PORT KAITUMA, Guyana - 'I feel sorry that we are being destroyed from within,' the Rev. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco. 'Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.'. Despite his unconventional upbringing and the horrific tragedy brought about by his father's religious group, the Peoples Temple, Stephan speaks candidly about his experience in the documentary. "I always explain to them that it's not what people think--it wasn't a bunch of starry-eyed people in line waiting to take the potion . 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 don't know what was happening . And Stephan Jones sometimes thinks that he might have taken the poison, too. The years have shaped another lesson for Stephan Jones, but it makes him uneasy to talk about it. I would argue that the means justify the end, but not the other way around.. Well, once we got to California and we were going to public school, there it was very evident to me that my life was very different from the lives of most of the other kids. He rode bulldozers, dodged falling trees, killed snakes, lit brush fires and rode the slow boats upriver with loads of cut wood for flooring and walls. Stephan fought him, swore at him, obeyed him, contemplated killing him, argued with his mother about how to bring Jim Jones under control. It was all about survival in his domain. Most people were away at the time. He lives just outside San Francisco and works as an office systems installer, arranging furniture and office interiors. I stopped and listened. Jim Jr. would go on to lose 15 immediate relatives in Jonestown, including his pregnant wife, Yvette Muldrow, In the aftermath, Jim Jr. built a new life. "I was still naive enough--well, not necessarily naive enough; I still believe the CIA is capable of all kinds of things--but I felt that we could geniunely be a threat to the image of the United States and that people might be trying to do things to undermine or eliminate what was happening down there," he says. He was cleared of any complicity--another Peoples Temple member served a prison sentence for his role in the deaths--but Stephan Jones has come to believe that surviving Guyanese prison somehow braced him for his own re-entry to the world. " He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. }); window._taboola = window._taboola || []; Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. The media has done a poor job; theyve demonized him. ", Stephan Jones used to say he could have stopped the slaughter if he had been there. "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. It won't work.' When the rains approached, he would stand and watch the water come, pushing solid and steady toward him like some enormous stage set being wheeled across the hills. "I don't even know who my loved ones were with when they died," he says softly. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife. NBC sound man Steve Sung had chunks of one arm blown away. Court Records. Stephans address on November 18, 2018 at the 40th Anniversary Memorial Service at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California is here. I would have been doing more than just leaving a family. But mention "Jim Jones" and "Jonestown" and many people would make the connection. He converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. When the prodigals visited, the Cobbs kept it secret from Jones. There, as part of Jones' personal security detail, Cobb saw the once captivating minister strung out on drugs. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalyn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. During the bouncy ride out, former temple members said that one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, was a Jones loyalist and had been depressed. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. Jon was born on January 31, 1975, in Oakland, California. At first it was spanking of children. He does not know. My arm was gushing blood so I stripped off my belt and pinched down the biggest wounds. Copyright 2017-2018 Free Articles by ecelebritymirror.com, All rights reserved. You used the word forgiveness, but I find love and compassion for him. The phrase drinking the Kool-Aid, meaning to follow someone blindly, was born that day in Guyana. The closest thing to a law enforcement official - a pleasant young policeman with a pink shirt and a 16-gauge shotgun - was disarmed by temple members. _taboola.push({ 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. In a telephone interview he sounds serene, though it cant be easy for him to talk about the tragedy that took his parents, a number of his siblings and many of his friends. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. He did.. I found relief in the woods and rivers and creeks, and I got away as often as I could, but there was always a low-level anxiety that I only really can identify now.. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. He said he considered it a failing on his part when he did. You're not taking any more drugs." Stephan was around 17 years old when he moved to Jonestown in February 1977 to help build the compound. He limps this month, still recovering from a broken ankle bone that went undetected for a while, but when he is well he picks up a regular game in San Francisco, sometimes with the young men he played with before--the basketball team from the Peoples Temple settlement at Jonestown, Guyana. After Ollie became pregnant, she was sent to Jonestown; Eugene remained behind. 1978. ", Jim Jones had warned them over and over that invading soldiers would torture their children; maybe that is what they feared most, Stephan Jones says. In a recent interview, he revealed that he was sober. A black man with a 'corn rows' hairstyle came up to the rear of the truck. Jim Jones, pictured in 1976,dreamed up Jonestown. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, Calif. Ryan had planned to remain behind at the mission with several members who wished to return to the United States but couldn't get seating on the planes. He is now a 65-year-old grandfather who has worked for a Miami hydraulics company for nearly 30 years, Jordan Vilchez, pictured sitting at a memorial for mass murder and suicide victims at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana, moved to Jonestown to 1977. . He dreams he is in a crowd, and his father is talking about suicide. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. When I left at 21, I left a part of myself there, she said. John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. But some lived. They have altogether three daughters. I noticed them in real time. And I dont know that he could actually have done that. He dreams he sees the men and women he knew, older now, changed by the years. This November 1978 file photo shows the bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana. I made that last trip with him and he made me stay in Jonestown. 'There were often thoughts of taking him out but I know I wasnt capable of that kind of thing. I believe 100% that not everyone would have been dead, he said. 'Destroyed,' he said, 'from within '. They were at a basketball tournament five years ago, in November 1978 when the congressman and the reporters came to Jonestown. I wondered why it happened. And now some wanted to depart. This figure, though shocking, gave room for hope maybe the remaining hundreds of people of the colony had fled into the jungle and were saved. Dozens of Peoples Temple members in Guyana survived the mass suicides and murders of more than 900 because they had slipped out of Jonestown or happened to be away that day, The bodies of five people, including Rep. Leo J. Ryan, D-Calif., are shown above on the airstrip at Port Kaittuma, Guyana, after an ambush by members of the Peoples Temple cult on November 18, 1978, John Cobb looks at names of family members on the Jonestown Memorial in Oakland, California. It appeared in the Examiner on Nov. 20, 1978, two days after the tragedy: San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman (left)was wounded in the airstrip shooting. Stephan helped erect a basketball court and form a team. When he brushed away the mist below him he saw that it was a lifeless human limb. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited. Jones wasn't the same man. But he said his discontent festered. Contact & Personal Details. When the order from the colony came over the speaker in Guyanas capital Georgetown, Stephan Jones knew he wouldnt obey it. Im not trying to defend him. Little Jimmy became part of their Rainbow Family of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. . In a 2007 interview with Religion News Service published by Dallas News, Stephan said that he struggled with drug addiction after Jonestown, but that he's sober now. Did you notice a point or phase where your fathers behavior shifted and he lost touch with the just causes that he once championed? 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]. 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. But the entertainers stayed in Jonestown to entertain Ryan. 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 jumped up and fought for the gun. "When it really came down to it, I thought there wasn't any need, because I thought he'd be dead in a couple months anyway," he says. They have a total of three daughters. stephan gandhi jones. They moved forward slowly until one soldier bumped into an object on the ground. According to his 1983 interview with The Washington Post, he was in this line of work even back then. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings. And then he went to my mother. Partner of Terry Carter Jones, aka Mary Theresa Carter, Mary Theresa Jones, Terry Carter Jones (died November 18 . John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. After they left, I crept out of the bush and saw five bodies around the plane. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters,. 1931. 'I was his son.' They would survive and both return home to California. . Some have come to acknowledge that they helped enable Jim Jones to seize control over people drawn to his interracial church, socialist preaching and religious hucksterism. (all adoptive) Stephanie Jones (died in 1959); Suzanne Jones; Agnes Pauline Jones; Stephan Gandhi Jones; James Warren (Jimmie) Jones, Jr.; Lew Eric Jones; Timothy Glenn Tupper (Day) Jones; Jim Jon (Kimo) Prokes; (?) He is still elated by it. Ollie worked in the nursery, and Eugene felled trees. View their profile including current address, phone number 415-785-XXXX, background check reports, and property record on Whitepages, the most trusted online directory. Cobb lost 11 relatives that day, including his mother, youngest brother and four sisters. He contacted the people at the San Francisco branch of the Peoples Temple and instructed them not to take action. The 40th anniversary is offering Americans an opportunity to deal with this neglected sore, with the story receiving treatment in both book and documentary form, a story of a trajectory from charismatic preacher and leader to head of a murderous cult.

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