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Crime History - 913 killed in Jonestown Massacre

By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
November 18, 2009

On this day, Nov. 18, 1978, cult leader Jim Jones led hundreds of followers in a mass murder-suicide in a remote South American jungle.

Jones, a charismatic Christian preacher who claimed he was the reincarnation of Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha and Vladimir Lenin and also sold pet monkeys to raise money, had built his San Francisco-based church to as many as 8,000 members by the 1970s.

But, in 1977, when reports surfaced about drug use, financial fraud and brainwashing, Jones moved his followers to a retreat in Guyana called Jonestown.

Complaints continued and U.S. Rep. Leo J. Ryan visited the compound to investigate. When members asked Ryan to help them escape, Jones' armed brigade killed the congressmen and four others as they tried to leave on a plane.

Jones then ordered a state of emergency in the compound and extolled the "beauty of dying." Cult members who refused to drink a cyanide-laced fruit-flavored concoction were shot.

The final death toll was 913, including 276 children.

-- Scott McCabe



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Reader Comments

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Mark Donnelly

Nov 18, 2009

No, sir, Jim Jones was not "Christian preacher". He did not adhere to Biblical Christianity. The Bible itself defines the belief system of Jim Jones as that of "antichrist" (1 John 2:18-22). Anyone who claims to be the "reincarnation of Jesus Christ" is of the spirit of antichrist and certainly not Christian.

Please get your facts straight.

 

RWinks

Nov 18, 2009

Scott McCabe-Where did you get your misinformation for this? Jones was a communist and almost certainly insane. His cult had nothing to do with Christianity. He was intimately connected with the Democratic Party in San Francisco where he was a large fund raiser. A large proportion of the children who were murdered came from the California foster care system. State bureaucrats had given children to Jones due to the influence he had gotten from political donations. Ryan, a left-wing Democrat, went to Guyana because he was well acquainted with Jones.

 


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