_taboola.push({ This November 1978 file photo shows the bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana. 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. Stephan Jones is a Jonestown survivor. Though it was a stalemate, the incident intensified an already strained situation. The list of defectors rapidly grew to at least 16. It was just more controlled. I heard a few more shots and saw the tractor pull away. I believed there was too much racism, and there was a need for change. 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. But some lived. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. Only natural son of 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. The 21-year-old Indiana native felt pride pioneering in the distant jungle of Guyana, South America. "I don't know what was happening . I made that last trip with him and he made me stay in Jonestown. He will read it when he is ready, he says. NBC reporter Don Harris said coolly: 'I think we're in for some trouble.'. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. And there was more social rhetoric and action in my life and a lot more fear. ", 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. I jumped up and fought for the gun. He's 61 now. 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. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. This June 2016 photo provided by Jim Jones Jr. shows, from left, Ross Jones, 21, Erin Fowler-Jones, Robert Jones, 27, and Ryan Jones, 25, and Jim Jones Jr., in Pacifica, Calif. He dreams he sees the men and women he knew, older now, changed by the years. no one could ever relate to it unless they were in the same situation, or they were in the atmosphere my father created . 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'. I guess I wanted to believe that, as a child.". Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved. And he would have arrived too late, anyway. That's what triggered it.'. A second plane, a Guyana Airways 24-seater, was coming in for a landing. Life became more tolerable after the couples baby, Martin Luther Smith, was born. At first it was spanking of children. Jim Jones. He is an actor, known for Written in Blood (2018), The People's. 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. They have three children. 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). The therapy that has been helpful to me hasnt been by talking with strangers about it. Ryan Seacrest, 48, is all smiles with stunning girlfriend Aubrey Paige, 25, as they enjoy Miami shopping trip, a day after it was announced he's being replaced on Live with Kelly and Ryan by Ripa's husband, Who needs Tinder when you've got Duolingo? Rebelling, they refused Jones order to come back. ", Stephan Jones' lips draw back when he talks about his father; he looks for an instant like a cornered dog. It would have been like I was a counter-revolutionary, in some sense.". 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. A black man with a 'corn rows' hairstyle came up to the rear of the truck. Its not entirely surprising that many Americans and others want to understand how thousands of people can become blind followers of a tempestuous leader, and how it can end. In this Nov. 13, 2008 file photo, Stephan Jones, son of Rev. Where they were lying. He contacted the people at the San Francisco branch of the Peoples Temple and instructed them not to take action. They must be prepared to die in the defense of socialism. Suddenly there was no money to buy lumber or supplies--"he was such a tightwad," Stephan Jones says--and the homesteading fervor gave way to the minister's incessant meetings and group lectures and warnings about "enemies.". People were forced. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, California, November 13, 2008. I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me, he said. 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. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. 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. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. . JONESTOWN 40 YEARS LATER: Mass suicide shocked world, Amanda Knox to host new true crime podcast: 'I tend not to be a fan of the genre'. Jonestown was the highlight of his life for a time and he recalls feeling pride pioneering in the distant jungle of Guyana. "I'd go back in a minute. Stephan Jones was born on 06/01/1959 and is 63 years old. He was the son of Jim Jones, who established Jonestown. 'I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me,' he said. Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. 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. Have your feelings toward your father and his role in your life evolved over the years? A lot more conversation about the outside threat that was anyone that wasnt in the temple. I dove headlong into the three-foot-tall grass. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. Jim Jones had said as a tropical storm rained on the Peoples Temple pavilion. The only sounds they heard came from the jungle animals going about their business. 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. 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. Marceline and Jim had one biological child together, and Stephan Jones appears in Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre. Fortunately for him, few people recognise him. What would you say the biggest lesson is from Jonestown? "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. 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. "The minute I stepped out on the street, I felt so uncomfortable," he says. When the prodigals visited, the Cobbs kept it secret from Jones. Then they could identify and allow themselves to step into the story and understand how such a thing could happen. Yes. And when her 23-year-old sister joined, Jordan went to live with her at age 12. Published: 01:29 EST, 14 November 2018 | Updated: 12:15 EST, 14 November 2018. Instead, The Washington Post reported that Stephan escaped death with the Jonestown basketball team. 'They're in deep trouble now,' observed one of the relatives who had accompanied us. I believe that it was always a personal agenda for my father, and yes, there was a gradual shift in the balance. And the temple was his life - first in Indiana, later in California. 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. 'Little Jimmy' became part of their 'Rainbow Family' of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. And thats why its so critical that people be wary of any leader who is held as superior to the people theyre leading. 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. Rep. Leo Ryan, D-San Mateo, had come to the temple's agricultural project to determine whether the followers of Jones were free to leave the jungle settlement. Jim Jones himself did not drink the poison. 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. Stephan fought him, swore at him, obeyed him, contemplated killing him, argued with his mother about how to bring Jim Jones under control. It's unclear if he is currently married or if he retains a relationship with his surviving siblings. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. 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. The guy you see in all the images. Though I couldn't see over the tall brush, I could hear the shots become less frequent. 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. American soldiers who arrived discovered that beneath the layer of bodies was another layer, and yet another. We used curtains for bandages. To me, the ends justified the means, he said. ", Jim Jones moved to Guyana in 1977, just as New West magazine was preparing to publish a lengthy account of defectors' allegations about Peoples Temple. And Stephan Jones sometimes thinks that he might have taken the poison, too. 'He started firing at the front and missed the pilot,' said Dale Parks, who left the temple Saturday. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of Jim Jones, the controversial religious cult leader. Trump would hammer Biden OR Harris if he was up for election against either of them in 2024, new poll shows, At least 53 civilians who were truffle hunting in Syria are killed in terror attack blamed on ISIS, 'Find me rich, hot and kind': Hunter Biden BEGGED his cousin Caroline to hook him up with Brooklyn Beckham's wife Nicola Peltz - 25 years his junior - to help him 'break free' from his brother's widow and one-time lover Hallie, texts reveal, Onwards and upwards? John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. "And it could happen to anybody.". Hes an executive at the office furniture company where he began working immediately after Jonestown. someone shouted, and the driver attempted to turn the truck around. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters,. But the reality is that it was far from a mass suicide. I think there are different images being shown now, but its still too little, too late. 1931. Sadly we were finally at a point where I felt I had enough support and we decided that we were going to take action'. 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. I dont think he went from being an altruistic, selfless, humble man to what he became. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco. I make a point of avoiding pointing fingers and giving specific names. They are amused; they embrace him. Stephan Jones Seeks Forgiveness For Jonestown Massacre, Late Jim Jones Son Stephan Jones Is An Actor. He played at school. But we never felt he would go through with it because we saw him as such a coward.. I would either have had to fight, or I would have taken it. "This is really crazy," he recalls thinking. [November 2008], View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro, Kristi Jones Number one: People cant understand what was attractive about Dad. But before we could start out, we heard angry shouts. But the entertainers stayed in Jonestown to entertain Ryan. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Stephan Gandhi Jonesis the son of the notorious religious cult leaderJim Jones. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings. To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. "I see a potential for me to get out of hand," Stephan Jones says, resting his chin on his hand and looking steadily at his visitor. Reviews. Relatives & Associates. There are no many details about his siblings and some had been adopted. She was the adoptive daughter of Rev. 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. He seems to have a tragic life after what had happened with his family. "I always explain to them that it's not what people think--it wasn't a bunch of starry-eyed people in line waiting to take the potion . What Does Lindsey Horans Boyfriend Tyler Heaps Do For a Living? "There's just nothing like it," he says. He keeps his voice very soft, as though practice has taught him to hold certain subjects to a whisper in public, but his gaze is direct. tap here to see other videos from our team. At the far end of the strip sat a yellow government plane. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalynn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. (Actually, the deadly beverage that day might have been based on a cheaper imitation, Flavor Aid. 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 I had good reason to be enraged with him I was enraged long before he died, and openly so. They divorced when Jordan was 6. "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. Hes 61 now. Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. 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. Did You Know Soccer Player Crystal Dunns Husband Pierre Soubrier Is A Football Specialist? 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. The reality was we were folks who could be counted on to stand up, he said. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife Marceline Jones. Three Half-Siblings Glen has three half-siblings named Jim Jon Prokes, Jim W. Jones Jr., and Suzanne O. Jones. Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, the first shot was fired. After more than 22 years at Californias transportation department, Smith retired in 2015. Going by the first body count, the media reported 383 dead. He was taking pain pills, and he said he was dying. Stephan Jones, Jim Jones's sole surviving child, was born in Indiana, United States, on June 1, 1959. After all, we had seen things we weren't supposed to see. 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. 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. And I say, 'My name is Jones.' He cries out, "My God, you're not dead!" My mother, trying to appease him, made him promise that he wouldnt leave me down there. Jim Jones. 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. His biggest regrets revolve around the team's refusal to return to Jonestown. "Who they spoke to. They felt there was an outside threat, and that was hammered into them. The minister gave the ritual a special name: White Night. Where the machine shop once stood, there was only rusty equipment. .' In an hour, that promise was broken.. 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4. Play it now! "He used to say that I would acquire his gift in my late years. Then there were just a few. 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. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. In the days before Ryans fact-finding mission to the settlement, the players were in Georgetown for a tourney with the Guyana national teams. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. "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. Hes never remarried, and Martin Luther Smith was his only child. Trailers, a few clearings and some wood or pole-and-canvas buildings were all that marked the Jonestown settlement when Stephan Jones arrived. More than a few bottles of rum were consumed or poured on wounds. 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. Is Kristie Mewis Dating the Aussie Star Sam Kerr? Some of the defectors told me later that the men in the trailer were members of Peoples Temple. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part he played in an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. As we rode onto the black gravel, jungle-bordered runway, a small six-passenger Cessna was parked to one side of the corrugated metal shack which served as the airport terminal. 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. 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. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife, Erin, raised three sons. He limps this month, still recovering from a broken ankle bone that went undetected for a while, but when he is well he picks up a regular game in San Francisco, sometimes with the young men he played with before--the basketball team from the Peoples Temple settlement at Jonestown, Guyana. He converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. The years are slowly weaning Stephan Jones from Jonestown; he reads, goes to movies, wants now to have a child of his own. After the incident, Stephan was put into jail for three months and that led him to drug addiction. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. Its nose wheel had been broken the week before and four soldiers were guarding it with M-I6 rifles. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part she played in the Peoples Temple, an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. His father spoke so ardently about his own self-sacrifice; Stephan Jones saw the specially prepared steaks and the color television, and in the temple apartment where they lived, he grew accustomed to glimpses of his father having sex with temple members--sometimes women, sometimes men. And then he went to my mother. 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.. In the past, Stephan has also been known as Stephan Gandhi Jones and Stephan G Jones. 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I appreciate that question. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, the two temple members who asked for help in the note, also were seriously injured. When a friend invited her family to Peoples Temple's wine country church, they were impressed by the integrated community. In this photo taken Monday, Oct. 22, 2018, former Peoples Temple member Eugene Smith poses for a photo in a park in San Francisco. "I usually try to tell people when we're in a good time to talk about it, because my God, it takes two hours just to scratch the surface," Stephan Jones says. All I can do is tell what I saw and heard. When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. . I try not to speak in terms of what I couldve done because I see no value in that.. Listen, not long before, we went to play basketball. Stephan Jones says he can still remember his own terror the first time his father set off a Jonestown White Night. It marched for four jailed Fresno newsmen. More than 900 people lived in the agricultural mission, with its dining pavilion, tidy cottages, school, medical facilities and rows of crops. We didnt see that coming. 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." "I wasn't there," he says. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones' dream after they attended a service in Fresno. 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. Alongside it was a red tractor and trailer seen earlier at the mission. Stephan Gandhi Jones was 19. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. She died in a tragic car accident only weeks before her mother, Marceline Mae Baldwin Jones, gave birth to her brother, Stephan Gandhi Jones. Be aware of this message that was prevalent in the temple: The end justifies the means. And I see that throughout society. After that I didnt sleep well last night., I wouldnt say therapeutic. I keep remembering what Jones had said in the pavilion. It would become a little town where people of all ages and colors raised food and children. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. 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. Theater of popular music. He plucked my ego strings, making me feel like he needed me to help him on this mission, but I refused. 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_taboola.push({ This November 1978 file photo shows the bodies of Peoples Temple mass suicide victims led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana. 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. Stephan Jones is a Jonestown survivor. Though it was a stalemate, the incident intensified an already strained situation. The list of defectors rapidly grew to at least 16. It was just more controlled. I heard a few more shots and saw the tractor pull away. I believed there was too much racism, and there was a need for change. 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. But some lived. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. Only natural son of 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. The 21-year-old Indiana native felt pride pioneering in the distant jungle of Guyana, South America. "I don't know what was happening . I made that last trip with him and he made me stay in Jonestown. He will read it when he is ready, he says. NBC reporter Don Harris said coolly: 'I think we're in for some trouble.'. The only surviving child of Jim Jones, Stephan was born on June 1, 1959, in Indiana, USA. And there was more social rhetoric and action in my life and a lot more fear. ", 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. I jumped up and fought for the gun. He's 61 now. 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. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. This June 2016 photo provided by Jim Jones Jr. shows, from left, Ross Jones, 21, Erin Fowler-Jones, Robert Jones, 27, and Ryan Jones, 25, and Jim Jones Jr., in Pacifica, Calif. He dreams he sees the men and women he knew, older now, changed by the years. no one could ever relate to it unless they were in the same situation, or they were in the atmosphere my father created . 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'. I guess I wanted to believe that, as a child.". Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved. And he would have arrived too late, anyway. That's what triggered it.'. A second plane, a Guyana Airways 24-seater, was coming in for a landing. Life became more tolerable after the couples baby, Martin Luther Smith, was born. At first it was spanking of children. Jim Jones. He is an actor, known for Written in Blood (2018), The People's. 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. They have three children. 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). The therapy that has been helpful to me hasnt been by talking with strangers about it. Ryan Seacrest, 48, is all smiles with stunning girlfriend Aubrey Paige, 25, as they enjoy Miami shopping trip, a day after it was announced he's being replaced on Live with Kelly and Ryan by Ripa's husband, Who needs Tinder when you've got Duolingo? Rebelling, they refused Jones order to come back. ", Stephan Jones' lips draw back when he talks about his father; he looks for an instant like a cornered dog. It would have been like I was a counter-revolutionary, in some sense.". 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. A black man with a 'corn rows' hairstyle came up to the rear of the truck. Its not entirely surprising that many Americans and others want to understand how thousands of people can become blind followers of a tempestuous leader, and how it can end. In this Nov. 13, 2008 file photo, Stephan Jones, son of Rev. Where they were lying. He contacted the people at the San Francisco branch of the Peoples Temple and instructed them not to take action. They must be prepared to die in the defense of socialism. Suddenly there was no money to buy lumber or supplies--"he was such a tightwad," Stephan Jones says--and the homesteading fervor gave way to the minister's incessant meetings and group lectures and warnings about "enemies.". People were forced. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, poses for a portrait near San Rafael, California, November 13, 2008. I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me, he said. 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. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. 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. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. . JONESTOWN 40 YEARS LATER: Mass suicide shocked world, Amanda Knox to host new true crime podcast: 'I tend not to be a fan of the genre'. Jonestown was the highlight of his life for a time and he recalls feeling pride pioneering in the distant jungle of Guyana. "I'd go back in a minute. Stephan Jones was born on 06/01/1959 and is 63 years old. He was the son of Jim Jones, who established Jonestown. 'I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me,' he said. Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. 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. Have your feelings toward your father and his role in your life evolved over the years? A lot more conversation about the outside threat that was anyone that wasnt in the temple. I dove headlong into the three-foot-tall grass. He is married to his wife Kristi Jones since 1991. Jim Jones had said as a tropical storm rained on the Peoples Temple pavilion. The only sounds they heard came from the jungle animals going about their business. 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. 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. Marceline and Jim had one biological child together, and Stephan Jones appears in Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre. Fortunately for him, few people recognise him. What would you say the biggest lesson is from Jonestown? "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. 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. "The minute I stepped out on the street, I felt so uncomfortable," he says. When the prodigals visited, the Cobbs kept it secret from Jones. Then they could identify and allow themselves to step into the story and understand how such a thing could happen. Yes. And when her 23-year-old sister joined, Jordan went to live with her at age 12. Published: 01:29 EST, 14 November 2018 | Updated: 12:15 EST, 14 November 2018. Instead, The Washington Post reported that Stephan escaped death with the Jonestown basketball team. 'They're in deep trouble now,' observed one of the relatives who had accompanied us. I believe that it was always a personal agenda for my father, and yes, there was a gradual shift in the balance. And the temple was his life - first in Indiana, later in California. 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. 'Little Jimmy' became part of their 'Rainbow Family' of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. And thats why its so critical that people be wary of any leader who is held as superior to the people theyre leading. 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. Rep. Leo Ryan, D-San Mateo, had come to the temple's agricultural project to determine whether the followers of Jones were free to leave the jungle settlement. Jim Jones himself did not drink the poison. 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. Stephan fought him, swore at him, obeyed him, contemplated killing him, argued with his mother about how to bring Jim Jones under control. It's unclear if he is currently married or if he retains a relationship with his surviving siblings. Within minutes, the aide and her three children lay dead in a bloody bathroom, their throats slit. 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. The guy you see in all the images. Though I couldn't see over the tall brush, I could hear the shots become less frequent. 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. American soldiers who arrived discovered that beneath the layer of bodies was another layer, and yet another. We used curtains for bandages. To me, the ends justified the means, he said. ", Jim Jones moved to Guyana in 1977, just as New West magazine was preparing to publish a lengthy account of defectors' allegations about Peoples Temple. And Stephan Jones sometimes thinks that he might have taken the poison, too. 'He started firing at the front and missed the pilot,' said Dale Parks, who left the temple Saturday. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of Jim Jones, the controversial religious cult leader. Trump would hammer Biden OR Harris if he was up for election against either of them in 2024, new poll shows, At least 53 civilians who were truffle hunting in Syria are killed in terror attack blamed on ISIS, 'Find me rich, hot and kind': Hunter Biden BEGGED his cousin Caroline to hook him up with Brooklyn Beckham's wife Nicola Peltz - 25 years his junior - to help him 'break free' from his brother's widow and one-time lover Hallie, texts reveal, Onwards and upwards? John was attending a San Francisco high school when he was allowed to join his best friends in Jonestown. He went through years of nightmares, mourning and shame. "And it could happen to anybody.". Hes an executive at the office furniture company where he began working immediately after Jonestown. someone shouted, and the driver attempted to turn the truck around. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters,. But the reality is that it was far from a mass suicide. I think there are different images being shown now, but its still too little, too late. 1931. Sadly we were finally at a point where I felt I had enough support and we decided that we were going to take action'. 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. I dont think he went from being an altruistic, selfless, humble man to what he became. She gave her house to the Peoples Temple and they moved to San Francisco. I make a point of avoiding pointing fingers and giving specific names. They are amused; they embrace him. Stephan Jones Seeks Forgiveness For Jonestown Massacre, Late Jim Jones Son Stephan Jones Is An Actor. He played at school. But we never felt he would go through with it because we saw him as such a coward.. I would either have had to fight, or I would have taken it. "This is really crazy," he recalls thinking. [November 2008], View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro, Kristi Jones Number one: People cant understand what was attractive about Dad. But before we could start out, we heard angry shouts. But the entertainers stayed in Jonestown to entertain Ryan. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Stephan Gandhi Jonesis the son of the notorious religious cult leaderJim Jones. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings. To cope, he says he abused drugs and exercised obsessively. "I see a potential for me to get out of hand," Stephan Jones says, resting his chin on his hand and looking steadily at his visitor. Reviews. Relatives & Associates. There are no many details about his siblings and some had been adopted. She was the adoptive daughter of Rev. 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. He seems to have a tragic life after what had happened with his family. "I always explain to them that it's not what people think--it wasn't a bunch of starry-eyed people in line waiting to take the potion . What Does Lindsey Horans Boyfriend Tyler Heaps Do For a Living? "There's just nothing like it," he says. He keeps his voice very soft, as though practice has taught him to hold certain subjects to a whisper in public, but his gaze is direct. tap here to see other videos from our team. At the far end of the strip sat a yellow government plane. When Jim Sr., a local Democratic Party darling, met with future first lady Rosalynn Carter, Jim Jr. proudly went along. (Actually, the deadly beverage that day might have been based on a cheaper imitation, Flavor Aid. 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 I had good reason to be enraged with him I was enraged long before he died, and openly so. They divorced when Jordan was 6. "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. Hes 61 now. Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. 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. Did You Know Soccer Player Crystal Dunns Husband Pierre Soubrier Is A Football Specialist? 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. The reality was we were folks who could be counted on to stand up, he said. Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife Marceline Jones. Three Half-Siblings Glen has three half-siblings named Jim Jon Prokes, Jim W. Jones Jr., and Suzanne O. Jones. Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, the first shot was fired. After more than 22 years at Californias transportation department, Smith retired in 2015. Going by the first body count, the media reported 383 dead. He was taking pain pills, and he said he was dying. Stephan Jones, Jim Jones's sole surviving child, was born in Indiana, United States, on June 1, 1959. After all, we had seen things we weren't supposed to see. 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. 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. And I say, 'My name is Jones.' He cries out, "My God, you're not dead!" My mother, trying to appease him, made him promise that he wouldnt leave me down there. Jim Jones. 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. His biggest regrets revolve around the team's refusal to return to Jonestown. "Who they spoke to. They felt there was an outside threat, and that was hammered into them. The minister gave the ritual a special name: White Night. Where the machine shop once stood, there was only rusty equipment. .' In an hour, that promise was broken.. 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4. Play it now! "He used to say that I would acquire his gift in my late years. Then there were just a few. 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. Devotion to its ideals bolstered her self-worth. In the days before Ryans fact-finding mission to the settlement, the players were in Georgetown for a tourney with the Guyana national teams. Over four decades, as they have built new lives, they have struggled with grief and the feeling that they were pariahs. "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. Hes never remarried, and Martin Luther Smith was his only child. Trailers, a few clearings and some wood or pole-and-canvas buildings were all that marked the Jonestown settlement when Stephan Jones arrived. More than a few bottles of rum were consumed or poured on wounds. 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. Is Kristie Mewis Dating the Aussie Star Sam Kerr? Some of the defectors told me later that the men in the trailer were members of Peoples Temple. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part he played in an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. As we rode onto the black gravel, jungle-bordered runway, a small six-passenger Cessna was parked to one side of the corrugated metal shack which served as the airport terminal. 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. 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. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife, Erin, raised three sons. He limps this month, still recovering from a broken ankle bone that went undetected for a while, but when he is well he picks up a regular game in San Francisco, sometimes with the young men he played with before--the basketball team from the Peoples Temple settlement at Jonestown, Guyana. He converted to Catholicism and registered Republican. The years are slowly weaning Stephan Jones from Jonestown; he reads, goes to movies, wants now to have a child of his own. After the incident, Stephan was put into jail for three months and that led him to drug addiction. Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. Its nose wheel had been broken the week before and four soldiers were guarding it with M-I6 rifles. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part she played in the Peoples Temple, an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. His father spoke so ardently about his own self-sacrifice; Stephan Jones saw the specially prepared steaks and the color television, and in the temple apartment where they lived, he grew accustomed to glimpses of his father having sex with temple members--sometimes women, sometimes men. And then he went to my mother. 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.. In the past, Stephan has also been known as Stephan Gandhi Jones and Stephan G Jones. 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I appreciate that question. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, the two temple members who asked for help in the note, also were seriously injured. When a friend invited her family to Peoples Temple's wine country church, they were impressed by the integrated community. In this photo taken Monday, Oct. 22, 2018, former Peoples Temple member Eugene Smith poses for a photo in a park in San Francisco. "I usually try to tell people when we're in a good time to talk about it, because my God, it takes two hours just to scratch the surface," Stephan Jones says. All I can do is tell what I saw and heard. When John Cobb was born in 1960 in a black section of Indianapolis, his mother and older siblings already were temple members. . I try not to speak in terms of what I couldve done because I see no value in that.. Listen, not long before, we went to play basketball. Stephan Jones says he can still remember his own terror the first time his father set off a Jonestown White Night. It marched for four jailed Fresno newsmen. More than 900 people lived in the agricultural mission, with its dining pavilion, tidy cottages, school, medical facilities and rows of crops. We didnt see that coming. 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." "I wasn't there," he says. Partner : Ava Phenice Jones, aka Ava Phenice Brown, Ava Phenice Cobb. Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones' dream after they attended a service in Fresno. 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. Alongside it was a red tractor and trailer seen earlier at the mission. Stephan Gandhi Jones was 19. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. She died in a tragic car accident only weeks before her mother, Marceline Mae Baldwin Jones, gave birth to her brother, Stephan Gandhi Jones. Be aware of this message that was prevalent in the temple: The end justifies the means. And I see that throughout society. After that I didnt sleep well last night., I wouldnt say therapeutic. I keep remembering what Jones had said in the pavilion. It would become a little town where people of all ages and colors raised food and children. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. 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. Theater of popular music. He plucked my ego strings, making me feel like he needed me to help him on this mission, but I refused. 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