Larry Layton had gotten onto the truck with us, which struck me as a glaring red flaghe was an entrenched member of the hierarchy, one of the true believers. There were piles of used syringes at the scene. 'I was a fool to leave California, but then I was a fool long before that,' he said. We landed in Georgetown, Guyanas capital, on November 14, 1978. In 1972, Mr. Jones married Deborah Layton and Philip Blakey. Her life appears to be light-years from Peoples Temple. Their accounts led to an expos in New West Magazine planned for publication in summer 1977. By his own admission, Layton came of age in Berkeley, Calif., during the turmoil of student protests and the Vietnam war. Layton's mother, who came from a wealthy family, divorced her husband and donated $300,000 to Jones' cause. Don put it in his pocket and took a few more steps before carefully unfolding it. Later, after being barred from the university as a Jew, Lisa took training as physical therapist, which was permitted by the Nazis. Judge Peckham also set April 21 for a hearing on a motion for a new trial filed by Mr. Layton's new defense attorney, Robert R. Bryan. "[10], Lawton also founded the Reality Check Foundation, which is a 501(C)(3) charity that includes a mentoring program, and an annual golf outing. There is a sickening recording of Jones coercing his followers that day. [40] Lawton has also shown concern over the prevalence of fentanyl-laced heroin, noting that in the past dealers had tried to sell pure heroin without any additives. Within minutes, Ryan and four others were shot dead. Mr. Jones repeatedly sent word to her that he could cure her from Guyana, and she waited for his efforts to work. By all accounts, Layton was on a small plane about to leave Jonestown when the plot to kill Ryan was set in motion. I noticed an elderly woman stuffing pieces of bacon into her pockets; the ample spread was just another showpiece. The bodies of Jones and 912 cult followers lay sprawled under the tropical trees of the commune, victims of an incredible murder-suicide rite. Although he had no formal training as a minister and no affiliation with any organized religion, his high-octane enthusiasm and open-armed policy attracted a diverse range of followers. Her father, a talented violinist hated his father for making him go into banking rather than music. Asserting that the Government wanted to make Mr. Layton a scapegoat for the Jonestown massacre, he said, ''From the State Department point of view, from the U.S. Embassy point of view, the whole matter would be easily resolved if you blamed Larry Layton.'' See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro I just needed to hang on. Infants cannot commit suicide. '', See the article in its original context from. It was an implausible ending for the fiery preacher, who had curried favor among the fashionable elite of the Democratic Party. In Jonestown Only one man, Temple member Larry Layton, was tried in the United States for his involvement in the November 18 events. "I was ready to be overwhelmed by emotion," she says, "but when we got into the area, it just wasn't there. [28], After release he went to Palm Bay, Florida and started LL Research and Consulting and met a business partner. Leo Ryan assured me that there was nothing to worry about. But Lisa escaped from Hamburg, and in 1938, stunned by the antiSemitism she had seen, she arrived in New York with a determination never to reveal to anyone that she was Jewish. Dr. Layton was from a world substantially different from the aristocratic one of his bride. He knew that Jones had considerable political clout, with close ties to Democratic leaders in San Francisco, Sacramento, and even with the State Department. As soon as it became clear that we would be bringing more than one or two defectors home with us, the communal faade cracked. After that, she never stopped going back, Dr. Layton said. Among them were Sams teenaged granddaughters. He. In Ukiah, Layton's free will was already beginning to slip away, according to his lawyers. In the summer of 1978, Lisa Philips Layton died of cancer in Jonestown, Guyana, three months before the Rev. Repeatedly, the defectors mentioned forced participation in mass-suicide rehearsals known as the White Night trials.. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. At the pavilion for breakfast, I did my best to appear unruffled. After a year or so Dr. Layton and his wife heard from Carolyn's father that the couple had been divorced. Jim Jones would order more than 900 of his followers to commit suicide. Secretly, she offered her mother a glass of the wine. His suggestion that I would learn far more from first-hand experience was in step with the way he approached politics. Hurrying out of bed, Layton would race toward Jones "in my mud-caked boots, past the tin-roofed cabins, past the wooden outdoor showers where we're allowed our two-minute wash at the end of our 11-hour days in the field." That was the last moment I remember with any real clarity before I surrendered my body to the medical staff. Larry Howard Layton, 80, of Green Valley, AZ passed away December 10, 2020 from complications of COVID-19. My mother had cared a lot for my father, but Jim broke it up.. In a book written by his brother, Thomas, after Ryan's death, Larry is quoted as saying he believed in the goals of the community, even though life was not always Utopian. All I could think was I am not going to make Grandma live through my funeral. I would never have left Jonestown with Congressman Ryan. | AP. ", "Every week we're promised death, a relief from this miserable life. [1][2], In 2007, he started the Reality Check Program to help educate at-risk youths on the consequences of breaking the law. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. But when Larry Layton was growing up in the 1920's, the land was not worth much. Jones became active in local politics, giving money, running food programs and busing Temple members to attend rallies and get out the vote for his favored candidates. She managed to contact her sister in Davis, who wired a ticket to Georgetown, where Layton and other Temple members were staying in a house the Temple owned. In 1969, to get her away from the drugs and other attractions in Berkeley, Dr. Layton and his wife decided to send Deborah to a Quaker school, Ackworth, in the countryside of Yorkshire, England. Later that night, Jones had another suicide exercise. Mr. Jones, they said, could cure cancer. While trying to keep the peace, he had been attacked with a knife. Ryan joined us for the trekone of roughly two dozen of us crammed in the bed of the truck, with dozens of would-be defectors left behind, belongings packed, waiting to escape. Though driven by the kind of underlying insecurity that so often fuels tyrants, Jones appeared to offer hope, redemption, and an idealistic new life. His father was a research scientist. The parole examiner said he was deeply troubled that Larry had remained in prison for so long well in excess of the five years recommended by the sentencing judge and noted Larrys exemplary behavior while in federal custody. The defense attorney urged jurors to consider conditions at Jonestown and their impact on Mr. Layton. Before I could even comprehend what was happening, about a dozen men leapt from the tractor, leveled their automatic weapons, and fast approached. Layton, Deborah 1953- PERSONAL: Born in 1953, in Tooele, UT; daughter of Laurence Laird and Lisa Layton; married; children: Lauren. We didnt want a group to present a canned response or any individual to look to others for their answers. But, she said, I had to tell somebody what was happening in Jonestown. They reported the car's license plate, which linked the car to Lawton. Instead he proposed a better use of law enforcement resources would be to "help inmates with drug addiction. The tumult of the late 60s and early 70s had left masses of people searching for a greater sense of security and purpose. In some way, I think he was a substitute husband and father figure who filled all the needs that I failed to give.. After her operation, Mrs. Layton moved to Guyana. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. I did not feel confident this was a good idea. The store owner managed to break free and grabbed a .38 caliber pistol and fired five shots at the robbers as they fled. [35][36] It also hosts an annual bowling tournament. Five months later, on the night of November 18, 1978, Jones sent a gang of gunmen to an airstrip in Port Kaituma, where Representative Leo Ryan of San Mateo and a fact-finding party that had visited Jonestown were preparing to leave. An eyewitness who escaped described how people who did not cooperate were injected with poison where they sat, or were held down and injected with poison.. After he passed legislation improving prison conditions, the inmates showed their gratitude by giving him a chess set they had sculpted from toothpaste and toilet paper. Breathing heavily, I pulled myself to my feet, stumbled to the planes baggage compartment and took shelter. Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones (left) shakes hands with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone (right) after being sworn in to serve on the San Francisco Housing Authority, Nov. 24, 1977. Nearly 300 children were administered the poison, including a number of infants in the arms of their parents. Of the more than 900 members of Joness congregation who had moved there, nearly a third were children. In May 1978, she was sent by Jones to Georgetown to chaperone some Temple children on a cultural exchange. Lawton filed a lawsuit against the prison and staff alleging that they violated his rights. [15] The robbers had dropped off jewelry for repairs, and later returned to rob the store. Layton said the temple started out as a civil rights movement and he compared Jones to Martin Luther King Jr., but 'obviously things turned out differently,' he said. Her childhood playmates included cousins and friends from some of the bestknown families of Germany's Jewish aristocracy, such as the Berensons and Rothschilds. The next year, his church relocated to Redwood Valley, a small community in northern California. They all swore that Jonestown was the one and only place they could ever consider home. He'd work you so hard you didn't have time to complain, and he'd blackmail you; he destroyed marriages and humiliated you.. The chaos persisted until, abruptly, a silence fell. When people refer to the Jonestown massacre as a mass suicide, I am enraged. Jim Jones had taken my place. Be the first to contribute! Three witnesses appeared on Larrys behalf before a parole hearing at the federal prison at Lompoc, California, including attorney Frank Bell and Loren Buddress, the former Chief Probation Office for the Northern District of California. [10] He also founded the Reality Check program which aims to show teens the consequences of a criminal life. He said that some of the recipients could be innocent. Deep inside me, I still have the demons of shame and guilt.". A bone shot out of my right arm, and a huge hunk of flesh had been blown off my thigh. Although his mother was of German-Jewish descent, his family practiced the Quaker faith, and Larry was the family's firmest believer, according to his brother. I never played; I never learned how. Deborah said that before her escape she had obtained a bottle of wine and taken it to the commune against Mr. Jones's rules. This time, it was not a drill. '', See the article in its original context from. She said that she knew that to do so would endanger her mother and brother because Mr. Jones kept dissident members in line by holding relatives hostage. ( 2007-01-15) [1] Jonestown: Paradise Lost is a 2007 documentary television film on the History Channel about the final days of Jonestown, the Peoples Temple, and Jim Jones. Jim Jones, with his omnipresent dark glasses and his sweeping red robe, was the anchor of her newfound life and, like many Temple members, she was mesmerized by him. Inquiry by Congressman. Individually, their insistence would have been hard to question. | AP. She is known by many of her relationships - longtime lover of Jim Jones, mother of Jones' child Jim Jon (Kimo) Prokes, sister of Annie Moore, former wife of Larry Layton, former sister-in-law of Debby Layton - as well as the sometimes-mysterious roles she played within the Peoples Temple hierarchy. Never one to accept second-hand information, he decided to embark on a fact-findingand potentially life-savingtrip. 2023 Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple is a, The Campaign to Release Larry Layton from Federal Prison, to petition then-President Clinton to commute Larrys sentence. He attended Berkeley High School and was the editor of a campus newspaper called The Liberal. In fact, I would have been on that truck, with a rifle. Years later, after Lisa Layton Joined the People's Temple, she would tell other members of the cult that her husband had been antiSemitic and was ashamed of her being a Jew. Larry Layton Biography It looks like we don't have any Biography for Larry Layton yet. [30] In 2009, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office spent $4500 on 500 DVDs from the Reality Check program. One night, when Mr. Jones was conducting an hourslong lecture to the commune, she arranged to be placed on duty helping to operate a shortwave radio that transmitted Mr. Jones's directives to cult members in San Francisco. Mrs. Layton was convinced the man had been cured by Mr. Jones, who is known to have faked such cures by presenting chicken and cattle entrails as cancerous tissue he claimed to have removed. Oh my God: Its true. He was not paroled from an American prison until 2002. While asserting that Mr. Jones was ''primarily responsible'' for the killings at the airstrip, Federal District Judge Robert F. Peckham said Mr. Layton would be eligible for parole after five years. Jones wove his way through the camp, repeating that he wasnt upset that they wanted to leave; it was just that they were doing it in the wrong way. [13], In May 1994, three males robbed a jewelry store in Daytona Beach, Florida, netting $500,000 (nearly $950,000 in 2022)[14] worth of gold and diamonds. I knew him well enough to understand what would happen next. "[33] Lawton and the police chief later appeared before United States Congress in recognition of the program. Deborah nursed her mother and tried to conceal that a physician had told her the cancer was fatal. Anyone running afoul of Jonestowns security detail was put in a labor camp and forced to clear jungle. In the weeks leading up to the White House decision on the petition, a number of former congressmen and religious leaders including Rev. As a temple member, Mrs. Layton separated from her husband and was said to have contributed $250,000 in family assets to the cult. Chief among my concerns was how cozy Jones appeared to be with members of the embassy: How could any Jonestown resident feel safe reporting an injustice to a U.S. official who is arm in arm with Jim Jones in every image? Larry Layton Net Worth is $14 Million. I was feet away from Jones, close enough to hear him trying to convince people to change their minds. In San Francisco, his church was lauded for its social programs, and Jones efforts to feed the poor and fight segregation found receptive ears with progressive politicians. My recovery continuedthough that very word is not an accurate description of the aftermath of being shot. Before the New West issue hit the stands, Jones and hundreds of his followers had left San Francisco for Jonestown, their promised land in Guyana. He is serving a life sentence in the federal prison at Lompoc. They were issued four T-shirts, four pairs of socks, a toothbrush and toothpaste, four pairs of underwear and a bar of soap. It wasnt unusual for Temple members to be awakened at dawn over the loudspeaker and summoned to the pavilion for one of his increasingly unhinged sermons. Mr. Layton's first trial ended in a mistrial on Sept. 26, 1981, when the jury was unable to reach a verdict on any of the counts. Later, Jones also became enamoured of the new Mrs. Layton and soon added her, too, to his growing harem of temple members. All of those children. Twenty years ago this month, Jones and 912 of his followers committed mass suicide at the jungle compound. [25] He received an additional sentence in 2002 for giving false witness. He spoke often of apocalypseJones chose Redwood Valley because he believed it was one of a few places in the country that could survive a nuclear holocaustyet insisted the Peoples Temple would exist as a sort of heaven on Earth, with himself in the role of God. His bride individual to look to others for their answers the petition, small... There was nothing to worry about Democratic Party was not worth much,! Complications of COVID-19 commit suicide appears to be light-years from Peoples Temple there nothing. 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