30 years after, the legacy of Jonestown

'Don't be afraid to die'
By the time the airstrip gunmen — among them, Joe Wilson — returned to Jonestown, Jones had gathered his people in the pavilion and, weaving words of desperation, had begun preparing them for the end. Then he used news of Ryan's shooting to convince the throng that they had no hope, no future, no place to go. "The congressman has been murdered!" he announced. "Please get the medication before it's too late. ... Don't be afraid to die."

When potassium cyanide-laced Grape Flavor Aid was brought forward, Jones wanted the children to go first, sealing everyone's fate because the parents and elders would have no reason to live. With armed guards encircling everyone and with youngsters bawling and screaming, medical staff members with syringes squirted poison down the throats of babies.

The killing already was underway when Carter was sent to the pavilion. Frozen in horror, he saw his own 15-month-old son Malcolm poisoned. Then his wife Gloria died in his arms. "I wanted to kill myself," he said. "But I had a voice saying, 'You cannot die. You must live.'"

He did live. Jones had one last mission for the Vietnam veteran.

A top Jones aide gave Carter, his brother and another temple member pistols and luggage containing hundreds of thousands of dollars. They were instructed to take the money to the Soviet embassy in Georgetown along with letters authorizing transfer of millions from temple bank accounts to that government. It was to be Jones' last gesture for socialism.

But the trio ditched most of the cash during the arduous hike to Port Kaituma, and they were detained by police there.

Some injected with poison
Two days later, Carter was brought back to Jonestown to help identify the bodies. "People still think everyone lined up in orderly fashion and drank the potion without protest," Carter said. "It's not reality. I saw people who had been injected with poison."

In the aftermath, he went to live with his father in Boise, Idaho. Walking on the street, he felt that others looked at him with loathing and fear. Friends from his youth on the San Francisco Peninsula, where he had introduced some people to the temple, called him a murderer or refused to speak with him.

Though he listed Peoples Temple on his resume, Carter landed a job at a travel agency and worked in the industry for many years. He has had two long-term relationships and is the father of three children. He collects disability payments for post-traumatic stress from Vietnam, but he reflects on the nightmare of Jonestown each day.

"The more time that goes on, the better it is," he said. "I can think about Gloria and Malcolm without feeling that knife in my chest."

Late on the afternoon of Nov. 18, a coded radio message from Jones was transmitted to the temple's house in Georgetown: Some Jonestown residents had betrayed them, and he wanted the faithful to kill temple enemies. Then members in the Guyanese capital and San Francisco — a couple of hundred people — should commit suicide.

Bay Area businessman Sherwin Harris had sat down for supper at the house with his teenage daughter Liane and his ex-wife Sharon Amos' two other children.

Oblivious to Jones' dire orders, Harris felt hopeful and upbeat. He had traveled to Guyana with the Ryan party to check on his daughter's welfare and, after several days of trying, was finally able to see her in person.

'It felt like the swing of a sledge hammer'
Harris and his daughter discussed plans to spend the next day together, touring Georgetown.

Later, Harris took a cab back to his hotel, his spirits lifted by the visit. But that night police informed him that his daughter, Amos and her two other children were dead.

"It felt like the swing of a sledge hammer full on to my chest," he said. "How could this be? I just left her."

Amos killed her two youngest children with a butcher knife; then she and Liane died the same way. Harris clings to the belief that his daughter was killed, and did not commit suicide.

Since that night, Harris' two surviving children have made him a grandfather four times over. He has become friends with his daughter's closest temple confidante.

"As I've met members over the years, I would hate to bet a cup of coffee on the differences between them and us," he said. "They were normal folks, mostly wanting to make a contribution to society. Other people think it never would happen to them. It could happen to anyone caught up in those circumstances."

Who shot Jones?
One enduring mystery is who put a bullet in Jones' head. Evidence suggests that he shot himself at the pavilion or was killed by a close aide, as he had planned.

Two of those aides, sisters Annie Moore and Carolyn Layton, were among 13 people whose bodies were found in Jones' cottage. But Moore was the only one who was shot and may well have been the last person to die in the settlement.

Her suicide note praised Jonestown and Jones. "His love for humans was insurmountable," she wrote, "and it was many whom he put his love and trust in, and they left him and spit in his face."

Her epitaph read: "We died because you would not let us live."

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