Jim Jones

=== Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown ===

[[File:Jonestown Houses.jpg|thumb|300px|Houses in Jonestown, Guyana, the year after the mass murder-suicide, 1979.|alt=Dozens of small white buildings lined in rows at the edge of a jungle.]]

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.<ref name="tape">{{cite web|url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=29084|title=Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project|publisher=San Diego State University|accessdate=March 22, 2022|website=Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple}}</ref>

Jones told Temple members that the Soviet Union would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting.<ref name="tape"/> Jones said, "We can check with Russia to see if they'll take us in immediately; otherwise, we die," asking, "You think Russia's gonna want us with all this stigma?"<ref name="sdsu042">{{Cite web |title=Q042 Transcript, by Fielding M. McGehee III|website=Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple|publisher=San Diego State University |url=https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=29079 |access-date=April 27, 2022 |language=en-US}}</ref>

{{listen |filename=Peoples Temple Cult Death Tape Q042.ogg |title=Peoples Temple "Death Tape" | }}

With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued the group should commit "revolutionary suicide".<ref name="sdsu042" />{{efn|Although Temple films show Jones opening a storage container full of [[Kool-Aid]], empty packets found at the scene indicate that it was Flavor Aid that was used in the murder-suicide.}} Jones recorded the entire death ritual on audio tape. One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape.<ref name="tape"/> Cries and screams of children and adults were also easily heard on the tape recording made.<ref name="tape"/> The Temple had received monthly half-pound shipments of [[cyanide]] since 1976 after Jones obtained a jeweler's license to buy the chemical, purportedly to clean gold.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/12/jonestown.cyanide/index.html "Jones plotted cyanide deaths years before Jonestown"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204082147/http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/12/jonestown.cyanide/index.html |date=December 4, 2008 }} CNN, November 12, 2008</ref> 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.<ref>[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=31349 Thirty Years Later] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205014036/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=31349 |date=February 5, 2015 }}. Carter, Tim. Retrieved August 1, 2013.</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/11/12/jonestown.cyanide/index.html|title= Jones plotted cyanide deaths years before Jonestown|author= Polk, Jim|publisher= Cable News Network|date=November 12, 2008|access-date=March 19, 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=80811|title=The Forensic Investigation of Jonestown Conducted by Dr. Leslie Mootoo: A Critical Analysis|author=Moore, Rebecca|accessdate=March 16, 2022|date=August 10, 2018|publisher=San Diego State University|website=Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple}}</ref> 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.<ref name="odellinquest">[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GuyanaInquest.pdf ''Guyana Inquest – Interview of Odell Rhodes''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205013735/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GuyanaInquest.pdf |date=February 5, 2015 }}. ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.</ref> 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.<ref name=":2" />

It is not clear if some initially thought the exercise was another White Night rehearsal. When members wept and showed signs of dissent, Jones counselled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are [[Socialism|socialists]] or [[Communism|communists]] to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".<ref name="tape"/> Jones directed that the children be killed first. Then the other adults poisoned themselves after the children had died. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes, "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."<ref name="tape"/>

In the early evening of November 18, Temple member Sharon Amos in Georgetown received a radio message from Jonestown telling the members there to exact vengeance on the Temple's foes before committing revolutionary suicide.<ref>{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|pp=522–523}}</ref> Later, after police arrived at the headquarters, Sharon escorted her children, Liane, Christa, and Martin, into a bathroom.<ref name="reiterman544">{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|pp=544–545}}</ref> Wielding a kitchen knife, Sharon first killed Christa, and then Martin.<ref name="reiterman544" /> Then Liane assisted Sharon in cutting her own throat, after which Liane killed herself.<ref name="reiterman544" />

Eighty-five members of the community survived the event.{{sfn|Wessinger|2000|p=31}} Some slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. Three high-ranking Temple members were given an assignment to transfer the Peoples Temple's funds to the Soviet Embassy and thereby escaped death (one of them, Michael Prokes, would commit suicide four months later during a press conference in which he sought to reaffirm the Peoples Temple leadership's position justifying the mass murder-suicide and blaming it on the United States government).<ref>[https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13683 The Death of Michael Prokes. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.]</ref> The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Valiente |first=Alex |last2=DelaRosa |first2=Monica |date=September 28, 2018 |title=40 years after the Jonestown massacre: Jim Jones' surviving sons on what they think of their father, the Peoples Temple today |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/40-years-jonestown-massacre-jim-jones-surviving-sons/story?id=57997006 |access-date=November 15, 2023 |website=ABC News |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Fish |first=Jon |last2=Connelly |first2=Chris |date=October 3, 2007 |title=Grandson of Jonestown founder is making a name for himself |url=https://www.espn.com/espn/news/story?id=3047543 |access-date=November 15, 2023 |website=ESPN.com |language=en}}</ref> Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=572}}{{sfn|Wessinger|2000|p=31}} 

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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/clip/32717269/wisconsin_state_journal/|title=Jonestown Death Ritual Described by Survivor|date=November 25, 1978|website=Wisconsin State Journal|page=1|language=en|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=June 10, 2019|agency=Associated Press}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/clip/32717287/wisconsin_state_journal/|title=Jonestown Death Ritual Described by Survivor|date=November 25, 1978|website=Wisconsin State Journal|page=2|language=en|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=June 10, 2019|agency=Associated Press}}</ref> 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.

The mass murder-suicide resulted in the deaths of 909 inhabitants of Jonestown,<ref name = "Who died">{{cite web|url=https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?post_type=who_died|title=Who Died?|website=Alternative Considerations of Jonestown|publisher=San Diego State University|access-date=November 12, 2021|archive-date=August 5, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160805234017/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=690|url-status=dead}}</ref> 276 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/18/newsid_2540000/2540209.stm|title=1978: Mass suicide leaves 900 dead|publisher= BBC|date=November 18, 2005}}</ref> This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until [[September 11 attacks|the attacks of September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington]].<ref>{{cite news|first=Richard|last=Rapaport|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/16/INGEM3070J1.DTL&type=printable|title=Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory|newspaper=[[San Francisco Chronicle]]|location=San Francisco, California|date=November 16, 2003}}</ref> Another four members residing in Georgetown died.<ref name = "Who died"/> The FBI later recovered the 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress; the recording became known as the "Death Tape".<ref>{{cite web|first=Jim|last=Jones|url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=29079|title=Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 42|website=Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple|publisher= San Diego State University}}</ref>