Jim Jones

Jim Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones (October 21, 1887 – May 29, 1951) and Lynetta Putnam (April 16, 1902 – December 10, 1977). Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed to have some Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of this. Jones' father was a disabled World War I veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties due to injuries sustained in a chemical weapons attack. He tried to augment his income by occasionally working on neighborhood road repair projects because his military pension was insufficient to support his family. His father's illness led to financial difficulties and intense marital problems. In 1934, during the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack in the nearby town of Lynn in which Jones grew up without plumbing and electricity. The family attempted to earn an income through farming but met with failure when the father's health further deteriorated. They often lacked adequate food, relied on financial support from their extended family, and sometimes resorted to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet. According to multiple biographers, Jones' mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. When Jones began school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother got a job, forcing her to work outside her home. Meanwhile, Jones' father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones' parents were frequently absent during his childhood. His aunts and uncles who lived close by gave him some supervision, but he often wandered the streets of the town, sometimes naked. Jones received some care from female residents of Lynn who frequently gave him food, clothing, and gifts. Early religious and political influences Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the Nazarene Church's pastor, developed an attachment to Jones. She gave Jones a Bible, encouraged him to study it, and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, was baptized in several of them, and often went to multiple churches each week. Even as a child, Jones aspired to become a preacher, and began to practice preaching in private. His mother was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and attempted unsuccessfully to prevent him from attending the church's services. Although they had sympathy for Jones, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. Jones regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he collected. One neighbor stated that Jones killed a cat with a knife for a funeral. When he could not get other children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed to have exceptional abilities, such as the capacity to fly. When he leaped off a roof to demonstrate his abilities, he fell and broke his arm but persisted in his claims. He sometimes put other children into life-threatening situations and told them that he was guided by the Angel of Death. According to claims he made as an adult, Jones committed countless pranks in the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal minister's Bible and covered Acts 2:38 with cow manure. He also asserted that he had once substituted a cup of his urine for the holy water at a Catholic church. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual proclivities because making friends was difficult for him. Although his neighbors regarded his religious practices as his strangest characteristic, they also reported that he misbehaved more seriously. He frequently stole candy from town merchants, leaving his mother required to pay for his thefts. Like his mother, who frequently swore in public and found amusement in people being offended at a woman cursing, Jones used offensive profanity, commonly greeting people with, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or "Hello, you dirty bastard". His mother usually beat him with a leather belt to punish his misbehavior. Jones developed an intense interest in social doctrines and became a voracious reader, studying Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, and Mahatma Gandhi. He told his wife that Mao Zedong was his hero. He spent hours in the community library and brought books home to read. Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth, but as World War II started, he became interested in the Nazi Party. He was fascinated by its pomp, their cohesion, and Hitler's total power. The members of his neighborhood found it disconcerting that he extolled Nazi Germany. Jones acted as a dictator over the other children, ordering them to goosestep together and beating those who disobeyed. One childhood friend recalled Jones shouting "Heil Hitler!" and giving the Nazi salute to German prisoners of war who were traveling to a detention facility. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis. Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities for their affiliation with the Communist Party during 1952. Jones later asserted that in one event, his mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended a communist meeting with her son. Jones became frustrated with the persecution of communists in the U.S. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church." == Peoples Temple ==

Beginnings in Indianapolis |alt=A white building with blue trim sits at the corner of an intersection. In early 1952, Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister, believing the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple. Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism. Peace Mission Movement (pictured in 1938) was a major influence on Jones's ministry.|alt=Father Divine, a middle-aged African-American man. Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader of the International Peace Mission movement who was often derided by Pentecostal ministers for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit to the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objective statement" about its activities to his fellow Pentecostal ministers. Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry. While publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones actually began to promote Divine's teachings on communal living and gradually implemented many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need. Jones made a second visit to Father Divine in 1958 to learn more about his practices. Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries. Jones began progressively implementing the disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple. Disciples of Christ As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he sought an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. Archie Ijames assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, and Jones was finally ordained by Disciples of Christ in 1964. Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2024) dollars to the denomination between 1966 and 1977. Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Racial integration Humanitarian Award from Pastor Cecil Williams, 1977.|alt=Jim Jones shakes hands with Cecil Williams with a large picture of Martin Luther King Jr. in the background. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, and he used the position to secure new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he refused. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and the Urban League when he encouraged his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!" During his time as commission director, Jones helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, and an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood, comforted the local black community and counseled white families not to move. Jones set up sting operations in order to catch restaurants which refused to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders and passed their responses to the media. In 1961, Jones suffered a collapse and was hospitalized. The hospital accidentally placed Jones in its black ward, and he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures which resulted from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. In Indiana, Jones was criticized for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity which was generated by Jones's activities attracted a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible." "Rainbow Family" Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children. Jones referred to his household as a "rainbow family", and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Stephanie Jones died aged 5 in a car accident in May 1959. In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (James Jones Jr.). They adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Relocating Peoples Temple In 1961, Jones warned his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. His wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones began to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war. Jones decided to travel to South America to scout for a site to relocate Peoples Temple. Jones made a stop in Georgetown, Guyana on his way to Brazil. Jones held revival meetings in Guyana, which was a British colony. Continuing to Brazil, Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in Belo Horizonte. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, but found language to be a barrier. Careful not to portray himself as a communist, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than Marxism. The family moved to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for Peoples Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana. During the year of his absence, regular attendance at Peoples Temple declined to fewer than 100. Jones demanded the Peoples Temple send all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts and the church went into debt to support his mission. In late 1963, Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana. Jones arrived in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and low attendance forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller building nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns with Latter Rain groups. Possibly to distract Peoples Temple members from the issues facing their group, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple must move to Northern California for safety. During 1964, Jones made multiple trips to California to find a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Russell Winberg, Peoples Temple's assistant pastor, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members that Jones was abandoning Christianity. Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg. In California, Jones took a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California. In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300. Apostolic Socialism Jones developed a theology influenced by the teachings of William Branham and the Latter Rain movement, Father Divine's "divine economic socialism" teachings, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his views as "Apostolic Socialism". Jones concealed the communist aspects of his teachings until the late 1960s, following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, where he began to gradually introduce his full beliefs to his followers. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism. Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites. Jones referred to traditional Christianity's view of God as a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Instead, Jones claimed to be God, and no God beside him. Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying: What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God. Jones rejected even the few required tenets of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as prescribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Jones frequently warned his followers of an imminent apocalyptic nuclear race war. He claimed that Nazis and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones said he was a messiah sent to save people. He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society. Publicly, Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle. While in the United States, Jones feared the public discovering the full extent of his communist views, which he worried would cost him the support of political leaders and risk Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Historians are divided over whether Jones actually believed his own teachings, or was just using them to manipulate people. Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion to enhance his authority over his followers." In a 1976 interview, Jones claimed to be an agnostic and/or an atheist. Marceline stated in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion. She said Jones called the Bible a "paper idol" that he wanted to destroy. Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple played an instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones hosted local political figures at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Willie Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit: Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave. Through his connections with California politicians, Jones was able to establish contacts with key national political figures. Jones forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California. ==Jonestown==

Publicity problems Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple. Jones had been performing faith healing "miracles" since his joint campaigns with William Branham. "On several occasions his healings were revealed as nothing but a hoax." In other instances, Jones had someone from his inner circle enter the prayer line for healing of cancer. After being "healed" the person would pretend to cough up their tumor, which was actually a chicken gizzard. Jones also pretended to have "special revelations" about individuals which revealed supposed hidden details of their lives: On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. The court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed. Escape to Guyana In the fall of 1973, Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan to escape from the United States in the event of a government raid, and they began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution, socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December, Jones and James traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location. In a newspaper interview, Jones indicated that he would rather settle his commune in a communist country like China or the Soviet Union, and was saddened about his inability to do so. Jones described Lenin and Stalin as his heroes, and saw the Soviet Union as an ideal society. By the summer of 1974, land and supplies were purchased in Guyana. Jones was put in charge of the project and oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories to prepare for the first settlers. In December 1974, the first group arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown. Jones left James to oversee Jonestown while he returned to the United States to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. He was largely unsuccessful and more stories of abuse in Peoples Temple were leaked to the public. In August 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Once they arrived in Jonestown, Jones prevented members from leaving the settlement. Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Bureaucratic requirements after Jones' arrival sapped labor resources for other needs. Buildings fell into disrepair and weeds encroached on fields. James warned Jones that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and determined to move immediately. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more followed in the subsequent months. Jones began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020) dollars in assets at the time. Despite the negative press prior to his departure, Jones was still well respected outside of Peoples Temple for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. For the first several months, Temple members worked six days a week, from approximately 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with an hour for lunch. The work week was shortened to eight hours a day for five days a week in the middle of 1978 after Jones' health started to fail and his wife started taking on more of the management of Jonestown's activities. After the day's work ended, Temple members would attend several hours of activities in a pavilion, including classes in socialism. Jones compared this schedule to the North Korean system of eight hours of daily work followed by eight hours of study. Jones would often read news and commentary, including items from Radio Moscow and Radio Havana, and was known to side with the Soviets over the Chinese during the Sino-Soviet split. Jones's news readings usually portrayed the U.S. as a "capitalist" and "imperialist" villain, while casting "socialist" leaders, such as Kim Il Sung, Robert Mugabe, and Joseph Stalin in a positive light. Recordings of commune meetings show how livid and frustrated Jones would get when anyone did not understand or find interesting the message Jones was placing upon them. Jones forced every member of the Peoples Temple to say they were homosexual, while proclaiming himself the only heterosexual. In spite of this, Jones was bisexual, having sex with both male and female followers in Jonestown. Women who slept with him claimed he was the best lover they ever had; Peoples Temple member Tim Carter felt Jones "put them up to that kind of talk." though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws. On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, Deborah Layton, a Peoples Temple member who escaped Jonestown six months before the massacre, provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown. Timofeyev declared Jonestown in "harmony of theory" with "Marx, Engels, Lenin" and the "practical implementation of... some fundamental features of this theory," and personally thanked Jones. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community and conditioned them to accept suicide as a means of escape. On at least two occasions during White Nights, after a "revolutionary suicide" vote was reached, a simulated mass suicide was rehearsed. Temple defector Deborah Layton described the event in an affidavit: Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands. Meals were meager and workers were often hungry. After spending all day working, the community gathered each evening at the central pavilion to listen to Jones preach. His sermons generally lasted for several hours; most of the community was sleep deprived. According to Teri Buford O'Shea, one of the few escapees from Jonestown, sleep deprivation was one of the most effective methods of controlling Jones's followers. O'Shea said, "One time Jim said to me... 'Let's keep them poor and tired, because if they're poor they can't escape and if they're tired they can't make plans.'" O'Shea also reported that Jones would maintain his control of Peoples Temple members using punishments such as keeping them in a coffin-shaped box several feet underground, while other members were assigned to constantly berate and reprimand them for their perceived slights against the cult. The majority of the community members were minors or the elderly, and the fewer people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the workload required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's orders were increasingly erratic. He was seen staggering and urinating in public, but this was due to prostatitis for a short time towards the end of Jonestown in late October 1978, not the entirety of Jonestown. He found it difficult to walk without assistance around this time, but it cleared up by Ryan's visit. After learning that he might have a lung infection in 1978, Jones told his followers that he actually had lung cancer in an effort to gain their compassion and increase their level of support. Jones was said to be abusing valium, quaaludes, stimulants, and barbiturates. Audio recordings of meetings held in Jonestown in 1978 attest to the commune leader's deteriorating health. Jones complained of high blood pressure that he had had since the early 1950s, small strokes, weight loss of 30 to 40 pounds in the last two weeks of Jonestown, temporary blindness, convulsions, and in late October to early November 1978 while he was ill in his cabin, grotesque swelling of the extremities. and cyanide. As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jonestown's Red Brigade of armed guards arrived and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen. The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed. Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all. Jones told Temple members that the Soviet Union would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued the group should commit "revolutionary suicide". In May 1978, a Temple doctor wrote a memo to Jones asking permission to test cyanide on Jonestown's pigs, as their metabolism was close to that of human beings. A drink mixture of Flavor Aid and cyanide was handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The crowd was also surrounded by armed guards, offering members the basic dilemma of death by poison or death by a guard's hand. Ruletta Paul and her one-year-old child were the first to consume the poison, according to escaped Temple member Odell Rhodes. The child's mouth was filled with poison using a syringe without a needle, and Paul then injected more poison into her own mouth. According to Rhodes, after ingesting the poison, people were taken down a wooden walkway that led outside the pavilion. As parents watched their children perish from the poison, Rhodes described a scene of panic and confusion. He added that many of the assembled Temple members "walked around like they were in a trance" and that the majority "quietly waited their own turn to die." Over time, as more Temple members perished, the guards themselves were called in to die by poison. Later, after police arrived at the headquarters, Sharon escorted her children, Liane, Christa, and Martin, into a bathroom. Wielding a kitchen knife, Sharon first killed Christa, and then Martin. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded. Survivor Tim Carter has suggested that, like a previous practice, that day's lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches may have been tainted with sedatives to subdue members of the cult. Furthermore, in a 2007 interview with forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael H. Stone for the program Most Evil, Carter stated his belief that Jones had his guards pose the dead bodies of the Jonestown residents to make it appear that more people had willingly committed suicide. In his hierarchy of "evil", Stone ranked Jones as a Category 22 (a psychopathic torture-murderer). The mass murder-suicide resulted in the deaths of 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion, along with the deaths of an additional four members residing in Georgetown. The FBI later recovered the 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress; the recording became known as the "Death Tape". == Death and aftermath ==

Jones's three sons, Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones, were with the Peoples Temple's basketball team in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Jones's body was later moved for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted by Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones' body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown. ==Reactions and legacy==

The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive media coverage and became known as the Jonestown Massacre. As awareness reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly denounced Jones and what they called his "bastardization" of revolutionary values. American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and a new process to remove ministers. The Disciples issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community in Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently expelled Peoples Temple from their denomination. In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco were organizing hit squads to target critics and enemies of the Church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. James, who returned from Jonestown to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978, was left to address the public. At first, he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the Church, but later acknowledged the truth. The supporters of Peoples Temple, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Congress. Although individuals and groups had provided tips to the FBI about Peoples Temple, no investigation was made before the massacre. The investigation primarily focused on why authorities, especially the United States State Department, were unaware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals continued to follow Jones's teachings during the 1980s. Since the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Numerous documentaries, films, books, poetry, music, and art have covered or been inspired by the events of Jonestown. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" developed after the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid. == See also ==

• "God's Socialist" is a seven-part series released in 2020 on the Martyr Made Podcast, hosted by Nazi apologist Darryl Cooper. Centered on its primary subject, Jim Jones, the series explores his rise, influence, and the tragic events surrounding the Peoples Temple. To provide context for the world Jones was operating in, the series also offers a concise overview of the rise and decline of several far-left political organizations, including the Students for a Democratic Society, Black Panther Party, Weather Underground, and Symbionese Liberation Army. Additionally, it examines the hardships faced by residents of the South Bronx in the late 1960s and the impact of Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent civil rights movements. == External links ==