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. 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. Among the hundreds of corpses, only one was different; he had died from a bullet to the head. 'I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me,' he said. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco. 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.. He was so wasted most of the time. Hes an executive at the office furniture company where he began working immediately after Jonestown. Toward the end, as he watched the array of barbiturates, amphetamines and tranquilizers that now slurred his father's speech and sometimes left him physically unable to leave the Jonestown house, Stephan Jones says murder seemed almost redundant. I did. Though it was a stalemate, the incident intensified an already strained situation. But Stephan was the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. 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. 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. What Does Lindsey Horans Boyfriend Tyler Heaps Do For a Living? And it was necessary in my own healing for me to find acceptance for him, understanding of him. Jones, who asked his followers to call him 'Dad,' did not like to lose any of his 'children.' Every loud sound put us on edge, with some wondering aloud: 'Will they come back to finish us off?'. After the slaughter, Stephan Jones was arrested on suspicion of abetting the mass murder and spent three months in a Guyanese prison. Play it now! Read More , MoKal . Ollie worked in the nursery, and Eugene felled trees. Well, he was using these words, I dont know if hed actually do that, hes a good and gentle man in so many ways, but he wanted to take dad out, and I was the one to convince him that dad would do that himself and we were going to have chaos on our hands. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of Jim Jones, the controversial religious cult leader. mode: 'thumbnails-a', 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." This answer is: Study guides. The only surviving child of Jim Jones,Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. With their lives, the story of Jonestown continues, even now. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. . "I think he would be admitting in his own warped mind that he was not this great revolutionary he had tried to build himself up to be . According to his 1983 interview with The Washington Post, he was in this line of work even back then. ", Stephan Jones' lips draw back when he talks about his father; he looks for an instant like a cornered dog. 'He hit Monica and Vern. Rebelling, they refused Jones' order to come back. "I don't know. The reason that I have agreed to talk to as many people as I have is because of that. 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. The tournament was in Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, 150 miles away. The guy you see in all the images. mode: 'thumbnails-rr', So yes, many people were disenchanted., Im sure he feared it and Im sure he had people telling him it existed. I guess I wanted to believe that, as a child.". You don't tell God he needs help. He said: "So much was attractive and unique that we turned a blind eye . Vilchez worked as office manager at a private crime lab for 20 years and now, at 61, sells her artwork. People do things for him. Then he decides it is time, and he falters, and he tells them they may not believe what he is about to say. He will read it when he is ready, he says. They also killed their dogs. Stephan Jones says he can still remember his own terror the first time his father set off a Jonestown White Night. He seems to have a tragic life after what had happened with his family. Stephan Gandhi Jones was 19. target_type: 'mix' 'They're in deep trouble now,' observed one of the relatives who had accompanied us. 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 that day, The bodies of five people, including Rep. Leo J. Ryan, D-Calif., are shown above on the airstrip at Port Kaittuma, Guyana, after an ambush by members of the Peoples Temple cult on November 18, 1978, John Cobb looks at names of family members on the Jonestown Memorial in Oakland, California. It began with a note smuggled to us from two members. He was the son of Jim Jones, who established Jonestown. File photo: Stephan Jones, son of Rev. I thought there were reasons for people to want to get us. I had been up all night unloading boats and I had to be at work in a couple of hours so I lay down for two hours of sleep after backbreaking and dangerous work, and Dad comes on the speaker in the wee hours of the morning. Forty years ago this week, a California congressman and a group of journalists traveled to Guyana, South America, to see Jonestown, a remote settlement created by an American church, and investigate reports of abuses of members. He would rise before dawn, pick his way into the bush, and sit without moving as the quiet around him split slowly into bird cries and insect buzzing and the scuffling and calling of creatures he could not see. For years it was largely forgotten along with a number of other insanities in the United States in the 1970s. . stephan gandhi jones Tatko na pesmaricu. The temple really became my family, she said. 'I just have to love him and forgive him.'. He says that to understand how a thing like that can happen, you have to do what leaders like Jim Jones and his successors dont want us to do to read. He dreams he is arguing with his father, arguing passionately, and although he knows his arguments are better, his father always wins. By nightfall, the seriously wounded, some of them on litters provided by the community, were sheltered in army soldiers' tents. Harris, a Los Angeles-based NBC investigative reporter who covered the fall of Saigon and the Nicaragua rebellion, had been killed. He was 18 and running a temple construction crew when the church sanctioned his marriage to a talented 16-year-old singer, Ollie Wideman. Stephan Jones' mother was one of those found dead from cyanide poisoning. (all adoptive) Stephanie Jones (died in 1959); Suzanne Jones; Agnes Pauline Jones; Stephan Gandhi Jones; James Warren (Jimmie) Jones, Jr.; Lew Eric Jones; Timothy Glenn Tupper (Day) Jones; Jim Jon (Kimo) Prokes; (?) Each day's news bulletins compounded the already unimaginable: There were 400 bodies; there were 900 bodies; there were, in the precise wording of the American military men sent to investigate, "smaller bodies under larger bodies and children under those." Hundreds of corpses were lying on the ground in front of them. 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. Jones himself, after some artfully applied pressure to the mayor's office, was appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority, where once-tedious meetings about public housing suddenly erupted into vigorous cheering sessions, with temple members applauding the pronouncements of Commissioner Jones. He converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife Marceline Jones. 1978. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. "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. Rebelling, they refused Jones order to come back. He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. 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. Jones berated three other new arrivals for misbehaviour on the trip; they were beaten and forced to work 24 hours straight. 'We were so scared, too, man, that they'd do this to you,' said one of the people who took us in. He used this kind of threat to control his people. Marceline and Jim had one biological child together, and Stephan Jones appears in Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre. Instead, The Washington Post reported that Stephan escaped death with the Jonestown basketball team. 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. 'Hit the deck!' "I'd go back in a minute. He says the congregation was full of elderly people, many of them hard-working black men and women who had given this minister everything they possessed. At the end of Ryan's two-day visit to the mission Saturday, a woman suddenly charged down a slippery boardwalk shouting at her husband, 'I'll kill you! When I left at 21, I left a part of myself there, she said. Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA as Stephan Gandhi Jones. Cobb lost 11 relatives that day, including his mother, youngest brother and four sisters. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. PORT KAITUMA, Guyana - 'I feel sorry that we are being destroyed from within,' the Rev. You'd have to deal with this elite that just revolved their lives around him' . 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Alongside it was a red tractor and trailer seen earlier at the mission. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. What we were calling the cause really was Jim, she said. John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. 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. Stephan Jones currently lives in Petaluma, CA; in the past Stephan has also lived in San Rafael CA and Novato CA. They have altogether three daughters. They must be prepared to die in the defense of socialism. OAKLAND, Calif. Jonestown was the highlight of Mike Touchettes life for a time. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, California, November 13, 2008. "I wasn't there," he says. During the long night, the temple defectors told us that all the horror stories about Jim Jones and the church were true. 'I believe that it was always a personal agenda for my father, and yes, there was a gradual shift in the balance. "This is really crazy," he recalls thinking. The bottom layer consisted of about 300 babies and small children whose bodies had been ravished by the humidity and jungle insects. 1931. Layton later was taken into custody by Guyanese authorities who seized a .38-caliber pistol and turned it over to U.S. Embassy officials. 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'. I would either have had to fight, or I would have taken it. She gives us the order that we were supposed to kill ourselves, Vilchez recalled. They don't normally believe it at first. 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