tap here to see other videos from our team. Jones had suffered a setback. Volleys of shotgun, rifle and pistol fire kept coming. He was cleared of any complicity--another Peoples Temple member served a prison sentence for his role in the deaths--but Stephan Jones has come to believe that surviving Guyanese prison somehow braced him for his own re-entry to the world. " Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. 'When I left at 21, I left a part of myself there,' she said. I had been hammered for years with the message that there was an outside threat, and from an early age my father talked about people wanting to bomb us. Dozens of members in Guyana slipped out of Jonestown or happened to be away that day. I didn't see who fired the shot but the sound came from the tractor and trailer. The reality was we were folks who could be counted on to stand up, he said. After they left, I crept out of the bush and saw five bodies around the plane. "They just needed this messiah, this purpose. File photo: Stephan Jones, son of Rev. I dont think he went from being an altruistic, selfless, humble man to what he became. The soldiers realized very quickly that the enemy wasnt waiting for them. "He was always preaching the hostility toward us and warning people what would happen or what could happen from the outside," Stephan Jones says. He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. How Twins Megan Rapinoe and Rachael Rapinoe are Breaking Barriers for the LGBTQ+ Community? Patricia Parks had had her head shattered before her husband's eyes. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. The dreams have never left him. But he said his discontent festered. Life became more tolerable after the couple's baby, Martin Luther Smith, was born. Vilchez returned to Jonestown for the first time in 40 years. ", Jim Jones moved to Guyana in 1977, just as New West magazine was preparing to publish a lengthy account of defectors' allegations about Peoples Temple. My best guess is that Jones felt the press people weren't fooled by the staged setup at the mission. Besides the tragic story behind his ancestors, Stephan Jones has set his great work as an actor in the Hollywood Industry. File photo: Bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, November 1978. The bodies of followers that drank the poison are strewn around the commune, The Peoples Temple compound, led by Jim Jones, is shown above in November 1978 after the dead bodies were removed. Then, after a 1977 New West magazine expose of temple disciplinary beatings and other abuses, she was sent to Jonestown. "I say, 'Mom,' " Stephan Jones says, recalling a desperate mother-son huddle toward the end, " 'We're talking about a man who think's he's God. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Hes never remarried, and Martin Luther Smith was his only child. 'This is really crazy,' he recalls thinking. 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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. Some of the defectors told me later that the men in the trailer were members of Peoples Temple. Stephan escaped death with the Jonestown basketball team, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Among those speaking out ahead of the 40-year anniversary of the mass deaths is Mike Touchette, who was a 21-year-old Indiana native at the time. 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,. This dismissive thinking was convenient because its hard to comprehend how so many people marched together to a certain and unnecessary death. Yeah often people do. She was the adoptive daughter of Rev. OAKLAND, Calif. Jonestown was the highlight of Mike Touchettes life for a time. placement: 'Below Article Thumbnails 3rd', No one now living saw Jim Jones die, so there is some dispute about whether he also performed what he had taught his followers to call "revolutionary suicide." It was just more controlled. Don't take my baby!'. Those who broke rules were disciplined. Stephan Gandhi Jones was the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. 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After that I didnt sleep well last night., I wouldnt say therapeutic. Jim Jones, pictured in 1976,dreamed up Jonestown. Jones, 44, is the only biological son of Jim Jones and his wife Marceline Baldwin who founded the cult behind Jonestown. But it was too late. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; Jones berated three other new arrivals for misbehavior on the trip; they were beaten and forced to work 24 hours straight. I believe 100% that not everyone would have been dead, he said. I just wish people could understand what was attractive about him. When more than 900 people were killed at Jonestown by consuming punch laced with cyanide on Nov. 18, 1978, Stephan was not at the settlement founded by his father. 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 built a long career in health care, while weathering his own serious health problems. "I was still naive enough--well, not necessarily naive enough; I still believe the CIA is capable of all kinds of things--but I felt that we could geniunely be a threat to the image of the United States and that people might be trying to do things to undermine or eliminate what was happening down there," he says. He was not prepared for suicide. Jim Jones was cultivating his growing celebrity--elected officials visited the San Francisco temple, Mayor George Moscone had used temple members as campaign workers, and much was made of the 1976 photo that showed Jim Jones and Rosalynn Carter together during the Democratic Central Committee meeting in San Francisco. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. "I got sick of the same speeches, the insisting people stay awake, the constantly testing people." It's unclear if he is currently married or if he retains a relationship with his surviving siblings. Save record . James Warren Jones and his wife, Marceline. He was summoned to the temple radio room. Listen, not long before, we went to play basketball. [November 2008], View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro, Kristi Jones 'I believe that it was always a personal agenda for my father, and yes, there was a gradual shift in the balance. A bullet ripped through my left forearm. I found relief in the woods and rivers and creeks, and I got away as often as I could, but there was always a low-level anxiety that I only really can identify now.. How do you explain the renewed interest in the Peoples Temple? The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. They divorced when Jordan was 6. | And to have any fray in that fabric would cause an unraveling that he couldnt handle.. Hes an executive at the office furniture company where he began working immediately after Jonestown. And then he went to my mother. This figure, though shocking, gave room for hope maybe the remaining hundreds of people of the colony had fled into the jungle and were saved. . Then two Guyanese medical evacuation planes flew us to the capital city of Georgetown, where a U.S. Air Force C-141 took us to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., stopping off on their way at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base in Puerto Rico. Vilchez was dispatched to the Guyanese capital of Georgetown to raise money. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. When Smith reunited with his mother and wife in Jonestown, Ollie was 8 1/2 months pregnant. 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. In addition to writing the articles below, Stephan appeared as a speaker during the Griot Institute of African Studies lecture series entitled Jonestown: 35 Years Later at Bucknell University; his presentation appears on this page (scroll down the videos). If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife Erin raised three sons. _taboola.push({ 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. His unplanned departure left them alone. Stephans address on November 18, 2018 at the 40th Anniversary Memorial Service at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California is here. He thinks now that it is probably stupid to believe that. At first it was spanking of children. ", He does not think he loved his father even a little by then, but blood tied them in some way he did not entirely understand, and leaving was unimaginable. And all of the children died first. . Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. It was Stephan Jones who managed security--who carried a gun, watched over temple members and planned group escape routes--when Jim Jones began summoning his community into a frenzied series of meetings to prepare for imminent attacks from outside. Best Answer. Stephan Gandhi Jones, age 60s, lives in Petaluma, CA. 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. Vilchez was dispatched to the Guyanan capital of Georgetown to raise money. File photo: A vat that contained a drink laced with deadly cyanide sits on a sidewalk at Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, November 20, 1978. Im not saying he didnt cause it, create it. They were shooting to kill, not just to stop us from leaving. ". All the people who lay there around him had followed him. People ask, How can you ever be proud of your father? he said. ', 'I argued with my Dad,' he said. Recent interviews with Stephan include: Son of Anarchist: My Father, Jim Jones, and What the World Can Still Learn From Him, by Moran Sharir, Haaretz, January 22, 2019. 'She gives us the order that were supposed to kill ourselves,' Vilchez recalled. Three Half-Siblings Glen has three half-siblings named Jim Jon Prokes, Jim W. Jones Jr., and Suzanne O. Jones. The 59-year-old, Jim Jones son Stephan Jones has gone through a lot after the mass massacre in Jonestown led by his father, Late Jim Jones on Nov. 18, 1978. I believed there was too much racism, and there was a need for change. In Biographical Summaries of Notable People . I noticed them in real time. Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones dream after they attended a service in Fresno. You don't tell God he needs help. The years have shaped another lesson for Stephan Jones, but it makes him uneasy to talk about it. We were turned back by Johnny Jones, Jim Jones' stern-faced adopted black son. | Jim Jones. To access these PDF files you must have the free Adobe Reader installed. _taboola.push({ When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalynn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. They have a total of three daughters. To just be somewhere with a machete, in khakis, and just decide I wanted to go somewhere and cut myself a trail." Though I couldn't see over the tall brush, I could hear the shots become less frequent. I would argue that even a lot of the good works that he wanted to do early on were an attempt to impress my mother and her family. Jim Jones had said as a tropical storm rained on the Peoples Temple pavilion. Then-San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman was wounded in the airstrip shooting and flown to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where he wrote the following eyewitness account. John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. ", 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. After Ollie became pregnant, she was sent to Jonestown; Eugene remained behind. All of us were falling and slipping through the mud around a six-wheel-drive dump truck that would take us (the congressional delegation, the press, the defectors and a group of concerned relatives of temple members) to the Port Kaituma airstrip. He did what was expected of him. 'Destroyed,' he said, 'from within '. He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. "The minute I stepped out on the street, I felt so uncomfortable," he says. Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. The list of defectors rapidly grew to at least 16. I dove headlong into the three-foot-tall grass. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, Calif. I would say that there are times when its very enriching to speak with people about it All too often people want to write everyone off as a bunch of crazies. that one last act would be admitting he was a coward, and about nothing. (As PEOPLE reported a year after the deaths, two of Stephan's adopted siblings also died at Jonestown.). Contact & Personal Details. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife, Erin, raised three sons. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. Ollie worked in the nursery, and Eugene felled trees. A lot more conversation about the outside threat that was anyone that wasnt in the temple. A large poncho covered his belt area so no one knew for sure and no one challenged him. In California, he was steeped in temple life. He says his daughters have seen him gnash his teeth when he talks about his father, but they also have heard him speak lovingly of the man who taught him compassion and other virtues. 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. , MoKal . To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. The temple was the only life he knew but says he always had his doubts. For many years, Jones struggled with the guilt of survival, his father's grim legacy, and his own subsequent substance abuse. He is now a 65-year-old grandfather who has worked for a Miami hydraulics company for nearly 30 years, Jordan Vilchez, pictured sitting at a memorial for mass murder and suicide victims at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana, moved to Jonestown to 1977. They divorced when Jordan was six. He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. I certainly felt there was an outside threat, even when I knew my father was full of it and I was at odds with him in Jonestown. 'He made a promise - once we get to Jonestown there is no corporal punishment,' Smith said. Ollie worked in the nursery, and Eugene felled trees. He's never remarried, and Martin Luther Smith was his only child. I would argue that the means justify the end, but not the other way around.. With their lives, the story of Jonestown continues, even now. One day, when she was in high school, she came home and told her parents that her religion class had discussed Peoples Temple; only then did her father share the story of how his family was nearly wiped out. That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time. He was within a few minutes and a few yards of accomplishing his goal: to get out temple members who were afraid to leave or possibly held against their will. Jim Jr., followed that July and was 16 years old at the time. You don't tell God, "You're not going out of the house. Springing to my feet, I ran 40 yards across the runway. In code, his father told him everyone was going to die in revolutionary suicide., I argued with my Dad, he said. Plunged into a new world, those raised in the temple or who joined as teens lost the only life they knew: church, jobs, housing and most of all, family and friends. You describe yourself in your writings as a rebellious kid. 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. Stephan may be reached at moreheart1@comcast.net. I think there are people who are interested in it because of whats going on in the world. He will read it when he is ready, he says. Thats what triggered it.. He dreams he sees the men and women he knew, older now, changed by the years. ", Stephan Jones used to say he could have stopped the slaughter if he had been there. I mean, I saw things and was privy to things . I think most people would have welcomed some kind of action that took Dad out of the picture but I didnt feel like we had enough people to back us up, or I didnt know those people.. Four decades later, Americans often use this phrase in political and business contexts without knowing its origin. NBC reporter Don Harris said coolly: 'I think we're in for some trouble.'. The years are slowly weaning Stephan Jones from Jonestown; he reads, goes to movies, wants now to have a child of his own. What would you say is the biggest misconception people have about the Peoples Temple or your father? But some lived. "My experience in Jonestown was this: when I first got there I was happy and I was really enjoying myself. 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Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. The Joneses adopted a black baby in Indiana in 1960, and Jim gave the 10-week-old infant his own name. container: 'taboola-below-article-thumbnails-2nd', A vat that contained a drink laced with deadly cyanide sits on a sidewalk at Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana in November 1978. Grueling field work was not to her liking. The 40th anniversary is offering Americans an opportunity to deal with this neglected sore, with the story receiving treatment in both book and documentary form, a story of a trajectory from charismatic preacher and leader to head of a murderous cult. Wiki User. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. The therapy that has been helpful to me hasnt been by talking with strangers about it. 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. People do things for him. When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. My companion, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, would be murdered in an ambush. My arm was gushing blood so I stripped off my belt and pinched down the biggest wounds. Quietly the men with the tractor motioned aside a group of curious Guyanese children and other bystanders. 'Baby killer. "I think I have a lot of the same tendencies he had. At 16, she was put on the Planning Commission where the meetings were a strange mix of church business, sex talk and adulation for Jones. During the long night, the temple defectors told us that all the horror stories about Jim Jones and the church were true. Instead of finishing high school, Vilchez moved to San Francisco, where she lived in the church. ", The thought of killing Jim Jones had occurred to his son, but Stephan never tried to do it. Stephan Jones was a nearly full-grown teen-ager when his father sent him to the Peoples Temple agricultural mission in the small South American coastal country of Guyana. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. Maybe they just thought, 'God, leave me alone. 'In an hour, that promise was broken.'. 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 . Joining him was an older black man who fingered something in his right pocket. He says his daughters have seen him gnash his teeth when he talks about his father, but they also have heard him speak lovingly of the man who taught him compassion and other virtues. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, Calif. 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. But before we could start out, we heard angry shouts. Then he decides it is time, and he falters, and he tells them they may not believe what he is about to say. Id rather just talk about what didnt work and hope that people can see that in their own lives. Other Works "I would have been a traitor to the greatest cause there ever was . And he would have arrived too late, anyway. Gandhi is an Indian word meaning Pharmacist. He converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. By 1978, the White Nights included a rehearsal for suicide, something Jim Jones previously had tried only with his small circle of confidants within the church. And there was more social rhetoric and action in my life and a lot more fear. There, as part of Jones personal security detail, Cobb saw the once captivating minister strung out on drugs, afraid to venture anywhere for fear of his legal problems. According to his 1983 interview with The Washington Post, he was in this line of work even back then. Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, the first shot was fired. How could that be suicide? The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. The bottom layer consisted of about 300 babies and small children whose bodies had been ravished by the humidity and jungle insects. There are no many details about his siblings and some had been adopted. And his sense of self resided in his perception of other peoples perception of him. In Indianapolis, he served as a student pastor in the Methodist Church in 1952 but. He used this kind of threat to control his people. He says his daughters have seen him gnash his teeth when he talks. This is really crazy, he recalls thinking. 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.. Published: 01:29 EST, 14 November 2018 | Updated: 12:15 EST, 14 November 2018. target_type: 'mix' The shots still were popping at an amazing clip. Stephan ran to the U.S. Embassy and appealed for a helicopter to take him to the colony to try to stop the disaster, but no one listened. "I mellowed out." I jumped up and fought for the gun. We'd also just seen the warm, cheerful embraces between some of those leaving and some who were staying. He rode bulldozers, dodged falling trees, killed snakes, lit brush fires and rode the slow boats upriver with loads of cut wood for flooring and walls. In an hour, that promise was broken.. Ryan, his thick gray hair bloodied, was near the front of the plane. 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