CHAPTER 25: NOVEMBER
p. 200, Sam Houston was worried about them: House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Staff Investigative Report, May 15, 1979.
p. 200, Justice Aubrey Bishop, quit the case after receiving phone calls: Nicholas Horrock, “Guyana Orders Custody Case Inquiry,” New York Times, December 7, 1978.
p. 200, Chief Justice Harold Bollers didn’t reassign it: Georgetown feedback, October 2, 1978, RYMUR-89-4286-2018-E-3-A-2(234).
p. 200, as the court had done with the arrest warrant: Meeting with Registrar Barnwell, RYMUR 89-4286-2233-NN-2-rrr-1, October 18, 1978.
p. 201, he was prepared to retrieve his son by force if necessary: US Embassy Log 587, October 3, 1978.
p. 201, On November 1, the congressman sent Jones a telegram: Ryan telegram to Jones, November 1, 1978, RYMUR 89-4286-2233-AA-1-b6.
p. 201, refused to allow the crew entry to Jonestown: Letter to NBC, November 4, 1978 RYMUR 89-4286-2233-AA-1-y-1.
p. 201, “The Committee does intend to leave as scheduled”: Ryan letter to Lane, November 10, 1978 RYMUR 89-4286-2233-AA-1-h-1.
p. 201, That would create a snowball effect: Georgetown radio traffic, November 12, 1978 RYMUR 89-4286-2018-E-3-A-2(25).
p. 202, it would be a “grave mistake”: undated, RYMUR 89-4286-2018-E-3-4-2(72).
p. 202, He was irritated by the stunt: Georgetown Traffic feedback, October 10, 1978, RYMUR 89-4286-2018-E-3-A-2(202).
p. 202, they didn’t see “barbed wire”: House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Staff Investigative Report, May 15, 1979, 143.
p. 202, congressman’s staff was more concerned about travel logistics: Jackie Speier deposition, Peoples Temple v. California Attorney General, January 26, 1982.
p. 203, he intended to stay down there “as long as it takes”: Marshall Kilduff, “Ryan to Visit Rev. Jones’ Jungle Refuge,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 8, 1978.
p. 203, they would suffer the consequences: Q175.
p. 203, The Temple leader could barely walk: Reiterman, Raven, 468.
p. 203, “I will see you in the grave”: Q313.
p. 203, He placed multiple orders for the poison: Lab orders, RYMUR 89-4286-2233-EE-8-5-19, 00-3-UUU2, 00-3-BBBB2.
p. 203, his autopsy detected large levels of Thorazine: Schacht autopsy, AFIP#1680274.
p. 204, Harold Cordell witnessed a large drum of chemicals arrive aboard the Cudjoe: Harold Cordell interview with author.
p. 204, They schemed and schemed: Harold Cordell interview with the author.
p. 204, The young woman didn’t answer: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 97.
p. 204, she was too poor to feed them: Valita George interview with author.
p. 205, he was prepared to make a great sacrifice: Q314.
CHAPTER 26: RYAN
p. 206, revoke the visas of the other reporters: Georgetown, November 14, 1978, RYMUR 89-4286-2018-E-3-A-2(15).
p. 206, to find their reservations canceled: Reiterman, Raven, 482.
p. 206, restamped their passports: Reiterman, Raven, 483.
p. 207, whom Jones had summoned to Guyana the previous day: Stateside Feedback, November 13, 1978, RYMUR 89-4286-2233-AA-1-hh-1.
p. 207, Jones was too ill to do so: Reiterman, Raven, 484.
p. 207, he was worried about the mental health of the Jonestown residents: George-town traffic, November 16, 1978, RYMUR 89-4286-2018-E-3-A-2(5).
p. 207, Jones held a rally: Q50.
p. 207, he refused to sit next to him: Garry FBI interview.
p. 208, “Very well”: Garry deposition.
p. 208, Temple members stood beside it: Dwyer deposition.
p. 209, Carter walked away: Dwyer deposition.
p. 209, they weren’t even permitted to leave the airstrip: Reiterman, Raven, 489.
p. 209, Temple leader wouldn’t let him into Jonestown: New York Times, November 20, 1978.
p. 209, Logs had been deliberately strewn across the road: Dwyer deposition.
p. 209, “I hope to God I have done the right thing”: Dwyer deposition.
p. 210, they’d be on the floor, he warned: Q050.
p. 210, Jones had said she was a CIA agent: FBI interview with Beverly Oliver, December 7, 1978, SJ 89-123.
p. 210, she made weird comments about the guests’ food being poisoned: FBI interview with Anthony Katsaris, December 8, 1978, SJ 89-123.
p. 210, nod their head if they wanted to leave: Dwyer deposition.
p. 210, supposedly sick or otherwise unavailable: Speier deposition.
p. 210, these, as ordered, were duly handed to Temple censors: Letters brought in by Ryan, RYMUR 89-4286-2233-AA-1-e-1.
p. 211, “Sometimes I feel like a dying man”: Reiterman, Raven, 493.
p. 211, “I only said it is better that we commit suicide than kill”: Reiterman, Raven, 498.
p. 211, Anthony Katsaris invited Maria to take a stroll: FBI interview with Anthony Katsaris, December 8, 1978, SJ 89-123.
p. 211, Marceline interrupted Ryan’s interviews: Q048.
p. 212, “Help us get out of Jonestown”: Reiterman, Raven, 503.
p. 212, Gosney, a former heroin addict: CNN transcript of interview with Vern Gosney.
p. 212, Dwyer went to bed … feeling satisfied: Dwyer deposition.
p. 212, Jones gave the residents a free day: Edith Bogue, FBI interview.
p. 212, and prescribed Valium by Dr. Schacht: “Gene Chaikin medical chart,” RYMUR 89-4286-2233-BB-10-d-6, “Orders,” BB-10-d-1.
p. 212, Ryan had visited Gene: Dwyer deposition.
p. 213, he jumped to the conclusion that the inhabitants were being held against their will: Krause, The Guyana Massacre, 67.
p. 213, reporters noted that the living space was crammed: Reiterman, Raven, 509.
p. 214, a group of children watched Willy Wonka: Reiterman, Raven, 505.
p. 214, “Please leave us”: NBC footage.
p. 214, to call for a second plane: Q1289.
p. 214, “You held us here as slaves”: Gerald Parks interview with author.
p. 216, “Try to get yourselves out”: Edith Bogue’s notebook detailing last days of Jonestown (Bogue family collection).
p. 217, Jones pressed his hand to his chest: Reiterman, Raven, 513.
p. 217, He was about to tell him about the poison: Harold Cordell interview with author.
p. 218, “Keep your damn mouth shut”: FBI interview Beverly Oliver.
p. 218, chewing their cuticles to the quick: NBC footage.
p. 218, Jones would kill them right there: Interviews with Harold Cordell, Jim and Thom Bogue.
p. 219, “Motherfucker, you are going to die!”: Tim Carter, Guyanese inquest.
p. 219, “I wish I had been killed”: Dwyer deposition.
p. 219, he wouldn’t recommend further investigations of the camp: Garry deposition.
p. 219, Dwyer urged him to get out of Jonestown immediately: Dwyer deposition.
p. 219, It was Larry Layton: NBC footage.
p. 220, then Layton sat by himself with a “long, weird stare”: Dale Parks deposition.
p. 220, “I think we’ve got trouble”: Reiterman, Raven, 525.
p. 220, the congressman suggested she ride on the Otter instead: Jackie Speier deposition.
p. 221, He grabbed his neck: Dwyer deposition.
p. 221, NBC cameraman Bob Brown bravely continued to record the attack: Reiterman, Raven, 530.
p. 222, Dale Parks wrested it from Layton: Reiterman, Raven, 533.
p. 222, The diplomat asked a bystander: Joel Edwin Clementson interview with author.
p. 222, flashed victory signs: Carlton Daniels interview with author.
CHAPTER 27: END
p. 223, Lane told him about the drugged sandwiches: Lane, 159.
p. 224, Jones sat on a carpenter’s horse with Harriet Tropp beside him: Garry deposition.
p. 225, “Let’s not be divisive”: Garry deposition.
p. 226, someone had rifled thr
ough the crate: Edith Roller note to Jones, September 10, 1978 RYMUR 89-4286-2233-EE-2-pg-9.
p. 226, She appeared to have lost her mind: Tim Carter, Guyana inquest.
p. 226, His autopsy report would reveal longtime barbiturate abuse: Autopsy report by prosecutor Kenneth Mueller, Dover Air Force Base.
p. 227, “It seems that I’m in a cage like a bird”: Christine Miller to Jones, RYMUR 89-4286-2233-EE-2-l-5B.
p. 229, and included grape Flavor-Aid, potassium cyanide, Valium, chloral hydrate: report of Guyanese medical examiner, Leslie Mootoo.
p. 229, She walked out of the pavilion: Rhodes inquest.
p. 229, pry their babies from their arms: Stanley Clayton interview with author.
p. 229, 304 minors would be murdered there: The Jonestown Institute.
p. 230, The odor of burnt almonds: Tim Carter, SDSU.
p. 231, Aides were dragging small corpses into rows: Rhodes inquest.
p. 231, forcing her to swallow it: Stanley Clayton interview with author.
p. 231, “I would like to raise a kitten”: Edith Roller note to Jones, RYMUR 89-4286-2018-C-5-a-8.
p. 232, “I’ll see you in the next life”: Stanley Clayton interview.
p. 233, pressing a stethoscope to people’s chests to make sure they were dead: Guyanese Inquest, Odell Rhodes, SC interview.
p. 234, he got up and sprinted away: Clayton Inquest.
p. 234, he asked his congregants to lie on the floor for him: FBI interview former member of Jones’s church RYMUR 8/75.
p. 234, revolver to his right temple: Guyanese inquest testimony Leslie Mootoo ruled suicide.
p. 234, This was probably the shot Stanley heard: Vernon Gentle/Leslie Mootoo inquest, Odell Rhodes.
CHAPTER 28: BODIES
p. 235, As the massacre was underway: Jonestown radio operator Mike Carter at Guyanese Inquest.
p. 235, “Brownfield has offered to help”: Q1290 recorded by Douglas Ellice on 11.18.78.
p. 235, to enact the last stand and begin murdering Temple enemies: “Grand Jury Hears Aide to Jim Jones; Lawyer says ‘Crimes’ Are Outlined,” John Crewdson, New York Times, December 20, 1978.
p. 236, The Jonestown operator then switched to Morse code: Raven, 522.
p. 236, Liane then cut her own throat: Raven, 545.
p. 236, showed signs of puncture wounds on their upper arms: “Ex-Aide May know of Temple Millions,” John Kifner, New York Times, December 1, 1978.
p. 236, both ingested the cyanide and was shot in the head: Annie Moore autopsy report.
p. 236, found a .357 Ruger Magnum beside her body: Cecil Roberts, Assistant Commissioner of Crime, Guyanese Inquest.
p. 236, along with her suicide note: “Moore suicide note,” RYMUR 89-4286-1894.
p. 237, wrote a longer note: Dick Tropp, “Last words,” condensed version, RYMUR 89-4286-X-1-a-54
p. 238, looked like a patchwork quilt: Chris J. Harper, “What I Saw,” Time, December 4, 1978.
p. 238, shouting “Baby killers!”: Nora Gallagher, “Jonestown: The Survivors’ Story,” New York Times Magazine, November 18, 1979.
p. 238, “We heard you’re going to commit suicide”: Guy Young interview with author.
p. 238, were followed by FBI agents: Guy Young interview with author.
p. 239, placed them in body bags using snow shovels: Jeff Brailey, “Policing Up the Bodies.” The Jonestown Institute spent a day turning over bodies.
p. 239, only able to identify 631 of the 913 dead: RYMUR memorandum, FBI, RYMUR 89-4286-2370, November 9, 1979.
p. 239, babies were buried two to a casket: Fielding McGehee interview with author.
p. 239, was last seen in Jones’s cottage: Tim Carter, excerpt from unpublished book, Jonestown Report no. 9, Jonestown Institute.
p. 239, spent a day at the camp turning over bodies: Valita George interview with author.
p. 239, an indication of her mental instability: “Discovering Aunt Edith Through Her Journals,” Miranda Smith, Jonestown Institute.
CHAPTER 29: SURVIVORS:
p. 240, “He’ll lead out those other kids who ran with him”: Reiterman, Raven, 551.
p. 241, carried him on a stretcher to the Port Kaituma rum shop: Bernard Conyers interview with author.
p. 241, she’d heard people outside her cottage calling: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 110.
p. 241, she’d lost thirty-three pounds in Jonestown: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 126.
p. 242, They carried her to the pavilion: New York Times, November 29, 1978.
p. 243, Jim Jones, who was lying on the platform in the pavilion: Vernon Gentle, Detective Inspector of Police, Guyanese Inquest.
p. 243, but she refused: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 118.
p. 243, Grover Davis, seventy-nine, who’d survived: New York Times, November 29, 1978.
p. 243, a “tiny, birdlike woman”: New York Times, November 30, 1978.
p. 243, but would never receive a reply: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 136.
p. 244, a suitcase filled with $550,000: Reiterman, Raven, 563.
p. 244, A local saw them enter a building to hide: Carlton Daniels interview with author.
p. 244, Jones had set aside millions of dollars in Swiss banks to finance the last-stand plan: John Kifner, “Ex-Aide May Know of Temple Millions; Lawyer Says Woman Has Data on $8 Million in Foreign Banks and Alleged Death Squad,” New York Times, December 4, 1978.
p. 244, several defectors went underground: John Crewdson, “Ex-Aide Links Threats and Violence to Jones Adviser,” New York Times, December 22, 1978.
p. 244, church leaders quickly purged Temple files: Guy Young interview with author, Fielding McGehee interview with author.
p. 245, he shot and killed her and their eighteen-month-old son: Nancy Lewis and Joanne Ostrow, “Slain Bethesda Woman Linked to Cult Chief, Guyana Envoy,” Washington Post, October 26, 1978.
p. 245, Lane told Garry many secrets: Charles Garry, FBI interview, SF 89-250C131, 11.29.78, Garry deposition, Peoples Temple v. Attorney General of California, December 30, 1981.
p. 245, Garry would accuse Lane of being “morally responsible” for the massacre: Diane Alters, “Garry Labels Lane Catalyst for 900 Jonestown Deaths,” McClatchy Newspapers Service, September 20, 1979.
p. 245, “the only person who tried to prevent the murders”: John M. Crewdson, “Mark Lane and Peoples Temple: A Cause to Back, Then Condemn,” New York Times, February 4, 1979.
p. 245, earning $2,750 per appearance: Reiterman, Raven, 579.
p. 245, charged Larry Layton with aiding and abetting: Katherine Bishop, “1978 Cult Figure Gets Life Term in Congressman’s Jungle Slaying,” New York Times, March 4, 1987.
p. 245, House of Representatives investigation found fault with the US Embassy’s dealings: House of Representatives Staff Investigative Group, May 15, 1979.
p. 246, Hyacinth Thrash received $4,351: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 134.
p. 246, Jackie Speier received $360,000: Moore, A Sympathetic History, 354.
p. 246, and charging visitors two hundred dollars per night for the thrill of the Jonestown “experience”: Gerry Gouveia interview with author. p. 247, she used the money to bury her sister: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 123.
p. 247, she heard Zip call her name: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 128.
p. 247, he took advantage of unschooled blacks: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 132.
p. 247, she sang gospel music aloud to lift her spirits: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 127.
p. 247, she attended the services of a healing evangelist: Thrash, The Onliest One Alive, 131.
p. 247, It was downhill from there: Stanley Clayton interview with author.
p. 248, Tommy Bogue, who now goes by Thom: Thom Bogue interview with author.
p. 248, Jim Bogue tormented himself for years: Jim Bogue interview with author.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost I want to thank those Jonestown survivors who s
hared their experiences with me. Thom and Jim Bogue were exceedingly gracious with their time and hospitality, and answered my questions with patience and good humor. Stanley Clayton helped me understand the draw of Peoples Temple for a marginalized kid from Oakland, and how, even in the worst times, he felt sustained by this fellowship. Harold Cordell, Leslie Wagner-Wilson, Jordan Vilchez, Laura Kohl, Teri Buford, Don Beck, Dawn Gardfrey, Guy Young, Jerry Parks, Yulanda Crawford, Grace Jones, and Garry Lambrev all offered keen anecdotes and insight that helped complete the narrative.
Fielding “Mac” McGehee and Rebecca Moore of the Jonestown Institute for their tireless efforts to humanize Jones’s victims and to provide researchers with accurate material and direction.
I’ll never visit Indianapolis again without thinking of Hyacinth Thrash, whose memoir, The Onliest One Alive, was so helpful to me, or enter a World Market store without remembering Edith Roller, who also loved shopping there. I hope that someday the last months of her diary will be recovered.
Other sources to whom I’m indebted include Marshall Kilduff, who, in many ways, laid the groundwork for this book; author Donald Freed; former FBI agent Barry Mones; and, in Guyana, Valita George, Bernard Conyers, Carlton Daniels, Joel Edwin Clementson, Raschid Osman, Wilfred and Benjamin Jupiter, Gerald Gouveia, and Hamilton Green.
My publishing team at Free Press, Dominick Anfuso and Leah Miller, who kept the manuscript from suffocating in details and helped me find the natural arc of the story. Free Press publisher Martha Levin for granting me extra time to get the job done.
Kim Witherspoon, my wonderful agent, who was always responsive and supportive, as an agent should be.
My family. I was pregnant as I wrote this book, and my daughter Davia Joy was born in the middle of it. I’m forever grateful to my husband, Tim Rose, who took on the bulk of night feedings and daily care so I could write. My older daughter, Tessa Liberty, kept me from straying too far into the Jonestown darkness with her playfulness and affection. My family continually reminded me, as I worked with such tragic subject matter, how precious life is.
INDEX
abolitionist movement, 92
A Thousand Lives Page 33