Sources
Open Questions
- How many times did
JJ radio revenge/suicide orders to Lamaha Gardens, when, and
to which of his sons? Both Stephen and Jimmy report receiving
such orders, apparently at different times.
- Timeline of radio
calls between JT and SF PT?
- Timeline of radio
calls from Kaituma to Guyana authorities?
- When Tim Carter
went to the pavilion and noticed his dying wife and son, was
it to 1) to ask Maria Katsaris whether John Stoen and Kimo
Layton should go to the pavilion. [Inquest79], or 2) ask JJ if
a PT truck should take the couriers as far as the JT gate?
[Guinn18]
- Assuming Anne Moore
died of the final shot, did JJ die in the previous set of
shots heard by Clayton -- the ones presumed for Mr. Muggs and
dogs? Or could there have been a shot he hasn't reported?
Timeline
A question mark after
a time indicates uncertainty whether the event happened before
or after the preceding/subsequent events.
0800? Taking
his 3 daughters out of school for a "picnic", Julius Evans in a
group of 9 defectors slip out of JT to walk to Matthews Ridge.
The group includes Leslie Wagner-Wilson, wife of JT security
chief Joe Wilson, who for much of the day searches JT for his
missing wife and infant son. In the jungle they are joined by 2
other defectors, including security guard Robert Paul. Paul's
wife and Wagner's sister would become the first two to take
poison, also each poisoning her own 1-yr-old child.
0830 Ed Crenshaw
drives Herb Newell and Cliff Gieg to Port Kaituma to take the
Cudjoe to Kumaka
to pick up supplies.
Crenshaw says to Herb Newell "by the time we returned the next
day, he [Ed] and the others would be dead". [Inquest79]
1030 [1030: Reiterman FBI78] [1030: Hall87] [1030:
Scheer11] [1000-1100: Mac22] [1130: Mike Carter FBI78] Journalists
and relatives return to JT from Port Kaituma via PT truck.
1100 [1100: Hall87] Gosney and Bagby approach Dwyer about
leaving JT.
1100 [1100: Guinn18]
Marceline begins JT tour for journalists: medical clinic,
nursery, youth dance group, Pittmann Gardens.
1200 [1200 Hall87] Ryan records oral statements by "people
who intended to leave" incl. Bagby [Hall87]
1200 [early afternoon: Hall87] [around noon: Mac22] ["by
approximately noon, several members of the Parks family...":
Dwyer78] Edith Parks approaches Don Harris asking to leave,
and he informs Speier.
1230 Edith, Patty, Brenda Parks and Chris O'Neal tell
Speier they wish to leave, as JJ enters pavilion. JJ confers with
these 4 defectors and Dwyer.
1230 Tommy Bogue sees Edith Parks defecting, and alerts
the Bogue and Simon families.
1240 [1330 Mike Carter Inquest79] Dwyer via JT radio orders
an extra plane. On tape Q1289
we hear Dwyer ask for an extra plane to carry "about six people"
who want to leave. The Ryan party is 20mins from leaving on the
1hr trip to the airstrip on time for their 2pm departure.
1300? Harris interviews Cobb
family, then interviews Maria and Steve Katsaris.
1315? JJ confers with entire Parks family in
pavilion. Nearby are Ryan, Dwyer, Lane, Garry, Carolyn and
other JT leaders.
1315? [20-30mins after previous message: Mike Carter
Inquest79] Dwyer via JT radio counts defectors: 2 (Gosney, Bagby)
plus a family of 7 (Parks)
1325? Harris interviews Houston family, Oliver family.
1330 Don Harris interviews JJ, confronts him with Gosney
note.
1345? Rain starts in JT.
1400 [1330-1400: Mac22] Bogues ask to leave, confer with JJ
in pavilion.
1415 [1hr after previous message: Mike Carter Inquest79]
Dwyer via JT radio announces 12 more defectors (6 Bogues and 6
Simons, though Bonnie Simon bitterly opposed leaving).
1420 [1530: Mac22] Parks family, Gosney, Bagby walk to
truck as Marceline pages Bonnie Simon. Al Simon takes his 3 kids
and dad toward the truck, but Bonnie's protest keeps the kids in
JT. Al and his dad choose to stay with the kids.
1430 [1430: Scheer11] [1400: Cobb FBI78] Bogue family walks
to dump truck, joining the journalists and other defectors. The
truck starts to depart, but (deliberately?) gets stuck.
1440 [1500: Reiterman FBI78] Don Sly attacks Rep. Ryan with
a knife.
1450 [1330-1400: Rhodes Inquest79] [1400: Clayton
Inquest79] [1515: Moore85] [1530-1545: Raven82] [1600: Prokes
Inquest79] Shooters Larry Layton and Wes Breidenbach board truck
as it leaves, driven by shooter Ed Crenshaw. PT residents cheer
when told by JJ that Ryan and the defectors "weren't going
anywhere". [Odell Rhodes quoted by Brenda Parks FBI78]
1500 Tractor-trailer of shooters presumably leaves shortly
after the dump truck leaves.
1515 Prokes: "After [Ryan truck] left, Maria Katsaris
came rushing up to me telling me that a bunch of settlers [had]
gone to get Ryan and the situation is out of control and asked
me to go down to her home and wait." [Inquest78]
1530 [45min after departing: Hall87] Defector truck reaches
JT gate. Shooter Joe Wilson boards truck, rides it to airstrip.
1530 [1500-1600: Guinn18] JJ tells Jimmy Jones in
Georgetown via radio to "meet Mr. Frazier" (mass suicide). Jimmy
dispatches someone (Laura Kohl?) to retrieve his brothers and the
rest of the basketball team from a movie theater. (Stephen reports
hearing such a JJ radio order below, so JJ perhaps made multiple
such radio calls.)
1600 [1545-1600: Mike Carter Inquest79] [1530: Hall87]
Marceline PA announcement: everything fine, go home and stay
there. Maria Katsaris has Mike Carter tell Georgetown of a (fake)
generator problem, then takes a radio part to disable it. Carter
remains in the radio room for 45 more mins, until the meeting is
called.
1630 [about 1530: Dwyer78] [1615: Guinn18] [1630: Raven82]
[1630: Annib78] [1630:
Hall87] [1630: Feinsod81] Defectors arrive at Kaituma airstrip.
Dump truck drives Dwyer and Annibourne to Port Kaituma.
1645 [15min after arriving: Scheer11] Cessna and then Twin
Otter arrive at airstrip. JT tractor-trailer passes through Port
Kaituma on its way to the airstrip, and the dump truck follows it,
abandoning Dwyer and Annibourne at Port Kaituma.
1700 Sharon Amos sends Laura Kohl to fetch PT basketball
team from practice. [Kohl10] (But cf. Guinn18 above on fetching
team from movie theater.)
1700? ["earlier" before 1800: Raven82] Stephen Jones over
Lamaha Gardens radio hears JJ order revenge/suicide. Paula Adams
and Debbie Touchette advise that such orders have always been
canceled in the past.
1700 Dwyer and Annibourne return to airstrip in borrowed
truck with District Officer Thomas, truck owner and local
businessman Jeffrey Semple, his 2 small children, and a constable
with shotgun. [Dwyer78]
1700 [around 1600: Guinn18] [1700: Scheer11] [30min
after Marceline stand-down: Rhodes, Clayton Inquest79] PA summons
all PT members to the pavilion. Lane and Garry meet at school near
pavilion with JJ, Marceline, Beam, McElvane, Katsaris, Johnny
Jones, Harriet Tropp. [Lane80] Summons was by JJ himself, who also
announced security would check every building. [Rhodes Inquest79]
(Guinn18 says Lew Jones made the announcement.) Tim Carter carries
son Malcolm toward pavilion while wife Gloria fetches more
diapers. [Guinn18]
1700
[1700 Raven82] Mike Carter sends Morse code to SF: Carolyn
wants to tell Sandy Bradshaw something. [Moore85] says
this was last communication to SF from JT.
? Tom Adams
turns off the ham radio in SF to prevent further
revenge/suicide orders.
1705
[1745: Hall87] Katsaris says something privately to JJ, who
dispatches Lew Jones to take Lane and Garry to be guarded at East
House by Don Sly. [Lane80]
1705 Shirley Smith (30) dances crazily on pavilion stage,
shouting about being a "freedom fighter".
1710 Tim Carter carrying son Malcom approaches JJ pow-wow
but JJ angrily brushes him off. [Lane80] [Guinn18] Carter
overhears Dick Tropp argue to JJ against suicide, and JJ ask
Katsaris if there is any way to make the poison taste less bitter.
[Guinn18]
1710 [1645-1700: Raven82] [1700:
Annib78] [1700:
Hall87] [1700: Fiensod81] [1750: Astil Paul - Witness:JT] Airstrip
assassins open fire, killing Ryan, Harris, Brown, Robinson, Patty
Parks. Larry Layton opens fire in the Cessna, wounding Gosney and
Bagby. Raven82 says that "around 5pm", the Otter's pilot was in
radio contact with Timehri airport in Georgetown during the
shooting.
1715 Tim Carter approaches JJ and offers to leave JT with
his wife and son and go kill Tim Stoen. JJ replies that Carter
would have to "take care of" his son first. Katsaris approaches Tim and Mike
Carter near the monkey cage about helping Prokes carry 3
suitcases of money to Soviet embassy. She leads them to a
room near the radio shack, and waits for Katsaris to go
clear the plan with JJ. [Inquest79][Guinn18]
1715 Airstrip shooters head back
to JT, leaving Larry Layton in defectors' custody. Pilot(s) at
airstrip radio word of the shooting to Georgetown?
1715 [shortly after 5pm Scheer11] Katsaris radios revenge
orders to Georgetown: "A lot of people have seen Mr. Fraser. I
think Mrs. Brownfield has offered to help ... get S.B. to help.”
[Sandy Bradshaw was radio operator in SF PT.] U.S. Consul Ellice
monitors this traffic and later calls Ambassador Burke to alert
him.
1715 DT01m [10-15min after summons: Rhodes Inquest79]
[1700: Fiensod81] JJ joins meeting at pavilion, ringed by nearly
50 guards armed with crossbows and guns. JJ: "they are in pursuit
right now to kill them". JJ has foreknowledge that Larry Layton
and the Red Brigade are both going to attack the departing
visitors.
1720? The Otter pilot takes off in the Cessna with both
planes' aircrew and injured Bagby. Dwyer tries to get the plane to
stop, but the pilot points backwards toward the injured Bagby.
Pilot's hand signal makes Dwyer think shooters are returning.
[Dwyer78] Dwyer's shouted warning sends survivors fleeing to the
jungle. Tommy (17) & Teena (23) Bogue, Tracy & Brenda
Parks, and Chris O'Neal will be lost for nearly 3 days.
1720 DT05m Christine Miller begins debating suicide. JJ
says that it's too late because the hit squad has "started too
kill".
1725 [1730 Scheer11] [1700 to 1730 Clayton Inquest79] Larry
Schacht and Joyce Touchette retrieve steel drum and Flavor-Aid
from kitchen. Lew Jones tells kitchen crew to report to the
pavilion.
1800 [approximately 1800: Raven82] Amos calls Bradshaw in
SF: "Some people have gone to see Mrs. Frazier. Others will
[too]."
1800 Katsaris returns to Carters with JJ's approval, and
sends them to their cottages to change clothes and fetch their
suitcases, then to West House, where Prokes and Carolyn Moore were
typing financial letters. Also there: Marilee Bogue entertaining
John Victor and Kimo; Anne Moore shuffling paperwork. [Guinn18]
1800 DT20m Airstrip shooters return as Christine Miller
gives up debate. JJ: "Take Dwyer to the East House". JJ apparently
assumed that Dwyer was returning to PT, as he had planned. JJ
requests the poison vats via loudspeaker, and 10-15 people brought
the poison and syringes. [Rhodes] Security team fetches ammo &
~20 guns from a guard shack near East House. [Lane80, Miller
debate about Russia is mentioned in next paragraph.]
1800 DT21m Voice mentions "going to get Ujara" (Don Sly)
who was summoned from guarding lawyers Lane and Garry at East
House. [Lane80]
1800 Kohl and basketball team return to Lamaha Gardens to
find 20 GDF soldiers checking for problems. [Kohl10]
1810 Lane hears JJ on PA: "die with some dignity" (cf.
DT36m). [Lane80] Lane and Garry released from East House by Garry
"Poncho" Johnson and "Johnson from L.A.". [Lane80] Garry
"overheard a man, who appeared to be somewhere nearby, state
gruffly, 'Let’s not be divisive', followed by three gunshots".
[Scheer11] No gunshots at this time are reported by Clayton,
Rhodes, or Carters.
1810 First poisonings: Ruletta Brown Paul (24) went first,
poisoning her 18-month-old son Robert Paul Jr and then
herself. Second to poison herself and her 1-yr-old son Deron
was "Michelle Wilson" i.e. Michelle Wagner Fitch (24).
[Feinsod81]
Ruletta's husband Robert Paul was one of the eleven who had
quietly escaped into the jungle that morning. Wagner-Fitch was
sister of Leslie Wagner-Wilson, who had also escaped that morning
with her own young son. Her husband, security chief and airstrip
shooter Joe Wilson, had searched for them much of the day. [But
Wagner08 says that Clayton and Rhodes "told me my sister went
down fighting". Wagner also believes the FBI is hiding
evidence that many at JT died of gunshots.]
1810 DT21m JJ: "Gather in folks, it's easy." First
evidence on DT that poisoning has begun.
1810 DT22m JJ: "It's too late. The congressman has been
murdered. Red Brigade showed them justice."
1815 Anne Moore in West House tells Tim Carter to go ask Maria Katsaris
whether John Stoen and Kimo Layton should go to the pavilion.
[Inquest79] Or: Carter volunteers to ask JJ if a PT truck should
take the couriers as far as the JT gate. [Guinn18]
1815 Guard Ray Jones (41, white husband of JJ
adopted white daughter Agnes) asks Grover Davis (78) "Where do you
think you're going?" Davis: "I don't want to die." Jones says
"Have a good life" and let him pass. Davis hides in a ditch at the
edge of JT.
1815 DT26 Katsaris directs people into lines for the
poisoning. Rhodes, a JT teacher, gets up from his seat and starts
comforting dying children.
1815 DT26 Katsaris pages Annie McGowan, presumably to get
her to sign the financial letters carried by Prokes and the
Carters.
1815 DT26 JJ says "Marceline, they've got forty minutes."
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?
1820 Tim Carter goes to the pavilion and sees 10-15 bodies
on the ground. [Inquest78] Carter approaches JJ on stage to
ask if a vehicle can carry the couriers to the PT gate. JJ says
no, and "Son, I'm sorry it had to end this way." Carter notices
his wife Gloria holding their son Malcolm as Sharon Cobb squirts
poison into his mouth. Goes to them and embraces his dead son and
dying wife. Then goes back to West House for courier mission. [Guinn18]
1826 End of nautical twilight at JT on Nov 18.
Sunset was 1738, civil twilight was 1800, and astronomical
twilight was 1851. After about 1830, it's too dark to easily walk
around or see people.
1830 Tim Carter returns to West House. Telling Carolyn
Layton that his son was dead, she replies "we had no other
choice". Prokes and Carters leave
with the suitcases. [Guinn18]
1830? Maria Katsaris makes another radio call to Sharon
Amos in Georgetown. She says in code that a lot of people have
died ("visit Mr. Fraser"), and that more will be dying: "they're
working on it". Orders revenge killings ("Brownfield!
Brownfield!") and suicide. Amos says the children "don't have any
vehicles" to meet Mr. Fraser. [Q1290] Katsaris replies in code:
K-N-I.
1830 GDF soldiers leave Lamaha Gardens. Stephen Jones,
Sharon Amos, and some others meet privately. Stephen begins
calling SF to countermand any JT orders. Most Lamaha Gardens PT
members walked to a PNC talent show a few blocks away. [Kohl10]
1835 DT32 Man mentions "the way the children are laying
there now." Still in children phase of poisoning.
1835 Odell Rhodes helps Phyllis Chaiken look for a
stethoscope, then hides under the senior citizens building as "it
was just about getting dark", staying there 30mins. "I did not see
any adult settler refusing to drink poison. When I left there were
only a few adults who had taken poison." [Rhodes Inquest79]
1840 DT37 JJ: "Mother, Mother, Mother, please. Lay down
your life with your child." Prokes and Carters hear this in
the distance, as do Lane and Garry. (Lane says he then heard
"several volleys of shots", but Garry says Lane wildly exaggerated
the number of shots heard. Clayton reports no gunfire anywhere
near this time.)
1845 DT41 JJ: "Bring [the vat] here so the adults can
begin."
1845 [1730 Mike Carter Inquest79] Prokes and the Carters
reach banana grove 1km away, out of PA earshot, bury some money.
Too dark to read letter to Soviet embassy.
1850 DT42 JJ pauses the Death Tape recording as babies are
still crying. No more Nov 18 recording on
the remaining 100secs of tape available
1900 [1845 Raven82] [1900 Lane80] Lane and Garry
see Prokes and the Carters on the other side of the road carrying
two cases on their backs, and hide from them.
1915 [1900-1930: Clayton Inquest79] Pavilion crowd was down
to 100-200 still alive.
1930 [30mins after hiding: Rhodes Inquest79] PA
announcement for all armed persons (Clayton says 20-25) to go to
the radio room. JJ tells the remaining residents to exchange a
final embrace. Rhodes leaves hiding spot, runs through bakery,
physiotherapy, and cooking into jungle towards JT entrance, and
walks toward Port Kaituma. [Inquest79]
1930 Stephen Jones and other basketball teammates
confront Tim Stoen at the Pegasus hotel.
1935 [1845 Raven82] Clayton slips into the jungle past
guard Ray Jones, telling him he was going to the school tent to
say goodbyes. [Inquest79]
2000 [2100 Raven82] [30-45min after escaping: Inquest79]
Clayton in jungle hears a loud cheer from JT.
2045 Sharon Amos kills herself and her 3 kids. [Guinn:
"sometime after 7pm"]
2100 Lee Ingram calls twice to SF from Georgetown to cancel
White Night. (Could any such calls from Ingram or Stephen have
been placed while Amos was alive.)
2100 [2130 Raven82] [1hr after cheer: Inquest79] Clayton in
jungle hears 5 shots from JT, silencing the chimp Mr. Muggs and
some dogs.
2230 [2245 Raven82] [1-2hr after previous shots: Inquest79]
[1hr after previous shots: Scheer11] Clayton while retrieving
passport hears a final shot in JT, and leaves.
2300 [about 2300: Dwyer78] Thomas arrives at the taverns to
tell Dwyer he has called via radio for a rescue plane.
2330 Clayton reaches house of Guyanese Kelly Foran.
0000 [2330-0030: Rhodes Inquest79] Rhodes reaches Port
Kaituma constabulary.
0000 Prokes & Carters arrested at Port Kaituma
waterfront by Matarakai Development Authority security guard Paul
Adams [Inquest79]. Prokes: "We were going to turn ourselves in,
but were seized by a guard."