Jonestown Massacre [Apocalyptic Cult] Who Was Jim Jones?
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Get to Smoothie King today and try the new blueberry, raspberry, or watermelon lemonade smoothies. They're all made with real fruit, real juice, and no bad stuff. Just check out the no-no list at SmoothieKing.com. Try the new lemonade smoothies at Smoothie King today. Hi, how are you? I hope you're having a wonderful day. My name is Bailey Sarian, and today is Monday, which means... You guessed it. It's Murder, Mystery, and Makeup Monday!

If you are new here, hi, how are you? That's great. Every Monday I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my...

And I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I highly suggest you subscribe. And I'm so excited to be here because I am going to talk about a cult. Woo! I love cults. I just am fascinated by them. I'm very interested in them. They're fascinating. I mean,

Wow, cults, wow. I tried my best to simplify it as much as I could because Jim Jones had the most random ass life. He was everywhere, especially his childhood was just like, wow, what the fuck?

or what the fuck's going on. It was so random. And then later down the road, there's a lot more people involved with what goes on. And I left them out because it honestly, it will get really confusing. So I'm just focusing on Jim Jones and his story. I will stop rambling. I missed you guys. I'm happy to be here. And let's get right into it. I was reading a biography about Jim Jones and his upbringing and stuff. And like, so random. This guy was so wow, wow.

He, at one point, like he stayed or lived with like a Kennedy during the summer. I don't know how, and there wasn't much information about, anyways, okay, let's.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm just excited. Okay, so let's just get right into it. Jim, his parents were Lynetta Jones and James Jones. James was a veteran of World War I and was living on disability payments from being a victim of a gas attack in the war. It was said that he was emotionally absent and rarely showed any affection towards his son. Jim's mother,

Her name was Lynetta. She was more of a free spirit. She didn't care for religion or any sky God. She called any God, sky God.

You get it? Anywho, so she didn't care for religion at all and she just didn't believe in anything. Which was not a thing for women to be free thinkers or to be thinking like this at the time. So it was like, she was the weird one on the block, you know, like, "Oh, don't go to her house because she doesn't believe in anything." You know, it's just, she has an opinion.

Stay clear. So she also liked to keep to herself. She kept herself busy and was constantly working. It was said that she had no maternal instincts and that she honestly had no desire to even have children. And Lynetta then became pregnant and gave birth to James, AKA Jim Warren Jones. And he was born on May 13th, 1931.

So the family ended up moving to Lynn, Indiana and Jim would describe his childhood as loveless, that his parents were never around, he was always home alone and his parents just didn't care about him. You know his mom didn't want to be a mom, she would keep herself busy by working all of the time. His father was just uh he was sick, it was said that he was an alcoholic but

I don't know. I couldn't quite get clarification on that one. In high school, Jim was known to wear his Sunday clothes almost every day. He would wear a white pressed shirt and nice slacks that most people would save for going to church. You know, church slacks.

So he was wearing this every day to school. Jim said that he participated in some sports, and he even formed his own baseball team with the kids on his block. He wasn't really good at any of the sports, but he was really good at forming teams and being the leader. Mm-hmm.

Which honestly though, I mean, that's great. Well, not in this case. Now as a teenager, Jim said that he explored the different churches in town. He went to as many churches as he could and he would just go sit in and see what they were preaching, what they were saying. And he just wanted to know as much as he could about the different options and different religions out there because there were a lot. So Jim would just hop around and he was just trying to find the right fit,

the religion or the church where he felt like he belonged. Something that he could stand by. Jim would carry a Bible with him everywhere he went. And also as a teenager, he would go out in the street, like the main center where a lot of people would be shopping and stuff. And he would be preaching, preaching the Bible. He was very passionate about it. At the age of 17, Jim, he got a job at

hospital and he was working as, I don't know the actual like job position but you know he was like a helper. He would often clean up vomit, he would help with moving newly deceased or handling disposal of amputated limbs. So I don't know how I went from throw up to amputated limbs but that's kind of what he did.

at 17, which is like, whatever, okay. But Jim said this is like where he just thrived. And he was now considering getting into medicine because he just loved it. So in 1948, while working at the hospital, that's where Jim met a nursing student who was also working there. Her name was Marceline.

They got along really well and ended up dating. And Marceline said that she was attracted to him because he was just such a caring, caring individual. He just loved everybody and he truly believed that everybody was equal and it was his responsibility to devote his life to helping others. Like that's what he was telling her, you know? And she just fell in love with him.

So after dating for quite some time, they ended up getting married in June of 1949. And Marceline was under the impression that Jim was Christian, a Christian man and believed in God. But after they had gotten married, she noticed, you know, things had changed or maybe like she didn't quite fully understand what Jim's

religion or beliefs were, Jim would tell her that he didn't believe in her God and they would get into like really heated arguments over it, just over their beliefs. And because divorce was heavily frowned upon, Marceline knew that like this, it wasn't even an option really, okay? If you got a divorce, it was like, ooh, something's wrong with her.

Marceline just decided that she was gonna stick it out or at least try to understand exactly what Jim did believe in, or maybe she could like convert him, you know? Often Jim would take Marceline to the local black and African-American churches that were in their city

Jim said that he was like really drawn to them because it wasn't so stiff. The white churches he had been to, they were just so boring and people just seemed like they had to be there versus wanting to be there. But at the black and African-American churches, people there were jumping, singing, dancing during worship and just seemed to be having a really fun time and not acting like they had to be there.

So when Jim found these churches, he just fell in love and he knew that this is where he had to be. The one church that he ended up like becoming a member of, they welcomed him and his wife with open arms. And in 1952, Jim was 21 years old at that time, he was actually hired as a student pastor for the church.

Jim just found like this new calling. Remember he was like, "I'm gonna be a nurse or something." Well now he was like, "I'm gonna be a pastor." Yeah, so this was his new calling. He was gonna be a pastor.

So Jim was a student pastor for about a year. He would just kind of grow frustrated because he wanted to do his own thing versus being told what to do. So he was like, I'm gonna open up my own church and I'm gonna open it up in Indianapolis. So he did just that. And he liked the freedom of it because preach what he wanted to preach and not be told what he had to do. He didn't want to be told what to do.

At Jim's church, he pretty much blended Christianity with a new age spirituality and radical social justice, which attracted a very loyal following. Now Jim's congregation was known for being racially integrated, which was not a thing yet at this time. There were white churches and then there were the black churches and there wasn't such thing as like mixing going on.

But Jim didn't like that and he truly believed that everybody was equal and he wanted everybody welcome in his church. His wife Marceline also worked alongside with him and she was the one who was on top of like all the paperwork and keeping things organized, schedule like this Sunday we're gonna talk about this, that Sunday we're gonna talk about

I don't know, Jesus doing stuff. The next Sunday we're gonna talk about Jesus doing more stuff. So she was in charge of that. The church itself was very successful and the location that they were staying at, it was becoming way too small for all of their new members. So they were looking into expanding into a much larger area. So the current area that Jim's church was in, it was a low-income community.

and he knew like he couldn't ask the community or the members for money or donations to get a bigger place because he knew like a lot of them were struggling. Instead, he needed a better plan. Better plan, he needed a better plan. And his plan was to up his performance.

That's a good plan, right? Jim needed to wow the crowds and he could do this by performing miracles, right? I mean, that's how you wow a crowd. Miracles? You got miracles at your church? Wow. So Jim would command people in the crowd, you know, he'd call random people and he'd be like, I command your headache to vanish. And it would. Or he would command coughs to stop.

He knew that people wouldn't believe his miracles right off the bat until he had gained their trust. So he started with coughs and headaches, right? He started small. But Jim would declare that these people were healed. He would be yelling, heal.

by the power of God has granted through him. It's really like amping everybody up. Like it's a concert. He's like, yeah, healed. Word got out. I mean, people were talking, hey, this guy over here, he's healing headaches. You gotta go see him. It's wild. And people were coming in and Jim would then, this is where the money comes in. He was passing around the collection plates and that's how he started making more and more and more

more money and he was like, oh shit, I'm onto something here you guys. Now it's said that like Jim didn't feel fully guilty, I guess, because like he wasn't doing anything bad, was he? Yeah. So he was making a lot of money all of a sudden. Jim would occasionally go to different like local churches and do little guest spots. Going around to these different churches and whatnot, it was also introducing Jim to a bigger crowd.

Jim knew that going to these new churches, and people didn't know who he was, that they weren't going to believe his healings right out the gate, you know? So he instead let a few close people in on like what was really going down with his healing powers. Oh yeah. So Jim would bring in friends, people who attended his own church, and use them as audience plants.

who would pretend to be suffering from something and then be healed. For example, one couple from the audience like stood up and like talked to the rest of the church and said, "Oh, we used to have like a serious heart defect and because of Jim, we are all better, cured, wow." And it was just to prove to the other audience members that again, he could heal. I mean, it worked, people were like,

His feelings evolved over time from small things like again the headaches and whatnot to now curing cancer. At one church he brought in an audience plant and the person who was cured would jump up and down and they would be celebrating that they were cured even though they never had cancer in the first place, the whole thing is fucked up. But because of his new fame he was bringing in more money

a lot of money, and now he could upgrade to a bigger building. So Jim purchased a larger building that could hold up to 700 people, and this was in Indianapolis. This time his church was called Community Unity, but this new-

Community unity. I like that actually, why'd he change it? Oh, I know, I know, I'm about to tell you. Because the new building that he moved into already had the word temple carved into stone on the outside of the building. It was a Jewish congregation before that. But that's when Jim just decided to name it the People's Temple.

So during this time, economic segregation was deep-seated in Indianapolis, and Jim made it his goal to integrate African Americans and the black community into every aspect of Indianapolis. Jim was passionate about

equality and he would go with some of his church members, kind of like a mixture of people and they would go to local white owned restaurants and shops and fight for their equality. So a lot of shop owners would tell Jim like, no, we don't want black people here.

Jim decided to use the church members and himself, not even use, I mean, they wanted to because they would have peaceful protests in front of the restaurants until eventually the shop owners or the restaurant owners gave in and served all races. Now, here was the interesting part that I didn't even know about and I thought it was

Very interesting. When businesses actually agreed to allow everybody into the restaurants or business, Jim said that he would give them hundreds of customers and he would make sure that they made tons of money because they allowed this to happen.

So Jim would hand out flyers to his church members with a list, it had a list of restaurants who supported them and would accept African-Americans or the black community equally into their business. So they had this good list going and also all of the members went there

These businesses benefited from this advertising and word spread that like, "Hey, if you cooperate with Jim Jones over here and his church, you'll make mad money. So just let the people in." And his church people became some of the best friends a small businessman could have because they were making money. The whole story, I mean, I'm obviously giving you just like a little breakdown. This is a side note.

I'm giving you, it's very vague, you know? But oh, he really like went out there and they would have their, where's my brain? What is this? Am I churning butter? What is this? The sign, the peaceful protest. And just standing with the sign outside of these businesses and fighting for equality. And Jim was really passionate about it. And he went to many restaurants and businesses and he was dedicated to this.

So Jim presented himself as the voice of reason and went after more businesses to change their policies pretty much to keep the community segregated. Remember how earlier in the story I said he would go out and preach on the streets? He was preaching about equality for all because the community, the city was still very segregated. And as a teenager, I mean, it's just like, wow.

So in 1965, Jim, his wife, I think they had kids by this time. Oh my gosh, wow Bailey. Anywho, but they moved to Ukiah, California and they put money towards a new place to hold the people's temple. About 50 to 60 church members did follow the church out to California, which is what they were hoping for. In the year 1969, Jim's church wasn't as popular as he was hoping it would be by then.

So Jim was really feeling down and sad because it wasn't popping like he thought. And also on top of that, the marriage between his wife of 20 years, Marceline, it wasn't going well, it was cracking. The couple at this point, they had four children, one of them was their biological child and three were adopted. Jim was just fully focused on his church, you know,

And obviously Marceline put her focus on her children. Jim ended up having an affair with one of his much younger church member fangirls. And this was going against everything that he was preaching. He would be telling the audience members like, you know, don't, don't cheat on your wife or husband. It's wrong. It's a sin, blah, blah, blah. So...

Of course, Jim is doing this himself and he's thinking like shit, if the church members find out that I'm having an affair, it would be game over. So instead, he went to his wife, Marceline and told her the truth. Marceline had some,

issues with her back, which had left her bedridden most of the days. And because of this, she wasn't able, she wasn't able to sexually satisfy him because her back hurt. Well, I'm sorry. It was more, it wasn't just like her back hurt. She was bedridden and like, yeah. So she wasn't able to sexually satisfy him.

So Jim told Marceline, "I love you, I still wanna be married to you, it's just, you know, look, I have this girl on the side who's going to give me the sexual part of the relationship that you can't provide for me." Jim was able to set it up in a way that made Marceline understand and just accept it. It was just sex, and not an emotional relationship. So Marceline's like, "Okay, I guess."

I don't think she really even had any option to be honest. What was she gonna say? No, and then what? Leave him? Where is she gonna go? I mean her whole life revolved around the church and Jim. She honestly, from what I read, it seemed like she didn't have anything set up for herself. So it's like she, even if she wanted to leave, even if she did leave, it was like, what was she gonna do? But then get this, get this.

Jim then went to his church and he told the members what was going on and he just kept it honest. Got up there and said, "Hey everybody, God is good and so are 19 year olds." Hey, up top.

So Jim went to his church and just told them what was going on. I'm having an, I'm sleeping with this chick over there. She's right there, everybody. I'm having an affair. And he was just really honest. But Jim's followers, the church members, they actually really understood and they supported the decision. The church had a lot of ups and downs throughout the years, but Jim just kept going.

In March of 1970, he had a pretty good size following and was bringing in some good money again. Jim would travel with some members to Los Angeles and Seattle, where he drew crowds in hopes to bring more people and attention to the People's Temple.

So he was traveling a little bit further to perform these miracles that he was doing. He would set up temporary booths outside venues where he would give sermons and sell photos of himself for five dollars. And he was also healing people at these sermons, so people were just like "Wow, have you seen this Jim Jones guy?" "I was trying to get some bread at the store, stopped and saw him do this like thing, bought a five dollar picture of him."

You know, and like people were just talking. I mean, he was getting a lot of hype. During this time, Jim would have the people who were watching the sermon fill out paperwork with like their name and mailing address on it, which they would turn into him when they were done filling it out. He ended up using that

As marketing material, he would mail people pamphlets about what was going on in the church, all the healings that they had accomplished, and also received donations through the mail because he was doing such big, great things. At his church, they never actually asked for money, they never asked for donation, well,

And they kind of did, they're like, "Hey, if you wanna donate, you can, but you don't have to." People were still donating money constantly. And because of the influx of money that they were getting, the People's Temple decided to open up stores. Yes, stores. Where people or members could donate items they no longer

So essentially like a Salvation Army or Goodwill and they would sell secondhand clothing there. And a lot of the church members would work there as well, work at the store. Also, they would serve free meals in low income areas. And one of the most impressive programs was one that

sent teens to college who couldn't afford it. So the people's temple, they would use their donation money again to pay for college for people who couldn't afford it, but it covered books, tuition, and they also purchased houses, which they ended up remodeling into dormitories. So the students had free housing and meals. Like it was, it seemed, I mean,

I was like, wow, good for you. So they had some very impressive programs. Now eventually the People's Temple would establish permanent churches in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many of the people who worked at the churches were members who then stepped up and felt the calling to be a part of what Jim was doing. Jim would put forward a list

fear into his followers, telling them that racists were trying to shut them down and were threatening to harm them. So the mentality among the followers was said to be, quote, if you don't agree with us, we're going to convince you. If we can't convince you, you're the enemy, end quote. Which a lot of people have this mentality now, am I right? Can I get an amen? God is good. God is good. Okay, sorry.

So over time, Jim became more and more controlling or judgmental towards followers who did not spend all of their time dedicated towards the temple. So going out to a movie was prohibited and it was better to give that money directly to the church. Like why are you going to see that movie? You should be donating that to the church, you know? Like just making them feel better.

So Jim also discouraged romantic relationships because it was distracting. They should be at the church. He also told them that they shouldn't be drinking or doing drugs because it weakened the will as well as the body. Couples who joined the church were allowed to remain that way, but time together was limited by temple chores and duties. It kind of, duties, duty.

It kind of sounds like Scientology. He would keep them busy around the church, making them clean, making them just do shit, and they would do it. And his followers did pretty much whatever he asked of them. Part of the reason was belief in the temple and its purposes.

So then the people's temple ended up buying a bunch of buses, it was like about a dozen buses, and they would make trips from San Francisco to Los Angeles, then Seattle, and while on the road Jim would make appearances at different churches, wowing them with, you know, his healing powers, and he was also preaching and fighting for equality. The healings were always a high point, and still he was using insiders to be healed.

from the audience. Jim would also sometimes call out names from an index card announcing that this person was unaware of a cancer that was in their system. And then a temple nurse would be dispatched into the crowd to swab out the person's throat in preparation for Jim's healing. So they would like open up their mouth, you know, and like swab it, try and clean it. But in this process, the nurse, she had a little bit

or she or he or she had a little bit of chicken liver like in their hand and they would drop it into the person's mouth when they were swabbing. Naturally, the person would gag and cough it back up like, "What the fuck?" And the nurse would then be like, "Oh my God, spit it out, spit it out into my hand." And then they would spit it out into their hand. The nurse would call it the cancer. She'd be like, "Look everybody, the cancer."

and she would be, he or she, I'm sorry, 'cause sometimes it was a guy too. They would be showing the cancer off to the audience, AKA the chicken liver, like, oh my God, you guys look, this just came out of him. And then Jim would start yelling to spit it out and that their life has been

I mean, he had his tricks. It worked, it worked. So around 1971, this is when Jim began abusing drugs on a regular basis. He would use pills and liquids to provide boosts of energy during the day or in the morning. And then at nighttime, he would take something to help him sleep. Getting drugs was actually very easy for him because some of his followers could provide prescriptions to Jim no problem.

Jim said that it was pretty easy to hide the fact that he was doing drugs in the first place from his followers, but soon Jim would become like very short-tempered and his eyes were constantly red and watery, which is what led him to wearing the infamous dark sunglasses 24/7. He was wearing them all the time.

Now Jim at first to members, he was very kind, caring, genuine, wanted to help people, seemed like a good person. Once he started doing drugs, that's when he was becoming just very mean, possessive, controlling, psycho, just paranoid, everything. So I'm sure there were members out there who probably put the pieces together, but for the most part, most members didn't really question it, I guess. So Jim's wearing his dark sunglasses 24 hours a day,

And Jim told his followers that he was wearing the sunglasses because his inner powers were so great that the holy energy often glowed from his eyes and his followers, if they looked at him directly, the holy glow would be on his face.

burn them and they could die. And they believed it. So they were like, "Okay." Also a side effect from his drug abuse was Jim's heightened sense of paranoia. Jim would preach to his followers that the government was a danger to them, and that the FBI and CIA were tapping the Temple's phone line. Jim would tell his followers that they all needed to be on constant alert, which caused fear, and the followers felt just like really nervous,

Scared, they thought that they were going to be a target of some kind of attack. The Holy Spirit in my eyes will burn them and we will be protected. The church members would call Jim and his wife Marceline mom and dad, and their relationship was very close with the church. Jim and Marceline, they were very frugal, man.

They never drove like a new car, they drove like an old speed up wagon I believe, but they never got new clothes, they only shopped from the secondhand store that they were running. Jim would say that he never wanted to give the impression to his church that he was better than them and that he was one of them. Like see, I'm not spending any money, I'm not spending any church money on myself or for things, it all went back to the church.

Over time, Jim's drug problem increased and he would go on to have numerous affairs with other members and believed that he needed more sex with a variety of partners. And his ego was just increasing. He believed all women, regardless of their age and whether they would admit it or not, but he believed that all women were attracted to him. He was like,

They all want me. Eventually almost all of the women in Jim's inner circle would become his sexual partner. They even considered it part of their duties to have sex with him. Why do they do this? Why do cult members always have to have sex with everybody all the

Like why, why do you have to do this? Is that why people start cults? So they could just literally have sex with tons of people. Cause that's how, like how it seems. So time goes on and Jim knew that he needed to do bigger and better things for his followers. And he was also now looking for somewhere that he could call the promised land where him and his followers could live safely and freely.

without the worry of attack from the FBI or the CIA. Few members went out looking for permanent missionary location and in October of 1973, they determined that Guyana, South America would be the most suitable place. Its location was convenient, boats could make an easy trip from Miami to Guyana's capital of Georgetown, which was a port city.

and Jim wanted complete isolation for his new mission and Guyana was perfect for that. I mean, they had a population around 850,000, but most of them lived along the Atlantic coast and the majority of Guyana was covered with dense jungle. There were no connecting roads to the area where the people's temple would be built. Jim told his followers that the promised land mission site was a place where

everyone in the temple would go to avoid American martial law and concentration camps that would be soon taking over. He was preaching this to his church members, telling them that this was going to happen, that the CIA and the FBI were onto them, that they were gonna come in with a bunch of guns and kill them all, like he was putting fear into his followers every like meeting, just saying something, you know, and people were getting just paranoid with him.

Finally, in May of 1977, Jonestown was open and ready for the members. People slowly started making their way out there. They had cottages set up for people to live in, but unfortunately there weren't enough for the hundreds of people that showed up.

Most of the followers all chipped in and helped build more cottages. The goal was to create a self-sustaining utopia. Jim was in complete control over everything. There was no crop planted, no tools purchased without his approval. If any of the followers wanted to be in a romantic relationship and be like...

they needed to apply for permission first. If any of the couples wanted to break up or end their relationship, it also had to be approved through Jim as well. Any incoming mail was opened and read before being passed on to the person it was addressed to.

Outgoing mail was also censored. If there were letters that said anything bad about Jonestown, or even just kind of slightly like, "Hey, there aren't enough cottages." The letter wouldn't be sent out, and the follower, whoever wrote the letter saying something bad, would be forced to rewrite their letter, only giving glowing reviews of their stay in Jonestown.

I kind of forgot to mention. So when Jonestown like was first being built and whatnot, there were church members who went out there and built it. It took a long time, but during that time, that's when Jim was kind of preaching to his members like, hey, we're having this being built, start saving your money, we're going out there.

The people who wanted to go, went. There were also a lot of members who didn't go. They weren't forced to go at all, and I'm not trying to come off as me like victim blaming at all, you know like, "Oh they went on their own free will." No, I mean they heavily believed in what Jim was preaching, but there were a lot of members who decided like, "I'm not gonna go."

But Jim was like teasing it for a long time in the church about what was going on and how it was being built and whatnot. So people were just getting really hyped about it because they made it sound like it was gonna be this an amazing place. Privacy at Jonestown was non-existent. There was no privacy. Many of the cottages were overcrowded. People on top of that just like kept

showing up to Jonestown, but there was nowhere for them to stay. There was limited water available for showers and people were told to keep their mouths closed while showering because the water was polluted. Meanwhile, Jim over here, Jim, he had a much nicer cabin, you know, and he lived in his cabin with his wife and a couple of mistresses. They had a generator, for starters, that powered a refrigerator and some fans and his bedroom.

and then he had some like soft beds. Meanwhile everyone else is just miserable because they don't have any of that. He also had a camp radio that was set up in his room. It was more of like an intercom system because he would make like announcements to the people outside in the community. So he didn't even have to leave his room, he could talk to them like directly through there. That's probably why he got fat.

So Jonestown was actually being funded by his followers social security checks that were coming in through the mail, but overall money was tight and the social security checks weren't enough. So many of the followers began manufacturing toys, which were cars and trains, but they were carved from wood.

And then they would be sent out to Georgetown and sold there, which actually brought in some money, but it wasn't enough to like what they needed it for, like more cottages and proper food because food was running out and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were what the

people were living off of. Also beverages were limited. They would usually drink water or Kool-Aid because it was inexpensive and could easily be mixed in with water. Jim would reward his followers with a single cookie on Sundays. I'm sorry, but like,

Thanks for the cookie. Anyone who was a rule breaker would be forced to sleep and eat separately from the rest of the followers. They were also required to run everywhere. The people who, the rule breakers. They were required to run everywhere and no one was allowed to speak or even look at them.

The Jonestown population grew to over 900 people, which is a great amount, that's a lot of people, you know? And all were required to attend nightly meetings. At these meetings he would sometimes preach, but more often he gave his personalized accounts of recent US and world news, most of which was made up with his imagination, which would carry on until two or three in the morning.

His imagination was keeping everyone up. It was drugs, it was probably the drugs. The people of Jonestown worked every day until 6:00 PM while music would be playing over the loudspeaker system. But over time, Jim was growing more and more frustrated that there wasn't much progress being made within Jonestown. And the followers were becoming more unhappy with their new lives because there wasn't, it was too crowded and there wasn't enough food. They were eating a single cookie. They were eating peanut butter and, obviously they're not happy.

Sadly though, it was not easy for them to leave. Their passports were locked up, and if you wanted to leave, you had to pay for it yourself. Nobody was making their own money, and any money that was coming in was being taken away by Jim to fund Jonestown. So they just felt, or they,

essentially were trapped. Some of the followers were able to sneak away and escape, and a few others could afford to leave, but were made to sign a contract stating that they would never speak against the church. Some members who were able to escape did speak up, some spoke to the media about their experience and what they thought of the church. This would lead to more newspapers covering the story and

speaking out against the practices of Jim Jones. Of course, Jim told his followers back at Jonestown that troops were coming to take away the children and that everyone had to fight because an attack was coming. He had gotten word that the US was looking into him because people were speaking up and saying like people are trapped out there. So yeah, they essentially were coming,

but Jim twisted it and said that they were coming to kill them and stuff. His followers only got news from Jim himself, so they really had no idea what was going on in the media or that people were speaking out about Jonestown. Tons of guns were then being smuggled into Jonestown over time. Jim had put together a security team who set up around the town. They were set up to protect from attacks, but

low-key they were there to keep everybody in. The followers were becoming scared because the security was now threatening to hurt them if they didn't follow any of the rules. Instead of protecting Jonestown from the outsiders, they were attacking their own people. If people tried to get out of Jonestown, the security would shoot

In February of 1978, Jim called all the people in to gather for an emergency meeting where he told the people that soldiers were coming to attack Jonestown, that the CIA was onto them, and that they would attack in a matter of hours. Their intention was to kill all of the followers living in Jonestown, including the children.

That's how you get them. The children know. Jim told them rather than they be killed at the hands of these monsters, that they must take their own lives instead. That by doing this, it would rob their enemies of any triumph.

Some of the followers agreed that this was the best idea, but others who were just worn out with all the BS, just wanted to leave. Large containers were brought out and they were filled with like this weird dark liquid. Everyone was told to line up, fill a cup,

and drink. This drink mixture would kill them in about 40 minutes. Jim was preaching while the followers were forced to drink the poison and told them their deaths would be peaceful. When everyone had swallowed their drinks, Jim told them, quote, "You didn't take anything."

End quote. And that it was all a test to see if they were truly willing to die for the cause. As a reward, the loyal followers were off for the rest of the day. It was said that nobody stood up or got upset with Jim for this, and that the true believers accepted what Jim had done. So it was just a test.

LOL. This was the moment Jim knew he had complete control over his people. He really wanted to test them and he did it. The fact that they were willing to die just because he told them to, he was like, bug.

Yeah, so I'm sure I don't know because again I wasn't there but I'm sure that really just boosted his ego to say the least. During all of this Jim was still doing drugs and was becoming more and more paranoid because back in the US parents of people living in Jonestown were concerned by strange

letters they were receiving or the fact that they had received no letters at all. Many people went to authorities and pressed them to investigate Jonestown. Please get my sons there, my daughters, they're like please look into this. In November of 1978, US Congressman Leo Ryan, he traveled to Guyana to inspect the people's temples

and the Jonestown compound itself. He was investigating rumors that some members of the cult were being held against their will and were being subjected to physical and psychological abuse. Leo arrived to Jonestown on November 17th and planned to return home that following day. When he went into Jonestown,

they all were on their best behavior to try and impress him, make sure this congressman had nothing but good things to say about Jonestown, and at the end of the day, Leo was done, and was going to hop in his truck, drive out to a small plane nearby, and then head back to the US. While he was leaving, walking to his car, there were several temple members who asked if they could get a ride with him,

with him because they wanted to leave and he agreed, so they jumped into his car and headed back to where the airplane was so they could go back to the US. Now the security who was there protecting Jonestown saw that this was happening

and because they were trained or brainwashed or just bad people, they believed that these members were being taken. You know, that Jim was right, like oh my god, the CIA guy did come and like take these people or whatever and they're gonna be murdered. So instead, the security ended up shooting at the truck to try and prevent them from taking the followers and just trying to get them to stop. Luckily, the people in the truck were able to drive off unhurt

but now there was like this sense of urgency to get the fuck out of there um they're shooting at us we gotta go like we gotta go so they get to the airstrip about to hop on to this small plane but sadly some of the followers slash security showed up um at the airstrip with their weapons tons of guns they shot and attacked the people who were trying to leave and they ended up

killing five people, including the congressman and three other members of the press who were with him, and 11 people were wounded. At around 4:00 PM, Jim spoke over the camp loud speaker to his followers announcing a meeting in the

pavilion. Inside the people's temple, they recorded almost all of Jim's sermons and any meetings they had, which they had hundreds of thousands of tapes. Oh my gosh. But sadly, that means that they taped their last and final meeting. Jim told the people that he tried to give them the best life and that one of the people on the plane was going to shoot the pilot and it would be blamed on the people of Jonestown.

and it would soon bring their enemies into town. The people had no idea about what happened at the airstrip. Jim knew because the security team came back and told him, but he spinned it and made it sound, you know, one person was hurt, just one. Jim told the people that he had a solution, that he would spare the children from enslavement and the seniors from slaughter. Jim said that it was time for them to drink the potion.

that they were not committing suicide, but that it was a revolutionary act. Many of the members refused to move or beg to be let go, they didn't want to like drink this poison. A few people in the poison line thanked Jim for all that he'd done for them. All of the followers drank the poisoned flavor aid mix,

All of this was captured on the tape recording as well. You can listen to it, but I'm just giving you a little disclaimer. It's gonna ruin your day. It's gonna ruin your week. It's gonna ruin your month. It's horrifying. It's awful. And I don't recommend it, but I know there's a lot of you curious cats out there who are, but just know, just know it's horrible. It's just, oh, ugh. So the next day, the Guyana Defense Force troops went into Jonestown and found...

A horrific scene. There were bodies everywhere. Some of them had markings where the poison was injected. It's believed that these people who had these injection marks refused to drink the poison and were held down and instead it was injected into their bodies. Oh my gosh. They found Jim's body sprawled out on stage in the pavilion. Jim and one of his mistresses

don't know why, were the only ones who died from a gunshot wound to the head rather than the poison. I guess Jim just wanted to get it over with, what a dick. Originally the local Guyanese government had reported about 383 deaths and word had got back

to the U.S. where the media was covering the story. So soon after that, American troops went out to Jonestown to investigate. Soon, more and more bodies were found and a week after the tragic event, the death total came to 909 deaths. 909. 909. That's a lot of people.

This is a side note. When I first heard about Jonestown, I mean, I don't know how old I was or whatever, but in my mind, when I think of a cult, I think like five to 10 people, you know, like, which is still sad. It's still awful, but 909 people, that's a fuck.

He, wow, wow, you know, like that's insane. I just, I still can't wrap my head around it. It's just insane. Investigators ended up searching the compound and over 60,000 printed pages plus several hundred tape recordings were taken and the FBI spent hours upon hours going through it all. Also in Jim's cottage, they found around $700,000 in suitcases. What were you doing with it?

Also, he had a bunch of different bank accounts which had money in it. Like this guy had millions of dollars. No idea what his plan was. Obviously he wasn't spending it on Jonestown. Months were spent trying to identify the victims. Some were identified through fingerprints and if they got lucky, dental records. But most of the victims hadn't been to a dentist in years. Many of them were too badly decomposed to identify, even though it had only been about a week.

but the heat and humidity had decomposed the bodies at a rapid rate. Sadly, 409 bodies were never identified. The Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California offered ground for a mass grave where

The 409 people were laid to rest on May 11th, 1979. All of Jim Jones' churches were seized and closed down as well as the many, many bank accounts he had hiding over $7 million. All the money was seized by the government and was used to repay the victims' families. The events at Jonestown constituted

the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the tragic incidents of 9/11. Many of the family members of the victims tried to sue and tried to get money from Jonestown estate and whatnot. And also they were trying to sue because they were trying to get help from the government to search this place in the first place and nobody did. So there were a lot of lawsuits to

And also there were a lot of different members of the church who were being sued. There's a lot more to it as well than just this. But for the most part, that is the awful, horrifying, tragic story about Jonestown. Jim Jones, I don't know what the fuck happened to him because he started off so good. I don't know what, I think it was the drugs. I think money and drugs just completely

derailed him. Money and drugs tend to do this to a lot of people. Money for sure does this to people. I was reading a biography about Jim Jones and truly it sounded like he started off as an amazing person with a great goal in life to really help and serve people. And then it seems maybe when the drugs, the drugs and the money is where he went off track, but it's just like, I don't know what happened.

happen? Greed, money and drugs, I guess. I guess that's the answer. I just can't believe those things can truly make somebody do this. I appreciate you guys so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. Please make good choices. I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye.