168. Jim Jones And Jonestown Mass Suicide 41 Years Ago

November 19, 1978.

May 13, 1931 in Crete, Randolph County, Indiana.

Georgetown, Guyana.  A Guyana government official said today the band of American religious fanatics who massacred a California congressman and four members of his party had begun a wave of mass suicide and murder that left 400 persons dead and 600 missing. (The final reported number of dead would be 914.)

"Jimmy Jones" As Some Lynn Residents Remember Him. Nov. 20, 1978 by Paul Gibby.

  "I'm confused as to what has happened," Mrs. Frank Shaffer, first cousin to the Rev. Jimmy Jones, said Monday morning. "I knew when I heard the name Jonestown that something happened: but I didn't know what."
  Reports of mass murder and subsequent suicide by members of the Temple of the People headed by Jones surprised the clerk at P and R Building Supplies in Lynn. "That's not the Jimmy I knew," she said. Mrs. Shaffer said she is taking the reports from distant Guyana with a grain of salt until the whole truth is known about what actually happened.
  Mrs. Shaffer who grew up in Lynn with Jones has "fond memories" of when they were younger. "Back then you didn't just make one or two friends," she said, "the whole end of town used to play together."
  "He was just a normal everyday boy. I didn't see anything different about him," she added.
  "I always knew he would be a minister, though," Mrs. Shaffer recalls. "He was always kind to animals," she said, adding that she knew that might sound as if he wasn't kind to people.
  "I always knew he would be a minister, because he always gave a funeral for all the animals that died.

Jim Jones, high school photo, Richmond, Indiana. 

  Jones, who left Lynn to attend high school in Richmond, also worked in a lag at Reid Memorial Hospital, according to Mrs. Howard Johnson of Lynn. "He had a brain," she said. "He was a good student. My daughter was in school with him and she said he would have made a good doctor."
  Mrs. Johnson herself said she thought Jones, as a youngster, was something of a "pill." He would play with one bunch of kids in one part of town and then go play with another. "He used to run wild," she said.
  Mrs. Johnson, as well as Mrs. Shaffer both recalled that Jones was always very close to Mrs. Myrtle Kennedy of Lynn, who died a few years ago. "He was devoted to her," Mrs. Johnson said. "She was like a mother to him," Mrs. Shaffer said.
  The last time Mrs. Shaffer saw Jones was three years ago when he brought his congregation in eleven Greyhound busses into Lynn.
  "I have no ill feelings toward either him or his followers," Mrs. Shaffer said. "religionwise, he doesn't believe the way I do," she noted, adding that she has visited Jones and his church when they were in Indianapolis, "just to observe." He was "very dynamic" as a preacher, she said; and "the congregation liked to hear him; they believed what he said."
  "He calls himself a healer. I believe God heals," said Mrs. Shaffer explaining her chief religious differences with her first cousin.
  She recalls warmly that when her mother died five years ago, she wrote him of the bad news. In return, Mrs. Shaffer says she got over 100 letters from Jones and his followers--"very nice letters." "I have warm feelings for them," she said, "because they expressed warm feelings for me without even seeing me."
  Once, Jones invited Mrs. Shaffer to come join him and his group in the Redwood Valley in California. She declined because of work and other commitments in Lynn.
  "I have no ill feelings for him or his followers," she said. "He hasn't done anything to harm me." She was still awaiting further disclosure of the bizarre events in Guyana.

_____

Jimmy Jones Always Wanted To Be A Minister. Nov. 28, 1978 by Paul Gibby.

  It has been thirty years since Jimmy Jones moved from Lynn to Richmond where he finished his high school education. Yet, memories of the boy who, in his cousin's words "always wanted to be a minister." linger for those who either knew him or knew "of" him.
  "He was a very lonely person," said Nancy McGunegill who remembers seeing Jim in the school yard at Lynn High School. She described his clothing as "immaculate," and recalls Jones's posture was "very straight." "He was very different," she said. Jones often carried a Bible with him at school.
  "He would always stand alone under the tree with his book under his arm," she said.
  According to Mrs. McGunegill, the rest of the schoolchildren frequently teased Jones, she said, for being different. But he would not duck away from a fight. "If there was a fight, he would be in the middle of it," she said. "He wasn't the type you'd want to cross," she added.
  "He was never reluctant to express himself," Mrs. Myers, now a tutor, said. Jones was "very emphatic," "sometimes a little radical in his ideas."
  According to Willard Fields, of Lynn, who knew Jones's father, Jimmy Senior, Jimmy Jr. was like "a kid without a home." Jimmy Senior was nearly an invalid because of being gassed in World War I.
Fields said the elder Jones had great difficulty breathing. Consequently, "He didn't come up town much."

Jimmy Jones, Sr. 

  Jimmy Jr.'s mother had to work to supplement the pension her husband was receiving from the government. There was not much home life for the young Jimmy; and so, "he wasn't paid much attention to," Fields said. The boy had to look after himself. "He was a castaway here."

Lynetta (Putnam) Jones

  Fields said he thought Jones's hard circumstances at home as a boy were a rough beginning. "It was a handicap for the boy in later life," he said. "I think he felt a grudge against the way he had to live."
  Until four or five years ago, Fields said, he was proud of the Lynn native who, in his words, "tried so hard to help those who didn't have anything." But lately he has had his doubts about Jones, because of some of the things he had read about strange practices in Jones's church, the Peoples Temple.
  Mrs. McGunegill, noting that Jones, even in school was a leader, speculated that where he went wrong was in a desire for power. "So many are power-hungry," she said.
  Mrs. McGunegill and Mr. Fields are not alone in attempting to understand how the Jimmy Jones they knew thirty years ago could have become the leader of one of the largest mass-suicides in history.
  Ruth Rich, now of Winchester, used to live in Lynn; her fathers name was Jones--John H. Jones, no relation to Jimmy's family. She remembers Jimmy when he was four or five, "just a little bit of a kid." Mrs. Rich's blind uncle lived next door to Jimmy Jones. She recalls Jimmy befriended the uncle; he (Jimmy) worshipped him," she said. "Back then he was a wonderful kid."

_____

Jones's Son Believes Cult Was Tricked. Nov. 21, 1978 by Martin Houseman.

  Steven Jones, 19, said today he believed his father the Rev. Jim Jones had tricked the fanatical members of his Peoples Temple cult into mass suicide by telling them it was only a "drill" when he offered them a mixture of grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.
  Guyanese police and army troops said they found the bodies of 409 men, women and children sprawled through the Jonestown jungle commune where they had died alongside each other in a scene straight out of hell.
  Even their pet cats and dogs were dead.
  Police said they had found 36 survivors in the surrounding jungle and in Georgetown as well as Jonestown and that they were still searching for some 600 members who disappeared into the bush. It was not known whether they were dead or alive.
  Steve, a lanky, clean-cut basketball player, said his father, a onetime city housing official in San Francisco, had not been well lately and had been taking drugs that had turned him into a paranoiac. He said he did not know what kind of drugs his father was taking.
  "I hated him," Steven told newsmen in Georgetown. "He became a Fascist, he destroyed everything that we lived and worked for. He has discredited socialism."
  Steve Jones said his father's followers had most likely been tricked into suicide thinking it was a "drill." He confirmed reports of "white night" suicide drills in which simulated poison was drunk by the sect members as proof of loyalty and bravery.
  A U.S. team aided by Guyanese authorities and some survivors were trying today to identify the victims. They said all of the victims were Americans from California with the exception of seven Guyanese adopted children. Most of them took poison in the suicide rite. A few were shot dead by fanatics at the Jonestown commune, 150 miles northwest of Georgetown.
  The cult leader was found shot in the right temple but it was not clear whether his death was murder or suicide.
  Police reported a woman in Georgetown in radio contact with the commune 150 miles away slit her three children's throats and then her own to fulfill her part of the suicide pact.
  The mass suicide took place Saturday night, after Temple members massacred U.S. Representative Leo J. Ryan, D-California, and four other American visitors on a fact-finding tour to the commune in Jonestown.
  The body of the 46 year old Jones, namesake of the town and leader of the Temple, was found face up among his lifeless followers. His mistress was found dead in bed with another woman, investigators said.
  The remaining cult members ran into the jungle rife with quicksand and flesh eating piranha fish. Many who fled were hunted down and shot with automatic rifles by gunmen from the People's Temple.
  Officials said the bodies of the cultists were scattered around an alter along with hundreds of dogs, which were poisoned first.
  Jones had a bullet wound in his head. It was not known if the wound was self-inflicted or if one of his disciples had shot him.
  "We keep finding bodies in isolated places," assistant Police Commissioner C.A. Roberts said.
  An earlier death toll of 383 was broken down to 163 women, 82 children and 138 men.
  Police searching the commune found 800 U.S. passports, 30 to 40 automatic weapons, hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, $500,000 in gold bullion, another $500,000 in mixed currencies and envelopes stuffed with uncashed U.S. Social Security checks, Roberts said.
  In Washington, the Pentagon said today three C-141 jet transports and two UH-1 Huey helicopters would fly to Guyana to transport bodies back to the United States.
  The bodies of Ryan, a legislative aide and three newsmen who accompanied him were flown to the United States today.
  Mark Lane, a lawyer-author who was legal advisor to Jones, told a news conference of "the satanic situation building up" in the commune during the fact-finding mission.
  Lane said as the mission was leaving the camp with disgruntled Temple members a man sprang at the congressman with a knife, but was restrained.
  Shortly afterward, Ryan was gunned down along with the other four Americans at the plane. Eight other Americans also were wounded in the hail of gunfire, he said.
  Lane said Jones ordered him to attend an assembly of the congregation, where eight grinning men took automatic rifles and ammunition from a shed.
  "We are all going to die," they told Lane cheerfully, then embraced him and headed for the assembly hall. Lane and another lawyer took cover in the brush. They heard speeches glorifying death then heard Jones shout "Mother" several times, followed by automatic rifle fire.
  "We heard people running, screaming through the brush and more firing. I counted 85 insanity in the leadership."bursts or shots during the night," he said.
  Steve Jones, 19, a son of the cult leader, arrived in Georgetown from the U.S. Monday.
  "We were taught to be loving and non-violent," he said. "But for some time I have suspected an element of insanity in the leadership."
  Asked if he was referring to his father, Jones replied, "He was the leader."
______________

More of the story...

Burial site of James Jones, Sr. and Lynetta (Putnam) Jones, parents of Jim Jones.
Mount Zion Cemetery, 2551 South 225 East, Winchester,  Randolph County, Indiana.
Inscription: Everyone in the World is my Friend.

Also noted buried in the same cemetery are Jim Jones grandparents, John Henry Jones and Mary Catherine (Shank) Jones.  Note that John Henry Jones was married twice, Mary Catherine Shank was his second wife. John Henry Jones first wife, Frances Ellen (Helton) Jones is buried in the same cemetery.

NOTE: If you choose to visit the cemetery or any of the other locations that you attribute to Jim Jones family please be respectful of current owners privacy in regards to approaching the property and especially if you are considering photos etc.