Seductive Poison (52 page)

Sharon,
Jim’s lieutenant, was the only person in Georgetown who abided by the order from Jonestown for everyone in the capital to kill themselves. She was forty years old. Her intense loyalty and adamant refusal to let her pre-Temple husband, one of the Concerned Relatives, see their children led her to kill them first. She slit their throats with a knife. They ranged in age from eighteen to eight years old.

Teresa,
my mentor, had been clever enough to work her way back into Jim’s good graces after my damning report on her. She escaped Jonestown in October under the pretense of working with Jim’s attorney on infiltrating the Concerned Relatives. I presume that was what she was doing in Washington when I saw her. She, too, did all she could to try and prevent the tragedy. I long ago heard she had a child, but I have never seen her since. I miss her and sincerely hope she is living well and in peace.

Leo
Ryan was killed along with three newsmen and a female defector by a group of youths who came to the airstrip on a flatbed truck believing they were killing the mercenaries who were endangering the lives of their families and friends. When their “heroic duty” was accomplished, these young boys returned to Jonestown and took the poison with their families.

Mark
Blakey had been assigned to the Temple’s boat and was on the high seas during the demise of his world. I had our marriage annulled on my return to the United States, but he wrote me letters and kept in contact for several months afterward.

Dearest Debbie:

After you left Guyana I really hated you, not especially for leaving me, but if you had seen how your mum took it. She blamed herself and her health started to deteriorate. It was not until I got back to Guyana that I found out why you had left. I am sure we’ll meet again someday. I know you did not like school in England, but those last two years of school were about the happiest time of my life. The early days of Jonestown were really exciting too, it’s just a pity that you had not been here then.

Would you believe that the only reason I left Jonestown was that I thought we were really short of money and that the boat was a good money maker …

Although the atmosphere at Jonestown had changed a lot I never thought it would come to this. After the last crisis Jones said he would never do it, as he did not have the right to do it to the children … Then there was a long period of relative peace and all kinds of big plans to go to the Soviet Union. I really loved Jonestown because I built it and saw it all from when there was still bush there. It was not until Jones got there that things got bad. If he really wanted to do something for Socialism he could not have done anything worse.

Paula still feels very close to you … She said that she cried when you left and for that she was put under surveillance …

God, I wish the hell I had known what was going on … If a few people had gotten together who knew what was going on we could have done the bastard in …

Mark

After a while he returned home to Northumberland, where he now runs his family’s farm.

Paula
continued in her role as mistress to Ambassador Lawrence “Bonny” Mann and had his baby. But, tragically, two years later when he learned more of the circumstances in which he had been used by Jim and ultimately—so he believed—by Paula, he killed her, their child, and then committed suicide. They lived in Bethesda, Maryland, where he had continued to serve as the Guyanese ambassador to the United States. Paula was twenty-eight years old.

The only person held responsible for the insanity that befell the residents of Jonestown as well as the outsiders who had mistakenly believed they could come to Jonestown and help was my brother Larry Layton.

My brother Larry remains imprisoned to this day, the sole individual held accountable for the crimes of Jim Jones. He was implicated in the conspiracy to kill Congressman Ryan by virtue of the fact that he, along with hundreds of other Jonestown residents, signed a petition stating that they were opposed to his visit. On the day of the massacre, Larry was told that CIA infiltrators who had posed as loyal Temple members were “defecting” with Ryan in order to bring about the invasion of Jonestown. He was instructed to pose as a defector and then shoot the pilot of their plane once it was in the air in order to crash it. Larry consented, believing that by sacrificing his own life in this way, he would be saving the lives of 900 others. He was told this would give them time to get to Cuba. However, Jones had arranged for the actual assassination to take place before the planes took off. In the confusion, Larry shot and wounded two people, neither fatally.

Larry spent two years in a Guyanese dungeon before being tried and acquitted there. He was subsequently tried twice in the United States. His first trial ended in a hung jury voting 11-1 and 7-5 for acquittal, but the second trial resulted in conviction. Significantly, several prosecution witnesses,
including the two people he shot and injured,
begged for leniency for Larry, saying that he was not responsible for the insanity of the moment. So, too, did four of the jurors who had convicted him, as well as over fifty people who had been in Jonestown or who had lost loved ones there.

Federal Chief Judge Robert F. Peckham presided over both U.S. trials. In sentencing Larry, he took into consideration the compelling factors described above and his own conclusions that:

• Jim Jones was primarily responsible for the deaths and injuries that occurred:
  

• Larry’s role in the conspiracy was less significant than that of a number of others—Larry did not participate in the shootings of the congressman, nor in the planning of the murders.
  

Judge Peckham recommended that Larry serve no more than five years from the date of sentencing. The federal probation officer who had extensively researched the circumstances of Larry’s acts, interviewed dozens of people involved with the case, including psychiatrists and psychologists, and who wrote a lengthy presentencing report, also supported Chief Judge Peckham’s recommendation.

In June 1991, Larry appeared before the Federal Parole Commission and was denied parole. He was sentenced to serve
another
fifteen years before he could be reconsidered for parole. In arriving at this weighty decision, two examiners spent no more than several
hours
over a two-day period reviewing his trial and prison records as well as over 450 pages of documentation submitted on Larry’s behalf. During the subsequent hearing, the examiners repeatedly miscited the facts. Sadly, the considered judgement of a Chief Judge, the Honorable Robert F. Peckham, who spent sixteen months learning and deliberating the facts of the case, was dismissed. Larry’s release is not scheduled to be
reviewed
again by the Federal Parole Commission until the year 2004.

Our papa turns eighty-four this year and will never again see his son a free man. Larry was thirty-one when he was arrested. He turns fifty-one this year.

After Jonestown’s demise I met on numerous occasions with the Treasury Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the official, Robert Fabian, assigned to find the Temple funds Jim had stashed away in Switzerland, Barbados, Panama, and elsewhere.

With my help the money was recovered and subsequently depleted. First, the government was reimbursed for shipping the bodies back to America and the Temple’s bills were paid off. Then, a monetary value was put on the lives of the deceased, and their relatives received a small compensation. John, for example, who lost his mother, sister, and adoptive father, received $14,000.

Because Mama had passed away before the massacre, there was no value attached to the loss of her life.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Renate Stendhal, without whose belief, guidance, and mentoring I would never have been able to complete this long and arduous project. An author, writing consultant, and friend, Renate urged me to go far deeper into the darkness than I thought I could. With the aid of her remarkable insight and honesty, I was willing to grapple with the demons of my nightmares, to take hold of the tormenting shame and guilt which had kept me silent for so long, and to step out from behind the shadows of Jonestown and stand tall in the light once more.

I am deeply grateful to Terrance Lim for not running away when he found out who I was, for believing in this book, supporting my decision to quit my job before I had even drafted a proposal, and for remaining my beacon of light as I descended into the shadows of my past. His belief spurred me on when the task felt overwhelming.

I would like to express deep gratitude to my literary agent, Amy Rennert, who believed in this book from pur first conversation, helped shape the proposal and followed up with many long and encouraging phone conversations. I am beholden to my tireless editor at Anchor, Tina Pohlman, for her enthusiasm which gave my heart a lift, for her beautifully written missives filled with honest and insightful comments, and for our long Sunday conversations. I am also grateful to Martha Levin, former publisher at Anchor, without whose faith this story would never have made it into print. I am indebted to Phillip Ziegler for his counsel, his help in leading me into the past, and his giving me the strength to face the shame. He gave me my voice back and told me I had a story to tell.

I could not have written this book without the support of my family. I thank my father, Laurence Laird Layton, Ph.D., whose message, “think for yourself,” I kept hidden in my secret compartment until I could finally hear it, for whom this tragedy will never end, who wept through each chapter and courageously read on; my brother Thomas N. Layton, Ph.D., professor, passionate family historian, and author himself
(The Voyage of the
Frolic:
New England Merchants and the Opium Trade),
for his enthusiasm for my project, his archive of family documents, encouraging phone calls, writer’s block commiserating, and for having had the foresight to record my story immediately after my escape; my sister, Annalisa Layton Valentine, who has always been there for me, for her love and calm support when fielding my frightened calls from Guyana, for her invaluable help in editing critical portions of the manuscript, and her wonderful late night meals in front of her fire; my brother Laurence John “Larry” Layton, who called me every day from prison, who has given me the courage and unconditional love to write the story that devoured our youth, stole our mother, and continues to keep him behind bars. Larry remains an integral part of my life and over these many years has kept in touch with my daughter through the wonderful children’s stories he writes for her. And especially, my daughter, Lauren Elizabeth, for remaining strong and brave as she learned the truth of my past, for her innate compassion, her love of history and the truth, and for her long list of suggestions for titles; my brother-in-law, Dr. Raymond Valentine, for his thoughtful suggestions and comments throughout; David Layton Valentine, my nephew, for his earnest reading of the manuscript and for not hanging up the phone when I was covertly calling his mother from Guyana when he was only four years old; Lori-Lisa Valentine, my niece, for her earthy spirit and support; Aunt Eva Philip Rosencranz, Mama’s sister, who took me into her arms as one of her very own and mothered me when my daughter was born; Nance Rosencranz, my cousin, who took me in as well; and my mother’s cousin Lisl Hirsch Burnham, who also has an escape story to tell.

I thank my dear friend Bridget V. Moar, whom I met during my metamorphosis at Montgomery Securities, who long ago began to instruct me on decorum, held my hand through each of my brother’s trials, and, when I began to write, listened, advised me, and cried; Susan Feiga for her extraordinary friendship, her devoted support during Larry’s trials, and for all the candles she has burned on my behalf; Brigitte Heftman and Dr. Erik Heftman, friends of my parents and gratefully now mine, too, who have read, listened to, enjoyed, and celebrated each new draft, and Sandye Lim, for her serene nonjudgmental ear, warmth, suggestions, and friendship.

I want to acknowledge the friends who encouraged this project, read drafts, and gave me their honest feedback: Will Weinstein, my boss on the trading floor of Genesis Merchant Group Securities, who has always believed in me, counseled, and taught me, and who has supported me in innumerable ways, and backed my decision to quit working for him and write my story; Chris Honoré, a writer,wonderful one-man support team, for invaluable suggestions throughout, for his encouraging calls and images of what
leaving
meant to him; Jim Randolph for sharing his feelings, wisdom, friendship, and his memories of my mother; Dr. Morris Weiss and Audrey Weiss for their insightful observations and for our rigorous discussions during dinners in Berkeley and Carmel; Theodore and Lillian Stewart for their friendship; Jan Hale for her writer’s enthusiasm; Barbara Cohen and Georgia Cassel, who told me years ago that my past was something to be proud of; Dawn Margolin, for her aerobic counsel; M. J. Tocci and Dr. Jonathan Rest for their longdistance friendship; Susan Alpert and Dr. Bernard Alpert for their incredible generosity and support; Jan Montgomery for her therapeutic phone calls and reassurance when I felt I was losing my way; Marya Grambs for her counsel, verve, and fascinating lunch discussions; Annie Stine for her last-minute assistance and wonderfully soothing voice; Virginia Raffi, for her many years of encouragement; Mark Witriol for his honest commentary; Jeannie Cahill for taking the time to ponder my questions; Beverly Shelton for her multiple readings; Yvonne Monteiro-Brown and Fran Sutherland for their friendship; and Mr. Fred Lincoln for telling me years ago that I could do anything I set my heart to.