Mass Suicide By-Poison Reported After Congressman's Slaying; Some Members Shot
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WASHINGTON, D.C., MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1978 Phone (202) 484-500 ■ ■ ■•••• ••■•■ •• • • Mass Suicide by-Poison Reported After Congressman's Slaying; By Robert Pear and Jeremiah O'Leary Some Members Shot ETA Washington Star Staff Writers The bodies of about 400 men,' another lawyer, Charles Garry, were Kathy Hunter, a free-lance writer in .`Ryan's investigative team, Guyanese women and children, many of whom in a house at the sect's commune California, said today that she talked ,troops and police officers yesterday reportedly queued up to drink poison while the suicides and shootings took by telephone with a Guyanese legis- :entered the people's Tema's_ corn- brewed in a vat, have been found in place, Lane said. lator who claimed Jones had killed mune, which is called Jonestown in the Guyana jungle camp of a Califor- Amid further gunfire and scream- himself. !honor of the sect's charismatic nia sect whose members killed five ing, Lane said he fled into the jungle founder. the 48-year-old Jones, a for= However, Lane suggested that , Americans, including Rep. Leo J. , outside the camp. More than 600 ;frier San Francisco Housing Author- Ryan, Guyana's minister of informa- members of the sect were unac- Jones may have escaped. The law- chairman and California political yer, who held a poolside press confer- cIty tion announced today. counted for and may have escaped. :figure whose theology mixed Christi- Discovery of the bodies was made ence today at a hotel in Georgetown, The minister, Shirley Field-Ridley, Guyana's capital, said the commune !pity and Marxism. no in- by Guyanese troops and police offi- A- "They did not encounter any said some of the bodies showed cers who went to a remote jungle possessed a boat. dicat.ons of violence — and thus were `resistance," Field-Ridley said. area near the Venezuela border, Meanwhile, police in Georgetown, In Washington, the State Depart- thought to be suicide victims — but where the religious cult has estab- Guyana's capital, said they found the ment quoted a Guyana police official others "showed signs of violence, in- lished a temple and farm. bodies of a woman and her three chil- ..as saying: "It appears as if as many cluding presumed gunshot wounds, "Some of the bodies were found in dren in a separate Jones-cult com- 400 members of the Jonestown which were not consistent with sui- homes, some were found in clearings mune in a suburb of the city. The People's Temple community may be cide." dead." Ma_rk Lane, the attorney for sect in the forests, but no live persons throats of all four had been slit. he was were found," said Field-Ridley. " leader Rev. Jim Jones, said • . The troops are searching for In Washington today, a State De- STEPHEN KATZARIS, a Potter present when Jones implemented a them. We estimate some 600 persons partment official declared: "There Valley, Calif., psychologist who mass suicide pact by speaking of may be missing." has been a great calamity in Guyana accompanied Ryan to Guyana in a "the dignity of death, the beauty of The whereabouts and fate of the involving many Americans. There futile attempt to get his daughter out dying.'" Poison was handed out, he 600 persons — who, like the dead cult have been cold-blooded murders and of Jonestown, said the residents of said, and 85 burits of semi-automatic followers, are former California resi- apparently many suicides." gunfire accompanied the mass rite. dents who came to this onetime Brit- The official, Deputy Asst. Secre- Just before the shooting began, ish colony at the behest of guru-like tary of State John Bushnell, said ; "Mother, Lane said, Jones shouted Jim Jones — was unknown. military aircraft were being sent to mother, mother, mother." He and Guyana to aid in any possible evacu- AS FOR JONES, there was one re- ations of Americans. port, unconfirmed by other sources, In the aftermath of the ambush of that he had committed suicide. See GUYANA, A-10 the camp had held bizarre mass sui- The attack occurred at a crude air- yesterday by Guyanese authorities. cide rehearsals and had signed plane landing strip in Port Kaitu- • Sung was In satisfactory condition. No specific charge was made public. A hospital official said he had undated suicide notes,before they left mam seven miles from Jonestown, According to one report, it was Ley- California for Guyana. as the congressman was escorting "extensive gunshot wounds in the ton who began the shooting Saturday right shoulder and elbow." The mass suicide pact was con- disenchanted members of the cult to night. firmed by Lane. the flamboyant law- two chartered planes. • Boyd was admitted for treatment of shock and emotional strain, al- yer who represented Jones in the Ryan was investigating what he SLAIN IN THE fusillade of 50 to 75 cult's dealings with Ryan. Lane, who said had been persistent reports from though she was uninjured. shotgun blasts from cult members • Reiterman was listed in satisfac- traveled to Guyar.a with the Ryan constituents who said that their who had followed the Ryan party party, said suicide was openly dis-, friends and relatives were being tory condition with "superficial gun- cussed at a community meeting of cruelly mistreated at Jones' agricul- seven miles from their colony to the shot wounds in the left forearm and the sect. tural commune. dirt airstrip at Port Kaituma were: wrist." Lt. Col Bob Thatcher, a Later, he disclosed, two cultists One of those in Ryan's party who Ryan; Don Harris, 42, of Los An- spokesman at the hospital, said the told him that "we are all going to die escaped unhurt was Robert Flick, a geles, a reporter for NBC News; reporter was "in good spirits." now . They were smiling. field producer for NBC News. His Robert Brown, 36, a Los Angeles- • Javers was listed in stable condi- they looked genuinely happy." body trembling, his face heavy with based cameraman for the network; tion with a gunshot wound in his left The use of an unidentified poison fatigue, Flick said in San Juan, Gregory Robinson, 27, a photogra- shoulder. "He still has a metal frag-• was reported by at least one eyewit- Puerto Rico: "They killed only the pher for The San Francisco Exam- went in the shoulder," Thatcher ness. according to information minis- Americans. When the people would iner; and Patricia Parker, an 18-' said. ter Field-Ridley. "A witness said that fall wounded, the men would come year-old American who had asked to people in the area were having mass and shoot them point blank in the be. taken away from the Jonestown THE CIRCUMSTANCES of the suicide," she told newsmen. head." 'colony. ambush were not entirely clear. Wit- "He said the poison was being Another person wounded in the At least 10 others were wounded nesses said one of the Jonestown set administered to them, that they were shooting, NBC soundman Steve Sung, when Jones' followers opened fire. tlers had opened fire with a pistol lining up for it," the official noted. told reporters at a news conference Among the wounded were RiChard after boarding a plane about to de- The death potion was reportedly con- at Andrews Air Force Base that the Dwyer, deputy chief of mission at the part for the Guyana capital. cocted in a tub. assassins carefully selected their vic- U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Sung, It was then that a flatbed truck, tims. For instance, he said, they 34, of Pasadena, Calif., a sound tech- hauled by a tractor, appeared on the RYAN, a 53-year-old Democratic sought to slay Ryan but not the State nician with the NBC News team; Tim road from Jonestown to Kaituma. congressman from San Mateo Department official standing beside Reiterman, 31, a reporter for The Three settlers jumped on the trailer, picked up guns and fired a barrage of toset.r.._ _ 100 him. San Francisco Examiner; Ron Javers, 32, a reporter for The San shotgun blasts. Those not struck by MEANWHILE, the Defense De- Francisco Chronicle; Charles. the gunfire fled into the thick forest partment quickly dispatched a C-141 Krause, 31, a reporter for the Wash- and concealed themselves until units medical plane from McGuire Air ington Post; Jacqueline Speier, legis- of the Guyanese Defense Force ap- 000te R. -Force Base, N.J., to evacuate the lative assistant to Ryan; Anthony peared at Kaituma yesterday morn- wounded. Katzaris, Carolyn Boyd and Beverly ing. YEIillUflt The plane left several seriously in- Oliver. One of the two planes managed to lorestown jured persons at a U.S. Navy hospital take off in the midst of gunfire and Inmeitme • Katzaris, Boyd and Oliver were de- GtotEttm in Puerto Rico for emergency treat- scribed by official sources as "con- arrived in Georgetown bearing the ment. It then continued on to An- cerned relatives" of members of the tragic news. The other plane was GUYANA drews, where it arrived last night Jonestown colony. abandoned because the tires were shot out. Sams Beni with five of the survivors. ON ARRIVAL AT Andrews, five of The Justice Department disclosed the survivors — Speier, Sung, Reiter- that FBI agents were en route to man, Javers and Boyd — were taken IN NEW YORK, Minister of State Christopher Nascimiento, one of Guyana at the request of the govern- to Malcolm Grow. Medical. Center, ment of Prime Minister Forbes Burn- Burnham's most trusted aides, said lee vista • where they were admitted overnight ham to assist in the investigation and for treatment. Sung appeared at a in a statement: "The government of Guyana deeply regrets the death yes- IRA/11.