Those who broke rules were disciplined. John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. But after temple gunmen killed the congressman, three newsmen and a church defector on the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones ordered a poisoned grape-flavored drink administered to children first. I would argue that even a lot of the good works that he wanted to do early on were an attempt to impress my mother and her family. Stephan was around 17 years old when he moved to Jonestown in February 1977 to help build the compound. 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. Read more about cookies here. 'Watch him,' those around him were told. "I think he would be admitting in his own warped mind that he was not this great revolutionary he had tried to build himself up to be . ", Stephan Jones used to say he could have stopped the slaughter if he had been there. He saw that the jungle would make him a man. 'People ask, 'How can you ever be proud of your father?'' window._taboola = window._taboola || []; Stephan Jones and some other team members believe they might have changed history if they were there. That way no one else would want to live. Save this record and choose the information you want to add to your family tree. ". 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. But he was also very loving, especially during the early period'. With their lives, the story of Jonestown continues, even now. John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. Court Records. He too was a member of the basketball team. We didnt see that coming. OAKLAND, Calif. Jonestown was the highlight of Mike Touchettes life for a time. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. As rapidly as possible Jacqueline Speier was signing on passengers at the fool of the boarding ladder while a reporter helped her check for weapons. Jones berated three other new arrivals for misbehaviour on the trip; they were beaten and forced to work 24 hours straight. He's 61 now. Others had joined in San Francisco and continued with him to the promised land in the South American jungle. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, California, November 13, 2008. Then it was boxing matches for adults. Partner of Terry Carter Jones, aka Mary Theresa Carter, Mary Theresa Jones, Terry Carter Jones (died November 18 . In this Nov. 13, 2008 file photo, Stephan Jones, son of Rev. It would have been like I was a counter-revolutionary, in some sense.". 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. File photo: Stephan Jones, son of Rev. 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. Even though he attended public schools, Stephan Jones had never really learned to live in the outside world. 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. He was 18 and running a temple construction crew when the church sanctioned his marriage to a talented 16-year-old singer, Ollie Wideman. Vilchez worked as office manager at a private crime lab for 20 years and now, at 61, sells her artwork. On Nov. 18 she was at the temple house when a fanatical Jones aide received a dire radio message from Jonestown. I jumped up and fought for the gun. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, Calif. 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. So the second thing is this whole idea of drinking the Kool-Aid thats such a prevalent saying. A second plane, a Guyana Airways 24-seater, was coming in for a landing. 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. Did you notice a point or phase where your fathers behavior shifted and he lost touch with the just causes that he once championed? And he faked getting shot in Redwood Valley [California] when I was still pretty young, and we felt like we were in danger much of the time. "They just needed this messiah, this purpose. Its not that I had better sight than others; I had a better view of it and it really broke for me when he was unfaithful to my mother and told her about it in detail.. He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. When a friend invited her family to Peoples Temples wine country church, they were impressed by the integrated community. 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. He contacted the people at the San Francisco branch of the Peoples Temple and instructed them not to take action. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. People were completely fatigued, exhausted. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of Jim Jones, the controversial religious cult leader. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. I could still hear the groaning and crying of the targets. There are moments when he glimpses the edges of power and understands precisely how it might be used. To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. All had been captivated by his promises of a model socialist society based on equality and love under his leadership. Stephan Jones says he can still remember his own terror the first time his father set off a Jonestown White Night. 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. The slaughter at Jonestown was the worst civilian tragedy in U.S. history before September 11, 2001. 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. I dove headlong into the three-foot-tall grass. To me, the ends justified the means, he said. 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. Mud made the truck bed slick, so everyone clung to the sideboards. The temple was the only life he knew but says he always had his doubts. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. Five others were wounded seriously. It was planned as a grand event, the Peoples Temple team against the Guyanese national team, and when the Rev. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. It seemed the temple was generous: It willingly provided passports to those who wished to leave, and advanced $5,000 to help defray transportation costs. 'There were often thoughts of taking him out but I know I wasnt capable of that kind of thing. '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. So would the congressman and three others. I want out of this.' February 27, 2023 endeavor air pilot contract No Comments . A bit later the number was revised upward to 408. "By that time, I know, he was way off into drugs, and his perspective was so warped," Stephan Jones says. 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. Finally, attorneys for both Ryan and the temple decreed that the courtroom was the proper place to decide the custody issue. People were forced. According to his 1983 interview with The Washington Post, he was in this line of work even back then. Life became more tolerable after the couple's baby, Martin Luther Smith, was born. 'Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.'. "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.". And I say, 'My name is Jones.' Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. Stephan Jones did not drink. 'I just have to love him and forgive him.'. 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. But of course Dad was most terrified about anybody turning against him because it really screwed with the illusion that he had created. It makes him a little crazy sometimes. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. 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. 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. 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. How Twins Megan Rapinoe and Rachael Rapinoe are Breaking Barriers for the LGBTQ+ Community? I would either have had to fight, or I would have taken it. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. 'What we were calling the cause really was Jim,' she said. _taboola.push({ It was he who willed it into being and he who also brought it down with the mass murders and suicides of hundreds. But in 1973, Johns oldest brother and a sister, along with six other California college students, quit the church and became its enemies. Stephan Jones currently lives in Petaluma, CA; in the past Stephan has also lived in San Rafael CA and Novato CA. "I don't even know who my loved ones were with when they died," he says softly. 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. The 21-year-old Indiana native felt pride pioneering in the distant jungle of Guyana, South America. Ollie worked in the nursery, and Eugene felled trees. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife Marceline Jones. That way no one else would want to live. Did You Know Soccer Player Crystal Dunns Husband Pierre Soubrier Is A Football Specialist? I crawled until I came to taller bushes and brambles, clawing my way into a pocket in the brush. stephan gandhi jonesNitro Acoustic. Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. Greg's body was near the boarding steps with his camera bag and cameras scattered around him. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. But after temple gunmen killed the congressman, three newsmen and a church defector on the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones ordered a poisoned grape-flavoured drink administered to children first. Family (3) Trivia (4) Only natural son of Rev. Stephanie was born in 1954 and died at a very early age of five in a car accident in May 1959. 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. placement: 'Below Article Thumbnails 3rd', He played at school. People do things for him. In fact, he thought he was the only one who could save the situation. NBC reported that Stephan Jones was the vice president for an office installation company in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008. He is talking, in the first of two evenings' long conversations, between spoonfuls of almond chicken at a Chinese restaurant. (Actually, the deadly beverage that day might have been based on a cheaper imitation, Flavor Aid. Or lost touch with reality? 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. 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. 'I was going back to retrieve that young person and also to say goodbye.'. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. He has been married to Kristi Jones since 1991. Former Peoples Temple member Jim Jones Jr. carries a bucket of bleached rocks to place around the edges of the Jonestown victim memorial in the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California, Jim Jones Jr. was adopted by the Joneses in Indiana in 1960. Jim Jones radioed his son with orders to return to Jonestown, Stephan Jones refused to cut short the trip. The truck spun its wheels until a Caterpillar tractor tugged it into place for a downhill run. 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. 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. 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]. Another to experience the trauma of Jonestown was Stephan Gandhi Jones, the biological son of Jim and his mistress Marceline. I also didnt really know what Id be dealing with if I did, but sadly we were finally at a point where I felt I had enough support and we decided that we were going to take action. Jim Jones. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. 'Liquidator,' " Stephan Jones remembers being called, as he lay on his prison cot and listened to the mosquitoes swarm. " This answer is: Study guides. Vilchez was dispatched to the Guyanan capital of Georgetown to raise money. This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Jim Jones had adopted other children, gathering around him what he liked to call his "rainbow family"--Stephan's brothers and sisters were black and Korean--but Stephan remembers days spent mostly by himself: there was a cleared-out place in the underbrush where he could crouch and become Hercules, or a soldier of war. That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time. He fired at me, but it misfired. 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. My best guess is that Jones felt the press people weren't fooled by the staged setup at the mission. 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. All the people who lay there around him had followed him. It appeared in the Examiner on Nov. 20, 1978, two days after the tragedy: San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman (left)was wounded in the airstrip shooting. He used this kind of threat to control his people. Rebelling, they refused Jones order to come back. . I refused. 2007. Some of them had started out with him in the earliest days in Indiana and moved with him to California. Some have come to acknowledge that they helped enable Jim Jones to seize control over people drawn to his interracial church, socialist preaching and religious hucksterism. "I knew I didn't want to, but I didn't know quite how to confront him or present my case . I would have been doing more than just leaving a family. I believe 100% that not everyone would have been dead, he said. They were forced. container: 'taboola-below-article-thumbnails-3rd', And then he went to my mother. He loved it. 2023 Canoe.com, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. 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. They have three children. The reason that I have agreed to talk to as many people as I have is because of that. My companion, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, would be murdered in an ambush. But mention "Jim Jones" and "Jonestown" and many people would make the connection. 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. . Yeah often people do. If anything, we felt pity for him, he said, and it grew into a dislike, maybe hate.. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife Erin raised three sons. A vat that contained a drink laced with deadly cyanide sits on a sidewalk at Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana in November 1978. He sought treatment, and eventually, the father of three settled into a quiet life in California. 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. Stephan Jones is a Jonestown survivor. NBC sound man Steve Sung had chunks of one arm blown away. 'He hit Monica and Vern. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. 'Baby killer. One of the female subjects of the documentary is Marceline Jones, who was Jim's wife. 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