His father, finally, is beginning to let go. Haaretz.com, the online English edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, gives you breaking news, analyses and opinions about Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. "I don't care what you think of my father," Jones wrote in 2015. But he was also very loving, especially during the early period'. When Smith reunited with his mother and wife in Jonestown, Ollie was 8 months pregnant. This is really crazy, he recalls thinking. "I think I have a lot of the same tendencies he had. (As PEOPLE reported a year after the deaths, two of Stephan's adopted siblings also died at Jonestown.). Stephan Gandhi Jones is the son of the notorious religious cult leader Jim Jones. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters,. 'Little Jimmy' became part of their 'Rainbow Family' of white, black, Korean-American and Native American children. Dozens of Peoples Temple members in Guyana survived the mass suicides and murders of more than 900 because they had slipped out of Jonestown or happened to be away Nov. 18, 1978. It 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. When a friend invited her family to Peoples Temple's wine country church, they were impressed by the integrated community. That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time. They were under siege, Jim Jones would cry; the snipers were after him; the Guyanese army was about to descend; the children would be taken away and probably tortured. "I still get very angry," Stephan Jones says. Jim Jones. . Save this record and choose the information you want to add to your family tree. As a San Francisco high school student, he was dispatched to help build Jonestown. When more than 900 people were killed at Jonestown by consuming punch laced with cyanide on Nov. 18, 1978, Stephan was not at the settlement founded by his father. ", Stephan Jones' lips draw back when he talks about his father; he looks for an instant like a cornered dog. From hair trends to relationship advice, our daily newsletter has everything you need to sound like a person whos on TikTok, even if you arent. We have enabled email notificationsyou will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. It was he who dreamed up Jonestown, he who willed it into being, and he who brought it down: First, with the assassination of U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and four others by temple members on a nearby airstrip on November 18, 1978, then with the mass murders and suicides of hundreds, a horror that remains nearly unimaginable 40 years later. . 1959. "They say, 'Yeah.' "I don't know. 'He started firing at the front and missed the pilot,' said Dale Parks, who left the temple Saturday. Stephan Jones was born on June 1, 1959 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA as Stephan Gandhi Jones. While working as a hospital orderly, Jones met Marceline Baldwin, a nursing student, and they married in 1949. I certainly felt there was an outside threat, even when I knew my father was full of it and I was at odds with him in Jonestown. 'The reality was we were folks who could be counted on to stand up,' he said. If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. And he would have arrived too late, anyway. By nightfall, the seriously wounded, some of them on litters provided by the community, were sheltered in army soldiers' tents. 'Like everyone else, he died there,' his son said. In "Raven," the detailed Jim Jones biography by Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs, it is Stephan Jones who stands in the shadows as his father lies and fakes and bends the people around him, his sickness mounting through the years. Jordan Vilchezs parents were Berkeley progressives in the 1960s her father African-American, her mother Scotch-Irish. I believed there was too much racism, and there was a need for change. 'She gives us the order that were supposed to kill ourselves,' Vilchez recalled. When Smith reunited with his mother and wife in Jonestown, Ollie was 8 1/2 months pregnant. James Warren Jones and his wife, Marceline. Jim Jones set off one of these panics every few weeks, sometimes keeping people awake all night as he shouted his warnings. His body was found with a gunshot wound in the head. Reporters were hearing disturbing allegations about Jim Jones' church--there were stories of beatings, armed guards, extensive sexual activity. Another hit my wrist and knocked off my watch. My arm was gushing blood so I stripped off my belt and pinched down the biggest wounds. Partner of Terry Carter Jones, aka Mary Theresa Carter, Mary Theresa Jones, Terry Carter Jones (died November 18 . Five were dead, five seriously wounded, five suffered relatively minor wounds, nine were unhurt, and six were believed lost or hiding in the dense underbrush along the Kaituma River. Garry (2007) and The Real Story (2002). . Of course, even if he wanted to forget Jonestown, his name was an ever-present reminder. 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? Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. When a friend invited her family to Peoples Temples wine country church, they were impressed by the integrated community. In what he called "revolutionary suicide", Jones and the members of his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder-suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978. 'He made a promise - once we get to Jonestown there is no corporal punishment,' Smith said. An In-Depth Look at Naomi Girmas Salary in Professional Soccer. But she wasn't in the truck and the men left. Thank goodness he lived before me.". NBC sound man Steve Sung had chunks of one arm blown away. 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. To me, the ends justified the means, he said. Its nose wheel had been broken the week before and four soldiers were guarding it with M-I6 rifles. Instead of finishing high school, Vilchez moved to San Francisco, where she lived in the church. ". The reunion with Jones was not as joyous. He cries out, "My God, you're not dead!" Stephan Jones says he can still remember his own terror the first time his father set off a Jonestown White Night. 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. 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. I got the gun. Instead, The Washington Post reported that Stephan escaped death with the Jonestown basketball team. The younger man demanded that everyone in the truck move aside. Then it was boxing matches for adults. 'Baby killer. 'We were so scared, too, man, that they'd do this to you,' said one of the people who took us in. That he was just this crazy zealot this entire time". The note said: 'Please help us get out of Jonestown.' He is an actor, known for Written in Blood (2018), The People's. "It's not--such a bad experience," he says. Johnny Brown: Taking Care of His Own(2013), This site houses a variety of PDF documents. The murders and suicides were unfolding, 150 miles away. NBC reported that Stephan Jones was the vice president for an office installation company in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008. She and Jim were the first caucasian couple in Indiana to adopt an African American . With their lives, the story of Jonestown continues, even now. 'I focused my rage on Dad and his circle, rather than deal with me,' he said. And there was more social rhetoric and action in my life and a lot more fear. They are Agnes Pauline Jones, Timothy Glen Jones, Jim Jon Prokes, Jim W. Jones Jr, Lew Eric Jones, John Moss Jones, Suzanne O. Jones, and Stephanie Jones. Neither were the White Nights where everyone stayed up, armed with machetes to fight enemies who never arrived. . "I don't know what was happening . 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). Stephan is among one of the Late Jim Jones sons survivors and he is still disturbed by those past events. It was he who dreamed up Jonestown, he who willed it into being, and he who brought it down: first, with the assassination of U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and four others by temple members on a nearby airstrip on Nov. 18, 1978, then with the mass murders and suicides of hundreds, a horror that remains nearly unimaginable 40 years later. He also made sure that the other disciples who were in the capital would do nothing hasty. 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. Now, Stephan Jones is father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business. However, they have moved on with their life. "It was not bad people who did it," he says. "I was building me a place, too," he says. A large poncho covered his belt area so no one knew for sure and no one challenged him. Some had the distinct impression that the two were close to opening fire on the truck. Did you ever consider the ultimate rebellious act: to defect from the temple? And the temple was his life first in Indiana, later in California. At the end of Ryan's two-day visit to the mission Saturday, a woman suddenly charged down a slippery boardwalk shouting at her husband, 'I'll kill you! Jim Jr., followed that July and was 16 years old at the time. (Actually, the deadly beverage that day might have been based on a cheaper imitation, Flavor Aid. (1991 - Stephan is the only living son of Jim Jones and his late wife Marceline Jones. You used the word forgiveness, but I find love and compassion for him. 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. I try not to speak in terms of what I couldve done because I see no value in that.. "When it really came down to it, I thought there wasn't any need, because I thought he'd be dead in a couple months anyway," he says. 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. They don't normally believe it at first. Layton later was taken into custody by Guyanese authorities who seized a .38-caliber pistol and turned it over to U.S. Embassy officials. This return to the cult of Jim Jones is part of a re-examination of dangerous cults and movements in Americas past, like the Osho cult, which had a similar murderous potential. I tried to fire - but nothing happened.'. He remarried three decades ago, and he and his wife, Erin, raised three sons. Jordan Vilchez's parents were Berkeley progressives in the 1960s - her father African-American, her mother Scotch-Irish. Then he decides it is time, and he falters, and he tells them they may not believe what he is about to say. For years, Vilchez was ashamed of the part she played in an idealistic group that imploded so terribly. 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. He imagines the guards with guns, and the sky clouding over, and the air suddenly wild with fear, and the sight of the children. "It's like you went to a vacation in Europe and found out the United States had sunk," he says. "This is really crazy," he recalls thinking. stephan gandhi jones. I jumped up and fought for the gun. 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. I believe that it was always a personal agenda for my father, and yes, there was a gradual shift in the balance. It was just more controlled. After Ollie became pregnant, she was sent to Jonestown; Eugene remained behind. Fortunately for him, few people recognise him. He thinks now that it is probably stupid to believe that. He said he considered it a failing on his part when he did. Though he waved and smiled at Peoples Temple services, seemingly enraptured like the rest, Stephan Gandhi Jones says he always had his doubts. But he said his discontent festered. Seating assignments were chosen after Ryan briefed the press on the knife attack and credited Mark Lane with saving his life. 'Everyone participated in it and because of that, it went as far as it did,' she said. | [November 2008], View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro, Kristi Jones They were shooting to kill, not just to stop us from leaving. The rest was jungle, damp and hot and so thick with growth that Stephan Jones would stand among the massive trees and feel the 20th century fall away. Now, Stephan is a father of three daughters, ages 16, 25 and 29, and works in the office furniture installation business, Eugene Smith recalls how his mother, a churchgoing African-American, bought into Jim Jones' dream when he opened a new church in Fresno. In this Nov. 13, 2008 file photo, Stephan Jones, son of Rev. Stephan Gandhi Jones was the biological son of Jim and Marceline Jones. I would argue that the means justify the end, but not the other way around.. He pushes through the crowd, but he cannot get to his father. After the incident, Stephan was put into jail for three months and that led him to drug addiction. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The church provided free drug rehabilitation, medical care, food. someone shouted, and the driver attempted to turn the truck around. Id rather just talk about what didnt work and hope that people can see that in their own lives. He contacted the people at the San Francisco branch of the Peoples Temple and instructed them not to take action. Jim Jones had said as a tropical storm rained on the Peoples Temple pavilion. Other Works He was so wasted most of the time. His biggest regrets revolve around the teams refusal to return to Jonestown. . And I dont know if it was paranoia. 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."
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