached Port Kai\u00adtuma that evening.<\/p>\n

By early Sunday morning, a few government offi\u00adcials in Washington knew of the suicides. Ambassador Burke had already notified the State Department of Con\u00adgressman Ryan\u2019s death at 8:30 Saturday night. At 8:40, the Ambassador learned of Sharon Amos\u2019 death.<\/p>\n

The Guyana government sent troops to the North\u00adwest District the night of the 18th. Darkness, bad weath\u00ader and muddy roads slowed the soldiers as they traveled from Matthews Ridge to Port Kaituma.<\/p>\n

Mark Lane surfaced after the Guyana Defense Force arrived at the airstrip the next day. He told them he\u2019d heard 80 to 85 bursts of automatic weapon fire. \u201cLane said he and Garry dived into the bush as terror-stricken sect members fled into the jungle to the accompaniment of heavy gunfire,\u201d according to The San Francisco Chron\u00ad<\/em>–<\/p>\n

339<\/p>\n

icle<\/em>. Charles Garry told John, however, that he was three feet from Lane and \u201cheard three or four shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although some news stories say Lane and Garry didn\u2019t reappear for 26 hours, they must have emerged from the jungle before the Guyanese soldiers went into Jones\u00adtown, because Skip Roberts claimed:<\/p>\n

Mark Lane created a lot of trouble with his story about the burst of gunfire and automatic weapons … So the GDF went in ex\u00adpecting to be attacked… They took each house like it was a war, and destroyed evi\u00addence … I don\u2019t blame them, since they expected to be machine-gunned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While the troops were en route, carefully circling the project before going in, 76-year-old Hyacinth Thrush woke up. She got out of bed and left the dormitory. \u201cNot a living soul was in view,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n

I struggled along the path to the pavil\u00adion and was surprised no one was around. I was looking for the senior citizens center and I managed to pull myself up the stairs. It was then that I saw all my people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thrush tried to revive her sister, who\u2019d been in\u00adjected along with the other seniors in the cabin. Hyacinth had escaped scrutiny by the medical team, because she\u2019d been asleep.<\/p>\n

Sunday afternoon, Grover Davis joined her. The two were cautious. Guyanese troops didn\u2019t find them until that evening.<\/p>\n

The Guyana Defense Force reached Jonestown late Sunday afternoon and counted three to four hundred bod\u00adies. The rest of the settlers, they assumed, had scram\u00adbled into the bush.<\/p>\n

A Guyana Airways Twin Otter and a GDF aircraft arrived in Port Kaituma Sunday morning to pick up those wounded in the attack on Ryan\u2019s party. The dead and in\u00adjured were transferred to a U.S. Air Force C-141 trans\u00adport in Georgetown, and the most seriously wounded stayed at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Hospital in Puerto Rico. The transport then flew to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

The night of November 19, television network news aired a film of the attack on Ryan that was made by Bob Brown. NBC Field Producer Bob Flick had grabbed Brown\u2019s camera at the airstrip and carried it all the way to Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

340<\/p>\n

We base our theory of what happened November 17, 18 and 19, 1978, on many different accounts from many different people. We took the pieces we found most cred\u00adible, rejected what didn\u2019t fit, and guessed at the rest. Some reports \u2013 Mark Lane\u2019s, for example \u2013 weren\u2019t con\u00adsistent with evidence found afterwards. Other stories are mysterious, but probably not relevant, and certainly not verified. We can\u2019t explain how Hyacinth Thrush saw a nurse Sunday afternoon who gave her a sandwich and ran into the jungle, saying many others escaped as well. We don\u2019t know what to make of Stanley Clayton\u2019s convic\u00adtion that he heard a lot of people cheer 45 minutes after the suicides.<\/p>\n

We hypothesize without having all the facts, know\u00ading that information may come out later to contradict us. Perhaps some of the wilder theories may prove correct: that it was a neutron bomb that killed everyone; that the CIA marked Leo Ryan for a \u201chit\u201d because he leaked the story about the agency\u2019s involvement in Angola; that Jim Jones worked for the CIA.<\/p>\n

Perhaps there was more coercion than the tape of the final hour in Jonestown reveals. Since fewer than a dozen autopsies were performed, done in the U.S. a month after the suicides, we really don\u2019t know how people died that day. More people may have been shot. Perhaps most were injected. At this point, no one knows. Or no one is telling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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