Remember Jonestown? The untold story of Jonestown

[Jan Klimkowski]

Watching the Brasscheck video and then reading some but not all of Hougan's stuff, there are some striking differences. Hougan claims the autopsys were botched or not done at all. The Brasscheck video alleges there was an onsite pathologist who examined the bodies and saw fresh needle marks under a should blade, evidence of gunshot wounds, and drag marks. These two sources aren't even close.

Since Hougan makes fewer, less sensational claims, I would tend to go with him. His reputation is first rate.

Lauren - see John Judge here:

The headlines the day of the massacre read: "Cult Dies in South
American Jungle: 400 Die in Mass Suicide, 700 Flee into
Jungle."[13] By all accounts in the press, as well as People's
Temple statements there were at least 1,100 people at
Jonestown.[14] There were 809 adult passports found there, and
reports of 300 children (276 found among the dead, and 210 never
identified). The headline figures from the first day add to the
same number: 1,100.[15] The original body count done by the
Guyanese was 408, and this figure was initially agreed to by U.S.
Army authorities on site.[16] However, over the next few days, the
total of reported dead began to rise quickly. The Army made a
series of misleading and openly false statements about the
discrepancy. The new total, which was the official final count,
was given almost a week later by American authorities as 913.[17]
A total of 16 survivors were reported to have returned to the
U.S.[18] Where were the others?

At their first press conference, the Americans claimed that the
Guyanese "could not count." These local people had carried out the
gruesome job of counting the bodies, and later assisted American
troops in the process of poking holes in the flesh lest they
explode from the gasses of decay.[19] Then the Americans proposed
another theory -- they had missed seeing a pile of bodies at the
back of the pavilion. The structure was the size of a small house,
and they had been at the scene for days. Finally, we were given
the official reason for the discrepancy -- bodies had fallen on
top of other bodies, adults covering children.[20]

It was a simple, if morbid, arithmetic that led to the first
suspicions. The 408 bodies discovered at first count would have to
be able to cover 505 bodies for a total of 913. In addition, those
who first worked on the bodies would have been unlikely to miss
bodies lying beneath each other since each body had to be
punctured. Eighty-two of the bodies first found were those of
children, reducing the number that could have been hidden below
others.[21] A search of nearly 150 photographs, aerial and
close-up, fails to show even one body lying under another, much
less 500.[22]

It seemed the first reports were true, 400 had died, and 700 had
fled to the jungle. The American authorities claimed to have
searched for people who had escaped, but found no evidence of any
in the surrounding area.[23] At least a hundred Guyanese troops
were among the first to arrive, and they were ordered to search
the jungle for survivors.[24] In the area, at the same time,
British Black Watch troops were on "training exercises," with
nearly 600 of their best-trained commandos. Soon, American Green
Berets were on site as well.[25] The presence of these soldiers,
specially trained in covert killing operations, may explain the
increasing numbers of bodies that appeared.

Most of the photographs show the bodies in neat rows, face down.
There are few exceptions. Close shots indicate drag marks, as
though the bodies were positioned by someone after death.[26] Is
it possible that the 700 who fled were rounded up by these troops,
brought back to Jonestown and added to the body count?[27]

If so, the bodies would indicate the cause of death. A new word
was coined by the media, "suicide-murder." But which was it?[28]
Autopsies and forensic science are a developing art. The
detectives of death use a variety of scientific methods and clues
to determine how people die, when they expire, and the specific
cause of death. Dr. Mootoo, the top Guyanese pathologist, was at
Jonestown within hours after the massacre. Refusing the assistance
of U.S. pathologists, he accompanied the teams that counted the
dead, examined the bodies, and worked to identify the deceased.
While the American press screamed about the "Kool-Aid Suicides,"
Dr. Mootoo was reaching a much different opinion.[29]

There are certain signs that show the types of poisons that lead
to the end of life. Cyanide blocks the messages from the brain to
the muscles by changing body chemistry in the central nervous
system. Even the "involuntary" functions like breathing and
heartbeat get mixed neural signals. It is a painful death, breath
coming in spurts. The other muscles spasm, limbs twist and
contort. The facial muscles draw back into a deadly grin, called
"cyanide rictus."[30] All these telling signs were absent in the
Jonestown dead. Limbs were limp and relaxed, and the few visible
faces showed no sign of distortion.[31]

Instead, Dr. Mootoo found fresh needle marks at the back of the
left shoulder blades of 80-90% of the victims.[32] Others had been
shot or strangled. One survivor reported that those who resisted
were forced by armed guards.[33] The gun that reportedly shot Jim
Jones was lying nearly 200 feet from his body, not a likely
suicide weapon.[34] As Chief Medical Examiner, Mootoo's testimony
to the Guyanese grand jury investigating Jonestown led to their
conclusion that all but three of the people were murdered by
"persons unknown." Only two had committed suicide they said.[35]
Several pictures show the gun-shot wounds on the bodies as
well.[36] The U.S. Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Schuler, said, "No
autopsies are needed. The cause of death is not an issue here."
The forensic doctors who later did autopsies at Dover, Delaware,
were never made aware of Dr. Mootoo's findings.[37]

There are other indications that the Guyanese government
participated with American authorities in a cover-up of the real
story, despite their own findings. One good example was Guyanese
Police Chief Lloyd Barker, who interfered with investigations,
helped "recover" 2.5 million for the Guyanese government, and was
often the first to officially announce the cover stories relating
to suicide, body counts and survivors.[38] Among the first to the
scene were the wife of Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham and
his Deputy Prime Minister, Ptolemy Reid. They returned from the
massacre site with nearly $1 million in cash, gold and jewelry
taken from the buildings and from the dead. Inexplicably, one of
Burnham's political party secretaries had visited the site of the
massacre only hours before it occurred.[39] When Shirley Field
Ridley, Guyanese Minister of Information, announced the change in
the body count to the shocked Guyanese parliament, she refused to
answer further questions. Other representatives began to point a
finger of shame at Ridley and the Burnham government, and the
local press dubbed the scandal "Templegate." All accused them of
taking a ghoulish payoff.[40]

Perhaps more significantly, the Americans brought in 16 huge C-131
cargo planes, but claimed they could only carry 36 caskets in each
one. These aircraft can carry tanks, trucks, troops and ammunition
all in one load.[41] At the scene, bodies were stripped of
identification, including the medical wrist tags visible in many
early photos.[42] Dust-off operations during Vietnam clearly
demonstrated that the military is capable of moving hundreds of
bodies in a short period.[43] Instead, they took nearly a week to
bring back the Jonestown dead, bringing in the majority at the end
of the period.[44] The corpses, rotting in the heat, made autopsy
impossible.[45] At one point, the remains of 183 people arrived in
82 caskets. Although the Guyanese had identified 174 bodies at the
site, only 17 (later 46) were tentatively identified at the
massive military mortuary in Dover, Delaware.[46]

Isolated there, hundreds of miles from their families who might
have visited the bodies at a similar mortuary in Oakland that was
used during Vietnam, many of the dead were eventually
cremated.[47] Press was excluded, and even family members had
difficulty getting access to the remains.[48] Officials in New
Jersey began to complain that state coroners were excluded, and
that the military coroners appointed were illegally performing
cremations.[49] One of the top forensic body identification
experts, who later was brought in to work on the Iranian raid
casualties, was denied repeated requests to assist.[50] In
December, the President of the National Association of Medical
Examiners complained in an open letter to the U.S. military that
they "badly botched" procedures, and that a simple fluid autopsy
was never performed at the point of discovery. Decomposition,
embalming and cremation made further forensic work impossible.[51]
The unorthodox method of identification attempted, to remove the
skin from the finger tip and slip it over a gloved finger, would
not have stood up in court.[52]

The long delay made it impossible to reconstruct the event. As
noted, these military doctors were unaware of Dr. Mootoo's
conclusions. Several civilian pathology experts said they
"shuddered at the ineptness" of the military, and that their
autopsy method was "doing it backwards." But in official
statements, the U.S. attempted to discredit the Guyanese grand
jury findings, saying they had uncovered "few facts."[53]