November 22, 1978, AP

November 22, 1978, AP - The Petersburg Progress Index, page 1, 3 Arrested By FBI In Airstrip Murders,

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – The Guyanese government and the FBI probed deeper today into the murder of Rep. Leo J Ryan, D-Calif, and his companions that was climaxed by the mass suicides of 900 American cultists.

Guyana officials said they had arrested three prime suspects in the killing of Ryan and his companions. They were identified as Michael Prokes, 31, a former Stockton Calif., television reporter; Tim Carter, 30, a former U.S. Marine from Garden City, Idaho; and Larry Layton, 32, whose hometown was not known.

They were expected to be arraigned in court later in the day.

The FBI announced in Washington that it had opened an investigation of the slayings of Ryan by members of the Peoples Temple cult at the Jonestown airstrip. The agency said it was acting under the congressional assassinations law, which makes it a federal crime to kill a congressman, and said the investigation was being conducted in the United States and in Guyana. The Peoples Temple has its headquarters in San Francisco.

Ryan and his party arrived at Jonestown Friday to investigate alleged abuses of members of the settlement. He and four others were murdered by cultists while trying to leave Saturday afternoon. Shortly thereafter, 405 persons in the camp died after drinking a fruit drink laced with cyanide.

American military forces prepared the decaying bodies of the 405 Jonestown dead today for transfer to the United States. The U.S. Air Force said the first planeloads should arrive at its mortuary in Delaware on Thanksgiving Day.

The evacuation of the bodies had not started by late morning. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said there was a delay in getting helicopters into the country. Two giant CH-53 helicopters, which can carry about 35 troops each, were in Guyana. Three more, plus six smaller helicopters, were expected to arrive later in the day. The helicopters are being brought dismantled to Guyana.

They will be used to ferry the bodies from Jonestown, where the suicides took place, to an airstrip at Mathews Ridge about 12 miles away. There, the dead will be loaded on Air Force cargo planes for the trip to the United States.

The search continued for hundreds of Americans believed to have fled from the mass suicide-by-poison, which the Rev. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple led Saturday at Jonestown, his cult's jungle settlement in northwest Guyana.

About 40 survivors were reported to have turned up. Because of uncertainty about the number in the settlement at the time, estimates of the missing ranged from 200 to 700.

Defectors from the death-marred Peoples Temple claimed that hit squads are scattered around the United States hoping to murder those who broke away from the cult.

"I know there are 200 people that Jones set up to stay alive and to assassinate us," Wanda Johnson a former believer in the Jones movement, said in Berkeley, Calif.

In addition to the hit squads, Mrs. Johnson said, Jones "set aside money, that if the assassination squads did not accomplish their mission, the Mafia was to be contacted and contracts were to be taken on our lives."

The FBI in San Francisco confirmed that its agents were investigating rumors that members of the Peoples Temple in California planned to kidnap or assassinate high-ranking U.S. officials and others to avenge Jones.

In New York a spokesman for Bantam Books Inc. said it would issue its 64th "instant" book the week of Dec. 3 entitled, "The Suicide Cult: The Untold Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and The Massacre in Guyana."

Police Commissioner Lloyd A. Barker said the teams searching for the fleeing cultists had gone to friendly Indian villages in the area, but there was no report from them yet. The Guyana government also asked the United States for helicopters with loudspeakers to fly over the jungle and broadcast that it was safe to come out.

Barker said about 40 surviving members of the colony had been found in the area, but the U.S. Embassy said it had been informed of only 14. Stephan Jones, the 19-year-old son of the leader of the cult, reported he and 44 others were in Georgetown and escaped the suicide.
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November 22, 1978, AP- The Ludington Daily News [Michigan] page 1, Search For Survivors Continues in Guyana,

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) --- American military forces were preparing the decaying bodies of the 405 Jonestown suicides today for transfer to the United States. The U.S. Air Force said the first planeloads should arrive in Delaware on Thanksgiving Day.

The search continued for hundreds of Americans believed to have fled from the mass suicide-by-poison, which the Rev. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple led Saturday at Jonestown, his cult's jungle settlement in northwest Guyana. 

About 40 survivors were reported to have turned up. Because of uncertainty about the number in the settlement at the time, estimates of the missing ranged from 200 to 700.

Meanwhile, the FBI announced in Washington Tuesday night that it had opened an investigation of the slaying of Calif. Rep. Leo Ryan by the Peoples Temple cult at a Jonestown airstrip. The agency said it was doing so under the congressional assassinations law, which makes it a federal crime to kill a congressman, and said the investigation was being conducted in the United States and in Guyana. The Peoples Temple has its headquarters in San Francisco.

Defectors from the death-marred Peoples Temple claimed that hit squads are scattered around the United States hoping to murder those who broke away from the cult.

"I know there are 200 people that Jones set up to stay alive and to assassinate us," Wanda Johnson a former believer in the Jones movement, said in Berkeley, Calif.

In addition to the hit squads, Mrs. Johnson said, Jones "set aside money, that if the assassination squads did not accomplish their mission, the Mafia was to be contacted and contracts were to be taken on our lives."

The FBI in San Francisco confirmed that its agents were investigating rumors that members of the Peoples Temple in California planned to kidnap or assassinate high-ranking U.S. officials and others to avenge Jones.

In New York a spokesman for Bantam Books Inc. said it would issue its 64th "instant" book the week of Dec. 3 entitled, "The Suicide Cult: The Untold Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and The Massacre in Guyana."

Police Commissioner Lloyd A. Barker said the teams searching for the fleeing cultists had gone to friendly Indian villages in the area, but there was no report from them yet. The Guyana government also asked the United States for helicopters with loudspeakers to fly over the jungle and broadcast that it was safe to come out.

Barker said about 40 surviving members of the colony had been found in the area, but the U.S. Embassy said it had been informed of only 14. Stephan Jones, the 19-year-old son of the leader of the cult, reported he and 44 others were in Georgetown and escaped the suicide.

Jones, a former San Francisco city official who led members of his cult to Guyana four years ago, ordered the mass suicide after a group of his followers killed Ryan and three U.S. newsmen with him on an investigation of charges that Jonestown settlers were abused and kept against their will. A woman attempting to flee the colony also was killed in the attack.

Guyana officials said they had arrested three prime suspects in the killing of Ryan and his companions. They were identified as Michael Prokes, 31, a former Stockton Calif., television reporter; Tim Carter, 30, a former U.S. Marine from Garden City, Idaho; and Larry Layton, 32, whose hometown was not known.


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November 22, 1978, AP- The Ludington Daily News [Michigan] page 1, Temple Members Gave Everything to Leader Jones,

SAN FRANCISCO, (AP) --- Keeping track of money was a simple task for Peoples Temple members: "If you were on welfare, you gave your welfare check to Jim Jones, If you owned a house, you...gave it to Jim Jones.

This formula, according to Toni Alston of Bakersfield, Calif., whose cousins are missing in Guyana, was how temple leader Jones amassed a fortune of untold millions.

Along with more than 400 poisoned bodies found at the temple's jungle commune in Jonestown, Guyana, authorities found $500,000 cash and a safe full of jewelry. Unconfirmed reports said another $500,000 in gold and hundreds of Social Security checks were also found.

Deborah Layton Blakey, who managed finances for Jones in Guyana before escaping last May, confirmed that more than $65,000 in Social Security checks came into the jungle mission each month. She reported Jones had bank accounts totaling as much as $10 million in European, South American and California banks.

Stephan Jones, the messianic reverend's son, said he had been "reliably informed" that his father had at least $3 million stashed away at the camp.

The temple also holds title to at least 25 parcels of land in Ukiah, Calif., and properties in Mendocino and San Francisco counties valued at an estimated $1.5 million.

Although the extent of the church's wealth is not known, how Jones raised funds is an all too familiar story to friends and families of impoverished church members.
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November 22, 1978, AP - The Dispatch, Lexington, N.C., page 2, Some Followers of Jones Said To Have Given Him All,



In 1973, for example, Ruby Lee Johnson gave her house to the temple, which sold it four years later for $42,000. Vernell Henderson's home was sold in June for $127,500, four months after he deeded it over.

One former member told a reporter she and other temple members who owned property were ordered by sect officials to sign blank power-of-attorney forms and blank deed papers.
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