Jonestown survivors weigh in on site becoming tourist attraction

Jonestown is seared into the American psyche as one the darkest tragedies of the modern era, where 918 people “drank the Kool Aid” and ended their lives under the command of cult leader Jim Jones.

Located in the remote Guyanese jungle, the site where the army first discovered the mass of dead bodies of People’s Temple members in 1978 is now opening as a somewhat morbid tourist attraction. It is designed to pay somber tribute in the manner of Auschwitz and the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

The curious can pay $750 to visit the clearing where Jones’ religious cult, mostly US citizens who had traveled with him to Guyana, unraveled in the most gruesome way imaginable.

And there were survivors — although the overall story of Jones’ followers poisoning themselves with cyanide-laced fruit punch (it was actually an off-brand version of Kool-Aid called Flavor-Aid) is notorious, lesser known are how around 80 of Jones’ acolytes survived.

Some did it by getting lucky and being out of town when the poisonous drinks were served, including Jones’ son Stephan Gandhi Jones, who was at a basketball tournament.

Others slipped out unseen, running into the jungle or hiding in the camp’s cupboards.

About 18 of Jones’ followers took Congressman Leo Ryan – who’s visit to the camp sparked the mass suicide – up on his offer to leave the religious enclave with him.

Jordan Vilchez, now 67, who joined the People’s Church at 12 and remained there until the end, was fortunate enough to be in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, when the mass suicides went down.

“I created a job for myself, talking about Jonestown to the Guyanese community. That task was acceptable to the leadership, and it allowed me to not spend so much time in Jonestown,” she told The Post.

Hearing over a CB radio the Jonestown suicides were happening, she was horrified but not entirely surprised.

“There had been discussions about a mass suicide,” said Vilchez, who lost two sisters and two nephews to the forced killings.

“In some circles, there were practice drills. There was talk of ‘Revolutionary Suicide’. There was a running narrative of us being persecuted.

“Unbeknownst to us, the world was closing in on Jim. Because of his pathological narcissism, he was not going to go down alone. People were stuck and emotionally drained – I got caught up in it and was not going to escape. Over the years, we got more hooked in. We were told that America would become a police state and our safety was in being part of this group.”

Vilchez is against the new tours to the site – where little remains, apart from a commemorative stone and the entrance archway.

 “It seems silly. It’s something that people will make money from. It seems like an abuse.”

The Guyanese tourism company behind the trips, Wanderlust Adventures GY, defend their position.

“We want to present things in a way that is responsible and educational,” Roselyn Sewcharran, founder of the company, told The Post.

During the overnight trip to Jonestown “we talk about the social and political issues, the dangers of following with blind faith and the lessons learned from the Jonestown tragedy.”

The People’s Temple was founded by Jim Jones, a Communist sympathizer, in Indianapolis, in 1955. He put on fake healings to generate income and promoted the idea that all races and ethnicities would be welcome.

In 1961, with the cold war top of mind for most American, Jones claimed to have a vision that Indianapolis would be decimated by nuclear attack. The People’s Temple relocated to California, with its main headquarters in San Francisco.

Jones began proclaiming, “I am come as God Socialist [sic].”

Once in the heavily hippie-fied Frisco, Jones began dabbling in illicit drugs and his sense of paranoia is said to have ratcheted up.  

Jones, who had a particularly magnetic personality, put up a convincing argument for belonging and in 1974, the People’s Temple rented more than 3,800 acres in Guyana, a tropical country which borders Venezuela.

Jones promised to create a “socialist paradise,” and reminded followers how he’d read that in the event of a nuclear war, South America was the safest place to be.

He sent a cadre of followers to set things up, while he led the church in San Francisco.

Things went fairly smoothly at first. “It was great,” said Bogue, who moved to Guyana in 1976 at the age of 15 with his family. “I’d work eight hours a day, helping to build cottages and overseeing my own crew in the plant nursery. Then I’d go in the jungle and play before having a nice meal.”

Mike Touchette, another Jonestown survivor, agrees. “We built a community out of nothing in four years,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “Being in Jonestown before Jim got there was the best thing in my life.”

However, in 1977 an article filled with accusations appeared in New West magazine –including that a member’s teenage daughter was beaten so badly “her butt looked like hamburger,” driving Jones to flee to Guyana.

Within a year, things on the commune got harder, and weirder.

Survivors say there was a feeling of victimhood, perpetrated by Jones. His rambling meetings went on for hours, workdays seemed endless and it became all about ideology rather than Utopia. “It steadily got worse … Ninety-five percent of the people had no idea what was going on. It was like being stuck on an island,” Bogue said.

However, some did escape and word got back to California, prompting that state’s congressman Leo Ryan and a group of journalists to arrive in November 1978, intending to investigate complaints from escapees.

Bogue’s father was already hatching an escape plan, but when Ryan offered an opportunity to leave with him, the family said they’d join.

“It was a very high-risk opportunity,” Bogue, now 63, said about his family proceeding with Ryan and others to a landing strip where a plane waited to fly them out. “But maybe it was the best opportunity.”

When the group assembled at an airstrip to leave, cult members, including one named Larry Layton, opened fire on them. Ryan was shot dead as were three journalists and a temple member hoping to escape. Layton was later extradited, found guilty of wounding two people and served 18 years in a California prison.

Bogue, then 17, was inside the plane when its tires were shot out. He got up from his seat just as one member was shot in the head. Bogue took a bullet to the leg. When the shooting seemed to have abated, he and his sister ran off into the bordering jungle.

Back at camp, knowing he’d be implicated in the death of a US senator, Jones gave the command to his faithful that it was time for Revolutionary Suicide. Syringes of cyanide were squirted into juice and sandwiches and consumed by the congregation – the children first. Jones shot himself in the head.

Despite his injury, Bogue survived in the jungle for three days.

 “I was saved by maggots. They ate the gangrene. And then, during the third morning, I became delirious. I lost all sense of direction. But I was with my sister and three others from [another] family.”

They were found and he was reunited with his father. They made their way back to the US shortly after. Nearly 47 years later Bogue works as an auto mechanic and serves as vice mayor of Dixon, CA.

“I think it’s great to turn it into a tourist attraction and a memorial,” he said, “I’ve already been back there three times and the jungle is starting to reclaim the area. I would love to be a consultant on something like that.”