That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. 'We were so scared, too, man, that they'd do this to you,' said one of the people who took us in. He is a businessman in Northern California, married, with three daughters. He's 61 now. 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. . My best guess is that Jones felt the press people weren't fooled by the staged setup at the mission. They divorced when Jordan was six. 2010-10-03 19:23:36. Forty years ago this week, a California congressman and a group of journalists traveled to Guyana, South America, to see Jonestown, a remote settlement created by an American church, and investigate reports of abuses of members. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. He was taking pain pills, and he said he was dying. I think it was Dad controlling people through fear, me and my siblings when we were very young.. OAKLAND, Calif. Jonestown was the highlight of Mike Touchettes life for a time. He led the Peoples Temple, a new religious movement, between 1955 and 1978. "There was always that guilt fed to you by my father that kept you in check, kept you thinking, 'Maybe I'm wrong'--the guilt for being selfish and questioning this.". So much was attractive and unique that we turned a blind eye on what was wrong, he said, including his fathers sexual excesses, drug abuse and rants. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, the two temple members who asked for help in the note, also were seriously injured. What we were calling the cause really was Jim, she said. Only two days later did the picture became clear. Instead of finishing high school, Vilchez moved to San Francisco, where she lived in the church. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. But some lived. He loves basketball; he is agile and strong and was tall even before he reached high school. And the temple was his life first in Indiana, later in California. The truck spun its wheels until a Caterpillar tractor tugged it into place for a downhill run. He did.'. During that period, more than 900 people died including Stephans mom and some of his siblings. There were many photographs of the bodies, taken from various angles, in color and black and white, and in each photograph, as though defying the viewer even to believe the report of the camera, row upon row of clothed human backs lay swelling in the jungle damp. 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. It was all about survival in his domain. Stephan Jones, Jim Jones's sole surviving child, was born in Indiana, United States, on June 1, 1959. Also dead was Bob Brown, the NBC cameraman and the kind of guy who loved action stories. And the temple was his life first in Indiana, later in California. 'Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.'. | After the temple exodus to Guyana, he was given a public relations post in Georgetown and was part of the basketball team. Jim Jones. When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. Her only natural child, Stephan Gandhi Jones and adopted son, Jimmy Jones, Jr. aka James Warren Jones, Jr. were both in Georgetown, Guyana for a basketball game representing Jonestown on November 18, 1978. At first it was spanking of children. 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.. Though I couldn't see over the tall brush, I could hear the shots become less frequent. More than 300 Jonestown victims were children. Even though he attended public schools, Stephan Jones had never really learned to live in the outside world. Jim Jones (1931-1978) and Marceline Jones (1927-1978). He was summoned to the temple radio room. "It's not--such a bad experience," he says. 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. His body was found with a gunshot wound in the head. I mean, I saw things and was privy to things . Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. I keep remembering what Jones had said in the pavilion. 29. Play it now! "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. 'She gives us the order that were supposed to kill ourselves,' Vilchez recalled. 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 dont think he went from being an altruistic, selfless, humble man to what he became. . 'I'm real happy to be getting out,' Layton volunteered, then lapsed into a stare. "By that time, I know, he was way off into drugs, and his perspective was so warped," Stephan Jones says. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife, Erin, raised three sons. By 1978, the White Nights included a rehearsal for suicide, something Jim Jones previously had tried only with his small circle of confidants within the church. Stephan Jones currently lives in Petaluma, CA; in the past Stephan has also lived in San Rafael CA and Novato CA. Other people were injured. All these lives were wasted and I don't know why. The minister was famous for his faith healings, which expelled bloody growths from the bodies of the ailing; it was not for many years that Stephan Jones learned about the sleight of hand with raw chicken giblets. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. Jim Jr. would lose 15 immediate relatives in Jonestown, including his pregnant wife, Yvette Muldrow. Court Records. 'When I left at 21, I left a part of myself there,' she said. Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. But in 1973, John's oldest brother and a sister, along with six other California college students, quit the church and became its enemies. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Stephan Gandhi Jonesis the son of the notorious religious cult leaderJim Jones. But of course Dad was most terrified about anybody turning against him because it really screwed with the illusion that he had created. But the reality is that it was far from a mass suicide. I had been up all night unloading boats and I had to be at work in a couple of hours so I lay down for two hours of sleep after backbreaking and dangerous work, and Dad comes on the speaker in the wee hours of the morning. When he brushed away the mist below him he saw that it was a lifeless human limb. Contact & Personal Details. Patricia Parks had had her head shattered before her husband's eyes. "I don't even know who my loved ones were with when they died," he says softly. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; 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. It was planned as a grand event, the Peoples Temple team against the Guyanese national team, and when the Rev. someone hollered as we scrambled over the gravel to the far side of the plane. Reviews. The media has done a poor job; theyve demonized him. He used this kind of threat to control his people. He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. He loved it. 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. In Indianapolis, he served as a student pastor in the Methodist Church in 1952 but. It marched for four jailed Fresno newsmen. February 27, 2023 endeavor air pilot contract No Comments . Stephan helped erect a basketball court and form a team. In the days before Ryan's fact-finding mission to the settlement, the players were in Georgetown for a tourney with the Guyana national teams. 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.. It's like my hurt for them, or my missing them, is the only thing I have left of them." We'd also just seen the warm, cheerful embraces between some of those leaving and some who were staying. 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4. "I knew I didn't want to, but I didn't know quite how to confront him or present my case . According to his 1983 interview with The Washington Post, he was in this line of work even back then. Stephan Gandhi Jones is 6-foot-5, lean, broad at the shoulder, olive-eyed, black-haired, handsome as a billboard model. 'I said there must be another way.'. He too was a member of the basketball team. 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. First the Cessna was filled, with Ryan frisking each boarder looking for guns and knives. But a lot of the rage that I kept for years was keeping me from looking at my part and seeing what I hope I would do differently if in similar circumstances. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco, where Eugene ran a temple construction crew. And he just went unchecked. And Smiths wife, son and mother died. 'The temple really became my family,' she said. Maybe they just thought, 'God, leave me alone. tap here to see other videos from our team. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalyn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. 1931. 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. He was ill from when he was very young and was using fear to control me when I was barely more than a toddler. All had been captivated by his promises of a model socialist society based on equality and love under his leadership. There are no many details about his siblings and some had been adopted. A black man with a 'corn rows' hairstyle came up to the rear of the truck. He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. "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 converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. 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. He has read most of "Raven," which he believes to be the best of the books about his father, but he has never been able to bring himself to read the chapter about the suicides and murders. The tournament was in Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, 150 miles away. 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. He was just 14, Stephan Jones and some other team members believe they might have changed history if they were there. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. And she could only sense the site of the pavilion, the once-vibrant center of Jonestown life where so many died - including her two sisters and two nephews. "Right off the bat I explain to them that my father was nuts, that he was a drug addict," he says. Hes never remarried, and Martin Luther Smith was his only child. Then they start to ask questions right away.". In the past, Stephan has also been known as Stephan Gandhi Jones and Stephan G Jones. Stay in the game with the best sports newsletters from across the Postmedia network, Stay posted with the best sports newsletters from across the network, JONESTOWN SURVIVORS: Where they are 40 years later, Chris Rock will finally hit back at Will Smith over Oscars slap, Rich girl sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell sent to solitary confinement, Paulina Gretzky hits social media hole-in-one at LIV Golf kickoff tournament, Elizabeth Holmes has second child as she tries to avoid prison, Meghan Markle bummed Prince Harry 'had very little money': Royal expert. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. 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 plucked my ego strings, making me feel like he needed me to help him on this mission, but I refused. There had been underground boxes to punish the lazy; public beatings; drills where guns and bows and arrows were hauled out on call of 'white knight,' and plans for mass suicides. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group, American Idol star Kellie Pickler's husband, 49, 'commits suicide by shooting himself dead' in bedroom of their $2.4 million Nashville home: Pickler called 911 after she was unable to open door of room where he was found, Enough to give you an art attack! And now some wanted to depart. People ask, How can you ever be proud of your father? he said. They have three children. Jim Jones charismatic, volatile and ultimately evil. 'To me the ends justified the means,' he said. This dismissive thinking was convenient because its hard to comprehend how so many people marched together to a certain and unnecessary death. Instead of finishing high school, Vilchez moved to San Francisco, where she lived in the church. John Victor Stoen. "It was the first thing I really worked hard for. There was a gaping wound in his shoulder and possibly his ribs. And based on what Stephan Jones is doing now, it seems he has tried to live his life as normally as anyone who has gone through what he has possibly could. He promised that he wouldnt. The silence could mean only one thing: An ambush was awaiting them. Save this record and choose the information you want to add to your family tree. Only natural son of Rev. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife. In a recent interview, he revealed that he was sober. ". 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 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. But it was too late. His son was not among the boosters. The reason I ended up in Jonestown is that I left. Hes 61 now. So yes there were often thoughts of taking him out but I know I wasnt capable of that kind of thing. And the temple was his life - first in Indiana, later in California. "I'd go back in a minute. 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. She was the adoptive daughter of Rev. She gives us the order that we were supposed to kill ourselves, Vilchez recalled. "Who they spoke to. The expression was born of the perception that Jim Jones disciples were gullible people who gladly drank the poison because their leader told them it would do them good. As outlined in the above video, he was featured in the History Channel's 2007 documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost and has written for the website Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, which is run by San Diego State University. My mother, trying to appease him, made him promise that he wouldnt leave me down there. 'They're in deep trouble now,' observed one of the relatives who had accompanied us. While Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre focuses on the women who were involved with Jim Jones, Stephan continues to have empathy and love for his mother, who apparently struggled with her husband's affairs. He lives just outside San Francisco and works as an office systems installer, arranging furniture and office interiors. I believe 100% that not everyone would have been dead, he said. Not so many people died. "They say, 'Yeah.' Jim Jr. would lose 15 immediate relatives in Jonestown, including his pregnant wife, Yvette Muldrow. American soldiers who arrived discovered that beneath the layer of bodies was another layer, and yet another. Guyanese civilians set up a guard station for us, standing watch all night armed with only a shotgun, a machete and a long-bladed knife. Stephan Jones says he can still remember his own terror the first time his father set off a Jonestown White Night. 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. The murders and suicides were unfolding, 150 miles away. present) (3 children). In California, he was steeped in temple life. He converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. 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. It was he who dreamed up Jonestown, he who willed it into being, and he who brought it down: First, with the assassination of U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and four others by temple members on a nearby airstrip on November 18, 1978, then with the mass murders and suicides of hundreds, a horror that remains nearly unimaginable 40 years later. The Joneses adopted a black baby in Indiana in 1960, and Jim gave the 10-week-old infant his own name. Where the machine shop once stood, there was only rusty equipment. "There's just nothing like it," he says. "I got sick of the same speeches, the insisting people stay awake, the constantly testing people." I make a point of avoiding pointing fingers and giving specific names. Layton later was taken into custody by Guyanese authorities who seized a .38-caliber pistol and turned it over to U.S. Embassy officials. You don't tell God, "You're not going out of the house. 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. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited. mode: 'thumbnails-a', 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. "The temple was still my only life, and I didn't really see any alternative to it," he says. The only sounds they heard came from the jungle animals going about their business. He's too close to Jim Jones to leave.'. Afterwards, the 19-year-old Stephan was put in jail for three months in the South American nation before the case against him was thrown out. They had nothing to go back to." The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. }); window._taboola = window._taboola || []; Where they were lying. His LinkedIn profile indicates that he still has the position of vice president of operations at MB Contract Furniture. 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). As a self-taught bulldozer operator, he worked alongside other Peoples Temple members in the humid heat, his blade carving roads and sites for wooden buildings with metal roofs. Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. 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. Quietly the men with the tractor motioned aside a group of curious Guyanese children and other bystanders. " Pause for effect. " 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. 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. Who never arrived was his life - first in Indiana, later in California fight enemies never... Before he reached high school, Vilchez moved to San Francisco and as. 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