Who - 25.06.2018

by drinking cyanide-laced grape punch.

Among the dead, 304 children. Their bodies,

along with that of their charismatic, psychotic

leader, Jim Jones, lay rotting, 11 kilometres

away in the intense equatorial heat at the

group’s compound, known as Jonestown.

The Parks girls—along with their father,

brother Dale, 26, and grandmother Edith

Parks, 63—were five of just 36 survivors.

“My brother broke the news to me little by

little as the doctors were nursing me back,”

Tracy recalls. “‘No-one is alive,’ he told me.

‘They’re all gone.’”

The Jonestown massacre—the largest

mass suicide in modern history—made

headlines around the world as a shocking

example of how the followers of a cult could be

brainwashed into evil. Hundreds of followers

willingly drank poison—and parents forced

cyanide-filled syringes into the mouths of

children, too young to sip from cups. “This

was a wake-up call,” says cult expert Rick

Ross, “to show just how fragile the human

mind is and how easily good, kind and

reasonable people can be manipulated.”

Today, after four decades, Tracy—one of

the youngest survivors—still struggles to

put the “horrors” behind her. “This wasn’t

suicide,” insists Tracy, now 51 and a California

daycare owner. “This was murder. Those

children didn’t want to die, and neither did

many of the adults.” Meanwhile, her father,

Jerry, 84, one of the few cultists who dared to

stand up to Jones in Guyana, is battling

prostate cancer and trying to push past the

“guilt and shame of what I put my family

through,” he says. “I’ve asked for forgiveness

so I can die in peace.”

As far back as she can remember, Tracy’s

life revolved around Jim Jones and his church.

Drawn to the ministry’s eclectic gospel of

Christianity, socialist politics and racial

equality, her parents joined the Peoples

Temple in the early 1960s, and by 1966 they

and their three children followed Jones’s

rapidly growing congregation from their home

in Ohio to Ukiah, California, where he

prophesied that his followers would be safe

when the “nuclear bombs started dropping.”

But Tracy always sensed darkness in the

church, from the armed guards who stood

watch over worship services to the way Jones

would stomp on Bibles and rant against the

government, often until two in the morning.

“Even as a child sitting in these meetings,”

Tracy recalls, “I’d look at all the adults around

me and think, ‘What’s wrong with these

people? How can you think this is OK?’ ”

Over time, whispers of Jones’s drug use

and sexual affairs with male and female

followers began to surface—and his need

to control every aspect of his followers’ lives

grew more intense. Jones began surrounding

himself with bodyguards and took to wearing

dark sunglasses at all times—he said it was

“because he sees too much without them on,”

recalls Jerry. The increasingly paranoid,

self-proclaimed “god” had begun to lose his

grasp on reality, “going from bad to worse to

Five days after

the mass suicide

and two days after

being rescued from

the jungle, 12-year-

old Tracy Parks

(below left with

sister Brenda and

Brenda’s boyfriend

Chris O’Neal) is

interviewed by

reporters.

Peoples

Temple

founder

Jim Jones.

A CULT’S DARK DESCENT: TIMELINE

1965

Jones moves his

congregation

to California. By

1972 he claimed

to have as

many as 20,000

members.

Among them:

Jerry and

Patricia Parks

and their

children

Brenda, Dale

and Tracy.

July 1976

Peoples Temple member Grace Stoen

defects, leaving her 4-year-old son, John

(above), in the care of temple members.

Because her husband, Tim, has signed an

affidavit declaring Jones is John’s biological

father, Jones refuses to release John to her.

She files for custody.

Aug. 1, 1977

After San Francisco

magazine New West

publishes a story

accusing Jones of

financial impropriety

and ordering physical

assaults, he moves

his church and

followers to a remote

compound on 1500ha

of land in Guyana,

taking 5-year-old

John Stoen along

with him.

Nov. 18, 1977

A California judge

in San Francisco

awards custody of

John to Grace, with

visitation rights

given to Tim. The

judge further rules

Jones’s rights as

John’s guardian

are void and orders

that “all actions

necessary” be taken

to return John to

his parents.

1955

Jim Jones

(left, in Los

Angeles,

1974) forms

the Peoples

Temple

Christian

Church, in

Indianapolis,

to preach

his gospel

of racial

equality.

36 l Who