You don't tell God, "You're not going out of the house. Altogether, 909 people died at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, by swallowing a grape-flavored beverage mixed with potassium cyanide, or from injections of poison. Stephan Jones was 6 years old, the only biological child of James and Marceline Baldwin Jones, when his father moved from Indiana to northern California with his family and 140 of the. Stephan Gandhi Joneswas the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. Heres How To Watch The Alex Murdaugh Trial Live, Morgan Doughty Filed A Lawsuit Against The Murdaugh Family, Sophie Turners Joan Charts The Rise Of A Famous British Jewel Thief, Alex Murdaugh Faces Life In Prison For Allegedly Killing His Wife & Son, Get Even More From Bustle Sign Up For The Newsletter. Then-San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman was wounded in the airstrip shooting and flown to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where he wrote the following eyewitness account. We got word that a temple member had grabbed the congressman, held a knife to his throat and told him he was going to slit it. His son was not among the boosters. So would the congressman and three others. I made that last trip with him and he made me stay in Jonestown. 180 days of social studies 5th grade answer key; florida high school track records; milwaukee packout mods; metallica madrid 2022; did doris hamner have polio; maple leaf farms owner; ': Golf glamor girl Paige Spiranac defends 'FUNNY' Woods tampon prank after 15-time major winner was forced to apologize, He's still got it! Read More They were forced. Rebelling, they refused Jones order to come back. He limps this month, still recovering from a broken ankle bone that went undetected for a while, but when he is well he picks up a regular game in San Francisco, sometimes with the young men he played with before--the basketball team from the Peoples Temple settlement at Jonestown, Guyana. He is charming. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, Calif. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. Speier's right leg had a gaping wound, and her arm was injured. More than 900 members of the Peoples Temple had lived in theagricultural missionin the distant jungle of Guyana, South America, led by the cult leader Rev. Then it was boxing matches for adults. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business, Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones' dream when he opened a new church in Fresno. He said reporters would make the situation worse. He seems to have a tragic life after what had happened with his family. Stephans address on November 18, 2018 at the 40th Anniversary Memorial Service at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California is here. Of those 25 percent that drank the poison, most of those people were just defeated and didnt know where else to turn and didnt want to run out on the others. With their lives, the story of Jonestown continues, even now. Stephan believed he was too cowardly to follow through with the oft-threatened 'revolutionary suicide.'. mode: 'thumbnails-a', He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. Thank goodness he lived before me.". Guyanese civilians set up a guard station for us, standing watch all night armed with only a shotgun, a machete and a long-bladed knife. "The minute I stepped out on the street, I felt so uncomfortable," he says. He dreams he is in a crowd, and his father is talking about suicide. He too was a member of the basketball team. He does not know. I wouldnt say that I dont have problems saying no, and I do quite a bit, so Im feeling it now because I traveled to New York and had a long interview yesterday [with CNN]. No one now living saw Jim Jones die, so there is some dispute about whether he also performed what he had taught his followers to call "revolutionary suicide." The rest of us were accommodated in a private home. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife Erin raised three sons. Stephan Jones did not drink. He fired at me, but it misfired. They divorced when Jordan was 6. It makes him a little crazy sometimes. There are moments when he glimpses the edges of power and understands precisely how it might be used. Peoples Temple lost the game, but only by 10 points, which seemed worth celebrating. Stephan Jones believes his father must have killed himself: that he could not leave his own shooting to someone else. They divorced when Jordan was six. 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. Not so many people died. He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. Hundreds of corpses were lying on the ground in front of them. And I had good reason to be enraged with him'. I had been up all night unloading boats and I had to be at work in a couple of hours so I lay down for two hours of sleep after backbreaking and dangerous work, and Dad comes on the speaker in the wee hours of the morning. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters,. 'Baby killer. Jim Jr. would lose 15 immediate relatives in Jonestown, including his pregnant wife, Yvette Muldrow. NBC reporter Don Harris said coolly: 'I think we're in for some trouble.'. And the temple was his life first in Indiana, later in California. He apparently was searching for his wife, who had carried away their child that morning, hoping to escape the settlement. I tried to fire - but nothing happened.'. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife. This is really crazy, he recalls thinking. Stay in the game with the best sports newsletters from across the Postmedia network, Stay posted with the best sports newsletters from across the network, JONESTOWN SURVIVORS: Where they are 40 years later, Chris Rock will finally hit back at Will Smith over Oscars slap, Rich girl sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell sent to solitary confinement, Paulina Gretzky hits social media hole-in-one at LIV Golf kickoff tournament, Elizabeth Holmes has second child as she tries to avoid prison, Meghan Markle bummed Prince Harry 'had very little money': Royal expert. Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Toward the end, as he watched the array of barbiturates, amphetamines and tranquilizers that now slurred his father's speech and sometimes left him physically unable to leave the Jonestown house, Stephan Jones says murder seemed almost redundant. "I don't care what you think of my father," Jones wrote in 2015. The bodies surrounded a podium from which Jim Jones, aided by armed men to hold down the unwilling, had cried out in encouragement while men, women, and children drank red Flavor-Aid mixed with potassium cyanide. 'Like everyone else, he died there,' his son said. I said there must be another way.. In the past, Stephan has also been known as Stephan Gandhi Jones and Stephan G Jones. OAKLAND, Calif. Jonestown was the highlight of Mike Touchettes life for a time. Quietly the men with the tractor motioned aside a group of curious Guyanese children and other bystanders. But even Stephan Jones never imagined that death would come the way it did, so redolent of madness and evil, so savage that a kind of panic still crawls into his voice when he talks about it. Jim Jones had adopted other children, gathering around him what he liked to call his "rainbow family"--Stephan's brothers and sisters were black and Korean--but Stephan remembers days spent mostly by himself: there was a cleared-out place in the underbrush where he could crouch and become Hercules, or a soldier of war. Rep. Leo Ryan, D-San Mateo, had come to the temple's agricultural project to determine whether the followers of Jones were free to leave the jungle settlement. 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She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco, where Eugene ran a temple construction crew. My arm was gushing blood so I stripped off my belt and pinched down the biggest wounds. Stephan is among one of the Late Jim Jones sons survivors and he is still disturbed by those past events. I guess maybe somebody who hadnt been in the temple their entire lives and was just stepping into it couldve seen it coming. In a recent interview, he revealed that he was sober. The rest was jungle, damp and hot and so thick with growth that Stephan Jones would stand among the massive trees and feel the 20th century fall away. During the bouncy ride out, former temple members said that one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, was a Jones loyalist and had been depressed. Johnny Brown: Taking Care of His Own(2013), This site houses a variety of PDF documents. His father, finally, is beginning to let go. Layton, who was insisting on taking the first plane, slipped to the other side of the plane before he could be frisked. A few of us jumped from the truck and ran over there. His unplanned departure left them alone. He promised that he wouldnt. 29. And thats why its so critical that people be wary of any leader who is held as superior to the people theyre leading. "He was always preaching the hostility toward us and warning people what would happen or what could happen from the outside," Stephan Jones says. When that was pointed out to Ryan, Layton contended he already had been frisked. Stephan was around 17 years old when he moved to Jonestown in February 1977 to help build the compound. That way no one else would want to live. The reason that I have agreed to talk to as many people as I have is because of that. I get it, Im not upset about that. I noticed them in real time. 2007. The pilot had radioed for help after the shooting, but during the night the only thing we heard were more rumors about the imminent arrival of Guyanese troops and medical evacuation planes. 'He hit Monica and Vern. Ryan had planned to remain behind at the mission with several members who wished to return to the United States but couldn't get seating on the planes. placement: 'Below Article Thumbnails 3rd', Its not entirely surprising that many Americans and others want to understand how thousands of people can become blind followers of a tempestuous leader, and how it can end. Fortunately for him, few people recognise him. And I dont know if it was paranoia. It's like my hurt for them, or my missing them, is the only thing I have left of them." During the long night, the temple defectors told us that all the horror stories about Jim Jones and the church were true. 'I'm not saying he didn't cause it, create it. There, as part of Jones' personal security detail, Cobb saw the once captivating minister strung out on drugs, afraid to venture anywhere for fear of his legal problems. After the temple exodus to Guyana, he was given a public relations post in Georgetown and was part of the basketball team. Maybe they saw no hope--because they didn't see themselves leaving, but they didn't want to go on with Jim Jones. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. What we were calling the cause really was Jim, she said. "My experience in Jonestown was this: when I first got there I was happy and I was really enjoying myself. ", Stephan Jones spent three months in a Guyana jail after the November deaths, imprisoned there while Guyanese authorities tried to determine who had killed the devoted Peoples Temple aide Sharon Amos and her three children, all of whom were found with their throats slashed in the Georgetown Temple headquarters on the day of the suicides. 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