Many of his previous interviews echo what he discusses in Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre, but he has an intimate perspective to give when it comes to his father and mother, who both died during the event. Then they start to ask questions right away.". "I think I'd probably be pretty messed up if I hadn't lost everybody I had and hadn't gone through the prison experience," Stephan Jones says. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, American Idol star Kellie Pickler's husband, 49, 'commits suicide by shooting himself dead' in bedroom of their $2.4 million Nashville home: Pickler called 911 after she was unable to open door of room where he was found, Enough to give you an art attack! That way no one else would want to live. Stephan Jones was a nearly full-grown teen-ager when his father sent him to the Peoples Temple agricultural mission in the small South American coastal country of Guyana. The bodies of followers that drank the poison are strewn around the commune, The Peoples Temple compound, led by Jim Jones, is shown above in November 1978 after the dead bodies were removed. His father, finally, is beginning to let go. Jones wasn't the same man. Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, the first shot was fired. It was Harris who had been contacted by the first two groups of temple members expressing a desire to leave. He was a genius, and he was unique. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of Jim Jones, the controversial religious cult leader. Then they could identify and allow themselves to step into the story and understand how such a thing could happen. It was he who willed it into being and he who also brought it down with the mass murders and suicides of hundreds. You don't tell God, "You're not going out of the house. There was something there. It was just more controlled. Some have come to acknowledge that they helped enable Jim Jones to seize control over people drawn to his interracial church, socialist preaching and religious hucksterism. Don't take my baby!'. NBC sound man Steve Sung had chunks of one arm blown away. I make a point of avoiding pointing fingers and giving specific names. In California, he was steeped in temple life. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. I think most people would have welcomed some kind of action that took Dad out of the picture but I didnt feel like we had enough people to back us up, or I didnt know those people.. File photo: A vat that contained a drink laced with deadly cyanide sits on a sidewalk at Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, November 20, 1978. Were you aware that you had a very different childhood than most? When he was ordered to Georgetown to help with supply shipments, Smith said he concocted an escape plan: Ollie and other temple singers and dancers, he believed, would soon be sent to Georgetown to perform, and the family would flee to the U.S. Embassy. Mr. Jones -- his first name is pronounced Stephen; Marceline Jones spelled it Stephan to honour the memory of an adopted daughter, Stephanie, who died in a car accident -- claims to be. The 21-year-old Indiana native felt pride pioneering in the distant jungle of Guyana, South America. He was right, of course. . She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco, where Eugene ran a temple construction crew. That's what triggered it.'. Suddenly there was no money to buy lumber or supplies--"he was such a tightwad," Stephan Jones says--and the homesteading fervor gave way to the minister's incessant meetings and group lectures and warnings about "enemies.". We built a community out of nothing in four years, recalled Touchette, now a 65-year-old grandfather who has worked for a Miami hydraulics company for nearly 30 years. With their lives, the story of Jonestown continues, even now. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. He will read it when he is ready, he says. He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. present) (3 children). 'Hit the deck!' Stephan may be reached at moreheart1@comcast.net. Then two Guyanese medical evacuation planes flew us to the capital city of Georgetown, where a U.S. Air Force C-141 took us to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., stopping off on their way at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base in Puerto Rico. What we were calling the cause really was Jim, she said. It makes him a little crazy sometimes. A few of us jumped from the truck and ran over there. It marched for four jailed Fresno newsmen. As the visitors prepared to return to the U.S., Peoples Temple gunmen ambushed them on a remote jungle airstrip killing the congressman, Leo Ryan; three newsmen; and a church defector. I also didnt really know what Id be dealing with if I did, but sadly we were finally at a point where I felt I had enough support and we decided that we were going to take action. Every loud sound put us on edge, with some wondering aloud: 'Will they come back to finish us off?'. "He used to say that I would acquire his gift in my late years. And Smiths wife, son and mother died. Mud made the truck bed slick, so everyone clung to the sideboards. . The younger man demanded that everyone in the truck move aside. 'The temple really became my family,' she said. container: 'taboola-right-rail-thumbnails', The minister was famous for his faith healings, which expelled bloody growths from the bodies of the ailing; it was not for many years that Stephan Jones learned about the sleight of hand with raw chicken giblets. The 40th anniversary is offering Americans an opportunity to deal with this neglected sore, with the story receiving treatment in both book and documentary form, a story of a trajectory from charismatic preacher and leader to head of a murderous cult. Anthony Katsaris, brother of Jim Jones aide Maria Katsaris, was wounded in the chest. The mass murders and suicides of hundreds ofPeoples Temple membersin the distant jungle of Guyana, South Americaon November 18, 1978 is a horror that remains nearly unimaginable 40 years later. Thank goodness he lived before me.". The truck spun its wheels until a Caterpillar tractor tugged it into place for a downhill run. Listen, not long before, we went to play basketball. "I don't know what was happening . I wondered why it happened. 'To me the ends justified the means,' he said. In his spare time he swims, or rides his bicycle, or lifts weights, or plays basketball. Rev. And as the years go on, Stephan is still willing to talk about his connection to one of the biggest tragedies in American history even as he tries to live a peaceful life far removed from Jonestown. One day, when she was in high school, she came home and told her parents that her religion class had discussed Peoples Temple; only then did her father share the story of how his family was nearly wiped out. He converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. Ollie worked in the nursery, and Eugene felled trees. But in 1973, Johns oldest brother and a sister, along with six other California college students, quit the church and became its enemies. And when her 23-year-old sister joined, Jordan went to live with her at age 12. This November 1978 file photo shows the Peoples Temple compound, led by Jim Jones, after bodies were removed, in Jonestown, Guyana. 'He hit Monica and Vern. It would become a little town where people of all ages and colours raised food and children. He used this kind of threat to control his people. He was the son of Jim Jones, who established Jonestown. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; ", He does not think he loved his father even a little by then, but blood tied them in some way he did not entirely understand, and leaving was unimaginable. 'I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me,' he said. It was easy to see and feel what was attractive about my father. At the far end of the strip sat a yellow government plane. Jon was born on January 31, 1975, in Oakland, California. Dozens of members in Guyana slipped out of Jonestown or happened to be away that day. Ryan, his thick gray hair bloodied, was near the front of the plane. "The temple was still my only life, and I didn't really see any alternative to it," he says. And it was necessary in my own healing for me to find acceptance for him, understanding of him. I keep remembering what Jones had said in the pavilion. A woman named Sharon Amos had slaughtered her three children and committed suicide. In a 2007 interview with Religion News Service published by Dallas News, Stephan said that he struggled with drug addiction after Jonestown, but that he's sober now. And there was more social rhetoric and action in my life and a lot more fear. "There's just nothing like it," he says. Peoples Temple lost the game, but only by 10 points, which seemed worth celebrating. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. The minister gave the ritual a special name: White Night. A black man with a 'corn rows' hairstyle came up to the rear of the truck. He did.. Jones berated three other new arrivals for misbehavior on the trip; they were beaten and forced to work 24 hours straight. Because people were disenchanted with him by that time? We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Ryan Seacrest, 48, is all smiles with stunning girlfriend Aubrey Paige, 25, as they enjoy Miami shopping trip, a day after it was announced he's being replaced on Live with Kelly and Ryan by Ripa's husband, Who needs Tinder when you've got Duolingo? For years it was largely forgotten along with a number of other insanities in the United States in the 1970s. "He always gave us a hug and a kiss, but it became more mechanical as time went by." He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. "I knew I didn't want to, but I didn't know quite how to confront him or present my case . Did you notice a point or phase where your fathers behavior shifted and he lost touch with the just causes that he once championed? 'There is no way we would be shooting at the airstrip. As we rode onto the black gravel, jungle-bordered runway, a small six-passenger Cessna was parked to one side of the corrugated metal shack which served as the airport terminal. All of us were falling and slipping through the mud around a six-wheel-drive dump truck that would take us (the congressional delegation, the press, the defectors and a group of concerned relatives of temple members) to the Port Kaituma airstrip. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. He said he considered it a failing on his part when he did. At 16, she was put on the Planning Commission where the meetings were a strange mix of church business, sex talk - and adulation for Jones. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, the two temple members who asked for help in the note, also were seriously injured. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalyn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. Did you ever consider the ultimate rebellious act: to defect from the temple? But she wasn't in the truck and the men left. They have altogether three daughters. Life became more tolerable after the couple's baby, Martin Luther Smith, was born. And I think he genuinely cared about those things, but my understanding of my father just from my own experience and stories is that unconsciously he was always primarily managing other peoples perception of him. The next day, when soldiers of the Guyanese army, one of the most ragged in South America, hesitantly entered the Jonestown compound, they were blinded by the thick morning mist. Going by the first body count, the media reported 383 dead. Everyone participated in it and because of that, it went as far as it did, she said. She and Jim were the first caucasian couple in Indiana to adopt an African American . John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. He is an actor, known for Written in Blood (2018), The People's. The dreams have never left him. But it was too late. I dropped to my belly. Most people were away at the time. But after temple gunmen killed the congressman, three newsmen and a church defector on the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones ordered a poisoned grape-flavored drink administered to children first. There were many photographs of the bodies, taken from various angles, in color and black and white, and in each photograph, as though defying the viewer even to believe the report of the camera, row upon row of clothed human backs lay swelling in the jungle damp. "You can tell when it's a man; the positions are different," Jones says evenly. Then it was boxing matches for adults. I would have been doing more than just leaving a family. By nightfall, the seriously wounded, some of them on litters provided by the community, were sheltered in army soldiers' tents. In "Raven," Reiterman and Jacobs describe the minister presenting the congregation with a batch of fruit punch: "We're going to drink poison and kill ourselves," Jim Jones declared, and it was not until many people had drunk that Jones said he had simply wished to test his followers' loyalty. He's 61 now. In this photo taken Monday, Oct. 22, 2018, former Peoples Temple member Eugene Smith poses for a photo in a park in San Francisco. Hundreds of corpses were lying on the ground in front of them. When the prodigals visited, the Cobbs kept it secret from Jones. Its nose wheel had been broken the week before and four soldiers were guarding it with M-I6 rifles. It would have been like I was a counter-revolutionary, in some sense.". The Joneses adopted a black baby in Indiana in 1960, and Jim gave the 10-week-old infant his own name. Stephan Jones is a Jonestown survivor. "I remember being afraid when he started talking about it, and getting butterflies," he says. He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. Cobb lost 11 relatives that day, including his mother, youngest brother and four sisters. When that was pointed out to Ryan, Layton contended he already had been frisked. People raced over to the outdoor pavilion. February 27, 2023 endeavor air pilot contract No Comments . placement: 'Below Article Thumbnails 2nd', Stephan Gandhi Jones was 19. He has read most of "Raven," which he believes to be the best of the books about his father, but he has never been able to bring himself to read the chapter about the suicides and murders. File photo: Bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, November 1978. 'Baby killer. To access these PDF files you must have the free Adobe Reader installed. He built a long career in health care, while weathering his own serious health problems. He was 18 and running a temple construction crew when the church sanctioned his marriage to a talented 16-year-old singer, Ollie Wideman. The murders and suicides were unfolding, 150 miles away. But the entertainers stayed in Jonestown to entertain Ryan. In this Nov. 5, 2018 photo, John Cobb poses for a portrait at the the Jonestown Memorial at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, Calif. ", Stephan Jones' lips draw back when he talks about his father; he looks for an instant like a cornered dog. Publicity Listings But the reality is that it was far from a mass suicide. Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. container: 'taboola-below-article-thumbnails-3rd', It's like my hurt for them, or my missing them, is the only thing I have left of them." [November 2008], View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro, Kristi Jones When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalynn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. This answer is: Study guides. I wouldn't have run.". Stephan Jones is a Jonestown survivor. And in his growing community near the town of Ukiah, Jim Jones preached to the faithful about communalism, racial equality, "apostolic social justice" and the power of belief. someone shouted, and the driver attempted to turn the truck around. They have three children. File photo: Peoples Temple compound, led by Jim Jones, after bodies were removed, in Jonestown, Guyana, November 1978. And I just flew out of bed, grabbed my ax, walked out to the post that was supporting the speaker and raised the ax like I was going to cut it down. American soldiers who arrived discovered that beneath the layer of bodies was another layer, and yet another. In addition to writing the articles below, Stephan appeared as a speaker during the Griot Institute of African Studies lecture series entitled Jonestown: 35 Years Later at Bucknell University; his presentation appears on this page (scroll down the videos). 'There were often thoughts of taking him out but I know I wasnt capable of that kind of thing. When the order from the colony came over the speaker in Guyanas capital Georgetown, Stephan Jones knew he wouldnt obey it. 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