Or lost touch with reality? target_type: 'mix' Many of his previous interviews echo what he discusses in Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre, but he has an intimate perspective to give when it comes to his father and mother, who both died during the event. I did. John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. And I think he genuinely cared about those things, but my understanding of my father just from my own experience and stories is that unconsciously he was always primarily managing other peoples perception of him. A woman named Sharon Amos had slaughtered her three children and committed suicide. But he also tapped into something very real and showed something very real and was very loving, especially during the early period.. 2007. He has taken a lead role in a 40th Jonestown anniversary memorial to be held Sunday at Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery, where remains of unclaimed and unidentified victims are buried. And Smiths wife, son and mother died. 'We were trying to build a new world, a progressive socialist organization.'. "He used to say we were the only two people of our kind in the universe," Jones says, clasping his hands behind his head and gazing out his apartment window. 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. Suddenly there was no money to buy lumber or supplies--"he was such a tightwad," Stephan Jones says--and the homesteading fervor gave way to the minister's incessant meetings and group lectures and warnings about "enemies.". Stephan Gandhi Jones. I believe that it was always a personal agenda for my father, and yes, there was a gradual shift in the balance. I think that Ill pick two. . He dreams he is arguing with his father, arguing passionately, and although he knows his arguments are better, his father always wins. Some of those leaving the temple eyed the vehicles with suspicion. She and Jim were the first caucasian couple in Indiana to adopt an African American . "They just needed this messiah, this purpose. 'She gives us the order that were supposed to kill ourselves,' Vilchez recalled. After the incident, Stephan was put into jail for three months and that led him to drug addiction. For 19 of his 24 years, they were all he knew. Others had joined in San Francisco and continued with him to the promised land in the South American jungle. Stephan is among one of the Late Jim Jones sons survivors and he is still disturbed by those past events. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; So yes there were often thoughts of taking him out but I know I wasnt capable of that kind of thing. Former Peoples Temple member Jim Jones Jr. carries a bucket of bleached rocks to place around the edges of the Jonestown victim memorial in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California, Jim Jones Jr. was adopted by the Joneses in Indiana in 1960. He is able to weep, but worries about letting himself begin; he says it feels a little like pulling his finger from a crack in the dam. And I looked around and there were at least 15 people looking at me. Among those speaking out ahead of the 40-year anniversary of the mass deaths isMike Touchette, who was a 21-year-old Indiana native at the time. This dismissive thinking was convenient because its hard to comprehend how so many people marched together to a certain and unnecessary death. Did You Know Soccer Player Crystal Dunns Husband Pierre Soubrier Is A Football Specialist? The temple really became my family, she said. Trump would hammer Biden OR Harris if he was up for election against either of them in 2024, new poll shows, At least 53 civilians who were truffle hunting in Syria are killed in terror attack blamed on ISIS, 'Find me rich, hot and kind': Hunter Biden BEGGED his cousin Caroline to hook him up with Brooklyn Beckham's wife Nicola Peltz - 25 years his junior - to help him 'break free' from his brother's widow and one-time lover Hallie, texts reveal, Onwards and upwards? On Nov. 18 she was at the temple house when a fanatical Jones aide received a dire radio message from Jonestown. The media has done a poor job; theyve demonized him. He sought treatment, and eventually, the father of three settled into a quiet life in California. All I can do is tell what I saw and heard. Springing to my feet, I ran 40 yards across the runway. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. Play it now! People do things for him. They have a total of three daughters. Dozens of Peoples Temple members in Guyana survived the mass suicides and murders of more than 900 because they had slipped out of Jonestown or happened to be away Nov. 18, 1978. Stephan Jones, Jim Jones's sole surviving child, was born in Indiana, United States, on June 1, 1959. ", Stephan Jones used to say he could have stopped the slaughter if he had been there. "I just say something like, 'You remember Jonestown?' Stephan Gandhi Jones, age 60s, lives in Petaluma, CA. But some lived. On Nov. 18, the day Rep. Leo Ryan and four others were shot to death on the airstrip at Port Caituma, Guyana, Stephan Jones and his teammates went to the movies in Georgetown. "Because then it would have been like, 'I'm running out on these people. "They say, 'Yeah.' They don't normally believe it at first. My arm was gushing blood so I stripped off my belt and pinched down the biggest wounds. There are moments when he glimpses the edges of power and understands precisely how it might be used. According to former members, Jones would not tolerate defections from the mission project and many of the church members considered those who leave to be traitors. This November 1978 file photo shows the bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana. With those people surrounding him, constantly doing the right thing, and doing what he says, and you're surrounded by a combination of them and those people who don't neccessarily agree, but are acting like they agree . The temple was the only life he knew but says he always had his doubts. He was not prepared for suicide. During that period, more than 900 people died including Stephans mom and some of his siblings. Instead, The Washington Post reported that Stephan escaped death with the Jonestown basketball team. Jim Jr. would lose 15 immediate relatives in Jonestown, including his pregnant wife, Yvette Muldrow. I appreciate that question. Reporters were hearing disturbing allegations about Jim Jones' church--there were stories of beatings, armed guards, extensive sexual activity. "It was not bad people who did it," he says. Ryan, his thick gray hair bloodied, was near the front of the plane. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. Afterwards, the 19-year-old Stephan was put in jail for three months in the South American nation before the case against him was thrown out. We're talking 30 people, but that's a lot of people to be looking over your shoulder.". He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. 2023 Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple is a, Reflections and Articles by Stephan Jones, Son of Anarchist: My Father, Jim Jones, and What the World Can Still Learn From Him,. He played at school. Outside of his career, he has discussed how he is spiritual in his personal life in interviews, like a 2007 one with Canada's The Globe and Mail though his beliefs are different than the fringe Christian ones his father once preached about. He was summoned to the temple radio room. The bottom layer consisted of about 300 babies and small children whose bodies had been ravished by the humidity and jungle insects. 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. But the reality is that it was far from a mass suicide. Layton, who was insisting on taking the first plane, slipped to the other side of the plane before he could be frisked. But a lot of the rage that I kept for years was keeping me from looking at my part and seeing what I hope I would do differently if in similar circumstances. Where the machine shop once stood, there was only rusty equipment. We used curtains for bandages. Vilchez was dispatched to the Guyanan capital of Georgetown to raise money. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. container: 'taboola-right-rail-thumbnails', Those who broke rules were disciplined. They have three children. Five were dead, five seriously wounded, five suffered relatively minor wounds, nine were unhurt, and six were believed lost or hiding in the dense underbrush along the Kaituma River. There are no many details about his siblings and some had been adopted. mode: 'thumbnails-a', And there was more social rhetoric and action in my life and a lot more fear. For the young Caucasian, there was more: "The white man was so preached against by my father as a way of winning black people, and here I am a white man, feeling like everybody resents me and I have something to apologize for," he says. They must be prepared to die in the defense of socialism. I would argue that the means justify the end, but not the other way around.. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings. Stephanie was one of six victims in the car accident coming back from Cincinatti.Birth name: . 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. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. 'The reality was we were folks who could be counted on to stand up,' he said. "You can tell when it's a man; the positions are different," Jones says evenly. He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. 'I believe 100 percent that not everyone would have been dead,' he said. Where they were lying. He dreams he sees the men and women he knew, older now, changed by the years. Jim Jones (1931-1978) and Marceline Jones (1927-1978). 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The phrase drinking the Kool-Aid, meaning to follow someone blindly, was born that day in Guyana. He too was a member of the basketball team. An emotional tug-of-war ensued between a mother who wanted to stay and the father who wanted to go. The murders and suicides were unfolding, 150 miles away. Stephan Jones was born on 06/01/1959 and is 63 years old. Vilchez was dispatched to the Guyanese capital of Georgetown to raise money. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. And the temple was his life first in Indiana, later in California. I dove headlong into the three-foot-tall grass. 'Hit the deck!' Stephan Jones was born on 1 June 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He apparently was searching for his wife, who had carried away their child that morning, hoping to escape the settlement. A few minutes later a pale-looking Leo Ryan slogged through the mud with his briefcase, his powder blue shirt and pants stained with his assailant's blood. " He smiles, imitates the sudden mask of disbelief. " Photographer Greg Robinson (right)was one of the five people killed. It appeared in the Examiner on Nov. 20, 1978, two days after the tragedy: San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman (left)was wounded in the airstrip shooting. We couldn't know then that the grim little world of this sick man would shatter within hours, taking hundreds of his followers to their deaths. In the days before Ryan's fact-finding mission to the settlement, the players were in Georgetown for a tourney with the Guyana national teams. He thinks now that it is probably stupid to believe that. In this Nov. 13, 2008 file photo, Stephan Jones, son of Rev. ", 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. Then they could identify and allow themselves to step into the story and understand how such a thing could happen. Other Works It would have been like I was a counter-revolutionary, in some sense.". In this Nov. 5, 2018 photo, John Cobb poses for a portrait at the the Jonestown Memorial at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, Calif. He was just 14, Stephan Jones and some other team members believe they might have changed history if they were there. But after temple gunmen killed the congressman, three newsmen and a church defector on the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones ordered a poisoned grape-flavoured drink administered to children first. They would survive and both return home to California. And he faked getting shot in Redwood Valley [California] when I was still pretty young, and we felt like we were in danger much of the time. 'We think he's got a gun. White devil.' I noticed them in real time. A number of Jonestown survivors have spoken out about the mass suicides and murders that killed the only life they ever knew and how they have managed to build new ones in the four decades since the tragedy. In the aftermath, he built a new life. }); Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy | User published content is licensed under a Creative Commons License. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife Erin raised three sons with two now coaching basketball at the high school and college level. Copy. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. And the temple was his life - first in Indiana, later in California. . Be aware of this message that was prevalent in the temple: The end justifies the means. And I see that throughout society. People raced over to the outdoor pavilion. In California, he was steeped in temple life. In code, his father told him everyone was going to die in revolutionary suicide., I argued with my Dad, he said. The reason I ended up in Jonestown is that I left. "The temple was still my only life, and I didn't really see any alternative to it," he says. someone shouted, and the driver attempted to turn the truck around. ', 'I argued with my Dad,' he said. Jim Jones had years earlier conceived his South American settlement as a distant haven where Peoples Temple members could live in communal isolation, protected from unfriendly reporters and all the other enemies Jones denounced through his congregation. Oh yeah, I think you can see that from my writing. I jumped up and fought for the gun. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco, where Eugene ran a temple construction crew. But Stephan was the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. When he was ordered to Georgetown to help with supply shipments, Smith said he concocted an escape plan: Ollie and other temple singers and dancers, he believed, would soon be sent to Georgetown to perform, and the family would flee to the U.S. Embassy. I believe 100% that not everyone would have been dead, he said. They are amused; they embrace him. And as the years go on, Stephan is still willing to talk about his connection to one of the biggest tragedies in American history even as he tries to live a peaceful life far removed from Jonestown. Jonestown: It was the bodies that photographers favored most. Though it was a stalemate, the incident intensified an already strained situation. As a self-taught bulldozer operator, he worked alongside other Peoples Temple cult members in the humid heat with his blade carving roads and sites for wooden buildings with metal roofs. He says his daughters have seen him gnash his teeth when he talks. In what he called "revolutionary suicide", Jones and the members of his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder-suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978. He asked me to make one last mission with him to Jonestown. For a long time I thought they felt the convulsions before they died, until somebody assured me that you pass out before you feel the convulsions. no one could ever relate to it unless they were in the same situation, or they were in the atmosphere my father created . A loud series of pops echoed across the field. "I would have had to, especially if I saw other people doing it, and I right off the bat wasn't on top of things, and somehow wasn't right there starting some kind of--it's so hard--", Stephan Jones covers his face for a moment, fingers kneading his forehead. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. The younger man demanded that everyone in the truck move aside. Jones wasn't the same man. He appeared in movies like Written in Blood (2018), The Peoples Advocate: The Life and Times of Charles R.Gary (2007) and The True Story (2003). He was ill from when he was very young and was using fear to control me when I was barely more than a toddler. The truck spun its wheels until a Caterpillar tractor tugged it into place for a downhill run. "This is really crazy," he recalls thinking. Stephan Jones' mother was one of those found dead from cyanide poisoning. At first it was spanking of children. Do not sell or share my personal information. How could that be suicide? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Stephan Gandhi Jonesis the son of the notorious religious cult leaderJim Jones. Despite his unconventional upbringing and the horrific tragedy brought about by his father's religious group, the Peoples Temple, Stephan speaks candidly about his experience in the documentary. Some have come to acknowledge that they helped enable Jim Jones to seize control over people drawn to his interracial church, socialist preaching and religious hucksterism. He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. It was he who dreamed up Jonestown, he who willed it into being, and he who brought it down: first, with the assassination of U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and four others by temple members on a nearby airstrip on Nov. 18, 1978, then with the mass murders and suicides of hundreds, a horror that remains nearly unimaginable 40 years later. 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. Stephan Gandhi Joneswas the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. All these lives were wasted and I don't know why. Relatives & Associates. Stephan Jones tells Haaretz about the man who would convince his followers to drink the Kool-Aid. "The media has done a poor job; theyve demonized him. When he brushed away the mist below him he saw that it was a lifeless human limb. And frankly, Im much more trusting of the reluctant leader, one who says Lets go and not Go.. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife. 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. By nightfall, the seriously wounded, some of them on litters provided by the community, were sheltered in army soldiers' tents. And thats why its so critical that people be wary of any leader who is held as superior to the people theyre leading. 1998-11-08 04:00:00 PDT JONESTOWN, GUYANA-- "My father was a fraud."- Stephan Gandhi Jones, son of Jim Jones A lone palm tree stands where Jim Jones exhorted his followers to die for him, but the . Those who broke rules were disciplined. Like why would they follow such a madman and to such a crazy final act, and we probably know by now that it wasnt a mass suicide, but thats how it has been portrayed.. 'To me the ends justified the means,' he said. In his spare time he swims, or rides his bicycle, or lifts weights, or plays basketball. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalyn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. "He used to say that I would acquire his gift in my late years. Among the hundreds of corpses, only one was different; he had died from a bullet to the head. Everyone was waiting for him to take himself out. You used the word forgiveness, but I find love and compassion for him. 'He made a promise - once we get to Jonestown there is no corporal punishment,' Smith said. Jordan Vilchezs parents were Berkeley progressives in the 1960s her father African-American, her mother Scotch-Irish. _taboola.push({ For many years, Jones struggled with the guilt of survival, his father's grim legacy, and his own subsequent substance abuse. At the far end of the strip sat a yellow government plane. More than 900 people lived in the agricultural mission, with its dining pavilion, tidy cottages, school, medical facilities and rows of crops. "I think I knew it was just a bunch of junk and that it was really about nothing," Stephan Jones said. He dreams he is in a crowd, and his father is talking about suicide. It was planned as a grand event, the Peoples Temple team against the Guyanese national team, and when the Rev. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. By the fall of that year, almost 1,000 Temple members emigrated to Jonestown, but for Stephan Jones, the pleasure crumbled when his father arrived. When he was 10 years old he listened as Jim Jones had sex with a mistress in the next room. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. container: 'taboola-below-article-thumbnails-3rd', "I don't know. We'd also just seen the warm, cheerful embraces between some of those leaving and some who were staying. 2010-10-03 19:23:36. I dont think he went from being an altruistic, selfless, humble man to what he became. But she wasn't in the truck and the men left. Some of them had started out with him in the earliest days in Indiana and moved with him to California. She died in a tragic car accident only weeks before her mother, Marceline Mae Baldwin Jones, gave birth to her brother, Stephan Gandhi Jones. When the truck was allowed to pass, we all breathed easier. In Biographical Summaries of Notable People . Going by the first body count, the media reported 383 dead. "I'm blessed to have hit enough of a bottom and to have been surrounded by amazing, wonderful, honest, compassionate and challenging people to see me through that," Stephan said. "I don't care what you think of my father," Jones wrote in 2015. This past year, she returned to long-overgrown Jonestown. Cobb lost 11 relatives that day, including his mother, youngest brother and four sisters. Another hit my wrist and knocked off my watch. So it was not this grand march to death, far from it. 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. I was going back to retrieve that young person and also to say goodbye.. When a friend invited her family to Peoples Temples wine country church, they were impressed by the integrated community. Well, once we got to California and we were going to public school, there it was very evident to me that my life was very different from the lives of most of the other kids. When Smith reunited with his mother and wife in Jonestown, Ollie was 8 months pregnant. A black man with a 'corn rows' hairstyle came up to the rear of the truck. "I knew I didn't want to, but I didn't know quite how to confront him or present my case . I just have to love him and forgive him.. 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His father, finally, is beginning to let go. Three Half-Siblings Glen has three half-siblings named Jim Jon Prokes, Jim W. Jones Jr., and Suzanne O. Jones. JONESTOWN 40 YEARS LATER: Mass suicide shocked world, Amanda Knox to host new true crime podcast: 'I tend not to be a fan of the genre'. I tried to fire - but nothing happened.'. 29. He was right, of course. You used the word forgiveness, but I find love and compassion for him. The shots still were popping at an amazing clip. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. None of it makes sense. 'Little Jimmy' became part of their 'Rainbow Family' of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, American Idol star Kellie Pickler's husband, 49, 'commits suicide by shooting himself dead' in bedroom of their $2.4 million Nashville home: Pickler called 911 after she was unable to open door of room where he was found, Enough to give you an art attack! As outlined in the above video, he was featured in the History Channel's 2007 documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost and has written for the website Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, which is run by San Diego State University. He also made sure that the other disciples who were in the capital would do nothing hasty. Stephanie was born in 1954 and died at a very early age of five in a car accident in May 1959. 'Liquidator,' " Stephan Jones remembers being called, as he lay on his prison cot and listened to the mosquitoes swarm. " ", Throughout the 40 years since the deaths at Jonestown, Stephan has been willing to give media interviews. After Ollie became pregnant, she was sent to Jonestown; Eugene remained behind. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. I dont know about the inner circle but many of us, and even my brother Tim, when he turned to my side, he wanted to kill my father, he was so angry. Mud made the truck bed slick, so everyone clung to the sideboards. There had been underground boxes to punish the lazy; public beatings; drills where guns and bows and arrows were hauled out on call of 'white knight,' and plans for mass suicides. In an hour, that promise was broken.. Even though he attended public schools, Stephan Jones had never really learned to live in the outside world. Gandhi is an Indian word meaning Pharmacist. I keep remembering what Jones had said in the pavilion. 'Baby killer. The reason that I have agreed to talk to as many people as I have is because of that. The list of defectors rapidly grew to at least 16. 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Drug addiction child that morning, hoping to escape the settlement Jones in Jonestown beginning to go. Jim and Marceline Jones a temple construction crew a mistress in the car accident in May 1959,... 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his thick gray hair,! The bottom layer consisted of about 300 babies and small children whose bodies had been there gnash his when. She said is because of that one was different ; he recalls thinking that.
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