28-08-2015, 04:00 PM
XV THE PHANTOM PREACHER
The Reverend Jim Jones is alive, wealthy, secure and conceivably sipping Pina coladas on the veranda as he reads this first published account of his escape from the carnage he created in Jonestown. The moment of truth was not a face- to-face, Stanley/Livingstone meeting in the jungle but rather a far less dramatic encounter in the local public library. I returned the proof of the preacher's survival to its rightful place on the shelf for any other adventurer who is willing to dig six years to discover for himself. For those not willing to make such a commitment, here is the abridged version of a very intriguing tale.
As any student of Jim Jones' career soon realizes, the man was not the paranoid schizophrenic he led historians to believe. There is a serious danger in pigeonholing him in clinical terminology and losing sight of the simple truth that Jim Jones is just plain evil. He is extremely intelligent, logical, calculating and exceptionally devious. A study of his public life is a study in successful criminal tactics. According to accounts, he was in total control of every situation with the exception of his arrest in Los Angeles in 1973 and his alleged death in Guyana in 1978. Aside from being his only two reported failure:, these two separate incidences share the adjectives unexplained and bizarre. It is only when they are considered together that one can appreciate the true genius of Jim Jones.
In the fall of 1973, Jones set in motion a masterful manipulation that would use the Los Angeles Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to establish a phantom identity. The story begins at an evening service of the Los Angeles Peoples Temple when Jones announced to his congregation, "I have had a revelation that something strange might happen tonight. No matter what happens, I don't want anyone to call an ambulance.[183] He said nothing more on the subject and continued his sermon until Pinky, an elderly Black parishioner, collapsed on the floor at the rear of the building. At first it appeared to be just the beginning of another one of Jones' fake faith healings but Jones' wife, Marceline, uncharacteristically countered his order and phoned for an ambulance. Temple guards, Cleveland Jackson and Jimmy Jones, the Reverend's adopted Black son, carried Pinky on a stretcher out of the building and into an adjoining alley.
Somehow, the two guards managed to provoke a fist fight with the ambulance attendants who had responded to Marceline's call for help. They refused to allow them to take Pinky to the hospital. Young Jones struck one of the attendants while the second one broke free to radio for police assistance. The Los Angeles Police Department responded with several squad cars and a dozen uniformed officers. The scene was chaotic with blaring sirens, flashing red lights, and even a helicopter overhead carrying police marksmen, whose long rifle barrels pointed at the crowd below.
The two Temple guards were arrested and Jimmy Jones promptly punched an officer in the face, reportedly breaking the policeman's nose. Meanwhile, Marceline and several additional guards entered the alley and Marceline began ranting and raving at the police, a technique of intimidation known to the exclusively Caucasian hierarchy as "crazy niggering." She, too, was taken into custody and, in the ensuing confusion, Temple guards helped Pinky off the stretcher aback into the Temple. The police and the ambulance left the scene without her. Marceline, Cleveland and Jimmy were remanded to the Ramparts Police Station. Inside the Temple, ushers were running up and down the aisles telling everyone to remain seated and calm, though most had no idea what had transpired outside. Jones proceeded to address the congregation outside in a low, serious tone,
Early this morning I had a revelation. I told
everyone in this building that there was to be
no ambulance called because I knew this type of
trouble would happen. Someone didn't hear my
instruction and called an ambulance anyway. Our
sister, Pinky, had collapsed, but I knew that my
power could take care of her. She is fine now,
in an adjoining room. Through my power, she
disappeared off the stretcher as the policemen and guards were arguing about
her.[184]
Jones then appointed an assistant to complete the service and left for the Ramparts Precinct Station to rescue his wife and son. Upon his arrival, he was so abusive to the police that he too was confined to a cell. Cleveland Jackson and Jimmy Jones remained incarcerated for several days but the Reverend and his wife were released without being formally charged.
It is evident that Jones had prior knowledge of the incident with Pinky and the ambulance which suggests that he planned the scenario that resulted in the apprehension of his wife and the arrest of his son. Following the incident, Jones embarked on a vicious letter-writing campaign in which he demanded a public apology from the police officers involved. He did everything in his power to create a hostile attitude in the Ramparts Precinct Station. Jones was certain to be arrested the next time he stepped out of line in Los Angeles.
December of 1973 was a very busy month for Jones. He arranged to lease a large tract of land in Guyana and sent the first group of trail blazers to South America to carve a community out of the dense jungle, a community that five years later would be the site of the massacre. Also, about this time, he began rehearsing the White Night; the mass suicide ritual that would be his congregation's last supper. The five year plan was underway and Jones' first concern was for his own ultimate survival.
It was a well known fact in the Temple that Jones employed cosmetic doubles to impersonate him in situations he considered dangerous. Everywhere he travelled, he was accompanied by a contingent of cosmetologists and impersonators. Long time aide Rheaviana Beam or his personal servant, Rose Shelton, carried the suitcase containing the wigs and make-up they used to transform Wayne Pietila, Harold Cordell, Mike Prokes and at least one other unidentified Temple aide into clones of Jim Jones. The double deceit was relatively easy as the real Jim Jones was, himself, very "made-up." He dyed his hair jet black and used a variety of facial cosmetics. Since he was almost never seen in public without his CIA, aviator-type sunglasses, no one ever really got a good look at his face. The task was not to make the doubles look like Jones but to make the doubles and Jones look like the same person. It was easy.
On or about December 1st, 1973, Jones escorted his adopted son, Lew, to the Westlake Theater, located about six blocks up Alvarado Street from his Los Angeles Temple. After the movie, the two returned to the Temple to report to everyone there that Lew had been harassed by a man in the theater's men's room who Jones believed was an undercover vice squad officer. Reporting the incident was apparently important to Jones for, by doing so, he had to admit to breaking one of his own rules. Temple members were forbidden to attend movies. The incident accurately foretold Jones' own arrest two weeks later.
On December 13th, Jones was once again in Los Angeles for the weekly services but this time he remained locked in seclusion while an unidentified double was sent on a very important mission. The double was instructed to go to the Westlake Theater and entrap the vice squad officer in the men's room into making an illegal and embarrassing arrest. Jones told him that the purpose of the mission was to discredit the policeman as revenge for his harassment of Lew and also to discredit the entire Ramparts police force, which had continually harassed Temple members ever since the incident with Pinky and the ambulance. According to one published report, Jones told only his attorney, Tim Stoen, of his plan, "in case an emergency developed." The double set out on his mission, unaware that five years later, he would be murdered for his little masquerade.
The phantom Jim Jones walked the one mile up Alvarado Street to the Westlake Theater, across from MacArthur Park. Even in gaudy Los Angeles, he must have been rather conspicuous on the sidewalk as he was dressed in a bright green sport coat with a red and blue striped shirt and black pants. He bought a ticket at the box office, went inside and took a seat in the balcony for the matinee showing of "Jesus Christ Superstar." Sometime during the movie, he walked down to the men's room. As he entered the toilet stall , undercover vice squad officer A.L. Kagele was washing his hands at the sink. Both men returned to the balcony at about the same time and, according to Officer Kagele's statement,
...Officer observed the defendant sitting near
the back of the balcony and (he) appeared to
wave to officer to come up. Officer sat down for
a few minutes, then got up to check the activity
in the rest room. Officer entered the rest room,
and within a minute officer heard the rest room door open and observed the defendant...go
to the same toilet. Office observed the
defendant's right arm moving, and at this time
the defendant turned to officer. Officer
observed the defendant's penis to be erect and
the defendant, with his right hand, was
masturbating and showing his penis to officer.
The defendant then walked toward officer with
his erect penis in his hand. Officer exited the
rest room and signalled his partner of the
violation.[185]
At 4 PM, the phantom was arrested for lewd conduct by Officer Kagele and his partner, Officer Lloyd Frost, and taken into custody to the Ramparts Division Station where he was booked, photographed and fingerprinted as "James Warren Jones." Tim Stoen posted the five hundred dollar bail and the defendant was released and ordered to appear in court on December 20th.
Tim Stoen immediately went to work on his client's defense. For the next few days he shuttled between Los Angeles and Sacramento, pleading his case to officials of the LAPD and the State Attorney General's office. Stoen exerted considerable influence for, aside from his Temple duties, he was Assistant District Attorney for Mendocino County, the bastion of the Peoples Temple.
On the day of the trial, Municipal Court Judge Clarence A. Stromwell granted a motion from an unidentified prosecutor from the city attorney's office to dismiss the case "in the furtherance of justice." Judge Stromwell stamped the court docket, "Defendant stipulates as to probable cause," that is to say the defendant agreed there was justification to presume that he was guilty as charged. No reason has ever been given for the dismissal, as required by law.
Six weeks later, on February 1st, 1974, Judge Stromwell ordered the court records, as well as the arrest records on file with the LAPD, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies to be "sealed and destroyed." The judge's action was highly irregular because his order was given in private, not in court in the presence of the arresting officer and prosecutor as is standard procedure.
Stoen had succeeded in getting the charges against his client dismissed and in keeping the story from the local press. He had done far more than the average attorney, even seeking the consultation of Mike Franchetti, later appointed Chief Assistant to the Attorney General of California, because, as Franchetti recalled, "I was an expert in records law; how they were sealed."[186]
Despite Judge Stromwell's order, Jones' records were evidently not destroyed. Stoen had somehow managed to pirate several photocopies of the records which he placed in his files. The copies were discovered about a year later as the Temple moved its headquarters from Mendocino County to San Francisco. A few months before the massacre in 1978, Stoen, who had since allegedly defected from the Temple prepared a motion in conjunction with the San Francisco Examiner and the Los Angeles Times to have Jones' arrest records released to the public. Eventually, the records were unsealed and published in March of 1979, four months after the massacre. Since Stoen possessed copies of the records from the very beginning, his petition suggests he was only verifying that the LAPD had not destroyed their copy.
The events that transpired in Los Angeles had the earmarks of a Jim Jones master plan. They were bizarre, ironic, complicated and difficult for the average observer to understand. The previously accepted accounts leave many critical questions unanswered. Questions such as: If Jones had Prior knowledge of the episode with Pinky and the ambulance then why did he allow the situation to evolve unabated and result in the incarceration of his wife and son? And why would Jones go out of his to make an enemy of the LAPD. Why would he approach the vice squad officer in the theater when he had prior knowledge of the undercover stake out. Why would the FBI even have a file on such a minor misdemeanour as a lewd conduct charge. Why was the case dismissed? Why were the records ordered destroyed and why were they not destroyed. These and other important questions surrounding the arrest have never been addressed.
As with all of Jones plans designed to set the record wrong, posterity is provided with a glimpse of the preacher's off- beat sense of humor; it was his trademark. In this case there is an intense irony it a Christian minister committing a lewd act at the showing of movie about the life of Jesus Christ. Jones, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Christ, among other notable figures in history, had staged his own arrest and his true motives for doing so would not be appreciated until this work.
As Congressman Ryan and his entourage of Concerned Relatives and reporters prepared to leave Georgetown for their ill- fated trip into Guyana's interior, Tim Stoen's wife, Grace, who also claimed to have defected from the Temple, prepared the press for a cosmetic Jim Jones. Ron Javers, reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, later recorded his initial impressions of the preacher,
Jim Jones was sitting at the head of the table,
dressed in a red shirt and khaki pants. He had
black hair and long sideburns , and even though
it was night, he was wearing sunglasses. He al-
ways wore them, we learned. Immediately he
looked to me like a man who was powdered and
perfumed.[187]
Washington Post correspondent Charles Krause was more specific in his account:
I sat beside him [Jones] and watched him closely
as he talked. Grace Stoen had told me that he
used an eyebrow pencil to give an appearance of
thickness to his sideburns. I was curious about
that and, after looking at him for a while,
decided she was right.[188]
Others in attendance, who had known Jones in the past said that he just did not look like the Jim Jones they remembered. He was much heavier and even his facial features were different. Some attributed this to reports that he had been ill, others that his illness was actually due to an overuse of illicit drugs; but most agreed that he did not look the same as their memory of him.
In the aftermath of the massacre, a corpse was discovered in front of the throne among the nine hundred others in and around the pavilion. It was tentatively identified as Jim Jones. Unlike most of the other victims, the body had not been poisoned but shot once behind the left ear. It was presumed that he had been murdered by a disenchanted follower as the gun was found some thirty yards away but this will never be established for certain because nitrate and neutron activation tests were not performed to determine if there were traces of gunpowder on Jones' hands. Such tests are standard procedure in deaths where there is a question as to murder or suicide. The absence of such simple tests exemplifies the very poor handling of the corpse and its identification.
The corpse, identified as Jim Jones, was allowed to rot in the jungle heat for four days before it was removed. No attempt was made to preserve the remains. The body was not refrigerated (not even in the temporary morgue set up at the Georgetown airport). This may be due in part to the U.S. State Department's original plan to bury all the dead in a mass grave in Jonestown, without identification or autopsy. Three days after the massacre, the Associated Press reported, "Douglas Davidson, an officer with the U.S. Embassy, said the bodies are in an advanced state of decomposition and authorities are considering burying them in Jonestown." Relatives of the dead protested the mass burial plan and petitioned the U.S. government to transport the bodies back to the United States. George Moscone, mayor of San Francisco, which was the hometown of many of the victims, telegraphed President Jimmy Carter to request federal assistance. His telegram, dated November 24th, read in part,
I respectfully request that you use your
authority to underwrite the cost of bringing
back those whose next of kin request that they
be returned and who otherwise do not have the
means to do so.[189]
Over nine hundred corpses were flown, via military cargo planes, from Georgetown to a military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Only seven autopsies were conducted at the federal facility and those were performed after embalming. No tissue samples or bodily fluids were saved for analysis. The chief undertaker, Charles Carson, destroyed all the evidence in what the medical profession almost universally recognized as the "ineptness" of the post-mortem investigation. The following conclusion of an article appearing in a forensic pathologist trade magazine was typical of the prevailing professional opinion,
The contradictions, inconsistencies and
questionable truths related through these
interviews leave many unanswered questions. In fact, the
entire episode suggests government mismanagement
or a cover-up of the true facts. The statements
given by various government officials lend fuel
to accusations made by people like Mark Lane,
who served as legal counsel for Jones' Peoples
Temple. Lane proclaimed that a U.S. conspiracy
existed to destroy the cult and its leader. The
totally unprofessional and questionable handling
of the bodies and the failure to establish cause
and manner of death do not dispute Lane's
charges. Unfortunately, his claims are
strengthened because there are so few facts
about what actually happened. It is regrettable
that professional medical personnel failed to do
what the newest member of a laboratory would have
known to do.[190]
Eventually, though posthumously, George Moscone was granted his request when 253 unidentified bodies were flown to California and buried together in a large pit dug in an Oakland Cemetery. The federal government paid the multi-million dollar bill but later confiscated known Temple bank accounts as repayment.
As soon as the news of Jones' alleged death reached the outside world, the Concerned Relatives and ex-Temple members proclaimed, in unison, that the corpse was not Jim Jones. The news media received various, yet consistent, reports that Jones did not intend to die in the White Night and that, in all the recent rehearsals, he planned to survive, return to the United States with a "hit squad", and kill all the enemies of the Peoples Temple. Former members described his use of cosmetic doubles or "look-alikes" as they called them, and were so adamant in their claims that Jones was still alive that the FBI was called in to identify the body.
A stainless steel coffin labelled, "Rev. Jimmie Jones" arrived at the military mortuary on Dover Air Base on November 23rd at 8:05 PM (EST). Up until this time no special effort had been made to identify the remains other than a visual identification by U.S. Embassy officials in Guyana who would only say they were "awfully convinced" the decomposed corpse was Jim Jones. The FBI immediately fingerprinted the body, which was in such an advanced state of decomposition that the technician had to surgically remove the fingertips and slip them over his own gloved fingers to effect the printing. Though the process was difficult and completed rather hastily, it was accurate. That same evening, William Webster, the Director of the FBI, announced that the Bureau had made a positive identification of the body of Jim Jones. The following day, the San Francisco Chronicle reported,
The identification of the preacher's remains was made soon after [arrival] by a team of ten FBI fingerprint specialists who compared Los Angeles police department records of Jones' prints with ones taken from his body, Webster said.[191].
The basic premise of this chapter that William Webster's statement was simply not true. The FBI was not positive that the body was Jim Jones, only that the body was the same man arrested as Jim Jones five years earlier. There were no other records of Jones' prints. The authenticity of the LAPD files was never questioned and the case was mistakenly closed.
Marceline's parents, Walter and Charlotte Baldwin, initially requested that the remains of Jim, Marceline and their adopted son Lew, be shipped back to their native Indiana for burial but they changed their minds the day after Webster's announcement. The Baldwins' final request was that the bodies be cremated and the ashes spread on the Atlantic Ocean. Charles Carson, chief undertaker at Dover Air Force Base, complied with their wishes. This, in itself, may be unprecedented as cadavers entrusted to the government are buried in a potter's field and never cremated and buried at sea. From the throne in Jonestown to the Atlantic Ocean, the body identified as Jim Jones had never left the control of the U.S. military, federal law enforcement agencies or their subcontractors.
In retrospect, Jim Jones was in complete control of all aspects of his master escape plan, from Pinky and the ambulance to Lew and the vice squad officer to his own faked arrest, the sealing of the records and ultimately the murder of his double. Tim Stoen had been very instrumental in getting the charges against his client dismissed and in keeping the story out of the news while, five years later, his wife prepared the press for a cosmetic Jones. The press, in turn, prepared the world for a cosmetic corpse. There is no doubt that this happened; the only question is whether or not the Stoens and others who helped establish the false identity of the phantom preacher were cognizant of the ramifications of their actions. Temple security was always on a "need-to- know" basis which was doubly true of this particular project as evidenced by the fact that Jones cast only his family members in key roles. Most participants were manipulated. Even the director of the FBI was deceived by this preacher who one day will be recognized as one of the foremost criminal minds of this century.
So what happened to the real Jim Jones? He escaped. Wherever he is, he is certainly not alone, there are others with him but they will never disclose his whereabouts. The best this researcher can do is to report the final few moments of his public life.
As the last of the congregation were poisoned, the few escapees hiding in the jungle heard the Jonestown guards cheer, "Hip, Hip, Hurray!," three times. All the guards had been told that they would escape with their leader, but one would not. The unidentified double, who had posed as Jones five years earlier, was called to the throne in the pavilion and shot. Before the remaining forty or fifty fled, Jones radioed the Albatross III (the Temples' seaworthy ship which was anchored at the Port of Spain in Trinidad) to pick them up at the mouth of the Waini River about thirty miles north of Jonestown. This coincided with recent rehearsals in which Jones said he would escape the White Night by sea. The radio transmission was intercepted and the Albatross was seized by authorities In Trinidad. The Temples' fishing trawler, the Cudjo, had been docked at Port Kaituma during the massacre but immediately after it was sent up river leaving Mike Prokes and the Carter brothers stranded. They were to rendezvous with the ship for their escape but were arrested on the docks. Why the ship was sent up river and who was on board has never been reported. It is only known that Guyanese authorities seized the vessel. A third Temple ship, the Marceline, was never found though there is some speculation that the Marceline was actually the Albatross or the Cudjo sailing under an assumed name.
The stated plan to escape by sea and the radio transmission to the Albatross were only diversions. Jones was well aware that the Federal Communications Commission and other government agencies were monitoring Jonestown radio transmissions after receiving numerous complaints that the Temple illegally used codes and frequency changes to disguise their messages. It was no accident that this all- important message was not in code. Jones wanted the authorities to overhear his last minute escape plan for, if anyone sought him out, they would certainly be looking on the Guyanese coast when in fact Jones and his guards had headed west for the thirteen mile hike to the Venezuelan border; a path they had previously blazed and patrolled.
The day after the massacre, a Venezuelan Air Force pilot patrolling his country's disputed border with Guyana reported seeing a group of forty or fifty armed men in a clearing as they entered Venezuela at precisely the place and time where Jones and his guards should have been. The Venezuelan government refused to confirm their pilot's report, making him the last person to see Jim Jones and live to tell about it.
As a postscript to the story, this chapter was first drafted in 1980, when it was believed that its conclusion was not shared by any other researcher. At the time no one else thought that Jones had survived. On May 12, 1981, the Globe published a one page article by William Harris entitled, "Jim Jones Still Alive in Brazil," which began, "Jim Jones, former cult leader and CIA agent, escaped the Peoples Temple massacre in Guyana and is now hiding out in Brazil, according to sensational new evidence." The article outlined the Ryan family's lawsuit against the State Department which named Phil Blakey and Dick Dwyer as CIA operatives and Jonestown as a "mass mind-control CIA experiment." It also included several quotes from Joe Holsinger, Ryan's attorney and long-time friend, who reportedly said,
The more I investigate the mysteries of Jonestown, the more I am convinced there is something sinister behind it all... There is no doubt in my mind that Jones had very close CIA connections. At the time of the tragedy, the Temple had three boats in the water off the coast. The boats disappeared shortly afterwards. Remember Brazil is a country Jones was very familiar with. He is supposed to have had money there. And it is not too far from Guyana. My own feeling is that Jones was ambushed by CIA agents who then disappeared in the boats. But the whole story is so mind-boggling that I'm willing to concede he escaped with them.
The article went on to quote a Guyanese official who said,
A lot of people here believe Jones had a double who died at Jonestown and that Jones himself is still alive.
Perhaps more important than the quotes was the author's recognition of what should have been obvious to everyone; namely the discrepancy between the 1,200 residents in Jonestown and the slightly more than 900 bodies found in its wake. Harris wrote, "Of course, some cult members were never found -- the holders of 300 U.S. passports found in the camp are unaccounted for. They may have fled to another country." Anyone who researches Jonestown would instantly recognize the uniquely different and dangerously true tone of the Globe article. The Globe is a sensationalist tabloid of the type sold at the supermarket check-out stands but, in spite of its monetary motives, its story was closer to the truth than any other. The difference between this article and others published in the United States is that the Globe is published in Canada and perhaps out of the range of the CIA's close scrutiny and control.
What all this brings to mind is, if Jones escaped Jonestown, where is he today? He wanted us to think he planned to travel the thirty miles northeast to the mouth of the Waini River but that was only a diversion. Likewise, the Venezuelan pilot's unconfirmed report that he travelled west might also have been a diversion. Jones would not have been well-received by the Venezuelan government after his community of Americans was used to trick their president into giving up any claims to the disputed territory. Brazil would appear to be his logical choice for sanctuary. He had money there. He had contacts there in the military government that he had helped into power. Also, his idol and possible mentor, Josef Mengele, was at the time living in San Paulo. But, moreover, the safest haven would have been Africa. Jonestown had secretly transported hundreds of mercenaries to the Dark Continent in its early days. One more unobserved flight from Caracas or San Paulo or any number of airstrips in South America would not have presented a problem.
The Reverend Jim Jones is alive, wealthy, secure and conceivably sipping Pina coladas on the veranda as he reads this first published account of his escape from the carnage he created in Jonestown. The moment of truth was not a face- to-face, Stanley/Livingstone meeting in the jungle but rather a far less dramatic encounter in the local public library. I returned the proof of the preacher's survival to its rightful place on the shelf for any other adventurer who is willing to dig six years to discover for himself. For those not willing to make such a commitment, here is the abridged version of a very intriguing tale.
As any student of Jim Jones' career soon realizes, the man was not the paranoid schizophrenic he led historians to believe. There is a serious danger in pigeonholing him in clinical terminology and losing sight of the simple truth that Jim Jones is just plain evil. He is extremely intelligent, logical, calculating and exceptionally devious. A study of his public life is a study in successful criminal tactics. According to accounts, he was in total control of every situation with the exception of his arrest in Los Angeles in 1973 and his alleged death in Guyana in 1978. Aside from being his only two reported failure:, these two separate incidences share the adjectives unexplained and bizarre. It is only when they are considered together that one can appreciate the true genius of Jim Jones.
In the fall of 1973, Jones set in motion a masterful manipulation that would use the Los Angeles Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to establish a phantom identity. The story begins at an evening service of the Los Angeles Peoples Temple when Jones announced to his congregation, "I have had a revelation that something strange might happen tonight. No matter what happens, I don't want anyone to call an ambulance.[183] He said nothing more on the subject and continued his sermon until Pinky, an elderly Black parishioner, collapsed on the floor at the rear of the building. At first it appeared to be just the beginning of another one of Jones' fake faith healings but Jones' wife, Marceline, uncharacteristically countered his order and phoned for an ambulance. Temple guards, Cleveland Jackson and Jimmy Jones, the Reverend's adopted Black son, carried Pinky on a stretcher out of the building and into an adjoining alley.
Somehow, the two guards managed to provoke a fist fight with the ambulance attendants who had responded to Marceline's call for help. They refused to allow them to take Pinky to the hospital. Young Jones struck one of the attendants while the second one broke free to radio for police assistance. The Los Angeles Police Department responded with several squad cars and a dozen uniformed officers. The scene was chaotic with blaring sirens, flashing red lights, and even a helicopter overhead carrying police marksmen, whose long rifle barrels pointed at the crowd below.
The two Temple guards were arrested and Jimmy Jones promptly punched an officer in the face, reportedly breaking the policeman's nose. Meanwhile, Marceline and several additional guards entered the alley and Marceline began ranting and raving at the police, a technique of intimidation known to the exclusively Caucasian hierarchy as "crazy niggering." She, too, was taken into custody and, in the ensuing confusion, Temple guards helped Pinky off the stretcher aback into the Temple. The police and the ambulance left the scene without her. Marceline, Cleveland and Jimmy were remanded to the Ramparts Police Station. Inside the Temple, ushers were running up and down the aisles telling everyone to remain seated and calm, though most had no idea what had transpired outside. Jones proceeded to address the congregation outside in a low, serious tone,
Early this morning I had a revelation. I told
everyone in this building that there was to be
no ambulance called because I knew this type of
trouble would happen. Someone didn't hear my
instruction and called an ambulance anyway. Our
sister, Pinky, had collapsed, but I knew that my
power could take care of her. She is fine now,
in an adjoining room. Through my power, she
disappeared off the stretcher as the policemen and guards were arguing about
her.[184]
Jones then appointed an assistant to complete the service and left for the Ramparts Precinct Station to rescue his wife and son. Upon his arrival, he was so abusive to the police that he too was confined to a cell. Cleveland Jackson and Jimmy Jones remained incarcerated for several days but the Reverend and his wife were released without being formally charged.
It is evident that Jones had prior knowledge of the incident with Pinky and the ambulance which suggests that he planned the scenario that resulted in the apprehension of his wife and the arrest of his son. Following the incident, Jones embarked on a vicious letter-writing campaign in which he demanded a public apology from the police officers involved. He did everything in his power to create a hostile attitude in the Ramparts Precinct Station. Jones was certain to be arrested the next time he stepped out of line in Los Angeles.
December of 1973 was a very busy month for Jones. He arranged to lease a large tract of land in Guyana and sent the first group of trail blazers to South America to carve a community out of the dense jungle, a community that five years later would be the site of the massacre. Also, about this time, he began rehearsing the White Night; the mass suicide ritual that would be his congregation's last supper. The five year plan was underway and Jones' first concern was for his own ultimate survival.
It was a well known fact in the Temple that Jones employed cosmetic doubles to impersonate him in situations he considered dangerous. Everywhere he travelled, he was accompanied by a contingent of cosmetologists and impersonators. Long time aide Rheaviana Beam or his personal servant, Rose Shelton, carried the suitcase containing the wigs and make-up they used to transform Wayne Pietila, Harold Cordell, Mike Prokes and at least one other unidentified Temple aide into clones of Jim Jones. The double deceit was relatively easy as the real Jim Jones was, himself, very "made-up." He dyed his hair jet black and used a variety of facial cosmetics. Since he was almost never seen in public without his CIA, aviator-type sunglasses, no one ever really got a good look at his face. The task was not to make the doubles look like Jones but to make the doubles and Jones look like the same person. It was easy.
On or about December 1st, 1973, Jones escorted his adopted son, Lew, to the Westlake Theater, located about six blocks up Alvarado Street from his Los Angeles Temple. After the movie, the two returned to the Temple to report to everyone there that Lew had been harassed by a man in the theater's men's room who Jones believed was an undercover vice squad officer. Reporting the incident was apparently important to Jones for, by doing so, he had to admit to breaking one of his own rules. Temple members were forbidden to attend movies. The incident accurately foretold Jones' own arrest two weeks later.
On December 13th, Jones was once again in Los Angeles for the weekly services but this time he remained locked in seclusion while an unidentified double was sent on a very important mission. The double was instructed to go to the Westlake Theater and entrap the vice squad officer in the men's room into making an illegal and embarrassing arrest. Jones told him that the purpose of the mission was to discredit the policeman as revenge for his harassment of Lew and also to discredit the entire Ramparts police force, which had continually harassed Temple members ever since the incident with Pinky and the ambulance. According to one published report, Jones told only his attorney, Tim Stoen, of his plan, "in case an emergency developed." The double set out on his mission, unaware that five years later, he would be murdered for his little masquerade.
The phantom Jim Jones walked the one mile up Alvarado Street to the Westlake Theater, across from MacArthur Park. Even in gaudy Los Angeles, he must have been rather conspicuous on the sidewalk as he was dressed in a bright green sport coat with a red and blue striped shirt and black pants. He bought a ticket at the box office, went inside and took a seat in the balcony for the matinee showing of "Jesus Christ Superstar." Sometime during the movie, he walked down to the men's room. As he entered the toilet stall , undercover vice squad officer A.L. Kagele was washing his hands at the sink. Both men returned to the balcony at about the same time and, according to Officer Kagele's statement,
...Officer observed the defendant sitting near
the back of the balcony and (he) appeared to
wave to officer to come up. Officer sat down for
a few minutes, then got up to check the activity
in the rest room. Officer entered the rest room,
and within a minute officer heard the rest room door open and observed the defendant...go
to the same toilet. Office observed the
defendant's right arm moving, and at this time
the defendant turned to officer. Officer
observed the defendant's penis to be erect and
the defendant, with his right hand, was
masturbating and showing his penis to officer.
The defendant then walked toward officer with
his erect penis in his hand. Officer exited the
rest room and signalled his partner of the
violation.[185]
At 4 PM, the phantom was arrested for lewd conduct by Officer Kagele and his partner, Officer Lloyd Frost, and taken into custody to the Ramparts Division Station where he was booked, photographed and fingerprinted as "James Warren Jones." Tim Stoen posted the five hundred dollar bail and the defendant was released and ordered to appear in court on December 20th.
Tim Stoen immediately went to work on his client's defense. For the next few days he shuttled between Los Angeles and Sacramento, pleading his case to officials of the LAPD and the State Attorney General's office. Stoen exerted considerable influence for, aside from his Temple duties, he was Assistant District Attorney for Mendocino County, the bastion of the Peoples Temple.
On the day of the trial, Municipal Court Judge Clarence A. Stromwell granted a motion from an unidentified prosecutor from the city attorney's office to dismiss the case "in the furtherance of justice." Judge Stromwell stamped the court docket, "Defendant stipulates as to probable cause," that is to say the defendant agreed there was justification to presume that he was guilty as charged. No reason has ever been given for the dismissal, as required by law.
Six weeks later, on February 1st, 1974, Judge Stromwell ordered the court records, as well as the arrest records on file with the LAPD, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies to be "sealed and destroyed." The judge's action was highly irregular because his order was given in private, not in court in the presence of the arresting officer and prosecutor as is standard procedure.
Stoen had succeeded in getting the charges against his client dismissed and in keeping the story from the local press. He had done far more than the average attorney, even seeking the consultation of Mike Franchetti, later appointed Chief Assistant to the Attorney General of California, because, as Franchetti recalled, "I was an expert in records law; how they were sealed."[186]
Despite Judge Stromwell's order, Jones' records were evidently not destroyed. Stoen had somehow managed to pirate several photocopies of the records which he placed in his files. The copies were discovered about a year later as the Temple moved its headquarters from Mendocino County to San Francisco. A few months before the massacre in 1978, Stoen, who had since allegedly defected from the Temple prepared a motion in conjunction with the San Francisco Examiner and the Los Angeles Times to have Jones' arrest records released to the public. Eventually, the records were unsealed and published in March of 1979, four months after the massacre. Since Stoen possessed copies of the records from the very beginning, his petition suggests he was only verifying that the LAPD had not destroyed their copy.
The events that transpired in Los Angeles had the earmarks of a Jim Jones master plan. They were bizarre, ironic, complicated and difficult for the average observer to understand. The previously accepted accounts leave many critical questions unanswered. Questions such as: If Jones had Prior knowledge of the episode with Pinky and the ambulance then why did he allow the situation to evolve unabated and result in the incarceration of his wife and son? And why would Jones go out of his to make an enemy of the LAPD. Why would he approach the vice squad officer in the theater when he had prior knowledge of the undercover stake out. Why would the FBI even have a file on such a minor misdemeanour as a lewd conduct charge. Why was the case dismissed? Why were the records ordered destroyed and why were they not destroyed. These and other important questions surrounding the arrest have never been addressed.
As with all of Jones plans designed to set the record wrong, posterity is provided with a glimpse of the preacher's off- beat sense of humor; it was his trademark. In this case there is an intense irony it a Christian minister committing a lewd act at the showing of movie about the life of Jesus Christ. Jones, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Christ, among other notable figures in history, had staged his own arrest and his true motives for doing so would not be appreciated until this work.
As Congressman Ryan and his entourage of Concerned Relatives and reporters prepared to leave Georgetown for their ill- fated trip into Guyana's interior, Tim Stoen's wife, Grace, who also claimed to have defected from the Temple, prepared the press for a cosmetic Jim Jones. Ron Javers, reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, later recorded his initial impressions of the preacher,
Jim Jones was sitting at the head of the table,
dressed in a red shirt and khaki pants. He had
black hair and long sideburns , and even though
it was night, he was wearing sunglasses. He al-
ways wore them, we learned. Immediately he
looked to me like a man who was powdered and
perfumed.[187]
Washington Post correspondent Charles Krause was more specific in his account:
I sat beside him [Jones] and watched him closely
as he talked. Grace Stoen had told me that he
used an eyebrow pencil to give an appearance of
thickness to his sideburns. I was curious about
that and, after looking at him for a while,
decided she was right.[188]
Others in attendance, who had known Jones in the past said that he just did not look like the Jim Jones they remembered. He was much heavier and even his facial features were different. Some attributed this to reports that he had been ill, others that his illness was actually due to an overuse of illicit drugs; but most agreed that he did not look the same as their memory of him.
In the aftermath of the massacre, a corpse was discovered in front of the throne among the nine hundred others in and around the pavilion. It was tentatively identified as Jim Jones. Unlike most of the other victims, the body had not been poisoned but shot once behind the left ear. It was presumed that he had been murdered by a disenchanted follower as the gun was found some thirty yards away but this will never be established for certain because nitrate and neutron activation tests were not performed to determine if there were traces of gunpowder on Jones' hands. Such tests are standard procedure in deaths where there is a question as to murder or suicide. The absence of such simple tests exemplifies the very poor handling of the corpse and its identification.
The corpse, identified as Jim Jones, was allowed to rot in the jungle heat for four days before it was removed. No attempt was made to preserve the remains. The body was not refrigerated (not even in the temporary morgue set up at the Georgetown airport). This may be due in part to the U.S. State Department's original plan to bury all the dead in a mass grave in Jonestown, without identification or autopsy. Three days after the massacre, the Associated Press reported, "Douglas Davidson, an officer with the U.S. Embassy, said the bodies are in an advanced state of decomposition and authorities are considering burying them in Jonestown." Relatives of the dead protested the mass burial plan and petitioned the U.S. government to transport the bodies back to the United States. George Moscone, mayor of San Francisco, which was the hometown of many of the victims, telegraphed President Jimmy Carter to request federal assistance. His telegram, dated November 24th, read in part,
I respectfully request that you use your
authority to underwrite the cost of bringing
back those whose next of kin request that they
be returned and who otherwise do not have the
means to do so.[189]
Over nine hundred corpses were flown, via military cargo planes, from Georgetown to a military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Only seven autopsies were conducted at the federal facility and those were performed after embalming. No tissue samples or bodily fluids were saved for analysis. The chief undertaker, Charles Carson, destroyed all the evidence in what the medical profession almost universally recognized as the "ineptness" of the post-mortem investigation. The following conclusion of an article appearing in a forensic pathologist trade magazine was typical of the prevailing professional opinion,
The contradictions, inconsistencies and
questionable truths related through these
interviews leave many unanswered questions. In fact, the
entire episode suggests government mismanagement
or a cover-up of the true facts. The statements
given by various government officials lend fuel
to accusations made by people like Mark Lane,
who served as legal counsel for Jones' Peoples
Temple. Lane proclaimed that a U.S. conspiracy
existed to destroy the cult and its leader. The
totally unprofessional and questionable handling
of the bodies and the failure to establish cause
and manner of death do not dispute Lane's
charges. Unfortunately, his claims are
strengthened because there are so few facts
about what actually happened. It is regrettable
that professional medical personnel failed to do
what the newest member of a laboratory would have
known to do.[190]
Eventually, though posthumously, George Moscone was granted his request when 253 unidentified bodies were flown to California and buried together in a large pit dug in an Oakland Cemetery. The federal government paid the multi-million dollar bill but later confiscated known Temple bank accounts as repayment.
As soon as the news of Jones' alleged death reached the outside world, the Concerned Relatives and ex-Temple members proclaimed, in unison, that the corpse was not Jim Jones. The news media received various, yet consistent, reports that Jones did not intend to die in the White Night and that, in all the recent rehearsals, he planned to survive, return to the United States with a "hit squad", and kill all the enemies of the Peoples Temple. Former members described his use of cosmetic doubles or "look-alikes" as they called them, and were so adamant in their claims that Jones was still alive that the FBI was called in to identify the body.
A stainless steel coffin labelled, "Rev. Jimmie Jones" arrived at the military mortuary on Dover Air Base on November 23rd at 8:05 PM (EST). Up until this time no special effort had been made to identify the remains other than a visual identification by U.S. Embassy officials in Guyana who would only say they were "awfully convinced" the decomposed corpse was Jim Jones. The FBI immediately fingerprinted the body, which was in such an advanced state of decomposition that the technician had to surgically remove the fingertips and slip them over his own gloved fingers to effect the printing. Though the process was difficult and completed rather hastily, it was accurate. That same evening, William Webster, the Director of the FBI, announced that the Bureau had made a positive identification of the body of Jim Jones. The following day, the San Francisco Chronicle reported,
The identification of the preacher's remains was made soon after [arrival] by a team of ten FBI fingerprint specialists who compared Los Angeles police department records of Jones' prints with ones taken from his body, Webster said.[191].
The basic premise of this chapter that William Webster's statement was simply not true. The FBI was not positive that the body was Jim Jones, only that the body was the same man arrested as Jim Jones five years earlier. There were no other records of Jones' prints. The authenticity of the LAPD files was never questioned and the case was mistakenly closed.
Marceline's parents, Walter and Charlotte Baldwin, initially requested that the remains of Jim, Marceline and their adopted son Lew, be shipped back to their native Indiana for burial but they changed their minds the day after Webster's announcement. The Baldwins' final request was that the bodies be cremated and the ashes spread on the Atlantic Ocean. Charles Carson, chief undertaker at Dover Air Force Base, complied with their wishes. This, in itself, may be unprecedented as cadavers entrusted to the government are buried in a potter's field and never cremated and buried at sea. From the throne in Jonestown to the Atlantic Ocean, the body identified as Jim Jones had never left the control of the U.S. military, federal law enforcement agencies or their subcontractors.
In retrospect, Jim Jones was in complete control of all aspects of his master escape plan, from Pinky and the ambulance to Lew and the vice squad officer to his own faked arrest, the sealing of the records and ultimately the murder of his double. Tim Stoen had been very instrumental in getting the charges against his client dismissed and in keeping the story out of the news while, five years later, his wife prepared the press for a cosmetic Jones. The press, in turn, prepared the world for a cosmetic corpse. There is no doubt that this happened; the only question is whether or not the Stoens and others who helped establish the false identity of the phantom preacher were cognizant of the ramifications of their actions. Temple security was always on a "need-to- know" basis which was doubly true of this particular project as evidenced by the fact that Jones cast only his family members in key roles. Most participants were manipulated. Even the director of the FBI was deceived by this preacher who one day will be recognized as one of the foremost criminal minds of this century.
So what happened to the real Jim Jones? He escaped. Wherever he is, he is certainly not alone, there are others with him but they will never disclose his whereabouts. The best this researcher can do is to report the final few moments of his public life.
As the last of the congregation were poisoned, the few escapees hiding in the jungle heard the Jonestown guards cheer, "Hip, Hip, Hurray!," three times. All the guards had been told that they would escape with their leader, but one would not. The unidentified double, who had posed as Jones five years earlier, was called to the throne in the pavilion and shot. Before the remaining forty or fifty fled, Jones radioed the Albatross III (the Temples' seaworthy ship which was anchored at the Port of Spain in Trinidad) to pick them up at the mouth of the Waini River about thirty miles north of Jonestown. This coincided with recent rehearsals in which Jones said he would escape the White Night by sea. The radio transmission was intercepted and the Albatross was seized by authorities In Trinidad. The Temples' fishing trawler, the Cudjo, had been docked at Port Kaituma during the massacre but immediately after it was sent up river leaving Mike Prokes and the Carter brothers stranded. They were to rendezvous with the ship for their escape but were arrested on the docks. Why the ship was sent up river and who was on board has never been reported. It is only known that Guyanese authorities seized the vessel. A third Temple ship, the Marceline, was never found though there is some speculation that the Marceline was actually the Albatross or the Cudjo sailing under an assumed name.
The stated plan to escape by sea and the radio transmission to the Albatross were only diversions. Jones was well aware that the Federal Communications Commission and other government agencies were monitoring Jonestown radio transmissions after receiving numerous complaints that the Temple illegally used codes and frequency changes to disguise their messages. It was no accident that this all- important message was not in code. Jones wanted the authorities to overhear his last minute escape plan for, if anyone sought him out, they would certainly be looking on the Guyanese coast when in fact Jones and his guards had headed west for the thirteen mile hike to the Venezuelan border; a path they had previously blazed and patrolled.
The day after the massacre, a Venezuelan Air Force pilot patrolling his country's disputed border with Guyana reported seeing a group of forty or fifty armed men in a clearing as they entered Venezuela at precisely the place and time where Jones and his guards should have been. The Venezuelan government refused to confirm their pilot's report, making him the last person to see Jim Jones and live to tell about it.
As a postscript to the story, this chapter was first drafted in 1980, when it was believed that its conclusion was not shared by any other researcher. At the time no one else thought that Jones had survived. On May 12, 1981, the Globe published a one page article by William Harris entitled, "Jim Jones Still Alive in Brazil," which began, "Jim Jones, former cult leader and CIA agent, escaped the Peoples Temple massacre in Guyana and is now hiding out in Brazil, according to sensational new evidence." The article outlined the Ryan family's lawsuit against the State Department which named Phil Blakey and Dick Dwyer as CIA operatives and Jonestown as a "mass mind-control CIA experiment." It also included several quotes from Joe Holsinger, Ryan's attorney and long-time friend, who reportedly said,
The more I investigate the mysteries of Jonestown, the more I am convinced there is something sinister behind it all... There is no doubt in my mind that Jones had very close CIA connections. At the time of the tragedy, the Temple had three boats in the water off the coast. The boats disappeared shortly afterwards. Remember Brazil is a country Jones was very familiar with. He is supposed to have had money there. And it is not too far from Guyana. My own feeling is that Jones was ambushed by CIA agents who then disappeared in the boats. But the whole story is so mind-boggling that I'm willing to concede he escaped with them.
The article went on to quote a Guyanese official who said,
A lot of people here believe Jones had a double who died at Jonestown and that Jones himself is still alive.
Perhaps more important than the quotes was the author's recognition of what should have been obvious to everyone; namely the discrepancy between the 1,200 residents in Jonestown and the slightly more than 900 bodies found in its wake. Harris wrote, "Of course, some cult members were never found -- the holders of 300 U.S. passports found in the camp are unaccounted for. They may have fled to another country." Anyone who researches Jonestown would instantly recognize the uniquely different and dangerously true tone of the Globe article. The Globe is a sensationalist tabloid of the type sold at the supermarket check-out stands but, in spite of its monetary motives, its story was closer to the truth than any other. The difference between this article and others published in the United States is that the Globe is published in Canada and perhaps out of the range of the CIA's close scrutiny and control.
What all this brings to mind is, if Jones escaped Jonestown, where is he today? He wanted us to think he planned to travel the thirty miles northeast to the mouth of the Waini River but that was only a diversion. Likewise, the Venezuelan pilot's unconfirmed report that he travelled west might also have been a diversion. Jones would not have been well-received by the Venezuelan government after his community of Americans was used to trick their president into giving up any claims to the disputed territory. Brazil would appear to be his logical choice for sanctuary. He had money there. He had contacts there in the military government that he had helped into power. Also, his idol and possible mentor, Josef Mengele, was at the time living in San Paulo. But, moreover, the safest haven would have been Africa. Jonestown had secretly transported hundreds of mercenaries to the Dark Continent in its early days. One more unobserved flight from Caracas or San Paulo or any number of airstrips in South America would not have presented a problem.