Something Was Wrong - S4 Ep5: Close the Door or Die

Episode Date: February 29, 2020

*Content Warning: death by suicide, cultic abuse, religious abuse, abuse of children, psychological and physical violence, gaslighting, domestic abuse, suicidal ideation, death, distressing themes.Music from Glad Rags album Wonder Under  IG: @GladRagsMusicwww.somethingwaswrong.com/resourcesFollow Tiffany on Instagram @LookieBoo Thank you to Leahness, Thom and Jim Bouge for participating in this series.*Sources: (some of these links are Affiliate Links)Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reitermanwww.somethingwaswrong.comEverything Sucks: A Gratitude Journal For People Who Have Been Through Some Sh*t Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People--and Break Free by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhDPsychopath Free Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People by Jackson MacKenzie A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown by Julia Scheeres

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Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences. Many episodes discuss topics that can be triggering, such as emotional and physical abuse, suicide, and murder. Please take caution when listening. I am not a therapist or a doctor. Opinions expressed by guests of the show do not necessarily represent the views of this podcast. If you or someone you know is being abused, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799. 7233. If you or someone you love is experiencing a suicidal crisis or thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Thank you. At the end of July

1977, Tom's mom and Jim's wife, Edith Bogh arrived in Jonestown with Juanita, Tina, and Merrily Boe. During this time, the People's Temple Church was in the midst of of a mass exodus from California to Guyana. Jim hadn't seen his wife Edith in over three years. Jim was excited to see Edith, but quickly learned the feeling wasn't mutual. Edith was still in a relationship with fellow temple member, Harold Cordell.

During their awkward reunion, Jim tried to warn Edith to be weary of the two shets, as they enjoyed reporting other members to Jones for perceived acts of misbehaving. Edith's prompt response to Jim's olive branch was to march over to Jones and tattle on him. That night, Jim was called up in front of everyone and be rated for his behavior. As the number of settlers in Jonestown multiplied, available resources were drained.

This was a sharp contrast to the dream life Jones had sold his congregation back in California. Morale and health of church members rapidly declined in the humid jungles of Guyana. As confidence in Jones diminished, his addiction to drugs and sadistic behavior, only escalated. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is, something was wrong. You think you know me, you don't know me well at all. You don't know me, but you don't know. Due to increasing political, legal, and social pressures from the outside world,

members could see that Jim Jones, in his paranoid drug-induced state, was a ticking time bomb. He began holding mandatory church sessions called White Night Drills, where he pretended to have poisoned the congregation with cyanide mixed into fruit aid, similar to Kool-Aid. Jones began brainwashing the community to fear the outside world entirely and indoctrinated members with the idea of revolutionary suicide. Jones had designed an organization that could not survive his death or imprisonment. He programmed his members to believe that they simply could not live without him. we were kind of idiots.

Me and Brian were. So we're sitting there while this is going on. And we were kind of like up close to the podium. And when people start drinking this and you, you know, see people crying and all this other stuff, Brian turns to me and he kind of whispers. He goes, dude, there's nothing to the Kool-Aid. I just in the back help and make it.

Okay? So, and I snickered out loud. And he's like, what's so funny over there? And that's also when we drew that we found out that Jones couldn't tell if you were lying or not. like he always said he could. And it was like, oh crap. Nothing, Father.

He was like, then why are you snickering? It's just the amount of joy that we have that we finally get to die for the cause and the revolution. And, you know, go down that road. He's like, see this? See these young men? See this? Even they understand it, right? That was a close one, though.

And you know, and you have to remember, too, there's always that psychosomatic reaction to things, too. So some people will, if you tell them they're sick, they're going to be sick. And there's people like that in the world. We'd been doing white nights for probably six months to a year at that point. We were going to go out in revolutionary suicide. As Jones said, it'll be a shot heard around the world. By this time, we all knew something was going to happen. And it's building and building and building.

Back in the United States, Raven author Tim Riterman tried for over a year to get approval from the People's Temple to visit Jonestown to investigate claims made by defectors and their families. Sammy Houston, father of Bob Houston, who had died in the suspicious train yard incident in San Francisco, worked with Raven Author Tim Riederman at the Associated Press Office in San Francisco, which is how Riederman originally learned of the alleged abuse and possible murders of the People's Temple defectors. Prior to Jonestown, he met with a few defectors, but still needed more verifiable information, thus his interest in seeing Jonestown for himself.

Sammy Houston, father of Bob Houston, had a longtime friendship with California Congressman Leo Ryan. After Bob died, his father, Sammy, approached his friend, the congressman, about helping him look into the suspicious death of his son and help him reconnect with his granddaughters, whom were still being raised by their mother in the church. Congressman Leo generously agreed to do his best to help his friend find answers. After reading an article on allegations against the People's Temple in the San Francisco Examiner, Congressman Ryan declared his intention to visit Jonestown. His decision was also influenced by the Concerned Relatives Group, which consisted of church members worried family members. Congressman Ryan invited a handful of members of the media and the concerned relatives group

to join him on the visit. Ryan seemed to want the news media presence to help force open the gates of Jonestown and offer a bit of personal protection. Amongst the small group of journalists was a national television network and three major newspapers. Journalist Tim Ryderman was amongst the small group, and he was excited to finally get approval

to visit Jonestown. Meanwhile, in Guyana, Jones began prepping his members for the congressman's visit. We were all on our best behavior because Ryan and his party was there, and we don't receive instruction to stay away from any of the reporters.

Don't talk to anyone. If they approach you, these are the type of things you are to say in response to their questions. And make sure you don't say anything negative. Okay, and those are very explicit instructions. And we knew those are very explicit instructions. There would be dire consequences if you did other than that. We didn't know ultimately at that,

or what I should say, we didn't know at that point what ultimately would happen. We were thinking more in terms of discipline and that sort of stuff. There was only certain ones that could make personal contact. They excuse themselves and get away because that was what they were told to do. A lot of them probably would have liked to said something because that's human nature. Like the one passing the note. Yeah.

The first evening of the group's visit was peaceful, especially considering the circumstances. People's Temple members sang songs and performed acts for the Congress. group while they ate dinner and asked Jones questions about the church and his vision. After the visit to the compound, both the congressman and author Tim Riederman seemed to think that members were free to leave and appeared to be happy to live in Jonestown. Later that evening, as Ryan's group decompressed and reflected on the day and their Jonestown visit back at their hotel, Riterman was informed by another reporter that he had been slipped a secret note from two temple members asking to leave Jonestown when,

when Ryan's party departed. What the group had suspected seemed to be true. Not only did some people want to leave, but they also feared coming forward openly. You got so, you didn't even dare talk to your spouse about anything that might be a little off-collar. I mean, nobody, you didn't trust nobody. You learned not to trust. Now, once you're down there, all your information was, provided by Jim Jones himself. What was going on in the world as he would want to manipulate it for the purposes of controlling you?

Now, Harold, he had a shortwave radio, so he was able to listen to like British broadcast and all this sort of stuff on it. But not very many people knew he had that radio. No, I don't know of anybody. It was contraband. Yes. Well, yes, because that gave you an outlet to hear what was going on the outside world. And that is often what caused conflict with the way Harold and mom looked at what was being said in Johnstown.

Because here it is, they had a direct source outside of Johnstown they could listen to. And that's why even though for the most part, it seemed like they were just, you know, you're ever going faithful followers and everything else. But they had discovered shortly after being there in themselves, their things were not as they seemed based upon what they could hear off this radio. And do you think that helped your mom know? Yeah, it did. Like pushed her to know. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Because Harold had seen on the boat of this poison. I forgive what? Cyanide. Cyanide. And he's seen that. And he told Edith, and that's when Edith got smart. I was standing over in the cottage area when the reporters came through and I actually saw her pass the note to him.

You did? Yes. Because that's when I told my dad, what I told. saw and that's what and that's when he gave me some instructions because you figure if nothing came of it you know we could then we could just came back down from salt mill and nobody'd be the wiser but if something did come of it then we could just cut out right through the jungle from right there and nobody'd be the wiser so it's kind of like a safe spot to be at so we're all kind of mingling around and then we heard that the parks family had gone to ryan and told them

they wanted to leave. So then immediately, you know, I told my father what had occurred. And he said, well, you know, go tell your mom and sister. We're going to meet up with sawmill because we'd already been planning an escape as a family. We were going to meet up at sawmill with some local Amerindian. That was a friend of my father's. And we were going to go out through the jungle. Yes, because things were getting dire and bad.

And, yeah, and there was a boat that was supposed to meet us over on the river. And get us to Georgetown. We were going to end up going to the embass. embassy. Those plans weren't to happen when we heard this was going because we knew that was the end. You know, we knew that that day was not going to end well. So I went and told, you know, everybody I was supposed to tell. He told others. And we all met up at the sawmill. So things were getting scary real fast. So we all went down to tell Ryan we were leaving. And then when we went down and told him that, then it started growing. And so it first was the part.

Mark's family, then it was my family, and then there were some others that started telling them they wanted to leave too. So the next thing Ryan knew is he had a group on his hands that wanted to leave. Everything wasn't rosy in paradise. And that was the first news he got of it that way, because until then it had been playing the role. So he said, okay, he goes, well, you guys go get on the truck and, you know, we're going to start heading out to the airport.

So we grab a few of our belongings that we start walking out there to the truck. we get on the truck. Edith was strong that day. She was strong. Probably stronger than me. But she kind of got us all together. I think there was 16 of us in the back of that truck, which I was upset at her all the time.

But she seemed to be strong and accepted in kind of guiding us in this course. And Ryan Henning came out to the truck. yet. They heard of commotion back at the compound, which is probably only 150 feet away from where we were at. And it turned out that that's when Mark Sly had attacked Congressman Ryan and inadvertently somehow cut himself with a knife because there was some blood on Ryan's shirt. And so here we were back in the compound. Ryan was doing things around there and one guy grabbed Ryan around the neck and put a knife to his throat. But Jones told him to let him go.

So Jones tells Ryan, you know, you need to go. I can't control this. So Ryan, and not that Jones had any attention of controlling it, because Jones set the whole thing up to start with. So he gets on the truck. We take off, we start heading out. We get to the main gate entering the compound. And there was one of the guards there, Joe Wilson.

and they're carrying guns now. It's like, we're not hiding anything anymore now. Zero to 100. Until then, Ryan had never seen any guns. Okay, but now there's guns out. So Ryan knows this shit's serious. Okay, and so anyway, he's going to search the truck. He's looking for his wife and child.

He brought his wife and child? His child, yes. Congressman Ryan? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Joe Wilson. Oh, sorry. was looking for his wife and child. Got it.

What he didn't know is just the day before, she'd came up and asked me for the path to get out of Jonestown, the back, the path that leads out of the back of the compound over to the road. She wants out. Because she wants out. There was her and I guess a few others that went that party and went out through the backside.

So, so naturally she's not with us. And I didn't know really what had happened to her. I had found out until later that she did actually take that path along with a few others. So again, Chuck, or he doesn't find him. So we leave, we go out to the airport. And because there's so many of us, they had to order another airplane. So now we're stuck on the tarmac waiting.

I think there was 21 defectors at that time. I don't quite remember how many, but they used 21 or 28, something like that. Anyway, so about an hour later, the other air, airplane shows up. And we're on pins and needles the whole time because nothing ever goes this smoothly. So we start boring up on the planes. And we tell the congressman that Larry Shack is not a defector. He was one of Jones.

He was part of Jones's entourage. And Larry Shack had been so beat down by Jones over the years that he was kind of at the he would just do whatever Jones said. He basically became an automaton. He said, okay, fine, I'll go do this, right? And so they kind of did a little pat search. I remember watching them do the paters. She's like, really?

That's your search? So they totally missed the gun that Larry was carrying. So they get on the smaller plane. Our family gets on the bigger plane, along with several others. We started getting on the plane, the two planes. There was two of them there. and I was on there with Juanita and Tom and Tina

the shooting at all started and I can't remember exactly when but it was just a few minutes later Larry pulls out the gun shoots Monica Bagby doesn't kill her though goes to shoot Laverne who's I guess in front of them or next to him

and the gun misfires they're wrestling the gun away from them and at the same time this tractor starts pulling up with the trailer behind it and when it pulls up, it swings around the planes, it pulls up even parallel to our plane and then gunmen stand up and they start shooting and they're just shooting anybody they can see

and at that point Patty Parks who was sitting right in front of me in the airplane, I'm sitting right across from the door she gets the back of her head shot off and her brain just fall up my feet and I remember everything I was thinking, right? And it was like, the very next thought was, close the door or die. And that was it.

It was just pure survival instinct. It was closed the door or die. And so I jump up and go to close the door. I grabbed the two wires that hold on the stairway down and start pulling up on it. I can't quite get it. And then my sister gets behind me and it starts to pull on me because she sees what I'm doing. That's when I get shot, get the back of my leg blown off, and that's when she gets shot in her leg also with 22,

which rattles around and goes down her bone and comes back out her ankle. But we get the door closed. Tom and Tina closed the door on the plane, which was very vital, and they both got shot. And the guy that shot him, he was a friend of ours before we even went to Guyana, I mean, before we even in the Jones group, through my dad, he came for a therapeutic massage. One woman, Tina was holding her hand when she got shot and just took off the top of her head. Tina had strength, too, in that kind of a situation.

It's funny how people get strength in the oddest times. Just prior to all this happening, when we were still on the tarmac, my father had already told me that if anything happens, grab your sisters and run, run for the jungle. Because he knew all my background in the jungle, because I lived there basically two years before this all started going crazy. So... How many sisters did you have? Two. Well, I actually had three sisters, but two that left.

And one sister stayed because her husband was staying. My other two sisters left with us. And we left one daughter there. Jones had really captured her. So at that point, when the door's closed, they shoot a couple times more at the plane, then they get off the trailer, and they start walking around just point blank shooting people

that are on the ground. I mean, Ryan was by one of the tires of the plane, and he just walked them and shot them in the head. And then they got on the trailer and left. Oh, and they shot the tire on the plane, too, so it couldn't leave. When they left with the tractor and trailer, I went outside and Jackie Spear was there and she'd been shot and the ants were crawling around on the

and so they was kind of on her and I tried to comfort her and I'd sent and got some liquor and I was feeding her liquor I think I got her drunk I'm not sure so. So they get on the trailer, they leave. And after, you know, about five minutes ago, we let the doorway back down, the gangplank. And a few minutes goes by, and somebody screams, they're coming back, they're coming back. So that's for me and my sisters.

We both for the jungle. And the Parks kids, Tracy, Brenda, and Brenda's boyfriend ran with us. Yeah, I told. Tom had to take Juanita and these other two, three kids. I don't remember. But he took him into the jungle, and I guess he was in there three days, something like that. And then we were out in the jungle for three days and two nights.

And we decided we were going to come back out and had gotten lost. So we're kind of following this one river. Because you have no idea what's going on at the bavilion at this state. No, no. You have no idea. You just think you're being hunted. Yes. And actually, we believe we were being hunted in the jungle, too.

Because at one point, after the second night in the jungle, we'd awakened, and we could smell cigarette smoke. And we saw this one guy in a military outfit leaning up against the tree, smoking a cigarette. So, and the creek river, what do you want to call it, that was close by. So we just slipped into the creek and just kind of like floated down the creek, just, staying as low as we could. Just like you see in the movies. You know, you just got your nose above the water and you're just, but what had happened while we were in the jungle is they'd sent other planes out.

Pick them up. My father, I don't remember my stepdad at that point had stayed there also. There was a couple of others that had stayed waiting for us to come out of the jungle. And my dad had no idea that I'd been so injured. So I got in the back of my leg blown off that by the third morning, I was delirious. I lost all my sense of direction all that he just kept telling him you know

my son's with him he knows junk they'll come out they'll come out they'll come out right but like I said he had no idea that I was not in my right mind anymore yeah I was done and I'd got maggots in my leg which what they say about maggots is true they eat gangering that's all

so it actually was healthy saved my leg so we ended up we're most way out The parks went ahead of us because me and my sister could barely walk anymore so they'd gone ahead and came out

then they'd sent some locals up the river with some canoes they'd gotten us we came back out Edith and somebody else they went to go to the town I told them I wouldn't leave until

we found out where they were and so in like I said like three days I stayed there and here they come walking up. That was the biggest surprise you ever seen. What did you feel like when you saw them again? Oh, well, I don't think you can tell it.

And from there, we ended up having to spend the night in the local bar there because they didn't where else to stay. And the next morning they flew us out. And then I was in the Georgetown Hospital for a month. from my leg. Then we came back and we got to the States and we were interviewed several hours by the FBI. Next time. Something was wrong is written, recorded, edited and produced by me, Tiffany Reese.

Thank you so much to the Bogh family for participating in this season. Music by Gladrags. Listener cover by Cat White. Cat White Music. Follow me on Instagram at Looky Boo. L-O-O-K-I-E-B-O. Resources mentioned on the podcast can be found linked in the episode notes or at something was wrong.com slash episodes.

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