The Waco siege, Manson slayings, Jonestown massacre, and Columbia disaster are some of the most shocking moments in modern American history. But when you dig into the details, what really happened in these tragic events gets so much worse than the stories you know.
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00:00The Waco Siege, Manson Slayings, Jonestown Massacre, and Columbia Disaster are some of
00:05the most shocking moments in modern American history.
00:08But when you dig into the details, what really happened in these tragic events gets so much
00:13worse than the stories you know.
00:16The fiery disintegration of Columbia ultimately led to the loss of lives and the retirement
00:20of NASA's shuttle fleet.
00:22Columbia's 28th trip into space had been delayed for two full years due to various issues,
00:27but when it finally lifted off on January 16, 2003, it took just 81 seconds for disaster
00:32to strike.
00:33That's when a piece of foam from the external fuel tank came off and damaged the shuttle's
00:37left wing.
00:38According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the foam chunk was about two feet long
00:43and a foot wide, and it hit the wing's heat-resistant panels at a relative speed of roughly 500
00:48miles per hour.
00:49However, nobody at the time noticed.
00:51It wasn't until the following day that the foam strike was seen during a review of the
00:55launch.
00:56Foam striking the orbiter during liftoff had actually been a concern since even before
01:00the shuttle first flew in 1981.
01:03Following the first flight, over 300 heat-resistant panels had to be replaced due to damage from
01:08debris, and it wasn't an isolated incident.
01:10Most shuttle launches also had foam impacts.
01:13But the damage to the Columbia was different.
01:15Rather than hitting the more fragile white or black tiles, the foam struck the reinforced
01:20gray carbon tiles on the leading edge of the wing, which were thought to be more or less
01:24indestructible.
01:25Although conventional wisdom said that a foam strike to those tiles couldn't possibly
01:28cause significant damage to the shuttle, an assumption that turned out to be deadly.
01:33A day after the launch, the foam strike was detected by NASA's InterCenter Photo Working
01:38Group.
01:39Immediately concerned that severe damage could have been done to the heat-resistant tiles
01:43there, Bob Page, the group's chair, quickly went to another official and asked him to
01:47contact the Department of Defense to obtain images of Columbia.
01:50Three days later, a debris assessment team convened, and two members of that group also
01:54reportedly requested imaging of the left wing, believing the images would be crucial
01:59to assessing the damage.
02:00But they never got the images.
02:02According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, NASA official Linda Hamm blocked all
02:07three imaging requests, concluding that imaging wasn't required and that it would therefore
02:12waste too much time.
02:14For her part, Hamm would later claim to have no knowledge of the DAT's concerns.
02:19Whatever the case, though, the debris assessment team was left flying blind, and they weren't
02:23the only ones.
02:25Without images of Columbia's left wing, the debris assessment team had to rely on computer
02:29simulators to guess what might happen on re-entry.
02:32Their conclusion?
02:33The shuttle would suffer at least some heat damage on re-entry.
02:36They just didn't know how much.
02:38In the meantime, a week after launch, NASA finally clued the flight crew in to the fact
02:42that their shuttle was damaged.
02:44But they told crew commander Rick Husband and pilot William McCool that there was, quote,
02:49no concern.
02:50NASA told them they were only being informed of the foam strike so they wouldn't be taken
02:53by surprise if reporters asked them about it when they got back.
02:58On the morning of February 1st, 2003, after 16 days in space, Columbia attempted re-entry.
03:04As detailed by the Columbia Accident Investigation Report, as the shuttle was streaking over
03:09California at 8.53 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, witnesses reported seeing several flashes
03:14of light.
03:15A minute later, four sensors in the shuttle's damaged left wing mysteriously went offline.
03:20Columbia shed a heat-resistant tile as it crossed from New Mexico into Texas at 8.58,
03:25and a final, unintelligible communique came from the orbiter a minute later.
03:30According to ABC News, a report released by NASA in 2008 indicated that the first alarm
03:34to sound inside the shuttle would have come only four seconds before Columbia spun out
03:39of control.
03:40However, either Rick Husband or William McCool remained conscious for an additional 26 seconds
03:45desperately attempting to save the crew.
03:47At 9 a.m., observers on the ground could see that Columbia was in pieces, and all seven
03:52astronauts on board had been killed.
03:54NASA immediately launched an investigation, with the government mobilizing a massive effort
03:59to collect as much of the debris from the shuttle as possible to determine exactly what
04:04happened.
04:05While some unscrupulous people tried to profit off the tragedy by selling debris, most people
04:10turned over anything they found.
04:11By March, recovery efforts were centered on East Texas, where hundreds of pieces of
04:16the Columbia had been found.
04:18And then, unthinkably, tragedy struck again.
04:21While searching for debris on the afternoon of March 27th, a helicopter carrying five
04:26people suffered an engine failure near the Angelina National Forest in San Augustine
04:31County, Texas.
04:32Though three passengers survived, pilot Jules Francis Buzz Meyer and Texas Forest Service
04:37aviation specialist Charles Krennic were killed instantly.
04:41Krennic was awarded the Star of Texas in 2004, and a monument to the Columbia crew
04:45in Hemp Hill, Texas also includes a pillar inscribed with Meyer and Krennic's names.
04:51In the aftermath of the incident, investigators inevitably asked the million-dollar question
04:56— would it have been possible to save Columbia's crew?
04:59According to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the answer was yes, if the damage to
05:04the left wing had been detected by either spacewalk or the requested imaging.
05:09We availed ourselves of photographic techniques which were not used because it was not assessed
05:16as being so critical.
05:18How?
05:19Well, the space shuttle Atlantis was already being prepared for its next launch.
05:23Originally scheduled to launch on March 1st, the launch could have been accomplished safely
05:28as early as February 10th.
05:30According to calculations, the Columbia crew had enough supplies to remain in orbit until
05:34February 15th, meaning the Atlantis could have flown a rescue mission.
05:39Once the two shuttles met, Columbia's crew could have spacewalked over to Atlantis for
05:42a safe return home.
05:44For the rescue scenario to have been possible, though, the damage to Columbia's left wing
05:48would have had to have been discovered by the seventh day of the mission, which it could
05:52have been, if those requests for imaging hadn't been denied.
05:56The siege at David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas lasted for 51 days
06:02and showed the world just how badly the FBI could mess something up.
06:06Every leader has to rise to power, but before David Koresh rose to become the leader of
06:10the Branch Davidians, it was George Roden who ruled the cult.
06:13According to the New York Times, Koresh wasn't especially fond of Roden, who he saw as squatting
06:17on his property, so he got a bunch of friends together and they invaded the sect commando-style,
06:22dressed in camouflaged military uniforms and carrying military-style weapons.
06:27There was a gun battle, Roden was shot in the hand, and Koresh was able to seize control
06:31of the cult.
06:32So how exactly does something like that happen without consequences?
06:35Well, there was a trial, but none of the eight attackers was convicted of a crime.
06:40David Koresh claimed he'd been aiming at a tree, not at Roden, and the jury believed
06:44him, or at least enough of the jury to result in a deadlock.
06:47In fact, the jury believed Koresh so much that a few of them actually hugged him at
06:51the end of the trial.
06:52Now that's charisma.
06:53I've never seen that happen before, and I haven't seen it since.
06:58And even though authorities found enough guns on the compound to, quote, pull off the
07:01entire sheriff's department, no one was convicted of a felony, so Koresh and his cronies got
07:06to keep their guns.
07:07So why didn't the assistant district attorney decide to try David Koresh a second time?
07:11He never really said, but he did once complain that he'd been, quote, a black man trying
07:16to prosecute seven white men in a southern town called Waco.
07:19David Koresh was just one of many, uh, colorful characters who ruled the Branch Davidians.
07:26First there was Viktor Hotev, who established the Waco Group in 1935.
07:30Then there was his wife Florence, who predicted that April 22, 1959 would mark the dawn of
07:35a new messianic age.
07:36When that doomsday didn't happen, the movement split into several factions, one of which
07:40was led by a man named Ben Roden.
07:42Ben was smart enough to tell everyone that Christ's return would depend on all of them
07:45being morally mature, which pretty much absolved him of the responsibility for being right
07:49about dates.
07:50When Ben Roden died, his wife Lois took over.
07:53When Lois died, her son George took over.
07:55In 1993, The Washington Post reported that one of the factors leading to the standoff
07:59between George Roden and David Koresh was the question of which one of them was able
08:03to successfully raise a 20-year-old corpse from the dead.
08:06Spoiler alert, neither one of them could.
08:09Even before that, George had been a less-than-upstanding citizen.
08:12He was sentenced to six months for asking God, in a legal motion, to inflict AIDS and
08:16herpes on judges.
08:18Two years after the gunfight with David, George murdered one of his supporters with an axe,
08:22evidently because the man was yet another rival claiming to be the true messiah.
08:27Cult leaders have all sorts of sordid techniques they use to control their subjects and brainwash
08:31them into doing crazy things.
08:33David Koresh, too, subjected his followers to some messed-up stuff, like 19-hour-long
08:38sermons.
08:39He also verbally abused his followers, and his sermons could be terrifying.
08:43Grace Adams, who joined the cult in 1990 after traveling all the way from New Zealand, told
08:47CBS News that she watched him preach while wielding a boat paddle, which he would strike
08:51against the stage.
08:53Koresh often separated parents from their children, which is a special kind of torture.
08:58He wanted the kids to put him first, so he'd remove children from the care of their mothers
09:01if he felt the mother-child bond was too strong.
09:05David Koresh also told his followers that the world outside the compound was full of
09:08bad people.
09:10When he thought they were misbehaving, the punishment was severe.
09:13Grace Adams says she was locked in a 10-by-8-foot room for four months and fed from a bowl on
09:18the floor.
09:19Koresh finally let her go, but only when he discovered that her visa had expired.
09:23Can't have immigration knocking on the compound door.
09:26Eventually, most cult leaders decide that polygamy is cool, but only for them, because
09:30that just goes along with the whole being-worshipped-by-other-human-beings thing they're doing.
09:35According to CBS News, David Koresh's revelation came in 1989 and was called the New Light,
09:40which sounds lovely and holy and everything, but was really just a pretty name for his
09:44self-professed right to be the only dude on the compound who was allowed to become a dad.
09:48Also, his relationships with his many wives didn't have to be consensual.
09:52That was okay, though, as far as Koresh was concerned, because any woman who got to know
09:56him in the biblical sense of the word got to have a golden ticket to heaven, so it was
10:00a win-win.
10:01So yeah, David Koresh basically dissolved all the marriages on the compound and claimed
10:05all the women as his own.
10:07That didn't just include the adult women, either.
10:09Koresh had a number of teenage wives, and some who were even younger than that.
10:14In 2003, one woman claimed she'd married Koresh when she was 10.
10:18But sure, go on about how Koresh was totally innocent of wrongdoing.
10:21Every childhood has its ups and downs, but if you were a kid on the Branch Davidian compound,
10:26it was mostly downs.
10:28Joanne Viega was just six when she escaped the Branch Davidians.
10:31She told ABC News,
10:33"...that fear that nothing you can do is going to be good enough.
10:36You're raised with just fear.
10:37Everywhere is fear."
10:39The kids existed under constant threat of a wooden paddle called the Helper.
10:42To prepare for the battle at the end of the world, they were often made to fight each
10:45other.
10:46The boys would get up at 5.30 a.m. for gym, which was really just military training.
10:51In the early days of the siege, David Koresh allowed a few of the children to leave the
10:54compound.
10:55Not his own, though, because they were supposedly the sons and daughters of the Messiah.
11:00Most of the kids who were released spoke about their parents as if they were already dead,
11:03and they seemed almost cool with it.
11:05They told investigators things like,
11:07"...everyone is going to die, and we're going to blow you all up."
11:10These kids were so brainwashed, they claimed to love David Koresh, despite the horrible
11:14things they'd experienced in the compound.
11:16No matter who you blame, no matter which side you sympathize with, there's no question the
11:20government badly screwed up the Waco incident.
11:23There are a lot of reasons why, but one of the biggest is because there were two teams
11:26working to end the crisis, the FBI and the Hostage Rescue Team, or HRT, and they did
11:32not agree on the best way to do things.
11:34Now, disagreeing on the best way to do things is fine if you're sitting around a table in
11:38a boardroom discussing the latest television commercial for your dumb product.
11:42But when people's lives are at stake, those kinds of major disagreements can have tragic
11:46consequences.
11:47According to PBS, the FBI favored a chill approach.
11:50Tread lightly, be patient, spend lots of time talking to people in the compound.
11:54The HRT disagreed.
11:55"...bringing these tanks and stuff around here, I tell you what, no one's going to hurt me
12:00or my family."
12:02So while the FBI was engaged in careful negotiation, the HRT was blasting loud music into the compound
12:07and crushing branch Davidian vehicles.
12:10Which means negotiations came down to a battle of philosophies.
12:13Hey, if you come out, we'll treat you well, versus, hey, if you don't come out, we're
12:17going to drive you nuts with loud music and destroy all your stuff.
12:20With those kinds of mixed messages, it's not shocking that the Davidians were confused
12:24and desperate, and not really willing to negotiate with either team.
12:27"...I mean, these HRT guys, what makes grown men act like that?"
12:32One of the many things there's still a lot of disagreement about is who is at fault for
12:35the fire that ultimately ended the standoff and killed 75 people.
12:39According to ABC News, the survivors still say the FBI was responsible for the fires.
12:44A congressional investigation decided otherwise.
12:47There were bugs inside the compound that captured the branch Davidians saying things like,
12:51"...start the fire?"
12:52And David said, "...pour it, right?"
12:53It supposedly being fuel for the fire.
12:56So that does kind of seem like a smoking gun.
12:59And aerial footage shows three fires starting in simultaneous locations within the compound.
13:04Regardless of where and who set the fire, the results were catastrophic.
13:08David Koresh sent the children with several women to a bunker located on the bottom level
13:12of the compound, where they all perished.
13:14Meanwhile, the people on the upper levels faced fire and tanks, which were being driven
13:18through the walls of the compound.
13:20One of the nine survivors escaped through a hole blasted through the wall by one of
13:23the tanks, but it was too late for the people behind him.
13:26Of the 33 bodies found inside the bunker, 25 were children.
13:30A medical examiner told Frontline in 1995,
13:33"...most of them had died as a result of smoke inhalation or suffocation.
13:37A couple of them had died as a result of blunt trauma due to collapsing debris, but there
13:41were at least three kids who had been shot to death, and one was stabbed to death."
13:46Outside the bunker, people also died from smoke inhalation, but a few had much easier
13:50deaths, including David Koresh himself and his right-hand man, Steve Schneider.
13:54Both men were found inside the compound's communication room.
13:57Koresh died from a gunshot wound to the forehead, Schneider from a gunshot wound to the mouth.
14:02No one is really sure who shot who.
14:04Gunfire was heard coming from inside the compound during the fire, and this is where there's
14:08still a lot of disagreement.
14:10Federal agents claim that the Davidians were killing each other, either to avoid the horror
14:14of dying in a fire, or because David Koresh had ordered the killing of those who tried
14:18to escape.
14:19Survivors still vehemently deny that either one of those scenarios is true, which basically
14:23just means that we're never going to know exactly what happened.
14:27A lot of people were left broken after the events of Waco.
14:30The kids who escaped the compound before its tragic conclusion grew up with the scars of
14:34everything they'd experienced while they were inside, and those who knew the victims didn't
14:38exactly move on, either.
14:40David Koresh's mother, Bonnie Haldeman, told the press after his funeral,
14:43"...I don't think I will ever rest in my heart.
14:45I didn't get to see the body, and I'm not even positive that it is David in the grave."
14:50Haldeman's life ended tragically, just like her son's did.
14:53In 2009, CBS News reported that she'd been found dead in her sister's home.
14:57She was 64, but she hadn't died peacefully in her sleep or anything, she'd died from
15:02stab wounds.
15:03Worse, Beverly Clark, her younger sister, was accused of the murder.
15:07Clark was arrested but found incompetent to stand trial, so she was moved to a medical
15:11facility where she remained for nearly nine years.
15:14Her case wasn't resolved until 2018, when attorneys finally agreed that she'd been insane
15:18when she killed her sister.
15:21As tragic as the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends were, they have come to overshadow
15:24the Manson family's next night of terror.
15:26It was the murder of Lino and Rosemary LaBianca that plunged Los Angeles into fear and paranoia.
15:31As documented by Linda Kasabian's testimony, Charles Manson called her, Patricia Krenwinkel,
15:36and Leslie Van Houten to the bunkhouse at the family's hideaway at the Spahn Ranch after
15:40dinner on the evening of Saturday, August 9, 1969.
15:43Noting that Manson instructed the young women to bring along a change of clothing, Kasabian,
15:47who had been the lookout for the Tate killings, became uneasy knowing that she would again
15:50be sent on a murderous mission.
15:52Manson told them,
15:53"'Last night was too messy.
15:54This time, I'm going to show you how to do it.'"
15:56With Manson at the wheel, the participants in the Cielo Drive Massacre, Charles Tex Watson,
16:00Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, and Kasabian, along with Van Houten and Steve Clem Grogan, headed
16:05out in search of their next victims.
16:06After several false starts, the family at last wound up at a house in Los Feliz.
16:10Armed with a pistol, Manson exited the car and made his way up the home's long driveway
16:14alone.
16:16One of the Manson family's favorite pastimes was an activity they called creepy crawling.
16:20Family members would enter a home under the cover of night and silently creep and crawl
16:23from room to room, rearranging the sleeping occupants' possessions.
16:26During Manson's trial, Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi surmised that the creepy
16:30crawls were merely dress rehearsals for murder.
16:33In the early morning hours of Sunday, August 10, 1969, Manson slipped into the home of
16:37Lino and Rosemary LaBianca to survey the scene.
16:40According to Charles Tex Watson's memoir, Will You Die For Me?, Manson returned to the
16:44car moments later and summoned Watson to come with him.
16:46Rousing Lino LaBianca from his sleep, Manson held a gun on the grocery store president,
16:50assuring him that he wasn't going to be harmed.
16:52Manson stated he was after money and nothing else.
16:55Watson bound LaBianca's hands behind his back while Manson went to the bedroom to retrieve
16:58Rosemary.
16:59Further assuring the frightened couple that they wouldn't be hurt, Manson left the house
17:02with Rosemary LaBianca's wallet.
17:04Moments later, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten entered the LaBianca home with
17:08orders to kill.
17:10As Manson's followers were left to their bloody work, Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Linda
17:13Kasabian, and Steve Clem Grogan left the scene.
17:16According to Bugliosi's book Helter Skelter, Manson gave Kasabian Rosemary LaBianca's wallet
17:21and instructed her to wipe off any incriminating fingerprints and remove the change.
17:25LaBianca's driver's license and, most importantly, her credit cards were to remain untouched.
17:30Manson explained that he was going to drive to a predominantly Black neighborhood, where
17:32Kasabian was to toss the wallet on the sidewalk.
17:35Explaining that a person of color would find the wallet and use the credit cards, Manson
17:38hoped that the press and the authorities would blame the murders on the Black Panthers.
17:42With the blame deflected from the family and placed on the Black political organization,
17:46Manson believed that the country would edge nearer to Helter Skelter, an apocalyptic race
17:49war from which Manson and his followers would emerge as victors.
17:52Inexplicably, Manson changed his mind at the last minute and instead drove to a nearby
17:56gas station, where he instructed Kasabian to leave the wallet in the women's restroom.
18:00Kasabian, now fearful after two nights of murder, instead hid LaBianca's wallet inside
18:04a toilet tank rather than leaving it where it could be easily found.
18:07A key piece of evidence, the wallet was finally discovered four months after the August 10th
18:12According to the Los Angeles Deputy D.A. Vincent Bugliosi, investigators were initially reluctant
18:17to link the LaBianca and Tate murders.
18:19At the time, the police regarded the LaBianca killings as a copycat crime.
18:23Regardless of the official position of the authorities, the general public could easily
18:26see the parallels in the crimes.
18:27Ripped by fear, Los Angeles held its breath, waiting for the next round of gruesome slayings.
18:32On the 50th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders, Linda Deutsch, the Associated Press
18:36reporter who broke the story of the Cielo Drive killings, described the mood of the city
18:39to Tara Brown of 60 Minutes Australia.
18:42You had a city that was in lockdown.
18:46People were buying alarm systems for their houses.
18:50People carried guns.
18:51Deutsch continued to say,
18:52"...people were sure that they were targets.
18:55And then when the LaBiancas were killed, that sort of cemented the idea that there were
18:58mad killers on the loose."
18:59Vincent Bugliosi told KABC-TV in 2015,
19:02There was a lot of fear in L.A. The sale of guard dogs and guns rose dramatically overnight,
19:07particularly in the movie colony.
19:09They were just terrified.
19:11On August 16, 1969, authorities raided Spahn Ranch and arrested Manson and 25 family members.
19:16Charged with auto theft, Manson was released when it was discovered that the arrest warrant
19:20had been misdated.
19:21As documented in Helter Skelter, Susan Atkins, jailed at the Sybil Brand Institute after
19:25being implicated in the earlier murder of music teacher Gary Hinman, leaked details
19:29of the Tate-LaBianca crimes to fellow inmates, who in turn alerted authorities.
19:33Charged with murder, Manson, Tex Watson, Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten
19:37were sentenced to death.
19:38In exchange for immunity, Linda Kasabian became a witness for the prosecution.
19:42Her testimony was instrumental in convicting Manson and his followers.
19:46In 1972, California abolished the death penalty.
19:49The sentences of murders were commuted to life.
19:52Drinking the Kool-Aid is a popular idiom used today, often in a political context, but it
19:56has a dark, dark origin to the phrase.
19:59You might think you know the story of Jim Jones, but the popular account masks a more
20:02complicated and disturbing reality.
20:05Jim Jones ran the People's Temple from San Francisco, but the history of the church
20:09is a bit complicated.
20:10After starting in Indianapolis and traveling down to Brazil for a time, the main takeaway
20:14is that Jones always had one target for parishioners, or minorities.
20:18According to New West magazine, he mobilized San Francisco's African-American community
20:22in a crucial swing bloc.
20:24He was so powerful that few dared challenge him at the time, and he became what New West
20:28called one of the most politically potent religious leaders in the history of the state.
20:32A guy like my dad found out what you wanted to hear and see and showed it to you.
20:39In 1977, when the State Department seemed poised to intervene in a child custody case
20:43relating to Jonestown, San Francisco's politicians and local radicals leapt to defend Jones.
20:49Activist Angela Davis asked the San Francisco D.A. to drop all investigations into Jones,
20:54claiming his detractors wanted to stop his work for social justice.
20:57In a letter to then-President Jimmy Carter, California State Assembly member and future
21:00San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown called Jones,
21:03"...a rare human being and a leader of the first order."
21:06Even San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk begged Carter not to unleash the State Department
21:11on Jones.
21:12Had Jones not received so much protection from these people, as well as others like
21:15Mayor George Moscone and Governor Jerry Brown, People's Temple might have been investigated
21:20in 1977, before it managed to flee to South America.
21:23Even there, it seems Jones expected the city to defend him.
21:26In a tape recorded just before the massacre, Jones said,
21:28"...the people in San Francisco will not take our death in vain, you know."
21:32While Jonestown was portrayed as a multiracial utopia, the reality more closely resembled
21:37a Soviet labor camp.
21:38What's often overlooked is that Jones was an admirer of communism, and his political
21:42ties were with the far left.
21:44Thanks to the survivors of the massacre, America learned how Jones mentally broke his followers
21:48through a combination of food deprivation, humiliation, and punishment straight out of
21:52the USSR and communist China.
21:54"...Jones was fascinated by Hitler."
21:58Jonestown survivor Eugene Smith wrote in a Newsweek op-ed that even when the cult was
22:02still in the U.S., Jones kept an iron grip.
22:05If you broke the rules, Jones dressed you down in front of everyone else.
22:08You didn't defend yourself.
22:09You just took it.
22:10Additionally, the residents were encouraged to criticize themselves to Jones, whether
22:14in person or in writing, a practice that was nearly identical to communist Chinese struggle
22:19sessions, meant to keep potential defectors in line.
22:22Life wasn't much better day-to-day.
22:23I mean, I've never been on a plantation, but, my God, it was a plantation!
22:30And he was the master!"
22:32Work consisted of 8- to 12-hour days in the jungle, with most meals consisting mainly
22:37of rice.
22:38Jonestown's inhabitants were kept on a low-protein diet, no doubt to keep them weak and pliable.
22:43What they were fed was a daily diet of propaganda about America's impending collapse and how
22:47bad life was elsewhere, kinda like North Korea does today.
22:51One of the worst forms of psychological torture Jones employed was the infamous White Night.
22:56This was Jones' way of sounding the alarm when he claimed the commune was about to come
22:59under attack.
23:00According to Smith, everyone would run to the pavilion and Jim Jones would talk and
23:04prophesize and go off on his rants and raves for hours and hours.
23:07He was strung out.
23:09"...Dad, like any good demagogue, would conjure up fear."
23:14Survivors gave varying descriptions of White Nights, but they were undoubtedly a form of
23:18manipulation.
23:19These meetings, apart from depriving people of sleep, kept everyone in a heightened state
23:22of stress regarding the possibility of the Guyanese army invading the commune and slaughtering
23:27the inhabitants.
23:28This reinforced people's loyalty to Jones, who promised protection but expected everyone
23:32to be ready to die for the cause.
23:34They practiced this, too.
23:35A handful of White Nights were described as mass suicide rehearsals, the grim foreshadowing
23:39of the massacre that occurred in November of 1978.
23:43While San Francisco Democrats ran cover for Jim Jones, California Democratic Congressman
23:47Leo Ryan broke ranks with his party to investigate.
23:50After New West magazine published a damning article regarding abuse in Jones' cult, the
23:54People's Temple moved to Guyana, where members were reportedly forbidden to leave.
23:58Ryan went there to investigate and lost his life as a result.
24:01Before we go any further, we need to briefly explain the geography of Guyana.
24:05Jonestown is about 140 miles outside of the capital city of Georgetown, in the middle
24:09of the jungle.
24:10The nearest airport is 60 miles away, on what is mostly a dirt road over uneven terrain.
24:15So Jones chose this location to make it very hard to get in and out of his utopia, and
24:19that played to his advantage.
24:21Accompanying Ryan was journalist Tim Reiterman, who published his experiences in the San Francisco
24:25Examiner in 1978.
24:27Reiterman said Jones carefully choreographed the visit to make Jonestown look like a thriving
24:31settlement.
24:32Whatever the comments are, there are some people here who believe that this is the best
24:36thing that ever happened to them their whole lives.
24:38But the charade collapsed when two members handed Ryan a note begging the congressman
24:41to save them.
24:42At least 14 more joined them in their attempt to escape, something Jones wouldn't tolerate.
24:47What is your wish today?
24:50To go back home.
24:52And where is home?
24:53The U.S.
24:55Before the group even left Jonestown for the airport, things got very dicey.
24:58A few church loyalists inspected the trucks carrying the fleeing members, and that culminated
25:02with Congressman Ryan having a knife held to his throat.
25:05Cooler heads prevailed, and they all thought they were in the clear to return to the U.S.
25:09Unbeknownst to Ryan, however, a member of Jones' Red Brigade, Larry Leighton, had joined
25:13the defectors as a saboteur.
25:15After arriving in Port Katooma for their flight home, Leighton signaled to a handful of men
25:19in a tractor who'd been following the party.
25:21I turned to Larry Leighton, I said, they're killing everyone, they're killing everyone.
25:26And then he shot me three times, point blank.
25:30In the resulting firefight, Ryan and several others were killed.
25:33In 1986, Leighton would be the only person convicted for the killings.
25:38Speaking to a packed house at Lincoln Land Community College in 2014, People's Temple
25:42Financial Secretary and Jonestown survivor Deborah Leighton declared,
25:45"'Nobody committed suicide at Jonestown.
25:48It was a massacre.'"
25:49It was like 900 people, so no, it wasn't all suicide.
25:55With those words, Leighton busted Jonestown's most enduring myth — that it was history's
25:59largest mass suicide.
26:00In a 2021 Time magazine article, Odell Rhodes, who survived Jonestown, agreed.
26:05Although some followed Jones' order, 300 children and infants were forced to drink
26:09the cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid — and yes, it wasn't even Kool-Aid, it was the other
26:13brand of sugary drink.
26:14If the kids weren't willing to sip the poison, their mothers were ordered to squirt the drink
26:18into their mouths with a syringe.
26:19The gruesome scene haunted witnesses for years, with one worker writing,
26:23"'Can't sleep.
26:24Can I get the small children out of my mind?'
26:26This is a beautiful place here, and it's fun over here, it's really good."
26:31As for the adults who didn't want to go along with the plan, Jones had a solution for them
26:35as well.
26:36Rhodes said he saw them herded back to the pavilion at gunpoint and coerced into drinking
26:40the poison.
26:41According to a Guyanese pathologist, up to 90 percent of Jonestown's victims were forcibly
26:45injected, shot, or strangled.
26:47So yes, Jonestown was really a mass murder.
26:50Among the few who definitively died by suicide was Jones himself.
26:54According to a Washington Post interview with his son, Steven, Jones was too prideful to
26:57let anyone else kill him.
27:00Despite the fact that the People's Temple drew its membership from the core echelons
27:03of American society, the group itself was far from poor.
27:06Jones' well-funded operation had around $27 million in total assets.
27:10These included $7 million in cash, stashed away in Venezuelan and Panamanian bank accounts.
27:15According to The New York Times, the members of the People's Temple left all the liquid
27:19assets to the USSR, with the explanation,
27:21"'We, as communists, want our money to be a benefit for help to oppressed peoples all
27:25over the world, or in any way that your decision-making body sees fit.'"
27:30The Times report drew heavily on the activities of Jones loyalist Maria Casares, who was tasked
27:34with organizing the delivery of some of the funds to the Soviet embassy in the Guyanese
27:38capital.
27:39She visited Panama and Venezuela several times, suggesting she was Jones' primary financial
27:44go-between with the banks.
27:45Jones' wife, Marceline, left another note transferring money in Canada and the Bahamas
27:49— again, a sign that the cult was far from poor.
27:52It doesn't appear the USSR ever received the money, and Moscow refused to comment on
27:56the matter.
27:57While most of the Jonestown Massacre took place in the commune, a second, smaller massacre
28:01was taking place at the People's Temple headquarters in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown, at
28:06the hands of Jones loyalist Sharon Amos.
28:08According to her nephew August and his mother Robin, Jones ordered cult members at the Georgetown
28:13headquarters to kill themselves, but most of them refused.
28:15Amos, however, chose to carry out a horrific act on Jones' order with fellow cult member
28:20Charles Bikeman.
28:21She took her three children to a bathroom, where she did the unspeakable.
28:24We're not even going to speak it — let's just say that she was loyal to Jones through
28:28and through.
28:29Ten-year-old Stephanie Brown, who was supposed to be killed by Bikeman, survived.
28:33Bikeman only cut her superficially to make it seem to Amos that he had carried out Jones'
28:37orders.
28:38In doing so, he saved her life.
28:40At Bikeman's trial, he received a reduced sentence of five years on an attempted murder
28:43charge thanks to his refusal to kill the girl.
28:47Why did the Guyanese government allow Jones and the People's Temple to settle there in
28:50the first place?
28:51The answer was political expediency, despite the flashing red warning signs that Jones
28:55wasn't all he claimed to be.
28:57In the 1970s, Guyana was a poor, underdeveloped country covered in inaccessible jungle.
29:02According to San Diego State University professor Khalil Mohamed, Guyana wanted foreigners with
29:06a socialist bent who were willing to develop the interior, and a mostly Black, ostensibly
29:10Christian movement seemed like the perfect way to get it done.
29:12The idea was all the more attractive due to Guyana's conflict with Venezuela over the
29:16Essequibo region.
29:17Jones would settle the borderlands, strengthen Guyana's claims to the area, and make it economically
29:21viable.
29:22He used his money to bribe police, army personnel, and officials to look the other way when reports
29:27of abuse surfaced, setting the scene for November 1978.
29:30After the tragedy, the Guyanese government, possibly aided by the United States, went
29:34into cover-up mode.
29:36According to the testimony of Dr. Leslie Mutu, the pathologist assigned to the case, there
29:40was evidence of forcible injection and gunshot wounds on the vast majority of the bodies.
29:45That evidence was buried to make it look like a mass suicide.
29:48These are the bodies of unidentified children.
29:51In place of names, just numbers on the boxes.
29:55The People's Temple was around 70 percent African American in 1978, when the Jonestown
29:59Massacre occurred.
30:01Many followed Jim Jones because at one point, he seemed like the real deal, seeking to turn
30:05Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech into reality.
30:08In this aspect, the People's Temple did well.
30:11Anyone was welcome there, including mixed-race couples whose marriages were illegal in many
30:15states until 1967.
30:16When Jones moved operations to San Francisco, his mostly Black congregants saw him as their
30:21fighter in City Hall and in Sacramento.
30:23All lies.
30:24None of it was true.
30:26I mean, he sold us a bill of goods.
30:29In the end, this is perhaps the saddest part of the Jonestown saga.
30:33Was Jones the real deal who went mad with power, or was he always a manipulative sociopath?
30:38Survivors' accounts suggest the latter, meaning that Jones took advantage of some of America's
30:41most vulnerable and isolated.
30:43But to what end?
30:44Jones would have said it was for the revolution, but his bank accounts suggest it was the same
30:49old, same old — money, power, and control over his fellow man.