Original subtitles

[♪ ominous music playing]

[inaudible dialogue]

[Jim Jones] And all these are our youngsters,

you know, they're all happy, look at, uh, Tommy.

You wanna go back to the States?

-No. Mm-mm. -[Jim Jones] No way?

I can't get you to go back to the States?

-[Tommy] No. -[Jim Jones laughs]

[Jim Jones] He says he won't go back.

Obviously, that's the general attitude.

I don't wanna go back either.

-Nobody wants to go. -I'm happy down here.

Everybody's happy down here.

You can see that that's an obvious fact.

♪♪

[Thom Bogue] I had actually been part of this

since I was, like, five years old and I hated it,

I was angry all the time,

I had no childhood to speak of...

and wanted nothing more...

than to escape that place and...

get back to the United States, get back home.

That's all I really wanted, that's all I could think about.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[inaudible dialogue]

I just remember it's like,

just this massive relief just washed over me

'cause we were leaving.

And then Jones, of course, wanted to talk to my mom.

He was deeply hurt

'cause our family had been part of that church

for many, many, many years.

I understand.

I understand the love of your family.

It's not that I don't think what you're doing here is wonderful,

because I do.

Just know that there's always a place for you here with us.

[mouths] Yeah.

Always a place.

♪♪

[Charles Krause] It was pretty shocking.

It's not every day that somebody tries to kill a congressman.

[inaudible dialogue]

[Bogue] And it was like total confusion.

Does that mean all hell's gonna break loose now?

Are we gonna be attacked?

[♪ ominous music playing]

What does this mean?

That's all you had...

what does this mean?

[♪ symphonic theme music playing]

[inaudible dialogue]

[♪ music continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible dialogue]

[♪ music continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible chanting]

[♪ music continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible dialogue]

[♪ ominous music playing]

[birds chirping]

[Bogue] There was around 30 of us who were all trying to get out of there.

Uh, the congressman, the news crew, the journalists,

and us families.

We just needed to get on those planes.

You're standing right there at that airstrip

just a few miles from Jonestown, anything could still happen.

[Jackie Speier] Congressman Ryan,

he had this shirt that was now blood stained.

I was thinking, "My God, we just,

we just got out of here in the nick of time."

[Steve Sung] We arrived at the airstrip.

By that time, we all wanted to get out of the place real fast.

It was the first time we got a chance to speak to Congressman Ryan

since someone tried to stab him.

NBC reporter Don Harris wanted to interview him about it.

[Don Harris] What happened?

I stood up and was,

uh, had been talking with, uh, the two attorneys for the Temple, uh,

and, uh, suddenly the knife was around my neck

and, uh, I, I was in danger,

and I pushed the hand away,

uh, fell back against him, others grabbed him

and, uh...

uh, pulled him off me and I... that's where we are.

[Harris] Did he say anything when he came up?

Yeah, he said, uh, something about, uh, rob and choke and kill

and, uh, or knife, I don't know.

[stammers] What he said was he intended to kill me.

Uh, he was tough and...

I mean, in a good way, I mean, he was not a crybaby,

and he just says, "Let's just get out of here."

[Bogue] I remember being excited,

excited about the fact I'm getting away from this place.

The mixed feeling, I remember that one,

between relief

and fear at the same time.

Relief you're out of there,

but fearful...

in knowing what could happen still.

I was thinking to myself, "What Jim Jones was going to do next?"

[♪ dramatic music buildup]

[Stephan Jones] I imagine people in Jonestown were wondering,

"Would Dad really let them leave?"

I wasn't there that day, um,

but I know that his following was his whole life.

People talk about that Jim Jones was a good man

who got lost in power and drugs,

and whatever, and, you know, he became sick later on,

but I had a very different perspective on my father,

and I saw behind the curtain.

A lot of my father's craziness was well hidden for years, um,

but he was as nuts as anybody gets.

[inaudible dialogue]

He really just was constantly trying to feel better about himself.

And I think he was tortured because the more he acted on his impulses,

because he was an addict and he didn't,

it wasn't just substances that he used to feel better in the moment.

He had no boundaries around what he could,

should or shouldn't do.

[inaudible dialogue]

One of the first things Dad did when he got to Jonestown

was to take people's passports away from them.

If you wanted to go back Stateside,

you had to ask his permission.

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Peoples Temple Member speaking]

♪♪

[airplane blades whirring]

[Bogue] At Port Kaituma airstrip,

there was one plane there already,

realized that there weren't enough seats in one plane

and so they had to order another plane.

You're on pins and needles for the entire time

where you're waiting for that plane to arrive.

You could tell everybody's kinda feeling the same thing.

And then finally you hear the plane coming.

[plane engine rumbling]

[Speier] I had this huge sense of relief

that finally we were going to get out of here.

Many of the defectors were anxious.

They were fearful,

and they just wanted out and they wanted out fast.

They were becoming increasingly worried

that Jim Jones would be plotting revenge back in Jonestown.

♪♪

[announcer] [on PA] Simons, Bobby Simons.

Please come to the radio room.

Bobby Simons.

[♪ eerie music playing]

Jones was just, um, absolutely furious

and it scared the crap out of me,

you know, my intuition was telling me something.

[announcer] Bobby Simons, please come to the radio room.

[Carter] After the congressman left to go to the airstrip,

the atmosphere in Jonestown was somber, sadness.

I was in complete and total and utter shock.

I mean, really, just,

it was like a, a completely different level,

it went from, um, people leaving to

somebody tried to just murder a congressman.

And it was horrible.

[inaudible dialogue]

Um, but Jones is, he's going... [smacking lips]

..."I've never felt Jonestown so peaceful."

Just gave me chills throughout my body

and I wanted to scream at him, "Peaceful?"

I'm in agony here, there's people in agony here

and you say Jonestown is the most peaceful you've ever felt it?

I mean, it was lunacy.

It was the way he said it and the look on his face,

it was creepy and then he said,

he goes, "I think somebody might do something."

[inaudible dialogue]

♪♪

We accelerated, uh, the, the boarding of the large plane.

[Bogue] My family, we ended up on the bigger plane.

Outside still was Ryan,

photography crew, reporters, the aide, Jackie Speier.

[Tim Reiterman] Meantime, members of Peoples Temple

on a dump truck and a tractor trailer

became a cause for concern,

especially the ex-members, they said,

"I think we've got trouble," you know, "Watch yourself."

[Krause] A tractor and a trailer, it started coming towards us

across the airstrip.

[Speier] I never saw it come on to the airstrip

'cause my back was to them,

and I was busy placing people on the two planes.

People said, "Let's get on the plane, let's get out of here."

We didn't really have any idea what was about to happen.

And then, when the tractor trailer

pulls up near us,

suddenly I saw the gunmen.

[♪ ominous music playing]

-[gunshots] -[man groans]

[static]

[Sung] When I seen my partner Bob Brown get killed,

that's when I got really scared.

I saw them get off the truck, climbing out of the truck with rifles,

I know they're gonna get to me before long,

I thought for sure I'm goner.

There's no place to hide, there's no protection.

At that moment, we know we are dead.

They were firing all over the place.

I mean, I don't think I've ever heard a gun fired before,

I mean, pop, pop, pop, and people started screaming.

Everyone started to scatter, who could,

some people were yelling.

The gunshots rang out and at first, I didn't know what it was

and then I saw Congressman Ryan got hit

and I thought, "Oh, my God."

I was horrified.

I raced around to the side of the plane

and, and was trying to hide behind the wheel.

So, right away, I put my face flat on the ground,

covered my head with my arms, tried to hide.

And I just waited for the shooting to end.

Um...

[clicks tongue]

and then, um...

and then I was shot,

and I realized that, um,

this was gonna be it,

that I was going to die.

I said the Act of Contrition

because I was, um, raised as a good Catholic girl, um...

and I just waited for the lights to go out.

-[gunshots] -[man groans]

♪♪

[Bogue] When the shooting started, we're already in the plane.

They start going around shooting around people outside.

You know, it's true what they say,

that seems, seem like they're happening in slow motion

but everything is moving really fast.

They went ahead and started shooting into our plane through the door

and the lady in front of me,

the back of her head got shot off

and her brain literally fell at my feet

which kinda, like, set in, this is for real.

You know, my father had told me previously,

"If anything happens here,

grab your sisters and run to the jungle."

So, I did.

[Reiterman] I tried to take shelter behind, um, a wheel,

just about as I hit the ground,

uh, I got, I got shot in the left arm and wrist.

I jumped up and ran for the jungle,

clawed my way in some brush

where I was safe for the moment on my own

and I could cinch my wounds with my belt.

The mind was just running a mile a minute.

We were deep into the jungle.

We're thinking they're tracking us.

What nobody knew is I'd actually been shot.

It was like, "Oh, crap, half my leg's missing."

[♪ dark music playing]

[Krause] On the airstrip,

there was no place for me to hide.

They were firing all over the place.

Dirt would spray up.

Every time one would come near me,

you know, the dirt would spray.

Uh, a bullet hit my side, it was powerful, boom!

It really... it's just very powerful.

and I thought, I'm gonna die.

They kept firing, and then it stopped.

Somebody got off the tractor trailer truck

and fired three shots, as I remember,

very close to where I was.

As they came, uh, around

and, and actually shot us at point-blank range,

they had targeted who they wanted to kill.

And I think what they were doing was...

making sure that the congressman had been killed

and whoever else they shot.

The only thing I could think of to do was to play dead

and think that, well, if they think I'm dead

maybe they're not gonna shoot me again.

I... I, I thought that moment that...

[clears throat] ...just a matter of time

they will get to me for sure,

I know it's coming.

It's, it's instinct tells you that's the end.

All of a sudden, I looked around and I saw what had happened.

Five people had been killed.

♪♪

Congressman Ryan...

Don Harris, the NBC correspondent...

Patricia Parks, one of the defectors...

Greg Robinson, a photographer

with the San Francisco Examiner...

and Bob Brown, the NBC cameraman.

Another dozen or so had been really very badly wounded.

It was a question of how could, what could we do with the wounded,

the really badly wounded people?

So, we dragged them over into the grass

because we thought maybe that the assassins

were gonna come back, so we tried to hide them.

[Reiterman] There was an ongoing threat

that the Peoples Temple gunmen could return.

We needed a safe place to get people

and so the most severely wounded

were taken to a tent at the end of the airstrip.

The rest of us were afforded shelter

in, um, in a small rum shop.

[Krause] As all of this was going on, one of the planes suddenly,

the propellor starts and it takes off.

♪♪

It was the pilots,

they didn't tell us they were going,

they didn't take the wounded people with them.

I remember saying

"Those bastards," you know, "Those cowards."

You just realize that something terrible's just happened

and there's no way out,

there's no way out, you are there,

and you don't know what's gonna happen next.

♪♪

[helicopter blades whirring]

♪♪

[Carter] The loudspeakers came on

and it said everybody report to the pavilion or a meeting.

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Carter] So, we walked up to the pavilion...

it was a very quiet walk.

The tractor trailer came back from the airstrip.

There was this huge commotion.

Jones, he looked manic, you know, crazy,

and it scared... the crap out of me.

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Carter] When I heard

that the congressman had been shot,

I was horrified.

I felt like breaking down,

I mean, uh, it felt like the temple had disintegrated,

I didn't see any way we were gonna go on.

I genuinely believed in what we were supposed to be building.

[cameraman] How do you like it here?

It's beautiful, I can't, I--

I've never been so totally happy

or fulfilled in my life, I can't begin to describe it.

You could sit here and talk all day long

and no words could describe the peace, the beauty,

the sense of accomplishment and responsibility

and, and camaraderie that's here, it's uh,

it's overwhelming, it really is, you can't describe it.

[present day] I thought of it as a community

that was being built that had the opportunity

to become something that actually would, might be the equivalent to a Utopia.

Built with good people. We had a lot of skill.

You know, we had people that were carpenters, mechanics,

college professors.

It was a place where sexism, ageism, racism,

all of those different forms of elitism had been eliminated.

I had some pride in what we had built

and it was beautiful.

I loved it, I loved the wildness of it.

While we were building the town for our community

we did incredibly hard work

and the camaraderie,

it was just, it was just beautiful to me.

[indistinct chatter]

We had fun together.

When we were there we were free, we felt free.

[Jim Jones] Three and a half miles

back into the bush, we will be in Jonestown.

This is the road leading us to there.

[inaudible dialogue]

[Stephan Jones] But when Dad got there

it was a very different environment,

very different, uh, feel.

[Jim Jones] And they're happy and in good health, aren't you?

[Temple member] Never felt better in my life, father.

[Jim Jones] You look, actually, younger than you did

when you came down here by ten years.

It's amazing.

[Stephan Jones] Uh, when dad got there, your time was his time,

making himself the center of attention.

[Jim Jones] There was a, this is a walking stick...

[Stephan Jones] First it started with meetings

almost every night

[Jim Jones] ...insects and, uh,

all kinds of birds and animals who don't harm at all...

[Stephan Jones] He would talk for a really long time sometimes,

just, they were pretty freewheeling.

[Jim Jones] It's just tremendous what the power

of father's socialism can do for all.

[Stephan Jones] We were beholden to him.

The next thing, his voice, you know,

he was constantly coming on the loudspeaker,

constantly you had to hear him.

[Jim Jones] Ku Klux Klan marching in

Cicero, Illinois, and in Detroit...

[Stephan Jones] It had been hammered into us

how selfish it is to want anything for yourself.

You could only think of the greater good,

that's all that mattered.

♪♪

Then the next thing, relationships were not okay.

He was threatened by family,

he was threatened by romantic relationships

because there were places where people could commiserate

and, uh, conspire against him.

So, Dad was always working people against each other.

Jim Jones worked diligently to, to break apart the family unit.

Everything you did was monitored

and if you don't act right...

everything can change on a dime.

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Temple members clamoring]

[Stephan Jones] Dad became cruel

and we became numb to it.

There were beatings.

People were abused and belittled and,

um, and many were drugged toward the end.

You'd be put in this room,

inside of one of the dorms and injected with drugs

for what could be weeks or a month at a time.

Those almost seemed like experiments to me

because when people came out of that dorm...

they were far from normal.

When you woke up in the morning, you were like...

[sighs]

..."I woke up again to this,"

where you actually kinda wondered, you know,

it would've been nice if I could've just died in my sleep.

These are potato chips made from plantain

and they're more delicious, they're a combination

of potato chip and a French fry.

And radishes, mm, mm, mm.

You don't know what you're missing down here.

[Bogue] Jim Jones kept selling Jonestown

as a wonderful place

and you felt totally trapped

because there was no end to it in sight.

Sugar, sealed.

We have much more of this in [indistinct].

Flour, flour, rice,

black eyed peas, more peas.

We have different containers around the place,

we couldn't go through all the tremendous inventory

they've built up. Kool-Aid.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Bogue] It's been probably about a couple of hours

since the shooting stopped.

We ended up going over a mile deep into the jungle.

And it had gotten so dark that we could no longer move around

because you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face.

Total darkness.

I was starting to get a little delirious.

At that point, I could barely walk.

One thing I remember is, is thinking to myself,

I don't know what way to go

and I know if we go the wrong direction, we're dead.

And it was frightening.

We didn't know where the rest of the group were.

♪♪

[Krause] Night fell, it was very tense

it was frightening, you know, it was scary.

Some people had run into the jungle and were still hiding.

But about 15 of us took shelter in the rum shop.

For the very badly wounded,

there was no medicine, there was nothing.

Someone had the idea of giving them some rum

to maybe numb them in a way, which we did.

Poured this thing on my wound, tried to...

Thought maybe that would help stop the,

stop the pain, well, that's what I thought,

I didn't think about anything else.

They said, the guy said, "Oh, you drink that,

you don't, you don't waste the whiskey like that."

[laughs]

That's why I drank the whole, the rest down my throat,

that's why I pass out because I got drunk.

[laughs]

We were trying to stay quiet

and not, not attract attention.

Some of the temple defectors

basically believed that horrible things were going to happen in Jonestown.

They were talking about a white night,

and I said, "You know, what is this white night business?"

And whoever it was said to me, "Oh, yeah,

that's when they practice drinking the poison."

I said, "They practice drinking the poison?

Is that what you're saying?" "Yes."

We were told about these, what they called white night trials.

[inaudible chanting]

The defectors, they said they were being tested

as to whether or not they were truly committed to Jim Jones

and his teachings.

They said Jim Jones forced them to come into the pavilion

and drink, uh, a drink that

they were told it was gonna be poison.

And only afterwards were told

that it wasn't real, that it was just a rehearsal.

But those that didn't go through with it were punished.

They were forced to show their commitment.

[Krause] He called it a white night.

Revolutionary suicide.

[inaudible chanting]

[Stephan Jones] The white nights, when that first happened,

we didn't know what he was capable of.

We were afraid of what he might do,

and I thought he was too much of a coward

ever to truly go through with, with killing himself and others

but there was always a fear that something horrible might happen.

[Carter] There was a deathly quiet.

All the life had left Jonestown is what it felt like to me.

I was with my wife Gloria

and my son Malcolm.

The pavilion, at this point in time,

was surrounded by security guards.

[Carter] I saw Jones in this

really heated discussion and argument,

one of them was going, "There's gotta be a way,

"this is ridiculous, we don't just...

There's gotta be a way."

Even though I'm hearing this, there's still a part of me

that's refusing to accept it,

like he, you know, he can't be talking about

what he's actually talking about.

I had this real schizophrenia going on

that, "Oh, my God, he's gonna kill everybody,"

and the other part's saying, "That's not gonna happen,

"you don't just do that, there's got to be a way,

you just don't kill everybody."

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Carter] I was horrified, I was shocked.

I just wanted like a second to breathe, just... [exhales]

"Let me figure this out."

All of a sudden, I became very calm, it was very intellectual,

like, "What is this gonna be like to die?"

Or, "How many is it gonna take me," or...

Like, you think a thousand thoughts

but, you know, it was like, "I'm dead.

"This is where I'm going to die,

"um, but I'll fight to live but this is where I'm gonna die."

♪♪

One of Jones' mistresses came up and tapped me on the shoulder and said,

"Come here, I think I have something for you to do.

She said, "Jim Jones needs some help with the mission."

[Jim Jones] I've lived for all and I'll die for all.

♪♪

She said, "He's supposed to deliver some suitcases of money

"to the Soviet Embassy in Georgetown.

Would you be willing to help?"

So, in my mind, I'm trying to buy time

because I'm still not processing this,

and while we're being asked to do this,

there's a woman standing up in the pavilion,

um, who was saying, basically, and I'm paraphrasing,

that "I don't wanna die. Isn't there another way?"

[Temple member speaking]

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Temple members clamoring]

[Carter] I walked back to the pavilion,

and I saw Gloria and Malcolm.

And I wasn't counting but this was very early on,

uh, there were maybe 20 bodies, I mean, there were...

I didn't count, I was just shocked

by what I was seeing.

Um...

[inhales and exhales]

Gloria was holding Malcolm in her arms

and agony on her face, and I mean, agony,

tears just pouring down her face and agony...

[crying] And Gloria was dying and I took her in my arms

and I just kept on saying, "I love you so much,

I love you so much,"

like somehow me saying that

could make things better somehow,

that she could feel it, uh...

and, uh, she died in my arms.

The pain was just too much.

It was just darkness.

And after that, I, I...

was beyond even thinking.

All I heard in my brain is, "You cannot die, you cannot die,

you cannot die, you must live, you must live, you must live."

And I left the pavilion, uh,

and I still feel guilt about that, you know,

um, but I was,

you know, I was broken, I was completely broken.

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Temple members clamoring]

I am the last person left alive who was in Jonestown

while people were beginning to be murdered.

[♪ somber music playing]

♪♪

[Speier] We waited all night on that airstrip.

The pain was so excruciating, I couldn't stand it anymore.

I had a bullet wound in my arm,

a bullet wound in my, um, lower arm.

I, my right leg was, was blown up,

I mean, from the knee, um, to the hip.

So, I was pretty resigned to...

whatever was gonna happen was gonna happen.

I know Steve Sung was calling out,

um, calling for his wife.

I just keep... nightmares, up,

wake up and, you know, and try to talk to, uh,

Jackie Speier or talk to anybody willing to listen to me

because I couldn't sleep and I just keep waking up

from the fear, from the pain,

and I said, "What, how do they go,

how do we get out of this place?"

I went through the, the various phases

that they say that people go through.

I mean, resentment and fear

and, and finally accepting the idea that,

yeah, I was gonna die in,

in this jungle of Guyana, you know,

and thinking to myself, "What am I doing here?"

You know, "Why? Why? Why?"

[helicopter blades whirring in distance]

♪♪

[Speier] The Guyanese army came secure the airstrip,

and the relief was unbelievable.

Finally, we're going to get out of here alive.

[Krause] We were gonna survive.

Everybody was like, "Oh, my God."

I mean, I, you know, the adrenaline,

uh, the rush, the, the... I mean, it was amazing.

We were evacuated by helicopter back to Georgetown.

[Speier] In Georgetown, there was a US medevac plane

waiting for us.

This bright, white, shiny plane with the words

"The United States of America" on it.

And even today, it sends chills up and down my back.

[Reiterman] I was going home.

There was, I think, a tremendous amount of spontaneous relief.

Oh, it's a big relief. I was so surprised.

Smiling and happy.

I got on the plane.

Lots of thoughts were going through my head.

"Why, why did this happen to us?"

I mean, I didn't know if anybody in the world

knew what had happened.

And I thought, "Hmm, I don't wanna..."

I think I'm gonna get off this thing.

I was very curious to know what had happened in Jonestown.

The story wasn't over.

And I was right in the middle of it and my job was to keep writing, and I did.

[newscaster] The wounded are being flown to Washington tonight

aboard an Air Force medical evacuation plane.

I don't think anyone could've really imagined it

because it was a shocking story.

It was something that had never quite happened like this before.

[♪ dramatic closing theme music playing]

[newscaster] A congressman on a fact-finding trip

to the South American nation of Guyana

was ambushed, shot, and killed,

along with about 20 members of his party.

Guyana military units have been dispatched to restore order

and to investigate.

[♪ music continues]

♪♪