Which cult drank the punch

All told, people died that day. The U. But the Guyanese government wanted no part in the burial, and families of the dead wanted their loved ones returned. The military was the only organization able to handle mass casualty recovery and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware was assigned receipt of the dead. What happened there in the aftermath would become one of the first records of how deeply first responders can be affected by the trauma to which their jobs expose them. Loaded with waterproof canvas body bags and coffin-like metal transport containers, U.

Recovery workers would later report that the staggering number of children they saw there was the most disturbing thing they encountered. A smattering of studies had been done by the military on nurses, for example, but the literature was sparse.

Jonestown was different. It involved the deaths of civilians and demanded the involvement of a cross-section of workers, from doctors and pathologists to typists and the yeomen who cleaned the transport containers. When the first C aircraft touched down at Dover on Nov. The magnitude of the situation was still unknown — and grossly underestimated. So was the emotional impact it would have on those left to deal with it. Jones staged fake faith healings to draw more people to his church and consolidate his power with only a small circle of trusted faithful.

He began referring to himself as God. He told the newspaper some drank the poisonous potion willingly, while it was forced upon others.

Jones died of a gunshot wound to the head. You can hear the children at the beginning of the tape—murmuring, making kid noises in the background—and then you can hear kids screaming. You can hear them saying no. A third of the people who died that night were minors under Ultimately, control, according to Scheeres, was what was most important to Jones. But the ultimate control and the ultimate loyalty test for him was: if I order you, would you lay down your life for this cause—for me?

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. The commune became an armed camp, ringed by volunteers with guns and machetes, threatening to fight outsiders to the death.

During the imaginary siege, Black Panthers Huey Newton and Angela Davis spoke to Jonestown inhabitants by radio patch to voice solidarity. At the behest of concerned family members in the US, the California congressman Leo Ryan organized a delegation of journalists and others to make a fact-finding mission to Jonestown.

The delegation arrived at Jonestown on 17 November and received a civil audience from Jones, but the visit was hastily called short on 18 November after a member of the commune tried to stab Ryan. The delegates never made it off the ground. As they boarded the planes, their escorts drew guns and opened fire. They shot Ryan dead, combing his body with bullets to make certain, and killed four others — including two photographers who captured footage of the attack before dying.

Wounded survivors ran or dragged themselves, bleeding, into the forest. The people of Jonestown, some acceptant and serene, others probably coerced, queued to receive cups of cyanide punch and syringes.

When Guyanese troops reached Jonestown the next morning, they discovered an eerie, silent vista, frozen in time and littered with bodies. A tiny number of survivors , mainly people who had hidden during the poisoning, emerged.

In December , he was arrested for lewd conduct at a Los Angeles movie theater. And during his final months in Jonestown, Jones was addicted to pharmaceutical drugs. A married man who adopted children of different racial backgrounds, Jones also engaged in sexual relations with some of his female and male followers. He was the only heterosexual on the planet, and that the women were all lesbians; the guys were all gay.

And so anyone who showed in interest in sex was just compensating. Tim Carter, another ex-member, says that Jones hated romantic relationships within the Peoples Temple because they were seen as a threat to the cause and that the members should be focused on their work.

In his Indiana days, Jones once sold pet monkeys door to door. Muggs became sort of a mascot for the Temple under the care of Joyce Touchette, whose family were devoted members to the Temple. Together she and Tim, who left the church a year later, sought to get John back through the U. By that time, John was already in Guyana, and Jones adamantly refused to hand him over, despite court orders that he must do so. In the end, John Victor Stoen was among approximately people aged 17 years or younger found dead in Jonestown.

A Democrat, Ryan was an unconventional politician: He once had himself briefly incarcerated at Folsom State Prison to see what the prison conditions were like, and he went to Canada to investigate the hunting of baby seals. He wrote a letter to Jim Jones requesting an invitation to visit the settlement, a move that Jones and his followers vehemently opposed but to which they later acquiesced. Ryan traveled to Jonestown accompanied by several journalists and relatives of Temple members. Afterwards when Ryan, the defectors, and the journalists were waiting at the Port Kaituma airstrip for planes to take them home, a truck arrived carrying Temple gunmen who then opened fire.

When the shooting stopped, the congressman and four people were killed, while several others were injured. In his memory, Ryan received a Congressional Gold Medal in , and a post office in his old district of San Mateo , California was named after him in After the attack on Congressman Ryan and his party at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones urged his more than followers in Jonestown that they had to commit suicide or else the Guyanese military will come in and take their children away.

Amid the hundreds and hundreds of deaths, there were a number of survivors in Jonestown On the morning of November 18, , hours before the dramatic events unfolded, a group of 11 Temple members — including a mother and her three-year-old son — walked 35 miles to escape under the pretense of going on a picnic. Two men, Stanley Clayton and Odell Rhodes, were able to bypass armed security through a combination of luck and deception. One of the most remarkable stories of survival from Jonestown belongs to Hyacinth Thrash, an elderly African-American woman who slept inside her cabin throughout the whole ordeal.