{"id":65000,"date":"2015-10-30T00:26:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T00:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=65000"},"modified":"2026-02-27T13:52:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:52:33","slug":"obituaries-2015","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=65000","title":{"rendered":"Obituaries 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher O\u2019Neal<\/strong>, who went to Jonestown to be with his girlfriend Brenda Parks and who \u2013 along with the Parks family \u2013 left with Congressman Leo Ryan on November 18, was shot to death<\/a> during an incident described as a \u201csuicide by cop\u201d in November 2014. Additional coverage of his death appears on the Peoples Temple in the News 2015<\/a> page. A reflection on his life\u2019s story appears here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teresa Ann Cobb<\/strong>, whose family moved with Peoples Temple from Indiana to California, and who was among the eight college students who defected<\/a> in 1973, died on February 13, 2015. Remembrances by Laura Johnston Kohl<\/a>, Leslie Wagner Wilson<\/a> and Vera Washington<\/a> reflect on different aspects of Teresa\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

George Klineman<\/strong>, who co-authored the book The Cult that Died: The Tragedy of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple<\/i><\/a>, published in 1980, died in late 2014 or early 2015. Further details of cause and date of death are not known.<\/p>\n

PJ Paparelli, <\/strong>the Artistic Director of American Theater Company in Chicago who staged the Leigh Fondakowski play The People\u2019s Temple<\/em> both in Chicago and Juneau, Alaska \u2013 and who more recently worked with a new education program called Youth Ensemble to bring theater into the lives of the students of Chicago\u2019s public schools \u2013 died in a traffic accident in Scotland on May 21, 2015. His writing about his work in bringing The People\u2019s Temple<\/em> together with 13 teenagers from Chicago appears here<\/a>. Several other related articles \u2013 including those by PJ\u2019s students and by former Temple members whom the students interviewed \u2013 appear in the \u201cFilm and Drama\u201d section of the Peoples Temple in the Arts<\/a> page for 2014. <\/em>Remembrances on this site include those by Laura Johnston Kohl<\/a> and Leigh Fondakowski<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Thomas <\/strong>Robbins<\/strong>, an author and independent scholar of sociology of religion who wrote extensively on the Jonestown tragedy, died of cancer on August 31, 2015.<\/p>\n

Mary Sawyer<\/strong>, a professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University in Ames, who wrote often on Peoples Temple and Jonestown, including for this site<\/a>, died on May 20, at Clare House in Dubuque, Iowa. Dr. Sawyer became involved with Peoples Temple while working on many of the same issues \u2013 especially those concerning black elected officials \u2013 in San Francisco during the 1970s. She was an editor of the volume, Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America<\/a>, published in 2004.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In addition, we learned this year of other deaths from previous years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Warren Christopher<\/strong>, the Deputy Secretary of State at the time of the deaths in Jonestown, died<\/a> in 2011. Mr. Christopher was instrumental in coordinating the department\u2019s response to the Jonestown tragedy, including his work with Guyanese officials on issues surrounding repatriation of the remains.<\/p>\n

John Barbagelata<\/strong>, who lost the San Francisco mayoral race to George Moscone in 1975 \u2013 and who swore<\/a> that Peoples Temple committed election fraud that led to his defeat \u2013 died on March 19, 1994.<\/p>\n

Victor Dikeos<\/strong>, a longtime diplomat, including several years as the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission to Panama in the late 1970s, died<\/a> in May 2014. Mr. Dikeos volunteered in a similar capacity in November 1978, filling in for Richard Dwyer, who was wounded at the Port Kaituma airstrip, and was one of the first people from the American Embassy to arrive in Jonestown, on November 20, 1978.<\/p>\n

John Judge<\/strong>, whose seminal work written in 1985, The Black Hole of Guyana<\/a>, laid out his evidence for alternative theories as to what happened in Jonestown \u2013 including Jim Jones\u2019 alleged connections to intelligence agencies, as well as those agencies\u2019 independent interference in the Jonestown experiment, died<\/a> on April 15, 2014.<\/p>\n

Carolyn Pickering [Lautner]<\/strong>, a reporter for The Indianapolis Star<\/em> who was the first to investigate charges against Peoples Temple prior to its migration to California in the mid-1960s, died<\/a> on June 16, 2011. <\/p>\n

Lloyd Barker<\/strong>, who was Guyana\u2019s Chief Commissioner of Police at the time of the deaths in Jonestown, and who was instrumental in that country\u2019s negotiations in the removal of the bodies following the deaths of November 18, 1978 died<\/a> in July 1999.<\/p>\n

Sir Harold Bollers<\/strong>, who served as Chief Justice of Guyana\u2019s Supreme Court during the years of Jonestown\u2019s existence and who was involved in the John Victor Stoen custody suit before the deaths of November 18, and in the trials of the two Temple members arrested in their aftermath, died<\/a> on December 26, 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher O\u2019Neal, who went to Jonestown to be with his girlfriend Brenda Parks and who \u2013 along with the Parks family \u2013 left with Congressman Leo Ryan on November 18, was shot to death during an incident described as a \u201csuicide by cop\u201d in November 2014. Additional coverage of his death appears on the Peoples […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":65002,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-65000","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65000","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=65000"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134191,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65000\/revisions\/134191"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}