Then he waits a while, until they have come to know him--the very tall young man with the kind voice and the black mustache. Vilchez returned to Jonestown for the first time in 40 years. container: 'taboola-right-rail-thumbnails', The Joneses adopted a black baby in Indiana in 1960, and Jim gave the 10-week-old infant his own name. They also killed their dogs. A black man with a 'corn rows' hairstyle came up to the rear of the truck. target_type: 'mix' Plunged into a new world, those raised in the temple or who joined as teens lost the only life they knew: church, jobs, housing - and most of all, family and friends. 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. "I just felt like this was all they had," he says. Stephan Jones' mother was one of those found dead from cyanide poisoning. He went over the seats in a somersault and I flipped out of the plane with him. I think there are different images being shown now, but its still too little, too late. "I was building me a place, too," he says. He fired at me, but it misfired. This return to the cult of Jim Jones is part of a re-examination of dangerous cults and movements in Americas past, like the Osho cult, which had a similar murderous potential. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. I just have to love him and forgive him.. He does not know. For a long time I thought they felt the convulsions before they died, until somebody assured me that you pass out before you feel the convulsions. 'She gives us the order that were supposed to kill ourselves,' Vilchez recalled. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalyn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. They have altogether three daughters. the whole thing he drove into people's minds for so long--I certainly don't mean to say that what happened was a sane act or that it was a good act, but--", Jones hesitates. But she wasn't in the truck and the men left. During that period, more than 900 people died including Stephans mom and some of his siblings. 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]. It would become a little town where people of all ages and colors raised food and children. Little Jimmy became part of their Rainbow Family of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, Calif. They moved forward slowly until one soldier bumped into an object on the ground. After Ollie became pregnant, she was sent to Jonestown; Eugene remained behind. It began with a note smuggled to us from two members. NBC reported that Stephan Jones was the vice president for an office installation company in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008. "I mellowed out." "I don't even know who my loved ones were with when they died," he says softly. But he said his discontent festered. Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. Many of his previous interviews echo what he discusses in Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre, but he has an intimate perspective to give when it comes to his father and mother, who both died during the event. 2007. Were you aware that you had a very different childhood than most? 'Little Jimmy' became part of their 'Rainbow Family' of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. 'This is really crazy,' he recalls thinking. In the past, Stephan has also been known as Stephan Gandhi Jones and Stephan G Jones. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings. Jones wasn't the same man. He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. And his sense of self resided in his perception of other peoples perception of him. 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. that one last act would be admitting he was a coward, and about nothing. They have three children. The shots still were popping at an amazing clip. 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). Did you notice a point or phase where your fathers behavior shifted and he lost touch with the just causes that he once championed? Heres How To Watch The Alex Murdaugh Trial Live, Morgan Doughty Filed A Lawsuit Against The Murdaugh Family, Sophie Turners Joan Charts The Rise Of A Famous British Jewel Thief, Alex Murdaugh Faces Life In Prison For Allegedly Killing His Wife & Son, Get Even More From Bustle Sign Up For The Newsletter. 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. He contacted the people at the San Francisco branch of the Peoples Temple and instructed them not to take action. He was a genius, and he was unique. "I wasn't there," he says. Garry (2007) and The Real Story (2002). "This is really crazy," he recalls thinking. By nightfall, the seriously wounded, some of them on litters provided by the community, were sheltered in army soldiers' tents. But it was too late. "Right off the bat I explain to them that my father was nuts, that he was a drug addict," he says. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. Jim Jones, pictured in 1976,dreamed up Jonestown. All the people who lay there around him had followed him. Jim Jones set off one of these panics every few weeks, sometimes keeping people awake all night as he shouted his warnings. Stephan is among one of the Late Jim Jones sons survivors and he is still disturbed by those past events. He says his daughters have seen him gnash his teeth when he talks about his father, but they also have heard him speak lovingly of the man who taught him compassion and other virtues. . The years are slowly weaning Stephan Jones from Jonestown; he reads, goes to movies, wants now to have a child of his own. To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. 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. And she could only sense the site of the pavilion, the once-vibrant centre of Jonestown life where so many died including her two sisters and two nephews. There, as part of Jones' personal security detail, Cobb saw the once captivating minister strung out on drugs. In this Nov. 5, 2018 photo, John Cobb poses for a portrait at the the Jonestown Memorial at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, Calif. They had nothing to go back to." 'Hit the deck!' But some lived. When the prodigals visited, the Cobbs kept it secret from Jones. Jonestown: It was the bodies that photographers favored most. He says his daughters have seen him gnash his teeth when he. "This is really crazy," he recalls thinking. 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. Marceline and Jim had one biological child together, and Stephan Jones appears in Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre. "They just needed this messiah, this purpose. Jim Jones. He was summoned to the temple radio room. Is Kristie Mewis Dating the Aussie Star Sam Kerr? At 16, she was put on the Planning Commission where the meetings were a strange mix of church business, sex talk and adulation for Jones. The reason that I have agreed to talk to as many people as I have is because of that. 29. ', 'I argued with my Dad,' he said. When one of Stephan Jones' adopted brothers once declared in a rage that they had to kill their father, Stephan remembers talking him out of it: "I said, 'God, you'd have chaos on your hands if you just went out and did this. He was summoned to the temple radio room. Mr. Jones -- his first name is pronounced Stephen; Marceline Jones spelled it Stephan to honour the memory of an adopted daughter, Stephanie, who died in a car accident -- claims to be. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part she played in the Peoples Temple, an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. View their profile including current address, phone number 415-785-XXXX, background check reports, and property record on Whitepages, the most trusted online directory. Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. 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. Jim Jones. 1931. And the temple was his life - first in Indiana, later in California. With those people surrounding him, constantly doing the right thing, and doing what he says, and you're surrounded by a combination of them and those people who don't neccessarily agree, but are acting like they agree . My companion, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, would be murdered in an ambush. Copyright 2017-2018 Free Articles by ecelebritymirror.com, All rights reserved. Each day's news bulletins compounded the already unimaginable: There were 400 bodies; there were 900 bodies; there were, in the precise wording of the American military men sent to investigate, "smaller bodies under larger bodies and children under those." 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. All I can do is tell what I saw and heard. They divorced when Jordan was 6. I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me, he said. The bodies surrounded a podium from which Jim Jones, aided by armed men to hold down the unwilling, had cried out in encouragement while men, women, and children drank red Flavor-Aid mixed with potassium cyanide. He was taking pain pills, and he said he was dying. After that I didnt sleep well last night., I wouldnt say therapeutic. You describe yourself in your writings as a rebellious kid. In an hour, that promise was broken.. All of us were falling and slipping through the mud around a six-wheel-drive dump truck that would take us (the congressional delegation, the press, the defectors and a group of concerned relatives of temple members) to the Port Kaituma airstrip. STEPHAN Gandhi Jones is - in the eyes of the world - the son of a mass murderer. Stephan was around 17 years old when he moved to Jonestown in February 1977 to help build the compound. After Ollie became pregnant, she was sent to Jonestown; Eugene remained behind. "I mellowed out. It makes him a little crazy sometimes. In "Raven," Reiterman and Jacobs describe the minister presenting the congregation with a batch of fruit punch: "We're going to drink poison and kill ourselves," Jim Jones declared, and it was not until many people had drunk that Jones said he had simply wished to test his followers' loyalty. This dismissive thinking was convenient because its hard to comprehend how so many people marched together to a certain and unnecessary death. Well, he was using these words, I dont know if hed actually do that, hes a good and gentle man in so many ways, but he wanted to take dad out, and I was the one to convince him that dad would do that himself and we were going to have chaos on our hands. ", Throughout the 40 years since the deaths at Jonestown, Stephan has been willing to give media interviews. Jones berated three other new arrivals for misbehavior on the trip; they were beaten and forced to work 24 hours straight. Court Records. Layton later was taken into custody by Guyanese authorities who seized a .38-caliber pistol and turned it over to U.S. Embassy officials. His body was found with a gunshot wound in the head. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. It marched for four jailed Fresno newsmen. stephan gandhi jones. Don't take my baby!'. He has taken a lead role in a 40th Jonestown anniversary memorial to be held Sunday at Oaklands Evergreen Cemetery, where remains of unclaimed and unidentified victims are buried. 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. I keep remembering what Jones had said in the pavilion. Volleys of shotgun, rifle and pistol fire kept coming. When Smith reunited with his mother and wife in Jonestown, Ollie was 8 months pregnant. White devil.' Outside of his career, he has discussed how he is spiritual in his personal life in interviews, like a 2007 one with Canada's The Globe and Mail though his beliefs are different than the fringe Christian ones his father once preached about. And it was necessary in my own healing for me to find acceptance for him, understanding of him. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. 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. Then they could identify and allow themselves to step into the story and understand how such a thing could happen. Jones himself, after some artfully applied pressure to the mayor's office, was appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority, where once-tedious meetings about public housing suddenly erupted into vigorous cheering sessions, with temple members applauding the pronouncements of Commissioner Jones. His father, finally, is beginning to let go. What Does Lindsey Horans Boyfriend Tyler Heaps Do For a Living? What would you say the biggest lesson is from Jonestown? She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco. 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. "People cant understand what was attractive about Dad", Get email notification for articles from Moran Sharir, The Jewish Guy Fighting the Legacy of the 'Wild Wild Country' Cult, Waco: The Jerusalem Revelation That Ended With 76 Dying in a Fire. He was within a few minutes and a few yards of accomplishing his goal: to get out temple members who were afraid to leave or possibly held against their will. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. There is little his father said or taught him then that stays with him now; his memory is of a man wandering around the house in his underwear or his pajamas, sleeping by day, watching the news or "Hogan's Heroes" on television and announcing that he could tell whether his son was lying simply by staring into his eyes. Jim Jones charismatic, volatile and ultimately evil. Every loud sound put us on edge, with some wondering aloud: 'Will they come back to finish us off?'. How do you explain the renewed interest in the Peoples Temple? Stephan Gandhi Jones was 19. A large poncho covered his belt area so no one knew for sure and no one challenged him. His handshake was weak. Stephan Jones did not drink. Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones dream after they attended a service in Fresno. He dreams he is in a crowd, and his father is talking about suicide. He said reporters would make the situation worse. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. And in his growing community near the town of Ukiah, Jim Jones preached to the faithful about communalism, racial equality, "apostolic social justice" and the power of belief. We got word that a temple member had grabbed the congressman, held a knife to his throat and told him he was going to slit it. According to former members, Jones would not tolerate defections from the mission project and many of the church members considered those who leave to be traitors. He has learned, he says, to understand his own resources and the depths of his emotions. So the second thing is this whole idea of drinking the Kool-Aid thats such a prevalent saying. 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