WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT: ‘Their bodies were left out in the open, in the middle of the rainforest, in a foreign country’
Laura Kohl’s life was in “turmoil”. Her marriage ended, she vehemently opposed the Vietnam war and could find no place for her activism. She was adrift and alone, so when charismatic Christian cult leader Jim Jones came knocking, she was in a prime spot for handing her brain and body over to the man who would kill 900 in a massacre that horrified the world.
This week marks 47 years since Jonestown saw the haunting massacre of hundreds, with what looked like the sleeping bodies of women and children left out in the open. Laura explained how she escaped this chilling fate. “My life was in turmoil, I had a failed marriage and I was looking for a place to be political in a safer environment after a series of bad decisions,” she told the BBC.
Attending a handful of meetings at Jones’ People’s Temple in California, Laura was won over by Jones’ promise of a nuclear apocalypse and believed his “apostolic socialist” community could survive the end of the world. She said: “It was the community I was looking for – I was looking for equality and justice, and there were people of all backgrounds and races. “
The increasing media attention and perceived excess of America led Jones to seek a new headquarters. He settled for Guyana in South America. In 1977, Laura uprooted her life to move to the Guyanese People’s Temple Agricultural Project -known as Jonestown. She said: “I had no concerns about moving there. I was adventurous and I was delighted about the opportunity to live in the rainforest.”
However, life was hard, the land was difficult to farm and the work was gruelling. She said: “My work there was meaningful and fulfilling. The people of Peoples Temple were who I wanted to live my whole life with. “They were wonderful people. Other survivors might say differently, but for me, I was delighted. It was not an unhappy part of my life.”
Then Laura was asked to move to Georgetown, a day’s journey from Jonestown. She believed this was in preparation of a visit by California Congressman Leo Ryan, who was investigating welfare concerns. She said: “Jim Jones looked at zealots [like Laura – people who would speak positively about People’s Temple] and stacked the deck in Georgetown for Congressman Ryan’s visit.
“Jim Jones’s state of mind was deteriorating and the Jonestown experiment was beginning to fail. People were accusing Jim Jones of abducting their children, and his secretaries had run away with scandalous information about what was going on.” In 1978 Jones’ aide Deborah Layton Blakey fled to the American embassy, submitting an affidavit speaking to the “tyrannical hold” of Jones who would broadcast his rants on loudspeakers for hours at a time. She reported food shortages and plagues of illnesses like diarrhoea.
Laura said: “Jonestown wasn’t set up for so many people – we were 1,000 – and we were not self-sufficient. So Jim Jones was feeling the pressure. His drug addiction and his personality disorders were getting worse. He was less and less able to function.” Survivors recalled “white nights” which would involve mock mass-suicides where followers, including children, drank liquid they were told was laced with poison as a test of loyalty. This trail run, which did not involve real poison, would be a dark foreshadowing of what was to come.
Congressman Ryan managed to get access to the town, and brought Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter. Krause wrote “Contrary to what the ‘Concerned Relatives’ had told us, nobody seemed to be starving… everyone seemed quite healthy.” Villagers asked to accompany the group home. On their way back they were ambushed and five were killed, including Congressman Ryan.
Then came Jones’ final act. He decided Guyanese military would invade their community and take their children. So he lined up more than 900 of his followers and laced fruit punch with cyanide. Laura said: “Jim Jones was a con artist – he made everyone feel he was their father. He would say to them ‘you can’t go back, you have no money’, which was true. They had put it all in the church. They feared repercussions of the death of the congressman. He lied to them every day – he fed them paranoia. They had no recourse.”
Then Laura was alerted of the massacre by radio message from Jones’ secretary. It said: ‘Everybody in Jonestown is dying or dead. Everybody else needs to commit revolutionary suicide right now. We are all doing it right now,” Laura said. When the message arrived, Guyanese national defence forces brought out the body-bags for the secretary and her children.
Reportedly two of Jones’ children, who were visiting the capital as part of the Temple’s basketball team, refused to follow instructions. Laura said: “It’s hard to know what would have happened if I and the others in Georgetown had received those instructions. We had options there – you could walk down the street and see people, get in a car, or get in an embassy.
“I think if I were in Jonestown and I saw 900 people who I loved make a choice, I can’t imagine wanting to survive that. We were just all devastated. We were crying, like I still cry now. I was a mess. Many of us were inconsolable. Some people went out to try to identify some of the people.
“Their bodies were left out in the open, in the middle of the rainforest, in a foreign country. Every possible thing that could be botched, was botched. There is no real way to know exactly who died how. It was just horrific.” The final death toll, including the airstrip killings and Jones himself, totalled 918 people. Even dogs and the Jonestown pet chimpanzee died.
For emotional support you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email [email protected], visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website.
