Jonestown Massacre Research Paper

Jonestown Massacre
Leo Ryan was a Congressman that went to Guyana. He went to visit there because former temple members of Guyana were concerned for their relatives and friends that were moving there. Ryan went there with some other people including journalists and observers. His visit there was going good but, when he was going to leave some of his followers that lived there wanted him to show them how to get out or bring them with him. Ryan was attacked with a knife by one of Jones’(he led everyone in Guyana) lieutenants. Ryan got away from the attack unharmed but, Jones’ ordered his people to attack Ryan and his crew at the airstrip when they tried to leave. When they tried to get on their plane to leave and tell everyone that the people there were in distress, Ryan and his crew were shot and killed.

After that Ryan and his four other crew members were killed Jones’ gathered everyone in the main pavilion of the village. Jones’ had the young children killed first by their parents. They were using a syringe with cyanide and a kool-aid like mix to inject into their throat. After the parents and nurses killed all the kids the adults were the next to die. But they weren’t murdered, most of them killed themselves. They drank the kool-aid and cyanide mix and there was armed guards surrounding everyone while they did it. This is where the quote
Jones’ also had a congressman and a camera crew killed after they found out they were in distress. The government of the United States and Guyana had to decide what to do with all the bodies because, they were already starting to decompose. They identified and tagged the bodies. They also brought in some of the people’s temple members to help identify the bodies. There is a cemetery in Oakland, California(Evergreen Cemetery) where 412 unclaimed bodies