CULTS: The Night Jim Jones Ended the World: Peoples Temple Pt. 1

Hi everyone, it's Vanessa Richardson. Real quick before today's episode, I want to tell you about a show I host with forensics psychologist Dr. Tristan Engels. It's called "Serial Killers and Murderous Minds." Every Monday and Thursday, we take you deep into the psychology of the most chilling murderers and uncover what drives them to kill. Follow serial killers and murderous minds, available wherever you listen to podcasts. On November 18, 1978, in the middle of the jungle in South America, 918 people died. Most of them were American, most of them were black, and most of them had followed one man, Jim Jones, to that jungle because he promised them a better life. And maybe the most chilling part of the story is that he wasn't always lying. Despite his reputation today, Jim Jones actually spent years doing genuine good, which is exactly what made him so dangerous. Welcome to Crimes of Colts. I'm Sabrina Deanna Roga, I'm Corinne Vien. And this season, we're exploring the intersections of faith and manipulation, of fear and hope. It is all about the world's most dangerous cults and the charismatic leaders who promised salvation and destroyed their followers' lives in the process. If you're loving Crimes of, please follow, rate, and review us for every lesson to help us build this community, and we love hearing from you. To get early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to the Crime House Plus Community on Apple Podcasts. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Part 1 on the case of Jim Jones and the People's Temple starts right now. Welcome back, jurors. Welcome back. Mark's the final case of the season. And it's a big one, so don't worry, it's a two-parter. But before we get into it, we need to give some content warnings up front. Yes. This episode and the one that follows includes discussion of mass murder, including deaths of children. So please watch or listen with care. And also a major shout out to Jeff Quinn's book, The Road to Jones Town, which was the primary source for these episodes. It's one of the most thorough accounts of Jim Jones' life, and we found that book incredibly resourceful. I feel like this is one of those cases that's so top of mind for us when you hear the word cult. Yeah. A lot of people think of Jim Jones or Jones Town and the phrase "drink the Kool-Aid" or "don't drink the Kool-Aid". It's like a regular part of language now. Yes. Which we'll get into this later, but it's actually incorrect, and they actually use flavor aid instead of Kool-Aid. But that detail got missed in the, I don't know, in the years, and now it's Kool-Aid. But anyway, we'll get into that later. Point being, we knew we could not do a season about cults without covering Jim Jones and the people's temple. Yeah. Because what happened in Jones Town was not random. It wasn't the work of someone who came out of nowhere. It was the end result of decades of manipulation, control, and unchecked power. Should we get into it? Yes. Okay. It's like one of those cases where I'm like, "Oh, you can't do a cults thing without covering it." We really can't. Because it's so big, but then it's like when it actually comes time to do it, there's a little bit of dread in me, because it's so horrific and so many people died. There's a lot of dread. Yeah. All right. Serious. The year is 1978. Deep in the jungles of Guyana, South America. The air is hot and sticky, heavy and oppressive, even indoors. Jim Jones stands at the center of a compound built from scratch, and named after himself, Jones Town. Around him nearly 1,000 people, his followers. Many of them have been with him for years, decades even, and they have given him everything, their homes, their money, even their children's futures. And now, on this sweltering November afternoon, he is about to ask for one more thing. Jim Jones nods, and his most trusted inner circle gets to work, mixing grape-flavorade powder with cyanide and sedatives into giant bats. Outside Jim's voice crackles over the compound speakers, he tells his people together. And they do. Their daughters carry their babies, children hold their parents hands, the elderly are helped along the dirt paths, all of them convening in the outdoor pavilion. To most of them, this looks familiar. They've done it before, gathered in the pavilion, been handed a cup, been told it was poisoned, but it was always a test. It was never real. But this time, it is. Over 900 people file into the pavilion and take their seats. The tape recorder is set up near the podium. Jim pops in a cassette, then picks up his megaphone, and addresses his followers. His voice is slow, almost gentle. He starts by telling them how much he loves them, that he really tried to give them a good life. But then, he shifts. He tells them that from the very beginning, outside forces have been trying to destroy Jones Town, that the government will never leave them in peace. It's all over. And with that ominous sentence, a nurse steps forward, feels a small cup with a purple liquid from one of the vats. She walks it to the front of the crowd, and kneels beside a mother holding an infant. She draws the liquid into a syringe. The death is supposed to be painless, but it isn't. It makes me so sick to think about, because 918 people died that day and the day surrounding it, and over 300 of them were children. And there's an audio recording of this final moment. Oh, I know. I've heard it. I didn't listen to it. You listened to it. For this, but I heard it years ago. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Don't do it. We do not recommend it. It's horrific. You hear the pain, you hear the. It's so horrible. 1118 people. Well, and also, it's just so scary, too, because like you were saying, there were so many moments where people were tested to see if they would do something. And it's like, of course, people, you do something so many times, people are going to blindly follow it. And it also made me fearful of, and just like, think about how easy it is for something like this to happen, because you're like, how could this happen? But then if I think of my own upbringing and being in the church, what of one day are wafers and our sips from the chalice of red wine has something else in it? We're going to get into how this happens in this episode and next. It is, like Karen said, happens over time. It didn't happen overnight. It's a very, very long process. Similar to all the other cults we've talked about this season, it's a long period of time of control, manipulation, and grooming. Yes. And it's important to also note that this is the largest single mass murder and losses of American civilian life in history outside of natural disasters. Part of me is like, oh, my God, this could happen at any time. This is like a monumental, historic, horrific, tragic case that hopefully will never, ever be repeated. Yeah. But here's the thing. It didn't start in the jungle, just like you were saying. It was built over time. And it actually starts in a small town in Indiana with a lonely and attention starved. Well, I guess at the time he was a little boy and he found power in the pulpit. So Jim Jones was born, James Warren Jones, who was born on May 13th, 1931, in Crete, Indiana. And he grew up very poor, like in a very impoverished area and his family was really struggling. His dad, James Thurman Jones, was a disabled, chronically unemployed world war one veteran who struggled with alcoholism and who Jim later said was a member of the KKK. Yeah. His mom, Lynetta, did her best to find whatever she could to get work to support the family, but it really wasn't easy. They never made enough. It's also in 1934, so it's not exactly easy for a woman to support the family. Totally. And so in 1934, the family was actually evicted from their farmhouse, which is so upsetting. It's like, you know, they've been trying for years to do something. Yeah. So some of James' relatives actually helped them find a new place in the town of Lynne, but their financial situation barely improved. So again, it's like they're in the same spot. His dad was either in bed sick or struggling with his alcoholism, or attending KKK meetings. And his mom was often at work, which left Jim alone, young, to pen for himself. He chose a little kid. And what did he do? How did he spend his time? He wanted friends. Yeah. Everybody wants friends. So he would wander around town looking for other kids around his age to become friends with. And one day, he finally met someone and he brings this friend home to play and is shocked when his father is absolutely enraged by this. And Jim's dad is not upset that he brought home a friend. And his dad is upset that the friend is black. So just terrible, terrible. He's yelling. He kicks the boy out of the house. And he beats Jim for bringing over and befriending a little sad black child, like someone who's - Jim's age, so ridiculous. Okay, so this becomes one of the earliest core memories of Jim and this really is like starting to build his foundation because he's viewing this as like, "Okay, I'm being punished for making a connection with another person just because they look different from me." Exactly. - So from that moment on, Jim Jones had a genuine contempt for racial inequality. He knew it was wrong. I love that he knew it was wrong, even though he's growing up in an environment to foster. - When I was learning about this, I was like, "Wow, you hear so many stories where kids grow up and families like this, and then they perpetuate the racism and inequality." - I feel like a doctorate in inequality, yeah. - It's all they know, right? The rain wash, that's just the way that it goes so frequently. But I know he was like, "Oh, this is not feel right." And I'm glad that he felt that that was not right, it's like convoluted because of everything that's going to come. - Yeah. So another life-defining moment for Jim Jones was when he found religion. So when he was just four years old or so in 1935, one of Jim's neighbors who was a pastor at a local Nazarene church saw how lonely and alone this little boy was, and so she took him to church with her. And he loved it. He loved it. And I also appreciate that there was people in the community who were looking out for a child like this. But he didn't love the message necessarily. He loved the feeling of belonging, and he loved the attention he got while he was there. - Which is not a bad thing. - Not a bad thing at all. And he came from a home where he had little-- - I feel like some of the things we're saying, we're saying with a tone that's like kind of being insulting to a child, like even I was doing, like, he's desperate for attention. He's a kid. - It's with the context of who he becomes. - But we know that he becomes a mass murderer. - But yeah, so this is a kid who had been starved for attention, had little to no positive or any attention generally at home. And here, at the church, Jim is constantly being praised for memorizing Bible verses and singing hymns, and he loves that feeling. - Yeah. Jim becomes so intrigued by this experience and the religion that he attends all six other churches in the town of Linn. And at some point, he decides to take a one step further, and rather than just attending church, he decides to start giving his own sermons. By the time he was a teenager, he was giving sermons by finding roadkill and hosting funerals for them. - That doesn't feel alarming because I did do that as a child as well. - Right. And I scarred the people who were there. - But here's the clarification that I think is important, is that Jim Jones was not interested in God. He liked the power and the attention that you can get from that type of devotion. - He was more about commanding a crowd and having people buy into whatever he's saying and doing. - Yes, and in one second you'll understand, there's a difference, there's a distinction. Okay, so he's giving these sermons for and funerals for the roadkill, but he's missing something, an audience. So as you would imagine-- - He doesn't line up all the other roadkill to just-- - Yeah, but he left people audience. And the other kids in town aren't really lining up to come to these sermons. - No. - So he starts looking for inspiration in the universe in the world to help him draw a crowd. And he found someone to model himself after. Not the Pope, not God, not a famous pastor, but Adolf Hitler. - Okay, yeah. - So if you were questioning where things were going up until this point and feeling a little bit sorry for this kid, this kind of alone tells everything we need to know. - Anyone who has that as a role model, red flag? - Not totally, yeah, 'cause if you didn't know, Hitler was not a good guy in any way, but Jim kind of saw him as at this kindred spirit and resonated with the idea that someone could rise to total power and come from humble beginnings. So it wasn't like he was relating to the teachings of Adolf Hitler, but he was taking inspiration from being like, "Oh, literally anyone can do this, even if you're a horrific person." - Yeah, I feel like you can't turn a blind eye to the bad things and only focus on the good things and say that they're your model because of the good things that they did and ignore bad things. - I guess it was just the idea of rising up from nothing 'cause Hitler was born in Austria to a lower middle-class family who was a field art student, living in poverty before he became this monstrous dictator and did what he did. But Jim Jones saw this kind of as like a blueprint that you could go from nothing to commanding a room and then eventually to a whole country and then eventually the whole world. - Kind of like, world domination was a little bit on his face. - He won't feel in. (laughing) - I literally think of him as plankton from Spongebob which is such a polite version of the kind of evil that might have been storing in his mind. So yeah, that was, we're just adding that, but that was his inspiration. - Yes. - But either way, it was around this time that something really dark started to crystallize in young Jim. In 1945, when Hitler died by suicide to avoid being captured, 14-year-old Jim Jones, he did not see it as defeat. He saw what Adolf Hitler did as defiance. And he basically was like, "Oh, well, he's taking a stand against his enemies." He would rather do that than surrender to them and there's something honorable in that. - Is this not major foreshadowing? - Major foreshadowing and also the biggest red flag in the world. - Yeah. - Like, oh my god. So all of these ideas were starting to crystallize into the traits that would define Jim Jones. His hatred of racial inequality, his obsession with getting attention, demanding absolute loyalty and never giving in to anyone who challenges him. And before long, he would get a chance to put those beliefs to the test. - So in 1948, after his parents separated, he was 17 years old at the time, Jim Jones and his mom moved to Richmond, Indiana. And at the time, Richmond was racially segregated, which is not unique in this time in America. 'Cause we're talking about America in the late 1940s. The military had only just been desegregated by executive order, but otherwise, schools, restaurants, buses, hospitals, all of them were divided by race by law in much of the country. And then the civil rights movement was not until years from then. So we're talking about 1948. The civil rights movement that we recognized didn't begin until 1954, even though people were speaking up about it, right. Point is segregation was common. But Jim Jones, who was a politically curious teenager who grew up with a racist father, was not okay with what he was seeing in Richmond when he moved here. And this is truly the only time I will say, wow, I'm so grateful for what he did at the time. - Mm-hmm. - Otherwise terrible human being. - Yeah. - But he, truly, as a teenager, took a stand against the injustice. And he would stand up on corners and speak to, he'd give public speeches and talk about how wrong this racial inequality was. - It's like so complicated 'cause it's like, he's suing that, which is good, but in his mind, any bit of challenge or what we'll soon get to mass murder or there's no issue with. I think he maybe started out doing good, got obsessed with the attention and became selfish. But at this point, people are listening to what he's saying. And this was the first time people were really listening to him speak. It was new for him. It was intoxicating. - Mm-hmm. - And at least, like we are saying, at the moment it was for a good cause. - Yeah. He's doing all of us, he's having these speeches and sharing his ideas and his ideas caught the attention as some of his fellow students at school and they invited him to join the Christian Youth Fellowship. And this is where he learned about the idea of Christian Communism, which is basically the belief that Jesus' teachings aligned with communist ideals and create true, like a truly equal society. And he loves this idea, like this totally fits with him, creating this more equal society and even more. He loved the idea of being, at the top of it, being the leader of the spokesperson. - At the whole time, prepping for this episode, I couldn't stop thinking about animal farm, which if people are not familiar, it was written by George Orwell in 1945. And the whole idea is like the farm animals are plotting together to overthrow the humans who are oppressing them. And then the pigs, once they like successfully do it, the pigs basically who led the revolution take all the power for themselves. So it's this idea of like let's work together, but then once we achieve the goal that we together wanted, one person's like, actually, I wanna keep power. - Well then I'm a leader and now I'm sure that everyone is equal. - And then they oppress the people. Like that feels like the perfect metaphor for who Jim Jones is, right? - That is exactly it. And it's like, it's upsetting 'cause it goes beyond Jim Jones. I feel like this just happens to a lot of people with a lot of people. I wrote one quote from Animal Farm. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. And I feel like that is Jim Jones in one sentence. - Yeah, if you were alive today, you could get that tatted on his arm. - And that's his motto. - Yeah. - But at this point in time, Jim was sort of piecing all of these things together and trying to come up with a way to use religious following to create a better society. So that was now. his stance. Right. And then around the same time, Jim is working as a hospital orderly and it was here in 1949 that he met a nursing student named Marceline Baldwin. And it seems like Jim was immediately taken by her, but the same could not be said about her to him. Apparently, she was put off by him at first and thought he was too intense and too opinionated because he would lecture people about alcohol and drinking and smoking when they never asked for his opinion. And it's pretty annoying. No, very annoying. Also, as we'll learn, Jim Jones is a hypocrite because he very much used a lot of drugs. Okay. Over time, though, Marceline seemed to soften to Jim Jones and started to respect his passion and they started dating and they got married by July when Jim was 18 and Marceline was 22. After the wedding, they moved to Bloomington, Indiana so Jim could attend college there. And that is where he got even more into communism and less into religion or I could say he turned away from religion entirely because he, I don't think he ever really believed in God. But at this point, he's like, I don't understand how there could be a God and there still be this racial inequality. He like wants to be God. He wants to be Jesus. Absolutely. He wants to be the figurehead, but he doesn't necessarily believe in other people's. Yes. Marceline, though, she was a devout Christian and wanted Jim to attend church with her. So in 1951, she ended up convincing him to go to a Methodist church with her because this Methodist church encouraged social justice, so he agreed. Yeah. And it was here that Jim had this sort of revelation and it wasn't a spiritual revelation or anything like to do with really religion in that sense, but it was much more practical and big picture to him. Jim realized it was his calling to become a Methodist pastor because, not because of the belief in the religion, he could finally get the audience that he dreamed of having. So this was his path forward to have a bunch of eyes on him to become a Methodist pastor. And again, he didn't really believe in God, but this was the way to win people over and have a platform for his politics and his beliefs. So in 1952, Jim Jones got a job as a student pastor at a Methodist church in Indy, and he got a chance to deliver his own sermons. He had a transition from like doing the sermons for a road kill to actually doing it in our real church, and people like asking you to do it. But it turned out that the congregation was not exactly super receptive to the messages that he was delivering because it had to do a lot with racial equality and wanting to integrate the congregation, which was an all-white congregation. And despite the church claiming to encourage social justice, they weren't like that. They slapped that sticker on themselves, and no one was actually doing that. Which is not too different than a lot of religions and groups of people today, where they're like, "No." Well, everyone's welcome unless you fit this category. Right. And that's politics. So you're like, say you're going to do something, and then it was just to gain a trust of particular people that you want. Get the votes. Yeah. And Jim is delivering these sermons, and he's starting to really piss off the congregants of this Methodist church. And so they retaliate by throwing dead animals on the church lawn. Someone clogged the church's toilet with dead cats. And like, it's so disturbing, too, because you're like, "Who are you trying to beat?" Like you're congregating here. You're supposed to be in the house of God. You're supposed to like receive all these messages to be like a good person and follow all these things. And you're throwing dead animals and stuffing animals into toilets and saying, like, "Oh, you like someone who doesn't have the same exact skin tone as me, so now I hate you." This is one of the scariest places so far that we've talked about. It's going to get scarier. So in 1954, 23-year-old Jim decides that, "Okay, this isn't working. He has to move on." So he starts his own racially integrated church. And by 1955, the church has a name. The people's temple. Something is happening in Dawson Creek. A wave of violence has swept over this community of just 13,000 people. It's like the kind of stuff you only hear about on TV. 15 murders in the last five years. Some criminals, I put them into the category of supervillains. I'm Timothy Sawa and from CBC's Uncover and the Fifth Estate, an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Dawson Creek, and what's behind it all. And I'm not saying another word, leave me alone. The Miles Ero murders, available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the very first Sunday that Jim Jones opens his own church. Unfortunately, the pews are almost completely empty. He stood at the pulpit of his small racially integrated building, which was something virtually unheard of in this city in 1954, and he looked at the couple of faces looking back at him and he just knew this is not enough. I need more. I need more people and more followers, and he needed to do something to get that. So he did what any young ambitious preacher would do. He basically went on tour. He hit the road. He started touring the Midwest, performing faith healing revivals. And these were ceremonies performed for predominantly black audiences, where preacher would promise to heal people's pain if they repented their sins and had enough faith. They were very loud, very theatrical, emotional, and people really loved them. And Jim Jones was specifically or especially inspired by a preacher named William Brannum, who claimed to be a divine prophet with the power to heal illnesses and lift demonic curses. It sounds kind of scary, but at the time I can totally see why people would be intrigued because like look at the world around you. And Brannum would invite volunteers on stage, and in this spectacle, he would heal them, and the volunteer would actually feel and like present as healed. A lot of these volunteers were actually pre-plant and working for Brannum. So they were planted there. And then even if he brought up actual congregants of these places, he would bring them up. He would perform his ceremony. And then he would say in a few days, you'll be healed, but he's leaving town right after this sermon. You know, you're re-gathering and saying, yeah, what happened to these folks? So Jim had seen one of these shows and decided to try it himself. He took a page out of William Brannum's book and he planted some loyal followers in the audience. And when it was time for that faith healing, he would pretend to choose them at random. And they would tell him what was making him sick. And they always said something very serious, like cancer. Then Jim would use things like chicken guts or other animal parts to make it look like he was physically removing the diseased organs from the sick volunteer. It's amazing how theatrical so many cult leaders are. Very. It is all theater. It is. It is. It is manipulation. But it worked. For long, thousands of people were coming to Jim Jones's revival sermons and even William Brannum joined him on stage a couple of times. So the guy who inspired him and Jim was successful enough in order to raise money that he needed to buy a building in a desegregated part of Indianapolis. That's an important thing to note is that while we know what happens with Jim Jones and who he, the deeds that he does and who he becomes, his backstory. It's full of genuine and meaningful and good deeds and like a lot of it came from a good place in the beginning. And he was doing like in the face of adversity with all these people going against him, he kept pushing forward. And so like that part of his spirit where he is like, oh, like haters gonna hate, I'm going to keep going forward. Yeah. It's great when you apply it specifically to this. And as we'll see in this story, there are so many people from history, like notable people who also bought into his teachings because they were really positive and good at the time. Yeah. And it also helps you understand why so many people bought in and became followers of Jim Jones. And then unfortunately when things took a turn, they had already built so much trust and faith in this man. Well, it's hard because I feel like, so this is the final cults, two-parter. Yeah. But we've done a whole season on cults and so many of the cult leaders and cults there. The whole thing is about like scamming people and he wasn't scamming people. Like there was something real attached to this. Yeah. So it does make it difficult. But a couple other things that he did that were good and helpful. So with the money and attention that his church was generating, Jim built soup kitchens. He helped members of the people's temple get jobs. He ran a nursing home, a drug rehabilitation program that helped those with nowhere else to turn. But his church took in the elderly, the addicted, the unemployed, just genuinely welcomed everyone. And he himself would go out of his way to make sure that these people got what they needed. And in 1950s, Indianapolis, the work that Jim Jones and the people's temple was doing, that was radical. That was very unheard of. Now you're like, oh my gosh, that is like, what a great thing to do. And just to go to my text, oh, let's go there. And just to be very clear, we are not saying, wow, Jim Jones, a great person. We're specifically talking about things to do about past. And if someone today were doing these things, everyone would be like, wow, what a great person. Yeah. Totally. They would go on the talk shows. They'd have articles. people who were listening know us well enough to know that we hate Dimjant. Terrible use. Yes. But the things that initially were happening in the things that the church was providing and how he was using those resources were good and he fostered a community that helped each other and the community was not split white and black radical. And it wasn't just for a show because I feel like a lot of the other cult cases we talked about this season, people are doing things for a show, but he wasn't in the moment. He genuinely did care, but he also did like how it benefited him. And I'll go back to the animal farm analogy. He used all this goodwill to build an actual political power and his congregation would vote the way he told them to politicians started turning to Jim Jones because he had so much influence that they would like partner with him so that Jim Jones would preach to his congregation to vote for them. And he leveraged this influence to become the head of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission. So throughout the late 50s and early 60s, Jim used that position to desegregate movie theaters, restaurants, hospitals, the telephone company, and even the police department. Again, was making a real difference. This is not meant to sound insensitive of the comment that I'm about to make, but like the racial inequality and how everything was segregated kind of blows my mind because I'm like, I feel like even today America struggles so much with decent infrastructure. And I'm like, how are you doing everything twice? You can't hardly do it once. It's horrible. And it's also not that long ago. No, it's super recent. So also all of these changes that Jim Jones was trying to make and implement in society started at home. He and his wife, Marceline, created what they called a rainbow family and they adopted children of all races. So over the next few years, they adopted four kids, a nine-year-old named Agnes, who was part Native American. They also adopted three Korean American children, a three-year-old named Lou, a two-year-old named Stephanie, and a six-year-old named Suzanne, who tragically died in a car accident in 1959, the same year she was adopted. Later in 1959, they welcomed their one and only birth child, who they named Stephen Gandhi, interesting name. And then in 1961, Jim and Marceline became the first white couple in the state of Indiana to adopt a black infant. They named him Jim Jones Jr. That's a mind-blowing fact, so just the fact that there even is like a first. Yeah. Experts still debate whether Jim personally believed in any of this or whether it was all performance. Obviously, we can't ask him. Even if we did, I don't think he'd give you the honest answer, but it was probably a mix of both. He did genuinely believe inequality was wrong, but then he liked how it gave him power over people and things. And behind all the good work that he was doing, I think the darker influence was really taking hold and becoming the forefront. And I think that this is where things start to get a little cold-tish, where you're going to be like, "Oh, I remember that happening in a previous episode that you covered." Yeah. Jim started requiring his followers to sign over their property to the church. So like anything that they owned, their homes, their savings, everything went to the church. And the idea was an idea that he got from an influential black preacher named Father Devine, who pooled his own congregations resources as a way to put the good of the church above themselves. So he brought this idea to the people's temple and told everyone that this is communal living, everything's going to be shared equally. We're all one big happy family, so all of your assets, give it to the church, the church owns it now. But guess who owns the church, y'all? Jim. Jim. Yep. So he also started having his followers call him Father and call Marceline Mother. Sounds very familiar if you have heard some of the other episodes. Yes. Also, I have a really hard time every time we say, "Just Jim." Jim. Like, it doesn't seem right. He is Jim Jones. You know? Right. Yeah. It's kind of like serial killers, I used to say their middle name. Yeah. Yeah. You have to identify their full-- The whole name. Just Jim, it feels like-- Your neighbor. Your neighbor or-- Uncle. That from the office. Yeah. You remember. And also, Jim Jones was not just taking people's property and possessions. Even close doors, he was also taking their spouses. By the 1960s, Jim was having affairs with dozens of church members, both men and women alike. And again, that's another stereotypical cult leader characteristic. Yep. And Marceline apparently reportedly turned a blind eye to this, or didn't know about it, or if she did, it's likely that Jim had also manipulated her. Because when people in the People's Temple did not give Jim what he wanted, they were punished. Sometime in the late 50s, Jim Jones created what he called an interrogation committee, where his most devoted followers went after anyone who was deemed disloyal. Anyone who criticized Jim or was disloyal to him would be taken in front of this committee question for hours on end. And that was just the start of it. So like, already mentally being punished, and then a lot of the times, the meetings would end with a physical punishment as well. They started calling these disloyal members dissenters, and they were beaten and forced to march outside for miles to pay for their so-called mistakes. Yes. Yeah. It's not good. Wow. What a turn. So the message became very clear. Absolute loyalty, or consequences. And this is the moment that Jim Jones starts establishing a pattern of isolating people, both like emotionally and physically. He's just punishing people. He banned his followers from having any social interactions with people outside of the people's temple. So now outside friends or family, it was just the church. And of course, no one can go against anything he says, or they're going to be punished too. So like, if you do something wrong, there's no one to run to and say, I need help. I need to unload emotionally on you. And he owns their homes. He owns all of their finances. So even if they did want to leave, they have nothing. Right. Do you remember who was over the age of 12 had to provide Jim with their signature so that he could use their signature on any documents that he wanted? Like, I feel like he made them sign certain contracts and stuff, but he just put their signatures down. It does feel like making a deal with the devil now. Yeah. So like you were saying, there were some physical punishments and things for people who went against him. And while he did a lot to isolate people, he also did public punishments. So if someone broke a rule or if they criticized Jim and his teachings, they would be publicly spanked with a paddle in front of the entire community. And this is a common characteristic or trait of cults. Public humiliation is one of the most effective control tactics out there. It teaches not just the person who's being punished, but everyone else that is watching as well. And you know what else works? Fear. In 1961, the height of the Cold War, what did people fear most, the threat of nuclear bombs? So in late 1961, Jim Jones comes to his followers and told them that he had a vision that a nuclear bomb was going to explode over Indiana. Remember, this is the height of the Cold War. Kids were literally doing duck and cover drills in school. People were legitimately terrified of this happening. So when Jim talked about his vision, his followers took him very, very seriously. And conveniently, and I say this in quotes, because I think it was all strategically in planned, Jim Jones adds that he read an article a couple months later that said in the event of a nuclear attack, the safest place on earth was South America. So in early 1962, Jim Jones took his family on an extended trip to Brazil to scout out a new location in South America for his temple. Along this trip, they stopped into small British colony on the northern coast of South America called Guyana. And he loved it there. And he let a few sermons there and they all went really, really well. And it became a place that he would never forget and it also will come back in this story. So remember it. But at the time, it was a place they passed through. And by 1963, their time in South America was proving a bit more challenging because there was a language barrier and they weren't gaining new followers the way that Jim Jones wanted. And also the bomb was never didn't come yet, even though he kept saying it was coming. So he decided to go back home to Indiana. In 1963, he's back in Indiana and he doubles down on the apocalyptic rhetoric, which sounds like my TikTok algorithm right now. So it is like fear mongering, he's instilling fear in everyone, which inspired more and more people to make donations. And by 1965, things had stabilized enough for Jim to start thinking about moving again. And this time, he's like, okay, well, maybe I move a little bit closer to home. Maybe I moved to California where all the cults go. So he told us followers that a nuclear attack was now coming and it would be here in 1967. That's when everything was going to happen. Time was running out. You have to move and you have to move now if you're going to survive. Which objectively today, I would say, and probably back then too, like California feels like more of a target than Indiana. Yeah. I feel safer in Indiana. Me too. That's why I always said I was going to move to Ohio if the bomb. lip sets but then Ohio had too many things happen and then I was like wait maybe the apocalypse starts in Ohio. Anyway yeah Indiana does feel like the safer bet here but he's choosing California. So in July of 1965 34-year-old Jim Marceline and their children set off in a caravan with about 140 followers as well most of whom were black and they left everything behind to go move to California. The group settled in a small farming community in northern California called Redwood Valley and over the next few years he went back and forth between his two congregations keeping them running. By 1969 he'd gotten about 300 followers in California but Redwood Valley was a very small town so it was hard to build more than that because there just wasn't the population to do so. So in 1970 he decides to go down to San Francisco start another church there and then start another church in LA two places with much larger populations. So now he has three locations. It's expanding right and the preaching is non-stop and by the early 1970s Jim claimed the total congregation had grown to nearly 20,000 people although the real number is probably just a few thousand. Which is still a lot it's still a time. Yeah it's also very important to note because you might be like wow how is he managing this many members and going back and forth between all these places and continuing to do a lot of sermons. Well it's important to know that Jim Jones was taking a lot of drugs. He was using methamphetamines to get through the marathon of preaching schedule and then at night he would take sleeping pills to come down naturally. That's just so wild. A lot of drug use. What does that lead to? Paranoia. Yeah. Especially a man who's already preaching paranoid rhetoric. I'm shocked that there's not a comet coming down in this story right? You're not jumping down a rock. I mean in a way but it's from humans. Yeah. Nuclear threat. Because of this paranoia, his grip on the church tightened further and further and the message he was spreading was becoming a little bit more interesting. He preached and formalized what he called apostolic socialism, which essentially established him, Jim Jones, not God as the person to worship. He wanted to be God. He wanted to be God from the very beginning. He was also using sex as a control tactic. He would seduce both partners in a married couple and then use their infidelity to blackmail them into staying into the temple. Does that not remind you of what's the documentary next door or whatever that was? Abducted in plain sight. Both of the parents. So the whole family Jan Broberk attacked by this guy. Does that remind you of that? It's the same tactic. Yeah. But you do it. Jim Jones is doing on a massive scale with so many people amongst his congregation. He also used sex as a manipulation tactic with women. He would basically say, "Hey, come have sex with me and I'll give you better food, access to drugs, etc." He's a predator. Don't love that, especially for the community that he's serving. Yeah. So this was happening regularly with many couples who are part of the temple. But one of these relationships was with a woman named Carolyn Moore-Leton. And she was a teacher and she had first been drawn in by his messages of social justice. As so many people were. It all started there. So Carolyn, she was married to a man named Larry Lyon. And that marriage that union didn't matter to Jim Jones, right? Because he starts getting involved deeply involved with Carolyn. She eventually gets pregnant and gives birth to one of Jim's children. So with the two of them shared was more than a physical affair because Jim actually believed in Carolyn too, that they were reincarnations of Vladimir Lenin and his mistress. Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Russian government and founded the Soviet Union in 1917, meaning that Jim Jones basically was casting himself as one of the most important communist revolutionary figures in history. That's a lot about as it go. Inspired by Adolf Hitler, now thinks that he's creating the Soviet Union. Also around this time. And we're only giving a couple of like the really public stories that do kind of come full circle in part two. But these are just a couple examples. But this one really does break my heart. So one of Jim's most trusted followers and advisors was a man named Tim Stowen. And Tim was Jim's attorney. And in 1972, Tim and his wife Grace Stowen had a baby boy. Grace gave birth to their son. And in private, without Grace knowing, Jim forces Tim to sign an affidavit naming Jim Jones as the father. Grace had no idea. And I know where this is going to end. So it gives me chills. Somehow Tim was either co-washed or convinced who knows. Either way, the boy was named John Victor. And legally, Jim Jones was the father. And this boy, John Victor, would become one of the central figures in what came later. So we will circle back to it. But yeah, in the meantime, let's remind everyone that Jim Jones is still married to Marceline. And if you're wondering if she was okay with this, it is hard to know. Like there's mixed. Again, we can't ask her. We don't know specifically what she thought of it. Yeah, was she into it? Or was she just a total captive? Yeah, was she evicted as well? Yeah. Some say she believed Jim was doing whatever it took to further his cause. Either way, Marceline did end up having like a turn in her beliefs in 1972, the same year Jim forced Tim Stowen to sign their baby over to him. She said she was leaving. Like she had enough. But as you can imagine, Jim didn't like that. And in front of everyone, Jim said that if Marceline took his children away from him, he would kill her. In front of everyone, he said this. Which like I would totally believe him. And this guy is it worked. She stayed because of it. Yeah. One summer evening when she was 20 years old, something terrible happened to Vienna Luke. I can't figure it out, but I do know that it was a violation. Then people started asking questions. What a creep. Who else knows about this? From CBCs, personally, this is Agent Leila. The story of how a victim went undercover. So bring it on. Let's go. Let's get a confession. Available now on CBC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. So by this point, Jim Jones had complete control over everyone. He cut them off from the outside. He legally possessed all of their belongings and had successfully instilled fear in everyone. Everyone knew you were either with the temple or you were against it. And his favorite way of testing people's loyalty was to pretend to poison them. Yeah. And this was not the first time that Jim Jones had done something like this. So back in Indiana, he'd already started planting the seeds of fear and testing who would stay calm when he told them something terrible was happening. But here in California, it escalated to something much darker. During a communal meal, Jim suddenly stood up and announced that he had poisoned the food. Everyone is going to die after they had already eaten it. Yes. So then he watched and he's like looking at all of his congregation, his cult members. And some people are panicking. I would have panicked. I would have been trying to make myself throw out. Right. But surprisingly, a lot of people stayed calm. Like did they stay calm or was that just the reaction of like you have to like make peace with that? It's like, oh, well, it's too late. And so, or total shock. I don't know. But to him, he was like, okay, now I get to see who truly trusts me. And so the point of him doing this was basically for him to see not only who would just like blindly follow him, but like who would believe that whatever he decides is the right way. Yeah. And so he's looking around the room and then he starts laughing and says, oh, no, the food isn't actually poisoned. I just want to see who trusts me. This is a test. And to Jim, real loyalty meant willing to die for him. And this would be this really just like the start. This was just starting to ramp up. You know, I think it's really interesting is so the first time he does this poison test, he does it after they've already consumed the food. Yeah. So they have he's tricking them, right? He's like, Oh, the meal you just ate was poisoned. Now you're all going to die because I decided we're all going to die. Yeah. The next time he does it and we'll get there, he tells them before they consume the thing that it's poisoned. But they've all been conditioned that the last time it was a joke. Well, it's his bit. It's like his his go to joke. Yeah. Jim, how is making the same joke trying to get the laughs of everyone? It feels so if there's so much strategy here. I know. So obviously you can see inside the people's temple, it's a cult, very, very strategic, manipulative, coercive. But while that's happening outside, he's still presenting himself as in public as a fighter for social justice. And in public, he's keeping up this facade. By the early 1970s, Jim had expanded dramatically. He had congregations in Redwood Valley, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. And in San Francisco, he had become a really big political force. He used his followers money to donate to local politicians, to newspapers and TV stations. So in return, they were giving him a lot of positive coverage. Right. He was praised by notable figures like Angela Davis and Harvey Milk, Jim. even used his influence to help get George Moscone elected as mayor of San Francisco, and in return, Moscone appointed Jim Jones to the San Francisco Housing Authority where Jim Jones would then push for better housing practices. But naturally, with all of this positive attention and media coverage, come a lot of people asking questions, being more curious, some lucky lose, and people were paying more attention to what he was doing. In 1972, admits all the baby stealing and death threats, the San Francisco examiner learned about some of the abuse that was going on behind closed doors at the People's Temple, and they were going to publish a story. But again, Jim Jones had so many connections that he ends up like pulling strings and they get the story squashed. But he could only hold back the negative press for so long. In 1973, multiple journalists exposed his faith healings because he's still doing these sermons where he's pretending to heal people on stage. Multiple journalists exposed them as fake, and another newspaper did successfully run a story about Jim's abuses. Then, eight of his followers later called the gang of a "wrote Jim" a letter saying that his obsession with sex was overshadowing the group's focus on communal socialist living, and for that reason, they were leaving. Is he enraged? Or does he have any bit of shame and embarrassment reading that? There's no shame and embarrassment. This group of eight, the gang of eight, were able to leave the People's Temple in this, sent Jim Jones into a tailspin. Because with eight people defecting successfully, naturally other people would be inspired, and they did follow. Yeah, it becomes an option, whereas they didn't have an option before. A couple named Elmar and Diana Myrtle left after Jim physically beat their daughter for spending time with outsiders outside of the People's Temple. But keep in mind, in order to do this successfully, they stayed in the cult for some time, and in secret, failed out paperwork to successfully legally change their names. And once that was completed, which is not an easy process to do, by the way, they changed their names to Al and Janine Mills before leaving. In order to make sure that the contracts that they had signed with Jim Jones previously, because he had their signatures, were no longer applicable. Yeah, he couldn't do anything to stop them. That's so much effort, that's so much money, that's so much. And sneaking around. Yeah. The goals, when they probably barely had anything, because they signed everything over. Yeah. Yeah, they were able to get out with their daughter. I'm so glad that they did. So around the same time, Grace Stone finally found out that her husband, Tim, listed Jim Jones as their child's father. This had been kept from her, and this basically just shows how much power Jim has over everyone, even with a secret as big as this. But now, Grace is forced to give up on John Victor, her child, because it's also Jim Jones's child. So she can't just like have him escape and take him away from the people's temple, which I can't even imagine the sheer panic that she must have felt. By 1976, Grace just could not take it anymore. And she decided to make the decision to run and leave her child behind. But she was not planning on abandoning her son. That was not her plan at all. She followed her divorce. She hired a lawyer and she was going to use this lawyer to help her gain legal custody of her son and be able to get him out of this cult. But not too long after Tim followed her lead, cut ties with Jim. And while they're divorced, Tim joins in her fight to regain full custody of their son. But now their son is left at the people's temple alone with no parents. Yes, with his legal father and no parents. It's so sad. Yeah. And this was a huge shock to Jim, the departure of Grayson Tim. And I don't think it did much at all for no, we're talking about a man who's already paranoid and doing drugs and spiraling and desperate for attention. So people leaving is triggering him. Well, and also you're seeing someone leave who did one of the biggest like trust faith exercises with you or he literally signed over his own child to you. And now that person is defecting, it's like, oh my gosh, there's a huge crack in my community. Well, even more of a large crack was when Jim Jones's own daughter, Suzanne left. And she was able to leave with Marcelline's help because Marcelline was also helping their son, Stephen, find an apartment with roommates outside of the temple. But Jim caught on to that after Suzanne was able to successfully leave. He was like, what is Marcelline doing? And he caught on to the Stephen thing and sent Stephen to Guyana to go help build a new compound before being able to let him get out. Remember how I said Guyana would come back? Well, yeah. So all these people are defecting. Jim's doing a ton of drugs. His paranoia is on hyperdrive. He's losing control. And the only way he felt like he could regain this control was by isolating his followers and his people even more. He always loved Guyana. He thought it would make the perfect place for his temple. And now as everything's falling apart, in December of 1973, the 42-year-old Jim Jones brought his family and most trusted advisors to Guyana, which was now an independent country. And now even further off the radar, and he buys land in order to get to building the South American utopia that he had always dreamt of. It was the perfect place. It was isolated. Made it harder for outsiders to get to. Even today, it's not like a giant tourism. It was also harder for his followers to leave once they were there. Yeah. I started thinking about my own journey if I'm trying to escape. I'm like, he had to cross so many countries to even get over to Central America. And we'll talk about him in a second, but he makes it really impossible. Yes. So Jim wanted the land to be fertile enough for the community to be self-sufficient, because they don't want any outsiders coming in. So it's like, how do you make this commune a compound that just generates all of the food and water and energy that it needs to operate? So he leases a 3,800 acre lot of land. It's about six miles from the Northern River town called Port Kaituma. And the jungle surrounding it was thick. It was not really possible to pass through it at all. The soil wasn't very ideal, but it was still good enough to farm. So it was like, okay, well, this will do. Yeah. Because it's less important that people actually get fed and more important than no one can escape. Ten. Yes. But he's not going to do the work himself. Right? That's not part of his history. No, so he left about 50 people there to get things up and running. And then he goes back to California. When he got back to California, though, the heat was still on him from all the disruptions within the group. And it didn't help that in 1977, a follower of the People's Temple named Bob Houston was found dead at the train yard where he worked. And it turned out that Bob and Jim used to fight a lot. Like they gotten a lot of arguments. So when Bob was found dead, a lot of people suspected Jim was responsible. And Bob's two daughters were actually still members of the People's Temple, but Bob's dad Sam Houston was not. And when he caught wind of all this and his son was murdered, he took to like really fighting this and trying to find who was responsible for his son's murder. And also he wanted to help get his granddaughters out of the first temple. So it's around this time that he starts looking into Jim's activities. And at the same time in the spring of 1977, a journalist named Marshall Kildef, whose book is another source that we used for this episode, starts reporting on Jim and the People's Temple. Kildef had been speaking with defectors, including the gang of eight and the Mills and Grace Stowen and Bob's dad Sam Houston. And in August of 1977, Kildef came out with an article in the new West magazine and it was gazing. Finally, there was an honest, because that's the thing is everything he wrote was true. And finally, this was an article that Jim Jones couldn't use all of his power to shut down. And when it hit the San Francisco mayor, George Moscone, who remember, this is the same mayor that Jim helped get elected. Yes. Publicly calls for an investigation into Jim Jones and the People's Temple. And this is going to be the tipping point because there's a lot happening simultaneously. So Al and Genie Mills, the couple who left with their daughter and changed our names, they are talking to law enforcement. They're telling them everything that they know. Like Jim is stealing money. He's stealing property from people. They also told law enforcement that not only was Jim forging people's travel documents to get them to Guyana, but he was also smuggling weapons into the country too. So this was not going to be like an easy thing to just like come upon this compound. It's super dangerous. So the investigators are looking into it. And although Jim managed to hide the evidence when some people came sniffing around, this is still something that people have in mind who are hoping to investigate or like go potentially visit. But once Kildef's article came out, this was the final nail in the coffin because Jim Jones' time in California had come to an end. He had to run. He literally ran. So even though the compound in Guyana was not ready, Jim knew that if he stayed in California any longer, the authorities would arrest him or catch him. So he fled. He brought his family in about 1,000 of his followers with with him to Guyana, and before they left, what does Jim Jones do? He makes sure each member gave up all of their possessions, including their passports. This is a huge thing. Like we're talking about how this compound in Guyana makes it hard for followers to leave. It's even harder when you don't have your passports. You can't traverse South America and cross borders and get out. So yeah, it was a way to make sure that no one could run, 'cause they wouldn't have anything to go back to. And so yeah, they arrive in Guyana and Jim officially named the compound, the People's Temple Agricultural Project, but he only ever referred to it as its nickname, which he called "Jones Town." Does in case people questioned who was really in charge. - So he promises followers that it would be paradise on Earth here. Once they got it up and running, things would be beautiful, amazing. And the compound, because it was still under construction, there wasn't really enough room for everyone at the time. So a lot of people were holding onto this dream that like this would be a great place. - Like fire festival. - Oh my god. - Your promise all these great things. And then you get there and it's your single slice of white bread. - But you're already there. What are you supposed to do? - Yeah, survive. - Yeah. - Up to a dozen people squeezed into cabins made for just a handful of occupants. And there was no toilet paper, there was no hot water, at least not for Jim's followers, because Jim himself, oh my gosh. Well, he had the private cabin, he had all the amenities. He wasn't gonna not wipe his own, but. So he's eaten all the food. Everyone else's on the brink of starvation. Turns out the soil not suited for crops. They definitely would not have been a successful community, self-sustaining community here, or at least not with what they had planted and planted harvest. - Yeah. - Instead Jim rashed out rice and peanut butter. This is so fire fast. - Yeah. - And once a week he made everyone line up so he could hand, each person eat cookie and make them think him one on one. So not him being like, oh thank you for saying, thank you for helping make this community. Thank you, here's your cookie. - No, they had to thank him. Thank you for giving me this life. - Thank you sir, thank you father for my cookie. - Yeah. And keep in mind, they're being rationed like handfuls of rice and peanut butter a day, but they are working insane hours. The people of Jonestown are working from six in the morning until 10 p.m. at night working the fields and cooking meals. They're doing hard labor, being fed next to nothing. When they weren't engaging in hard labor, Jim held what he called catharsis sessions where anyone who challenged him and his authority had to reveal their personal secrets in small groups, which remind me so much of the nexium tactics. Where it's like you're kind of like embarrassing someone in front of everyone and then punishing them. Everyone will be ridiculed by the others and made to feel like a failure. Some had their head shaved or had to wear yellow hard hat to signify that they were disloyal. And like everyone could point and be like, boo, shame. If anyone dared to question him, the punishments now were becoming even more volatile. It went beyond verbal abuse. Jim would drug them. Sometimes he would put them in coffin size boxes. Again, his message was becoming loud and clear. Death was the only way out of Jonestown. And in case people still weren't getting it, he had another way of proving his point. Jim Jones created what he called the Red Brigade, which was his security force of his most devoted, most physically imposing followers. They were heavily armed, carried rifles, and then were stationed around Jonestown at all times. And officially, Jim said that the Red Brigade's purpose was to protect the compound from the outside, but in reality, they were keeping people in. They were ordered to shoot anyone who tried to escape. And then came the white knights. Jim Jones started hosting ceremonies that he called white knights. He would force everyone together in the pavilion, stay awake through the night, and gym-performed ceremonies where they'd pledge their lives to him. The Red Brigade would surround the pavilion, guns in hand, and then one night, Jim handed out cups filled with flavorade, a coolade knockoff. And he told everyone it was poisoned, and that they were all going to die for the cause. He would watch us as his followers drink it, the followers drink the flavorade, because they'd been conditioned to. And because the last time he did it, it was a joke. It's always been a run in test. Multiple times. It wasn't poisoned. Yeah, they'd done loils you tests over the years. So why not? So they drink the flavorade because the guards have guns. And because they'd given up everything else to be here, they'd know where else to go. But no one died that night, because the drinks were not actually poisoned, not that night, at least. But Jim learned something that hundreds of people were willing to die when he told them to. And it wouldn't be long before that's exactly what he did. [MUSIC PLAYING] And that's part one of Jim Jones and the People's Temple. My gosh. Just so disturbing. And it doesn't get better. It gets more disturbing. So thank you so much for listening. We are your host, Sabrina Diana Roca, and Karen Vien. Join us next Tuesday for part two of our series on Jim Jones and The People's Temple. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. And don't forget to rate, review, and follow crimes of wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. See you next week. [MUSIC PLAYING] What if everything you learned in history class was only half the story? I'm Dr. Herney Bot. I started as a clinical pharmacist. And somewhere along the way, I became obsessed with the mysteries that history never fully solved. That's exactly why I created Hidden History, a rewind students' original podcast powered by PAV Studios. Every Monday, I go where history touches the unknown. Vanishing civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena, and events that science still can't fully explain. I'll give you historical context. I'll break down the science. I'll even interrogate the supernatural. I treat these moments like open case files, not miss, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. And I'll ask the question, what if this happened today? Listen to and follow Hidden History available now wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to this episode from Crime House. If you're looking for another show to check out, listen to serial killers and murderous minds. Every Monday and Thursday, Dr. Tristan Engels and myself dig into the most chilling murders and uncover what drives them to kill. Follow serial killers and murderous minds, available wherever you listen to podcasts.