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The Making of a Monster: How Jim Jones Built Jonestown · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:43
  Speaker 1: In the nineteen thirties, a little boy named James Jones
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: was being raised by a pair of struggling parents. His father,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: also named James, had been injured in a chemical warfare
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: attack in the First World War, making it pretty hard
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: for him to work. It was the thick of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Great Depression, and the Jones family couldn't make ends meet.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: It got to the point where they were evicted, forced
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to live in a literal shack without electricity or running water,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: forging for food in the forest so that they didn't
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: starve to death. It was a pretty dire situation. James Junior,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: who went by the nickname Jim, was neglected. He was
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: seen walking naked through streets, relying on the kindness of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: neighbors to clothe and feed him. One local woman, a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: pastor's wife, felt especially sorry for Jim and gifted him
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a Bible because when you see someone hungry and thirsty,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: why not give them a book? I guess, and Jim
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: reddits he instantly became obsessed. He was baptized, started going
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to as many church services as he could possibly go to,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and he dreamed one day of becoming a preacher when
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: he grew up and in his spare time, he would
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: even pretend to preach to a crowd. Some of the
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: local community might have felt bad for Jim, but they
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: also recognized that he was a bit of a weird
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: kid who only got weirder as he became a teenager.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: He collected dead animals from the side of the road
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and would hold fake funeral services for them. And one
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: time he peed in a cup and swapped it with
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a cup of holy water at one of the local churches.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And when I said weird a minute ago, I know
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you thought, well, how weird could he be? Well, there's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: your answer. After graduating from high school, Jim married a
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: trainee nurse named Marceline Baldwin. Religion was an area of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: conflict in their marriage, and by nineteen fifty two, Jim
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: made an announcement to his wife. Despite not believing in
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Methodist ideologies, he was planning on becoming a minister for
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the Methodist Church. Before long, Jim had accumulated a group
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: of loyal followers. He offered an exclusive environment due to
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: his preaching that condemned racism, which meant that a group
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: of his followers included a large proportion of African Americans.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Jim's own religious beliefs shifted over time, and he became
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: fascinated with the Latter Reign movement, which believed that humans
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: could obtain godlike superhuman powers. A quick Google search of
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Latter Rain shows that Latter Rain was a movement in
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Pentecostalism that began in the eighteen eighties and was based
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: on the belief that the last days had come. The
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: movement encouraged speaking in tongues, prophecy, miracle, and other spiritual
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: gifts i e. Superhuman powers, and they believed that the
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: first Christian Pentecost was the Former Reign and the Latter
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Reign would be the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: that would bring the Church's work to completion. Jim started
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: preaching his own version of these beliefs, and before long
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: he was telling his followers that he was actually a
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: manifestation of Jesus Christ. Jim started abusing drugs, and his
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: abuse of his followers became more intense. He tried to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: ensure their loyalty to him by promising that they were
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: being pursued by a wide range of common enemies, including
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the Nazis, the KKK, and even the US government. He
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: also preached that if anybody betrayed him, God would kill
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: them in a horrible accident. Before long, like so many
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: other cult leaders, Jim became overly interested in the sex
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: lives of his followers. He started dictating who his followers
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: were allowed to marry and have sex with, and ordered
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: some of his female followers to have sex with him.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: He also sexually assaulted multiple male followers. Nobody had a choice.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: They all had to go along with Jim's wishes. Disobeying
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: him meant that they would publicly be humiliated and have
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: their food restricted, or even be beaten. Jim completely branched
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: off from traditional Christianity and established his own religious sect,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: which he called the People's Temple, and despite relocating the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: group several times, allegations of abuse and financial fraud began
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to follow him wherever he went. He also became the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: target of significant media controversy due to his anti racism preachings.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: The media attention surrounding the People's Temple began to make
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Jim paranoid, so he made a decision the group would
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: relocate to South America in a place called Guyana. He
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: assured his followers that the move would be the best
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: thing they would ever do, and they would all live
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: in utopia together. Some of Jim's followers went to Guyana
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: first and began converting an isolated area of the jungle
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: into a commune, which would be called Jonestown. In mid
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, Jim arrived at the commune along with
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: six hundred followers. Four hundred more people would soon follow,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: making the population of Jonestown more than a thousand. However,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: just like so many of Jim's teachings, the utopia he
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: had promised turned out to be a lie. The isolation
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: allowed Jim's paranoia to grow, and he began controlling his
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: followers more and more, centering their communication with their families
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: back home, punishing them for anything that he believed showed
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a lack of faith, and taking away their passports so
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: that they were unable to run. Meanwhile, back in the States,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Jim continued to receive negative media attention. Multiple ex members
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of the People's Temple had come forward with stories of abuse,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: which were published in the press. Jim started ordering his
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: followers to participate in mandatory meetings in the middle of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the night, which often lasted for hours, to test their faith.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: He made them partake in events he called white Knights,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: where he would convince them that they were under attack
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: and about to be killed. Sometimes, the white Knights included
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: suicide drills, where the church members went through the motions
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: of poisoning themselves under Jim's orders. It was only after
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: they'd consumed the supposed poison that Jim revealed that it
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: was harmless and he had just been testing their loyalty.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: On the seventeenth of November nineteen seventy eight, Jonestown was
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: under investigation. Several journalists and a congressman, Leo Ryan, traveled
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: from the US to look at the commune in person,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: responding to reports and worried loved ones and ex members
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of Jim's cult. The investigation seemed to go without incident
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: until the very end, when the group started to make
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: their way back home. Several Terrified People's Temple members approached
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the congressmen and asked him to help get them back home.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Jim saw this interaction and became upset about the lack
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of loyalty shown by his followers. One of his more
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: loyal followers unsuccessfully attempted to attack Leo, who escaped, but
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: then Jim gave the orders to kill the congressmen and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the journalists before they were able to leave Jonestown. Sure enough,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: his followers waited in ambush and systematically murdered members of
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the group while they tried to board their planes home. Now,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Jim's paranoia was at an all time high. He was
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: abusing drugs and losing his grasp on reality. But he
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: knew that he wouldn't be able to get away with
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: blatantly murdering a group of people sent to investigate him.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: As soon as he returned to the commune, he sent
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: out the orders for all Jonestown residents young and old,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to meet him in the main pavilion. He proposed something
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: he called a revolutionary act, a mass suicide. Just like
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he'd made his followers act out during his late night meetings,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: this time it would be real. Possibly as a way
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: of controlling the adult members of Jonestown, Jim decided that
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the children should be the first to drink the poison,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: which was a deadly dose of cyanide mixed with flavor aid.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: A lot of people think it was kool Aid, but
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: it was actually the off brand Flavor Aid for the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: people that didn't want to drink voluntarily. There was no escape.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Guards stood outside of all the exits of the pavilion,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: ready to shoot any one that tried to run away.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: In total, nine hundred nine people living in Jonestown died
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: that day. More than a quarter of those victims were children.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Up until nine to eleven, the event that became known
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: as the Jonestown Massacre was the greatest deliberate loss of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: life of u S citizens. In fact, out of the
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: entire community living in Jonestown, only eighty five people avoided death.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Some of them were away at the time, and others
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: escaped by hiding before the poisonings began or running into
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the dense jungle near by. When military forces arrived at
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the commune, they found Jim Jones lying dead on the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: central pavilion stage. His cause of death was a single
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: gunshot to the head, which was ruled as a suicide. However,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Jim's son believed that he might have ordered one of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: his followers to fatally shoot him. After Jim was cremated,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: his ashes were scattered over the Atlantic Ocean. To this day,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: nobody knows whether Jim truly believed what he taught, or
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: whether he just claimed to have unlimited godly power because
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: he wanted to control other people. Jeff Gwynn, author of
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: the book The Road to Jonestown, stated that it's impossible
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: conclusion to enhance his authority over his followers. That is
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