A collection of Q042 transcripts is on the SDSU Alternative Considerations site here. An even better transcript was posted on Reddit. The following transcript builds on these. The audio files on the SDSU web site currently aren't as good as this recording on YouTube.

In parentheses are descriptions about what can be heard on the tape. In square brackets are editorial notes providing background context.

Jim Jones had a button to pause and resume the recording. He paused recording at least 80 times on this 44-minute tape. He was likely aware that the tape would be found, and wanted the proceedings to be perceived as a historic "revolutionary suicide". See the SDSU Q042 page for more details about the recording.

All background music is from a prior recording that is being recorded over. There was no music played at JT during the recording of the death tape. Starting at 20:38, there is also occasional ghost recording of a woman talking on the JT radio. JT made dozens of tape recordings, and often recorded over them. Thus the radio voices are not from Nov 18.

Questions

Outline

Times are estimates from this work-in-progress timeline of Nov 18.

Transcript

Jim Jones0:00 Jim Jones (47): How very much I've loved you. How very much I’ve tried my best to give you the good life. (Applause) But in spite of all of I've tried a handful of our people, with their lies, have made our life impossible. (Baby cries) There’s no way to detach ourselves from what’s happened today.

[JJ is referring at least to that afternoon's knife attack on Rep. Ryan by Don Sly, but probably also to the impending Red Brigade attack at the airstrip. JJ clearly has foreknowledge that Larry Layton and the Red Brigade are both going to attack the departing visitors.]

Jones: Not only -- we're in a compound situation, not only are there those who have left and committed the betrayal of the century, some have stolen children from others, and they are in pursuit right now to kill them because they stole their children. And we, we are sitting here waiting on a powder keg. I don’t think this is what we want to do with our babies – I don’t think that’s what we had in mind to do with our babies. It was said by the greatest of prophets from time immemorial: “No man lay – takes my life from me; I lay my life down.” [John 10:18] (Acclamation) So to sit here and wait for the catastrophe that’s going to happen on that airplane – it’s going to be a catastrophe. Almost happened here. Almost happened, the congressman was nearly killed here. But you can’t steal people’s children. You can’t take off with people’s children without expecting a violent reaction.

[All of the children leaving with Ryan were leaving with their parents, and none of them are leaving a parent behind in JT. On the contrary, the defecting parents had to leave at least half a dozen of their own kids in JT. Defector Al Simon stayed because his loyalist wife Bonnie refused to let their kids leave. JJ is perhaps thinking of Al's attempt to take his kids. He might also be thinking of Leslie Wagner-Wilson, the wife of JT security chief Joe Wilson. She hiked out of JT that morning with Joe Wilson's son, along with 9 others.]

Crowd: That's right!

Jones: And that’s not so unfamiliar to us either – if we, even if we were Judeo-Christian – if we weren’t Communists. [JJ knows that many of his followers have lingering belief in the God of Christianity, so cites a Bible verse to justify his violence.] The world -- "the kingdom suffers violence, and the violent shall take it by force." [Mat 11:12] If we can’t live in peace, then let’s die in peace. (Applause)  We’ve been so betrayed. We have been so terribly betrayed. But we tried and as Jack Beam [54y, joined PT in 1954] often said, I don't know where he's at right this moment, where's Jack?  He said "if this only worked one day it was worthwhile." (Applause)

(Recording pause)

Jones: Thank you.

(Recording pause)

Jones: -- what’s going to happen here in a matter of a few minutes is that one of those people on that plane is going to shoot the pilot. [Assassin Larry Layton joined the defectors when it wasn't realized there was going to be an additional plane.] I know that. I didn’t plan it, but I know it’s going to happen. They’re gonna shoot that pilot and down comes that plane into the jungle. And we had better not have any of our children left when it’s over because they’ll parachute in here on us. (Baby babbles) I’m telling you just as plain as I know how to tell you. I’ve never lied to you. (Acclamation) I never have lied to you. I know that’s what’s gonna happen. That’s what he intends to do, and he will do it. He’ll do it. (Baby babbles) Unfortunately(?) being so bewildered with many, many pressures on my brain, seeing all these people behave so treasonous – it was just too much for me to put together, but I now know what he was telling me. And it’ll happen. If the plane gets in the air even. (Baby screams) So my opinion is that we be kind to children and be kind to seniors and take the potion like they used to take in ancient Greece and step over quietly because we are not committing suicide; it’s a revolutionary act.

Crowd: That's right!

Jones: We can’t go back; they won’t leave us alone. They’re now going back to tell more lies, which means more congressmen. And there’s no way, no way we can survive. Anybody wish to (Recording pause)

4:00 Jones: Anyone that has any dissenting opinion, please speak. Yes. (Recording pause) [During the recording pause, someone apparently suggests deferring suicide so that PT members can strike at PT enemies in Georgetown like Tim Stoen.] You can have an opportunity, but if our children are left, we’re going to have them butchered. We can make a strike, but we’ll be striking against people [Guyanese army] that we don’t want to strike against. We want, we’d like to get the people who caused this stuff, and some, if some people here are prepared to know how to do that, to go in town and get Timothy Stoen, but there’s no plane. (Baby cries) There’s no plane. You can’t catch a plane in time. [JJ believes the GDF will reach JT before JT could strike PT enemies in Georgetown.] He’s responsible for it. He brought these people to us. He and Deanna Myrtle. But people [PT members with revenge orders] in San Francisco will not – not be idle over this. They’ll not take our death in vain you know. Yes, Christine.

Christine Miller

5:00 Christine Miller [60y]: Is it too late for Russia?

Jones: Here’s why it’s too late for Russia. They killed. They started to kill. That’s why it makes it too late for Russia. Otherwise I’d said, Russia, you bet your life. But it’s too late. I can’t control these people. They’re out there. They’ve gone with their guns. And it’s too late. And once we kill anybody – at least that’s the way I’ve always – I’ve always put my lot with you. If one of my people do something, it’s me.

Man: That's right.

Jones: And they say I don’t have to take the blame for this, but I don’t live that way. They said deliver up Ujara, who tried to get the man back here. Ujara, whose wi-- mother’s been lying on him and lying on him and trying to break up this family. And they’ve all agreed to kill us by any means necessary. Do you think I’m going to deliver them Ujara? Not on your life.

[Don Sly's wife Neva defected from PT in 1975 and was trying to get Don and their two kids to leave JT.]

Crowd: No!

Jones: No.

Don Sly [Don Sly, aka Ujara, 42y. Attacked Rep. Ryan with a knife that afternoon. JJ had promised Ryan that Sly would be turned over to the Guyana police.]

Don Sly: Is there any way if I go, that it’ll help?

Jones: No. You’re not going. You’re not going.

Crowd: No!

Jones: You’re not going. I can’t live that way. I cannot live that way. I’ve lived with– for all, and I’ll die for all. (Applause) (Recording pause)

Jones: I’ve been living on hope for a long time, Christine, and I appreciate you’ve always been a very good agitator. I like agitation because you got to see two sides of one issue, two sides of a question. But what those people are gonna get done once they get through will make our lives worse than hell. Will make us– will make the Russians not accept us. When they get through lying. They told so many lies between there and that truck that we are– we are done-in as far as any other alternative.

Miller: Well, I say let’s make an airlift to Russia. That’s what I say. I don’t think nothing is impossible if you believe it.

Jones: How are we going to do that? How are you going to airlift to Russia?

Miller: Well, I thought they said if we got in an emergency, they gave you a code to let them know.

Jones: No they didn’t. They gave us a code that they’d let us know of an issue; not us create an issue for them. They said if we– if they saw the country coming down they'd create -- they'd give us a code. (Baby cries) They'd give us a code. You can check on there and see if it’s on the code. Check with Russia to see if they’ll take us in immediately, otherwise we die. I don’t know what else you say to these people. But to me death is not– death is not a fearful thing. It’s living that’s treacherous. (Applause) (Recording pause)

Jones: I have never, never, never, never seen anything like this before in my life. I’ve never seen people take the law and do– in their own hands and provoke us and try to purposely agitate murder of children. [JJ seems to admit here that poisoning the children will be murder.] There is no use, Christine; it’s just not– it’s not worth living like this. Not worth living like this.

Crowd: That's right! (Recording pause)

Miller: I think that there were too few who left for twelve hundred people to give them their lives for those people that left.

Jones: Do you know how many left?

Miller: Oh, twenty-odd. That’s a small …

[Ryan left with 15 sincere defectors and one fake one, Larry Layton. Eleven other JT residents escaped unnoticed into the jungle that morning.]

Jones: Twenty-odd, twenty-odd.

Miller: ... compared to what’s here.

Jones: Twenty-odd. But what’s gonna happen when they don’t leave? I hope that they could leave. But what’s gonna happen when they don’t leave?

Miller: You mean the people here?

Jones: Yeah. What’s going to happen to us when they don’t leave, when they get on the plane and the plane goes down?

Miller: I don’t think it’ll go down.

Jones: You don’t think it’ll go down?

Crowd: Yes it will... he said it will. Yes it will!

Jones: I, I wish I would tell you you’re right, but I’m right. There’s one man there who blames, and rightfully so, Debbie Blakey for the murder– for the murder of his mother.   And he’ll– he’ll stop that pilot by any means necessary. He’ll do it. That plane’ll come out of the air. There’s no way you fly a plane without a pilot.

[JJ refers to Larry Layton and his defector sister Debbie Layton Blakey. Their mother Lisa Layton died of cancer in JT 3 weeks earlier, on Oct 30. JJ said that Debbie's defection interfered with his miraculous ability to hold off Lisa's cancer. Larry Layton watched her die in agony, not knowing that painkillers were hoarded for JJ and for the mass suicide.]

Miller: I wasn’t speaking about that plane. I was speaking about the plane for us to go to Russia.

Jones: How... (JJ sighs in frustration. Angry voices.) To Russia? You think Russia’s gonna want– no, not gonna, it’s, it’s, it’s, it's, it's– we're not, you think Russia’s gonna want us with all this stigma? We had some value, but now we don’t have any value.

Miller: Well, I don’t see it like that. I mean, I feel like that– as long as there’s life, (Baby screeches) there’s hope. That’s my faith.

Jones: Well– some– everybody dies. Some place that hope runs out because everybody dies. (Acclamation) I haven’t seen anybody yet didn’t die. (Acclamation) And I’d like to choose my own kind of death for a change. (Acclamation) I’m tired of being tormented to hell, that’s what I’m tired of. (Acclamation) Tired of it. (Applause) (Recording pause)

Jones: --twelve hundred people’s lives in my hands, and I certainly don’t want your life in my hands. I’m going to tell you, Christine, without me, life has no meaning. (Applause)

Jones: I’m the best friend you’ll ever have. I want, want, I have to pay– I’m standing with Ujara. I’m standing with those people. They are part of me. I can detach myself. My attorney [Charles Garry] says detach myself. No, no, no, no, no, no. I never detach myself from any of your troubles. I’ve always taken your troubles right on my shoulders. (Acclamation) And I’m not going to change that now. It’s too late. I’ve been running too long. Not going to change now. (Applause) (Recording pause)

[PT ideology included reincarnation.]

Jones: Maybe the next time you’ll get to go to Russia. The next time round. This is– what I’m talking about now is the dispensation of judgment. This is a revolutionary– a revolutionary suicide council. I’m not talking about self– self-destruction. I’m talking about what -- we have no other road. I will take your call. We will put it to the Russians. And I can tell you the answer now because I am a prophet. Call the Russians and tell them, and see if they’ll take us. (Recording pause)

[There is no evidence that any such call "to Russia" was attempted.]

Miller: --not that I'm afraid to die, by no means.

[In the U.S., JJ once pointed his pistol at Miller's head for standing up to him, and she challenged him to shoot her. Per Hue Fortson on JT Paradise Lost Deleted Scenes]

Jones: I don’t think you are. I don't think you are.

Miller: But, ah, I look at our babies and I think they deserve to live, you know?

Jones: I agree. But also they deserve what's more; they deserve peace. (Acclamation)

Miller: We all came here for peace.

Jones: And we’ve– have we had it?  (Crowd: "No!")

Miller: No.

Jones: I tried to give it to you. I’ve laid down my life, practically. I’ve practically died every day to give you peace. And you still not have any peace. You look better than I’ve seen you in a long while, but it’s still not the kind of peace that I want to give you. A person’s a fool who continues to say that you’re winning when you’re losing. (Baby cries)

Crowd: That's right! (Baby cries)

Mary Ruby Johnson: (Unintelligible) gonna die(?)

Jones: Win one, lose two. What?

Johnson: (Unintelligible)

Jones: I didn’t hear you, ma’am. You’ll have to speak up.

Johnson: (Unintelligible) ...in time, we die anyway! (Baby laughs)

Jones: That’s a sweet thought. Who said that?

Mary Johnson[Mary Ruby Johnson (52) was the mother of Garry Poncho Johnson, the security guard who reportedly gave Larry Layton his pistol, and who released the lawyers Mark Lane and Charles Garry into the jungle. But this might be Mary Darden aka Mary Allie Johnson.]

12:00 Crowd: Mary Johnson!

Jones: Come on up and speak it again, honey. Say, come up and say about talk about (Recording pause)

Jones: --is taking off. No plane is taking off. Suicide. They have done it. Stoen has done it. Somebody ought to li-- Somebody, can they talk, can they not talk to San Francisco– see that Stoen does not get by with this infamy? [JJ is asking that the SF Temple be sent coded orders for revenge killings and mass suicide. JJ may not have realized that Tim Stoen has traveled to Georgetown with the Ryan delegation.]

Crowd: That's right!

Jones: This is infamy. He has done the thing he wanted to do. To have us destroyed.

Woman: That's right!

Miller: When you– when you– when we destroy ourselves, we’re defeated. (Baby cries)

Jones: We're not defeated.

Miller: We let them, the enemy, defeat us.

Jones: Did you see– did you see “I live to fight no more forever”?

Miller: Yes, I saw that.

Jones: Did you not have some sense of pride and victory in that man? He would not subject himself to the will or whim of people who tell that they're going to come in whenever they please and push into our house. Come when they please, take who they want to, talk to who they want to– does this, is that living? That’s not living to me.

Crowd: No!

Jones: That’s not freedom. That’s not the kind of freedom I sought.

Miller: But I think where they made their mistake is when they stopped to rest. If they had gone on they would’ve made it. But they stopped to rest. (Recording pause)

Jim McElvane

13:25 Jim McElvane [46y. Chief of PT security in SF. Arrived in JT only 2 days earlier.]: It's over, sister, it's over. We've made that day. [cf. Jack Beam quote above] We made a beautiful day, and let’s make it a beautiful day. That's what I.. (Applause)

Jones: We win, we win when we go down. Tim Stoen has nobody else to hate. He has nobody else to hate. Then he’ll destroy himself. I’m speaking here not as the administrator, I’m speaking as a prophet today. I wouldn’t step in this seat and talk so serious if I didn’t know what I was talking about. (Acclamation) Is there any way to call back the immense amount of damage that’s going to be done? But I cannot separate myself from the pain of my people. You can’t either, Christine, if you stop to think about it. You can’t separate yourself. We’ve walked too long together. (Acclamation)

Miller: I know that. But I still think, as an individual, I have a right to–

Jones: You do, and I’m listening.

Miller: – what I think, what I feel. And think we all have a right to our own destiny as individuals.

Jones: Right.

Miller: And I think I have a right to choose mine, and everybody else has a right to choose theirs.

Jones: Mm-hmm.

Miller: ("You know?" "In hopes"?)

Jones: Mm-hmm. (Recording pause) I’m not criticizing, I'm not trying to...

Lue Ester Lewis [Lue Ester Lewis (48y) identified by eyewitness survivors Rhodes & Clayton.]

14:35 Lue Ester Lewis: Why don't you leave then?

Jones: What’s that?

Lewis: She's talkin' like she wanna to leave, why don't she just go ahead! (Child shrieks) "Your own individual lives." That's what you sayin!

Miller: That's what-- (Recording pause)

Jones: --said today, that's what twenty people said today, with their lives.

Miller: Well, I think I still have a right to my own opinion. (Crowd shouts angrily)

Jones: I’m not taking it from you. I’m not taking it from you.

McElvane: Christine.

Lewis: Do you wanna leave?

McElvane: You’re only standing here because he was here in the first place. So I don’t know what you talking about, having an individual life. Your life has been extended to the day that you’re standing there because of him. (Acclamation) (Recording pause)

Jones: --voice back there, she has as much right to speak as anybody else, too.

Woman: That's right!

[In addition to the Jones-supporting Mary Ruby Johnson at 12:00 above, there were three other Rubys in JT. Ruby Lee Johnson was there with her daughter Ruby Jewell Caroll and 8 of their children/grandchildren. Ruby Jean Bright was there with 2 children, 3 sisters, and 5 nieces/nephews. If one of these three spoke up to support Miller, JJ chose not to record her.]

15:15 Jones: What did you say, Ruby? (Recording pause.) Well, you’ll regret that this very day if you don’t die. You’ll regret it if you do, though you don’t die. You’ll regret it. (Acclamation)

Miller: Dad, you’ve saved too many people.

Jones: I’ve saved them. I saved them, but I made my example. I made my expression. I made my manifestation, and the world was ready -- not ready for me. Paul said, “I was a man born out of due season.” [1 Cor 15:8]  I’ve been born out of due season, just like all we are, and the best testimony we can make is to leave this goddamn world.

(Applause) (Recording pause)

Voice: Peace, peace. (Baby cries)

Lewis: You must be scared to die.

Miller: I’m not talking to her.

Lewis: Well I'm talkin to you! (Continues angry shouting)

Miller: Will you let– would you let her or let me talk?

Jones: Keep talking.

Miller: Would you make her sit down and let me talk while I’m on the floor or let her talk? (Lewis shouts back angrily.) (Recording pause)

Jones: --proper to tell the leader what to do, it really isn't. (Angry acclamation) I’ve listened to you. You asked me about Russia. I’m right now making a call to Russia. What more do you suggest?  (Angry shouting) I’m listening to you. If Russia gives me one slight bit of encouragement. I just now instructed them to go there and do that.

[There is no evidence that any such call "to Russia" was attempted.]

Lewis: And you would be no fucking good in Russia, goddammit!

Voice: Y'all should go--

Woman: Why didn't you get on that truck?

Marceline?: This is not ("arrested"?)

(Shouting) (Recording pause)

14:30 Johnny Brown Jones: All right now, everybody hold it. We didn’t come– hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.

(Recording pause)

Jones: -- much longer to maintain? (Acclamation)  (Recording pause) --to lay down your burdens. I’m gonna lay down my burdens. Down by the riverside. Shall we lay them down here inside of Guyana? What’s the difference? (Acclamation) No man didn’t take our lives, right now. They haven’t taken them. But when they start parachuting out of the air, they’ll shoot some of our innocent babies. I’m not lying– I don’t wanna see this, Christine. But they gotta shoot me to get through to some of these people. I’m not letting them take Ujara. Can you let them take Ujara?

Voices: No, no, no, no!

John and Tim StoenGrace StoenJohn Stoen[John Victor Stoen, 6y. Son of defectors Grace and Tim Stoen, but probably sired by JJ.]

Miller: You wanna see John die?

Jones: What’s that?

17:18 Miller: You mean you wanna see John, the little one with Kimo die?

Carolyn Layton and Kimo Prokes[Jim Jon "Kimo" Prokes (3) was JJ's son by his mistress and powerful lieutenant Carolyn Moore Layton, who helped plan the mass poisoning.]

Jones: I want to see (angry voices shouting) peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace.

17:30 Marceline Jones: Christine, are you saying that you think he thinks more of them than other children here? That's what you’re saying!

Marceline Jones [Marceline Jones, 51. Wife of JJ.]

Jones: John -- John -- you're acting -- do you think I’d put John’s life above others? If I put John’s life above others, I wouldn’t be standing with Ujara. I’d send John out, and he could go out on the driveway tonight.

Miller: No, I called his name because he’s young, they're young.

Jones: I know, but he’s no different to me than any of these children here. He’s just one of my children. I don’t prefer one above another. I don’t prefer him above Ujara. I can’t do that. I can’t separate myself from your actions or his actions.

Lewis: Never ends!

Jones: If you’d done something wrong, I’d stand with you. If they wanted to come and get you, they’d have to take me. (Acclamation)

18:10 Emotional elderly black voice: We’re all ready to go. If you tell us we have to give our lives now, we’re ready– I'm pretty sure all the rest of the sisters and brothers are with me. (Acclamation) (Recording pause)

Jones: --months I’ve tried to keep this thing from happening. But I now see it’s the will– it’s the will of Sovereign Being that this happen to us. That we lay down our lives in protest against what’s being done. That we lay down our lives to protest in what’s being done. The criminality of people. The cruelty of people. Who walked out of here today? Did you notice who walked out? Mostly white people. (Acclamation) Mostly white people walked.

[All but one of the defectors who left with Ryan were white. However, the eleven people who slipped out of camp that morning were all black -- including the wife and child of security chief Joe Wilson.]

Tommy and Jim Bogue[Tommy Bogue had noticed Edith Parks breaking the rules and talking to Rep. Ryan to defect, and he ran to alert his father Jim. Tommy had been brutally punished for an earlier escape attempt. Jim Bogue had early to JT in 1974, hoping to win back his estranged wife Edith through his tireless efforts on JT agriculture. Their adopted daughter Marilee refused to leave with them, as did the ex-wife and five children of Edith's partner Harold Cordell. On the NBC tape, Cordell says to his 14-yr-old son James "I love you no matter what decision you make." The tragic story of the Bogue family is recounted in A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres.]

18:50 Woman: James, Tom.

Jones: I’m so grateful for the ones that didn’t– those who knew who they are. There's no, there's, there’s no point– there’s no point to this. We have -- we are born before our time. [1 Cor 15:8] (Acclamation) They won’t accept us. And I don’t think we should sit here and take any more time for our children to be endangered. Because if they come after our children, and we give them our children, then our children will suffer forever. (Clapping)

Miller: ...anybody with a different idea...

Jones: I have no quarrel with you coming up. I like you. I personally like you very much.

Miller: These people get hostile when you try to…

Jones: Oh, some people do– but– yes, some people do. Put it that way– I’m not hostile.

Woman [possibly Maria Katsaris?]: (.. explain? ...)

Lewis: (Quit?) starting shit!

Jones: You had to be honest and you stayed, and if you'da wanted to run, you’da run with them, because anybody coulda run today, they woulda wanted to. I know you’re not a runner. And I– your life is precious to me. It’s as precious as John’s. (Baby cries) And I don’t– what I do I do with weight and justice and judgement. (Baby cries)  I’ve weighed it against all evidence.

20:05 Miller: OK, that’s all I’ve got to say.

[End of Miller's debate with Jones, which consumes 15 minutes of tape and includes at least 17 recording pauses.]

Jones: What comes now folks? What comes now?

Johnny Brown Jones[Odell Rhodes says JJ's adopted son and security chief Johnny Brown Jones approached JJ with news of the airstrip shooting. The next minute of the tape records pandemonium apparently caused by 1) the shooting news and 2) the beginning of the poisonings.]

Johnny Brown Jones: Everybody hold it!

McElvane: Sit down and stay seated. Stay seated!

Richard Dwyer [Richard Dwyer was Deputy Chief of Mission and accompanied Rep. Ryan to JT.  Dwyer is not considered a PT enemy, presumably because jurisdiction rules and U.S. privacy laws sharply limited how much he could help the Concerned Relatives. He was spared from execution at the airstrip even though he was laying right next to Ryan, who received a point blank coup de grace. Dwyer had planned to return to JT from the airstrip, to ensure the arrest of Don Sly and to protect further defectors like Al Simon's family. After the airstrip shooting he of course did not return to JT, and instead called in the Guyana army.]

Jones: Say it. Say it. Say peace, peace. Say peace. Say peace. Say peace. Say peace. What’s come? Don’t let– Take Dwyer on down to the mi- the East house. Take Dwyer.

Woman [not Maria Katsaris?] on PA: Everybody be quiet, please.

(Recording pause)

Jones: (Unintelligible) -- show you've got some respect for our lives!

Woman: Shut up!

McElvane: That means sit down, sit down. Sit down.

Jones: I know.

[A ghost recording of female operating HAM radio is heard in the background beginning at 20:38, continues for some time]

Jones: (Groan.) I tried so very, very hard. We’re trying over here to see what can be, what can happen in Los Angeles. Who is it?

[JJ might be ordering via coded radio messages that the LA Temple proceed with revenge killings and suicide.]

20:48 Woman [Marceline?]: Bob, Carl[?], Wesley (driving? brought?) truck, they must be security people.

[Shooters included security team members Bob Kice and Wesley Carl Breidenbach]

Stanley Gieg

McElvane: ... Stan ... about ten of our folks on it.

[Stanley Gieg (19y) drove the tractor pulling the trailer with the airstrip shooters. JJ thinks that Dwyer has returned with them or perhaps forgot that Dwyer left, and worries that the hit squad might attack Dwyer.]

Jones: Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him. (Recording pause)

21:00 Voice: --goin' to get Ujara.

[Don Sly aka Ujara was guarding visiting PT lawyers Mark Lane and Charles Garry, while waiting to be ordered back to the pavilion for the revolutionary suicide, which is now starting.]

Jones: Dwyer?

Voices: Ujara.

Jones: I’m not talking about Ujara. I said Dwyer. Ain’t nobody gonna take Ujara. I’m not lettin’ em take Ujara.

Deron DavisMichelle Wagner FitchRuletta Brown Paul[This is the first evidence of poisoning on the tape. Ruletta Brown Paul (24) went first, poisoning her 18-month-old son Robert Paul Jr (no photo) and then herself. Ruletta's husband Robert Paul was one of the eleven who had quietly escaped into the jungle that morning. The second woman to poison herself and her 1-yr-old son Deron was "Michelle Wilson" i.e. Michelle Wagner Fitch (24), sister of Leslie Wagner-Wilson who had also escaped that morning with her own young son. Ruletta and Michelle may have volunteered early out of despair or shame over these family defections.]

21:20 Jones: (Baby cries) Gather in, folks. It’s easy, it’s easy. Yes, my love.

Elderly Black Woman: At one time, I felt just like Christine felt. But after today I don’t feel anything because the biggest majority of the people that left here were white, and I know it really hurt my heart because–

Jones: Broke your heart, didn’t it?

Elderly Black Woman: It broke my heart to think that all of these years these white people have been with us, and they’re not a part of us. So we might as well end it now because I don’t see …

Leo Ryan[Rep. Leo Ryan (53) was executed at the airstrip almost an hour earlier.]

22:00 Jones: It's too late. You must quit talking. The congressman has been murdered. (Recording pause)

White Woman: (whispers) We're ready.

Black Man: --be quiet, that's all. (Baby cries) (Recording pause)

Black Woman: It's all over.

Man: It's all over.

Jones: It’s all over, all over. What a legacy, what a legacy. But the Red Brigade's the only ones ever made any sense anyway. They invaded our privacy. They came into our home. They followed us six thousand miles away. Red Brigade showed them justice. The congressman’s dead.

[JJ admired the Red Brigades, a communist terrorist group that murdered Italian Prime Minister Moro six months earlier. JJ had contingency plans to kidnap U.S. politicians if JJ were jailed. JT security was known as the Red Brigade.]

(A clap?) ("You stop it.") (A slap?)

22:50 Jones: Please get us some medication. It’s simple. (Baby screams) It’s simple. There’s no convulsions with it. It’s just simple. Just, please get it. Before it’s too late. The GDF [Guyana Defense Force] will be here, I tell you. Get movin’, get movin’, get movin’.

Woman [Katsaris?]: ("huddle"?)

23:00 Voices: Shh! Shut up! Shut up now! Who are you--

Jones: Don’t be afraid to die. If you -- if these people land out here, they'll -- they’ll torture some of our children here. They’ll torture our people. They’ll torture our seniors. We cannot have this.

Voices: That's right! That's right!

Jones: Are you going to separate yourself from whoever shot the congressman? I don’t know who shot him.

Voices: No. No. No. Hell, no! Hell, no! (Recording pause)

Jones: -- speak her peace, and those had a right to go, and they had a right to– How many are dead? Aw, God Almighty, God.

Patty Parks[Patty Chaffin Parks (44) was ironically the most reluctant Nov 18 defector. Her mother-in-law Edith Parks had joined PT 20yrs earlier in Indiana. Edith's grandson Dale and Dale's wife Joyce worked in the JT clinic. Joyce was away in Caracas but the rest of the Parks family escaped as defectors on Nov 18. It's unclear how JJ's informant knows Patty was dead. Her body was still on the locked Twin Otter when the shooters left the airstrip. It's possible her assassin saw his through-the-window head shot find its mark. Or, the shooters could be making a random unsubstantiated claim, as they did for Jim Cobb.]

23:30 Voice: Patty Parks is dead.

Jones: Hmm?

Voice: Patty Parks.

Jones: Patty Parks is dead?

Child: Hey, look!

Voice: Shhh!

Voice: (Get in line by me?)

 (Recording pause)

23:50 White woman: -- and the others to endure long enough in a safe place to write about the goodness of Jim Jones?

Jones: I don’t know how in the world they’re ever going to write about us. It’s just too late. It’s too late. The congressman’s dead. The congressman's aide's dead. Many of our traitors are dead. They’re all layin’ out there dead.

Jackie Speier[Ryan's aide Jackie Speier was critically wounded at the airstrip. Only one defector died: Patty Parks. Her body was not removed from the plane until after the hit squad left.]

Black woman: Right on! OK.

Jones: Hmm?

Black woman: Good! Good!

Jones: I didn’t, but my people did. My people did. They’re my people.

Voices: That's right!

Jones: And they’ve been provoked too much. (Acclamation) They’ve been provoked too much. What’s happened here’s been too-- it's been an act of provocation.

Angry Woman: They did it themselves! (Voice: "That's right!") They did it!  If they'd given us our right to theirselves(?) freedom!

24:30 Mary Ruby Johnson: If there’s any ways possible to, uh, have them to give Ted something to take him, I’m satisfied, okay?

Jones: What's that?

Johnson: I said, if there’s anyway you can do, to have them give Ted something, so he won’t have to-- let him go too okay, and I’m satisfied.

Jones: That’s fine.

Voice: Ted Holliday [Ted Holliday was not in Jonestown but was the son of Mary “Ruby” Johnson Rodgers and brother of Poncho Johnson and Irra Jean Johnson. Thus Ruby is asking that Ted back in California be poisoned too. She does not mention her oldest son Bennett, perhaps because he was not in PT.]

Jones: Ted, yes. Yes. Yes.

Johnson: Because I said I never wanted to live if you die, so this is-- And I appreciate you for everything.

Jones: You're a (unintelligible)

Johnson: You are the only. You are the only. And I appreciate you.

Jones: OK. (Applause) (Recording pause)

25:00 Jones: Please, please, can we hasten? Can we hasten with that medication? You don’t know what you’ve done.

Woman: Dad, I want you to know, you've given me the happiest days of my life!

Jones: I've tried. (Applause) (Recording pause)

Jones: -- move, lease move.

Young man: Hey Dad?

Jones: Huh?

Wesley Briedenbach

[Wesley Breidenbach was one of the airstrip shooters. At the end of the airstrip were four Guyanese Defense Forces soldiers guarding a disabled GDF plane. They stood by during the shooting, explaining later that Americans shooting Americans was not their problem.]

Young man: Wesley told me there were two GDF guys-- (Recording pause)

(Baby crying, voice says "Shhhh") (Recording pause)

Jones: --they saw it happen and ran in the bush and dropped their machine guns. I never in my life. But there'll be more. (Recording pause)

Katsaris?: What is this? Stop it right there. (Recording pause)

Jones: You’ve got to move. Are you gonna get that medication here? You’ve got to move.

Katsaris?: Hurry up!

26:00 Jones: Marceline, they've got forty minutes. (Recording pause)

[Is this about finishing all poisoning before the GDF arrives from Matthews Ridge? Or perhaps a deadline for Marceline's sons in Georgetown to begin their revenge and suicide assignments?]

Maria Katsaris[Maria Katsaris (25y) was in the end second in power only to Carolyn Layton. She was surrogate mother to JJ's son John Victor Stoen. On Nov 18 she was very busy: finalizing poison plans, issuing revenge/suicide orders to Georgetown via radio, and arranging financial documents and cash to be carried to the Soviet embassy. On Nov 18 she had repeated to her visiting brother her accusations that their father had sexually abused her. But in a surviving JT recording, she had confided to JT comrades that the abuse charges were false.]

Maria Katsaris: You have to move, and the people that are standing there in the aisle, go stand in the radio room yard, but everybody get behind the table and back this way, okay?

Distant woman: Please everybody hurry. (Recording pause)

Jones: There's nothing to it.

Katsaris:  There’s nothing to worry about. Everybody keep calm and try and keep your children calm.

Joyce TouchetteJudy Ijames[Judy Ijames (28) was a nurse at JT. Or this might be Joyce Touchette (45), who is named by Stanley Clayton as helping mix the poison and helping administer it.]

Judy Ijames?: Have the older children give love to the little ones that act scared.

Katsaris: And the older children can help love the little children and, and reassure them. (Recording pause) --children aren't crying from pain. It’s just a little bitter tasting. They’re not crying out of any pain. (Recording pause)

Annie McGowan[Annie McGowan (70) was an elderly woman to whom PT bank accounts were transferred after the 1978 defections of PT financial secretaries Debbie Layton and Terri Buford. Katsaris and McGowan signed letters leaving PT funds to the Soviet embassy, and Katsaris gave cash and the letters in 3 suitcases to Michael Prokes and Tim and Mike Carter to carry out of JT.]

26:30 Katsaris: Annie McGowan, can I please see you back-- (Recording pause)

McElvane: --things I used to do before I came here. So let me tell you about it. It might make a lot of you feel a little more comfortable. Sit down and be quiet, please. One of the things I used to do– I used to be a therapist. And the kind of therapy that I did had to do with reincarnation in past life situations.

Jones: Yes, yes, yes.

McElvane: And every time anybody had the experience of going into a past life (baby cries), I was fortunate enough through Father to be able to let them experience it all the way through their death, so to speak. And everybody was so happy when they made that step to the other side.

Jones: When you step through the door there's no other thing you can do but step that way.  It’s the only way to step. (Baby cries, shrieks) That choice is not ours now. It’s out of our hands. (Child shrieks)

McElvane: If you have a body that’s been crippled, suddenly you have the kind of body that you want to have.

Jones: Try to calm. Tell 'em it's something to give 'em a little rest, a little rest. Calm the children.

McElvane: It feels good. It never felt so good, family, I tell you. You’ve never felt so good as how that feels. (Child cries No!)

Jones: Thank you. (Baby shrieks) (Recording pause)

(Children crying)

Jones, Lane, Garry[Attorneys Mark Lane and Charles Garry had already been released a few minutes earlier, soon after Don Sly was fetched from guarding them around at 21m00s on the tape.]

Jones: And I do hope that those attorneys will stay where they belong and don’t come up here. (Babies cry.) What is it?

28:00 Man: What happened?

Jones: What is it?

Man: What did you say Johnny? [Probably JJ's adopted son and security chief Johnny Brown Jones.]

Jones: Did what? (Recording pause)

Jones: (Woman groans.) It's hard, it's hard, it’s hard but only at first– only at first is it hard. It's hard only at first. Living– you’re looking at death and it only looks– living is much, much more difficult. (Affirmations) Raising up every morning and not knowing what’s going to be the night’s bringing. It’s much more difficult. It’s much more difficult. (Recording pause)

28:40 Voice: Let's get it o(ver with?)

Irene Edwards[Irene Edwards (57) and her husband James were devoted PT members originally from the Gulf Coast.]

Irene Edwards: I just want to say something to everyone that I see that is standing around and, or crying. This is nothing to cry about. This is something we should all rejoice about. We should be happy about this. (Applause) They always told us that we should cry when you’re coming into this world. But when we’re leaving it, and we’re leaving it peaceful, I think we should be happy about this. I was just thinking about Jim Jones. He just has suffered and suffered and suffered. (Applause) We -- he is the only God, and he don’t even have a chance to enjoy hisself here. (Applause) I wanted to say one more thing, This is one thing I want to say. That’s few that’s gone. There’s many more here. He's still-- We-- That’s not all of us. That’s not all yet. That’s just a few that has got a chance to get to the one that they should tell their story to -- their lives[?] to. I’m looking at so many people crying. I wish you would not cry. And just thank Father. Just thank him.  I've been here about...

(sustained applause)

30:00 Edwards: I’ve been here uh one year and nine months. And I never felt better in my life. Not in San Francisco. But until I came to Jonestown. I've enjoyed this life. I've had a beautiful life. And I don’t see nothing for us to be crying about. We should be happy. At least I am. (Unintelligible)

(Sustained applause) (Recording pause)

30:45 Black Woman: … wouldn't be alive today. I just like to thank Dad cause he was the only one that stood up for me when I needed him. And thank you, Dad.  (Applause) (Recording pause)

30:55 White Woman: I’m glad you’re my brothers and sisters, and I’m glad to be here.

31:00 Jones: [Impatiently cuts her off] We don't have a lot of testimonies.

White Woman: Okay.

Jones: Let's get on with it, please.

Woman: --quiet, you're right.

Jones: Please. For God’s sake, let’s get on with it. We’ve lived– we’ve lived as no other people have lived and loved. We’ve had as much of this world as you’re gonna get. Let’s just be done with it. Let’s be done with the agony of it. (Applause) (Recording pause)

Jones: It’s far, far harder to have to watch you every day, die slowly– and from the time you’re a child until the time you get gray, you’re dying. (Acclamation) (Recording pause)

Jones: --dishonest, and I’m sure that they’ll– they’ll pay for it. They’ll pay for it. This is a revolutionary suicide. This is not a self-destructive suicide. So they’ll pay for this. They brought this upon us. And they’ll pay for that. I leave that destiny to them.

Voices: (Child screams, cries) You're all right, you're all right, you're all right. (Recording pause)

Jones: --who wants to go with their child has a right to go with their child. (Baby cries) I think it’s humane. I want to go– I want to see you go, though. They can take me and do as they– whatever they want to do. I want to see you go. I don’t want to see you go through this hell no more. No more. No more. No more. (Child screams)

32:05 Black women's voices: --make it a quick death, especially if--

Jones: We’re trying. If everybody will relax. The best thing you do to relax, and you will have no problem. You’ll have no problem with this thing if you just relax. (Recording pause)

Black Man with lisp: …of the children here a great deal because of Jim Jones. And the way the children are laying there now. I’d rather see them lay like that than to see them have to die like the Jews did, which was pitiful anyhow. And I just like to thank Dad for giving us life and also death. And I appreciate the fact, the way our children are going. (Child yells) Because, like Dad said, when they come in, what they’re gonna do to our children– they’re gonna massacre our children. (Affirmations) And also the ones that they take, capture, they’re gonna just let them grow up and be dummies like they want them to be. And not grow up to be a socialist like the one and only Jim Jones. So I’d like to thank Dad for the opportunity for letting Jonestown be not what it could be, but what Jonestown is. Thank you, Dad. (Applause) (Recording pause)

33:35 Jones: --it’s not to be afeared. It is not to be feared. It is a friend. It’s a friend (Child cries) (Recording pause)

Jones: --sitting there, show your love for one another. (Recording pause)

Jones: They just heard they’re coming, don’t let them take him. (Recording pause)

Jones: -- calm. Let’s get calm. Let’s get calm. (Children screaming) (Recording pause)

Jones: We had nothing we could do. We can’t– we can’t separate ourselves from our own people.

(Children screaming)

34:05 Man: C'mon, mom! (Overlapping voices and screams) (Recording pause)

Jones: --for twenty years laying in some old rotten nursing home.

(Voices) (Recording pause)

Jones: --taking us through all these anguish years. They took us and put us in chains and that’s nothing. This, this is, that's, that, there’s no comparison to that, to this. They’ve robbed us of our land, and they’ve taken us and driven us until we tried to find ourselves. We tried to find a new beginning. But it’s too late. You can’t separate yourself from your brother and your sister. (Affirmations) No way I’m going to do it. I refuse. I don’t know who fired the shot. I don’t know who killed the congressman. But as far as I am concerned, I killed him. You understand what I’m saying? I killed him. He had no business coming. I told him not to come.

Woman [maybe Marceline]: That's right. That's right. (Recording pause)

35:00 (42 continuous seconds of children crying, overlapping voices) (Recording pause)

Jones: --die with respect, die with a degree of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity. Don’t lay down with tears and agony. There’s nothing to death. It’s like Mac said, it’s just stepping over to another plane. Don’t be this way. Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity.

Voices: That's right.

Jones: (Groan) Soon we will have no choice. Now we have some choice. Do you think they’re gonna allow this to be done– allow us to get by with this? You must be insane. (Children crying) (Recording pause) Look children, it’s just something to put you to rest. (Recording pause) Oh, God.

(Children crying. Child vocalizes.)

36:45 Jones: Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother, please.

Woman shrieks: Don't take my (children?)--

[This woman sounds very much like Bonnie Simon, who that afternoon yelled "Don't you take my kids!" when her husband tried to take their kids with Ryan. The entire Simon family stayed and died.]

Jones: Mother, please, please, please. Don’t– don’t do this. Don’t do this. (Recording pause) Lay down your life with your child. But don’t do this. (Recording pause)

37:00 Woman [maybe Marceline]: --want the children out of S.C.U.(Recording pause)

[In the Special Care Unit up to a half dozen dissident or troublesome residents were kept under sedation. Four bodies were found there, one of which surely was Gene Chaiken, a PT attorney who had dissented too much.]

Jones: Free at last. (Applause) (Recording pause)

Jones: Peace– keep your emotions down. Keep your emotions down. (Child shrieks) (Recording pause) Children, it will not hurt. If you’ll be– if you’ll be quiet. If you’ll be quiet.

Child: No! No! (Recording pause)

(15 seconds of children screaming) (Recording pause)

Jones: It’s never been done before, you say. (Child cries) It’s been done by every tribe in history. Every tribe facing annihilation. (Affirmation) All the Indians of the Amazon are doing it right now. They refuse to bring any babies into the world. They kill every child that comes into the world. (Child cries) Because they don’t want to live in this kind of a world. (Child cries) (Recording pause)

Jones: So be patient. Be patient. (Children screaming.) Death is– I tell you, I don’t care how many screams you hear. I don’t care how many anguished cries. (Children screaming) Death is a million times preferable to ten more days of this life. (Child shrieks) If you knew what was ahead of you– if you knew what was ahead of you, you’d be glad to be stepping over tonight.

Woman: (Unintelligible) is right. (Recording pause)

Jones: Death, death, death is common to people. (Children scream) And the Eskimos, they take death in their stride. Let’s be dignit– let’s be dignified. (Child screams) If you'll quit tell them they’re dying– if you adults would stop some of this nonsense. Adults, (woman yells) adults, adults. I call on you to stop this nonsense. (That's right!) I call on you to quit exciting your children when all they’re doing is going to a quiet rest. (That's right!) I call on you to stop this now if you have any respect at all. Are we black, proud, and Socialist, or what are we? (Affirmations) Now stop this nonsense. Don’t carry this on anymore. You’re exciting your children. (Affirmations) (Recording pause)

Jones:  --all over, and it's good. (Recording pause) No, no sorrow– that it’s all over. I’m glad it’s over.

Voices: That's right! (Recording pause)

Jones: --hurry, hurry my children. Hurry. All I say, let's not fall into the hands of the enemy. Hurry, my children. (Child crying) Hurry. There are seniors out here that I’m concerned about. Hurry. I don’t want to leave my seniors to this mess. (Child crying) (Recording pause) Quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly. (Recording pause)

39:30 Jones: Sisters, good knowing you. No more pain, Al. No more pain, I said, Al. No more pain.

[Unclear who "Al" is.]

Katsaris: Adults (unintelligible)...

Jones: Jim Cobb is laying on the airfield dead at this moment. 

Jim Cobb[Concerned relative Jim Cobb, one of the "8 revolutionaries" from 1973, was uninjured in the airstrip attack. Cobb's family joined PT in Indiana in the 1950s. Cobb lost his mother, brother, and three sisters on Nov 18. None of the four visiting concerned relatives were able to persuade any relatives to leave.]

(Vigorous cheers and applause)

Jones: Remember the [concerned relative Beverly] Oliver woman said she– she’d come over and kill me if her sons wouldn’t stop her? These, these are the people– the peddlers of hate. (Child cries) All we’re doing is laying down our life. We’re not letting them take our life. We’re laying down our life. (Affirmations)  (Recording pause)

40:00 Jones: --taking their lives. We just want peace. (Recording pause)

40:10 Billy OliverBilly Oliver: All I would like to say is that my, uhm– my so-called parents was filled with so much hate–

Jones: (clapping in admonition) Stop this, stop this, stop this, parents. Stop this crying, hollering. (Recording pause)

Oliver: – hate and treachery. I think you people out here should think about how your relatives was and be glad about that the childrens are being laid to rest. And all I’d like to say is that I thank Dad for making me strong to stand with it all and make me ready for it. (Child cries) Thank you. (Affirmation) (Recording pause)

Jones: --all they do is taking a drink. They take it to go to sleep. That’s what death is, sleep. (Children screaming) (Recording pause) --of it, I’m tired of it all. (Recording pause)

40:45 Woman: --loving thing we could have ever done, most loving thing all of us could have done (Child cries), and it’s been a pleasure walking with all of you in this revolutionary struggle. (Child crying)  No other way I would rather go than to give my life for socialism, communism, (Child cries) and I thank Dad very, very much. (Affirmation) (Recording pause)

41:00 Elderly Woman: --that uh, Dad’s love and mercy, goodness and kindness and bring us to this land of freedom. His love– his mother was the advance– the advance guard to socialism. And his love, his mercy shall go on forever unto the fields of time--

Jones: Where’s the vat, the vat, the vat? Where’s the vat with the Green C? CN.

Elderly Woman: --go onto the-- fine, and thank you, Dad.

Man: Who has the vat?

Woman: Quiet!

41:20 Jones: The vat with the green CN, please. (Child cries) Bring it here so the adults can begin. (Recording pause)

Jones: --beg you, don’t, don’t fail to follow my advice. You’ll be sorry. (Child cries) You’ll be sorry. (Recording pause)

Jones: --that we do it, than that they do it.

Voices: That's right! That's right! (Recording pause)

Jones: --have trust. You have to step across. (Child crying)

Jones: We used to sing this world, this world's not our home – well, it sure isn’t – (Child cries) (Recording pause) we were saying– it sure wasn’t.

Woman: That's right, Dad.

Child: I don't want-- (Recording pause)

Jones: He doesn’t want to. Tell him. All he’s doing– if they will tell him– assure these children. Can’t some people assure these children of the relaxation of stepping over to the next plane? (Recording pause) We've set an example for others. We've set– one thousand people who said, we don’t like the way the world is. (Affirmations)

Jones: (Please stop?) [Probably not "Take some"] (Recording pause)

Jones: --take our life from us. (Baby cries) (Affirmations) We laid it down. [John 10:18] We got tired. (Affirmations)

Woman: Greatest day ever.

Woman: --happy times.

Jones: We didn’t commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting (Baby cries) the conditions of an inhumane world.

Voices: Right.

Jones: (Groans)

(42:42 No more Nov 18 recording on the remaining 100secs of tape available with half-speed ghost recording of music.)