![]() ![]() I was thinking in terms of a couple hundred, nobody told me it was 900." "The different colored shirts … it was the quilt of the dead," Francis said. Former NBC News correspondent Fred Francis said he wasn’t prepared for the carnage he saw on the ground below. Several days later, members of the press, traveling with the U.S. I was stripped bare naked," said Jim Jones, Jr. "Life’s over as I know it, what I believed in. Stephan Jones has since written several essays about his father and Jonestown. Upon learning of the massacre after the fact, both Jim Jones, Jr., and Stephan Jones said they were devastated. and Stephan Jones, for a church basketball game tournament on the day of the massacre. "Obviously, he didn't have the guts to drink the poison that he made everybody else drink, so he was shot, which I think is just a chicken's way out," said Laura Johnston Kohl, a former Peoples Temple member who had been in the capital city of Georgetown with Jones' sons, Jim Jones, Jr. Leslie Wagner-Wilson, who also survived, later found out that her mother, sister, brother and husband, who was one of Jones' bodyguards, were all dead. Today, she is a congresswoman representing California's 14th district, which includes some areas that were once in Congressman Ryan's district. Jackie Speier survived the attack at the airstrip. The remains of the Peoples Temple cult victims were transported from the compound in Guyana to Dover Air Force Base.īut roughly 90 people survived the mass-murder suicide. It was only then that they learned about the shooting, she said. Among them was Leslie Wagner-Wilson and her 3-year-old son, Jakari.Īfter walking 30 miles through the dense brush with Jakari strapped to her back, Wagner-Wilson said their group reached the small town of Port Kaituma. Meanwhile, some Peoples Temple members used the distraction of Ryan’s visit to sneak off into the jungle on their own in the hopes of escaping to the capital city of Georgetown. "There was no reason why I survived, except it wasn't my time." There's a bone coming out of my right arm," she said. Speier said she tried to lie down and play dead, but then she realized she had also been shot. And just thinking to myself, 'Oh my God, this is it. "And I'm running under the plane as well, and he's down and I'm getting down. "I saw everyone scurrying, and then I saw Congressman Ryan get shot," Speier said. "Basically, someone had tried to put a knife to his neck but it wasn't successful."įearing for their lives, Speier said she, Congressman Ryan, members of the delegation, and the defectors from Jonestown loaded up and headed for the waiting planes at a nearby airstrip.Īs they were boarding the planes, a tractor trailer with a few men from Jones' security detail drove up to the airstrip and opened fire on the group, Speier said. "Out walks Congressman Ryan in a bloodied shirt," she said. ![]() Speier said that as she was leaving the compound with a group of 40 Jonestown members and their relatives, there was suddenly a huge commotion at the compound's pavilion. I mean it was so clear to me that this thing was about to erupt and we needed to get those who wanted to leave out of there as fast as possible," she said. Wanting to move quickly, Speier said they called for a second plane in addition to the one they had flown in on to help get people out. The next morning, when the congressman confronted Jones, Speier said it was clear that Jones was incredibly agitated. And then more and more people wanted to leave." "Then all of a sudden word started getting out. Everything we feared is true,'" Speier said. "I'm looking at this note and I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, it's true. But after the applause died down, Speier said, one of the journalists traveling with them said he had been slipped a note by a follower who desperately wanted the congressman’s help getting out. ![]() The delegation was fed dinner and several members put on a musical performance under the compound’s pavilion. "A lot of these were young women, 18, 19, years of age, making it very clear that they were very happy there and they were all getting married to a fellow member of the Peoples Temple, none of which added up," Speier said. "Congressman Ryan and I sat in the back of the pavilion at a picnic table with benches and started interviewing members of the Peoples Temple," said Jackie Speier, one of Ryan’s aides who was part of the delegation.
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