THE horrific Jonestown massacre saw over 900 cult members take their own life in the largest mass suicide in history.
Here we look at the circumstances around the chilling deaths 46 years on.
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Who was Jim Jones?
Cult leader and the man behind the infamous Jonestown massacre Jim Jones was born in rural Indiana in 1931.
As a young boy Jones was said to be obsessed with religion where he focused on the works of murderous tyrants such as Stalin, Mao and Hitler as well as the work of Marx and Gandhi.
Jones’ was said to have been a heartless killer from a young age as reports said he would regularly kill animals.
A charismatic speaker, Jones opened his first church in Indianapolis in the mid-1950s and went on to gain hundreds of African American followers.
Known as a progressive leader Jones would wow his visitors with displays of faith healing and supposed mind reading.
In the 60s, his group of believers went by the name the Peoples Temple and had strong affiliations with the Disciples of Christ – a group that later officially ordained him.
Jones took his wife and their budding temple to California by the late 60s with around 100 followers coming with them.
Soon after the move, the cult leader started to gain more followers through biblical teachings mixed in with Marxism in what he called “apostolic socialism.”
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By the 1970s, he had temples in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
His charisma quickly led to Jones having a strong involvement with politics in California with him being appointed as head of San Francisco’s housing authority.
Around this time, reports of abuse were beginning to creep out of his church with abhorrent accusations of bullying, humiliation and physical assault all later coming out of the cult.
Jones even forced some of the churchgoers to sign over their possessions, including their homes, to him.
Including making them cut themselves off from family members who were not part of the group.
The vulnerable followers, particularly those from minorities, were told that if they ever fled the Peoples Temple then they would be arrested by the government and held in concentration camps.
Where was Jonestown?
Jonestown was a remote settlement in Guyana, South America that was established by the Peoples Temple in 1977.
Jones fled to the country alongside around 30 members of his cult to build up a farming community.
Called the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, the compound had been developed over four years to house up to 1,000 followers of the religion.
Over a 12-month period, hundreds of church members followed Jones to the remote island. During this time, Jones had started to develop an alleged drug abuse problem with his mental health rapidly deteriorating around this period.
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At the compound, Jones was said to have had sex with many of his followers – both men and women.
He would also make his congregation take part in a practice known as “white nights” which would often resemble the mass suicide pact with followers sitting together.
In audio recordings of these rehearsals, Jones would tell church members that “capitalist pigs” such as the CIA and other US government intelligence agencies wanted to kill them.
On at least two occasions, the group voted for a “revolutionary suicide” and simulated killing themselves using poison.
What was the Jonestown massacre?
The Jonestown massacre saw 909 people from Jones’ church simultaneously commit suicide on November 18, 1978.
The followers carried out the “revolutionary suicide” by mixing a fruit-flavoured drink, often referred to as Kool Aid, with deadly cyanide, tranquillisers, and sedatives.
Babies and children were the first to be given the poison with around 300 of the victims being under 17.
The chilling pact came about as a paranoid Jones managed to brainwash his followers into believing they needed to die to stay safe from cops.
Hours earlier, US Congressman Leo Ryan and a delegation visited Jonestown after the US Embassy in Guyana made concerns over alleged physical and psychological abuse within the group.
When the group arrived in Jonestown on November 17 some church members reportedly told the authorities that they wanted to leave.
Some even passed around a note saying: “Please get us out of Jonestown.”
The delegation then tried to save a few of the members by getting a plane off the island before they were ruthlessly shot at by the loyal cult members.
Five people including Congressman Ryan and three members of the press were gunned down with eleven others being injured.
Back at the camp, Jones convinced his scared and vulnerable followers that the incident would cause the US authorities to visit Jonestown and take them all away.
Jones and one of the his disciples also died from gunshot wounds.
Authorities found hundreds of passports, a cache of guns and $500,000 in cash at the compound when they returned along with the mass bodies.
Jones had also deposited millions of dollars in overseas bank accounts.
Temple member Larry Layton was given a life term for being involved in the airstrip shooting. He was released in 2002.
The harrowing retelling of the story has been done in a new three-part documentary called “Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown” on Hulu.
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