Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Mills Family Pt. One

Transcript

Mills Family Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.
0:33
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right
0:38
Speaker 2: into this week's case.
0:40
Speaker 3: February twenty sixth, nineteen eighty, Berkeley, California. Fifty one year
0:46
Speaker 3: old Al Mills, his forty year old wife, Jeannie, and
0:49
Speaker 3: Jeannie's sixteen year old daughter, Dapien are all shot to
0:52
Speaker 3: death execution style inside their home. Jeanie's seventeen year old son, Eddie,
0:57
Speaker 3: is left unharmed inside his bedroom, claims he didn't hear
1:00
Speaker 3: the murders take place. Since the family is defected from
1:04
Speaker 3: Jim Jones's call the People's Temple and become outspoken advocates
1:08
Speaker 3: against them, there is speculation that surviving members of the
1:12
Speaker 3: cult orchestrated their assassination. However, investigators suspect Eddie of being
1:17
Speaker 3: the perpetrator, and while they make a failed attempt to
1:20
Speaker 3: charge him with the crime, twenty five years later, the
1:22
Speaker 3: Mills family murders are never solved.
1:26
Speaker 1: After that, the path went Chiley. So today we're going
1:29
Speaker 1: to be covering a case in which three people were
1:31
Speaker 1: killed inside their home, the nineteen eighty murders of the
1:35
Speaker 1: Mills family. This story involves the fatal shootings of a
1:38
Speaker 1: couple and their teenage daughter. But what's truly unique about
1:42
Speaker 1: this crime is that it can all be considered an
1:44
Speaker 1: epilogue to one of the most infamous tragedies of all time.
1:48
Speaker 1: I'm sure pretty much all of you are familiar with
1:50
Speaker 1: the notorious reverend Jim Jones, who launched a religious movement
1:54
Speaker 1: slash calt called the People's Temple and went down in
1:57
Speaker 1: infamy after orchestrating a mass murders suicide involving himself and
2:01
Speaker 1: over nine hundred of his followers at his Jonestown settlement
2:05
Speaker 1: in Guyana. Well years before that, a couple named Al
2:08
Speaker 1: and Jenie Mills were high ranking members of the People's Temple,
2:12
Speaker 1: but they eventually grew very disturbed about Jones's cruel tactics
2:16
Speaker 1: and decided to defect from the group alongside their children.
2:19
Speaker 1: They soon became very outspoken opponents of Jones and his cult,
2:23
Speaker 1: publicly exposing their human rights abuses and launching a support
2:27
Speaker 1: group for other defectors from the organization. Naturally, this put
2:31
Speaker 1: them right at the top of Jones's enemies list, so
2:34
Speaker 1: an Al, Genie and Genie's sixteen year old daughter were
2:37
Speaker 1: all shot to death inside their house fifteen months after
2:40
Speaker 1: the Jonestown massacre took place. There was a lot of
2:43
Speaker 1: speculation that they were killed by a vengeful hit squad
2:46
Speaker 1: consisting of loyal surviving members of the People's Temple. However,
2:50
Speaker 1: the big complication is that Genie's seventeen year old son, Eddie,
2:54
Speaker 1: was inside his bedroom when the murders took place and
2:57
Speaker 1: left unharmed, and he always maintained that he never heard
3:00
Speaker 1: a thing. The authorities found enough suspicious discrepancies to make
3:04
Speaker 1: them believe that Eddie murdered his mother, stepfather, and sister himself,
3:08
Speaker 1: but they lacked the evidence to build a successful case
3:11
Speaker 1: against him. Opinions are still sharply divided about whether the
3:15
Speaker 1: Mills family were murdered by intruders or if Eddie was
3:18
Speaker 1: the real perpetrator. So we're going to explore both sides
3:21
Speaker 1: on this series of episodes.
3:23
Speaker 2: All right, Well, as soon as you started describing this murder,
3:26
Speaker 2: I immediately thought of Donnie Henson and the case where
3:30
Speaker 2: he survived the death of his two sisters, and they
3:33
Speaker 2: eventually you really were convinced that he had done the killing.
3:37
Speaker 2: His parents had survived, and so as soon as you
3:39
Speaker 2: described it, I almost thought we were talking about the
3:41
Speaker 2: same case, because you have a family who's killed, the
3:46
Speaker 2: teen son survives and supposedly doesn't even witness or understand
3:50
Speaker 2: anything that's happening in this scene. So an incredibly eerie
3:55
Speaker 2: similarity to that case. And then when you tie in
3:58
Speaker 2: the People's Temple, well, that is one of the most
4:02
Speaker 2: tragic and heartbreaking cult cases I've ever researched. I used
4:06
Speaker 2: to teach a cult class, and I used to expose
4:09
Speaker 2: students to group think and different kinds of psychological tactics
4:14
Speaker 2: that we use and we see even in corporations and
4:17
Speaker 2: things like that. But People's Temple takes the cake for
4:20
Speaker 2: me because of how incredibly significant that end tragedy was,
4:25
Speaker 2: where I call it a mass murder, that even the
4:28
Speaker 2: people who thought they were willingly taking their lives had
4:30
Speaker 2: been so brainwashed. Is that truly a suicide? But it's
4:35
Speaker 2: interesting to me because there is an idea of this
4:38
Speaker 2: was a violent group. When they were pushed to extremes,
4:41
Speaker 2: when they thought that their group was in danger, they
4:44
Speaker 2: had this incredibly violent reaction where they're shooting the congressmen
4:49
Speaker 2: when they are attacking his team and then they start
4:52
Speaker 2: to actually execute and kill all the members of the
4:56
Speaker 2: People's Simple in Guyana. But I don't know that I
4:59
Speaker 2: would see people fifteen months later actually go after people
5:05
Speaker 2: who had stood up against that group. I almost feel
5:08
Speaker 2: like that was such a shocking moment. Would people remember
5:12
Speaker 2: there weren't many survivors that actually were in Guyana. There
5:15
Speaker 2: were I think about eighty that survived, or it might
5:18
Speaker 2: have been even less than that because they happened to
5:20
Speaker 2: be away for the day. But I don't know that
5:23
Speaker 2: there would have been many people who truly said everything
5:26
Speaker 2: that happened is okay when that was the end result,
5:30
Speaker 2: even if they loved Jim Jones, even if they believed
5:32
Speaker 2: in the mission. I think that an event rocked people
5:35
Speaker 2: that had stayed in the United States and still subscribed
5:38
Speaker 2: to his mission. So I want to hear more about
5:40
Speaker 2: this surviving sun and what happened there, because again, it's
5:44
Speaker 2: reminding me more of another case where we watched a
5:48
Speaker 2: son basically get away with murdering his two sisters.
5:51
Speaker 1: If I recall correctly, yes that is true, because Donnie
5:55
Speaker 1: Hansen did go on trial, but he was found not guilty,
5:57
Speaker 1: so technically that case is still unsolved, even though the
6:00
Speaker 1: consensus is that Donnie did it and may have had
6:03
Speaker 1: accomplices as well. The key differences between the two cases
6:07
Speaker 1: is that in the handsome case, the home was set
6:09
Speaker 1: on fire, so there was chaos going around while he
6:12
Speaker 1: was killing his sisters. But here Eddie was the surviving
6:16
Speaker 1: teenage son was just sitting in his bedroom and apparently
6:20
Speaker 1: his mother's, stepfather and sister were all killed right down
6:23
Speaker 1: the hall from him, and he didn't even notice, which
6:25
Speaker 1: some people found unbelievable. But at the same time, they
6:28
Speaker 1: were unable to turn up much of a motive for
6:30
Speaker 1: Eddie to have done this, and there was really not
6:32
Speaker 1: much in the way of evidence. So it makes you
6:34
Speaker 1: wonder if it wasn't Eddie, if it wasn't surviving members
6:38
Speaker 1: of the People's Temple, then who actually could have done this.
6:42
Speaker 3: Our story begins in Berkeley, California, in nineteen eighty Two.
6:46
Speaker 3: Of our central figures are fifty one year old Al
6:49
Speaker 3: Mills and his forty year old wife, Jeanie Mills, who
6:52
Speaker 3: are currently living in a suburban cottage, alongside Genie's two
6:55
Speaker 3: children from a previous marriage, Seventeen year old Eddie and
6:59
Speaker 3: sixteen year old dayphen. At around nine twenty pm on
7:03
Speaker 3: the evening of February twenty sixth, Al's mother, who lived
7:07
Speaker 3: in a nearby rest home, arrived at the Millses Cottage
7:10
Speaker 3: for a visit, but made a horrific discovery when she
7:13
Speaker 3: entered the main bedroom and came across the bodies of Al, Jeannie,
7:17
Speaker 3: and Daphene. After she let out a scream, Eddie suddenly
7:21
Speaker 3: emerged from his bedroom across the hall and joined his grandmother,
7:25
Speaker 3: so the Berkeley Police Department were immediately contacted and summoned
7:29
Speaker 3: to the scene. It turned out that all three victims
7:32
Speaker 3: had been the victim of an execution style shooting with
7:35
Speaker 3: a twenty two caliber weapon. Al was lying face down
7:39
Speaker 3: on the bedroom floor and had been shot through the
7:41
Speaker 3: back of the head. Jeanie was lying dead on the
7:44
Speaker 3: floor in the adjacent bathroom and was also shot in
7:47
Speaker 3: the back of the head. Daphene was lying on top
7:50
Speaker 3: of the bed with two gunshots to her right temple,
7:53
Speaker 3: but she was still alive and was rushed to the hospital.
7:56
Speaker 3: She remained in critical condition for the next two days,
7:59
Speaker 3: but had suffered such extensive brain damage that she was
8:02
Speaker 3: neurologically dead and had zero hope of recovery. Daphene was
8:07
Speaker 3: kept alive long enough so that one of her kidneys
8:09
Speaker 3: could be used for a transplant before she was taken
8:12
Speaker 3: off life support. Eddie claimed that after taking a long shower,
8:16
Speaker 3: he had gone inside his bedroom to smoke some marijuana
8:19
Speaker 3: and watch television, but maintained that he did not hear
8:22
Speaker 3: any gunshots and had no idea a crime had even
8:26
Speaker 3: taken place until he heard his grandmother screaming. When the
8:29
Speaker 3: Mills's neighbors and other local residents were interviewed by police,
8:33
Speaker 3: they also claimed that they did not hear gunshots or
8:36
Speaker 3: anything unusual. Two family friends had visited the residents at
8:40
Speaker 3: around five pm and said everything seemed normal with the
8:43
Speaker 3: Millses and that the atmosphere was friendly. There were no
8:47
Speaker 3: signs of forced entry or any struggle at the cottage,
8:50
Speaker 3: but one neighbors said that was not uncommon for the
8:53
Speaker 3: Millses to leave their front door unlocked so that their
8:56
Speaker 3: children's friends could enter and exit the house with these
9:00
Speaker 3: If nothing appeared to have been stolen from the residence,
9:03
Speaker 3: robbery was ruled out as a possible motive for the murders,
9:06
Speaker 3: but rumors immediately started circulating that the crime may have
9:10
Speaker 3: been a professional hit, since the Mills family had an
9:13
Speaker 3: extraordinary backstory.
9:16
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's take a peek at at Eddie. Eddie.
9:20
Speaker 2: Obviously there were friends that had visited the residents around
9:23
Speaker 2: five pm. The bodies are found at nine twenty, and
9:27
Speaker 2: basically Grandma has to run in and wake Eddie and say, hey,
9:30
Speaker 2: by the way, your whole family has been slain, and
9:34
Speaker 2: he says, I had no idea. There's a four hour
9:37
Speaker 2: and twenty minute gap there. Do we know when the
9:40
Speaker 2: examinations were done on the bodies, about how long police
9:44
Speaker 2: believed that they had been in that condition before they
9:46
Speaker 2: were discovered by the grandmother.
9:48
Speaker 1: It has never really been revealed the exact time of death.
9:50
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure they tried to make an estimate,
9:53
Speaker 1: but it's never been released publicly, so I technically don't
9:56
Speaker 1: know how long they were dead by the time before
9:59
Speaker 1: the were discovered. And I always think if Eddie was
10:02
Speaker 1: in the shower, then maybe he did not hear the gunshots.
10:06
Speaker 1: But you're also thinking, well that her intruders wouldn't They've
10:09
Speaker 1: got into the shower and heard it and killed Eddie
10:12
Speaker 1: as well. So there are certain reasons like maybe he
10:16
Speaker 1: was listening to music with headphones on, where you think
10:18
Speaker 1: that he wouldn't have been able to hear the gunshots.
10:21
Speaker 1: But at the same time, he was just so close
10:23
Speaker 1: across the hall that you can understand why the police
10:26
Speaker 1: became suspicious of him immediately. Oh.
10:28
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the fact that he was stoned could definitely be
10:32
Speaker 3: a contributing factor if somebody is just so out of it,
10:37
Speaker 3: and the fact that the neighbors didn't hear it. Is
10:39
Speaker 3: it possible that if somebody came in, they could have
10:41
Speaker 3: used a silencer.
10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as well, because nobody reported
10:46
Speaker 1: hearing gunshots, that if this was a professional hit, they
10:48
Speaker 1: could used silencers. And maybe they just would have been
10:51
Speaker 1: quiet enough that if Eddie was stoned or he was
10:53
Speaker 1: listening to music, that he just honestly did not hear
10:56
Speaker 1: the gunshots.
10:58
Speaker 2: Interesting. Do we know if there was any kind of
11:00
Speaker 2: insurance policy set up where he would have been the
11:02
Speaker 2: sole beneficiary if his sister and his parents had passed away.
11:05
Speaker 1: Not necessarily an insurance policy, but he was set to inherit.
11:10
Speaker 1: We'll talk about this later. Part of a sizeable estate,
11:13
Speaker 1: and because Al had other children from his previous marriage,
11:16
Speaker 1: he would have to divide it with them, but Eddie
11:18
Speaker 1: would technically get like the largest percentage because he was
11:21
Speaker 1: the only surviving member from Genie side of the family.
11:25
Speaker 1: So before they were known as al and Jeannie Mills,
11:27
Speaker 1: the couple used to go by their birth names Elmer
11:29
Speaker 1: and Deanna Myrtle. Before they even met, Almer and Deanna
11:33
Speaker 1: had already both been married to other people and had
11:36
Speaker 1: a total of five children between them. Deanna had Eddie
11:39
Speaker 1: and day Feene, while Elmer had three children named Steve, Linda,
11:43
Speaker 1: and Diana. They officially got married to each other in
11:46
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, but within a year, Elmer had quit
11:49
Speaker 1: his job at Standard Oil so that he and Deana
11:52
Speaker 1: and their five children could join the People's Temple, a
11:55
Speaker 1: new religious movement founded by the Reverend Jim Jones, which
11:58
Speaker 1: was situated at Californi, Orny's Redwood Valley at that time.
12:02
Speaker 1: As most of you probably know, it would turn out
12:05
Speaker 1: that the People's Temple functioned like a cult as its
12:07
Speaker 1: members were brainwashed by Reverend Jones, who forced them to
12:11
Speaker 1: turn over all of their property, possessions, and assets and
12:14
Speaker 1: swear their undying loyalty to him. According to Deanna. When
12:18
Speaker 1: Eddie was only eight years old, she believed that he
12:20
Speaker 1: had developed in a regular heartbeat. While Eddie was never
12:24
Speaker 1: diagnosed by a doctor, Jones performed telepathy on him and
12:27
Speaker 1: convinced Diana that he had miraculously cured his condition, which
12:31
Speaker 1: played a major role in her family's decision to devote
12:34
Speaker 1: their entire lives to Jones and the People's Temple. The
12:37
Speaker 1: Murders became key players in the organization, as Genie served
12:40
Speaker 1: as head of their publications office, while Elmer functioned as
12:44
Speaker 1: the official photographer, and they were both members of the
12:46
Speaker 1: group's governing council known as the Planning Commission.
12:50
Speaker 2: This makes me so angry. The abuse of religion and
12:53
Speaker 2: using spirituality and spiritual healing and things like that as
12:57
Speaker 2: a weapon and tool to convince people to follow you
13:00
Speaker 2: and to donate their lives to you is so frustrating.
13:04
Speaker 2: You know, this was not the first time Jones did
13:06
Speaker 2: stuff like that. There's one case where Jones had a
13:09
Speaker 2: packed house. I mean, he used to have hundreds upon
13:11
Speaker 2: hundreds of mixed race individuals worshiping in his temples and
13:15
Speaker 2: in his churches. And Jim Jones performed a quote miracle
13:20
Speaker 2: on a woman who could not walk, and she was very,
13:24
Speaker 2: very elderly and fragile, and by the end of it,
13:28
Speaker 2: she's dancing and running up and down the aisles. He's
13:30
Speaker 2: telling her, put one foot in front of the other,
13:32
Speaker 2: you can walk. Now you're healed. And it's this crazy
13:35
Speaker 2: celebration where almost everyone in attendance is giving their life
13:38
Speaker 2: over to Jim Jones, not Jesus Jim. And when that happens,
13:44
Speaker 2: come to find out that was a secretary who was
13:46
Speaker 2: very able bodied and she was faking right, acting that
13:50
Speaker 2: she had been healed. But by convincing somebody that their
13:53
Speaker 2: child had been medically healed, I mean no wonder. They
13:58
Speaker 2: gave everything to that organization, to that church. They felt
14:01
Speaker 2: he was led by the Holy Spirit. He's being this
14:05
Speaker 2: man who's been blessed with the ability to perform miracles
14:08
Speaker 2: via their faith. And so it makes me so mad,
14:11
Speaker 2: But I don't blame them. I think that was a
14:13
Speaker 2: tactic he used because he knew it worked. And you
14:16
Speaker 2: had this very successful couple who ends up quitting and
14:20
Speaker 2: using all their resources and talents to further the people's temple.
14:24
Speaker 2: And so what a crazy start for this couple. And
14:28
Speaker 2: now it's interesting they change their name and we're trying
14:30
Speaker 2: to live a life basically devoid of that history they had.
14:34
Speaker 3: It totally reminds me of Rasputen and like the influence
14:39
Speaker 3: that he had over the Romanovs when he was treating
14:42
Speaker 3: their son Alexei. He was able to have these people
14:46
Speaker 3: like devote everything to him. It was so intense, and
14:49
Speaker 3: I think Jim Jones had a similar magnetism where he
14:53
Speaker 3: was able to convince people of almost anything, and he
14:56
Speaker 3: could sell himself. He could be what they needed him
14:58
Speaker 3: to be in that moment, and that was such a
15:00
Speaker 3: powerful thing.
15:01
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're going to talk more about this later.
15:03
Speaker 1: But the Joneses would become friends with one person who
15:06
Speaker 1: said that I became convinced that Jones was the real
15:09
Speaker 1: deal because I saw him perform this miracle on a
15:12
Speaker 1: woman who was in a wheelchair and she just suddenly
15:14
Speaker 1: got up and walked. And of course it turned out
15:17
Speaker 1: that was a complete fraud. It was only used to
15:19
Speaker 1: learn new members in because they believed he could perform miracles.
15:23
Speaker 1: And that's pretty much the same thing they did with
15:25
Speaker 1: the Mills family, where they thought that he cured Eddie's
15:28
Speaker 1: heart ailments even though he did nothing.
15:31
Speaker 3: However, as the years went on, the Myrtles gradually became
15:35
Speaker 3: disillusioned with the People's Temple, particularly after witnessing Jones perform
15:40
Speaker 3: numerous acts of cruelty, such as frequent beatings of his followers,
15:44
Speaker 3: including the children. The breaking point occurred in nineteen seventy
15:48
Speaker 3: four when the Myrtles witnessed Jones used a two foot
15:51
Speaker 3: long paddle to spank Elmer's daughter, Linda, who was sixteen
15:55
Speaker 3: at the time. According to Jones, Linda had embraced a
15:58
Speaker 3: friend of hers, whom he considered to be a trader,
16:01
Speaker 3: and spanked her with a paddle seventy five times as punishment.
16:06
Speaker 3: After spending the next year working up the courage to leave,
16:09
Speaker 3: the Myrtles finally decided to defect from the People's Temple
16:12
Speaker 3: with their children. When they originally joined the group, Elmer
16:15
Speaker 3: and Diana were forced to turn all of their properties
16:18
Speaker 3: over to Jones and grant him full power of attorney
16:21
Speaker 3: over them. To prove their loyalty, Jones also demanded that
16:25
Speaker 3: his members signed false confessions to committing to such horrific
16:28
Speaker 3: crimes as molesting their own children, which he could use
16:32
Speaker 3: against them if they ever decided to leave in order
16:35
Speaker 3: to avoid all the powers Jones had over them. Elmer
16:38
Speaker 3: and Diana Myrtle officially changed their names to Al and
16:41
Speaker 3: Jeannie Mills.
16:43
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine. You've given your life
16:47
Speaker 2: and your finances, and your belongings and your time and
16:51
Speaker 2: your family over to this church family, and then you
16:55
Speaker 2: start to see behind the curtains when it almost feels
16:58
Speaker 2: like it's too late, when everyone is trained not to
17:01
Speaker 2: speak of troubling issues, when they're all trained to look
17:05
Speaker 2: the other way or report when people are talking negatively
17:08
Speaker 2: about the group. So in many ways, they probably felt
17:11
Speaker 2: very stuck when they started to see these kind of
17:14
Speaker 2: the facade fall down. And yet, just like groups like
17:18
Speaker 2: scientology and those other types of organizations that we see
17:21
Speaker 2: functioning that are able to keep their members so much
17:25
Speaker 2: in their palm right and in control of their lives
17:29
Speaker 2: because they use things like blackmail and confessions and these
17:34
Speaker 2: kinds of things where they're asking you to in this case,
17:37
Speaker 2: actually lie about things that you've done, and in other
17:41
Speaker 2: groups they convince you you've done these horrible things, and
17:44
Speaker 2: if you leave, it's held over your head. And so
17:48
Speaker 2: I'm incredibly impressed because I know it took nothing short
17:51
Speaker 2: of true trust in one another to leave that organization
17:55
Speaker 2: and trust that they were going to be okay, because
17:58
Speaker 2: the fear and the psychological damage and the spiritual warfare
18:02
Speaker 2: being used against them couldn't have been anything other than
18:05
Speaker 2: absolutely horrendous.
18:08
Speaker 1: So, after the Mills family moved to Berkeley, Alan Jini
18:11
Speaker 1: became outspoken opponents of the People's Temple and wanted to
18:15
Speaker 1: help others who followed their example and defected from the cult.
18:18
Speaker 1: The couple established the Human Freedom Center, a halfway house
18:22
Speaker 1: which functioned as a sanctuary for defectors and refugees from
18:25
Speaker 1: the cult when nowhere else to go. The Mills has
18:28
Speaker 1: also worked alongside another defector named Timothy Stowen, a former
18:32
Speaker 1: People's Temple attorney who had once served as Jones's right
18:35
Speaker 1: hand man, and together they formed their own organization called
18:39
Speaker 1: the Concerned Relatives of People's Temple Members. It served as
18:43
Speaker 1: a support group for defectors and their families and sought
18:46
Speaker 1: to deprogram them and help them readjust to normal society again.
18:51
Speaker 1: In July nineteen seventy seven, New West Magazine published an
18:54
Speaker 1: expose about Jones and his organization, titled Inside People's Temple,
18:59
Speaker 1: in which the Millses and other former members exposed the
19:02
Speaker 1: cruelty and human rights abuses which took place there. They
19:06
Speaker 1: continued to exert pressure on the media and the government
19:09
Speaker 1: to take action against Jones and his group. Needless to say,
19:13
Speaker 1: Jones was outraged by the Mills' actions and would reportedly
19:16
Speaker 1: deliver angry rants to his followers in which he referred
19:19
Speaker 1: to the Mills as traders and vowed to get revenge
19:22
Speaker 1: on them. During this time period, the Millses claimed that
19:25
Speaker 1: they received a number of threatening phone calls and found
19:28
Speaker 1: threatening notes on their doorstep. At one point, a bomb
19:32
Speaker 1: went off at the bank where the Millses kept a
19:34
Speaker 1: safety deposit box, and they soon found a note on
19:36
Speaker 1: their front porch in which the People's Temple took credit
19:39
Speaker 1: for the bombing. On one occasion, Al's daughter Diana, reported
19:43
Speaker 1: seeing eight or nine armed men in the yard of
19:46
Speaker 1: her home.
19:47
Speaker 2: This is so sad, So this is this group of
19:50
Speaker 2: the concerned relatives of the People's Temple. They were people
19:54
Speaker 2: who were saying, look with my loved ones. Have been
19:57
Speaker 2: convinced that anyone who's not part of the People's Temple
20:01
Speaker 2: is evil. That there's some kind of danger to them
20:05
Speaker 2: if they're interacting with the general public, if they are
20:10
Speaker 2: speaking to people who are not in the group, if
20:12
Speaker 2: they support any of these quote traders, And so when
20:16
Speaker 2: you have that kind of tension and struggle where they're
20:21
Speaker 2: saying this is no longer optional. For my family members
20:24
Speaker 2: who are there, I feel like they're stuck, that they
20:26
Speaker 2: can't get out. And you have people like the Millses
20:29
Speaker 2: who are sharing experiences where there's a reason we almost
20:32
Speaker 2: couldn't leave as well. We know that we're not the
20:36
Speaker 2: only ones who experienced these things. We saw it, and
20:39
Speaker 2: so it's not just people who are concerned, it's people
20:42
Speaker 2: who know legitimate dangers operating inside this group. And it's
20:46
Speaker 2: it's the reason why this group is the reason why
20:50
Speaker 2: the big threat quote unquote to Jonestown down in Guyana
20:55
Speaker 2: started in the first place, is because this is where
20:58
Speaker 2: Congressman Ryan's going to fly down to investigate and try
21:01
Speaker 2: to give peace to these family members and show is
21:05
Speaker 2: there a danger or are these people happy? Are they
21:07
Speaker 2: choosing to be there? And you guys know it goes
21:11
Speaker 2: at first this kind of angelic experience for the congressman
21:14
Speaker 2: and very quickly, he starts to realize maybe there are
21:18
Speaker 2: people who want to leave and can't.
21:20
Speaker 1: The concerned relatives of People's Temple members eventually helped convince
21:24
Speaker 1: Leo Ryan, a Democratic Congressman from sam Matteo, to perform
21:28
Speaker 1: an investigation into the organization and their practices. By this point,
21:32
Speaker 1: Jones had already established the People's Temple Agricultural Project aka Jonestown,
21:38
Speaker 1: our most settlement in the Jungles of Guyana, which was
21:40
Speaker 1: the primary base of operations for Jones and his followers.
21:44
Speaker 1: Ryan and his delegation, which included his staff, some media representatives,
21:49
Speaker 1: and several relatives of People's Temple members, decided to travel
21:52
Speaker 1: to Jonestown on a fact finding mission, but a devastating
21:56
Speaker 1: tragedy would soon take place. On November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight,
22:01
Speaker 1: after Congressman Ryan and his entourage paid a visit to Jonestown,
22:05
Speaker 1: they left the settlement with a group of People's Temple
22:07
Speaker 1: members who expressed their desire to defect, and traveled to
22:11
Speaker 1: an airstrip in Port Kaituma in order to board a
22:14
Speaker 1: pair of transport planes to leave. It wasn't long before
22:17
Speaker 1: some People's Temple gunmen opened fire on the group, killing
22:21
Speaker 1: five people, including Ryan, and wounding nine others, and unfortunately,
22:25
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before Jones orchestrated a mass murder suicide
22:29
Speaker 1: at Jonestown, in which his followers were forced to drink
22:32
Speaker 1: flavor aid laced with potassium cyanide. Four followers died the
22:37
Speaker 1: People's Temple headquarters in Guyana's capital city of Georgetown, while
22:41
Speaker 1: nine hundred and nine of them died at Jonestown, and
22:44
Speaker 1: the whole incident would become known as the Jonestown massacre.
22:48
Speaker 1: Jones elected to end his own life by shooting himself
22:51
Speaker 1: in the head, but before he did so, he recorded
22:54
Speaker 1: a final forty four minute piece of audio, which became
22:57
Speaker 1: known as the Death Tape. At one point, he specifically
23:01
Speaker 1: made mention of Deanna Myrtle, who was known as Genie
23:03
Speaker 1: Mills by this point, blaming her and Timothy Stowin for
23:07
Speaker 1: causing the whole situation. He seemed to imply that surviving
23:11
Speaker 1: members of the People's Temple from their former headquarters in
23:14
Speaker 1: San Francisco would get revenge, stating quote, the people in
23:18
Speaker 1: San Francisco will not be idle. They'll not take our
23:21
Speaker 1: death in vain, you know. End quote.
23:24
Speaker 2: So in this moment when there when Jim Jones is
23:27
Speaker 2: melting down, there had actually been a plan, right they
23:29
Speaker 2: went to Guyana because they had already felt the political
23:32
Speaker 2: pressure and he had convinced everyone that this was going
23:35
Speaker 2: to be a place where they could have refuge and
23:37
Speaker 2: they didn't have the American government kind of breathing down
23:40
Speaker 2: their neck in the United States. And then you know,
23:44
Speaker 2: he gets down there and it's supposed to be heaven
23:46
Speaker 2: on Earth, but people who lived there said every time
23:49
Speaker 2: he came in it was like this dark cloud and
23:52
Speaker 2: almost like a storm was coming every time he came
23:54
Speaker 2: into town, because it was getting worse and worse with
23:56
Speaker 2: his paranoia, his drug use, those kinds of things. And
24:00
Speaker 2: so when this massacre occurs, there is this sense of
24:05
Speaker 2: this congressman came, people are leaving. Now we're going to
24:08
Speaker 2: be exposed, and that kind of meltdown occurs and people
24:13
Speaker 2: are begging him, let's not do this. You promised we
24:15
Speaker 2: could move to Russia, that we could take our church
24:18
Speaker 2: to Russia and then no United States oversight would be there,
24:22
Speaker 2: and he's saying it's too late, right, We're going to
24:24
Speaker 2: have to go ahead and take care of our elderly
24:26
Speaker 2: and our kids and kill them. And the fact that
24:28
Speaker 2: he literally blames Deanna known as Jeanie Mills now and
24:34
Speaker 2: then another individual who's also helping lead up this family
24:37
Speaker 2: organization back in the United States is so scary. But again,
24:42
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, by the time all this breaks and it
24:45
Speaker 2: starts to get dissected, how many people do you think
24:49
Speaker 2: still existed in the US that said that all was
24:53
Speaker 2: something to be avenge? Like, I know, there's still people
24:56
Speaker 2: that would be radically influenced by Jonestown, but without their leader.
25:00
Speaker 2: And by seeing this horrific nine hundred and nine people
25:03
Speaker 2: which is laying dead covering the ground where you can't
25:06
Speaker 2: even see the ground from the aerial pictures, do you
25:09
Speaker 2: think that people were really there to quote get revenge
25:12
Speaker 2: or do you think that for most people would have
25:15
Speaker 2: sparked this. This is wrong. Something went dramatically wrong from
25:18
Speaker 2: what we had been promised.
25:21
Speaker 1: Well, we'll talk more about this later, but during this
25:23
Speaker 1: time period, there were always urban legends about people's temple
25:26
Speaker 1: hit squads, about how these surviving members of the cults
25:30
Speaker 1: were going to go and wipe out all the Jones's
25:33
Speaker 1: enemies and it would essentially be a suicide mission for
25:35
Speaker 1: them because they had nothing else to live for since
25:38
Speaker 1: the great Leader was now dead. But they were never
25:41
Speaker 1: able to find any real documented proof that these hit
25:43
Speaker 1: squads existed, Like even though the Mills family did get
25:47
Speaker 1: murdered sixteen months after the Jonestown massacre, they never found
25:51
Speaker 1: any other documented cases where people's temple survivors decided to
25:56
Speaker 1: get revenge on people who defected from the cult and
25:58
Speaker 1: try to get rid of Jim Jones's enemies.
26:02
Speaker 2: And I think if he had been alive, that would
26:04
Speaker 2: have been more probable, you know, like if he had
26:06
Speaker 2: been able to continue the mission, then there's something to
26:09
Speaker 2: kill for. By the time sixteen months rolls around after
26:12
Speaker 2: this massacre, I wonder how much is left to defend.
26:15
Speaker 2: And also, I mean, you do see these tactics, like
26:18
Speaker 2: you know, if you watch things about scientology and people
26:21
Speaker 2: who speak out against scientology, please don't come after me,
26:24
Speaker 2: but if you see people who speak out about organizations
26:26
Speaker 2: like that, you do see harassment and bullying and those
26:31
Speaker 2: kinds of things too. You know, lawsuits where people can't
26:34
Speaker 2: afford to defend themselves and so they end up, you know,
26:37
Speaker 2: having to settle or take all their finances and invest
26:41
Speaker 2: in defending themselves against Scientology, and so I wouldn't be shocked.
26:46
Speaker 2: But without their leader there, I wonder what it looked
26:49
Speaker 2: a little bit different.
26:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Scientology when l Ron Hubbard stepped out of
26:54
Speaker 3: the way, they had David Missgavige, who I think brought
26:57
Speaker 3: Scientology to a whole new audience and it seemed to
27:00
Speaker 3: just grow exponentially. So it looks a little bit different there.
27:04
Speaker 3: But when it comes to Jim Jones, he didn't have
27:07
Speaker 3: a successor, and basically all of the followers were gone.
27:11
Speaker 3: So it's just you're right, it's an entirely It just
27:15
Speaker 3: seems like a strange scenario that people would just be
27:17
Speaker 3: so fervent in their.
27:19
Speaker 4: Beliefs still after all of those deaths, that.
27:22
Speaker 3: They would go and try to exact revenge.
27:25
Speaker 1: So, needless to say, Once worried about what happened in
27:28
Speaker 1: Jonestown reached Berkeley, the Mills family, along with other former
27:31
Speaker 1: members of the People's Temple and their families, were placed
27:35
Speaker 1: under police protection for a while. There was fear of
27:38
Speaker 1: potential retribution from Jones's most loyal People's Temple survivors, and
27:42
Speaker 1: there were rumors that a hit list have been circulated
27:44
Speaker 1: among the organizations remaining followers with instructions to kill as
27:48
Speaker 1: many people on the list as possible. The FBI and
27:52
Speaker 1: the San Francisco Police Department would perform an intelligence detail
27:56
Speaker 1: to look into the possible existence of People's Temple hit squads,
28:00
Speaker 1: but never found any evidence to corroborate these rumors and
28:03
Speaker 1: ultimately came to the conclusion that the so called hit
28:06
Speaker 1: squads did not actually exist and were nothing more than
28:09
Speaker 1: an urban legend. In nineteen seventy nine, Genie published a
28:13
Speaker 1: memoir about her experiences titled Six Years with God, Life
28:17
Speaker 1: inside Jim Jones's People's Temple. Both her and al would
28:21
Speaker 1: tour the lecture circuit in order to share their story.
28:24
Speaker 1: He continue their work assisting People's Temple defectors, but by
28:28
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighty Genie seemed ready to move on with
28:31
Speaker 1: her life, and only a few weeks before her death,
28:34
Speaker 1: she made this statement before a gathering of students. Quote,
28:37
Speaker 1: I pretty much put all that behind me now. I'm
28:40
Speaker 1: tired of being an ex member of the People's Temple.
28:43
Speaker 1: I really want to get on with the business of living.
28:45
Speaker 1: End quote.
28:47
Speaker 2: I have a lot of respect for that there's so
28:49
Speaker 2: much abuse and trauma that she's dealing with, not just
28:53
Speaker 2: for herself, but for her whole family. There had to
28:56
Speaker 2: be a mense guilt. I subjected my children's to children
28:59
Speaker 2: to this organize. I probably told on people in the
29:03
Speaker 2: organization and got them in trouble. I helped foster and
29:06
Speaker 2: grow this organization, and it's one that caused nothing but
29:09
Speaker 2: hurt and trauma and at the end, catastrophe and the
29:12
Speaker 2: loss of almost a thousand people. So that weight and
29:16
Speaker 2: having to be known as a survivor of People's temple,
29:20
Speaker 2: and that being her identity, that's not all that she is.
29:23
Speaker 2: She had been a huge warrior for her family. She
29:27
Speaker 2: had skills that she wanted to turn into a career.
29:30
Speaker 2: She had a family she wanted to raise. So I
29:32
Speaker 2: can totally see her saying, hey, this was a wonderful
29:36
Speaker 2: chapter of my life getting to help people and to
29:39
Speaker 2: kind of break away from this organization. But I need
29:42
Speaker 2: peace away from this to heal so that I can
29:45
Speaker 2: be just Genie and not the former cult member.
29:50
Speaker 1: Right.
29:50
Speaker 2: She wanted to be more than that, And then the
29:52
Speaker 2: fact that she lost her life shortly after that is
29:54
Speaker 2: so sad.
29:56
Speaker 1: That is sad because I've always wondered what kind of
29:58
Speaker 1: life they would have lived if they had not been murdered.
30:00
Speaker 1: Would they have just gone on and experienced a happy retirement.
30:04
Speaker 1: I know this was like a time period when Eddie
30:07
Speaker 1: and Daphene were getting old enough where they could they
30:10
Speaker 1: could attend college or university if they wanted to, and
30:13
Speaker 1: move into adulthood. And I think because they had such
30:16
Speaker 1: a traumatic childhood, I think Alan Jeanie probably wanted to
30:19
Speaker 1: devote more time to their children to make sure that
30:21
Speaker 1: they could become well rounded adults and put the whole
30:25
Speaker 1: People's Temple behind them. But unfortunately they just never got
30:28
Speaker 1: that opportunity.
30:30
Speaker 3: Of course, once Al Jeanie and day Fene were shot
30:33
Speaker 3: to death, rumors started circulating again about them being the
30:37
Speaker 3: victims of an assassination from a People's Temple hit squad.
30:41
Speaker 3: By this point, Al's children from his previous marriage were
30:44
Speaker 3: no longer living at the family's residence in Berkeley, but
30:47
Speaker 3: around nine point thirty PM on the night of the murders,
30:50
Speaker 3: his daughter Linda claimed that she received an odd phone
30:53
Speaker 3: call at her home from an anonymous female who told
30:56
Speaker 3: her a quote, Alan Jeanie are dead. If I were
30:59
Speaker 3: you I would the door. There would also be an
31:02
Speaker 3: eyewitness account from an eighteen year old former boyfriend of
31:05
Speaker 3: Daphine's who said that he was walking past the Mill's
31:08
Speaker 3: residence sometime between eight forty five and nine p m.
31:12
Speaker 3: And saw three young men exiting the home. They then
31:15
Speaker 3: climbed into a Pontiac grand Am being driven by a
31:18
Speaker 3: fourth man before they left. Police apparently did not find
31:22
Speaker 3: this young man's account to be credible since he had
31:25
Speaker 3: a history of run ins with the law, but when
31:27
Speaker 3: they gave him a lie detector test, he did wind
31:30
Speaker 3: up passing. However, this would turn out to be the
31:32
Speaker 3: only sighting of potential intruders at the cottage that night.
31:36
Speaker 3: Investigators uncovered an odd piece of evidence when they noticed
31:40
Speaker 3: the Millses had attached a tape recorder to a telephone
31:43
Speaker 3: answering device, which would automatically record all of their calls.
31:47
Speaker 3: They soon found a cassette containing an older phone conversation
31:51
Speaker 3: between Dayphene and one of her friends, where Dayphene was
31:54
Speaker 3: asked when she was going to get the family's cottage
31:57
Speaker 3: and she replied, I guess when I killed my parents. However,
32:01
Speaker 3: since day Fene was shot twice in the head, and
32:03
Speaker 3: there was no gun found of the scene. Investigators discounted
32:07
Speaker 3: the possibility of the crime being a murder suicide.
32:11
Speaker 1: How old was Dayphene sixteen?
32:14
Speaker 2: Okay, so she's a brat at the time, which I'm
32:17
Speaker 2: saying that out of pure love because I'm a mom
32:20
Speaker 2: and when you have teenage kids, I think those kinds
32:24
Speaker 2: of comments come out of this kind of immaturity and frustration.
32:28
Speaker 2: It's like, I hate you, you ruin my life. Well,
32:32
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna kill them then, you know it's I
32:34
Speaker 2: think it's these comments that they don't think through and
32:36
Speaker 2: it's a reaction because they don't have the ability to
32:39
Speaker 2: express themselves in any other way. So my thought is
32:43
Speaker 2: that it's her being an immature child who's expressing anger
32:47
Speaker 2: with her parents, because let's say she's grounded, there's incredibly
32:51
Speaker 2: strict boundaries on her, especially with what they've been through.
32:54
Speaker 2: So I would say her saying, when I kill my parents,
32:56
Speaker 2: that's a kid being a rotten child. That's not really
33:01
Speaker 2: a child wanting to kill their parents. In most cases, right,
33:04
Speaker 2: We've seen cases where you have children who do kill
33:07
Speaker 2: their parents, But here, I don't see that. I see
33:09
Speaker 2: this being a frustrated teenager who says, hey, yeah, I
33:13
Speaker 2: guess when I kill them, I'll get to go out
33:15
Speaker 2: of frustration more than reality. But I'm fascinated because in
33:19
Speaker 2: the initial description, I really went with my gut. I thought, Hey,
33:23
Speaker 2: I've heard this case before. I bet it's Eddie. But
33:26
Speaker 2: there's a lot of other things happening here that point
33:30
Speaker 2: away from Eddie. Where you have this anonymous girl calling
33:34
Speaker 2: another one of the children about ten minutes after the
33:37
Speaker 2: bodies are found and says that, hey, they're dead, right Alan,
33:42
Speaker 2: Jeanie are dead. If I were you, I'd lock the door.
33:46
Speaker 2: That's terrifying. And then you have an eyewitness who passes
33:49
Speaker 2: a lie detector test, which has its limitations, but admits
33:54
Speaker 2: to seeing multiple people leaving the house, and that puts
33:58
Speaker 2: a whole nother like white on this case away from Eddie,
34:02
Speaker 2: or at least Eddie could have been an accomplice with
34:04
Speaker 2: these these three or four individuals. But this would have
34:07
Speaker 2: been about twenty minutes before the family was discovered de ceased,
34:10
Speaker 2: so definitely a valid possibility. Here.
34:14
Speaker 3: We would be his motivation for lying and to fabricate
34:18
Speaker 3: that you would think that obviously he had nothing to
34:21
Speaker 3: do with it, so wouldn't he want to get to
34:23
Speaker 3: the bottom of what happened to day Feene. But I
34:26
Speaker 3: also agree that day Feene was speaking in a way
34:29
Speaker 3: that was hyperbolic. I don't think that she actually meant
34:31
Speaker 3: that she was going to kill her parents. I think
34:33
Speaker 3: the kids don't have fully developed frontal lobes, and I
34:36
Speaker 3: think that they often speak so dramatically like that, and
34:40
Speaker 3: it's not something that you would go, oh, yes, every
34:42
Speaker 3: time you hear that, you need to be worried that
34:44
Speaker 3: a child is going to kill their parents.
34:47
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I think it's just one of those recordings
34:49
Speaker 1: which turned out to be an unfortunate coincidence where if
34:52
Speaker 1: she had just said it and her parents had not
34:53
Speaker 1: been killed for real, then nobody would have paid any
34:56
Speaker 1: attention to it, because it was just a teenager mouthing
34:59
Speaker 1: off because she was angry with her parents. And since
35:02
Speaker 1: actually mentioned the Donnie Hanson case, that was one where
35:05
Speaker 1: there were some neighbors who saw a couple of other
35:07
Speaker 1: men outside the flaming house when the crime took place,
35:10
Speaker 1: and I think that was enough to generate reasonable doubt
35:14
Speaker 1: that Donnie wound up being acquitted at trial. And you
35:17
Speaker 1: can't rule out the possibility that those men seen outside
35:20
Speaker 1: were accomplices. I personally think that's what happened in the
35:23
Speaker 1: Hanson case. I mean, I don't necessarily say that these
35:26
Speaker 1: men seen outside the Mills residence were Eddie's accomplices, but
35:30
Speaker 1: I do think that if Eddie was guilty, it probably
35:33
Speaker 1: would have been impossible for him to do it alone
35:35
Speaker 1: because the woman who gave the person who gave the
35:38
Speaker 1: threatening phone call to Al's daughter Linda around the time
35:42
Speaker 1: of the murders, that was a woman, and obviously Eddie
35:45
Speaker 1: himself could not have made the call, which makes me
35:47
Speaker 1: think that if he was involved, there were other people
35:50
Speaker 1: around who had inside knowledge.
35:52
Speaker 3: Refresh my memory in the Henson case, was the person
35:55
Speaker 3: that was spotted said to be like lurking in the
35:58
Speaker 3: driveway and then they ran away.
36:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much where they didn't stick around for the
36:03
Speaker 1: police and the fire department to arrive. So, and I
36:06
Speaker 1: know that one witness thought they saw Donnie yelling get
36:09
Speaker 1: out of here at someone when the fire took place,
36:11
Speaker 1: which could be assigned if these were his accomplices and
36:13
Speaker 1: he was telling them to flee the scene. So by
36:18
Speaker 1: this point, most of law enforcement's suspicion was directed towards
36:21
Speaker 1: the only surviving member of the household, Eddie, who continued
36:25
Speaker 1: to maintain that he had been inside his bedroom when
36:28
Speaker 1: his family was murdered and he did not hear a thing.
36:31
Speaker 1: Eddie was given a GSR aka gunshot residue test, which
36:35
Speaker 1: turned up microscopic traces of gunshot residue on his right hand.
36:39
Speaker 1: A criminologist pushed forward the theory that Eddie could have
36:42
Speaker 1: washed or wiped his hand after firing a weapon, which
36:45
Speaker 1: would explain why there was such a small amount of
36:48
Speaker 1: GCR remaining. A Berkeley police spokesman addressed this issue by stating, quote,
36:53
Speaker 1: there was some trace of gunpowder on his hands, but
36:56
Speaker 1: it was such a small amount that it conceivably could
36:58
Speaker 1: have been come by innocently. The key word here is conceivably.
37:03
Speaker 1: Eddie Mills is not a suspect in the case in
37:05
Speaker 1: the sense that we are actively focusing on him, but
37:08
Speaker 1: he has not been eliminated, and that is significant. A
37:11
Speaker 1: number of doubts we have have not been cleared up.
37:15
Speaker 1: Even though Eddie was a high school dropout and it
37:17
Speaker 1: experienced issues with adjusting to a normal life after spending
37:21
Speaker 1: his childhood with the People's Temple. He was described as
37:24
Speaker 1: a quiet, non violent person who was currently helping his
37:27
Speaker 1: stepfa the remodel old homes as student rentals, and show
37:31
Speaker 1: no signs of being capable of murdering his family. The
37:34
Speaker 1: biggest obstacle in the police's investigation was that they couldnot
37:38
Speaker 1: find the murder weapon, and even after searching the properties
37:41
Speaker 1: of about a dozen homes located near the Mills residence
37:44
Speaker 1: that came up empty. The Berkeley PD even received a
37:48
Speaker 1: Department of Justice list of all small gun purchases which
37:51
Speaker 1: had taken place in the Bay Area in the six
37:54
Speaker 1: months prior to the murders, but after interviewing each person
37:57
Speaker 1: who bought one, they still hit a dead end. Eddie
38:00
Speaker 1: hired an attorney who advised him not to take a
38:02
Speaker 1: lie detector test. Eddie would move to Oakland to live
38:05
Speaker 1: with his half brother Steve. Genie and al left behind
38:09
Speaker 1: an estate which included thirteen properties and was worth over
38:12
Speaker 1: seven hundred thousand dollars, and in nineteen eighty three it
38:16
Speaker 1: would be dispersed among their surviving relatives. Since Eddie was
38:20
Speaker 1: Genie's only surviving biological air, he wound up collecting the
38:24
Speaker 1: largest portion of the estate and received around two hundred
38:27
Speaker 1: and ten thousand dollars. The investigation into the murders would
38:30
Speaker 1: reach a standstill, though the Alameda County District Attorney's office
38:34
Speaker 1: described all of the surviving Mills family members as being uncooperative.
38:39
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, in some ways this is intriguing because
38:42
Speaker 2: when you look at it, Eddie ends up moving in
38:44
Speaker 2: with his half brother Steve, who would have been I
38:47
Speaker 2: believe Al's child could have been Genie child.
38:51
Speaker 1: But it was Al's child, Okay, Al's.
38:53
Speaker 2: Child, Steve right, So if Steve had any inclination that Eddie,
38:58
Speaker 2: who's a kid and I don't think could necessarily parade
39:02
Speaker 2: around and keep, you know, keep an appearance as well
39:04
Speaker 2: as someone who's thirty or something like that. It's interesting that,
39:08
Speaker 2: you know, Steve says you're coming to live with me,
39:10
Speaker 2: You're gonna live with me after the death of our parents,
39:13
Speaker 2: and he knows the experiences that Eddie's been through. I
39:17
Speaker 2: think that speaks volumes in the relationship between Eddie and Steve,
39:22
Speaker 2: and Steve clearly didn't think that Eddie killed their family.
39:26
Speaker 2: And the fact that all the surviving Mills families being uncooperative,
39:30
Speaker 2: they've been through a lot, a lot of mistrust of authority,
39:34
Speaker 2: abused by authority. Yes it was spiritual abuse, but it's
39:39
Speaker 2: still abused by authority. And so the fact that this
39:41
Speaker 2: family's gonna shut down and reserved Eddie's been is a suspect.
39:45
Speaker 2: There's concern for the only surviving person in that home.
39:49
Speaker 2: So I could easily see why the family becomes very
39:51
Speaker 2: insulated and quote uncooperative or at least putting up barriers
39:56
Speaker 2: between law enforcement and themselves.
39:59
Speaker 1: Yes, that pretty much h be a recurring theme of
40:01
Speaker 1: this case, as all of Eddie's half siblings, where Al's
40:04
Speaker 1: children from his previous marriage, have always defended him, like
40:07
Speaker 1: they've never said that they believe he was capable of
40:09
Speaker 1: murdering Al Jeanie and Dave Fiend, and they've supported him
40:13
Speaker 1: NonStop for the past few decades and they probably know
40:16
Speaker 1: him better than anyone thinking that this is not someone
40:18
Speaker 1: who's capable of committing such a heinous crime like this.
40:22
Speaker 1: And I think the fact that they were described as
40:23
Speaker 1: being uncooperative is not because he has something to hide,
40:26
Speaker 1: but I think they just feared that the authorities have
40:29
Speaker 1: developed tunnel vision on Eddie and are probably going to
40:31
Speaker 1: railroad him, So that's why they pretty much held the mindset,
40:34
Speaker 1: we're not going to talk to them at all because
40:36
Speaker 1: that could turn out badly.
40:39
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and three, the Berkeley Police Department
40:42
Speaker 3: decided to reopen the investigation into the Mills murders, which
40:46
Speaker 3: would be led by Russ Lopes, a retired lieutenant who
40:49
Speaker 3: was specifically brought in to re examine unsolved cold cases.
40:53
Speaker 3: By this point, Eddie was living in Japan with a
40:55
Speaker 3: wife and two children, who was still the focus of
40:58
Speaker 3: the investigation. His surviving relatives were reinterviewed and asked to
41:03
Speaker 3: turn over any additional evidence they might have had that
41:05
Speaker 3: Eddie was responsible for the crime, but most of them
41:08
Speaker 3: believed that he was innocent and maintained there was no
41:11
Speaker 3: evidence to give. On December third, two thousand and five, Eddie,
41:15
Speaker 3: who was forty three years old, decided to make his
41:18
Speaker 3: first trip to the United States in several years in
41:21
Speaker 3: order to visit family for the holidays. But after his
41:24
Speaker 3: light landed at San Francisco International Airport, Eddie was detained
41:28
Speaker 3: by customs officials, and he would soon be arrested on
41:31
Speaker 3: three counts of murder and taken to the Berkeley City jail.
41:35
Speaker 3: Russ Lopes had spent the past two years putting together
41:38
Speaker 3: a case against Eddie and submitted it to the Almeda
41:41
Speaker 3: County District Attorney's office. If Eddie was charged, he would
41:45
Speaker 3: be prosecuted as a juvenile since he was only seventeen
41:48
Speaker 3: years old when the crime took place. However, he could
41:51
Speaker 3: only be held for a maximum of forty eight hours
41:54
Speaker 3: while the District Attorney's office decided whether or not to
41:57
Speaker 3: charge him. In the end, they felt there was still
42:00
Speaker 3: some questions about the evidence and considered forty eight hours
42:03
Speaker 3: to be an inadequate amount of time to perform a
42:07
Speaker 3: thorough review, so they ultimately declined to file charges. Eddie
42:12
Speaker 3: was released from custody and soon returned to Japan, where
42:15
Speaker 3: he continues to live with his wife and children to
42:17
Speaker 3: this day. Well reuss Lopes did not hesitate to express
42:21
Speaker 3: his belief that Eddie was guilty of the murders. Eddie's
42:24
Speaker 3: half sister, Linda, publicly voiced her support. She did not
42:28
Speaker 3: think that Eddie was the perpetrator and openly criticized the police,
42:31
Speaker 3: stating quote, they don't want to do the flipwork to
42:33
Speaker 3: find out who really did this, so after forty five years,
42:37
Speaker 3: the Mills family murders continued to remain unsolved.
42:41
Speaker 1: So I guess you could say the path went chili Okay.
42:45
Speaker 2: So they arrest Eddie and then they say, wait a minute,
42:49
Speaker 2: I guess we don't have enough evidence. Did the district
42:52
Speaker 2: attorney initially say we're going to proceed with this? They
42:54
Speaker 2: issued her an arrest warrant for him.
42:56
Speaker 1: I think it was just kind of a holding thing
42:58
Speaker 1: where they felt, because as Eddie is returning to the country,
43:01
Speaker 1: this might be our only opportunity to get him. We're
43:04
Speaker 1: going to hold him, and the district attorney is going
43:06
Speaker 1: to review the case. But they obviously thought that the
43:09
Speaker 1: evidence wasn't strong enough to proceed further. I think if
43:11
Speaker 1: there had been strong enough evidence, they would have gone
43:13
Speaker 1: through with it. But all they really had were minute
43:16
Speaker 1: traces of GSR on his hand, which was hardly enough.
43:20
Speaker 2: That's incredibly interesting. I wonder too, when you look at that,
43:23
Speaker 2: is there another innocent explanation? Was he someone who operated firearms?
43:29
Speaker 2: Is there a way because if he was asleep and
43:32
Speaker 2: hidden away from the family, it wouldn't have been transfer residue, right,
43:36
Speaker 2: Or did he touch their bodies or anything?
43:38
Speaker 1: That is possible. We're going to go into more detail
43:40
Speaker 1: in this angle in part two, but one explanation has
43:43
Speaker 1: been pushed forward that if Eddie shook hands with a
43:46
Speaker 1: police officer who had fired a gun or handled a
43:49
Speaker 1: gun earlier that day, minute traces of GSR could have
43:52
Speaker 1: gone on his hand. There are documented cases of wrongful
43:56
Speaker 1: convictions where people have been falsely accused of firing a
43:59
Speaker 1: gun because they innocently touched something and got small traces
44:03
Speaker 1: of GSR on their hand. Anyway, I'm sure many of
44:06
Speaker 1: you are already familiar with the story of the People's
44:08
Speaker 1: Temple and the Jonestown massacre. We elected not to go
44:12
Speaker 1: into too much detail about it on this series of
44:14
Speaker 1: episodes because it has already been so well documented and
44:18
Speaker 1: their other true crime podcasts like case File, who have
44:21
Speaker 1: already provided a thorough account of this story. But I
44:24
Speaker 1: do have a major fascination with unsolved mysteries that have
44:27
Speaker 1: a connection to famous events. Even though Jim Jones and
44:31
Speaker 1: most of his followers had already been dead for fifteen
44:34
Speaker 1: months by the time the Mills family murder took place,
44:37
Speaker 1: did the People's Temple still have leftover survivors who would
44:40
Speaker 1: have been loyal enough to get revenge by committing this crime. Now,
44:44
Speaker 1: I have to admit that when I first became familiar
44:46
Speaker 1: with this case many years ago, I initially believed that
44:49
Speaker 1: there was only one possible explanation for what happened here. Generally,
44:54
Speaker 1: when an entire family is murdered inside their home and
44:57
Speaker 1: there is one survivor who is left completely unharmed, you
45:00
Speaker 1: have to be suspicious of them. I have seen a
45:03
Speaker 1: number of home invasion murder cases in which several victims
45:06
Speaker 1: were killed and the lone survivor decided to stage the
45:09
Speaker 1: scene by inflicting a wound on themselves to make it
45:11
Speaker 1: look like they were attacked by outside intruders. Yet in
45:15
Speaker 1: this case, not only was Eddie Mills left completely unharmed,
45:19
Speaker 1: but he claimed that he was in his bedroom directly
45:21
Speaker 1: across the hall from the shooting and did not hear anything.
45:24
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't enough, there were traces of gunshot
45:27
Speaker 1: residue on his hands. On the surface, that seems pretty damning.
45:31
Speaker 1: But the more I thought about the case, the more
45:34
Speaker 1: I realized that it wasn't nearly as cut and dried
45:36
Speaker 1: as I originally thought. I mean, this was a pretty
45:39
Speaker 1: brutal crime, and if you believe Eddie did it, you
45:42
Speaker 1: have to believe that a seventeen year old performed an
45:45
Speaker 1: execution style shooting of his mother, stepfather, and sister and
45:49
Speaker 1: did such a successful job at getting rid of the
45:51
Speaker 1: murder weapon that no one has ever found it after
45:54
Speaker 1: forty five years. As far as I know, the only
45:57
Speaker 1: evidence against Eddie which has been shared publicly is the
46:01
Speaker 1: gunshot residue on his hands. When a case was submitted
46:04
Speaker 1: to the District Attorney's office to charge Eddie with the
46:07
Speaker 1: murders in two thousand and five, It's unclear what, if
46:10
Speaker 1: any new evidence they managed to uncover which compelled them
46:13
Speaker 1: to charge him after so many years.
46:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting when you look at this, I mean,
46:19
Speaker 2: to arrest somebody for the murder of their family and
46:22
Speaker 2: to say that you're going to charge them with three
46:24
Speaker 2: counts of first degree murder, you would think that was
46:27
Speaker 2: a pretty flawless case that they had built, right, that
46:30
Speaker 2: this is something that's huge. He has a family, this
46:33
Speaker 2: is already a trauma that's happened to he and his
46:37
Speaker 2: siblings and things like that, and so for Eddie to
46:39
Speaker 2: be kind of snatched out of his family and threatened
46:43
Speaker 2: with this idea that he's going to be charged with
46:44
Speaker 2: the murders. Yes, it's very possible that Eddie's one of
46:48
Speaker 2: the people who was involved, because he's the only surviving
46:51
Speaker 2: member in that home, but there's not clear cut proof,
46:54
Speaker 2: and so it seems pretty pretty powerful that they would
46:58
Speaker 2: move forward and then have to take that back. It seems,
47:02
Speaker 2: I don't know, kind of kind of wild to.
47:04
Speaker 1: Me, and I really think the only reason that they
47:07
Speaker 1: did it is because Eddie was living in Japan and
47:09
Speaker 1: they knew that this was going to be one of
47:10
Speaker 1: the rare times that he was going to be on
47:12
Speaker 1: American soil and they'd have a chance to take him
47:15
Speaker 1: into custody. But I do think that they got really
47:17
Speaker 1: over zealous because regardless of whether you think Eddie is
47:21
Speaker 1: guilty or innocent, when you look at the evidence that
47:23
Speaker 1: has been released publicly, there's just no way you could
47:26
Speaker 1: have ever taken him to trial and got a conviction.
47:30
Speaker 3: There's also a question of motive, but you also have
47:34
Speaker 3: to consider the fact that Eddie had an abnormal childhood.
47:37
Speaker 3: To see the least, he was raised in an environment
47:40
Speaker 3: where children were often subject to beatings and psychological torture
47:45
Speaker 3: such as sleep deprivation, and even though his family managed
47:49
Speaker 3: to escape the People's Temple, it sounds like both Eddie
47:52
Speaker 3: and his sister had issues adjusting to normal society. But
47:56
Speaker 3: could the whole experience have messed up Eddie so much
47:58
Speaker 3: that it drove him to murder or his family before
48:01
Speaker 3: he even reached adulthood. Before we talk more about Eddie,
48:05
Speaker 3: we have to discuss the victims. If you search on YouTube,
48:08
Speaker 3: you'll be able to find a clip of Al Mills
48:11
Speaker 3: being interviewed during a news segment for k QUED in
48:14
Speaker 3: San Francisco, which aired on November twentieth, nineteen seventy eight,
48:18
Speaker 3: just two days following the Jonestown massacre. You can tell
48:22
Speaker 3: that Al was completely shaken up by the whole situation,
48:25
Speaker 3: and he speaks directly to Carlton Goodlett, a civil rights
48:29
Speaker 3: activist who had worked as Jim Jones's personal physician. Al
48:33
Speaker 3: is obviously distressed by the fact that Goodlett almost seems
48:36
Speaker 3: to be acting as an apologist for Jones, even though
48:39
Speaker 3: it has just come out that Jones has been responsible
48:41
Speaker 3: for the deaths of over nine hundred people. The Millses
48:45
Speaker 3: had played a role in convincing Congressman Leo Ryan to
48:48
Speaker 3: pay a visit to Jonestown, which is what ultimately led
48:52
Speaker 3: Jones to the decision to orchestrate a mass murder suicide.
48:56
Speaker 3: Even if Ryan had not made the trip, I think
48:58
Speaker 3: there's a good chance the whole tragedy was inevitable and
49:01
Speaker 3: that Jones still would have done the same thing at
49:03
Speaker 3: another point in the future. But I'm sure this still
49:06
Speaker 3: must have been a heavy burden for the Millses to
49:09
Speaker 3: bear at the time the news interview was recorded. It's
49:12
Speaker 3: unclear if Al had found out that Jones specifically mentioned
49:16
Speaker 3: his wife on the final death tape and applied that
49:19
Speaker 3: his followers would seek revenge, but the Mills were genuinely
49:23
Speaker 3: concerned that surviving members of the People's Temple would come
49:26
Speaker 3: after them. Even though Alan Jeanie both played prominent roles
49:30
Speaker 3: in their public crusade against the People's Temple, I'd say
49:33
Speaker 3: that Genie was the more high profile figure of the two,
49:36
Speaker 3: especially after she published her memoir Six Years with God
49:40
Speaker 3: one year later. If you go on YouTube, you'll also
49:43
Speaker 3: find a fascinating documentary title Deceived the Jonestown Tragedy, which
49:47
Speaker 3: was filmed in nineteen seventy nine and features interviews with Al, Jeanie,
49:51
Speaker 3: and Daphene. It's quite chilling to see the three of
49:54
Speaker 3: them talk about their experience in the People's Temple and
49:57
Speaker 3: how they managed to escape, knowing that they would all
49:59
Speaker 3: be rutally murdered less than one year later.
50:03
Speaker 2: My heart breaks when you describe Al being interviewed and
50:06
Speaker 2: you hear about the family you know, sharing their story
50:09
Speaker 2: and advocating for change and reform and healing for people.
50:13
Speaker 2: Because Al sitting there and he's listening to this person
50:16
Speaker 2: who's an apologist, an apologist who's making excuses for Jim
50:20
Speaker 2: Jones and defending Jim Jones, and Al's thinking, I saw
50:24
Speaker 2: it with my own eyes, the abuse you put people through.
50:27
Speaker 2: And not only that, but the world saw right. This
50:30
Speaker 2: idea of the world is going to see this right.
50:33
Speaker 2: He's convinced this is before the massacre when he's having
50:35
Speaker 2: this interview, but he's having to basically share why he
50:39
Speaker 2: left and having somebody laugh at that and say that's
50:43
Speaker 2: not true, that doesn't happen. And he knows it happened
50:45
Speaker 2: to his own family and again likely was part of
50:49
Speaker 2: it happening to other families in Jonestown, right, because you
50:52
Speaker 2: were told, or in the People's Temple, because you were
50:55
Speaker 2: told to tell on your neighbors, to tell on other
50:59
Speaker 2: people if they were speaking ill of the organization. And
51:02
Speaker 2: so I think the weight would have been enormous for
51:06
Speaker 2: this family. And then there's a massacre where nine hundred
51:10
Speaker 2: and nine people lose their lives. Think about that. There's
51:14
Speaker 2: this idea that we asked the congressman to go, and
51:16
Speaker 2: it caused this trauma and this this tragedy, It did
51:21
Speaker 2: not cause it. Jim Jones was losing control, and any
51:25
Speaker 2: surviving members that you see in documentaries talk about that
51:28
Speaker 2: his drug addiction had gone insane, that he couldn't even
51:32
Speaker 2: speak without slurring his words, that the audio recordings he
51:35
Speaker 2: played throughout Jonestown on a normal basis were all about
51:39
Speaker 2: threats and attacks and how they had to be ready
51:41
Speaker 2: to sacrifice or flee, and so that was already in
51:46
Speaker 2: his mind that this was not going to end well.
51:49
Speaker 2: And then the congressman comes. So I think it was
51:52
Speaker 2: a ticking time bomb, like you said, Jules, that it
51:55
Speaker 2: was going to happen because of something because someone left,
51:59
Speaker 2: because there was no investigation. It was not at all
52:02
Speaker 2: a cause by Congressman Ryan's visit, it was just the
52:07
Speaker 2: icing on the cake, and it was the moment Jim
52:10
Speaker 2: Jones lost control of himself and snapped. So, man, the
52:14
Speaker 2: whole thing is just really pitiful. And like you said,
52:17
Speaker 2: they broke free from that. They survived this organization that
52:20
Speaker 2: many people did not, and yet you go a little
52:24
Speaker 2: over a year and they're going to lose their lives
52:27
Speaker 2: and at this point we have no idea to who.
52:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you ever have time, I suggest going
52:33
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole and trying to seek out a
52:35
Speaker 1: lot of these old interviews and documentaries involving the Mills family,
52:38
Speaker 1: because even though they were obviously filmed before these murders
52:42
Speaker 1: took place, they're quite fascinating to see all the work
52:44
Speaker 1: they did and how this had such a profound impact
52:47
Speaker 1: on their life. And it's always haunting when you do
52:50
Speaker 1: a cold case and you're actually able to find old
52:53
Speaker 1: footage and interviews of the victims before they became the
52:56
Speaker 1: victims of an unsolved crime. So I think that about
53:00
Speaker 1: that brings an end to Part one. Join us next
53:01
Speaker 1: week as we present part two of our series about
53:04
Speaker 1: the Mills Family murders.
53:07
Speaker 4: Robin do you want to tell us a little bit
53:09
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon.
53:11
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
53:13
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
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Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
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53:23
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Speaker 1: tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
53:33
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Speaker 1: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
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Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries,
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53:50
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
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Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids the
54:00
Speaker 1: cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first
54:03
Speaker 1: episode that I did a commentary track over was the
54:06
Speaker 1: episode featuring this case. So if you want to download
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54:16
Speaker 5: So I want to let you know a little bit
54:17
Speaker 5: about the Jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
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Speaker 5: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've bought our
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Speaker 5: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
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Speaker 5: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
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Speaker 5: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
54:33
Speaker 4: We'll link them in the show notes.
54:35
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54:43
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54:46
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54:49
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54:54
Speaker 4: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy