Meiers and JONESTOWN

[Anthony Thorne]

VI THE "H" FILE HOMICIDES

Jim Jones once boasted to his son-in-law and heir apparent, Michael Cartmell, that the Peoples Temple was shielded from any serious investigation or prosecution simply by the nature of the Temple's activities; activities that were so outrageously bizarre that no one outside the organization would ever believe them. In the six years between 1970 and 1976, Jones ordered the execution of six Temple members in a brutal series of murders that eventually led to the involvement and subsequent death of Leo Ryan; the only U.S. Congressman ever to be assassinated. Nowhere was Jones' security system more apparent or successful than in the "H" file homicides.

This story begins in the Temple's top secret file room where detailed dossiers were maintained on everyone who came in contact with the organization. Patty Cartmell, Michael's mother and long-time aide to Jones was the organizational genius in charge of the sophisticated intelligence gathering and intricate filing system that rivaled the latest techniques of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Within the files, there was an information envelope on each of the members of the Temple. The contents of the envelopes disappeared when Jones moved his headquarters to San Francisco. All that remains are a few envelope labels, printed forms containing the member's photo, name, address, membership number and other such data, as well as a list of those documents the member had signed. There were five documents in all. The "information sheet" was basically the subject's autobiography. The "financial release" was a living will bequeathing all worldly possessions to the Peoples Temple. The "resignation" was just that, a resignation from the Temple so, if the member was ever implicated in any wrong-doing, Jones could date the document and disassociate himself from the accused. The two remaining documents, the "blank statement" and the "sheet of paper" are the subject of this chapter.

Before a member could be promoted to a position of trust within the Temple, Jones required that he or she sign a self-confession statement as a test of loyalty. The three basic confessions, dictated by Jones and signed by the member, attested to child molestation, homosexual acts or conspiracy to assassinate public officials. It wasn't long before the signer realized his confession might be used to blackmail him into Jones' service. This fear helped to blind the subject to the true danger, the "sheet of paper." Jones required his top aides to sign the lower right-hand corner of a blank sheet of paper. It appeared harmless enough in comparison with the self-confession letter, but it was deadly. Once the signed sheet of paper was on file, Jones would manipulate the aide into a situation where he at least appeared to be responsible for a capital crime. Jones would then retrieve that blank statement, type in a confession to that crime and provide the aide with a photocopy. Mere suspicion was never sufficient to warrant an indictment but suspicion along with a signed confession would certainly result in an indictment and conviction. In this manner, Jones was able to blackmail or "whitemail," as he called it, his other wise wavering followers into a life of slavish devotion; for if they ever fell from his good graces, he would provide the authorities with their signed confession to a crime they were already suspected of, and the result would certainly be a prison sentence. This was the Temple's baptism by blackmail.

The blackmailed aides would become the Temple hierarchy, the ruling elite and, for the most part, the only survivors of the massacre in Jonestown. Jones called them his "Angels;" an appropriate name as those outside the group assumed it was in reference to Jones' divinity, while those unfortunates inside the group knew it was an allusion to the angel of death. Though 80% of the Temple membership was Black, nearly 100% of the Angels were Caucasian. Their numbers are not known, but by 1978, Jones referred to them as "The One Hundred."

Inside each information envelope was the complete life story of the subject, including medical and career history, psychological profile, lists of relatives, associates and friends as well as personal preferences and habits. No agency of the federal government, not even all of them combined, had a more copious intelligence bank than did the Peoples Temple. The data was divided into two basic classifications: "direct" and "indirect." Direct data was any intelligence received firsthand from the subject either voluntarily provided in his signed information sheet, or inadvertently provided in idle conversations with Cartmell's intelligence agents. Indirect data was any intelligence gathered without the subject's knowledge. Patty Cartmell and her assistants were skilled in burglary techniques and much information was gained through illegally entering a subject's home. More predominant, though less spectacular than breaking and entering, was the disabled car routine. Typically, two of Cartmell's female spies would knock on the subject's door, claim their car had broken down and ask to use the telephone. While in the house, they would make mental notes of the surroundings. One would ask to use the bathroom and, while locked inside, photograph the contents of the medicine cabinet. Later, the photo would be used to identify any prescription drugs and the doctor who prescribed them, so that a more detailed medical history could be acquired from the subject's physician. Other indirect data was gathered through surveillance, conversations with neighbors and distant relatives, as well as periodic studies in the contents of a subject's garbage can. In the early morning hours, Cartmell and her team would take garbage that had been set out near the street for removal back to the Temple or a motel room where it was spread out on a long table, closely examined, analyzed and inventoried. Reports were so detailed that it was not sufficient to note, say, an empty box of cookies. Cartmell's spies were expected to indicate the brand name of the cookies, the manufacturer's name and address, the list of ingredients, the price and the retail outlet where the product had been purchased. A typed garbage inventory, titled "indirect-garb " along with any personal correspondence and bills were then filed in the subject's information envelope. Old telephone bills were of particular interest as they provided an accurate accounting of every long-distance phone call the subject had placed in the previous month.

On one occasion, Patty Cartmell was arrested for her clandestine intelligence gathering. Cartmell, an obese White woman, was disguised in plain dress and black stage make-up when the police caught her snooping around a house in a Black Los Angeles neighborhood. She later gave this account:


Jack (Beam) and I were doing a stop/by on a house in Los Angeles. Jack was in the car and I was in the yard. The cops came, and Jack, the yellow-bellied coward, took off, leaving me holding the bag. I was arrested and taken in.... I didn't know what to do so I called Tim [Temple attorney, Tim Stoen] and told him I'd been arrested.[68]


According to Temple aide, Terry Buford:


Stoen said that Jim came up with this brilliant idea that Patty should be told to say she was having an affair with a man and had put on this disguise; she was meeting him in a black neighborhood, and she didn't want her husband to find out. Stoen said the story was so incredible that the police believed it and released Patty.[69]


In addition to the information envelopes on Temple members, Patty Cartmell had amassed a very impressive file on California's politicians and public figures. The subject of one such study was Leo Ryan, whose Temple file was larger than most, as Jones' superiors had expressed particular interest in the career of this aspiring young Assemblyman. In 1968, Cartmell presented her completed file on Ryan to Jones for his review.

Leo J. Ryan was born on May 5, 1925 in Lincoln, Nebraska; the son of a newspaperman from whom he inherited a compelling interest in investigative journalism. After serving in the Navy during World War journalism. Ryan graduated from Creighton University in 1951 with a masters degree in Elizabethan Drama. Like many other navy veterans who first experienced California during the war, Ryan returned to the San Francisco Bay Area where he settled in the small community of South San Francisco and accepted a position teaching English at the local high school. Eventually, he would be appointed principal and superintendent of the South San Francisco High School. His first involvement in politics came in the mid-50's when he campaigned against the McCarthy Era communist witch-hunt and was elected to the city council where he served from 1956 until 1962. His career in municipal government was uneventful. Perhaps city politics was too small an arena for his abilities, but, in any event, Ryan longed for a more important and challenging role in government. He found his opportunity in late 1960 when John Kennedy was elected president.

Ryan arranged for the South San Francisco Marching Band to perform at Kennedy's inauguration ceremony in Washington in early 1961, as token reprentatives of the new president's West Coast supporters. Ryan planned every aspect of the trip with his old friend and drinking buddy, Robert "Sammy" Houston. Sammy Houston, a descendant of the famous Texas general, was an Associated Press photographer whose son, Bob was a student of Ryan's and spokesperson for the high school's marching band. Bob had grown up in the adjacent community of San Bruno where he counted Ryan's children among his playmates who affectionately referred to this intelligent young man as "the professor." Leo Ryan, together with Sammy and Bob Houston and the school band, set out for the scheduled performance in Washington. Hotel rooms were at a premium during the inauguration so Ryan and Sammy Houston shared a room which gave them time together to put the finishing touches on their plan.

On inauguration day, Sammy shot some great photographs. One was of his son shaking hands with President Kennedy -- a memento Bob would cherish until his death in 1976. But the most important photo and, in retrospect, the sole purpose for the trip to Washington, was of Leo Ryan conducting the band as they marched past the reviewing stand and President Kennedy. The following day, through Houston's connections with the Associated Press, the photograph with Ryan in the foreground and Kennedy in the background appeared on the front page of nearly every newspaper in Northern California. Sammy Houston's photo had made Leo Ryan famous overnight. Immediately upon his return to California, Ryan began to campaign for the office of mayor of South San Francisco, a position he was elected to in 1962. Also in 1962, Ryan was elected to the California Assembly. His political career had advanced from city councilman to state assemblyman in a few short months and he owed it all to Sammy Houston. It is important to note, as did Jim Jones in his evaluation of Ryan's file, that the Washington episode was staged from the start. Ryan was the school's principal and the faculty chaperone on the trip, but he had no musical training and no business conducting the band; especially in its brief moment in the limelight. Ryan's expertise lay, not in music, but in theatrics and his theatrics in Washington earned him a seat in the California Assembly.

Ryan's political career depended largely on staged publicity events intended to generate public awareness, support and votes. His colleagues viewed the theatrics as little more than cheap grand-standing but their criticism stemmed, not from distaste of his tactics, but from envy of his success. Ryan was a loner, a self-made man, an individual who rose to political importance without the aid of, or the debt to, an existing power structure. His singular attitude was best described in the inscription on a picture of a sailboat hung in his Sacramento office; ; "I know which way the wind is blowing but I must set my own course." Ryan was a member of the California Assembly and eventually the U.S. Congress, but in a larger sense he never really joined these legislative bodies. He remained an individual who marched to his own tune; something that would further alienate him from his fellow legislators.

Ryan quickly gained a reputation in the California Assembly as a formidable investigator who personally looked into every major issue of the day. Joe Holsinger, Ryan's chief aide, would later recall:


Leo believed that more legislators should go check things out, rather than take someone's word for them. He felt it was his duty to check out the problems of the people he represented.[70]


In 1965, following the race riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Ryan moved into the home of a local Black family and worked, under an assumed name, as a substitute teacher at the predominantly Black Jefferson High School where he studied, firsthand, the cause of the social unrest. In 1970, when prison reform was a major issue in California, Ryan, again under an assumed name, was transported in handcuffs to the maximum security section of Folsom Prison, where he was interned for a week to study the issue of prison reform from the inside. He later wrote a play about his Folsom Prison experience, entitled "A Small Piece of Sky," but it was never produced. Also in 1970, Ryan was proclaimed "Man of the Year" by the International Wildlife Foundation for his trip to Newfoundland where he chained himself to baby seals to protest their slaughter.

Following each of his adventures, Ryan would receive excellent press coverage that helped keep him in the public eye and in office. Jones, who was also an expert in media manipulation, recognized Ryan's tactics for what they were and found within those tactics his one weakness. Ryan clearly owed his political career to the Houstons and Jones knew that to control the rebel assemblyman he needed only to control Bob Houston, and this he set out to do in 1968.

Patty Cartmell provided Jones with an updated file on Bob Houston. Bob had continued his education at the University of California at Berkeley where he was student director of the school's marching band. He had married and he and his wife Phyllis had two daughters, Patricia and Judy Lynn. Jones surmised that recruiting Bob Houston was an easy matter of simply giving him what he wanted. Since his graduation from Berkeley there was a void in Bob's life, there were no more bands for him to conduct and he had lost his one love, music. Temple recruiters first contacted Phyllis and, when they had generated sufficient interest for her to approach her husband about joining the Peoples Temple, Jim Jones was well prepared. He offered Bob the position of music director of the Temple's very professional band and chorus. Bob accepted. Knowing that he shared his father's interest in photography, Jones also him staff photographer and appointed assistant pastor, just to add to the honor he bestowed upon him. In time, Jones' hold on Bob Houston would increase to a death grip, but it suffices to say that by 1969 Houston was a lifetime member of the Peoples Temple. His dossier was placed in an information envelope and filed under "H." Thus began a masterplan that would require eight years to conclude. A few months later, Jones ordered the first of the "H" file homicides.



VICTIM NUMBER ONE

Maxine Bernice Harpe
Died: March 28, 1970
Hung by the neck


Maxine Harpe grew up in the small Northern California town of Willits where she married her high school sweetheart, had three children and settled down to a quiet life in Talmadge, that is until 1969, when Jim Jones targeted her for assassination. In a little more than a year, Jones and his aides would destroy Maxine's marriage, family, career, and love affair. They would steal her children and her life savings and drive her to the brink of suicide.

Temple strongarm man and Mendocino County Welfare worker, Jim Randolph, initiated a love affair with Maxine intended to break up her marriage and bring her into the congregation. Every relationship pursued by Jim Randolph, or any other Temple member, required the prior approval of the Temple's Relationship Committee and Jim Jones, who not only issued binding judgments on proposed relationships, but also proposed many himself. Maxine quickly fell in love with Randolph; attesting to Jones' ability to pair villain with victim. Spurred by Randolph's encouragement, Maxine left her husband and moved into a Temple communal house with her three children and Temple member Mary Candoo. During this difficult transition period, Maxine was counseled and encouraged by her welfare caseworker, Linda Sharon Amos, a high ranking Temple aide who claimed to have once been a member of Charles Manson 's gang. Amos helped Maxine secure a job as a dental assistant at the Mendocino State Mental Hospital in Talmadge.

Linda Amos and Jim Randolph were only two of the estimated fifty Temple members who had infiltrated government agencies in Mendocino County, but their function in the Welfare Department was one of particular importance to Jim Jones. Together with their colleagues, Amos and Randolph were able to license several Temple operated foster care homes and protect several additional homes that were unlicensed and illegal.

Jones convinced his congregation that their children would have a richer life experience living apart from their parents. Families were disbanded and a the children, who were now eligible for welfare assistance, were placed in Temple foster homes. The children's welfare support checks were signed over to the Temple and provided a substantial portion of Jones' government subsidy. The Temple welfare activities were not restricted to simple fraud; many Black children were taken from the ghettos of San Francisco and Oakland using tactics that bordered on kidnapping.

The illegal use of the Mendocino County Welfare Department appeared to escape the attention of the Department director Dennis Denny. Though it was impossible to ignore the Temple foster care homes and to ignore the the Temple welfare case workers, Denny never seemed to make the connection. Carrie Minkler was one of the few case workers in the Welfare Department who was not a member of the Peoples Temple. Ms. Minkler, now retired, recalls working with Amos, Randolph and other Temple members:


"You didn't open your mouth. You didn't mention the Peoples Temple in our department. Even the walls had ears. There wasn't anything that went on in our office that Jim Jones didn't know the next day...Peoples Temple workers went through other workers' case files. The CIA could have used them. The atmosphere was really tense."


It didn't take long to surround Maxine. She had a Temple lover, a Temple house with a Temple roommate, a Temple social worker, a Temple job with Temple co-workers, even the attorney representing her in the divorce case was Temple attorney Tim Stoen. The Temple was also Maxine's religion and recreation. By March of 1970, every aspect of her life depended upon the Peoples Temple as Jim Jones pulled the plug on her life support system.

Three weeks before her death, Maxine received a check for $2,493.81; her share of the divorce settlement. She signed the check over to Randolph, who deposited $2,000.00 in his personal checking account and $493.81 in his savings account, as per Jones' instructions. Once her life savings were safely in Temple hands, everything bad happened to Maxine at once.

Jones ordered Randolph to end his relationship with Maxine and she was heartbroken. She was fired from her job. She had no means of support; Randolph had all her money and wouldn't give it back. She went to Linda Amos for financial assistance from the Welfare Department, but Amos not only denied her request but, in addition, judged her a "mental depressant" and threatened to place her children in a Temple foster care home as she was unfit to be a parent. Her roommate, Mary Candoo, would certainly parrot Amos' accusations.

Maxine realized she was under siege by a well organized attacker and sought help from her attorney, Tim Stoen, but, of course, her protest fell on deaf ears. She then turned to the one man who seemed to be at the center of her problem. She confronted Jones the day before her death. Jones was furious and thoroughly humiliated Maxine in front of Randolph and other Temple members who remember him saying, "Why don't you just kill yourself? Get it over with!.... At least Judas had the guts to kill himself. Others recall Jones predicting, "That bitch (Maxine) is going to die," just one day before she did.

Everywhere she turned, Maxine felt an ever increasing hostility. After the March 27th confrontation with Jones, she was so afraid the Temple would take a more physical approach to their harassment that she made a special request to bring home a houseful of Temple children, whose presence, she hoped, would discourage a physical assault. She was wrong.

On March 28th at 1:30 AM, one of the children spending the night at Maxine's house wandered into the garage to find Maxine dead; hung by an electrical extension cord from the roof rafters. A hastily scribbled suicide note on a torn grocery bag instructed the children to phone the Temple in Redwood Valley and wait in the house until they arrived.

Jim Jones, Jim Randolph, Patty Cartmell and Jack Beam arrived at Maxine's house sometime before dawn. Jones waited outside in the car while the others put on surgical gloves and entered the house to remove any evidence of Maxine's involvement with the People's Temple. They untied the body, lowered it to the garage floor and disrobed it to remove a red prayer cloth that belted the waist. Temple members often wore these blessed prayer cloths in concealed places on their person. The body was then redressed and rehung, carefully re-staging the scene for the police investigator. The aides then ransacked the house to locate and remove anything that might associate Maxine with the Temple. They completed their work at approximately 8:30 AM, instructed the children to phone the police, and left.

Jones was safe in his Redwood Valley parsonage at 8:57 AM when Deputy Sheriff-Coroner, Bruce Cochran, arrived at the death scene in Talmadge. Twenty minutes later, Randolph, Cartmell and Beam returned to the house and informed Deputy Cochran that the children had phoned them but that they really didn't know why as they had never met the dead woman. Cartmell convinced Deputy Cochran that she should remove the children from such a gruesome scene, and consequently, he never got the opportunity to question the only eyewitnesses. One of the children, nine year old Tommy Ijames, would later recall the event:


The children called the church before they called the police, and they came very early in the morning. They came in there and took all the pictures of Jim Jones out...(prayer) cloths they took from her, pulled her down off the (rafter) and took them off her waist, anything that had to do with the church... Jim (Jones), he stayed in the car and didn't come out... They pulled her down and they took the clothes off her... They were taking all the... little pamphlets of Jim Jones, and then (after the coroner arrived) they acted like they didn't know her...."


The Temple death squad had left Maxine's house twenty minutes before the coroner arrived and returned just twenty minutes after he arrived. They allowed him enough time to assume that he was the first adult on the scene, but not enough time to question the children, who were quickly transported away. Such impeccable timing was typical of Temple operations. Like the other agencies in Mendocino County, Jones had spies in the Sheriff's office who informed him of their every move.

Deputy Cochran's subsequent investigation proceeded exactly as Jones had planned. It was Cochran's job to be suspicious and he was. There was the unusual placement of a trunk under Maxine's feet and the unexplained presence of children and adults, all of whom were members of the Peoples Temple. But eventually his investigation was to center on Maxine's financial transactions just prior to her death. Cochran contacted Jim Randolph's boss, Welfare Director, Dennis Denny, questioning the legality of a welfare worker depositing a welfare recipient' check in his personal account; especially when that same welfare worker was present at the scene of the recipient's apparent suicide just three weeks later.

Denny defended Randolph's actions and assured Cochran that there was no reason to suspect foul play or improper conduct, but Cochran was not satisfied. He pressured Randolph for a deposition regarding his role in Maxine's finances and reluctantly he complied. In a sworn statement, Randolph told the police that a few weeks after receiving the money, he transferred $2,000.00from his savings account to Temple treasurer, Eva Pugh, to set up a trust fund for Maxine's children. He held the remaining $493.81 until three days after Maxine's death when he added that to the fund as well. If Randolph's statement is to be believed it would seem that he helped establish a fund for Maxine's children before her death. Randolph completed the deposition but refused to sign it until Assistant District Attorney and Peoples Temple attorney Tim Stoen had the opportunity to review the statement. Randolph stalled, Stoen stalled, and the statement was never signed.

It was Tim Stoen who finally convinced Cochran to drop the investigation when he informed him that he (Stoen) was co-trustee of the children's fund, along with, of all people, Cochran's boss, Sheriff Reno Bartolmei. Also, to disguise their true involvement, the Peoples Temple had contributed an additional $470.00 to the fund, that together with the initial money and the accumulated bank interest, totaled $3,000.00 for the three children. Linda Amos, Maxine's welfare case worker, buttressed Stoen's statements with her volunteered testimony as to Maxine's depressed state of mind just prior to what certainly must have been her suicide. Cochran's investigation quickly lost momentum. Maxine's death was declared a suicide. The case was closed and, despite future pleas from ex-Temple members and the press, it was never reopened.

Richard Taylor, a local Baptist minister who knew Maxine Harpe, was not satisfied with the superficial investigation into what he believed as murder. Aware that the Temple controlled most of Mendocino County, Taylor presented his arguments in a long letter he sent to the state attorney general's office in which he asked the state to investigate Jim Jones' role in Maxine Harpe's death. Taylor was invited to present his evidence to a deputy in the attorney general's office but when he appeared to testify in Sacramento, his notes on Jones were confiscated and he was told that there would be no investigation due to "insufficient evidence."

Immediately upon his return to Ukiah, Taylor and his wife were deluged with threatening phone calls that they believed "originated from the People's Temple." Intimidated and frightened, the minister dropped all attempts to prove that Jim Jones had ordered Maxine Harpe's death.

Randolph may have avoided signing a statement for the police but he did not avoid signing a blank statement for Jim Jones. It wasn't long before he realized his mistake when Jones presented him with a copy of his previously signed blank statement which was now a typed confession to the murder of Maxine Harpe. Only then did he understand why Jones had instructed him to deposit Maxine's money in his personal bank account and why he insisted Randolph be present at the scene of the crime. The police already suspected him, and their suspicion, along with the signed confession, would certainly convict him of murder; especially since the foreman of the Mendocino Grand Jury, who would bring down the indictment, was none other than Jim Jones. Randolph was promoted to the Angels and his only way out was a lifetime sentence in prison. To further implicate him in Maxine's death, Jones called him in front of a closed meeting of the Temple's Planning Commission and, with a dozen witnesses present, he accused Randolph of killing Maxine. He shouted, "You know you did it (killed Maxine)!" But for all of Jones's badgering, Randolph said nothing in his own defense.

Rumors of the Temple's involvement in the death of Maxine Harpe continued to circulate in the press. Two and a half years later, Lester Kinsolving penned a series of articles in the San Francisco Examiner, in which he accused Temple attorney Tim Stoen of wrongdoing in his counseling of Maxine just prior to her alleged suicide. Stoen refuted the charges in a statement that appeared in the Ukiah Daily Journal, dated September 21, 1972, in which he said:


"The woman referred to (who was not, incidentally, a member of my church) was somebody I did not know, had never talked with, and certainly had never counseled."


Stoen could not have forgotten that he represented Maxine in her divorce or that he was a custodian of the fund for her children or was instrumental in suppressing the coroner's investigation into her death. He must have felt extremely threatened to publicly report such a blatant, bold-faced lie.

Jones profited from Maxine's death in several ways. He gained a new Angel; a competent, intelligent slave, Jim Randolph. He received the $3,000.00 trust fund and the three children who, following their mother's funeral, were placed in Temple foster homes and enrolled in the welfare system. Their welfare support checks were signed over to the Temple that profited at least $10,000.00 from overcharging the welfare system and under-caring for the children.

In 1977, a special prosecution unit of the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, looking into allegations of illegal activities in the Peoples Temple, cited what their subsequent report termed "Welfare Diversion," but rather than pursue the investigation, the DA's office referred the matter to the city's Department of Social Services and the City Comptroller's Office with the recommendation that any evidence that surfaced should be submitted to the DA's welfare fraud expert, Don Didler. Didler, following the lead of Mendocino County's Welfare Director, Dennis Denny, did absolutely nothing. Together, Didler and Denny were very effective in protecting the Temple's federal welfare subsidy.

In retrospect, Maxine Harpe's story was a study in microcosm of the events that would occur some eight years later in Jonestown, Guyana. In both cases, the victims were systematically stripped of all self-esteem and lured into a total dependence on Jim Jones, who, at the proper time, denied them everything. Suicide appeared to be the best, if not the only, alternative. It will never be known whether Maxine's death was a suicide or a murder. She may or may not have actually wrapped the wire around her neck, just as the residents of Jonestown may or may not have voluntarily taken poison; regardless, there is no doubt that Jim Jones killed them all.

The Maxine Harpe death is but one of a half-dozen unsolved killings connected to People's Temple during its California phase.

In the final analysis, the most important aspect of Maxine's death was the reason Jones had singled her out for assassination in the first place. The episode played an important part in his master plan, as Maxine Harpe's identification envelope was the first in the Peoples Temple "H" file.



VICTIM NUMBER TWO

Rory Hithe
Died: November 8, 1973
Shot to death during an argument


Rory Hithe was a member of the Peoples Temple and an official of the Western Addition Project Area Committee; a neighborhood action group in a section of San Francisco that Jim Jones had targeted for political infiltration and control. During a heated argument about San Francisco's anti-poverty politics, Rory Hithe was shot and killed by Temple guard Chris Lewis, in full view of a room of witnesses; most of whom were also members of the Peoples Temple.

Jim Jones had ordered Lewis to kill Rory Hithe, whose death, like Maxine Harpe's, was a Peoples Temple affair. The motive for the killing is unclear. It has been suggested that Hithe's death resulted from a conflict with Jones over Western Addition neighborhood politics, but this theory does not take into account that, at the time, Jones was powerful enough to replace Hithe on the Committee with another follower who was in closer agreement. Murder for neighborhood politics was not warranted. There had to be another motive. In November of 1973, Rory Hithe's Temple information envelope was the next dossier filed under "H."

Perhaps more interesting than the story of Rory Hithe, is the story of his assassin, Chris Lewis. There is no doubt that Lewis killed Hithe there is only the question of whether or not it was in self-defense. The fact that a loaded gun was within reach during the argument, in itself suggests premeditation. Lewis was arrested and charged with murder and assault. Hithe's sister, also a Temple member, was wounded in the attack, hence the assault charge.

Chris Lewis joined the Peoples Temple in 1969 after Jones allegedly cured him of heroin addiction. He was a tough, ghetto-wise brawler who had served time in prison for burglary and grand theft. His primary function in the Temple was to train Cartmell's agents in techniques of breaking and entering and to act as liaison with San Francisco's underworld fencing operations. Jones encouraged his congregation to donate not only their property and money, but also their personal possessions to the Temple, which needed to liquidate the furniture, clothing and jewelry they acquired. Throughout their history, the Temple operated no less than six thrift shops, first in Ukiah, then in San Francisco and eventually in Guyana. The Temple stores were very profitable. The clerks were volunteers, the merchandise was donated and the business was a tax exempt charity. Nearly every dollar taken in was pure profit. But the stores could not sell all the items the Temple acquired. A $10,000 diamond ring, for example, not only looks out of place in the window of a thrift shop and would probably never sell, it might raise questions as to its origin Also many of the donated items had been previously stolen and might be listed on police hot sheets. An expensive typewriter, with the serial numbers ground away, could not be offered to the public. Cartmell's agents conducted many burglaries, primarily intended to gather information, but, on occasion, they would steal an expensive item just to disguise the true nature of the break-in. All of this questionable merchandise had to be liquidated and fencing was the most expedient alternative. With his underworld connections, Chris Lewis was just the man for the job.

Jones called a special meeting of the Temple Planning Commission to discuss Lewis' arrest. Witnesses recall him saying:


I have always allowed Chris certain latitude in his actions and his living situation, because he has contacts that are very helpful in some areas of my work, areas that few of you are aware of. I cannot allow him to go to jail. We need to maintain his contacts. And more important, I do not fully trust Chris. If he were left in jail it is very probable that he would tell everything he knows about our group. His testimony would be harmful to our welfare. It is imperative that we keep him out of jail at all costs.[77]


Jim Jones and his attorney, Tim Stoen, immediately went to work on Lewis' defense. Jones paid the $20,000 fee to hire famed San Francisco criminal lawyer James Martin MacInnis to represent Lewis. He later told the Planning Commission that the total cost for defending Lewis was $36,000. Perhaps he was exaggerating or perhaps he used the extra money to buy the court. In any event, Lewis was acquitted of all charges on the grounds that he had killed Rory Hithe in self-defense.

Lewis was released from jail but was not free, as he soon found out when Jones presented him with his signed blank statement that now read as a confession to murder and perjury. Once blackmailed, the newest member of the Angels of Death could then be trusted and Jones appointed Lewis to his elite staff of personal bodyguards.

Jones informed him that he had discovered, through his connections with the Mafia in San Francisco, that there was an open contract out on Lewis's life. If this was true, it was probably a result of a Temple activity as Lewis worked exclusively for Jim Jones. Jones hid Lewis and his wife, Dorothy, in a Redwood Valley trailer owned by Temple photographer Elmer Mertle and his wife, Deanna (a.k.a. Al and Jeannie Mills). After only one month in the trailer, Lewis complained to Jones that, "The country life may be okay for some folks, but for a city dude like me it's worse than prison."[78] Jones then moved the Lewises out of California until it was safe for Chris to return to his duties in San Francisco.

Lewis was always considered to be one of Jones' favorite aides but, on one occasion, he was called in front of the Planning Commission in Redwood Valley and reprimanded for an incident with the San Francisco police. Jones said:


I understand that you were picked up by a policeman for speeding, and you later bragged to Gene [presumably Temple attorney, Eugene Chaikin] that you used a phony name on the ticket. What are you trying to do to this church, Chris?


Lewis defended himself:


It's true that I used a phony name. In some of the work I do in San Francisco, it's necessary for me to use different names, but they're all legal. I go to the Driver's License Bureau and make a statement that my real name is Chris Lewis but I am using a different name, and they issue me a driver's license with the name I choose. It's very legitimate, and can't get me or the church into difficulty.[79]


In spite of his eloquent defense, Jones punished Lewis by ordering him to disrobe in front of the congregation and swim an unreported, but presumably punishing, number of laps in the Temple's indoor swimming pool.

In late 1977, Lewis once again got into trouble with the authorities when a San Francisco policeman stopped his car on a traffic violation and discovered a loaded handgun under his front seat. Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is illegal, and according to his last attorney, Steve Alkind, Lewis faced an almost certain jail term. While out on bail, Lewis and his wife traveled to Guyana to seek Jones' help in raising money for his defense.

The Lewises were received as long-lost friends in Guyana. Jones assured them that, when the need arose, he would provide the capital that would, once again, pay for Chris' acquittal. But in truth, Jones had no intention of helping Lewis again. Jonestown and the Peoples Temple were scheduled for destruction in less than a year and, though Lewis was still valuable to Jones, his usefulness would soon be outlived, and did not warrant an additional investment. Lewis may have sensed this as he did not want to leave the jungle sanctuary. Jones had to convince him that it was in everyone's best interest that he return to San Francisco and face the charges. As a last resort, Jones literally pushed the Lewises out of Jonestown by hosting a farewell party in their honor. It was a gala banquet with music and dancing, and the following morning, after everyone had said their goodbyes, the Lewises felt compelled to return to San Francisco where Chris worked harder than ever, as Jones had promised him that income he generated for the Temple would help finance his defense.

Eventually, Lewis needed to pay his attorney, so in early December, he radioed Jonestown for the money. He was told that Jones was not available at the moment, but would return his call as soon as possible. Jones never radioed back. Lewis tried again and again, but each time he failed to contact his patron.

On December 10, 1977, just a few days after his last radio message to Jonestown, Chris Lewis was murdered outside the Temple's thrift shop in the Hunter's Point section of San Francisco. Two gunmen simultaneously fired two shots each into Lewis's back and ran. The police found Lewis dead with four holes in his back and $1,000 cash in his pocket. The gunmen were never identified and the murder remains unsolved.

When news of Lewis's death reached Jonestown, Jones staged quite a show of grief. He blamed the enemies of the Peoples Temple and went so far as to circulate rumors that he had a difficult time restraining Lewis's Temple friends from taking revenge on the outsiders who had murdered him. While Jones shed his crocodile tears, his wife, Marceline, was using Lewis's death to threaten Wade and Mabel Medlock,, two uncooperative Temple members. The Medlocks, an elderly Black couple, had signed their Los Angeles properties over to the Temple but they refused repeated requests that they move to Guyana. Two weeks after Lewis was murdered, Marceline Jones ordered the Medlocks to move to Jonestown and once again they refused. Marceline responded, "What happened to Chris Lewis will happen to You.[80] The threat was repeated a few days later in a phone call from Temple assistant pastor, Hugh Fortsyn, who warned, "You know what happened to Chris Lewis? You better watch it."[81]

On May 25, 1978, the Medlocks filed a formal complaint with the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, charging the Peoples Temple with extorting $135,000 worth of real estate from them. They insisted that they had signed the papers under duress in the presence of Jim Jones and Temple guard, Jim McElvane. They also reported hearing a rumor that it was Jim McElvane and Jim Crokes who had murdered Chris Lewis. There is no indication that the police even tried to question McElvane, Crokes or anyone else in the Temple regarding Lewis's death.

Jim Jones had previously perfected the "two man assassination technique." The two assassins of Chris Lewis had, on the count of three, both fired two bullets so that neither man could ever be certain which one fired the fatal shot -- they were equally responsible. As they later discovered, Jim Jones could then blackmail two new Angels for one murder. In this case, two Jims for one crime.

The story of Chris Lewis took place as a direct or indirect result of one incident, the killing of Rory Hithe; a murder without apparent motive until one considers the Temple's "H" file.



VICTIM NUMBER THREE

Truth Hart
Died: July 16, 1974
Congestive Heart Failure

Truth Hart had traded all her worldly possessions for the right to live out her later years in Heaven with God. "Heaven" was the communal estate of the Peace Mission in Philadelphia. "God" was the Black preacher, George Baker, who was self-ordained "Father Divine" in 1919. Father Divine had become one of the foremost authorities on not only shepherding a Negro flock, but on shearing them as well. Through extortion, he was able to build his Peace Mission into a multi-million dollar business. His contributions to the science of mind control may well earn Father Divine a place in history as the "Father of the Twentieth Century Cult Figures in America."

Starting in the late 1950's, Jones made periodic pilgrimages to Philadelphia to seek the advice of his mentor in building a Negro church empire. In 1965, as Jones prepared to move to California, much to the surprise of the Peace Mission followers, Father Divine died. Jones seized the opportunity to steal as many sheep from the mission flock as possible. Temple workers began an intense letter-writing campaign, intended to convince the Peace Missioners that Jim Jones had inherited their deceased leader's divinity. Jones made several attempts to persuade Divine's widow - an attractive blue-eyed blonde in her late thirties - to name him heir to the Peace Mission's throne, but Mother Divine considered Jones' request an insult to her late husband's memory. She would not be moved.

Most of Divine's followers were elderly Black women. Though they may have had a moderate income from Social Security, financially speaking, their inclusion in the Peoples Temple would be more of a liability than an asset. They did offer Jones something he needed; Black bodies without a will of their own. In July of 1971, Jones and two hundred and sixty Temple members arrived at the Peace Mission's headquarters in Philadelphia in a determined effort to convert the congregation. Temple aide Grace Grech Stoen later recalled her role in canvassing the Mission's neighborhood with an open invitation to anyone in range of her loudspeaker:


...I was really good, too... We went around to the Divine Mission from one of their churches or hotels and gave a speech saying, 'If you want to go, the busses will be leaving at such-and-such a time,' and talking about Jim Jones's work and stuff like that.[82]


The Temple assault team had limited success in convincing the Peace Missioners to board the Temple busses for their new "heaven" in California. At least fifteen new recruits did accept the invitation and among them were Truth Hart and her friend, Mary Love.

As outlined elsewhere, one of Jones' life goals was to perfect techniques of assassination that mimicked disease or natural cause. (His and the CIA's) two main areas of study were induced cancer and induced t heart failure.

Truth Hart would fall victim to both. Truth was received with some degree of importance in Redwood Valley as Jones assigned her to live in the luxurious showplace home of attorney Tim Stoen and his wife, Grace who later recalled Truth as, "a little weird woman" who would get especially excited about certain foods. "Food was very precious to her."[83]

Soon after her arrival at the Stoen's house, Truth contracted intestinal cancer, a disease that even the medical novice can see might have been a direct result of something she had eaten, or, in Truth's case, something she had been given to eat. Once the cancer was confirmed, Truth was cured, not by the faith healing powers of Jim Jones, but by surgery. After the operattion she was assigned to Birdie Marable's rest operation, home; a Temple operated facility in Ukiah where she fully recovered only to succumb to the second half of the experiment.

Jones asked Temple nurse Faith Freestone Worley if there was a drug that could induce a fatal heart attack. Faith identified Phytonadione, the generic name for vitamin K1, commonly referred to by its trade name, Mephyton. Phytonadione is used to treat a deficiency of Prothrombin; a natural chemical that permits the blood to clot. An overdose might produce blood clots that would eventually lodge in the heart and trigger a massive coronary; but there were problems. The drug does not accumulate in the body so one massive dosage was necessary. Also, it had only been effective in killing subjects with pre-existing heart conditions; healthy subjects often survived the ordeal.

Faith was ordered to develop a catalyst that, when added to Phytonadione, would produce a pulmonary embolism pill (or "PEP," as they code named it), that would have a 100% kill rate. With his extensive medical knowledge and reference resources, Jones certainly did not need Faith to develop the PEP, but her involvement was calculated to set her up for blackmail. During one closed meeting on the subject, Jones allowed Faith to see him write "Phytonadione" and "Truth Hart" on a small slip of paper before he dramatically burned it. She was also allowed to overhear a rumor that the drug she had recommended was being given to Truth without her knowledge. Faith soon realized that she was being implicated in a plot to kill Truth Hart. Truth Hart was deeply religious and venerated the Bible. Jones used her faith to alienate her to the point where she wanted to leave the Temple. He would single her out and preface the profanity, obscenity and blasphemy in his sermons with: "Close your ears, Truth, here comes another one."[84] Truth's only response was; "I don't see how you can bring such terrible things out of your mouth."[85] What begins as innocent teasing, escalated to a full scale attack. Jones succeeded in making Truth feel so uncomfortable that she expressed a desire to leave the Temple. It was "H" file victims express their important that the discontent with the Temple just prior to their death as Jones would later use the deaths as an example to the congregation of what would happen to them if they also decided to leave the Peoples Temple and the protection of the "Father." A few days before Truth's death, Faith Worley, Sally Stapleton and other aides heard Jones predict: "That woman (Truth) will die soon.[86]

Birdie Marable, entrusted with the care of Truth's life, presented an obstacle to her death. The Temple's fleet of Greyhound busses were about to depart on their annual cross-country trip and Jones insisted that Birdie join the vacation party. At first she declined but later she accepted when Jones and others convinced her that she needed a vacation and that everything would be fine at the rest home, as Mary Love would assume responsibilities in her absence.

On the evening of July 15th, 1974, Mary Love treated her old friend, Truth, to a condemned prisoner's last meal; an exquisite gourmet dinner laced with a massive dosage of PEP. Mary monitored Truth's condition throughout the night. Come morning, Truth was very weak but still alive. The PEP had not been as effective as Jones had hoped. Mary had been well prepared with a contingency plan. She started tormenting Truth; pinching her and forcing her to take alternately hot and cold baths to put an undue strain on her heart. She then placed her back in bed, gave her a final pill, and Truth Hart, age 66, died immediately.

Temple nurse Judith Ijames reported the death at 11 AM on July 16th. Mary Love was quick to point out to the investigating coroner that Truth had died of a heart attack. She also reported that she had been concerned about Truth's deteriorating condition and was phoning a local physician when she heard Truth call out. Mary then dropped the phone and ran to her room, but was too late; Truth Hart had died. An autopsy was performed but no tests were made for toxins in Truth's stomach or bloodstream. Based upon the autopsy report and Mary Love's statements, the coroner determined the cause of death was "congestive heart failure due to rheumatic heart disease." The death certificate was signed by Sheriff Reno Bartolmei, the same man listed as custodian of the fund for Maxine Harpe's children.

Birdie Marable was informed of Truth's death during her bus trip. She was so upset at the news that she phoned Jim Jones, who would only say, It's better this way, Birdie."[87] The Temple bus was Birdie's only way back to California so she remained with the tour, but immediately upon her return she resigned from the Temple and her position at the rest home to begin a campaign to expose the Temple's mistreatment of senior citizens placed in their care. She reported several incriminating incidents to the Ukiah Daily Journal but, like everything else in Mendocino County, Jones controlled the press and Temple spies who worked at the newspaper suppressed Birdie's story.

Birdie Marable was not the only one who threatened to incriminate the Temple in Truth Hart's death. Janie Brown and Ella Mae Hoskins, two elderly residents of Birdie's rest home, had actually witnessed the events of July 16th. At first they were afraid to speak out, lest they suffer the fate of their friend, but six months later, Janie Brown (the braver of the two) could no longer remain silent. During an open Temple meeting, Jones warned his congregation that what happened to Truth would happen to them if they wanted to leave the Temple. Janie, in a fit of anger, stood up and shouted at the pulpit, "I don't care what anybody says about Truth Hart, I know what really happened.[88] A few days later, on January 29, 1975, Janie Brown died. Her death was not reported to the authorities. Neither the sheriff nor the coroner signed the death certificate. No cause of death was listed. The Temple would continue to collect Janie Brown's Welfare and Social Security benefits for years to come.

Ella Mae Hoskins remained silent until October 14, 1975, when Birdie Marable convinced her to make a statement to the police to document what she had witnessed. The sheriff's department refused to take Ella Mae's statement but finally gave in five weeks later when Birdie and others staged a protest demonstration outside the sheriff's office demanding that action be taken. Ella Mae swore in an interview with investigator Jan Kespohl on November 21, 1975, that on the morning in question, Mary Love (who had since changed her name to Mary Black.)


...was pinching Truth and hurting her. She made Truth get up and take a bath and Truth was awful sick. Then Mary Black gave Truth a pill, and I was standing at the doorway watching. She then gave Truth some water to drink and went back into the kitchen, and Truth was dead before Mary got back into the kitchen.[89]


Despite the rather incriminating evidence, the sheriff's department refused to reopen the investigation into Truth Hart's death. No one, not even Mary Black, was questioned. As far as the sheriff was concerned, the case was closed and regardless of any new evidence, the case would remain closed.

In spite of her open criticism of the Peoples Temple and her inevitable inclusion in the Temple's "H" file, Ella Mae Hoskins survived. She even survived the mass death in Jonestown, as Jones never invited her to move to Guyana. Following the carnage, Ella Mae was interviewed by Doug Wead, contributing author of People's Temple - People's Tomb, who asked her about Truth's death, "Was this just a family legend that grew with time or were the residents of the home immediately suspicious of the death?" Ella Mae, then over eighty years old, responded in a clear voice, "We all believed it was murder immediately!"[90]

In the final analysis, Jones had been very selective in casting the characters in this stage play. Truth Hart was the perfect guinea pig for his experiments with the Pulmonary Embolism Pill. She had no next of kin, no one to mourn her passing or claim her body. Not even Jones, who had spent much time and money to recruit, relocate and support Truth in life, would have anything to do with her in death. She was buried, at the county's expense, in potter's field and quickly forgotten by all but a few. Of course, Jones blackmailed Faith Worley and Mary Love, presenting them with a photocopy of their signed confessions to the murder of Truth Hart. Faith, who could now be trusted, was promoted into the ranks of the Angels. For the duration, she was a top aide, Jones' personal nurse, and the Temple's expert on poisons. Four years and four months later, Faith was once again called upon to lend her expertise to the cause when Jones ordered her to help Dr. Larry Schacht prepare and distribute the Fla-Vor-Aid cyanide Valium mixture that killed most of the nine hundred victims in Jonestown. The first to form a line in front of Faith and her vat of poison were the mothers holding babies. Faith used squeeze bottles to squirt the poison directly down the infants' throats so they could not spit out the bitter tasting potion. The next in line were the adults who volunteered to die. Faith handed each a paper cup of death. Many residents resisted only to be wrestled to the ground and dragged, kicking and screaming, to the feet of Faith who injected them with a hypodermic needle. Others tried to run but were shot by the outer ring of guards surrounding the pavilion, and were carried, some dead, some half-dead, to Faith, who injected them as well. By legal definition, Faith Worley murdered most of the Jonestown victims. The guards were the only accomplices and Jones, who, at the time was broadcasting encouraging remarks on the public address system, might not have even been prosecuted. Faith murdered Jonestown. Her body was never accurately identified in the aftermath, her passport was not among those found there. Faith Worley's fate has yet to be determined.

Jones was also very clever to have selected Mary Love as a co-assassin. If something had gone wrong, if the police believed Ella Mae Hoskin's statement, Jones could always have taken the position that Mary Love did kill Truth, but that it stemmed from a long-term animosity that had its roots in the Peace Mission in Philadelphia. When Mary was presented with a copy of her signed confession, she attempted to outwit Jones by changing her name from Mary Love to Mary Black. She discovered, as did others who tried a similar defense, that this tactic simply did not work. She was blackmailed for life.

There was another excellent rationale for selecting the major characters of this play, as will be evident later in this chapter, but despite the apparently logical casting, it is extremely uncanny that Grace, Faith and Love killed Truth.




VICTIM NUMBER FOUR

John William Head
Died: October 19, 1975
Multiple head lacerations suffered in a fall

John Head was a twenty-two year old resident of Redwood Valley whose encounter with the Peoples Temple was both short and sad. John was being treated for depression by the Temple staff at the Mendocino State Hospital in Talmadge, a few miles south of Redwood Valley. It may have been an administrator, a physician, a nurse, a dentist, a barber or even a cleaning woman who first befriended John; it does not matter. Somehow his life was condensed into a manila envelope and presented to Jim Jones.

John told his new Temple friend that he had recently received a $10,000 insurance settlement from a motorcycle accident in which he was the innocent victim. His new friend convinced John to use the money to invest in silver. John purchased $10,000 worth of silver bullion from the Shamaz Trading Company in Ukiah and stored his "nest egg" in safety deposit boxes at the local branch of the Bank of America. If it were not for John's silver, he might be alive today.

His new friend also persuaded John to quit his job at a masonite factory in Ukiah. After several months of unemployment, John was faced with the reality that he needed to liquidate some of his silver nest egg to support himself. He was exactly where Jim Jones wanted him to be -- everything was precisely on schedule.

Harold Cordell was a charter member of the Peoples Temple, having joined forces with Jim Jones in 1953. He was a high ranking Temple guard and strongarm man who chauffeured Jones in his bulletproof bus. He was also a volunteer deputy sheriff and had been issued a concealed weapons permit by Sheriff Reno Bartolmei. Cordell was a mean, tough, dangerous man who had very little trouble controlling John Head.

[COLOR=#1A1A1A][FONT=Verdana]On September 27th, 1975, Cordell and an unidentified Temple guard, escorted the heavily sedated John Head arm-in-arm into the Bank of America to withdraw his silver. Cordell had persuaded John that...