Free EVIL CULT KILLERS (True Crime) by Ray Black

to wait 40 minutes. As they reached the runway, a vehicle drove out at them, firing at them as it gave chase. Leo Ryan, one reporter, a cameraman and a photographer were killed straightaway. Then one of the followers, undoubtedly planted amongst the infidels by Jones, opened fire and murdered the pilot.
     
    T HE  E ND OF THE  I DEAL
     
    Clearly already aware of the fate of Leo Ryan and his accompanying party, Jim Jones could forestall the inevitable no longer and knew that before long his ‘utopia’ would be destroyed. He gathered his community in front of him, and told them that it was time for them to depart to a better place, and that they were too good for the world they currently inhabited. He was talking about the complete destruction of everything he had created, and as he spoke, a concoction of cyanide and sedative-laced soft drinks was brought out to his people. Babies were brought forward first, and the deadly liquid injected into their mouths. Remaining children were the next to die. Finally it was the turn of the adults. One by one they queued up to take this poison, but some showed their fear. Their belief failed them and they didn’t want to die. Those who refused the poison had their throats cut by Temple elders, or were shot in the head. Jim Jones was taking his entire congregation with him.
     
    C ARNAGE
     
    The scene which greeted the Guyanese soldiers who arrived the next day was complete and total carnage. Only one or two terrified survivors were found, having crawled into tiny spaces underneath buildings and hidden to save themselves. Others were missing, presumably having escaped into the jungle. Of a total of 1,100 people believed to be in the compound, 913 were found dead. The body of Jim Jones was found with a single bullet wound in the right temple, believed to be self-inflicted.
    Investigations into the massacre at Jonestown, and into The People’s Temple revealed that in fact, Jim Jones had been preparing his people for this mass suicide for many years. He was paranoid that the American government was planning to destroy him, his people and his work and had instilled the idea in the minds of his followers that he was their salvation, that as long as they obeyed and trusted only him he would look after them. Therefore, when the order came from their leader, their ‘father’, that the enemy was finally upon them and about to slaughter them all, they were trained to follow his instructions and believed that in so doing, they were taking a noble and dignified path to a better place.
    The bodies, many unidentifiable, were brought home to the United States, where many cemeteries refused to bury them. Eventually, the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland agreed to take the bodies – 409 in total. A memorial service is held there annually to remember those who died. The remainder were buried in family graveyards, or cremated.
    Sadly, the 913 deaths recorded in Jonestown were not the end of the story. Members of the Temple who had survived the mass suicide in Guyana, took their own lives, and the lives of their children, within months of returning home anyway. Ex-members of the Temple, who presumably felt safe speaking out against Jim Jones and his followers following the disaster, were found shot dead.
    Jonestown, having already been looted by locals, was destroyed by fire in the early 1980s.

Siberian Satanist Cult
    Incited murder, or suicide?

     
    In 1996, in the Russian city of Tyumen in Siberia, 1,400 miles east of Moscow, five young people were found hanged between the months of April and October. Police who investigated the individual deaths at first recorded them simply as suicides – tragic, but arousing no suspicion or cause for any further enquiries. However, when a link began to emerge between the five youths, the cases were re-opened, and a much larger investigation began to take shape.
    Scribblings relating to secret and mystical beliefs were found amongst some of the possessions