Disciples of Christ minister Jim Jones went slowly from Christian to crazy. He became one of those religious leaders who was truly spoiled by his success, finally going way, way off the deep end.
Jones rose to prominence in San Francisco, where his ministry and later his People's Temple did good works for the poor and the sick. His ministry welcomed people of all races, but it gradually became more nearly a cult.
Jones taught his followers that the world would soon end in nuclear war. After he was charged with soliciting sex from a Los Angeles policeman, Jones moved his flock, or at least some of it, to the jungles of Guyana, where they built a self-sustaining commune/ compound.
Complaints surfaced about the dictatorial way Jones was running his People's Temple there, and Congressman Leo Ryan went on a fact-finding trip to see what he could ascertain.
Jones' followers shot Ryan to death and, knowing the jig was up, Jones decreed a mass suicide ritual. The cult's members died by drinking cyanide-laced drinks, by cyanide injection and by shooting. In the end, in November 1978, 638 adults and 276 children perished.
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