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. Jim was the Rev. And the temple was his life first in Indiana, later in California. 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.. Stephan Gandhi Jones was 19. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. In Indianapolis, he served as a student pastor in the Methodist Church in 1952 but. I think that we all know that in his final days he was certainly a villain, but there are people who just reach out to me because theyve come upon something Ive written and theyre able, through me, to see the humanity of it all. The guy you see in all the images. 29. He cries out, "My God, you're not dead!" This is really crazy, he recalls thinking. 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. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. 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. Altogether, 909 people died at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, by swallowing a grape-flavored beverage mixed with potassium cyanide, or from injections of poison. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco. He's too close to Jim Jones to leave.'. His son was not among the boosters. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part he played in an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. He made a promise once we get to Jonestown there is no corporal punishment, Smith said. Everyone participated in it and because of that, it went as far as it did, she said. He has learned to train a particular kind of eye on himself, on his own imposing presence, the handsome face, the instinct for gently taking hold of a conversation and pulling it where he wants it to go. But even Stephan Jones never imagined that death would come the way it did, so redolent of madness and evil, so savage that a kind of panic still crawls into his voice when he talks about it. 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This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. 'So much was attractive and unique that we turned a blind eye on what was wrong,' he said, including his father's sexual excesses, drug abuse and rants. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, California, November 13, 2008. And frankly, Im much more trusting of the reluctant leader, one who says Lets go and not Go.. Did You Know Soccer Player Crystal Dunns Husband Pierre Soubrier Is A Football Specialist? 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. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Stephan Gandhi Jonesis the son of the notorious religious cult leaderJim Jones. And I dont know if it was paranoia. The truck spun its wheels until a Caterpillar tractor tugged it into place for a downhill run. Greg's body was near the boarding steps with his camera bag and cameras scattered around him. The slaughter at Jonestown was the worst civilian tragedy in U.S. history before September 11, 2001. present) (3 children). "Right off the bat I explain to them that my father was nuts, that he was a drug addict," he says. Then-San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman was wounded in the airstrip shooting and flown to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where he wrote the following eyewitness account. What they said. He used this kind of threat to control his people. Stephanie was born in 1954 and died at a very early age of five in a car accident in May 1959. 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. He plucked my ego strings, making me feel like he needed me to help him on this mission, but I refused. They are amused; they embrace him. However, they have moved on with their life. Mud made the truck bed slick, so everyone clung to the sideboards. Which probably wasnt true. 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). And he would have arrived too late, anyway. Those who broke rules were disciplined. OAKLAND, Calif. Jonestown was the highlight of Mike Touchettes life for a time. "I don't think his own ego would let him run out on that toward the very end," he says. I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me, he said. Stephan Jones was 6 years old, the only biological child of James and Marceline Baldwin Jones, when his father moved from Indiana to northern California with his family and 140 of the parishioners who had come to believe there was something extraordinary about the Rev. To really understand Israel and the Middle East - subscribe to Haaretz, 'My father was ill from when he was very young and was using fear to control me when I was barely more than a toddler. Patricia Parks had had her head shattered before her husband's eyes. Photographer Greg Robinson (right)was one of the five people killed. Stephan Gandhi Jones, age 60s, lives in Petaluma, CA. He was 18 and running a temple construction crew when the church sanctioned his marriage to a talented 16-year-old singer, Ollie Wideman. Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, the first shot was fired. .' Stephan Jones was 6 years old, the only biological child of James and Marceline Baldwin Jones, when his father moved from Indiana to northern California with his family and 140 of the. Ryan clearly was in good spirits. "I say, 'Mom,' " Stephan Jones says, recalling a desperate mother-son huddle toward the end, " 'We're talking about a man who think's he's God. What Are Essential Oils and Do They Work. I think that Ill pick two. "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. Copyright 2017-2018 Free Articles by ecelebritymirror.com, All rights reserved. The rest of us were accommodated in a private home. STEPHAN Gandhi Jones is - in the eyes of the world - the son of a mass murderer. You used the word forgiveness, but I find love and compassion for him. 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. That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time. They have altogether three daughters. He went over the seats in a somersault and I flipped out of the plane with him. I believe 100% that not everyone would have been dead, he said. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. For years it was largely forgotten along with a number of other insanities in the United States in the 1970s. We couldn't know then that the grim little world of this sick man would shatter within hours, taking hundreds of his followers to their deaths. Not so many people died. He was a genius, and he was unique. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. In an hour, that promise was broken.. | That way no one else would want to live. Springing to my feet, I ran 40 yards across the runway. My mother got me an apartment, I got a job and my father came and tried to talk me into coming back. He will read it when he is ready, he says. Stephan Jones tells Haaretz about the man who would convince his followers to drink the Kool-Aid. "The media has done a poor job; theyve demonized him. "I just say something like, 'You remember Jonestown?' 1931. The temple was the only life he knew but says he always had his doubts. Published: 01:29 EST, 14 November 2018 | Updated: 12:15 EST, 14 November 2018. I thought there were reasons for people to want to get us. 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. People raced over to the outdoor pavilion. As the visitors prepared to return to the U.S., Peoples Temple gunmen ambushed them on a remote jungle airstrip killing the congressman, Leo Ryan; three newsmen; and a church defector. 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. 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. placement: 'Right Rail Thumbnails', The reports were wrong, they say. "I wasn't there," he says. Thank goodness he lived before me.". 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. 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. Most people were away at the time. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Other Works Gandhi is an Indian word meaning Pharmacist. It was easy to see and feel what was attractive about my father. You're not taking any more drugs." That way no one else would want to live. I would either have had to fight, or I would have taken it. At the temple-exit guard post, the truck was halted. Stephan seeks forgiveness for themselves and for his father. And there was more social rhetoric and action in my life and a lot more fear. During that period, more than 900 people died including Stephans mom and some of his siblings. The only sounds they heard came from the jungle animals going about their business. 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. Is this surge in public interest in Jonestown an exhausting experience for you? By the fall of that year, almost 1,000 Temple members emigrated to Jonestown, but for Stephan Jones, the pleasure crumbled when his father arrived. Five were dead, five seriously wounded, five suffered relatively minor wounds, nine were unhurt, and six were believed lost or hiding in the dense underbrush along the Kaituma River. 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. He appeared in movies like Written in Blood (2018), The Peoples Advocate: The Life and Times of Charles R.Gary (2007) and The True Story (2003). Four granite slabs are etched with names of the 918 people who died in Guyana including James Warren Jones, which deeply offends some whose relatives perished. (As PEOPLE reported a year after the deaths, two of Stephan's adopted siblings also died at Jonestown.). He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. 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. After more than 22 years at Californias transportation department, Smith retired in 2015. ', 'I argued with my Dad,' he said. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters,. The 59-year-old, Jim Jones son Stephan Jones has gone through a lot after the mass massacre in Jonestown led by his father, Late Jim Jones on Nov. 18, 1978. . 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