"It's not--such a bad experience," he says. After the massacre, Layton strolled back to the area. The dreams have never left him. It was just more controlled. "I remember being afraid when he started talking about it, and getting butterflies," he says. 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. 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. We're talking 30 people, but that's a lot of people to be looking over your shoulder.". I had been hammered for years with the message that there was an outside threat, and from an early age my father talked about people wanting to bomb us. I know Ive reached a better place and I dont fear lapsing back into the darkest times, but its a daily process and one that Im grateful to have.. Reporters were hearing disturbing allegations about Jim Jones' church--there were stories of beatings, armed guards, extensive sexual activity. This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. 'They're in deep trouble now,' observed one of the relatives who had accompanied us. I could still hear the groaning and crying of the targets. What they said. 29. This November 1978 file photo shows the Peoples Temple compound, led by Jim Jones, after bodies were removed, in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones had said as a tropical storm rained on the Peoples Temple pavilion. Recent interviews with Stephan include: Son of Anarchist: My Father, Jim Jones, and What the World Can Still Learn From Him, by Moran Sharir, Haaretz, January 22, 2019. In this March 5, 2018 photo released by Kevin Kunishi, Jordan Vilchez sits at memorial for mass murder and suicide victims at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana. My companion, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, would be murdered in an ambush. ", Stephan Jones spent three months in a Guyana jail after the November deaths, imprisoned there while Guyanese authorities tried to determine who had killed the devoted Peoples Temple aide Sharon Amos and her three children, all of whom were found with their throats slashed in the Georgetown Temple headquarters on the day of the suicides. 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Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. "I don't even know who my loved ones were with when they died," he says softly. present) (3 children). STEPHAN Gandhi Jones is - in the eyes of the world - the son of a mass murderer. Jordan Vilchezs parents were Berkeley progressives in the 1960s her father African-American, her mother Scotch-Irish. We demanded to see the locked buildings where some members lived in crowd, uncomfortable conditions. Then it was boxing matches for adults. NBC reported that Stephan Jones was the vice president for an office installation company in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008. Yesterday morning 100 Guyanee troops came by train from Matthews Ridge, walking the last several miles as a precaution against sabotage or attack. 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 Nov. 18, 1978. More than a few bottles of rum were consumed or poured on wounds. I dont know about the inner circle but many of us, and even my brother Tim, when he turned to my side, he wanted to kill my father, he was so angry. And I dont know if it was paranoia. 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 Nov. 18, 1978. Mud made the truck bed slick, so everyone clung to the sideboards. Alongside it was a red tractor and trailer seen earlier at the mission. They are amused; they embrace him. He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. This November 1978 file photo shows the bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana. File photo: A vat that contained a drink laced with deadly cyanide sits on a sidewalk at Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, November 20, 1978. Stephan Jones is a Jonestown survivor. To just be somewhere with a machete, in khakis, and just decide I wanted to go somewhere and cut myself a trail." The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. Jim Jr., followed that July and was 16 years old at the time. 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." 1998-11-08 04:00:00 PDT JONESTOWN, GUYANA-- "My father was a fraud."- Stephan Gandhi Jones, son of Jim Jones A lone palm tree stands where Jim Jones exhorted his followers to die for him, but the . Stephan Jones is a Jonestown survivor. And Smiths wife, son and mother died. Jones berated three other new arrivals for misbehaviour on the trip; they were beaten and forced to work 24 hours straight. He would rise before dawn, pick his way into the bush, and sit without moving as the quiet around him split slowly into bird cries and insect buzzing and the scuffling and calling of creatures he could not see. Meanwhile, the tractor, with several men in the trailer, rolled toward the terminal shack and halted a short distance away. But he was also very loving, especially during the early period'. It's like my hurt for them, or my missing them, is the only thing I have left of them." A while later, the young temple escort on the tailgate shook his head and said: 'I don't understand why they did it this way. And he just went unchecked. He has taken a lead role in a 40th Jonestown anniversary memorial to be held Sunday at Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery, where remains of unclaimed and unidentified victims are buried. They were playing in a tournament in Georgetown, Guyana about 150 miles from Jonestown and were still in Guyana's capital when the murder-suicide occurred. The picture, he recalls, was about hit men. The temple really became my family, she said. And to have any fray in that fabric would cause an unraveling that he couldnt handle.. It was Harris who had been contacted by the first two groups of temple members expressing a desire to leave. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. Cobb lost 11 relatives that day, including his mother, youngest brother and four sisters. I heard a few more shots and saw the tractor pull away. Or lost touch with reality? The younger man demanded that everyone in the truck move aside. Though it was a stalemate, the incident intensified an already strained situation. The shots still were popping at an amazing clip. As the larger plane landed, the temple truck, with several persons in the back, started to advance. I stopped and listened. Court Records. 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. Toward Nov. 18 they crowd up faster and closer, but even in the spring and summer, when the anniversary is tucked safely off on the other side of the year, even then he cannot keep the dreams away. Other people were injured. He dreams he sees the men and women he knew, older now, changed by the years. 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 was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. . He is an actor, known for Written in Blood (2018), The People's. "It's like you went to a vacation in Europe and found out the United States had sunk," he says. She was the adoptive daughter of Rev. Four decades later, Americans often use this phrase in political and business contexts without knowing its origin. Stephan Jones believes his father must have killed himself: that he could not leave his own shooting to someone else. 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. He was in Georgetown, Guyana on November 18, 1978 with the Jonestown Basketball Team. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife, Erin, raised three sons. My arm was gushing blood so I stripped off my belt and pinched down the biggest wounds. "I'd go back in a minute. He imagines the guards with guns, and the sky clouding over, and the air suddenly wild with fear, and the sight of the children. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. "I don't care what you think of my father," Jones wrote in 2015. mode: 'thumbnails-rr', In the days before Ryans fact-finding mission to the settlement, the players were in Georgetown for a tourney with the Guyana national teams. That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time. }); window._taboola = window._taboola || []; They were shooting to kill, not just to stop us from leaving. Don't take my baby!'. He also made sure that the other disciples who were in the capital would do nothing hasty. I tried to fire - but nothing happened.'. Stephan escaped death with the Jonestown basketball team, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. Were you aware that you had a very different childhood than most? container: 'taboola-right-rail-thumbnails', He asked me to make one last mission with him to Jonestown. And then he went to my mother. ", He does not think he loved his father even a little by then, but blood tied them in some way he did not entirely understand, and leaving was unimaginable. 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. In code, his father told him everyone was going to die in revolutionary suicide., I argued with my Dad, he said. 'I believe that it was always a personal agenda for my father, and yes, there was a gradual shift in the balance. Sadly we were finally at a point where I felt I had enough support and we decided that we were going to take action'. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. Then two Guyanese medical evacuation planes flew us to the capital city of Georgetown, where a U.S. Air Force C-141 took us to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., stopping off on their way at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base in Puerto Rico. Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Siblings by adoption include Agnes Paulette Jones (1943-1978); Stephan Gandhi Jones(Born 1959); Jimmy Jones, Jr. aka James Warren Jones, Jr.(born 1960); and Timothy Tupper aka Timothy Glenn Tupper Jones, Tim "Day" Jones (1959-1978). She gives us the order that we were supposed to kill ourselves, Vilchez recalled. At the far end of the strip sat a yellow government plane. Rebelling, they refused Jones order to come back. He too was a member of the basketball team. They have three children. In his spare time he swims, or rides his bicycle, or lifts weights, or plays basketball. He went over the seats in a somersault and I flipped out of the plane with him. He was just 14, Stephan Jones and some other team members believe they might have changed history if they were there. In a recent interview, he revealed that he was sober. When the prodigals visited, the Cobbs kept it secret from Jones. Fear of an external threat was a major component of your fathers philosophy. With their lives, the story of Jonestown continues, even now. Every loud sound put us on edge, with some wondering aloud: 'Will they come back to finish us off?'. When more than 900 people were killed at Jonestown by consuming punch laced with cyanide on Nov. 18, 1978, Stephan was not at the settlement founded by his father. target_type: 'mix' The only surviving child of Jim Jones,Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. He dreams he is arguing with his father, arguing passionately, and although he knows his arguments are better, his father always wins. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings. When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. 'Destroyed,' he said, 'from within '. The temple was the only life he knew but says he always had his doubts. The bottom layer consisted of about 300 babies and small children whose bodies had been ravished by the humidity and jungle insects. 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 would have had to, especially if I saw other people doing it, and I right off the bat wasn't on top of things, and somehow wasn't right there starting some kind of--it's so hard--", Stephan Jones covers his face for a moment, fingers kneading his forehead. 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