The Tragic True Crimes of Jamestown

Where do I even start with choosing my favorite true crime story? I have so many that have stayed with me over the years. Growing up loving to read and research serial killers and true crimes, I always wanted to know why. What could make someone turn into what we call a monster? Were they born this way? What goes through their minds when they commit their crimes? Why do they do what they do? Do they feel remorse? I have read, watched, and listened to podcast talking about so many of our most infamous true-crime stories to date. Throughout the years, the one that stayed with me is the story of Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre back in 1978. This case, to this day, still leaves me with chills. Of course, everyone has heard about how it all went down, phrases that reference back to the Kool-Aid and the massacre are still being used today, it’s not until you dive deeper into the story, specifically deeper into who Jim Jones was and what went down in Jamestown, that makes it linger in your brain.

Jim Jones has one of the highest kill counts massacring over 900 people in Jamestown. I wanted to know what would make someone commit such a heinous act. Why would people drink this concoction? What power did he wield over his followers that made them stay with him until the end? What I found may or may not answer those questions but it is indeed a tragic story. Through research, it could almost be said that Jim Jones started with good intentions. I won’t give you his entire backstory instead we will start where it all began in the church. When Jim was a teenager, he would visit different churches to learn and listen to what they would preach. He wanted to know how the preacher was able to lead his congregation with just his message. During this time he would also go out and minister on the street, teaching people the good word. When I was researching him, learning this made me think that maybe he could have had an ulterior motive, even from the beginning. Did he just like the attention, did he enjoy seeing how his words could draw in a crowd, or did he just love preaching about the bible? When he married his wife Marceline he decided to pursue the path of becoming a preacher and started his church. During this time, we see him use his words to sway people into giving money to his church. He would also con people in the congregation by showing people he could perform miracles.

Before we move forward, I wanted to go back for a moment. At the beginning of this, I said that he may have started with good intentions. During this time racism and segregation were very much the issues back then. Blacks weren’t allowed to venture into establishments, they wouldn’t get served at diners and weren’t allowed in other businesses. However, for Jim Jones segregation wasn’t a thing. To help, he would go to different establishments to get them to allow members from the black communities to dine or shop at their businesses. Small acts such as this helped him grow favor in the black community. Out of the 918 people he killed, 80% percent were Black Americans. One would question, what made so many people from the black community follow this white man? What made them go off to live in Jamestown with him? What made what he was offering so much better than the supposed American dream? These are questions that should be asked because as the story goes on it gets worse. Jones becomes worse but yet so many people stayed.

As Jim Jones’s congregation grew, so did his ego. He started believing his own hype, not only that, but he started using drugs. It was said that his paranoia and drug addiction were already a problem before they left for the jungle, it was why you see so many photos of him with his infamous shades, these shades were used to cover up his eyes when he was high. He would use his power and his manipulative ways to sleep with women from his flock and then convince everyone that it was okay. His greed grew right along with his ego. He wanted to get more money to help with his community and to build himself a larger church, which brings us to Jamestown. Eventually, he was able to afford a remote part of Guyana in South America. Despite this being a jungle the Peoples Temple still followed him. He promised them a better life one where they were all equal. Once they got there, they soon realized that was not the case.

The living situation was abysmal most people were living on top of each other, meals weren’t in abundance, and on top of that, his people had to deal with a deteriorating leader. I asked before what would make these people stay and a lot of it had to do with fear. People were afraid to leave. They lived in constant fear of Jim and what he could do to them. To create more fear and panic amongst his people he would often tell them that the outsiders were going to attack them, the outsiders being the government. To make them believe this lie and instill fear so that they would trust him, he would often have “White Nights.” White Nights would be where he would alarm his people to an outside attacker, he would then ask them if they wanted to attempt to flee, commit mass suicide, stay in Jamestown to fight off the attackers, or flee into the jungle. The mass suicide was the agreed-upon decision. On some of the White Nights, he rehearses the mass suicide. Sadly by this time once people realized what was going on and weren’t believing in his delusions anymore it was too late.

November 18, 1978, was the day that the massacre took place. Congressman Leo Ryan flew in to tour Jamestown on November 17, 1978, and look into what was going on there. Sadly he and the crew that he flew in with did not make it out. After several members of the Peoples Temple approached Ryan to leave with him, Jones was informed and on his order, he killed every one of those de facto members and the congressman and his crew. After this he had people prepare the poison that the rest of the members were supposed to take. He told them that they had a choice to, choose how they were going to die, they could either drink this concoction or wait until outsiders came in to attack the camp its children. Most people drank it, others and others tried to escape sadly no one was left alive. For the people that didn’t drink the poison, he had a few of the male members of the congregation that were guards go around and shoot anybody that was still breathing. Jones himself was later on found dead between two bodies from a self-inflicted bullet wound. There is a recording of what happened that day that will probably haunt you if you ever decided to listen.

Though I only gave you an overview of what happened, I hope it was enough to leave you wanting to research more about this tragedy. This case will always be the one that leaves me with chills. So many lost souls taken too soon, and their last days filled with fear. I still have so many unanswered questions but I wish something could have been done differently to help those people.