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MEET JIM JONES: THE PREACHER TURNED CULT LEADER WHO ORCHESTRATED THE JONESTOWN MASSACRE

Jim Jones utilized religion and the promise of a new world to create a cult and commit one of the most harrowing crimes in human history.

BY SOMDATTA MAITY

UPDATED APR 6, 2024

Cover Image Source: Jim Jones (1931 - 1978), founder of the Peoples Temple cult, pictured with a parrot on his arm, circa 1970. The photograph is from an album found at Jonestown, Guyana, after November 1978. (Photo by UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Even after four decades, the Jonestown massacre where 900 people including 300 minors were convinced by their leader to kill themselves, is one of history's most bizarre crimes that sends shivers down the spine. Jim Jones started by telling people to dream of equality in the world but soon turned into a monster who snatched away their lives. What followed his descent was hundreds giving in to his propaganda and sacrificing themselves and their children to the cult leader's whims, as per the FBI. During his youth, Jones was found to have a certain obsession with religion, which provided a semblance of warmth while everything in his life was going haywire. From an early age, he understood the power of religion and theology, which became a deadly weapon to entrap disillusioned individuals during desperate times in the United States.

Early life and evolution

Image Source: Portrait of American religious leader Jim Jones (1931 - 1978), the founder of the People's Temple, and his wife, Marceline Jones (1927 - 1978), seated in front of their adopted children and next to his sister-in-law (right) with her three chilldren, California, 1976. In 1977, Jones relocated the People's Temple from San Francisco, California, to Jonestown, Guyana, where he led the mass suicide of over 900 members on November 18, 1978, before dying of a gunshot wound later that day. (Photo by Don Hogan Charles/New York Times Co./Getty Images)

Jim Jones had a tumultuous childhood due to problems in his parents' marriage as well as the financial instability in the house. In the absence of an adult who could guide Jones in his formative years, the boy turned to religion. Talking about his upbringing Jones told his congregation, “I didn’t have any love given to me — I didn’t know what the hell love was."

Affinity with religion

Image Source: Men load coffins into a moving truck for transport in Dover, Delaware, April 26, 1979. The coffins all arrived from Jonestown, Guyana, where the Reverend Jim Jones led more than 900 of his followers, the People's Temple, in a mass suicide. (Photo by New York Times Co./Keith Meyers/Getty Images)

Indiana History identifies Myrtle Kennedy, the family's neighbor, and a lifelong mother figure for Jones, as the person who pushed him toward religion. Her influence helped the then-teenager to explore all the churches in the town including Quaker, Nazarene, Methodist, Apostolic, and the Church of Christ. Unfortunately, none satisfied his curiosity and he left all of them, although he discovered a natural talent for preaching. Even as a young boy barely in his teens, he was able to move people with his words and arouse their sympathies. His girlfriend in high school, Phyllis Wilmore shared an instance where Jones stumped everyone with his oratory. She said, "He got up and started preaching and did an incredible job. He had the control and inflection. It was like the real thing, but was all intended to be a joke. He was very self-assured on stage. He had that coal-black hair and piercing eyes that would look right through you.”

Marriage and Peoples Temple

Image Source: Local tourist office employees prepared to place a sign to mark the site of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown, Guyana, the site of the Jim Jones mass suicide where over 900 people died. The Jonestown massacre happened 30 years ago. (Photo by David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images)

Soon after graduating high school, he started working at a nearby hospital where he met Marceline Baldwin, a nursing student and they later got married. During this time he was unable to stick to any church because their teachings eventually boiled down to segregation, and hence created his doctrine with the Peoples Temple in 1956. Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ in 1960 and four years later Jones was ordained. Jones and his wife created what they called a "rainbow family." They adopted a part-Native American child named Agnes, three Korean children, Stephanie, Lew, and Suzanne, and a black child, a James Warren Jones, Jr. They also had one biological child of their own named Stephen Gandhi. He then said, “Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It’s a question of my son’s future.”

Mike Cartmell an ex-follower of Jones who left the church after divorcing Jones’s adopted daughter, Suzanne, agreed that the disgraced preacher did a lot of good for society but identified maliciousness in it. Cartmell shared, "He was a con man. He was genuinely somewhat disturbed about segregation. But he was not this idealistic young man who for reasons we don’t understand became a maniac. I just don’t believe that. All of it was for the purposes of his authority."

Communal living

Image Source: Members of the recovery team arrive at Port Kaituma airstrip near Jonestown, Guyana, November 25th 1978. US Congressman Leo Ryan and his delegation were boarding the Guyana Airways plane shown in the background when they were ambushed by members of the Peoples Temple cult. (Photo by UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Captivated by George Baker, also known as Father Divine in popular culture, Jones wanted to create a society where everyone put in money and all lived together. Jones' influence rapidly scaled great heights, with the church attracting almost 20,000 followers at its peak, as per the New York Times. Once when his friend asked him about the sunglasses and bodyguards as part of his new look, Jones said, "Max, when you reach the top, you’ve got to play the part." His temple soon went from being a haven established on the principle of equality to evolving as a full-blown business, as Jones was buying ads and securing television slots for promotion.

Betraying his people

Image Source: San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman (L) and photographer Greg Robinson. Robinson was one of the five people killed and Reiterman was among the nine injured after an attack by members of the People's Temple in Guyana. The journalists were part of the group led by Congressman Leo Ryan to investigate reports of abuse and human rights violations by the People's Temple and its leader, Jim Jones. Fearing the results of the murders and further investigations into Jonestown, despite Leo Ryan's assertion that he was going to give a largely positive review of the People's Temple, Jim Jones led his followers in a ?revolutionary suicide?. On November 18, 1978, 909 Temple members died, all but two of which from cyanide poisoning, forming the largest mass suicide in modern history. — Image Source: San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman (L) and photographer Greg Robinson. Robinson was one of the five people killed and Reiterman was among the nine injured after an attack by members of the People's Temple in Guyana. The journalists were part of the group led by Congressman Leo Ryan to investigate reports of abuse and human rights violations by the People's Temple and its leader, Jim Jones. Fearing the results of the murders and further investigations into Jonestown, despite Leo Ryan's assertion that he was going to give a largely positive review of the People's Temple, Jim Jones led his followers in a revolutionary suicide. On November 18, 1978, 909 Temple members died, all but two of which were from cyanide poisoning, forming the largest mass suicide in modern history.

As his congregation grew, it was evident that Jim was cheating his disciples, and was not delivering on the promise of equality as the money earned and donated by his disciples was invested in his personal benefits. Deborah Layton, who was handling “phenomenal amounts of money” collected from followers for Jones, realized that it was not being used for their good. This realization hit Layton when she flew to Guyana where her church leader had established Jonestown which she equated to a "leper colony."

Jones established this peculiar-looking living facility to shift base to Guyana, after being tipped off that he was about to be exposed in the media. Many of his followers heeded the call to give up everything and settle in the community called Jonestown, where they were denied the very right on which the church stood- equality and freedom. Here, Jones was the king and no one could defy his wishes.

Leo Ryan's intervention

Image Source: Congressman Leo Ryan (D-Calif.) on a mission to check reports that Americans were being kept prisoner at a jungle religious colony was shot and perhaps killed along with others in his party in an ambush at a landing strip, police said. Ryan is shown in 1977 file photo. Getty Images | Bettmann / Contributor

Congressman Leo Ryan became concerned about Jonestown and the way people were being treated in the makeshift settlement. FBI reported, "Jonestown sounded more like a slave camp than a religious center. There was talk of beatings, forced labor and imprisonments, the use of drugs to control behavior, suspicious deaths, and even rehearsals for mass suicide." Hearing all of this, Ryan decided to visit Jonestown and look for the truth himself, by meeting people from his constituency and interviewing them. Many requested him to rescue them from the settlement, and he decided to call an airplane to carry them all back to American soil. But as they were waiting at the airstrip, Jones' armed men opened fire at them killing many including Ryan himself.

Murder, suicide and assault

Image Source: GUYANA - NOVEMBER 18: (NO U.S. TABLOID SALES) People's Temple follower Larry Layton (C) stands with police following his arrest November 18, 1978 in the shooting of two people on a remote Guyana airstrip. That same day, precipitated by the shootings, over 900 members of the People's Temple Cult led by Reverend Jim Jones died in Jonestown, Guyana of mass murder and suicide. Larry Layton was convicted in 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco of conspiring in the 1978 murder of California congressman Leo Ryan and aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of Richard Dwyer, a U.S. diplomat wounded in the attack. Layton's sister Debbie's departure from the Peoples Temple and denunciation of Jones in May 1978 led her brother to leave California to join the settlement in Guyana. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images) — Image Source: GUYANA - NOVEMBER 18: (NO U.S. TABLOID SALES) People's Temple follower Larry Layton (C) stands with police following his arrest November 18, 1978, in the shooting of two people on a remote Guyana airstrip. That same day, precipitated by the shootings, over 900 members of the People's Temple Cult led by Reverend Jim Jones died in Jonestown, Guyana of mass murder and suicide. Larry Layton was convicted in 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco of conspiring in the 1978 murder of California congressman Leo Ryan and aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of Richard Dwyer, a U.S. diplomat wounded in the attack. Layton's sister Debbie's departure from the Peoples Temple and denunciation of Jones in May 1978 led her brother to leave California to join the settlement in Guyana. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)

Back at the camp, Jones called on his followers to consume a liquid that was laced with cyanide. Many tried to resist but ultimately 900 cultists, including more than 200 children were either manipulated or coerced into committing the unthinkable act. Jones himself committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, while witnesses Hyacinth Thrash who survived by hiding under her bed, was horrified at the sight of dead bodies in the compound. “I remember those babies marching past our place with little paper hats on, wearing sandals, sun suits and matching shorts and tops,” she wrote in 'The Onliest One Alive.' “It’s enough to make you scream your lungs out, thinking of those babies dead.”