In 1978, nearly a thousand people were killed on the orders of a narcissistic cult leader. But why did this actually happen? Do we really know everything that went down that day? And what can we learn from those lucky enough to escape the Jonestown Massacre?
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00:00In 1978, nearly 1,000 people were killed on the orders of a narcissistic cult leader.
00:05But why did this actually happen?
00:07Did we really know everything that went down on that day?
00:10And what can we learn from those lucky enough to escape the Jonestown Massacre?
00:15Congressman Leo Ryan arrived at Jamestown to investigate disturbing reports he had received
00:19about the settlement and its inhabitants, the People's Temple.
00:22At first, Ryan and his entourage of media and concerned family members were shown the
00:26better side of the compound.
00:27Ryan was so taken in by all this that he publicly declared,
00:30Whatever the comments are, there are some people here who believe that this is the best
00:33thing that ever happened in their whole life.
00:35According to former U.S. Representative Jackie Speier, who was one of Ryan's aides at the
00:39time, someone then slipped a note to one of the reporters on the tour.
00:42It read, in part,
00:43Please help us get out of Jonestown.
00:45As information spread that Ryan might be able to get people out of Jonestown, more unhappy
00:49residents quietly approached the congressman's group.
00:52The next morning, Ryan confronted Jim Jones, the leader of the People's Temple.
00:56He insisted that he be allowed to leave with any unhappy defectors who wanted to return
00:59to the United States.
01:01Jones didn't react well to this, and the mood became tense.
01:04Speier later told ABC News,
01:06It was a powder keg of emotions.
01:07I mean, it was so clear to me that this thing was about to erupt, and we needed to get those
01:11who wanted to leave out of there as fast as possible.
01:15Between the night of November 17 and the morning of November 18, around 40 of Jonestown's 950
01:21residents asked to leave with Leo Ryan.
01:23This was more than Ryan had expected, and the congressman had to bring a second plane
01:26to the compound's airstrip in order to accommodate them all.
01:29When it became clear that some residents really did plan on leaving Jonestown, utter chaos
01:34broke out.
01:35Jones himself became visibly unhinged.
01:37Fights broke out as families debated on what to do, with husbands and wives arguing over
01:41whether to leave or stay.
01:43When parents disagreed on the best course of action, they fought over who would get
01:46to keep the children.
01:47All of this happened very quickly, with life-changing decisions happening in a matter of minutes.
01:52People play games, friend.
01:54They lie, they lie.
01:56What can I do about lies?
01:57Then, just as Ryan was about to leave with the defectors, a man attacked him with a knife.
02:01Speer later recalled,
02:03"...outwalks Congressman Ryan in a bloodied shirt."
02:05Basically, someone had tried to put a knife to his neck, but it wasn't successful.
02:09Leo Ryan's group escorted the defectors to the airstrip, where their planes were waiting,
02:13piling into trucks to get there.
02:15But not everyone among them had good intentions.
02:18While almost all of the group who fled with Ryan really did want to get out, Jim Jones
02:22had secretly instructed Larry Layton, one of his most loyal men, to go to the planes
02:26under the pretense of escape.
02:28Unknown to those on the trucks, more of Jones' men were following them in a tractor trailer.
02:33The group arrived at the airstrip and started hurrying onto the planes.
02:36Then they heard a barrage of gunfire.
02:38Jackie Speer later told ABC News,
02:40"...I saw everyone scurrying, and then I saw Congressman Ryan get shot, and I'm running
02:45under the plane as well, and he's down, and I'm getting down.
02:48And just thinking to myself, oh my God, this is it.
02:51I'm going to die."
02:52Five people died on the airstrip that day — Ryan, newspaper photographer Greg Robinson,
02:57NBC cameraman Bob Brown, NBC reporter Don Harris, and Patricia Parks, one of the defectors
03:03who had been fleeing for their lives.
03:05Others were gravely injured.
03:06The assassins fled back into the jungle, leaving the bodies and wounded on the airstrip.
03:11Jonestown was equipped with loudspeakers, which Jim Jones often used to give long, rambling
03:15sermons to his captive audience.
03:17After Leo Ryan's group left the compound, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker
03:21that everyone should gather in the Central Pavilion.
03:24This was unexpected, and it was clear to all that something had gone very wrong.
03:28One survivor, Tim Carter, remembers the eerie quiet in Jonestown as virtually everyone followed
03:33the order.
03:34At the time, the pavilion was surrounded by armed guards.
03:36This wasn't completely unprecedented.
03:39Jones had often called Jonestown the residence to gather for his so-called White Nights,
03:42in which they might be subjected to anything from all-night diatribes by Jones to preparations
03:47for an attack by the military.
03:49They're out there.
03:50They're out there.
03:51They can hear us.
03:52They know we mean it.
03:53We'll kill them if they come."
03:54Hyacinth Rash had been a member of the People's Temple for decades and moved from Indiana
04:01to California to Guyana at Jones' instruction.
04:04Her loyalty to the cult stemmed from her belief that Jones had used his miraculous powers
04:08to cure her breast cancer.
04:10This time, though, she refused to follow his orders, instead staying in her room and hiding
04:14under her bed.
04:15Her sister Zippy, another long-time and loyal member, left for the pavilion.
04:19Rash later said she was unconscious during the massacre, although she wasn't sure if
04:23she passed out or simply fell asleep.
04:25When she woke up, everyone was dead, including her own sister.
04:29By the end of the day, Jim Jones would be dead along with almost all of his followers
04:33in Guyana.
04:34But based on one order he gave, it's possible that he might not have intended to die.
04:38Jones apparently had a contingency plan in place to flee to the Soviet Union, and he
04:43tried to put it in motion right before the massacre began.
04:45Tim Carter survived the massacre because, after arriving at the pavilion, he was asked
04:49to go on an errand for Jones.
04:51Carter was to take money to the Soviet embassy in Georgetown, Guyana's capital.
04:55Jones knew that Leo Ryan had been killed on his orders and that the U.S. government would
04:59come looking for him as a result.
05:01The cult's leader was hoping that, once word got back to the U.S. about Ryan's death, he
05:05would be able to flee to the USSR.
05:07Carter was essentially being sent to bribe them with no idea what was about to happen.
05:11He later told ABC News,
05:12"...I can honestly say that never once in my mind did it occur we're all going to die,
05:17because 24 hours after that dinner and show, literally 24 hours later, everybody was dead."
05:23Once everyone was gathered in the pavilion, Jim Jones took to the stage and began to speak.
05:28Thanks to tape recordings of the events, commonly known as the Death Tape and now in
05:32possession of the FBI, we know what Jones said at the meeting.
05:35He informed them of the murders he had orchestrated on the airstrip and tried to convince his
05:39followers to end it all.
05:40"...If we can't live in peace, then let's die in peace."
05:45When Jones told his followers this, some stood up to argue with him.
05:48It was clear that not everyone was prepared to die.
05:51Longtime follower Christine Miller, a Black woman from Los Angeles, can be heard on the
05:55tape confronting Jones, saying,
05:57"...As long as there is life, there's hope.
05:59That's my faith."
06:00But Jones would not be deterred.
06:02He ordered some of his followers to mix cyanide with Flavor-Aid and then bring forward what
06:05he called the VAT with a green C.
06:07Yes, it seems like it's more common knowledge today, but the idiom drink the Kool-Aid comes
06:12from this event.
06:13But the drink Mix used was the knockoff Flavor-Aid instead.
06:16He then gave instructions dictating the order in which different age groups would be killed
06:21as his armed guards loomed over the congregation.
06:24Remember earlier how we said that Tim Carter was on his way to the Soviet embassy?
06:27Well, he didn't manage to get far into the jungle before the massacre began.
06:31Hearing screams, he turned back to Jonestown, where he found his wife and son dying.
06:35He told ABC,
06:36"...I was shocked with everything.
06:38I was shocked.
06:39I was completely overwhelmed with the death that was around me."
06:42While the events at Jonestown were once considered a mass suicide, the truth isn't so simple.
06:47Hundreds of the victims either fought to survive or had no say in what happened.
06:51When the vats of Flavor-Aid and cyanide were brought out, some people cheered and drank
06:55willingly, but many, including children, had to have the poison forced into them.
07:00Others were shot or stabbed.
07:02Willing or not, more than 900 people died that day.
07:05Tim Carter later told ABC News,
07:07"...the reality is that it was not some giant, let's get together and die for Jim Jones moment.
07:12It was exactly the opposite.
07:14That was my experience.
07:15What happened in Jonestown was murder."
07:18Jackie Speier agrees with Carter.
07:19In one documentary, she explained,
07:21"...I hate the references that somehow they did this voluntarily, that there was suicide.
07:25It wasn't.
07:26They were murdered."
07:27The cult's leader decided not to put himself through the painful death he had forced on
07:30his followers.
07:31Instead, Jim Jones died of a gunshot wound to the head.
07:35Former People's Temple member Laura Johnston Cole told ABC News,
07:38"...obviously, he didn't have the guts to drink the poison that he made everybody else drink,
07:42so he was shot, which I think is just a chicken's way out."
07:46A handful of people survived the Jonestown massacre.
07:48Two or three were at the compound but did not go to the pavilion, and Tim Carter had
07:52been sent on his errand.
07:53Others managed to escape into the jungle, either earlier in the day after the ambush
07:57on Leo Ryan's group or later once it became clear a massacre was taking place.
08:02Tracy Parks was only 12 years old when she accompanied Ryan to the airstrip with her
08:06family, who had decided to defect.
08:08After Ryan and four others were slaughtered, including Parks' mother, her father screamed
08:12at her and her sister to hide in the jungle.
08:14"...God gave me wings, because I flew down that airstrip.
08:18I don't think I touched the ground."
08:19It took the girls three days to find help, but they made it out in the end.
08:23Meanwhile, Leslie Wagner Wilson and a few others ran into the jungle before the massacre
08:27and walked 30 miles to safety.
08:29Wilson later told ABC News,
08:31"...I was so scared.
08:32We exchanged phone numbers in case we died.
08:34I was prepared to die.
08:36I never thought I would see my 21st birthday."
08:38She emerged from the jungle to learn that several of her family members had died at
08:41Jonestown.
08:43The People's Temple also maintained an outpost at a house in Guyana's capital, Georgetown,
08:47a plane ride away from the compound in the jungle.
08:50There were several people staying in this house on the day of the massacre, who were
08:53there for various reasons, including a few who had been playing in a basketball tournament.
08:57Information came through about the massacre that was happening.
09:00Some didn't take the messages seriously, including two of Jim Jones' own sons, but one woman
09:04followed Jones' orders as if she had been on site.
09:07Jones' secretary, Sharon Amos, subsequently killed her three children and then herself.
09:13As news of the massacre broke out, people began showing up at the house.
09:16For the one-year anniversary of the massacre, one of the survivors in Georgetown spoke to
09:19The New York Times using a pseudonym.
09:22They recalled,
09:23"...a lot of our people were standing outside in the cold in their bathrobes, like they
09:26were being searched.
09:27The radio was cut off to Jonestown.
09:28We weren't told what was happening for hours, hours, hours."
09:33Eventually, the survivors were told what had happened to their fellow cult members.
09:37For those who survived the massacre at the airstrip, a horrific day turned into a long
09:41and terrifying night.
09:43Because Jonestown was so isolated, it was 22 hours before help managed to reach them.
09:47So it was down to those who had been lightly wounded to keep the seriously wounded alive.
09:51Jackie Speer was one of the survivors in the worst shape that day.
09:54She had been shot five times.
09:56As she later told ABC News,
09:58"...my whole leg is blown up.
09:59There's a bone coming out of my right arm.
10:01There was no reason why I survived except it wasn't my time."
10:04The seriously injured were moved to a tent, while other survivors spent the night in a
10:08small shop.
10:09The next morning and all night, they expected the gunmen to return to finish the job.
10:13Everyone in the airstrip, besides the first five casualties, survived, along with few
10:16with the Jonestown compound, those who escaped through the jungle, and most of the People's
10:20Temple members in Georgetown.
10:22Those who did survive, however, would grapple with the memory of the massacre for the rest
10:26of their lives.