Things That Don't Make Sense About The Jonestown Massacre

When it comes to infamous cult stories, the twisted tale of Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre is worse than you think. Cult stories rarely end well, but the fates of the residents of Jonestown are especially dark.

Jones originally started up his church — called the Peoples Temple — in Indianapolis before moving to California in the 1960s. His congregation being progressive and racially integrated for the time, Jones attracted thousands of followers to his side, who began seeing him as a nearly mystical figure despite reports of manipulation and threats made by Jones against his followers. In order to escape the skeptical eyes of the public, Jones and hundreds of his followers moved to a compound he'd been working on in Guyana: Jonestown. There, the Peoples Temple functioned as a fully autonomous civilization, but reports of abuse still made it out to the world at large. In November 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan arrived in Jonestown to investigate, only to be killed by Jones' followers as he was about to return home, along with some members of the cult who had hoped he would help them flee.

Almost immediately after, Jones enacted his final plan, a process he'd already had his followers rehearse in the past: drinking a fruit drink laced with cyanide. But this time, it wasn't a practice run, and 900 people (300 of whom were under the age of 17) were killed in the event now known as the Jonestown massacre. And while the events leading to the massacre and its aftermath have been well documented, there are a few things that still defy explanation. 

The following article includes descriptions of suicide.

The Jonestown massacre made an indelible mark on history in a number of ways, one of which was a lasting addition to the vernacular: "Don't drink the Kool-Aid," a reference to the way in which many of the residents of Jonestown died. But the truth of Jim Jones' death is rather different. He died of a gunshot wound to the head. And the exact reason behind that difference is a mystery.

Among other disturbing details, Jones' autopsy report states that the bullet entered his left temple and exited out his right, leaving his skull fractured. But any further conclusions couldn't be drawn, as evidenced by the final notes in the report: "The manner of death is consistent with suicide ... The possibility of homicide cannot be entirely ruled out because of the lack of specific and reliable information." In other words, did Jones die by suicide, or was he murdered? The location of the gun doesn't provide any further context — it was several feet away, though even that claim is somewhat disputed.

Jones had talked about suicide in the past, which would seem to validate that angle, but why a gun over poison? And there's the fact that Jones was right-handed, which would make the entrance wound at his left temple seem a bit strange. Then there's the possibility that someone else killed him, either at his request or in an act of murder. But as it stands, there's no real way to know what actually happened.

The people of Jonestown notoriously died of fatal poisoning, with two notable exceptions: Jim Jones and his nurse, Annie Moore,who both died of gunshot wounds.

But Moore's exact role during Jonestown's last few hours is an odd mystery that's hard to unravel. According to some accounts, Moore was at the center of the mass suicides. In some retellings, she was helping to haul the vat of poisoned juice to the occupants of the town, and in others, she was forcibly injecting poison into those who didn't want to take part. (The only point of agreement seems to be that she was staunchly faithful to Jones.) But other accounts place her far away from all of that, instead claiming that she was with Jones in his cabin during that time. There's also been speculation that she was involved in Jones' death; the theory posits that he asked her to shoot him, and she complied. A notable detail, given she was the only other person to die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, though it's believed she died some hours later, and with a different gun.

Many believe she was among the last to die in the settlement, owing to her suicide note speaking of Jonestown in the past tense as well as her body being found blocking the door to Jim Jones' cabin, alongside the rest of the town's leadership.

There were many things left behind by the residents of Jonestown after the infamous massacre, one of which was an eloquent, handwritten letter seemingly penned in the midst of the tragedy. The letter itself is rather beautifully written, speaking of Jonestown, its legacy, and the dignity supposedly embodied by all of the people who were choosing to die for their cause. The letter closes with the poetic: "Darkness settles over Jonestown on its last day on earth."

But the mystery comes in determining the author of the letter, as it was never signed. For the most part, researchers attribute this letter to Richard Tropp, a highly educated member of Jonestown's leadership. Handwriting analysis has supported this view, comparing the note to known samples of Tropp's writing. What's more, Tropp's partner has weighed in, saying that the need to record the town's final hours — and to do so without attaching his name — was consistent with his personality.

But others have objected to that. Survivor Tim Carter explained that Tropp didn't support the mass suicide plan: "[The letter] was not written from somebody who was completely against what was happening ... It does not jive with the Dick that I saw" (via Rolling Stone). Other analysts have offered alternative options, such as Marceline Jones, Jim Jones' wife, claiming that her handwriting was also a match (and that she often wrote by hand, unlike Tropp, who preferred to use a typewriter). In addition, she would have exhibited the passionate support shown in the letter — a view that Tropp likely didn't share.

When it comes to discussions of this tragedy, you'd be likely to see it referred to as a mass suicide. However, there's a lot of controversy about that specific terminology in this case, with plenty of people — especially Jonestown massacre survivors — arguing that it would be better referred to as an act of mass murder.

Even though pieces of evidence like the unsigned last letter seem to indicate that the residents of Jonestown were almost unanimously happy to go through with the plan, going willingly to their deaths, other facts seem to contradict that. Upon further investigation, a not insignificant number of bodies at Jonestown showed evidence of having been injected with something — quite possibly the poison that killed them — implying that at least some of those people might not have been willing participants. And even those who willingly ingested the poison could have, arguably, been murdered. Valium bottles were found on the scene, and there's reason to believe that the residents thought this was just another of their drills, in which they drank juice laced with tranquilizer rather than cyanide. Survivor Tim Carter has also raised the possibility that people were coerced through the threat of violence or convinced by lies Jim Jones told that day.

Carter has also pointed toward the so-called Jonestown death tape, in which Jones berated his followers for reacting to the situation with fear. People were screaming loudly and scared for their lives; they weren't blindly agreeing to die.

Though Jonestown was largely a self-sustaining and isolated settlement, it wasn't as if they had no contact with the outside world. Rather, members of the group were often Guyana's capital city, Georgetown. That was also true on the day of the Jonestown massacre, and Jim Jones himself got in touch with his followers stationed there. As the story goes, Jones contacted a loyal member of his inner circle, Sharon Amos, and instructed her to gather the rest of his followers, attack his enemies, and then kill themselves. No one else in Georgetown apparently agreed, and the story as it's largely understood is that Amos took her three children into the bathroom and killed her two youngest. Then she and her oldest daughter, Liane Harris, fatally stabbed each other.

But there are some questions as to whether that's actually true. Two witnesses who were also supposed to take part in the murder-suicide verified this version of events, and their own wounds seemed to line up with everything that they claimed. However, another survivor who arrived on the scene shortly after stated that Harris didn't seem like the type who would ever kill someone. Though they chalked it up to the stress of the moment, other investigators have theorized that Harris was forced into it, pointing to her autopsy, which noted bruises consistent with a struggle. Harris' living family has also doubted that she would ever agree to kill the siblings that she loved dearly, thinking it more likely she stood up to Amos and was killed in the struggle.

The tragedy of Jonestown didn't necessarily end in November 1978, nor did its associated mysteries. And part of that has to do with the fact that not everyone who followed Jim Jones was actually in Jonestown at the time of the massacre. Not all of them agreed with him, either.

That was the case with Al and Jeannie Mills — known previously as Elmer and Deanna Mertle. The two of them were part of Jones' inner circle, known for spying on dissidents and carrying out whatever dirty work Jones needed. But when Jones' methods were turned on them, their loyalties began to shift, and despite moving to Jonestown, they escaped in 1975 and moved back to California. There, they changed their names and spoke out against Jones, marking themselves as enemies. In fact, Jones apparently addressed them directly in a voice recording on the day of the massacre: "The people in San Francisco will not be idle ... They'll not take our death in vain" (via A&E).

Understandably, the two of them feared retribution for their defection, thinking that those who survived the massacre but were still loyal to Jones would actually go after them. For a couple of years, it seemed there was nothing to fear, but in February 1980, the couple and their teenage daughter were found in their Berkeley, California, home, each with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Police suspected Jeannie's son, Eddie Mills, but there was never enough evidence to make anything stick, and the case remains unsolved to this day.

[Featured image by Nicolas Martin via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped, scaled, mirrored | CC BY-SA 4.0]

There are plenty of things to wonder about when it comes to cults, but in the case of Jonestown, there are some odd questions and conspiracy theories floating around. One of them is the supposed connection between Jim Jones and the CIA.

There's been some level of speculation that Jones himself was a secret CIA agent, mostly due to a connection between him and a known member of the CIA from some years earlier. But even if they don't necessarily think the CIA was at the helm of Jonestown, some victims' family members (and relatives of murdered congressman Leo Ryan) believe the agency was, at the very least, complicit in some way. They've alleged that even if Jones wasn't directly working with them, the agency was aware of the dangerous conditions and less than keen on keeping anyone else informed.

But some of the theories get even stranger, going so far as to claim that Jonestown was actually part of MK-ULTRA, a secretive CIA operation researching mind control. The untold truth of Project MK-ULTRA is a shady topic unto itself, though it suffices to say that clandestine drug experiments often carried out on unknowing and unwilling American citizens weren't widely acceptable, and officially, the operation ended by 1973. But an aide to Ryan alleged that MK-ULTRA hadn't ended and that Jonestown was a private experiment in mind control. That aide believed the massacre was just a cover-up and that the accepted version of events was nothing more than a neat fabrication.

[Featured image by Nancy Wong via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]

Though the Jonestown massacre is a tragedy in its own right, it's also worth noting the larger context in which it took place, especially given that it functioned as, essentially, a socialist commune. Jim Jones was known for extolling the virtues of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and the Soviet Union at large, as they were all enemies of the U.S. But that wasn't to say they were allies in a purely ideological sense.

In fact, the town's leadership was regularly in contact with the Soviet embassy and Soviet officials, either hosting them in Jonestown or meeting them in Georgetown. In particular, they often discussed the possibility of the people of Jonestown resettling somewhere in the Soviet Union rather than Guyana; there was even a signed petition to try and get plans underway, and Jones mentioned such plans in his speeches. By the time of the massacre, those close to Jones asked him if they could reach out to the Soviets for help and refuge, though he was insistent that doing so would be a pointless endeavor. Apparently he wasn't actually as interested in emigration as he sometimes seemed.

For what it's worth, the Soviet Union did have something to say about the whole situation, claiming that the massacre was a CIA operation to keep the residents from fleeing to the USSR. It should also be noted that the Soviets were keen on vilifying the CIA at the time, so take that as you will.

[Featured image by Nancy Wong via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

In logging all of the evidence found at Jonestown, the FBI picked up hundreds of cassette tapes. But there was something special about one tape, which was labeled by the FBI as "Q 875": It was the only tape recorded after the events of the Jonestown massacre. Fittingly, it's been at the center of quite a few conspiracy theories, none of which can be fully confirmed or denied. Generally speaking, the tape contains audio from four broadcasts talking about the massacre — two of them Guyanese and two of them American — along with a number of vague sounds and noises in the background. The audio seems to cut and restart in odd ways, giving listeners only small glimpses into whatever moment the tape was recording.

Some people have thought the voices on the tapes actually belonged to Jim Jones and other high ranking members of the cult — though that specific argument has been largely disproven. Others have wondered whether the tape was even recorded at Jonestown; anecdotal evidence went back and forth on that matter. Audio analysis supported the possibility that it was recorded elsewhere — possibly Port Kaituma — though that raised new questions of its own. How did a tape from another city, recorded a day after the massacre, somehow end up with the evidence officially taken from Jonestown?

Some say it was just an honest mistake that got twisted into a mystery, and others insist it's proof of CIA involvement. Really, there's no way to answer that question with certainty.

The phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" is one of those things that's persisted in plenty of peoples' slang. Hearing that phrase now conjures up the idea of blind obedience, of being so entranced by an idea or group that it completely overrides rational thought. It's a common enough phrase. But here's the thing: the people of Jonestown probably weren't drinking Kool-Aid. Though there were packets of Kool-Aid found at the scene, major media reports specifically stated that the fruit beverage used at Jonestown was actually a similar product called Flavor Aid. So why has Kool-Aid been forever linked to blind obedience and cult mentalities?

There's actually a pretty decent explanation as to why this phenomenon might have occurred. Most notable is the fact that Kool-Aid is simply the better known brand. It's still well known decades after the Jonestown massacre and was also more popular at the time when compared to Flavor Aid. (The iconic Kool-Aid Man had already burst onto the scene by then, which should also speak the product's popularity.) But on top of that, the phrase "drink the Kool-Aid" already existed before Jonestown. It actually originates from a 1968 book by Tom Wolfe called "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," which includes references to LSD mixed into Kool-Aid. Not quite the same situation, but the phrase did have a negative connotation, making it easy for wires to get a little crossed.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis or is dealing with spiritual abuse, help is available. Contact the relevant resources below:

• Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
• Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.