By that time, darker elements had seeped into Jones sermons. We saw an impressive community with dozens of pathways, cabins, a medical center, a little school, and a large pavilion where the members congregated regularly. There was no movement, but I thought the others might also be playing dead. The bodies of Jones and 912 cult followers lay sprawled under the tropical trees of the commune, victims of an incredible murder-suicide rite. 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. John Ford. 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? Mr. Ryan, three journalists and a cult defector were killed and 11 others were wounded. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The daughter of Hugo and Anita Philips, Lisa Philips Layton was born in Germany in 1915 into a family that had engaged in banking for at least 200 years. Leo Ryan assured me that there was nothing to worry about. After over twenty years in prison, Larry Layton was released on parole in 2002, largely due to the testimony of Vernon Gosney, one of the few survivors of the massacre, and the Federal Chief Judge, Robert F. Peckham. [8], In 2019, he made a video with Vanity Fair where he analyzed fictional robberies from films such as The Italian Job and Heat. Repeatedly, the defectors mentioned forced participation in mass-suicide rehearsals known as the White Night trials.. ", 20 Years Later, Jonestown Survivor Confronts Horrors, LAYTON01/B/20OCT98/MN/SLF ---Deborah Layton is a survivor of Jonestown. She arrived in London at 16, was met by some cousins and got what she would later call the biggest surprise of her life: I discovered that I was Jewish.. As I was transferred onto a gurney, I was conscious enough to look up and see a big, gleaming white plane with The United States of America written on the side. In May 1978, she was sent by Jones to Georgetown to chaperone some Temple children on a cultural exchange. He treasured it. Inquiry by Congressman. In 1996, the family and friends of Larry launched a campaign for a presidential commutation. She used a telephone in the radio shack to call her sister in California, who arranged to have an airline ticket waiting for her at the airport in Georgetown, Guyana. [30] The Lake St. Louis police chief praised Larry's message about the consequences of going to prison and said it is not a scared straight program, noting that Lawton said "fear doesn't have a lasting impact. But listening to one after the other after the other say the same choreographed thing made me uneasy. But, as interviews last week with family members and friends revealed, the Laytons slowly disintegrated under the pressures of family conflict, the disillusionment that gripped much of America during the 1960's, drug use, and the soothing, simplistic appeal of Mr. Jones. Lawton filed a lawsuit against the prison and staff alleging that they violated his rights. Larry Layton Biography It looks like we don't have any Biography for Larry Layton yet. Other Peoples Temple. He went, and pursued the destiny that brought him to trial in San Francisco. [28], After release he went to Palm Bay, Florida and started LL Research and Consulting and met a business partner. How could I not like the good things they were doing?. 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. It felt like a Mack truck had just sped over me. Initially she was allowed to recuperate in a cabin of her own, but later she was moved into a crowded dormitorystyle cabin with other elderly women. "[27] Another time he said: "I had my arms pinned down, and I was beaten and peed on by the guards. The Laytons were a family that seemed to have everything: intelligence, plenty of money, education, a proud family tradition of Quaker nonviolence. 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. ", Crimes for which children went to the well included "stealing food from the kitchen, expressing homesickness, failing a socialism exam, or even natural childish rebelliousness.". Larry Layton, Quaker and pacifist, entered the Peoples Temple in 1968 to join the march to social justice as charted by the temple's mesmerizing leader, the Rev. He was acquitted after presenting a defense of brainwashing. We split up, as Jones had arranged. 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. Months previously, her husband had begun noticing that money and family possessions were dis appearing from the household. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. | AP. [28] Often he appears discussing crimes in the media as an expert on robberies. Congressman Ryans body was probably 15 feet away. The next year, his church relocated to Redwood Valley, a small community in northern California. They reported the car's license plate, which linked the car to Lawton. ref: Benjy Esteves Jr Mark Consentino 94-95 Larry Layton 94-95 John McKaie 94-95 It paints a convincing picture of what it was like to spend seven years in the notorious cult, only to escape a few months before the tragedy that gave Jonestown its infamous place in history as the site of the largest mass suicide in modern times. My recovery continuedthough that very word is not an accurate description of the aftermath of being shot. We didnt want a group to present a canned response or any individual to look to others for their answers. As I took down their names, I looked over at Don Harris, who was interviewing Jones. I grew up with the Bible and the Puritan work ethic, he recalled in an interview. Mr. Layton was also convicted of conspiracy in the attempted murder of Richard C. Dwyer, the deputy chief of the United States mission to Guyana, who was among those wounded at the airstrip. Dr. Layton had learned of his wife's religious background after they were married, but the couple had agreed not to tell anyone, especially their children. They visited her brother in Ukiah, listened to Mr. Jones's teachingswhich in many ways paralleled those of the Quakers and before long even Mr. Blakey's mother had flown from England to join the People's Temple for a short while. With its bell-ringing calls for social justice -- this was in the fractious 1960s and early '70s -- the little-known church near Ukiah catered to the closet revolutionary in Deborah Layton. Tony Tamburello, the defense attorney, told jurors in his closing arguments that the prosecutors had sensationalized the case against Mr. Layton in the three-week trial in Federal District Court. ''Look at the poor diet, the loss of weight, the physical exhaustion, the desperation, the lingering illness and death of his mother and the fear of punishment and humiliation,'' he said. Individually, their insistence would have been hard to question. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. But when Larry Layton was growing up in the 1920's, the land was not worth much. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/17/us/cult-member-cries-over-plea-to-jury.html. Larry Layton, a former member of the People's Temple, broke into tears today at his trial on charges of conspiring to commit murder as his attorney told jurors not to make him a scapegoat ''for . Almost 22 hours after the ambush, I heard the groan of a planes enginefinally our escape had arrived. He preached a social gospel, attracting devotees while promoting a community that did not discriminate or take into account race, background, or previous circumstances. After her operation, Mrs. Layton moved to Guyana. . the attorney said. At 16, Im not sure I understood what a state assemblyman did, but when my parents received a solicitation from Leo Ryans reelection campaign in 1966, I mailed back a note: Im in high school. The shootings took place on one of the airplanes which were to take the party of Congressman Leo Ryan to Georgetown after his visit to Jonestown. She was entrusted with flights to Europe and Panama to open Temple bank accounts, where Jones stashed the millions he was taking from Temple members who freely gave him their life savings, their homes and just about everything else. Jonestown: 13 Things You Should Know About Cult Mas. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, it read. [1][2], In 2007, he started the Reality Check Program to help educate at-risk youths on the consequences of breaking the law. Mr. Layton believes that his wife gave Mr. Jones at least $250,000 and possibly more; he said she had some secret accounts of her own that apparently contained money from her father. Politically, there was nothing to gainand everything to loseby taking on Jones, and there was no telling what hed do if confronted and challenged. [10] He also founded the Reality Check program which aims to show teens the consequences of a criminal life. One, Karen Layton, died in the carnage at Jonestown. Ryan wanted to investigate. Jones had become increasingly paranoid, convinced that the CIA, the FBI and the media were out to destroy him. Traumatizing family rifts erupted on the spot, with mothers and fathers engaged in literal tug-of-wars over their children. There is abundant evidence that Mr. Jones used such tactics to divide families and break up marriages. Education: Attended college in the area of San Francisco, CA. My mother had cared a lot for my father, but Jim broke it up.. ''It is not the proper forum for answering questions about Jonestown.'' Port Royal Speedway hosts a weekly schedule of local Sprint Car, Late Model, and Pro-Stock dirt track racing, and is nicknamed "The Speed Palace".Several national touring series organizations visit the track during the racing season, including the World of Outlaws . [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. '', See the article in its original context from. [28] In 2013, Lawton was made an honorary police officer by the Lake St. Louis, Missouri Police Department due to his work after prison. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Life in Jonestown became a drab and exhausting routine of dawn-to-dusk labor in the fields, replete with swarms of voracious mosquitoes that even went after the toughened soles of people's feet. [8] Lawton later said that he used a BB gun during the robbery. I couldnt bear the vision of her sitting in front of my casket. SAN FRANCISCO Larry Layton was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for his role in conspiring to murder Rep. Leo Ryan in Guyana in 1978. [32] By 2010, Lawton had shipped 10,000 DVDs across the country. A few Temple members stood in front of a rusty dump truck waiting to shuttle us to the compound. 'A Tremendous Amount of Guilt'. It made no sense that he would be trying to leave Jonestown. Mr. Layton was also sentenced to three concurrent terms of 15 years each in related charges of conspiring to kill Mr. Ryan and in the attempted murder of a United States diplomat in the same incident. I was almost one of them. Nevertheless, in 1991, a parole board ruled that Larry would have to serve 20 years, and set his release date for 2006. [26] Lawton does not hold a degree in child psychology or criminology. Answer (1 of 2): Above: Jonestown Before The Massacre Larry Layton was the only "armed guard" at Jonestown at the time of the massacre to outlive November 18, 1978, when all but a few dozen of the roughly 1,000 residents of Jonestown perished. And he assigned two of his staff members to come along: Jim Schollaert and me. 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. But by the time I showed em, they were all dead.. 1998-11-02 04:00:00 PDT CALIFORNIA -- For a young woman of 17, flinging herself on the world after the cloistered atmosphere of an English boarding school, Peoples Temple seemed daring and exciting. The early release culminated a six-year campaign during which members of his family worked with a core of supporters, first to petition then-President Clinton to commute Larrys sentence, then to convince the Parole Commission to modify its earlier decision on a release date. 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. Jonestown was the agricultural compound Jones' followers carved out of the Guyanese jungle, 150 miles northwest of the nation's capital, Georgetown. Larry, after graduating from Berkeley High School, enrolled at the University of California at Davis and soon was living with Carolyn Moore, a student whose father was a Protestant minister in Davis. | AP/San Francisco Examiner. History. As I shook his hand, I looked at his sideburns. Members of the press and the Concerned Relatives waited behind on the airstrip until the truck could come back for a second load. He attended Berkeley High School and was the editor of a campus newspaper called The Liberal. 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.'' I knew him well enough to understand what would happen next. I had read the articles and listened to hours of testimony. Subsequently, he said, she urged him to have an affair. Twenty years ago this month, Jones and 912 of his followers committed mass suicide at the jungle compound. Besides, when had a congressman ever been assassinated on foreign soil while on a congressional delegation trip? Breathing heavily, I pulled myself to my feet, stumbled to the planes baggage compartment and took shelter. But it was the testimony of Vern Gosney, one of Larrys shooting victims at the Port Kaituma airstrip, who traveled from Hawaii for the sole purpose of attending the hearing and who delivered the most impassioned plea for Larrys release, that apparently made the difference. Layton became a senior insider in Jones' entourage. Deborah and Larry Layton were still with Mr. Jones at that point, having remained as key lieutenants even after his doctrine of good works and selflessness had begun to become an increasingly paranoid selfadulation. See the article in its original context from. Jim Jones would order more than 900 of his followers to commit suicide. . See also [ edit] Jim Jones Ten years later the road came to a dead end in the jungles of Guyana. They were issued four T-shirts, four pairs of socks, a toothbrush and toothpaste, four pairs of underwear and a bar of soap. [26] He was incarcerated in many prisons during his sentence, which included Jesup in Georgia, Riker's Island in New York, Edgefield in South Carolina, and Yazoo City in Mississippi. Leo Ryan wanted answers. When Deborah came home from school in England in 1971, she brought a boyfriend, George Philip Blakey, a fellow Quaker and the son of a welltodo farming family in Northumberland. To the tarmac. [6], Lawton was born in North Hempstead, New York on October 3, 1961. I was later told that he had been shot 45 times. The other, Carolyn, became one of Mr. Jones's mistresses and also his principal fnancial adviser; it is not known whether she is alive. Her mother's cancer pain medications were taken away. [19][20] One bullet narrowly missed Lawton, but struck his brother. Lawton was born in North Hempstead, New York on October 3, 1961 business partner the of. Very word is not an accurate description of the aftermath of being shot word is not an accurate description the... 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