1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Jonestown, built as a multiracial paradise. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,000 There's no racism here and it's the most beautiful feeling. 3 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,000 As an example of how the world could live. 4 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000 These people really believed that they could change the world. 5 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,000 Until the dream shattered. 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:25,000 Get moving, get moving, get moving. Die with the degree of dignity. 7 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,000 And turned into a nightmare. 8 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:34,000 913 died. Mass suicide or mass murder. 9 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:40,000 The questions and answers on the final report. 10 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000 The 17th of November 1978. 11 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:57,000 Guyana, South America. 12 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,000 Here in a place called Jonestown. 13 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000 A US congressman from San Francisco. 14 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,000 Is addressing a diverse crowd of Americans. 15 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:09,000 Young, old, black, white. 16 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000 I'm going to tell you right now. 17 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,000 A few conversations I've had with some of the folks here. 18 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:16,000 Already this evening. 19 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:18,000 Whatever the comments are. 20 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,000 There's some people here who believe this is the best thing. 21 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:23,000 They've ever had in their whole life. 22 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,000 California congressman Leo Ryan. 23 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,000 Is here to investigate the people's temple. 24 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,000 A multi-racial, quasi-religious socialist organisation. 25 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,000 Jonestown is named after Jim Jones. 26 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,000 The charismatic 47 year old preacher. 27 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:43,000 Who is the temple's leader. 28 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:45,000 Some relatives of people living in Jonestown. 29 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,000 Claim that he's holding temple members against their will. 30 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,000 Who is Jim Jones and what is his name? 31 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 And what is his message? 32 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,000 Some in Ryan's entourage. 33 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,000 Which includes several print and television journalists. 34 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,000 And former temple members. 35 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:08,000 Marvel at the construction of Jonestown. 36 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,000 It's a small village built by temple members. 37 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:13,000 And carved out from the thick rainforest. 38 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:16,000 About a thousand people live here. 39 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:21,000 Charles Krauss was a reporter for the Washington Post. 40 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,000 Who knew nothing about Jonestown or People's Temple. 41 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:27,000 When he was assigned to cover Ryan's trip. 42 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:31,000 My first impressions were really that it was kind of impressive in a way. 43 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,000 I mean it was like a camp. 44 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,000 And it was almost like a frontier settlement in the middle of the jungle. 45 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:39,000 People seemed to be well dressed. 46 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:41,000 They seemed to be well fed. 47 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:43,000 People were friendly enough. 48 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,000 What has drawn them to People's Temple? 49 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:49,000 On the day of congressman Ryan's visit. 50 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:51,000 Leslie Cafe is 20 years old. 51 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,000 And has been living in Jonestown for almost 18 months. 52 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,000 The leadership primes its members for the journalists. 53 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:00,000 He just told us we're going to look our best. 54 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:02,000 And we're going to not talk to reporters. 55 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:05,000 If they come up to you just talk about how great Jonestown is. 56 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:13,000 Later that evening. 57 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:15,000 At a dinner held in his honor. 58 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:18,000 Congressman Ryan mingles with the People's Temple congregation. 59 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:22,000 He's trying to gauge their feelings about living in Jonestown. 60 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:25,000 Why did they choose Guyana? 61 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,000 At the same time the reporters who accompany Ryan. 62 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,000 Get their first interview with Jim Jones. 63 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:35,000 He was irrational. 64 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:37,000 His answers weren't consistent. 65 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:41,000 I mean one minute he would be screaming about people trying to attack him. 66 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,000 And the next minute he would be. 67 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:47,000 Begging for us to understand what he was all about. 68 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:51,000 It really was a disturbing show. 69 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,000 Of someone who was clearly at the edge. 70 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:56,000 He looked you know angry. 71 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,000 He just looked like he was any minute he was going to lose control. 72 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:01,000 He was just he was right on the edge. 73 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,000 Is Jim Jones mentally unstable? 74 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:11,000 There are other indicators that all is not as it seems. 75 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:15,000 One young man passes a note to an NBC reporter. 76 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:18,000 It reads please help me get out of Jonestown. 77 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:22,000 Other members deny the journalists access to certain parts of the compound. 78 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,000 As I tried to move around. 79 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,000 People would keep coming at me. 80 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:30,000 And sort of saying well what are you doing. 81 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:34,000 And I said well you know I'm just I'd like to see a little bit more of Jonestown. 82 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 And no no no you can't do that. 83 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:42,000 Is this really the utopia Jones makes it out to be. 84 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:51,000 11 p.m. Jones allows Ryan and Dane to sleep overnight at Jonestown. 85 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000 But not the journalists. 86 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:00,000 They travel about six miles to Port Kaituma where they stay in a bar owner's home. 87 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:06,000 While there they talk to locals who alleged that people are being tortured at Jonestown. 88 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:09,000 We began to hear stories about guns. 89 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:14,000 About people who had claimed when they tried to escape that they were being mistreated. 90 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:21,000 The 18th of November 1978 day two of Congressman Ryan's visit. 91 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Leslie Cathy is part of a group of eight members who decided to escape Jonestown when the journalists return. 92 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:32,000 They choose that morning to leave. 93 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:34,000 Because of the commotion it was so much activity. 94 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:40,000 It was so much activity. So we walked up this hill and no one glanced upwards. 95 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:47,000 The press armed with fresh allegations from the locals of torture and repression pushed their hosts for answers. 96 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,000 We're asking a lot of questions. We're demanding to see things that they didn't want us to see. 97 00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:01,000 All the secrecy and restrictions raise the question who is really running people's temple. 98 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:08,000 In the morning this woman steps forward and tells Ryan I want to go with you. I want to leave Jonestown. 99 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:13,000 The reporters talk to Jones about the people leaving. 100 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:17,000 Anyone who leaves the temple is labeled a defector. 101 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,000 The NBC crew was doing an interview with Jones and confronting him. 102 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:30,000 And it was that interview clearly that I think set the stage for what was about to happen. 103 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,000 People play games friend. They lie. They lie. What can I do about lies? 104 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:40,000 You people are going to leave us. I just beg you please leave us. 105 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:45,000 Bill we will bother nobody. Anybody who wants to get out of here can get out of here. 106 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:52,000 But only 16 of the 1,000 members decide to go with the congressman. 107 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:56,000 How does Jones maintain such control? 108 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:04,000 3pm. As the defectors and reporters climb into trucks to leave Jonestown, a lone assailant suddenly lunges at Ryan with a knife. 109 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:07,000 Other members intervene and he's disarmed. 110 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,000 Ryan is unharmed but shaken. 111 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:18,000 Ryan comes toward the truck. Says everybody get back in the truck. We're getting out of here. 112 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:23,000 As the trucks rumble towards the airstrip, some of the defectors are visibly upset. 113 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:31,000 They tell Charles Krauss and others that one of the people in the truck, 32 year old Larry Layton, is a Jones loyalist. 114 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:39,000 They were clearly terrified. They kept saying something bad's going to happen and he's a part of it. 115 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:44,000 5.10pm. The port Kaituma airstrip. 116 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:52,000 Most of the defectors board the larger of the two airplanes, flying them to the Guion and capital, Georgetown. 117 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:55,000 Ryan and the journalists are still on the tarmac. 118 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:01,000 So the defectors are on the road to the airport. 119 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:06,000 The Guion and capital, Georgetown. Ryan and the journalists are still on the tarmac. 120 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:12,000 Suddenly a tractor pulling a trailer comes into view. 121 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:16,000 I remember hearing pop, pop, pop. 122 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:22,000 An NBC cameraman films this gunfire, moments before he's shot and killed. 123 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:31,000 At first I wasn't even sure what that was, but then I realized because people started screaming and running that these were guns. 124 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:37,000 A bullet grazes Charles Krauss' hip as he takes refuge under one of the airplanes. 125 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:45,000 At the same time, inside the smaller plane, Larry Layton opens fire, wounding two people before being disarmed. 126 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:53,000 The shooting stops and then all of a sudden there were three more shots. 127 00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:01,000 And somebody had come over and literally point blank shot the congressman. 128 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:11,000 Five people are killed, including congressman Leo Ryan, NBC reporter Don Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, 129 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:17,000 San Francisco examiner photographer Greg Robinson and a defecting temple member Patty Parks. 130 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:25,000 Gunfire has disabled the larger plane, but the second plane takes off with the pilots and one of the wounded. 131 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:32,000 The five dead and remaining wounded lie on the airstrip. 132 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:39,000 Those who can walk half a mile into Port Kaituma to find help for the severely wounded and to move the dead. 133 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:46,000 The 19th of November 1978, 2 a.m. 134 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:55,000 About nine hours after the shootings on the airstrip, two Jonestown residents who have fled the compound arrive in Port Kaituma. 135 00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:00,000 They tell Guyanese authorities that Jones is coercing people into killing themselves. 136 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,000 A contingent of Guyanese soldiers rushes to the encampment. 137 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:09,000 They arrive as day breaks to find this grisly scene. 138 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:23,000 It appears that about 400 of the temple members are dead, but it's unclear how they died. 139 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:28,000 Is this mass suicide or mass murder? 140 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:32,000 While they wait for autopsies, Guyanese officials leave the bodies where they're discovered. 141 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,000 Near the bodies are tubs of purple liquid. 142 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:44,000 Investigators quickly realize that it's a grape flavored drink laced with cyanide. 143 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:53,000 Authorities place the initial death toll on the body. 144 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:59,000 Authorities place the initial death toll at approximately 400. 145 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:05,000 They believe that hundreds of other temple members have escaped into the rainforest surrounding Jonestown. 146 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:14,000 But when American soldiers arrive to remove the dead, they make a shocking discovery. 147 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:24,000 There were mounds of people, and as we pulled off the surface cover we found more and more people under the mounds. 148 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:35,000 When all the bodies are counted, the final death toll is 913, which includes Jim Jones and almost 260 children. 149 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:40,000 At this point, it appears they died willingly, at the urging of Jones. 150 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:49,000 If this is true, is Jim Jones solely responsible for these deaths? 151 00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,000 This horror raises many questions. 152 00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:02,000 As we start to answer them, a story emerges about one man and the victims of the massacre. 153 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:08,000 The beautiful young women who supported him. 154 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:18,000 Who is Jim Jones and what is his message? 155 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:25,000 He is a charismatic Christian preacher who champions the cause of the underclass. 156 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,000 1956, Indianapolis, Indiana. 157 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:36,000 25 year old Jones is a Methodist minister when he establishes the first people's temple with his wife. 158 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:43,000 He preaches social justice and the inclusion of all races in his church. 159 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:47,000 Faith healings are also a regular feature at Jones' services. 160 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:51,000 And he encourages his followers to call him father or dad. 161 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:58,000 Over the next six years, Jones and his wife have one child and adopt four more. 162 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:07,000 His church grows to almost a thousand congregants and opens a soup kitchen and a nursing home. 163 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:18,000 Jones had such a clear message about reaching out to vulnerable people, feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the homeless. 164 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:30,000 Dr. Mary McCormick Marger is a religious studies scholar who became interested in people's temple after learning that her mentor, John Moore, had lost two daughters in Jonestown. 165 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:37,000 Jones chooses from Marxist ideology the socialist ideas about everybody in a community being equal. 166 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:41,000 During this time, Jones shows signs of paranoia. 167 00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:49,000 He believes he's being investigated by the government's tax department and that the Midwest is going to be the target of a nuclear attack. 168 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:53,000 To avoid annihilation, he decides to move somewhere he thinks is safer. 169 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:00,000 1965, Redwood Valley, California. 170 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:08,000 Jim Jones takes his family and the people's temple to this town in the wine country, two hours north of San Francisco. 171 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:13,000 Over a hundred members of Jones's Indiana congregation follow him here. 172 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:19,000 What draws people to Jones's teachings and the temple? 173 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:25,000 Jones's message of racial equality and the practice of core Christian beliefs. 174 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:31,000 This fits in perfectly with the counterculture movement of the 1960s and attracts many young people. 175 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:35,000 Jones calls his ministry Apostolic Socialism. 176 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:42,000 Laura Johnson Cole hears about the temple's community work and joins in 1970. 177 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:49,000 I like the multiracial part of it. Jim's wife had eight kids and they're all different races. 178 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:54,000 Everybody really did seem like a really big family. 179 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:04,000 In 1972, Tim Carter is a Vietnam veteran living on the streets when a friend introduces him to people's temple. 180 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:12,000 As soon as I walked in the temple, I had not seen Jim Jones, not met Jim Jones, not heard Jim Jones, but as soon as I walked in, I was home. 181 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:20,000 Alan Swanson, who is living in a religious commune, hears Jones preach. He's so impressed that soon after, he joins the temple. 182 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:29,000 The way he spoke about helping others that were in need and, you know, he didn't drive around in a Cadillac like most of the preachers did and stuff, you know. 183 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:35,000 He lived with the people and said he wore old shoes and old used choir robes. 184 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:45,000 Inspired by Jones' message, the new members reach out as representatives of the temple to work in the community. 185 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:54,000 We were doing things that were concrete that I could actually see with my own two eyes, and that meant a lot to me because I felt good about what I was doing for my life. 186 00:15:54,000 --> 00:16:03,000 During this time, People's Temple gets addicts off drugs, takes in foster children and helps people navigate the various welfare agencies. 187 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:16,000 It became a bureaucratic operation in California where they were going to attempt to meet the emotional, physical, social and spiritual needs of the most vulnerable populations they could find. 188 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:28,000 As the temple's good work continues in the public view, dark stories from within the church's walls filter out. Jones' faith-healing meetings are said to be staged. 189 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:40,000 Nell Smart likes the temple's racial equality and joins in 1972, but she's disappointed with other practices. 190 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:50,000 I don't think he healed anyone, period. I think Jim gave people cancer from the pulpit, you know. He'd call somebody's name out, you've got cancer. 191 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:57,000 But I don't think he healed anyone who came and said Jim, I have cancer. Can you heal me? 192 00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:03,000 As some members become disillusioned, how does Jones maintain control? 193 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:09,000 Through coercion, intimidation and manipulation. 194 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:16,000 Jones encourages members to live communally with other temple members. 195 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:21,000 Leslie Cathay is 13 when she becomes a member of the temple with her mother and sister. 196 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,000 Basically, you were supposed to turn over your monies to the church. 197 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:29,000 They had all your money, you didn't have nothing. You couldn't just walk off. 198 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:35,000 Members turn over to the temple their earnings and their social security and welfare payments. 199 00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:40,000 Compensation for foster children housed by the church also goes into temple coffers. 200 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:47,000 Jones uses sleep deprivation as another means of control. 201 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:54,000 Hugh Fortson joins the temple in 1972. He likes the fact that the church helps those living in poverty. 202 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:00,000 We got into competition. I mean, I was juiced last night. I got maybe five, I got four. 203 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:07,000 Little did we realize that all we were doing was wearing ourselves out psychologically, that we couldn't think for ourselves. 204 00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:16,000 As these darker stories appear more frequently in the press, Jones makes plans to escape the media scrutiny. 205 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,000 Coming next on the final report. 206 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:25,000 1971, San Francisco. 207 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:35,000 Six years after moving Peoples Temple from Indiana to Northern California, Jim Jones buys a synagogue in the Fillmore district of San Francisco and moves the temple headquarters there. 208 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:41,000 Within a year, he opens another temple in Los Angeles. 209 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:48,000 The folks that ended up coming were black people, elderly people, women with children, former prisoners, drug addicts, 210 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:54,000 Because of the temple's work with the disenfranchised, Jones begins to make influential political friends. 211 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:05,000 September 1972. The San Francisco Examiner runs a series of investigative articles on the Reverend Jim Jones. 212 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:10,000 They highlight Jones's claims of raising the dead. 213 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:15,000 His staged faith healing and the use of armed guards to patrol outside the temple. 214 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:24,000 An enraged Jones orchestrates a protest. His lawyers claim libel and threaten lawsuits. 215 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:29,000 The paper discontinues the series and nothing comes of the allegations. 216 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:35,000 1973. The size of the Peoples Temple congregation soars to 2,500 card carrying members. 217 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:42,000 With an organization this big, who is running the church? 218 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:49,000 A planning commission, a board of directors of sorts made up of about 100 members, helps shape Peoples Temple policy and goals. 219 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:54,000 From this group, a smaller group evolves, an inner circle, to assist Jones. 220 00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:02,000 Most of the members of this elite group are young people, and they are not the only ones who are involved in the church. 221 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:06,000 The church is a very important part of the church. 222 00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:09,000 A smaller group evolves, an inner circle, to assist Jones. 223 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:14,000 Most of the members of this elite group are young, educated white women. 224 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,000 There is suggestion of the cult that is to come. 225 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:24,000 The leadership circle began to coach people on what they could and couldn't say to folks outside of Peoples Temple. 226 00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:33,000 The women that Jim Jones had in his inner circle were very serious minded, bright, idealistic. 227 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:41,000 They were respectful of him, they loved him. In some cases they actually were having sexual relationships with him. 228 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:46,000 I think that Jim loved beautiful young women. 229 00:20:47,000 --> 00:21:00,000 And so there was a class system that if you were a beautiful young woman, and Jim noticed you and you were available at that time for whatever he had planned, then you were going to be a different class. 230 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:10,000 September 1973. A group of eight young members, black and white, men and women, defect from the San Francisco Temple. 231 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:20,000 They send a scathing letter to Jones, accusing his inner circle of hypocrisy, racism and classism. 232 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:24,000 The group becomes known as the Gang of Eight. 233 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:31,000 This defection feeds Jones' growing paranoia, and he publicly talks about mass suicide for the first time. 234 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:42,000 I've lost interest in this whole world. I would just as soon bring it a screeching stop in a one glorious moment of triumph. So you think about it. 235 00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:53,000 He borrows the phrase, revolutionary suicide, from Black Panther member Huey Newton. 236 00:21:54,000 --> 00:22:04,000 Jones had read the late Huey Newton's book, Revolutionary Suicide, and put it together that this would be an act that we all could do to make the world feel guilty because they made us do it. 237 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:11,000 Jones tells his congregation that the world outside People's Temple is teeming with those who would like to harm them. 238 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:21,000 Well, he had these scare tactics. There would be a nuclear holocaust and that we only had the safe place to survive and that there would be concentration camps. 239 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:29,000 We did paramilitary training up the hills. I'm talking 13, 14 years old, you know, preparing for some big nuclear wars. 240 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:34,000 Jones and his inner circle formulate plans to escape from the United States. 241 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:40,000 One of their ideas is to go abroad and establish what they call the People's Temple Agricultural Project. 242 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:44,000 Why did they choose Guyana? 243 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:52,000 It's an English speaking country with a large black population on the Atlantic coast of South America. 244 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,000 The Guyanese government is socialist and looking for people to settle. 245 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,000 The Guyanese government is socialist and looking for people to settle there. 246 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:10,000 The temple negotiates a lease for 3,800 acres of remote jungle. 247 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,000 Jones calls the project the promised land. 248 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:24,000 He deemed that we need to get to a place where our people can live in peace, can live in freedom. 249 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,000 He said you would never have to hear the word nigger passed around. 250 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:35,000 Listen to him talk about it. He would make it like, oh man, this is heaven on earth. 251 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:47,000 1974, temple members clear the jungle and begin the construction of buildings. 252 00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:53,000 In this footage from a plane over Jonestown, Jones describes his ambitious plans for the agricultural project. 253 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,000 Going over the beautiful promised land. 254 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:03,000 You're seeing in the distance housing complex that has been built. 255 00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:10,000 The plan is for the entire congregation to slowly relocate to Jonestown over a period of 10 years. 256 00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:17,000 It's nice over here and everybody likes it over here and I'd be glad when you guys get to come over here. 257 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:23,000 The members already in Guyana make these super eight films. 258 00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:28,000 This rarely seen footage chronicles the progress of Jonestown. 259 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:33,000 This has been the greatest challenge of my life, being able to work down here in the garden. Thank you. 260 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,000 People wanted to go to the park, but they couldn't. 261 00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:40,000 I wanted to go, my wife wanted to go. 262 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:50,000 We were thinking that this would be a place where our son could grow up and live and be in a place where we knew we had a part in building it. 263 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,000 Jonestown begins with hope and ends in tragedy. 264 00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:03,000 Had Jones done anything in the past that could have predicted this end? 265 00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:09,000 In fact, Jones has already held suicide drills. He calls them loyalty tests. 266 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,000 Spring 1976, San Francisco. 267 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:23,000 At a planning commission meeting at the temple, Jones offers 100 people in the room a glass of wine. 268 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,000 Survivor Tim Carter is there. 269 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:32,000 Everybody drank the wine, that was it. 15 minutes later, after the wine has been drunk, Jones is back in the room. 270 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,000 Jones says, you've all just been given poison, you have an hour to live. 271 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:42,000 Jones tells his followers that their deaths will act as a protest against the inhumanity of the world. 272 00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:49,000 He lets the idea of impending death sink in before announcing, there is no poison. 273 00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:58,000 What he's actually doing is exposing people to their own death process. Are you afraid to die? 274 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,000 Because if you're afraid to die, then you're not really committed to what you're doing. 275 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,000 Summer 1977. 276 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:10,000 New West Magazine publishes two articles about Jones and Peoples Temple. 277 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000 In the second are stories from temple defectors, and they tell of beatings, coerced sex and even death. 278 00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:24,000 The San Francisco District Attorney investigates the temple, but the case goes nowhere because of lack of evidence. 279 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,000 Jones' many political friends come to his defence, denouncing the articles and praising his work. 280 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:36,000 But for Jones, the adverse publicity becomes the final impetus for him to leave San Francisco. 281 00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,000 He goes to his promised land, Jonestown. 282 00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:49,000 Hundreds of his congregants follow him. They're eager to leave the United States and to participate in his grand social experiment. 283 00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:54,000 Rice, black eyed peas, a tremendous inventory they've got up, Kool-Aid. 284 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,000 Next on the final report. 285 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:05,000 Welcome to the San Francisco, to the San Conrad, welcome to the San Conrad, welcome to the San Conrad. 286 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,000 September 1977. Jonestown, Guyana. 287 00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,000 About 1,000 people live here. 288 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:20,000 When we started, our whole effort was getting us to be independent, so that we could feed ourselves. 289 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:25,000 And then from that point on, we could branch out into whatever else we could grow into. 290 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:33,000 The congregants regularly gather to sing anthems and participate in skits as part of their ongoing socialist education. 291 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:40,000 There's no racism here, and it's the most beautiful feeling to not have those kind of pressures and tensions every day. 292 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:48,000 I really appreciate the opportunity to work here to help feed people and provide a place so everybody can get out of that mess in the States and come down here and do something in a really cooperative atmosphere. 293 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:54,000 Jones proudly leads a tour through his so-called promised land for the members back in California. 294 00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,000 This is one of the many generators that we've purchased with our sweat and blood. 295 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,000 We have generators all over our property that gives us power for everything we need. 296 00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,000 The American manager, nothing like these. 297 00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,000 Sugar, sealed. 298 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,000 We don't have much more of this than we do I. 299 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,000 Through all the tremendous inventory they've got up, Kool-Aid. 300 00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:19,000 Is this really the utopia that Jones makes it out to be? 301 00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:26,000 No. The quick influx of people has strained operations, and there is an atmosphere of paranoia. 302 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:37,000 Within months of Jones moving to Guyana, temple members follow in droves, and the population balloons from less than 100 to around 1,000. 303 00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,000 Jonestown was built to accommodate 300 people. 304 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:47,000 We used to have a quarter chicken every Sunday, then as more people started to come we didn't get that any longer. 305 00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:55,000 So it was rice and gravy, biscuits and syrup, and then it got to be where there was very few biscuits, and then it was rice, rice, rice. 306 00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:00,000 Even if you believed in what we were trying to accomplish, it was a very hard life. 307 00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:05,000 It was crowded, it was hard work, it was a bearable life, but it was a hard life. 308 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,000 With more people came the even greater need to control them. 309 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:16,000 There was always crisis. Every week there was a crisis. That meant that his extra security guards would come out. 310 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:22,000 They had guns. I remember M16 rifles. 311 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:30,000 We were going through the drills, pulling the children in the middle of the night, you know, pulling them out of their beds and taking them, running with them, like for your life. 312 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:32,000 It was horrible. The kids were traumatized. 313 00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:37,000 Jones keeps his followers on edge by claiming that his enemies are all around. 314 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000 Is Jim Jones mentally unstable? 315 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:49,000 Yes, his long-standing paranoia has grown deeper, fueled by his drug addiction. 316 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:55,000 He is hooked on Valium, Quaaludes and other barbiturates. 317 00:29:55,000 --> 00:30:00,000 Nell Smart witnesses Jones' decline when she visits her children and her mother in Jonestown. 318 00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:07,000 Jim was a junkie. And when I saw him in Guyana, you could tell that he had really deteriorated. 319 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,000 He was a beaten man. 320 00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,000 I don't understand how the people around him could keep giving him the drugs. 321 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:22,000 I mean, he didn't go out to get the drugs, so somebody got them, brought them out, and they took them. 322 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:27,000 But the rank and file of Jonestown doesn't seem to notice Jones' problems. 323 00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:33,000 When filmed by a fellow member, residents paint a rosy picture of their new home. 324 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:39,000 Really, it's the most beautiful place I've ever been in all my life. 325 00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:44,000 I just love it. I hope everything is going to be all right for us. 326 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:50,000 At the time, these people were not the only ones who were suffering from the drug addiction. 327 00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:54,000 At the time, these people, like Tim Carter, said they were happy. 328 00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:01,000 No words could describe the peace, the beauty, the sense of accomplishment and responsibility and camaraderie that's here. 329 00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:06,000 But listening to his words today, it's unclear how frank he could really be. 330 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,000 Jones didn't let people leave. It was a prison. 331 00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,000 I mean, if you go somewhere and you can't get out, that constitutes a prison. 332 00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,000 Now, if you're somewhere where you want to be, it doesn't feel as much like a prison because that's where you want to be. 333 00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,000 And these were true with Jonestown. 334 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:30,000 People did try to leave, and they were punished for, beat up and then ostracized. 335 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,000 The 17th of November, 1978. 336 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:41,000 Californian Congressman Leo Ryan's entourage arrives in Jonestown. 337 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:47,000 Several members of the press accompany him, as do a few defectors from People's Temple. 338 00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:55,000 Ryan has heard reports that the people in Jonestown are being held against their will, deprived of sleep and beaten. 339 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,000 Jim Jones is not thrilled with Ryan's visit. 340 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,000 What did he hate the most? He hated the media, he hated the government and he hated people that had left the church. 341 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:13,000 And who was walking in on Friday night, November 17th? The media, the government and people that had left the church. 342 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:24,000 The following day, after the shooting of Leo Ryan and four others in his group, 913 people die at Jonestown after drinking a grape-flavored cyanide-laced drink. 343 00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,000 Was this mass suicide or mass murder? 344 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:33,000 It seems to be both. 345 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:39,000 There's evidence to indicate that a mass suicide was carefully planned by the leadership. 346 00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,000 The cyanide was ordered months before it was ever used. 347 00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:52,000 The plan for how to kill that many people in a short amount of time was formulated months in advance. 348 00:32:53,000 --> 00:33:00,000 It was as if the leadership was waiting for a moment when their suffering could end. 349 00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,000 It was as if they were waiting for a chance to have the martyrs' death. 350 00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:08,000 But the leadership's lies and coercion support the idea of mass murder. 351 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:15,000 Children don't commit suicide, seniors don't commit suicide. What happened in Jonestown in that day was murder. 352 00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,000 It is murder from one sense because Jim didn't tell the truth. 353 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:28,000 They were isolated from knowing what's really happening in the world. I think they were scared into committing suicide, you know. 354 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,000 So if you're scared into doing something, it's murder to me. 355 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:39,000 How very much I've tried my best to give you a good life. 356 00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:47,000 In this audio recording of the final hours, Jim Jones and others speak to the assembled residents of Jonestown. 357 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:58,000 But in spite of all that I've tried, a handful of our people with their lives have made our life impossible. 358 00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:04,000 Jones informs them that there will be a shooting on the planes carrying Ryan's entourage. 359 00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:09,000 Then the authorities will parachute in and torture the children. 360 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:17,000 Take the portion like they used to take in ancient Greece and step over quietly. 361 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:22,000 Because we are not committing suicide, it's a revolutionary act. 362 00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:26,000 If we can't live in peace, then let's die in peace. 363 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:30,000 His followers cheer. 364 00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:38,000 There had long been a belief on the part of the rank and file as well as the leadership in People's Temple. 365 00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,000 But it was all for one and one for all. 366 00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:48,000 Please get us the medication. It's simple, it's simple, there's no convulsions with it. It's as simple as please get it. 367 00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:51,000 Before it's too late, get moving, get moving, get moving. 368 00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,000 Don't be afraid to die. 369 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,000 Then the final exercise begins. 370 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,000 Everybody get behind the table and back this way, okay? 371 00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:13,000 There's nothing to worry about. Everybody keep calm and try and keep your children calm. 372 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,000 The adults who drink the cyanide do so for their own reasons. 373 00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:23,000 But the nearly 260 children who are forced to drink it or are injected with it are clearly murdered. 374 00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,000 And the older children can help the little children and reassure them. 375 00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:37,000 They're not crying from pain, it's just a little bitter tasting but they're not crying out of any pain. 376 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,000 One by one, each adult member chooses to die. 377 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:46,000 No other way I would rather go and give my life for socialism, communism. I think that very, very much. 378 00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,000 These people really believed that they could change the world. 379 00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:57,000 And Jim Jones took advantage of their belief to encourage them to see themselves as symbolic martyrs. 380 00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,000 As people whose deaths would be more significant. 381 00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:05,000 Appropriately, it is Jim Jones who speaks the last words on the tape. 382 00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:10,000 Take our life from us. We laid it down, we got tired. 383 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:20,000 We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world. 384 00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,000 We're not going to die. 385 00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:30,000 We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world. 386 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,000 Ironically, Jones never drinks the poison. 387 00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,000 He is found shot to death with a gun lying almost 20 feet away. 388 00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:46,000 Some believe that Jones did not commit suicide, but that another person pulled the trigger. 389 00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:49,000 It is clear that Jones is responsible for the deaths of his followers. 390 00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,000 But is he solely responsible? 391 00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,000 On the surface, yes. 392 00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:07,000 The only way that the suicides would not have happened is if Jim Jones himself had convinced his leadership circle that it made more sense for them to live than die. 393 00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,000 But he did not do that. 394 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:16,000 The Inner Circle's responsibility for the mass death at Jonestown. 395 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,000 Coming up on the final report. 396 00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:26,000 The 19th of November 1978, Jonestown, Guyana. 397 00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:30,000 913 people die here. 398 00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:33,000 Almost 260 of them are children. 399 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:39,000 Because of the sheer number of the dead, military medical examiners randomly choose bodies on which to perform autopsies. 400 00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,000 Only seven are carried out. 401 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,000 On Jim Jones and six of his followers. 402 00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:53,000 The coroners determined that two people died from gunshot wounds. 403 00:37:54,000 --> 00:38:00,000 Jones died from a bullet to the head, some believed to have been inflicted by his nurse, who then shot herself. 404 00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,000 Of the others, cyanide poisoning is presumed to be the cause of death. 405 00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:12,000 Jonestown has become a gruesome benchmark for any cult-like group that ends in mass death. 406 00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:21,000 News reports on the inferno in Waco, Texas and the suicides of the UFO cult Heaven's Gate compared these tragedies to people's temple. 407 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,000 But that's not all. 408 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:28,000 Now, the final report on the evolution of people's temple into a cult. 409 00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:33,000 And the role of the inner circle in the Jonestown deaths. 410 00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:43,000 When Jones establishes people's temple in Indiana, it starts out as a small Christian sect. 411 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:47,000 The Bible was written by a man named John Jones. 412 00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:52,000 When Jones establishes people's temple in Indiana, it starts out as a small Christian sect. 413 00:38:53,000 --> 00:39:04,000 The Bible was read from, Jesus' name was mentioned often, and there was preaching and healing and singing, and it was very much a traditional church experience. 414 00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:12,000 Mary Marga tells the final report that when Jones moves the temple to California, the sect becomes a new religious movement. 415 00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:16,000 Further integrating socialist ideology with Christian beliefs. 416 00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,000 In California, it was counter-cultural, but not yet a cult. 417 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,000 People's temple becomes a cult once they move to Jonestown. 418 00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,000 It's when new ideas can't get in and people can't get out. 419 00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,000 My definition of a cult would probably be Jonestown. 420 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,000 Because you weren't allowed to leave, you didn't have any say so, you had no opinion. 421 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:48,000 In Jonestown, Jones and his leadership created an insular world, and used lies and intimidation to prevent people from leaving. 422 00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:55,000 We can't go back, we won't leave us alone, and there's no way, no way we can survive. 423 00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:05,000 On the final audio tape, Jones manipulates the members' commitment to the temple's political and social goals to coerce them into choosing to die. 424 00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,000 Die with a degree of dignity. 425 00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,000 Lay down your life with dignity, don't lay down with tears and agony. 426 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,000 Stop this hysterics. 427 00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,000 This is not the way for people who are socialist, the communists, to die. 428 00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,000 May 1979. 429 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:33,000 A congressional report highlights the events leading to the Jonestown tragedy, and Jim Jones' role in it. 430 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:42,000 Some journalists and authors investigating people's temple have concluded that Jones is responsible for the deaths. 431 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:54,000 Mary McCormack-Marger believes that although Jones initiates the idea of revolutionary suicide, it's the inner circle that implements the suicides. 432 00:40:55,000 --> 00:41:04,000 Jim Jones could not make anything happen without his lieutenants, without that inner circle of committed people who believed in Jones' ideas and wanted to make them happen. 433 00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:11,000 Laura Johnston Cole was a temple member who worked in Georgetown, Guyana, where she was on the last day. 434 00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:25,000 He surrounded himself with people who worshipped him and who, you know, did a lot of the legwork for him, and he only kept the people who, you know, would never dream of turning against him or criticizing him. 435 00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:29,000 So he never got any authentic feedback on how crazy he was getting. 436 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:37,000 So the inner circle, that's who I, that's, they're, they're a big part of this. Jim was just a puppet, the one to give the order. No one's going to take orders from them. 437 00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,000 They just pulled the strings. 438 00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:50,000 Jonestown had grown too quickly. Food and supplies were stretched too thin and couldn't provide for the nearly 1,000 residents. 439 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:56,000 It had not become the self-sufficient, utopian community that Jones and the leadership had promised. 440 00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:03,000 What drove the elite corps to seek suicide was their fear that they would be accused of hypocrisy. 441 00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:14,000 And therefore, they saw suicide as the only option that would keep them loyal to their ideals and also free them from a situation that had become untenable. 442 00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:22,000 On the last day, Hugh Fortson was in San Francisco on Temple Business. His wife and four-year-old son died in Jonestown. 443 00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:28,000 If I had been there on November 18th, I'm pretty sure that I would have taken it also. 444 00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:35,000 Because Jones had already built us up to believe that nobody would believe our stories. They would take our information and destroy us. 445 00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:45,000 If you knew that Ryan was killed and that they were going to have stormtroopers coming in there shooting everybody up and mutilating the babies because this is what you're told, yeah, you're going to drink whatever it is. 446 00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:53,000 Nell Smart defected from the temple in 1976. She lost her mother to a heart attack. 447 00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,000 She was in a coma for a long time. 448 00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:00,000 We've been isolated for so long, so a lot of people probably thought that that could happen. 449 00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:05,000 If you think your child's going to be murdered or tortured or raped or a baby, then what would you do? 450 00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:13,000 Leslie Cathy escaped from Jonestown with her three-year-old son. Her mother, brother, and sister were all killed. 451 00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:19,000 If you tell us we have to give our lives now, we're ready. I'm pretty sure all the rest of the brothers are with me. 452 00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:52,000 On the 18th of November 1978, the adults of Jonestown were ready to go, and they murdered their children before killing themselves. 453 00:43:53,000 --> 00:44:01,000 Peoples Temple flourished in the 1970s, a time when disenchanted Americans searched for answers outside established institutions. 454 00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:09,000 Although other cults also existed during this time, no other group is like the dark enigma that was Peoples Temple. 455 00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:18,000 Jim Jones has come to represent the worst of charismatic leaders, who exploit and abuse their followers to achieve their own ends. 456 00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:26,000 And the Temple members have become examples of those who submit completely to a leader and his message. 457 00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:37,000 These people surrendered control over their own lives to someone who led them to a tragic end, in a place called Jonestown.