Retro Indy: Jim Jones and the People's Temple in Indianapolis

The stories of apocalyptic cult leaders don't often end well, especially for their most devoted followers. In the case of a preacher from Indianapolis named Jim Jones, the story ended with the deaths of more than 900 people — most of them by suicide.

That was on Nov. 18, 1978, in Guyana, South America, where Jones and his flock had built a community nicknamed "Jonestown." In the days that followed, Americans followed the news in horror as photos and video from helicopters showed a panorama of dead bodies sprawled and already bloated in the tropical sun.

Jones' early ministry in Indianapolis

Somehow all of this had its origin in Indianapolis in the early 1950s, where Jones started his ministry. Jones was born in the tiny Randolph County community of Crete. The family moved to Lynn during the Great Depression. Jones started college at Indiana University, graduated from Butler and was ordained by the Disciples of Christ.

The first time he shows up in The Indianapolis Star's archives is 1953 when he was 22 years old and a student pastor at Somerset Methodist Church on the city's Southside. The story describes a dynamic young minister working with orphans at the Marion County Children's Guardian Home, where he organized softball games and picnics and arranged transportation so the kids could come to his church on Sundays. Perhaps the most compelling photo of Jones found in The Star's files shows him singing with a group of children from the guardian home.

Jones was back in the newspaper in 1954 in a bizarre story involving imported monkeys. According to the story, he had been importing monkeys from India and South America to sell as a fundraiser for his church. The story ran with a photo of Jones holding two of the little monkeys. The scheme unraveled when monkeys started arriving in Indianapolis dead. But only because Jones "balked at paying an $89 air-freight bill assessed on the original seven monkeys and abandoned them in the Customs warehouse here in the basement of the Federal Building," the Indianapolis Star reported.

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The founding of the People's Temple

After being affiliated with several different Indianapolis churches, Jones started his own congregation in 1955. At first, they met at 1502 N. New Jersey St., but as the congregation grew it moved to a larger building at 975 N. Delaware St., just south of 10th Street. Jones named his new church The People's Temple.

In those early years of his ministry, Jones seemed to truly walk the walk. He set up a soup kitchen that fed hundreds every day. He organized an employment assistance service in which church members helped the jobless find work and gave them decent clothes to wear to job interviews. Jones and his wife, Marceline, adopted eight children of all races.

The healing of America's divide between blacks and whites was always at the core of Jones' message, and the People's Temple reflected that in the diversity of its congregation — a rarity then and even 30 years later.

Jones was ambitious — he reached broad audiences by preaching not just from the pulpit but also on the radio. He advertised his preaching in the newspapers.

In 1961, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones to be the director of the city's Human Rights Commission, which had been created to address racial problems in Indianapolis. Boswell later said Jones helped pressure certain store owners and theater managers to be more welcoming of black customers.

Jones' focus on racial integration stirred up a backlash among some whites and the newspapers reported on harassment of Jones and his flock. Marceline was reportedly spat on as she walked with a black child.

As the People's Temple grew, Jones' preaching style became more fanatical and more based on his own words than Biblical scriptures. Some members began to leave the church while others became more fervently devoted to Jones.

Like other Pentecostal preachers, Jones sometimes performed faith healings. At first, these were of the sort where a person's strength of faith could make him feel stronger and less burdened by pain. After a while, however, Jones allegedly started pulling cancerous tumors out of people's mouths in front of the congregation.

One former Temple member later told The Star that the "tumors" were chicken livers Jones palmed like a magician who seems to pull a coin out of a child's ear. Whatever may have been in Jones' heart at the beginning of his ministry had been replaced by something that he knew was a lie.

Leaving Indiana

During the last few years before the People's Temple left Indianapolis for California, Jones was often gone. He spent a lot of time in Brazil where the church was supporting mission work, but he also had another reason: He believed (or said he believed) that the world was coming to an end and that the end would come in the form of a nuclear holocaust. In the early 1960s, this was not necessarily wild hysteria given the massive buildup of missiles between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which were aimed at each other. Jones was interested in Brazil because he'd read it was one of the places on the planet where people were most likely to survive if the Cold War turned hot.

When he came back to Indianapolis, Jones told his congregation they were moving. Not to South America — not yet anyway — but to California. In 1965, Jones and 145 Indianapolis residents got on buses and left Indiana. It would later be revealed that Jones made each of them sign over to him all of their worldly possessions. Not many owned their own homes, but they gave over their savings, cars, jewelry, furniture — even their Social Security checks.

The People's Temple settled in a little town called Ukiah, about 150 miles north of San Francisco and for the next several years most people in Indianapolis forgot all about Jones.

Nearly 150 Hoosiers followed Jones west, leaving behind friends and family members who lost their infatuation with the man who used to say "just call me Jim" but later turned to ordering his followers call him "the Prophet." In 1972, Indianapolis Star reporter Carolyn Pickering heard from one such family and began looking into their stories. The Star published a series that year in which Pickering reported on claims of brainwashing, intimidation and the constant flow of money and property. She looked into local records and found that Jones owned several properties in Indianapolis; some in his own name and others in the names of his wife, mother or business entities he had incorporated.

The Star wasn't the only news organization to report these stories, but nothing seemed to come of any of the exposes. Jones was now 41 and had become an expert at controlling people — and not just his own followers. In Ukiah, officials were alerted to claims of child abuse at the compound, but Jones had worked his way into influence within local government and law enforcement. He showed politicians and business owners that he could just as easily produce an angry crowd of protesters as he could a wave of supporters who would shop and vote as he directed them to. Newspaper editors received a flood of letters from Jones' supporters who alleged that those quoted in the stories were drug addicts, liars or con artists.

During Pickering’s investigation into Jones, she was contacted by Lester Kinsolving, a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, who was also looking into Jones. In April of 1972, both newspapers published their findings: reports of horror, sex, faith healing, preaching that lasted for hours and alleged abuse of members. There were also tales of healings that were faked, beatings, mass hypnosis and intimidation of members.

By the late 1970s, Jones was making arrangements to move his church out of the United States and he picked a spot in Guyana, South America. There, he employed the same tactics of bribing local officials to look the other way.

The day it ended

It all began to fall apart in November 1978, when California congressman Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown to investigate allegations made by relatives of some of Jones' followers. While there, he announced that anyone wanting to leave could accompany him on the flight back to California. Several people took him up on the offer, but as they reached the airstrip where the plane waited shooting erupted. Ryan was killed, along with several others.

Back at the compound, Jones gathered the faithful and told them it was time to die. They had prepared for this day — even rehearsed it as far back as when the church was in Indianapolis. They brought out big tubs in which they mixed the cyanide in with a powdered grape drink similar to Kool-Aid, and one by one they drank it and died. Not everyone took it willingly. Some were forced to drink it, and those who resisted were shot. A small few survived by fleeing into the jungle.

Jim Jones died there, too, shooting himself after killing his wife and one of his children. It was rumored that Jones had escaped, but when the bodies were brought back to the U.S., fingerprints taken from Jones' body confirmed that it was really him.

Indiana born Jonestown victims:

Barrett, Cathy Ann 3/30/1953 Indianapolis

Beam, Eleanor Marie 3/5/1961 Indianapolis

Beikman, Rebecca May 11/29,1940 Indianapolis

Brown, Joyce Marie 2/8/1960 Indianapolis

Buckley, Loretta 7/16/1957 Indianapolis

Cobb, Brenda Carole 9/4/1963 Indianapolis

Cobb, Christine 3/29/1928 Indianapolis

Cobb Joel Raymond 2/2/1965 Indianapolis

Cordell, Candace Kay 11/7/1960 Indianapolis

Cordell, Chris Mark 9/13/1957 Indianapolis

Cordell, Cindy Lyn 12/8/1959 Indianapolis

Cordell, Edith Excell 2/6/1902 Indianapolis

Cordell, James Joseph 10/28/1964 Indianapolis

Cordell, Julie Rene 7/28/1961 Indianapolis

Cordell, Loretta Mae 11/8/1937 Indianapolis

Cordell, Mabel Joy 3/14/1962 Indianapolis

Cordell, Richard William Jr. 9/2/1964 Indianapolis

Cordell, Rita Diane 9/18/1962 Indianapolis

Farrell, Barbara Louise 10/5/1933 Logansport

Flowers, Rebecca Ann 7/7/1953 Logansport

Gardfrey, Danielle 8/2/1965 Gary

Gardfrey, Dominique, 4/21/1968 Gary

Hallmon, Eddie James 4/6/1955 Indianapolis

Ijames, Judith Kay 12/6/1949 Indianapolis

Jones, Agnes Pauline 2/14/1943 Indianapolis

Jones, Ava Phenice 8/6/1951 Indianapolis

Jones, James Warren (Rev.) 5/13/1931 Lynn, Indiana

Jones, Marceline Mae Baldwin 1/8/1927 Indiana

Jones, Sandra (Sandy) Yvette Cobb 11/16/1956 Indianapolis, Indiana

Jones, William Dillon Dean 8/30/1961 Indiana

Kelley, Anita Christine 3/15/1950 Indianapolis, Indiana

Kice, Corrine Mae (Rennie) 3/11/1945 Logansport, Indiana

King, Wanda Bonita 7/14/1939 Gary, Indiana

Marshall, Vicky Lynn 1/20/1958 South Bend, Indiana

McCoy, Carol Ann Cordell 9/9/1945 Indianapolis, Indiana

McCoy, Leanndra Renae 2/16/1969 Indianapolis, Indiana

McCoy, Lowell Francis, 2nd 8/18/1966 Fort Wayne, Indiana

McCoy, Marcenda Dyann 10/16/1970 Indianapolis, Indiana

McCoy, Patty Ann 10/6/1964 Indianapolis, Indiana

Mitchell, Beverly Ann 1/19/1943 Gary, Indiana

Mueller, Esther Lillian 3/30/1902 Indianapolis, Indiana

Newsome, Benjamin Keith 10/28/1964 Gary, Indiana

Noxon, Susan Jane Jerram 4/25/1945 Anderson, Indiana

Pugh, Eva Hazel 11/8/1908 Hancock, Indiana

Purifoy, Kathy Jean 2/27/1959 Indianapolis, Indiana

Stevenson, Frances Lee 7/30/1916 Indiana

Swinney, Timothy Maurice 9/28/1938 Indianapolis, Indiana

Touchette, Albert Ardell 9/13/1954 Indianapolis, Indiana

Touchette, Carol Joyce 5/14/1933 Indianapolis, Indiana

Touchette, Michelle Elaine 7/21/1958 Indianapolis, Indiana

Tschetter, Mary Alice 6/7/1928 Indianapolis, Indiana

Winters, Curtis Laurine 1/9/1925 Indianapolis, Indiana