How Did Jones Commit Suicide

On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with soliciting a man for sex in a movie theater bathroom known for homosexual activity, in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.[98] The man was an undercover Los Angeles Police Department vice officer. Jones is on record as later telling his followers that he was "the only true heterosexual", but at least one account exists of his sexual abuse of a male member of his congregation in front of the followers, ostensibly to prove the man's own homosexual tendencies.[98]

While Jones banned sex among Temple members outside of marriage, he himself voraciously engaged in sexual relations with both male and female Temple members.[99][100] Jones, however, claimed that he detested engaging in homosexual
activity and did so only for the male temple adherents' own good, purportedly to connect them symbolically with him (Jones).[99]

One of Jones' sources of inspiration was the controversial International Peace Mission movement leader Father Divine.[101] Jones had borrowed the term "revolutionary suicide"[102] from Black Panther leader and Peoples Temple supporter Huey Newton who had argued "the slow suicide of life in the ghetto" ought to be replaced by revolutionary struggle that would end only in victory (socialism and self determination) or revolutionary suicide (death).
Family aftermath
Marceline

Marcy JonesJim Jones' wife, Marceline, was found poisoned around the pavilion.[103] On the final morning of Ryan's visit, Marceline had taken reporters on a tour of Jonestown.[104]

Found near Marceline Jones' body was a signed and witnessed will leaving all bank accounts "in my name" to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and writing that Suzanne Jones Cartmell should receive no assets.[105]

Stephan, Jim Jr. and Tim Jones
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones did not take part in the mass suicide because they were playing with the Peoples Temple basketball team against the Guyanese national team in Georgetown.[25][102] At the time of events in Jonestown, Stephan and Tim were both nineteen and Jim Jones Jr. was eighteen.[106] Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters,[107][108][109] biological brother,[110] and biological mother,[111] all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan Jones refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's
visit.[112]

Jonestown basketball courtDuring the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the American Embassy in Guyana in an attempt to receive help. The Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip.[113] Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children.[113] Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.[113] Stephan Jones was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths, and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months.[113] Tim Jones and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Peoples Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify the bodies of people who had died.[113] After returning to the United States, Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.[113]

When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan Jones had originally avoided two attempts by his father to relocate to the settlement. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third and final attempt. He has since said that he gave into his father's wishes to move to Jonestown because of his mother.[114] Stephan Jones is now a businessman, and married with three daughters. He appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel. He stated he will not watch the documentary and has never grieved for his father.[115] Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage,[102] including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.[116]

Lew, Agnes and Suzanne Jones Agnes JonesLew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes Jones was thirty-five years old at the time of her death.[117] Her husband[118] and four children[119][120][121][122] all died at Jonestown. Lew Jones, who was twenty-one years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke.[123][124][125] Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident.[25]

Lew Jones, Terry and ChaeokeSuzanne Jones married Mike Cartmell; both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on November 18, 1978. After this decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my goddamned, no good for nothing daughter" and stated that she was not to be trusted.[126] In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline Jones directed that the Jones' funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell."[127] Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006