RedHanded - Episode 379 - Jim Jones Part 1: The Journey to Jonestown

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

On the 18th of November 1978, 909 men, women, and children were killed by chemical-laced Flav-Or-Aid in the Guyanese jungle, all at the will of one man - Jim Jones. It was the largest loss of American lives since the Second World War. That’s what everyone remembers.But despite the notorious “Jonestown Massacre” being forever etched into the public consciousness, few people know how almost 1000 people ended up living in the jungle, thinking they were fighting the Capitalist machine, whilst starving half to death, and following the words of a meth-addled maniac.This is the first part of their story. Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed and the Jungle. Uh-oh. Mm-hmm. Please tell everybody. Welcome to Red Handed and the Jungle. Uh oh. Mm-hmm. Please tell everybody the fun fact that you learned last week. So I learned that there is going to be a film about Jonestown starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jim Jones. Mm-hmm. And I've been speaking to loads of people about who they wouldrio as Jim Jones. And I've been speaking to loads of people

about who they would cast as Jim Jones. And I think the best option, I wanted Ralph Fiennes, but Robin Williams would have fucking killed it. I think Ralph Fiennes just is not chonky enough. But I mean, look at the Penguin. They can chonk him. This is penguin. They can chonk him. This is true.

They can chonk him. This is true. And in his younger life, Jim Jones was quite svelte. It's just when he gets on the fucking speed, he blows up like a whale. But what I learned is that the director who is on the Jonestown film project is most famous for his direction of the jack black edition of jumanji which is called

welcome to the jungle full circle i read that in an article and i was like you just leave that one out wouldn't you they didn't even like make a point of it no no not at all it's known for blah blah and blah blah and blah blah and welcome to the jungle my jaw was on the fucking floor and i was like am i the only person reading this with my mouth agape absolute missed opportunity suck that person but it is good because we can talk about it here we most certainly can. No plagiarism, because they didn't make that joke. No, and we also have a chapter on cults in the book where Jonestown is heavily featured. So if there are similarities between this and the chapter in our book, it's because the true in true crime means it happened. So sometimes it is impossible to completely stray

and also that's a book that we wrote and it nearly fucking killed me so we can lean on that as much as we want in my opinion anyway over our what lives of being true crime interested people and also doing this show for as long as we have we have discovered that being obsessed being true crime interested people and also doing this show for as long as we have we have discovered that being obsessed with true crime can get you some funny looks knowing exactly why Lorena Bobbitt cut her husband's dick off and threw it in a field and secretly rooting for her might not be accepted with open arms in polite company. But cults are different. Everyone everywhere finds cults absolutely fascinating, and there are a lot of reasons for that.

And cult leaders are often the central narrative when it comes to cult stories, cult episodes, cult content. But at Red Handed, comes to cult stories cult episodes cult content but at red handed we're much more interested in the cult members themselves and i understand why the cult leader storyline is the one that's told over and over again firstly it's a lot easier to follow one person's story and when you come to cults especially like children of god or jonest, where there are thousands of other people, it's really hard because you can't tell all of those stories. As a storyteller, as a writer, following one person's trajectory is more easy, right? It's simpler. But I think you're missing the point when you do that.

Yeah. I remember talking about this god years and years ago when we did that very first halloween story swap and we were talking about robin gett from the chicago ripper crew and the reason that that cult leader idea is so compelling is that yeah this idea that one person goes out and does evil shit you know that's it's not a surprise to anybody let alone people who are interested in true crime. It's that fascination with this idea that one person can skew the reality of so many other people and drive them to commit acts that had they not met that person, they possibly never would have done. And I think that's the real interesting part for me and you definitely when it comes to cults. and I think we also talked about

this god don't know whichever cult we talked about but the idea of why why do cult leaders do it right and typically it's because and it's again it's not that interesting really when you dig down the reason they do it in most cases is because they want to normalize their own perverse ideas right if you look at something like the children of God cult, it was David Berg within that who wanted to rape children. And in a society that tells you rightfully that that is wrong and abhorrent and you're a monster, let me then create my own personal sanctuary, quote unquote, in which I have convinced everybody and twisted and deformed everybody's reality to

the point that that is now acceptable and now I'm no longer a monster because we're all doing it that's I think at the heart of the cult leader but you're right the cult devotees are far more interesting totally I mean you can see a narcissist every time you turn on the fucking news like it's really not we can do better is what I'm i'm trying to argue and i think that we're so obsessed with dedicants because the central narrative well the literal definition of cult members is that they hold ideologies that the greater public like you and me deem subversive and even disgusting. But those ideologies that we cannot fathom are so vastly held by cult devotees that they drive previously normal people to do

unthinkable things. And it really does not get more unthinkable than what the followers of a Karl Marx-obsessed reverend did to themselves, their own children, and a solitary chimpanzee down in Guyana on the 18th of November 1978. Killing another person is an act so abhorrent that all of you listening, I really, really hope, can't get your head around it. But the Reverend Jim Jones is a whole world above that. Like Charles Manson, he never killed anyone except possibly himself. More on that next week. But he did convince almost a thousand people to kill each other. I mean, that one sentence alone is why this story has remained in the true crime consciousness for as long as it has.

It is unbelievable. So for the cult kingpin to be able to manipulate swathes of people using only their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent to do the unspeakable is the ultimate thrill. And absolutely gives them an unmatched level of power. If we talk about individual serial killers who want to exert power and dominance over one other person that they kill one at a time, what could be more that on steroids, steroids even, that on fucking crack,

than convincing a thousand people to do it at the same time? The ability to command people who without their influence would never have raised a hand to anyone let alone their own child is the ultimate ego trip and that is the thing that quite a few people who aren't recreational duvet detectives like you all listening don't realize. No one knowingly joins a cult. The reason that cults even exist in the first place is one of the key pillars of the human experience, the desire to belong. Belonging is the most important and at times the most frustratingly elusive aspect of being alive. Without a tribe, living can be unbearable. So to try and get ahead of the pendulous feeling of emptiness, we join groups, political parties, knitting clubs, netball teams, churches, sound bath circles. We could go on, but you get the

picture. Homo sapiens are not built to be alone. The feeling of being a part of something bigger than yourself is unparalleled and we look for meaning wherever we physically and psychologically can and unfortunately that search for a higher purpose that plagues our entire species can make us very susceptible to the influence of someone who claims to have the answers, be they a pauper, a priest, or a president. Along the red-handed journey, we have learned that all cult leaders have one thing in common. They all claim not only to have the explanation for why we're all so fucking miserable all the time, they know how to fix it.

And all you have to do to gain access to the Ark of the Existence Covenant is to hand over your faith, all your money, your identity, and quite a lot of the time, your life. No such thing as a free lunch. Mmm! That's what I should have called this episode.

Enter the jungle. No free lunch. Unless it's laced with cyanide. Another knowledge bomb that we've got for you is that usually cult leaders, Jim Jones absolutely included, display manifestations of narcissistic personality disorder. The DSM-5 lists nine traits associated with NPD, and lots of people have narcissistic traits, but to be whacked with a proper NPD diagnosis, a person needs to display at least five of the following. A grandiose sense of self-importance, a preoccupation with fantasies

of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love. A deep-seated belief that they are special and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with other special or high status people or institutions. A desperate need for excessive admiration, a significant sense of entitlement, exhibit interpersonally exploitative behavior, display a lack of empathy, they're envious or they really, really believe that others are envious of them, and also possessing arrogant or haughty behaviors and attitudes. And having told you that, we are sure, I would bet big money, that by the end of this two-part series on Jonestown, you will agree that Jim

Jones has every single one of the things I just said. The Reverend Jim Jones, the architect and tyrannical director of the People's Temple, and the greatest intentional loss of American lives before 9-11 has every single one of the narcissistic traits that the DSM-5 notates. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made,

a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death.

The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. The story of the Jonestown Jungle settlement and how it got off the ground is the perfect illustration of how good, intelligent people who want to be the change they see in the world can end up dead in deadly cults. The People's Temple was born in the Jim Crow South,

armed with an ideology of equality and love for your fellow man, no matter their colour. A white man enthusiastically preaching that people of colour should be treated as equals in Indiana was as radical as it got in the 60s. So many Americans were disillusioned with segregation and racial oppression and Jim Jones struck at exactly the right time. The winds of change were a-blowing in the South and he was ready to blow right back at them with his homily of equality and how socialism was going to solve everything. Later in life Jim Jones claimed that he never held the Christian God sacred. He had just used the familiar framework of the Holy Trinity to introduce his flock to the wonders of a life lived together, for each other, through very radical utopian socialism.

But how did he get there? Don't panic. We're going to tell you. James Warren Jones was born in 1931 in Crete, Indiana, a place that boasted a whopping 28-person population. Can you even call that a hamlet? I mean, is that a house? Yes. Is that a household?

And he didn't stay there for long. When he was slightly less un-newborn, his parents moved to the only very slightly larger town of Lynn. And the Joneses were dirt poor, we're talking no running water poor, and there was a litany of other problems as well. Jones's father's respiratory system had been ravaged by mustard gas in World War I, which meant that most days he could barely speak. He drank to cope and wasn't able to work too much either and also in that particular area time blah blah blah a lot of work that was available to men was either construction or mining and you can't do any of those if you can't breathe. However Mr Jones

senior was well liked in the little town of Lynn. He always made sure to greet the neighborhood children by name as they ran past his porch, which was something that other grown-ups never bothered with. Jones's other parent, Lynetta, was a different story. She worked around the clock through the Great Depression to keep her family afloat, but also gave not a single shit about what anyone thought about her.

She was foul-mouthed, she smoked in public, and most unforgivably of all, she wore trousers. Unbelievable. If you've spent any time looking into cult stuff, cult leaders, cult capers, you will have noticed that cult leaders never have a normal relationship with their mother. And Jim Jones is exactly the same story.

Lynetta really thought that her son could do no wrong. So much so that when little Jim would go around all of the local shops nicking chocolate bars on the reg, she would just go to all of the shops once a week and pay for what her son had pinched. Little Jimmy was her industrious and clever hero. She'd absolutely no boundaries when it came to her boy, which again, take a look at David Berg. That shit breeds cult leaders. So you will see in quite a few places that Jim Jones's lack of parental support and affection as a child was one of the reasons he went on to be what he ended up being.

And that is true, but I don't think it's a lack of affection. I think it's being adored in a very problematic way by one of his parents. But she worked all the time, so he also did spend a lot of time on his wands. Until his neighbour, who's called Myrtle, noticed this lone boy kicking around on his tod all the time, and she took him under her very pious, angelic wing. Unlike Lynetta Jones, everyone in Lynn really liked Myrtle, even though she would stop people in the street and

ask them why she hadn't seen them at church recently. But that was her only sin, which in a place like Lynn was really not that bad. Wearing trousers and smoking was way, way worse. And baby Jim Jones welcomed this adult attention and given Myrtle's commitment to the Lamb of God, their relationship went in a pretty predictable direction. Myrtle, which means evergreen shrub, was an evergreen schlub for Yahweh, and she imprinted that upon the childhood of Jim Jones. She read him the Bible any chance she got,

and Jim took to it like a duck to water. Myrtle was overjoyed with her pint-sized apostle, and she and Jim Jones stayed in touch for decades. In no time at all, Jim started giving sermons of his own to anyone who would listen, and sometimes even when there was no one listening at all, and he attended every church that the town of Lynn had to offer. Denominational difference was immaterial to him. Jim Jones was hooked on God and knew exactly what he wanted to be. And he just couldn't wait to grow up for that to happen.

Off consecrated ground, little Jim cranked it up a notch and started to play God instead. And he did that by killing stray animals and holding funerals for them. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Jones would make kids younger than him attend his ghoulish game because

kids his own age wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. And that was probably because when all of them played war in the playground at school instead of wanting to be an allied soldier like everybody else jim jones always wanted to be hitler so all the other kids are like i'm captain america or whatever and he's like i'm hitler i think that all the other kids are like i'm not the axis yes i don't want to be italian or german i want to be british american or french or i want to be a member of la resistance and he's just like nah it's more fun yeah more fun

playing the baddie and in time even the younger kids got sick of jim but he didn't mind too much he kept causing and performing his pet cemetery ritual all by himself. His outcast days came to a close when he hit prepubescence and found the Pentecostal church. The rolling around on the floor and speaking in tongues was right up his street and the church loved Jim Jones and his rousing sermons. The Pentecostal congregation of Lynn, Indiana hung on Jones's every word before he was even a teenager. He never got bored with the adoration and control that a preacher can wield, and by the time he was 25, Jim Jones took his show on the road and started his own church, because nobody could do it better than him.

Jones couldn't quite pay all of his bills with the word of the Lord just yet, so whilst building his following, he had a string of different jobs, some of them more weird than others, and it is actually quite common for killers, cults and queens to have weird careers before they turn to a life of crime. Bundy working on a suicide hotline is a personal favourite of mine, obviously, John Wayne Gacy, clown. of crime. Bundy working on a suicide hotline is a personal favorite of mine. Obviously, John Wayne Gacy, clown. But Jim Jones definitely had the strangest job. He was a door-to-door chimpanzee salesman. And I read that when he was doing this, he put his adverts in the paper right and this lady called edith

had a chimpanzee that hung itself so she got in touch with jim jones because she wanted to replace it and like if you had a chimpanzee that hung itself you shouldn't get another one no that's it no more chimps no oh my god i went to I will tell you about this at length in Under the Duvet, but I went to see Brian Blessed on We Can Be Weirdos last night. Oh yeah. And he does a lot of work with animals and apes specifically. And he was like, did you know that gorillas

laugh? And I was like, no. No, Brian, I didn't know that. He just used to go to animal reserves and fucking wrestle gorillas. Of course he did. Like, oh my god. I can't go on because I will just start crying. So we'll leave that, but there will be more monkeys next week. So moving on from the monkeys. Armed with his own congregation and never one to fade into the crowd,

adult Jim Jones prioritised establishing his very own brand of Christianity Pentecostal prayer just wasn't doing it for him anymore so he spiced his services up with radical socialism and again this is like classic classic burgeoning cult leader behavior it's like take a religion or a set of beliefs that people already buy into get them through the door and then overlay it with your own predilections and this idea of radical socialism in the south of the US in the 50s may seem like it was a risky move but it was actually an incredibly effective tactic all of the big cults that you've ever heard of, Children of God, the Branch Davidians,

Aum Shinrikyo, etc., all managed to align their cult ascendancy with epochs of significant cultural flux. Jim Jones and what would become the People's Temple were no different. The US was disillusioned with capitalism, post-war consumerism masquerading as patriotism, and in 1955, it all kicked off in Vietnam. People were sick of it. There was a whole

generation of Americans looking for a different way of life. Some turned to LSD, some founded the American Atheist Society, others followed the Grateful Dead from coast to coast. And unfortunately, some soul searchers found Jim Jones and the People's Temple. The American dream was dead, and millions were looking for something to fill the void it had left behind. And Jim Jones bellowed from the rooftops that he had the answer. Material wealth was pointless. The pursuit of riches was vapid, and the real truth was, no one should be poor, ever, at all, for any reason. The land of the free had just survived, McCarthy and his blacklists watched Trumbo, it's amazing.

So, communism was not considered to be a particularly good look. But Jim Jones had great news for anyone worried about being labelled a grubby commie. The big JC himself was a communist. And no matter what American politicians these days want you to think, being a communist is a very Christian thing to be. Aside from the opiate of the people stuff, the Reverend Jim Jones kept that gym to himself. Helen Hot Takes is back after a year's break, I think. And I will die on this hill at Calgary. Jesus was a communist and I have biblical backup.

I've spoken to people about this before. No, socialism. Well, no, because the major difference between communism and socialism is private property. In socialism, you can have it. And in communism, you can't. And Jesus did not fuck with private property. And if you don't believe me, I'm going to tell you. So we've spoken before about the eye of a needle and it being a parable where Jesus says there's as much chance as a rich man getting into heaven as a camel going through the eye of a needle.

And that's been reinterpreted now to be like, well, there's a gate in Jerusalem and you could just about fit a camel through it. And I think when we I think we spoke about it in Virginia Hall and I don't think I was clear. It's not that being rich is the thing that gets you into heaven. It's if you are rich, you can't get in, because you should have given it away. And that's not all I've got. I've got Luke 12.33. Jesus commanded his disciples to sell everything they had

and give the money they made to the poor. Luke 14.33. Jesus told his followers that no one could be his disciple who had not forsaken all of their possessions. And then we've got Acts 22, 44 to 45, which goes like this. All who believed were together and had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute all the proceeds to all as any had need. Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions. But everything they owned was

held in common. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. And that sounds like a commune to me. And then of course there are the classics. No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. That's Matthew 6, 24. And who can forget Timothy 6, 10. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which, while some coveted after, they have erred from their faith and pierced themselves through with many arrows. Not everyone agrees with my take. The Catholic Church famously

are quite attached to money and the pursuit of it but by far the most hilarious criticism i saw online when i was looking into this the theory that you know jesus is a big fat commie and all of the quotes i just had for you i saw someone saying well he couldn't have been a communist because jesus wasn't political he started a revolution how is that not political that is bonkers to me. Anyway, here endeth the lesson. The mass has ended. Go forth in peace.

It is all in there, in the good book. And Jim Jones milked it for all it was worth to fuel his followers' fire for radical socialism. A fire that was ignited within Jim Jones during his years of childhood poverty in an in-between war hellhole. Feeling excluded and an outcast as a child manifested in a fervent support of racial integration. Jones felt so strongly about the civil rights movement that he went no contact with his own father over it the story is that jim jones brings a black person that he's met to his childhood home for dinner and his father refuses to let them in and he never spoke to his father again after that and jones walked the walk too he

adopted multiple children from various racial backgrounds into his rainbow family. And actually, Jim Jones was the first white man to adopt a black child in the history of the state of Indiana. Similarly to his communism enthusiasm, Jim Jones's passion for racial equality was a breath of long-awaited fresh air in a country that was entirely fed up. And he had more tricks up his showman sleeves to convert people to his cause as well. He had no problem razzle dazzling the crowds that he drew to his church, but he really bowled them over when he cracked out those miracle healings. I can never talk about like the laying of hands and, you know, the miracle healings within the church without thinking about that Simpsons episode where Bart becomes an evangelical preacher. And I think he's talking to a preacher and he's, oh, I just always figured I'd do the deathbed confession.

And the preacher just goes, but in this case, you're covered for sudden death. And introducing the healings really worked. Jones's parish wasn't pulling in rookie numbers anymore. The reverend was now firmly in the big leagues. Of course, he wasn't actually magic. And God didn't actually bestow Jones with the power of laying on hands because God doesn't exist. And Jones was just your run-of-the-mill con man. It was all a part of Jones's three-ring circus.

Dramatic and sparkly bollocks, but bollocks all the same. The lame who could walk and the blind who could see after a session with Jones were all stooges that he'd planted in the crowd himself. So sure, at this stage in the game, Jim Jones was deceiving his followers 100%. But loads of faiths do that. Jones expected tithes from his patrons, but again, loads of organised religions ask for 20% of their congregants' income. So far, so normal legitimate religion.

There's air quotes around legitimate, but that's my own problem. And trauma. Moving on. Some members of the early people's temple sold their homes and handed over everything they had to Jones's mission. And he did do good with those funds. He built old people's homes and fed the needy and started a rehab program, which in hindsight is woefully ironic, considering that Jones would go on to develop a sizable stimulant problem of his very own. At this point in the story we have for you this week, Jim Jones hasn't done anything that doesn't happen

in legitimate religions yet. Irony aside, it seems like as good a time as any to attempt to answer the question in everyone's ears. What is the difference between a legitimate faith and a cult? Well, if you believe musical legend Frank Zappa, the only difference between the two is how much real estate they own. But there is a little bit more to it than that. Let's start with what's the same.

Both religions and cults expect followers to accept the supernatural, venerate sacred symbols, accept outlandish ideology, revere their leaders, follow a special doctrine that makes them better than everyone else. And then there's the chanting and the rituals. And if you're a Catholic, you know, the cannibalism. Cash, cash cannibalism. The difference between a religion and a cult really lies within the leader. A cult always has a human who assumes the living deity top spot sooner or later. This divine ruler can never be wrong and questioning the man-god is totally unthinkable for any of their adherents. People who end up in cults have to submit to their

leader and everything they have mentally, physically, spiritually, economically and almost always sexually. It always gets there in the end doesn't it? It really does. I think again it comes down to that like what is the end goal of the cult leader they're not just doing it for like when we did sinister societies yes we definitely saw cults that start off as just like their business operations it's free work essentially enslaving people to work in their fucking tea packaging factories or whatever but more than not, it does go beyond the economical into some sort of weird sexual perversions. The other thing with a cult really is that there is no information that can be deemed as true or even consumable or listenable, readable, beyond what the cult leader is saying. So it is a complete one-way spouting of information from

the cult leader and all other sources from the outside world are gone. You're also obviously completely cut off from your family, like in an abusive relationship. You want to cut that person off from family, friends, they have nowhere else to go. They've given you all of their money, they've given you everything, they're completely bought into this there is nothing else now you own them a cult leader's relationship with their devotees is essentially some perverse combination of terrorist meets domestic abuser meets serial killer of the mind and solved yeah put that on a fridge magnet and on top top of all of that, Jim Jones wasn't paying for rehab and end of life care because he wanted to help anyone. Being totally devoid of empathy, Jones was doing all of those things to gain the adoration of those around him. That was all he ever wanted. And everything he ever did was to try and reach the ultimate target. Complete control over as many people as possible. Top-level manipulation of anyone is difficult.

Puppeteering whole groups of people is even harder. And the only way Jim Jones could get his followers to the point of adoration-fuelled total compliance was to break them. And even for him, it would take years. The first step to identity decimation for the People's Temple came when Jones's most devout followers moved into People's Temple HQ. They didn't really have anywhere else to go after they sold their houses to fund their illustrious leader's vanity projects. And those people would work 20 hours a day.

They had no choice. All of their money was tied up in the church and released to them as an allowance whenever Jones felt like it. On occasion, these workers would be forced to stay awake for six days straight, which would certainly turn me subservient. If anyone even thought about complaining, Jones barked at his most loyal legion that if they truly wanted to change the world, they needed to serve their omnipotent master, and God to a lesser extent, and radical socialism on the daily.

As his live-in followers' capacity to resist dwindled, Jones's megalomania did the exact opposite. During this period, Jim Jones would also give one of his most famous sermons. After whipping himself up into a furious frenzy, he flung a Bible across the room. And when he was not smote by Almighty God for desecrating his holy text, Jones screamed at his very tired temple dwellers, There is no heaven up there. We have to make heaven down here.

That Bible flinging was a turning point for the people's temple. The paving of the road to Jonestown had begun. Claiming that there's never been a heaven to a Christian congregation seems a bit rogue. But according to Jones, that had been his plan all along. The doctrine of Jesus was just a tool to reel in his own apostles. And now he had them, he was going to sink them. I'm not sure how much I believe it when he says I never believed in the Christian God.

I think he comes to that conclusion later on when he's like, oh, hang on a minute. Yeah. I can do more. I can take more. I can be more powerful. I can have control over more people. God's in the way. Yeah. be more powerful, I can have control over more people. God's in the way.

Yeah. It's the natural evolution of someone with the personality makeup of somebody like Jim Jones. You are entrancing all of these people, hundreds, then thousands of people. Why just be God's footman? Make yourself the God. And that's exactly what he does. So communist Jesus got bumped. Jim Jones was the king of heaven now. And the new king's following got so big that Jones decided that he had outgrown Indiana. No king, no king. Silence, you fools! I will be king.

And you'll never go hungry again! He's scarred just like Beyonce. In 1965, with his desperately devoted acolytes in tow, Jim Jones moved the whole operation to somewhere called Ukiah, California, which is kind of bumfuck nowhere. I did look it up and try and find out fun facts. There aren't. Why there, you might be asking?

Well, it's another well-timed ideological stroke from Jim Jones. The US was enduring the height, the apex, the peak of the Cold War. And global nuclear fallout was a very real threat that every level of society was genuinely worried about. And Jones, being Scar, used that atmosphere of terror to his advantage. He told the temple that Ukiah was the only bit of the United States that would survive a nuclear holocaust. Jones wasn't actually bothered about the end of civilization via explosion. He just wanted to isolate the people's temple from the outside world. And handily for him, this narrative also revealed Jones to be the keeper of most secret atomic truths. And also hinted towards the end being extremely fucking nigh.

Loads of birds, one ukea-shaped stone. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings,

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or Spotify. Start your free trial today. And so, 80 members of the People's Temple left the crossroads of America behind and followed Reverend Jim Jones to California. And one of these people was Edith the Monkey Lady. Yeah, she goes with him. She's like, you know what, let's see what happens here. It is weird, though. It is weird. I mean, if you have a chimpanzee as a pet, you're already weird. And if it hangs itself, you're double weird.

This is true. This is true. And sadly for Edith, after she left California, weird or not, she was never seen again. The crossroads of America is the Indiana State motto, which I just think is tragic. Nothing, just passing through. By 1971, Jones's follower count had catapulted into the thousands. Devotants of the people's temple lived together, ate together, and they worked together. More cult klaxons going off immediately and differences from religion once again, you're not just like, oh, go home.

You're still part of the cult, right? See you next week when you're here for all the enslavement and the sexual abuse. No, we live together on this compound. You never leave. We feed you gruel, no protein so that your brain dies. Yes, and I think, I believe it's Mike Rinder

who used to be like top henchman at Scientology and then left. The point he makes about David Miscavige and Scientology is he's like, the reason why it is a cult, I mean many, but the most easy one to explain, is that if you leave Christianity or Buddhism, no one's coming after you. Exactly, exactly. or buddhism no one's coming after you exactly exactly so yeah it's all much easier to control people if they're all locked down in one place devoid of any sort of outside influence and it also turns people against each other pretty fucking quickly it's amazing how quickly it happens and

obviously they're tired and they're hungry but like i've lived in many a share house in my life and sometimes i mean obviously everything is going to be uh we're all just the sum of our experiences right and if you're having a bad week and someone uses your mug you want to fucking smash them into the wall yeah we. We've all been there. It's sadly true. So for that reason, and all of the reasons we just said, lifelong sleepovers are another essential part of the cult leader manifesto. And Jones wanted as many pyjama pals as possible.

To that end, Jones collected the most attractive of his live-in congregation and sent them off on Greyhound buses to lure in more of their kind, all the while banging on about socialism. Everyone of any colour or creed was welcome within the People's Temple, but Jim Jones wanted successful hotties to join the ranks the most the 10 out of 10s are always the ones the charismatic preacher wants we talked about this a lot on sinister societies like yeah and as we said at the beginning nobody knowingly joins a cult but cult leaders want attractive successful

intelligent people because they get more people to join absolutely and i think there's also a misconception that people who join cults are And I think there's also a misconception that people who join cults are at the bottom of the barrel in their lives. And that's why they join a cult. Like we said, people don't join cults thinking they're cults. And that is not true. Typically, people who join cults are people who are successful, who are intelligent. And typically, the reason they join is because they're looking for a reason, a purpose to life that is bigger than them. And that, my friends, is the most inviting thing for a cult leader, because he or she can promise it to you. And they also want people that are going to come there and fucking work, not a bunch of people that are like, who haven't achieved anything

in their lives anyway. They're not going to achieve anything in your fucking cult and they're also not going to lure more people like them into the cult like you said i know this is going to sound like i'm not going anywhere but it will make sense did you know that cromulent has been added to the dictionary this year and it's a simpsons reference and i think it's mrs krabopper she like, I never heard the word cromulent before I moved to Springfield. And everyone's like, cromulent? It's a completely normal word. I think it's particularly cromulent.

And now it's been put in the dictionary as I use it just to see people's reaction and they never fucking get it. Anyway, this will make sense because of the next word I'm going to say. Embiggened by his surge in signups, Jones started to publicly proclaim that he was doing what God had never done. He was building heaven on earth. And that rhetoric might have put some people off, but not many, honestly.

Politicians especially loved a bit of jimmy jay this was the biggest shock to me when we were writing the book and just discovering how many politicians had jim jones's back who were so bought into this idea and again look don't think about the deaths that happen this is at a point where he seems to be preaching something that is totally revolutionary and potentially nation-changing. We know what happens though. Every government bod in the Bay Area and beyond knew that if they just dropped the reverend a line, Jones would guarantee that a huge crowd of temple followers would show up to their next fundraiser slash rally slash rodeo slash lemonade stand. And this rent-a-crowd situation from the People's Temple was instrumental in 1970s local government elections in San Francisco, and was also a keystone of the Jonestown cult grab of

political influence. This breaks my heart. Jim Jonesones was so successful angela davis and harvey milk i'm less bothered about harvey are both on record saying that jim jones and the people's temple were something to be admired oh yeah i love angela davis and when i learned that my world was a little bit worse I'm sure hers was too once she found out what Jim I mean Jimmy got up to in the end she comes back next week and she she's in contact with him right until the very end so we've got the big following tick the era of politicians tick communal living. Communal living. The total dedication to the living divine leader. Tick, tick, tick.

The financial abuse. The divide. The conquer. The recruitment department. All big ticks. But what comes next? Weird sex stuff, of course. Always in the end.

Jim Jones told his followers that he was the only truly heterosexual man on planet Earth. According to Jimmy, every other man on the planet was secretly gay. And I really thought about this. I was like, what is he getting from that rhetoric? But it's instilling this sense of shame, isn't it? And, you know, you don't know yourself. I know you. And I think it also is that, I don't

know why he says he's the only heterosexual, but the reason he's definitely telling his followers that all the other men are gay is because he wants to sexually abuse all the other men. Yes, and he does. Yes. He's like, you're gay, I'm straight. Yeah. But you're gay. Yes. And I know you want me to touch you because I'm the man God. So let me touch you. Let me sexually abuse you because you're a gay man. So don't worry about about it and that's exactly what he did and he did this all abusing his male followers all whilst claiming adamantly that he was utterly reviled by man-on-man action but that he did it anyway to feel closer to god he did sexually abuse the women too more but yeah he goes after the men too and that's also not where the sex statutes in the people's temple

ended jones also banned all sex outside of marriage for members of the temple and they weren't allowed to have babies either in the ukiya collective adoption was the only option now even if you're married you're not allowed to have babies that's weird that is unusual for a cult leader because typically they want everyone to be having lots of babies in the cult so that you're you know your succession planning the next generation of the cult i think it, yes, totally agree. I think he does it because his adoption of multiple children from different racial backgrounds was a really key thing in him setting himself apart. And, you know, it's him walking the walk, right? So it's, I think that's

why it's a like, I adopt and therefore you adopt. And possibly also, if you're doing adoptions, right, you can adopt older children and you can adopt more children than a woman is capable of giving birth to in a year or in a set amount of time. You can bring, you can grow the group faster through adoption, perhaps, than through natural births. And also, you can bring in kids that are older who are going to become part of the working age of the cult sooner than a newborn baby. And possibly

also when people have kids, they're distracted. They're more likely to perhaps think about that child and that baby and the environment that they're putting them in, and maybe they leave the church, which we've seen. And other cults get around that by removing the children, breaking those bonds, familial bonds, separating the child and talking about, you know, it takes a village communal rearing. There's no connection between the parent and the child. Maybe Jim Jones just couldn't be bothered with all that. I think he considered that and he came up with a plan, which is what you're going to say next. Because those in the people's temple who had already procreated had to bring their children with them to the people's paradise. And once initiated, parents were forced to sign statements declaring that they had molested their own children. That's how he does it.

The administrators of the temple would then confiscate these confessions as collateral and there aren't many religions out there that i know of that do that so yes evil and smart but if you are looking at how to be a successful cult leader jim jones is kind of the best to ever do. Oh, 100%. Look, like success and goodness, morality don't necessarily go hand in hand. I also read that, you know, the most successful people, this is not going to be a particular shock to a lot of people who succeed in business, do absolutely have narcissistic traits. And the one thing that differentiates people who have narcissistic traits who are successful in life and business versus who are not is conscientiousness. If you have

narcissistic personality traits, but you're also conscientious, that's like the holy pairing of success. And Jim Jones certainly has those things. And sexy sanctions weren't the only thing that were getting wild in the People's Temple. Jones had also started to speak very openly about his obsession with suicide and his deep-seated concern that he would be assassinated. Jones was convinced that he was just as politically significant as Malcolm X or Dr. Martin Luther King, making him just as much of a target of the establishment. And here we see more evidence of his grandiosity. I'm not saying that Jim Jones wasn't very culturally significant.

He fucking has a thousand people kill themselves. But he is already, right, placing himself on that level and that that persecutory feeling that paranoia again it's because he's saying i'm so important i'm changing things so much that the establishment is after me it's wild and all he needed was for everyone else to think that too. So Jim Jones did what he did best. The Reverend decided to put on a show. Yeah, because there's nothing that's going to strengthen the bonds within a group more than an external enemy. The curtain went up during a church picnic in 1972. The People's Temple had moved their HQ to San Francisco by then, probably because Harvey Milk was such a JJ fanboy. And as everyone was tucking into their socialist sandwiches, Jim Jones was, seemingly out of nowhere, shot

in the chest. This assassination attempt sent shockwaves through the People's Temple. They now had proof that their leader was right. The capitalists were trying to kill him because he knew too much. They didn't, they weren't, it wasn't. And Jones wasn't shot at all. He'd set the whole thing up himself. Just like the miracle healings that put him on the map in Indiana years before. But the People's Temple were convinced

that their king of socialism, who had all their money and contracts of child abuse, was in very real danger. So they closed ranks, and more importantly, became even more frightened of the world outside the Jonesosphere, further consolidating Jim's dictator domination. Now he had sorted out

the outside influence problem. The double down continued. Next up, Jones needed to make sure no pesky whispers of dissent appeared on the inside either. So he ordained the Planning Commission

within the People's Temple, who we have affectionately rechristened the Narc Squad. Hate them. Any suspected defectors that the Narc Squad caught wind of would be called out in front of the entire congregation and Jim Jones himself. Predictably, these public shamings quickly turned into public beatings. And we know that because all these sessions were recorded on audio tape.

Handily for us, Nazis love keeping records of their achievements. And it's a major reason why we know more about the inner workings of the People's Temple than we do about some other cults. It's also why we know more about Goebbels than we know about other high-ranking Nazis, because before he killed himself, he shrank all of his diaries to microfiche and buried them. He wanted it to be found, and that's why we talk about Goebbels so much more than we do about others, because we know. Of course. They want to keep a record. They believe that they're right. They believe that they're completely valid in what they're doing. And, you know, these kind of public meetings where people are berated amongst the other group, it's of course

there to like spread fear, keep people in control. And it is very, very much the same as the struggle sessions of Maoist China. Like he is using so many influences to build this cult. And it's working. And these recordings are out there. In one of the Planning Commission court recordings, an alleged dissenter has their newly pierced ears ripped apart and Jim Jones can be very clearly heard in the background laughing like a maniac. The suicide infatuation subplot continued throughout these years as well. And one night, Jones gathered his closest confidants

and hosted a little wine evening. After they'd all finished their glasses, Jones told them that they had all just drunk poison. He wanted to see how they would react to dying for the cause. An act that he called revolutionary suicide. That time, he was lying

about the poison chalices. But we all know where this is going. When 1974 rolled around, Jones decided that constructing the Garden of Eden in the United States was never going to happen.

Because of the capitalist pig dogs, it's all their fault, they're not going to let you win. So he came up with a new plan and spent some of the money he had stolen from all of his followers to buy a plot of land

in Guyana, in the middle of the jungle. 19 hours by boat away from anything and a bit of land in Guyana, in the middle of the jungle, 19 hours by boat away from anything, and a bit of land that was only aeronautically accessible by a teeny tiny airstrip. This patch of dense wilderness would be where the People's Temple would build the utopia that Jim Jones had been banging on about since he was a kid. Over the course of a year, Jones secretly started to dispatch his favourite narcs to the jungle.

They would fly in small groups from different airports so as not to attract any attention. Jones wanted to keep his master plan very firmly under wraps. The first teams of Temple members that were sent down to Central America were ecstatic with excitement. They truly believed they were on their way to a better world. And it was one that they got to help build. Jim Jones' son, the one he adopts, Jim Jones Jr., big surprise,

he goes on Oprah and he says exactly the same thing. He's like, no, we really believed it. Try as he might, Jones Senior didn't get away with that covert migration program for very long. Because the press were finally onto him. A group of 10 temple defectors who had managed to escape Jim Jones in his earlier, less intense iterations, told New West magazine their stories of sexual abuse, violence, imprisonment, kidnapping, humiliation, child abuse and fraud. And crucially, these dissenters knew that proof existed to substantiate all of their claims because they knew about the tapes that would blow the whole Jonestown operation wide open.

This league of ex-Templars were led by journalist Grace Stoen, whose estranged husband, Tim, had been a prominent member of the People's Temple and Jones's chief legal advisor. She also takes the Temple to court because they will not release her son. And he's living in Jonestown and they won't give him back. And that court case drew even more attention to what was happening.

But somehow, probably Harvey Milk again, Jones got hold of the expose before it was printed and he demanded that the publisher of New West kill the story. That publisher, thankfully, was immune to the paranoid lunatic demanding press censorship, and that left Jim Jones with just one option. When he realised that the New West article exposing him was not going to be pulled, Jim Jones turned to his advisers at the People's Temple and simply told them, we're leaving tonight. The Reverend Jim Jones landed in Guyana six hours before the story that would bring it all crashing down hit the stands. He must have known deep down that he couldn't hide in the jungle forever.

But nevertheless, Jim Jones ordered a mass exodus of the temple members who hadn't already been sent down to Guyana on bushwhacking duty. Once Jones made it to his new open-air compound, ironically much more difficult to escape from than a regular prison, Jones dismissed any pressure coming from America as just pure jealousy. That pressure was coming from families that temple members had left behind. A whole load of them had started to ring the alarm and to state the painfully obvious.

With the people's temple now in the middle of the actual jungle, Jones's congregants were more isolated than they had ever been before. Not only from those who loved them, but from any source of information that wasn't Jim Jones. He had become the tree of knowledge at last. Again, absolutely, like we said, classic requirement for a cult leader to survive. And in their jungle prison, Jones's followers kept at it,

and the construction of heaven on earth continued with strength and fervour, and was given the desperately unimaginative title, the People's Temple Agricultural Project. He's a lot of things, but not creative isn't one of them could you not have tried a bit harder it just it just sounds so like i think what maybe the future planning committee yeah the future i guess like there's that element of it to the outside right it's just it's the hacker it's the people's temple agricultural project but also it sounds very communist that's true. Stripped back, no frills. It is what it is, but it's obviously not what it is. It's anything but what it is.

So Jones's followers did get the rainbow smiles and dancing that they were promised. But they also got a sinister speaker system that would blast their leader's apocalyptic warnings on a constant loop. They couldn't even escape him in their dreams because the tapes played through the night so that the people's temple could learn in their sleep. This many years into his tyrannical reign, Jim Jones had developed a life-threatening addiction to prescription drugs. Once quite lean, as I said, he was now as swollen as an amphetamine-addled blimp. His speech was slurred and his signature dark glasses look was born.

A flailing attempt to hide how off his tits he was all the time. Similarly to other famous speed fiends in the political field, Jones argued that he had to be awake all the time so he could work for the socialist supremacy 24 hours a day. It's not a new idea. Thatcher famously only needed four hours of sleep a night and she never did anything bad. And if any residents of the agricultural projects had any problems understanding their once eloquent overlord,

they were sent to the Red Brigade, who were essentially the NARC squad, now with added guns, who would clarify things for them. And that's still not the worst of it. After the mass migration south post-press close call, the People's Temple agricultural project had much bigger problems than Jim Jones's slurred serenades. The infrastructure the first missionaries constructed was only built to support 400 people. By 1977, there were a thousand souls living on that patch of cleared Guyanese jungle.

And the camp was crumbling under the population pressure. The agricultural bit had also not gone so well. Food was running out fast, and the food they did manage to cultivate in the unforgiving equatorial heat wasn't being stored properly, so it went mouldy. Perhaps this farming fail is what prompted the name change, because the agricultural project was no more. They all lived in Jonestown now. The People's Temple had always been hungry, but never like this. In the ruins of their socialist utopia,

dedicants of Jones were fed a tiny bowl of rice with milk, water and a bit of brown sugar at 6am. After that, they had to spend at least 10 gruelling hours working in the fields under the beating tropical sun, desperately attempting to grow more rice, but knowing that it would just be destroyed by the damp as soon as it was harvested. It's like pushing the boulder up the hill forever, isn't it? And the day didn't end there either. Once home from the paddies, the speakers would boom out the noose

according to the brain of a madman on meth. Then there was dinner, which, surprise, surprise, was more rice, this time with gravy and whatever greens grow in Guyana. And then, after dinner, it was time for Russian lessons, because Russia was a place that Jim Jones had always called Paradise on Earth. Yes, he has this obsession with Russia for obvious reasons.

And there is a period of time where things start to go tits up in Guyana, where he tells the people's temple that they're all going to go there. I don't think he ever really meant that. But he does give them this hope that they could get out. Yeah, because that's, again, a very, very key part of cults.

When people are starving, when they are at each other's throats, when they're being knocked on left, right and centre, going through these fucking struggle sessions, listening to you blasting out your madness on tape night and day, the only thing that keeps them going is hope. And that's why doomsday cults are very interesting because they constantly, if the world doesn't end, like they say, just have to keep pushing that date further and further

back. And I know that sounds weird, because it's like hope, but for them it is because it's like the start of a new world, whatever. And for Jim Jones, it's like hope was in short supply by this point. And anyone who complained about this miserable existence would be reported straight to Jones himself, who would accuse them of being in league with the CIA, who were deliberately destroying his crop to sabotage his socialist serenity, and given the growing viciousness of the public shamings, this made for some very compliant congregants indeed.

Children ratted on their parents, parents betrayed their own children. Hungry people are desperate people by october 1977 there were a thousand starving zombies clinging to life in jonestown too hungry too scared and too trapped to disobey or dissent and to to be honest, we think Jim Jones got bored of it. There aren't enough drugs in the world to keep a schedule that repetitive interesting forever. This time, he turned to an old favourite of his to liven up life in the jungle. The public shamings were back, but this time reinvented as People's Forum. People's Forum became a three-night-a-week fixture, and it was branded as an opportunity for the congregants to show their leader just how loyal they were to him, by squealing on their comrades.

Jones would preside over these events, sat, naturally, on a throne, and they would run long into the night. Often the community would only be afforded three hours sleep before the waking night terror began all over again. So just like they had in California years before, People's Forum devolved into some sort of gladiatorial arena before anyone could realize what had happened. Jones would demand his community to divulge their darkest secrets and sins to him. And whatever they said would be noted by the Red Brigade and stored on their collective brain cloud if anyone needed to be blackmailed later on. And just like everything else in Jonestown, People's Forum, every excruciating moment of it, was all recorded on cassette.

Despite all of the danger, hunger, violence and threats, some of those imprisoned in Jonestown did attempt escape. Some of them made it, but most of them were quickly caught by the Super Narc Squad, and they would be taken straight to a ship pit entitled the Extra Care Unit. Whilst interred, the attempted escapees would be drugged for weeks on end, and when they were finally released back into the general population, they were so traumatised that they struggled to even speak. Jim Jones's drug intake had graduated from average stimulants to valium and synthetic morphine, and he was starting to crack. He spent most of his time locked away

in his hut, reading marks and suffering a series of strokes. No one called him the Reverend anymore. Now the residents of Jonestown called the man who dragged them all down there dad oh i hate that and dad was more paranoid than he had ever been before and he was kind of onto something i hate it just like it just makes me think of David Cameron being like, call me Dave. He had a reason to be paranoid. The worried families of the Jonestown dwellers and Greystone's gang had joined forces back in California. Any letters that families received from the missing were clearly censored and manipulated if they ever arrived at all. So the pressure was mounting back on American soil for someone, somewhere, with some semblance of power, to do something.

And finally, after years of lobbying, someone did. In late 1977, the Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation into the jungle dystopia. And Angela Davies managed to get this information about the investigation to Jones. Angela, we need to chat. I have such a soft spot for her. I think she's so incredible. And it's her.

She's the one. She is. She sets this all in motion. And I can't imagine having to live with that. And Jim Jones, following this message from Angela, lost any scrap of rationality that he may still have had rattling around in that skull of his. Radical action was his only way out.

And he needed to prepare his troops And this is where we enter the next comparison of a cult leader To another type of killer that we've come across The family annihilator Yeah Jim Jones drilled his people relentlessly The most famous of these siege practices went on for six days and nights. You can look it up. They just call it the Six Night Siege.

The thousand starving and brutalized members of the People's Temple were forced to do a week of apocalyptic role play in preparation for some sort of invasion. He tells them that the CIA had them surrounded and they're sitting in their little huts with machetes waiting for it to happen and it never happens. And the siege only ended when a group attempted

to escape the chaos by boat to Cuba. And it was during this live-action horror show that the People's Temple started its routine of infamous White knights and white knights is the term that is used for times when members of the people's temple would practice

committing mass suicide fun but it just shows you how fucking done for they were absolutely i mean they've witnessed night after night for weeks and weeks sat there starving and tired and hungry. The brutality that Jim Jones is raining down on them. And he's telling them, there's somebody way worse than me coming for you. And why wouldn't they believe her? During these white nights, the people's temple were all instructed to line up and they were given a glass of red stuff to drink, including the children.

And they were told that it was poison and that in just 45 short minutes, they would all be dead. And all the while, the man they called dad would repeat to them that if they couldn't live the way they wanted, then they wouldn't live at all. And then he tells them that it's all not true

multiple times this happens at least twice anyone who couldn't fulfill jim jones's revolutionary suicide was labeled a coward and a traitor and jones would reveal to his followers that these were just dry runs but very soon it would not be. And he tells them that. He tells them, one day this will be for real. And it will be soon. This went on for months. And it concluded on the 17th of November, 1978,

when 53-year-old Californian congressman Leo Ryan took a delegation down to Guyana to try and figure out what the hell was going on down there. When he landed on the remote airstrip and strolled into Jonestown, these government employees were met with a celebratory reception. It's like thunderous. Yeah. Jonestown and everyone in it appeared to be very happy to host the congressman and his delegation

It appeared to Ryan's team that the People's Temple were really excited to show them everything they had achieved in the jungle away from capitalist interference But in a matter of hours it would all go very, very wrong And that

comrades is where we shall pick up next week. Yeah. See you in the jungle. No. Be good. Don't listen to the tapes, I beg you. And we'll see you next week for... I mean, you know what happens. For part two and also the end of 2024. my god i didn't even think here at red handed

next week's jonestown part two will be the final episode for this year hannah and i will be taking a much needed little break over december and we will be back in january with a fucking hell of a case we'll be back specifically if you are a wondery plus subscriber we'll be back in January with a fucking hell of a case. We'll be back specifically, if you are a Wondery Plus subscriber, we'll be back on the 2nd of January with our first of two parts. On the death of Ellen Greenberg, I tried very hard not to say murder. We'll get to it. Yes. In the meantime, be good.

Be good. Be as good as you can and don't be a cult leader. And we'll see you then. Bye, guys. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry.

The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry.

Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery+. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years

ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.