He's too close to Jim Jones to leave.'. Stephan Gandhi Jones was the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. The reality was we were folks who could be counted on to stand up, he said. After all, we had seen things we weren't supposed to see. And I think he genuinely cared about those things, but my understanding of my father just from my own experience and stories is that unconsciously he was always primarily managing other peoples perception of him. What Does Lindsey Horans Boyfriend Tyler Heaps Do For a Living? "I mellowed out. He did.'. 'I was going back to retrieve that young person and also to say goodbye.'. And Stephan Jones sometimes thinks that he might have taken the poison, too. All these lives were wasted and I don't know why. "Who they spoke to. He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. 'We were trying to build a new world, a progressive socialist organization.'. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. By 1978, the White Nights included a rehearsal for suicide, something Jim Jones previously had tried only with his small circle of confidants within the church. The Joneses adopted a black baby in Indiana in 1960, and Jim gave the 10-week-old infant his own name. One of the female subjects of the documentary is Marceline Jones, who was Jim's wife. That way no one else would want to live. Temple attorneys Charles Garry and Mark Lane, along with Ryan, subdued the man. He led the Peoples Temple, a new religious movement, between 1955 and 1978. So much was attractive and unique that we turned a blind eye on what was wrong, he said, including his fathers sexual excesses, drug abuse and rants. Did You Know Soccer Player Crystal Dunns Husband Pierre Soubrier Is A Football Specialist? Then it was boxing matches for adults. A vat that contained a drink laced with deadly cyanide sits on a sidewalk at Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana in November 1978. 'Naaah.' "You can tell when it's a man; the positions are different," Jones says evenly. In the aftermath, he built a new life. I think there are different images being shown now, but its still too little, too late. Hes 61 now. 'Everyone participated in it and because of that, it went as far as it did,' she said. In "Raven," the detailed Jim Jones biography by Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs, it is Stephan Jones who stands in the shadows as his father lies and fakes and bends the people around him, his sickness mounting through the years. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. The tournament was in Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, 150 miles away. And he faked getting shot in Redwood Valley [California] when I was still pretty young, and we felt like we were in danger much of the time. ", Stephan Jones used to say he could have stopped the slaughter if he had been there. (As PEOPLE reported a year after the deaths, two of Stephan's adopted siblings also died at Jonestown.). He dreams he is arguing with his father, arguing passionately, and although he knows his arguments are better, his father always wins. }); window._taboola = window._taboola || []; I crawled until I came to taller bushes and brambles, clawing my way into a pocket in the brush. }); Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy | User published content is licensed under a Creative Commons License. File photo: Peoples Temple compound, led by Jim Jones, after bodies were removed, in Jonestown, Guyana, November 1978. They have a total of three daughters. Trump would hammer Biden OR Harris if he was up for election against either of them in 2024, new poll shows, At least 53 civilians who were truffle hunting in Syria are killed in terror attack blamed on ISIS, 'Find me rich, hot and kind': Hunter Biden BEGGED his cousin Caroline to hook him up with Brooklyn Beckham's wife Nicola Peltz - 25 years his junior - to help him 'break free' from his brother's widow and one-time lover Hallie, texts reveal, Onwards and upwards? And I dont know that he could actually have done that. She gives us the order that we were supposed to kill ourselves, Vilchez recalled. While Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre focuses on the women who were involved with Jim Jones, Stephan continues to have empathy and love for his mother, who apparently struggled with her husband's affairs. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. One day, when she was in high school, she came home and told her parents that her religion class had discussed Peoples Temple; only then did her father share the story of how his family was nearly wiped out. I would argue that the means justify the end, but not the other way around.. We have enabled email notificationsyou will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Grueling field work was not to her liking. This November 1978 file photo shows the bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana. Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. He says the congregation was full of elderly people, many of them hard-working black men and women who had given this minister everything they possessed. He's 61 now. In California, he was steeped in temple life. For the young Caucasian, there was more: "The white man was so preached against by my father as a way of winning black people, and here I am a white man, feeling like everybody resents me and I have something to apologize for," he says. that one last act would be admitting he was a coward, and about nothing. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. He was summoned to the temple radio room. 'Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.'. They were under siege, Jim Jones would cry; the snipers were after him; the Guyanese army was about to descend; the children would be taken away and probably tortured. Of course, even if he wanted to forget Jonestown, his name was an ever-present reminder. People were completely fatigued, exhausted. Hundreds of corpses were lying on the ground in front of them. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. My mother got me an apartment, I got a job and my father came and tried to talk me into coming back. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of Jim Jones, the controversial religious cult leader. The pilot had radioed for help after the shooting, but during the night the only thing we heard were more rumors about the imminent arrival of Guyanese troops and medical evacuation planes. In a recent interview, he revealed that he was sober. In addition to writing the articles below, Stephan appeared as a speaker during the Griot Institute of African Studies lecture series entitled Jonestown: 35 Years Later at Bucknell University; his presentation appears on this page (scroll down the videos). "I'd go back in a minute. A bit later the number was revised upward to 408. File photo: Bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, November 1978. It was easy to see and feel what was attractive about my father. 'He started firing at the front and missed the pilot,' said Dale Parks, who left the temple Saturday. "He used to say we were the only two people of our kind in the universe," Jones says, clasping his hands behind his head and gazing out his apartment window. There were many photographs of the bodies, taken from various angles, in color and black and white, and in each photograph, as though defying the viewer even to believe the report of the camera, row upon row of clothed human backs lay swelling in the jungle damp. I heard a few more shots and saw the tractor pull away. Publicity Listings What would you say is the biggest misconception people have about the Peoples Temple or your father? At first it was spanking of children. Fear of an external threat was a major component of your fathers philosophy. Where the machine shop once stood, there was only rusty equipment. The only surviving child of Jim Jones,Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. "I'm blessed to have hit enough of a bottom and to have been surrounded by amazing, wonderful, honest, compassionate and challenging people to see me through that," Stephan said. On Nov. 18 she was at the temple house when a fanatical Jones aide received a dire radio message from Jonestown. Everyone was waiting for him to take himself out. On Nov. 18, the day Rep. Leo Ryan and four others were shot to death on the airstrip at Port Caituma, Guyana, Stephan Jones and his teammates went to the movies in Georgetown. He does not know. I guess I wanted to believe that, as a child.". I guess maybe somebody who hadnt been in the temple their entire lives and was just stepping into it couldve seen it coming. Finally, attorneys for both Ryan and the temple decreed that the courtroom was the proper place to decide the custody issue. He contacted the people at the San Francisco branch of the Peoples Temple and instructed them not to take action. 'We built a community out of nothing in four years,' recalled Touchette, now a 65-year-old grandfather who has worked for a Miami hydraulics company for nearly 30 years. At the end of Ryan's two-day visit to the mission Saturday, a woman suddenly charged down a slippery boardwalk shouting at her husband, 'I'll kill you! Court Records. Jordan Vilchez's parents were Berkeley progressives in the 1960s - her father African-American, her mother Scotch-Irish. His handshake was weak. But the entertainers stayed in Jonestown to entertain Ryan. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. 2023 Canoe.com, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. I made that last trip with him and he made me stay in Jonestown. But in 1973, John's oldest brother and a sister, along with six other California college students, quit the church and became its enemies. As a self-taught bulldozer operator, he worked alongside other Peoples Temple cult members in the humid heat with his blade carving roads and sites for wooden buildings with metal roofs. He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, American Idol star Kellie Pickler's husband, 49, 'commits suicide by shooting himself dead' in bedroom of their $2.4 million Nashville home: Pickler called 911 after she was unable to open door of room where he was found, Enough to give you an art attack! We demanded to see the locked buildings where some members lived in crowd, uncomfortable conditions. When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. Seating assignments were chosen after Ryan briefed the press on the knife attack and credited Mark Lane with saving his life. He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. Yesterday morning 100 Guyanee troops came by train from Matthews Ridge, walking the last several miles as a precaution against sabotage or attack. Jim Jones was cultivating his growing celebrity--elected officials visited the San Francisco temple, Mayor George Moscone had used temple members as campaign workers, and much was made of the 1976 photo that showed Jim Jones and Rosalynn Carter together during the Democratic Central Committee meeting in San Francisco. But the reality is that it was far from a mass suicide. In California, he was steeped in temple life. I said there must be another way.. Because Dad was such a mess . So would the congressman and three others. 'I was his son.' There had been underground boxes to punish the lazy; public beatings; drills where guns and bows and arrows were hauled out on call of 'white knight,' and plans for mass suicides. And now some wanted to depart. Greg's body was near the boarding steps with his camera bag and cameras scattered around him. And when her 23-year-old sister joined, Jordan went to live with her at age 12. After the massacre, Layton strolled back to the area. Fortunately for him, few people recognise him. I wouldnt say that I dont have problems saying no, and I do quite a bit, so Im feeling it now because I traveled to New York and had a long interview yesterday [with CNN]. 'I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me,' he said. It marched for four jailed Fresno newsmen. I would either have had to fight, or I would have taken it. . I get it, Im not upset about that. After years of struggles that included drug addiction, Jones says hes now living a pleasant life in the United States with his wife and three daughters. File photo: Stephan Jones, son of Rev. Contact & Personal Details. His unplanned departure left them alone. There, as part of Jones personal security detail, Cobb saw the once captivating minister strung out on drugs, afraid to venture anywhere for fear of his legal problems. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife Erin raised three sons with two now coaching basketball at the high school and college level. Also dead was Bob Brown, the NBC cameraman and the kind of guy who loved action stories. I keep remembering what Jones had said in the pavilion. The truck spun its wheels until a Caterpillar tractor tugged it into place for a downhill run. His father, finally, is beginning to let go. Photographer Greg Robinson (right)was one of the five people killed. Some of those leaving the temple eyed the vehicles with suspicion. Among those speaking out ahead of the 40-year anniversary of the mass deaths is Mike Touchette, who was a 21-year-old Indiana native at the time. The murders and suicides were unfolding, 150 miles away. I just have to love him and forgive him.. target_type: 'mix' This dismissive thinking was convenient because its hard to comprehend how so many people marched together to a certain and unnecessary death. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. It was all about survival in his domain. The rest of us were accommodated in a private home. Do not sell or share my personal information. And when her 23-year-old sister joined, Jordan went to live with her at age 12. Jim Jones had said as a tropical storm rained on the Peoples Temple pavilion. He seems to have a tragic life after what had happened with his family. I dropped to my belly. He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. There, as part of Jones' personal security detail, Cobb saw the once captivating minister strung out on drugs, afraid to venture anywhere for fear of his legal problems. When he was ordered to Georgetown to help with supply shipments, Smith said he concocted an escape plan: Ollie and other temple singers and dancers, he believed, would soon be sent to Georgetown to perform, and the family would flee to the U.S. Embassy. Some scowling faces appeared in the windows that rainy afternoon, watching the defectors leave, some with trunks and others with little more than the clothes on their backs. It marched for four jailed Fresno newsmen. While religious leader Jim Jones has historically been blamed for the tragedy that occurred at his Guyana compound, the A&E special Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre argues that the women closest to Jones were also partially responsible. As a self-taught bulldozer operator, he worked alongside other Peoples Temple members in the humid heat, his blade carving roads and sites for wooden buildings with metal roofs. He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. No one now living saw Jim Jones die, so there is some dispute about whether he also performed what he had taught his followers to call "revolutionary suicide." He is an actor, known for Written in Blood (2018), The People's. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part she played in an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. In Biographical Summaries of Notable People . We used curtains for bandages. Besides the tragic story behind his ancestors, Stephan Jones has set his great work as an actor in the Hollywood Industry. But he was also very loving, especially during the early period'. "I wasn't there," he says. Jim Jones. 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