Original subtitles

[birds singing, somber music playing]

[male reporter] Good evening. Here's what's happening.

We're interrupting our special broadcasting

to bring you this special report.

[male reporter] Yesterday afternoon,

five Americans were shot down

by other Americans

on the airstrip at Port Kaituma, Guyana.

[gunfire and static]

One of the dead,

Representative Leo Ryan of California.

[camera clicking]

They'd gone to investigate a cult

called the Peoples Temple, headed by a man

known as the Reverend Jim Jones,

and they were killed by members of that cult.

Appalling as that was, it did not prepare us

for what was to follow.

What you're about to see

almost defies description,

and some of you may not want to watch it.

♪♪

[male reporter] Nine hundred ten died

in the poison ritual of the Peoples Temple.

The word on everybody's lips was shades of Auschwitz.

[male reporter] They found tremendous quantities

of potassium cyanide poison mixed with Kool-Aid.

[male reporter] The bodies seemed awful and orderly,

not flung about like corpses after a battle,

but neat, hand in hand sometimes,

arms about each other's shoulders.

♪♪

[male reporter] Jones' victims

were our brothers and sisters.

What was it that caused them to leave

their Christian churches and join Jones?

[male reporter] Why in the world would so many people

agree to kill themselves?

♪♪

You have never met a man like Jim Jones before.

[Jim Jones] I am here!

The spirit of Christ to set you free!

To deliver you from your captivity.

[Jordan Vilchez] Jim was really captivating.

He had this way of really reaching into your emotions.

[Laura Johnston Kohl] The community that he had developed

in Peoples Temple was what I'd been looking for all along.

[Vernon Gosney] It was full of life.

There was a message of equality for all people.

[Jim Jones Jr.] You're going all over the country,

taking the message of God

and carrying it out to the masses.

♪♪

[static hiss]

The more power he got, the darker the story got.

[Stephan Jones] What my father was doing was building

a little kingdom for himself.

Your whole life, it was all based around the church.

[Leslie Wagner-Wilson] There was a consequence to any infraction.

[Jim Jones] You punk! You damn gangland punk!

We were gonna be hunted down and killed if we ever left.

There is something seriously wrong here.

The leader has lost his mind.

People are being held here against their will.

You bring those kids back here!

This dark side...

[Jim Jones] Let's just be done with it.

Let's be done with the agony of it.

...will expand and expand...

[Jim Jones] Hurry, my children, hurry.

...until finally it explodes in the Guyanese jungle.

♪♪

[dramatic music]

♪♪

♪♪

[male reporter] The survivors of the Jonestown suicide murders

were met by friends, relatives,

and a handful of Peoples Temple members from San Francisco.

[woman sobbing]

Oh, no!

♪♪

[male reporter] One of the biggest mysteries

in the Jonestown story is,

what kind of a leader could order mass suicide

and be obeyed?

Who was Jim Jones that grown-ups

would kill themselves and their children for him?

[overlapping chatter]

[Gosney] I think there's an opinion

that these people that went down there were off,

they were a little crazy,

they, um... they weren't like us...

♪♪

when all they were were people who wanted a better life

and thought that they were gonna get it

and worked damn hard to get it.

♪♪

[Gosney] Before joining the Peoples Temple,

I was a teenager.

♪♪

Just kind of a little lost soul floating around.

♪♪

I was in an interracial relationship.

My first wife was African American.

Our relationship was not embraced by family,

either hers or mine.

♪♪

Sheryl and I were kind of out in the world by ourself.

We had no support system whatsoever

and felt very isolated in the world,

and when we walked into that temple,

it was full of... life.

♪♪

[congregants singing gospel music and clapping rhythmically]

♪♪

[congregants singing]

[Gosney] Everyone was, uh... was singing.

It was very alive, it was very up,

and, you know, people dancing in the spirit.

[singing and rhythmic clapping continuing]

♪♪

We were embraced as an interracial couple,

and there was a message of inclusivity.

There was a message of equality for all people.

[congregants applauding]

[Wagner-Wilson] People were passionate, people were engaged.

They were talking about that there was

this injustice in the world and, you know, discrimination,

and so that moved me.

♪♪

I ended up in Peoples Temple

because my sister got involved in heavy drugs,

and my mother just not knowing where to turn.

So a friend of hers told her,

there's this church that has a drug rehab program for youth.

I felt like I was a-- a part of this incredible community

that put self aside because there was a greater good,

and the greater good was to ensure

that babies didn't go to bed hungry,

that there was equality for everyone.

I liked that. I liked the thought

that I could actually make a difference.

♪♪

[Tim Carter] The first time I went to a Peoples Temple meeting,

as soon as I walked in the door, I felt like I was home.

♪♪

In the summer of '66, I volunteered to go to Vietnam.

I was 19 years old

and it really messed with my head.

When I was discharged from the Marine Corps,

I didn't really know what to do with myself.

I was searching spiritually.

The Peoples Temple was a perfect kind of synthesis

of what I was feeling at the time,

spiritually and politically.

♪♪

And I still hadn't even met Jim Jones yet.

[man] There is, in fact, somebody to respond

any time there is a need...

...the man who is, in fact, the Peoples Temple.

Let me present to you, Reverend Jim Jones.

[congregants cheering]

♪♪

[congregant] That's right!

[congregant] Right!

[congregants] Amen!

[congregants] Yes!

[congregants] Yes!

[congregants cheering]

♪♪

[Vilchez] Jim was really captivating.

As a child, I just thought, wow, here's a man

who has this speaking ability that is dynamic.

♪♪

[Carter] Think of Martin Luther King at his best,

in terms of oratory, you know, and that's who Jones was.

♪♪

[congregants cheering]

[Vilchez] He had this way of really reaching your emotions.

He would address each, kind of, grouping

within Peoples Temple to get us engaged.

If you wanted him to be a minister,

he would talk about the Bible.

If you wanted him to be political,

he was absolutely gonna include that.

♪♪

Yes.

And then there was this other aspect

that we had never seen, and that was the healings.

♪♪

♪♪

[congregants cheering]

Oh, yes! It's really true.

[congregants shouting and cheering]

♪♪

[Vilchez] The idea that someone could call someone out of the audience,

know about them,

and then heal them of some ailment,

that was amazing.

I've never seen anything like that.

[congregants cheering]

♪♪

During the course of my time at the Peoples Temple,

I witnessed many, many, many healings.

Come forth, my dear.

Stand up.

Take that step. Take that step.

Move forward. Move forward.

Walk briskly. Walk, walk.

[congregants cheering]

[man] Even though I'm a skeptic, I had to be convinced

because what's real is real, what I could see, I could see.

He said, "In the name of Christ, you're healed!"

And my pain was gone.

And now, a year and a half later,

it's still gone, and I praise God for that.

[congregants cheering]

♪♪

[Carter] I'd been waiting all this time since Vietnam

to contribute my energies to something that I felt

was actually doing good.

I jumped in with both feet.

♪♪

The one thing that I never thought, never even dreamed of,

is that our biggest enemy was the leader.

♪♪

♪♪

[congregants cheering]

Now, will each of you give a very fond embrace,

a salutary kiss, a greeting to your neighbor.

Let's fill this atmosphere with warmth and love.

♪♪

[Johnston Kohl] It wasn't just Jim Jones standing there.

It was really the ambiance that he created around him.

His wife, Marceline, sitting on stage, seemingly, you know,

mesmerized by what he was saying.

And he'd always talked about himself as a family man.

Jim had adopted kids of all different races so, you know,

I was pretty sold that he was a good dad and a good leader.

♪♪

[Jeff Guinn] When the Jones' decided to adopt,

they came up with the concept of the rainbow family.

Let's try to vary our family so we will be

the living embodiment of how people of all races

come together and belong together.

♪♪

[Jones Jr.] As the story goes, my family went in

to adopt a baby girl, and I guess,

from what my mother used to tell me, I started crying.

My mother went over to pick me up.

My father came over and saw this black baby in his wife's arms.

They looked at the social worker at the orphanage

and said, "Why can't we adopt this child instead?"

And they kind of went, "No, no, no, no, no.

That's a... That's an African-American child."

And my father took this political stance,

"No, I will adopt any child that-- that-- that we want."

♪♪

So, I probably should say I never liked the title,

"the Rainbow Family."

We were a mixed bag, for sure, especially for that time.

Now, in many respects, that's lovely,

regardless of the motivation, but what I felt

was that much of what was created as a family

was done for show.

♪♪

It's hard to know if Dad really believed anything

or what he believed, if he did.

♪♪

My father was starved for attention from a very early age,

and that never let up.

If anything, it intensified.

♪♪

♪♪

[Guinn] Jim Jones is born and he's raised in rural Indiana where,

back then, one of the main purposes in life is to fit in,

to be like everybody else.

And from the time Jim Jones is born, that doesn't happen.

♪♪

Part of the problem are his parents.

♪♪

[Stephan Jones] His father was destroyed by World War I.

My Grandma Jones, she wasn't around a lot.

So, my father wasn't being nurtured in a way

that I feel a child is best nurtured,

and I think he compensated for that.

And so he sought the approval of others

in a variety of ways.

♪♪

[Phyllis Zimmerman] In a small town like Lynn,

Jim was a little on the weird side.

♪♪

Jim had this flair for the dramatic

and I-- I think he enjoyed being dramatic.

♪♪

[Guinn] He would recruit the other kids

to come to elaborate funerals he's holding for roadkill.

♪♪

[Zimmerman] I don't know whether it was just for its own sake

or whether it was to freak people out.

[Guinn] All the boys in Lynn, during World War II,

started playing war games.

And they all wanted to be Allied soldiers.

Except one.

Jim Jones was mesmerized by the way Hitler...

[Hitler shouting in German]

...could have a whole audience enraptured,

stand up and perform, and order people to do things,

and they would do it.

[Stephan Jones] He was eccentric, and that could be off-putting to some children.

He was very controlling in his nature.

He did spend a-- a fair amount of time on his own.

♪♪

He was left to his own devices,

so where could he find this community?

♪♪

I think, with my father,

church was where he could find solace, find peace.

[Guinn] The other boys want to play baseball, ride their bikes.

Jim joins five different churches.

♪♪

[Stephan Jones] And as a child, he saw that in those church services,

there was one guy, the guy that was talking,

that got all the attention.

♪♪

[Jones Jr.] My father was picking up

different components of each religion.

But I do think you ought to stand for the glory of God

if you're that dad-gum smart.

[Jones Jr.] Baptist preacher

who would, you know, slam the Bible down.

[woman speaking in tongues]

[Jones Jr.] The Pentecostal person talking in tongues,

you know, skipping up and down the aisle.

[Guinn] Jim is not just watching the people rolling on the floor.

He's paying attention to these preachers.

What did they say?

How do they get people built up to this point?

How does this minister keep an audience enthralled?

It was a given.

Of course he's gonna be a minister.

What else is this weird boy gonna be?

♪♪

[Stephan Jones] His mother instilled in him

this concern for, uh, the-- the downtrodden,

the-- the have-nots, and I think that he genuinely felt

it was wrong that people be judged

by the color of their skin or their background

or what they come from.

♪♪

[Jones Jr.] His message resonated more with African Americans.

They were so tired of the Jim Crow laws.

♪♪

[Guinn] Jones, in the black community in Indianapolis,

becomes a hero.

But you could only go so far in Indianapolis.

♪♪

[Johnston Kohl] He was not gonna be just a small town guy.

He wanted to be more universally known.

He was not somebody committed to the word of God or the Bible.

He wanted notoriety. He wanted power.

Where is the power? That's where I want to go.

♪♪

[Guinn] California. That's the place.

That's where you can make things happen.

But he had to bring as many of his followers as he could.

What's he gonna tell them the reason they have to go?

[atomic bomb explosion]

[Jim Jones] We have to be prepared to take our flight

in the case of Armageddon

that would spring forth in a nuclear hell.

[Guinn] Jones starts prophesizing, there's gonna be nuclear war.

Everyone living here is going to die.

It's his excuse to get the hell out of Indiana...

and it works.

♪♪

[Dr. Mary Maaga] In terms of a darker side

that would ultimately end up being

the tragedy at Jonestown,

I think that that started, actually, in California.

♪♪

[Stephan Jones] Regardless of what good works the temple was involved in,

what my father was doing was building

a little kingdom for himself.

[congregants cheering]

♪♪

♪♪

[Jones Jr.] We got to Redwood Valley.

We had some resources and people moved into the different homes.

And Jim had bought this home

with this big grape field in front of it.

♪♪

And shortly after, Jim had the resources to build a church.

♪♪

[Maaga] When they relocated to Redwood Valley,

a new group of people were attracted

to the preaching of Jim Jones,

and this was this white, educated elite.

The membership of Peoples Temple at that point tripled.

♪♪

[Grace Stoen] My life changed when I moved up to Redwood Valley.

It was really kind of nice, having been raised in the city.

We were very busy with church activities and duties,

and when you went to sleep, you kind of felt

like you helped people and accomplished something.

♪♪

But there was something that wasn't right.

♪♪

[congregants] Yes!

[congregant] Oh, yeah! Amen!

[congregants shouting]

[Johnston Kohl] I think Jim was a power addict early on.

He was always watchful, trying to think

how he could control Peoples Temple members.

[Guinn] When Peoples Temple has grown big enough,

Jones can start teaching

the real purpose of Peoples Temple.

♪♪

[congregants cheering]

[Wagner-Wilson] We were being introduced to socialism.

Socialism meant that everybody would have the same.

There would be no starvation,

there would be no one going without any clothes.

All the basic needs that a human being is supposed to have,

they would have under socialism.

He starts encouraging communal living.

And let's say in a house that might have been designed

for 6 people to live, he'll put 12, 15, or even 20,

and they'll sleep on mattresses on the floor.

[Wagner-Wilson] That was so strange to me,

but it felt good to sacrifice

because the sacrifice was for the greater good.

No one realized that Jim was using socialism

to bring people in and control people.

[congregants singing]

[Grace Stoen] This is a church that you're either all the way in

or all the way out-- there's no in between.

And this church expected you to give up everything.

[Gosney] He didn't want people having sex,

you know, 'cause you were supposed to

use your sexual energy for the cause.

We were always asked to further our commitment.

Are you willing to give up your little, petty desires

and creature comforts, or are you just full of hot air?

[Jim Jones] I don't own a car, I don't own any new furniture,

I never buy any new clothes,

I have never bought a new pair of shoes in my life,

and that's why I am free!

You're not free! You're a slave!

You're doing just exactly what "the man" wants you to do.

[congregants cheering]

[Wagner-Wilson] Everything went to Peoples Temple.

All the things that my mother had-- antiques, china,

and this beautiful home in Ukiah.

My mother gave her house up for Jim Jones.

[Guinn] The whole idea of going communal

is that you start to cut down on the outside influence.

♪♪

Everybody is working as much as possible.

♪♪

Jones said to one of his followers,

the key is, keep 'em poor, keep 'em tired,

and they'll never leave.

[Gosney] Jones' spiel was that family relationships

are the sickest relationships of all.

So, the families were separated.

I cared for four children, myself, that were not mine.

They were someone else's children.

♪♪

[Guinn] Now Jones wants his followers to refer to him

and Marceline as father and mother.

Marceline loved the idea they were a team,

they were working together.

♪♪

[Johnston Kohl] He pretended he was a family man,

but, you know, really that was all a façade.

That was all the public persona.

Nothing is as it appears.

♪♪

[Guinn] Most people had no idea Jim was not being faithful.

♪♪

He found another long-term companion.

Her name was Carolyn Layton,

and Carolyn was absolutely enraptured of Jim Jones.

The things he was saying and doing

mirrored her beliefs.

As a young child, I think I first started noticing

when Jim would leave at night and come home in the morning.

♪♪

His not being faithful...

♪♪

it was just wrong.

[Stephan Jones] I was mortified, horrified by it.

That's when my esteem for him gradually fell apart.

♪♪

[Jones Jr.] Eventually, I remember my mother wanting a divorce.

She wanted the kids.

♪♪

And Jim said,

you will die before you take my kids away from me.

♪♪

[Guinn] This dark side that appears

really for the first time in Ukiah...

♪♪

will expand and expand

until finally it explodes in the Guyanese jungle.

[ululating war cry]

♪♪

[Guinn] Peoples Temple population starts to grow,

and as it grows, so does Jones' need for money.

♪♪

[Johnston Kohl] Jim was looking for more membership,

so, in about 1972, we started bus trips around the country.

♪♪

[Guinn] Peoples Temple buys a fleet of Greyhound buses.

Jim Jones is gonna go to the big cities

and he is going to attract huge crowds,

get a lot of money,

and then he'll come back, he can use that in Ukiah.

[Wagner-Wilson] We would pass out leaflets, speak to people,

try to get 'em to the service

and tout the wonders of Jim Jones and Peoples Temple.

♪♪

As a teenager, wha-- what better life could you have?

You're hanging out with all your friends,

you're going all over the country

and taking the message of God

and carrying it out to the masses.

♪♪

Along the way, people always joined.

♪♪

[Guinn] A couple buses aren't filled.

That's so as people want to join,

they can just get on the bus and go with him.

And as his following grows,

they find peripheral ways to make money.

♪♪

They start selling pictures that Jones has blessed.

This picture here would sell for $5.

This is another picture that he had for protection.

And if you don't have money for the pictures,

give us your name and address

and Reverend Jones will bless a penny

and you'll be in his prayers.

They market all kinds of things.

Money comes pouring in.

♪♪

[static]

♪♪

Heavenly spirit! God!

[Guinn] The man is a master entertainer.

Everything is planned to the minute.

♪♪

And then come the healings.

Sister Ingram, you're concerned

about the losing...

♪♪

the losing of your sight.

♪♪

Take your glasses off.

You concentrate hard.

♪♪

Three.

[congregation cheering]

[Jim Jones] You've been feeling pain here in the chest?

Yes.

Look at my face.

Where's your pain?

[congregation cheering]

♪♪

[Guinn] Everybody is out of their minds with excitement,

and Jones has never been more dramatic.

[Jones Jr.] One time, a person broke their leg,

so they were tooken to the hospital and put a cast on.

[congregation singing]

The next service, their name was called

and asked if they wanted to walk again.

Hear this?

[tapping cast]

[congregation shouting]

[Jones Jr.] The cast was cut off right in front of everybody.

♪♪

[congregation cheering]

♪♪

[Wagner-Wilson] You're seeing this woman who's all of a sudden

running through the church, and everyone's just excited

and, "Father's healed her!"

♪♪

[Guinn] And then a big thing at the time was removal of cancers.

You have a cancer! I can tell!

Come forward! I'm gonna heal you.

[Jim Jones] This Christian, when she was in the church

of God and Christ, no one could heal her.

Five times operated for cancer,

the doctors sewed her up to die.

But I... I said one day a year ago,

your time has come, and she spit up the cancer.

You're healed.

♪♪

People were jumping and happy and I thought,

oh, my gosh, she's healed of cancer.

I'm excited, the whole church is just in a frenzy.

♪♪

As time wore on,

I started questioning the healings.

♪♪

I should have known that it was a lie.

And people died because of that.

♪♪

♪♪

[Wagner-Wilson] As time wore on,

I started questioning the healings.

There was a rumor that there was something nefarious going on.

♪♪

The healing with the woman that they cut the cast off

and she's running around...

♪♪

they drugged her, and they put the cast on her

while she was asleep.

So when she woke up,

they told her that she had fallen.

They said, oh, you broke your leg.

♪♪

She had no recollection of it at all.

♪♪

Her leg was never broken.

The fake healings were a way to attract people falsely.

Even though they were great tools to get people to believe,

they were nefarious.

♪♪

[Wagner-Wilson] I personally know someone's grandmother,

who Jim apparently healed of cancer.

And then when cancer came back, guess what she said?

♪♪

"It must be because I don't believe enough."

♪♪

She wasn't gonna get treatment.

She was just gonna pray harder

and have more faith in Jim.

Well, she died of cancer.

And that's just one of, I'm sure,

hundreds of stories.

♪♪

[Carter] This was one of those areas where that should have been

a red flag that I just ignored.

[congregation cheering]

I'm not saying it's right,

but I believed the temple was an opportunity

to create something that was truly great.

♪♪

And that's why I stayed as long as I did.

♪♪

The temple was set up so no one could join the church

without first being checked out thoroughly by Jones.

Everything required him to be involved.

And the pressure got to him.

♪♪

And Jones became an abuser of drugs.

♪♪

[Gosney] Jim Jones shared with the congregation

that he had to take something to keep him up

because he worked 24/7,

24 hours a day for the cause of socialism.

[Guinn] He needed amphetamines to get up and keep going.

His schedule would last

from early in the morning until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.

♪♪

So he was sleeping maybe three or four hours a night.

And then, when he could rest,

he had to take tranquilizers to come down.

[congregant] Yes!

[congregant] Yeah!

[congregants cheering]

[Wagner-Wilson] I had no idea that Jim was on drugs.

No idea at all.

♪♪

Later, I would discover the sunglasses

was because he was hiding the way his eyes looked.

[Guinn] Everybody remembers that Jim Jones always wore dark glasses.

It was one of his signature appearance things.

And he told everyone it was because

the spirit of the Lord was so powerful in him,

if you looked directly in his eyes,

you might be burned on the spot.

♪♪

But the real reason he did was his eyes were so red

and watery and swollen from the drug use.

As he was taking more and more drugs,

you know, his personality changed.

♪♪

[Johnston Kohl] Behind the scenes,

Jim's narcissism was just uncontained.

And he was surrounded by mistresses.

♪♪

[Guinn] The women that Jones was having sex with

almost all considered it an honor to do this for father.

♪♪

[Gosney] He portrayed himself as a martyr,

that he would have to have sex with these different members

to solidify their alliance, to solidify their loyalty.

♪♪

He made a lot of really crude remarks.

"If I need to get you to socialism

on the tip of my [bleep], I'll do it."

♪♪

Each time he had sex with somebody,

he did it as one more notch in his belt

of how to become yet more powerful.

♪♪

Jones always said, the ends justifies the means,

which means you can do anything you need to do

to get to where you wanna go

because the goal is for the greater good.

So, no matter how you get there, you get there,

which excuses anything, any behaviors at all.

♪♪

[congregation singing]

♪♪

[Guinn] To all outward appearances, Jones and Peoples Temple

had accomplished great things and there was unlimited future.

♪♪

But the lust for power continues to grow.

♪♪

[static]

He would create enemies to bind his followers closer.

♪♪

[Gosney] The government was out to get us and it was a conspiracy.

♪♪

Look at all the people that have been killed,

look at all of our young people who are in prison.

Actual events were used

to solidify his position,

and it was extremely effective because there was truth to it.

[Jones] I've just come in from Washington,

just flew in on the plane from the conference

with the top-notch leaders.

I listened to them talk about planned takeovers.

I listened to them to talk about it

like it was just an ordinary Sunday school picnic.

Task force warns nation

to get ready for riots

and to get ready for martial law.

They're gonna put all the poor people away,

and they're gonna come for you,

they're gonna come for your children.

♪♪

There was so much paranoia about the ways

that law enforcement was going to break up

the community of Peoples Temple.

They looked at themselves as people

who were being persecuted from the outside.

We ended up going to church more and more.

♪♪

Before you knew it,

your whole life was all based around the church.

♪♪

[Wagner-Wilson] Now we're in isolationist mode,

where Jim would tell us that we were...

you know, that black people

were gonna be put in concentration camps.

[Jim Jones] Dictatorships that can come in

like they did with the Japanese.

It's, "Aw, this country won't ever do that."

It did it already!

[Wagner-Wilson] He's tapping into people's fears,

he's tapping into people's insecurities.

The paranoia was real in Peoples Temple.

[Jim Jones] Get ready for identification marks

to be put on your body, an identification number

even necessarily tattooed on you.

You say, oh, America wouldn't do that.

Don't talk to me about what America would not do.

♪♪

We've lived through Martin being assassinated.

♪♪

We've lived through Malcolm being assassinated.

We lived through Robert Kennedy being assassinated.

♪♪

Assassination for leaders

was something you thought about.

♪♪

[Wagner-Wilson] Jim would say that he was getting death threats

because he was making such a difference

and stirring up so much controversy in the community

of bringing black people and white people together

that he was a threat to the status quo.

♪♪

[overlapping chatter]

[Wagner-Wilson] One Sunday service, I was out in the parking lot,

talking to someone.

♪♪

We're all out after church and we're having festivities

and kids are playing on the basketball court.

[overlapping chatter]

We got tables out for the meal in between church.

Bright, sunny, beautiful day. We were enjoying ourselves.

[overlapping chatter]

♪♪

And then all hell broke loose.

[gunfire]

♪♪

People were screaming, father's shot!

There's blood flowing from his chest.

Father's been shot, and screams

and a lot of anguish, people crying out.

♪♪

There's someone trying to assassinate Jim Jones.