Defecting Temple News Today

When they took me and lifted me into that plane, i felt like i had just been wrapped in the american flag. i was very close to death. and they saved me. >> of the five people killed on the airstrip, patricia parks is the only defecting temple member. the rest of her family had escaped into the bush. >> do you still have your family? did everybody make it out okay? >> no. they shot my moms brains out. shes the only one in the family that didnt make it. >> you didnt see that? >> i didnt see her ge...

Political and social movement, which would effect radical change in the country. my younger sister annie wrote to me and said that peoples temple was the only place that she saw true apostolic christianity being practiced. so she saw it as a christian organization. >> i heard jones talk, and its like, wow, hes saying a lot of what i believe in. spiritually, politically, in every way. this is something i could do where i felt that i was part of the solution, as opposed to part of the problem. >> ...

Politics. i just knew that those people reflected me. they were my brothers and sisters. it was the most alive place that i had ever been in. >> i had $20 to my name, and i was hitchhiking up between ukiah and redwood valley, where the temple was, and somebody picked me up who was a member of the temple and said if youre looking for a place to stay, a place to sleep, get some food, ive got the place for you. i belong to this wonderful church. they feed the hungry. they take care of the sick. and...

Unbeknownst to me, they had to buy all that fruit. and i found out later there would be pictures of jim with his hand up holding, supposedly, like these are bananas. he was literally holding those bananas up there. they werent growing on that tree. >> if jonestown was not yet a tropical paradise, jones was determined to one day make it the socialist utopia he dreamed and preached about. but for now home was san francisco. and by 1976, jones had made peoples temple a major player in local politic...

We needed to be totally committed to this cause, period. and you cant be part way. you cant do it part way. >> it was told over and over again that we were going to be -- everybody was going to be killed. >> suicide drills and beatings became as much a part of the temples internal life as social service was to its public face. devotion to jones had to be total. >> one of the very powerful things in the church was that you werent really allowed to express how you really felt. it was like, i would...

All the papers i signed and all the blank papers i signed, he couldnt believe it. i mean, he screamed at me, "how could you do something so stupid?" i said, "you want to tell me youd be in a room with 120 peers around you, and you were told everybody is going to sign a piece of paper, that youre not going to sign it? would you do that? that you would know you would not leave that room beaten and/or dead?" >> i would like to kill grace stoen and tim stoen. id go back and do it right now. >> grace...

In the states you didnt get that kind of food, necessarily. well, unbeknownst to me, they had to buy all that fruit. and i found out later there would be pictures of jim with his hand up holding, supposedly, like these are bananas. he was literally holding those bananas up there. they werent growing on that tree. >> if jonestown was not yet a tropical paradise, jones was determined to one day make it the socialist utopia he dreamed and preached about. but for now home was san francisco. and by 1...

>> of the five people killed on the airstrip, patricia parks is the only defecting temple member. the rest of her family had escaped into the bush. >> do you still have your family? did everybody make it out okay? >> no. they shot my moms brains out. shes the only one in the family that didnt make it. >> you didnt see that? >> i didnt see her get shot, but i saw her brains in the plane and i saw her laying out on the ground. 

>> with the secret revelations he gathered in the summer of 1977, reporter marshall kilduth had the makings of a full blown expose. >> here i am with a new look at the church. ex-members had rough things to say about how the church treated its finances, how they recruited members. i went back and said i got a whole new story here. heres the deal. guy said, nope, im not interested. jones is doing good work. he doesnt need this kind of attacking. >> the truth of the matter is that the leadership o...

Also becoming examples in their community, and it spread. >> as the numbers of faithful grew, jones and the temple became a potent and untouchable force in california politics. >> everybody was afraid to come out against him because they felt he had more power and more clout, and he did.