He had engineered complete authoritycollecting members Social Security and disability checks, and determining when and how his disciples could communicate with their families. Mr. Layton believes that his wife gave Mr. Jones at least $250,000 and possibly more; he said she had some secret accounts of her own that apparently contained money from her father. In August 1979, he joined the Coast Guard[9] and took part in the Mariel boatlift. Her involvement in the cult, he said, was useful activity, taking care of poor people; she said so much that she looked down at wealth and had guilt feelings, and Jim Jones helped her get rid of them. Other Peoples Temple. As I shook his hand, I looked at his sideburns. But ladies and gentlemen, it is notLarry Layton. Although he had no formal training as a minister and no affiliation with any organized religion, his high-octane enthusiasm and open-armed policy attracted a diverse range of followers. It was a message that appealed to the dispossessed, which is why it made sense for the Peoples Temple to relocate to San Francisco around 1972. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Ryan and I asked one or two Temple members at a time to come talk to us. But Layton, saying he wishes he could ease the pain. In Jonestown, nobody could have any family attachments. Larry Layton, a former member of the People's Temple, broke into tears today at his trial on charges of conspiring to commit murder as his attorney told jurors not to make him a scapegoat ''for the horror of Jonestown.''. Jones greeted us at the compound. | AP/San Francisco Examiner. | AP. Dr. Layton had learned of his wife's religious background after they were married, but the couple had agreed not to tell anyone, especially their children. Inquisitive by nature, he was a proponent of experiential legislating, preferring to go out and experience issues firsthand before he decided what to do. By the time I returned, more than 900 people died. Suddenly, my body was crushed by a blow to my side. Ten years later the road came to a dead end in the jungles of Guyana. The spellbinding preacher had a message that attracted many disaffected people of the 1960's, and soon Carolyn had stirred her husband's sense of social activism and brought him into the group. Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). The bodies of Jones and 912 cult followers lay sprawled under the tropical trees of the commune, victims of an incredible murder-suicide rite. I couldnt immediately identify the deafening sound that filled the air. [10] Afterwards, another jewelry store in Lower Bucks County became suspicious of a person they believed was casing the place for a future robbery. In the mid and late 1960's, when Berkeley became the scene of frequently tumultuous antiwar demonstrations and other protests, Larry and Deborah Layton joined many of the demonstrations and began experimenting with drugs. '', See the article in its original context from. After a few weeks, Layton grew "accustomed to the unusual smells in the food and drink. Initially discouraged, Larrys family pressed ahead with the petition for early release, collecting another 50 letters in support, including letters from former Temple members and critics, numerous religious leaders, and a former congressman. Although his mother was of German-Jewish descent, his family practiced the Quaker faith, and Larry was the family's firmest believer, according to his brother. I asked to speak to Monica Bagby, one of the names on Dons note. It paints a convincing picture of what it was like to spend seven years in the notorious cult, only to escape a few months before the tragedy that gave Jonestown its infamous place in history as the site of the largest mass suicide in modern times. In the summer of 1977, after an expose of Peoples Temple in New West magazine, Jones and his followers fled to Guyana. After graduating from the University of California campus at Davis in 1968 with a degree in social science, Layton and his wife moved to the Ukiah area and soon met up with the temple. ''I submit they were presented to inflame you, to arouse your passions, to prejudice you. With the camp surrounded by his armed guards, he told his followers to give the medicinegrape FlavorAid and Kool-Aid laced with cyanide and tranquilizersto the children and the elderly first. "They would be taken to the Jonestown well in the dark of night, hung upside down by a rope around their ankles, and dunked into the water again and again while someone hidden inside the well grabbed at them to scare them. (CHRONICLE PHOTO BY SUSANNA FROHMAN), Restaurant chain slated to close site at Bay Area mall, One of the largest movie theaters in SF to close permanently, Grapevine closed indefinitely due to heavy snow and ice, Plan to bring bullet train from LA to Vegas is underway, 'Zero visibility' conditions: All roads to Tahoe are closed, What it looks like inside Coit Towers former apartment, Graupel falls on Disneyland, shocks guests, Avalanche slams into Tahoe apartment building amid blizzard, Hundreds of thousands of workers have abandoned downtown SF, Tahoe's snowfall totals are on track to break records, Report: Matthew McConaughey has a massive Salesforce paycheck, Popular yet divisive fast food chain coming to this Bay Area town. Anyone can read what you share. In 1973, when Larry and Deborah Layton and their spouses were living at the Ukiah temple, an acquaintance of Mrs. Layton thought he had cancer, and her children urged Mrs. Layton to bring him to Ukiah. Her marriage was ruptured by Mr. Jopes even before it could be consummated. Ive shared my Guyana story countless times, but its still a challenge to go back and relive those days. A few Temple members stood in front of a rusty dump truck waiting to shuttle us to the compound. I was almost one of them. My mother had cared a lot for my father, but Jim broke it up.. Sure enough, I could tell he had. In 1969, to get her away from the drugs and other attractions in Berkeley, Dr. Layton and his wife decided to send Deborah to a Quaker school, Ackworth, in the countryside of Yorkshire, England. She looks away for a moment, then brightens and starts to talk about a visit she made to Jonestown only a few months ago, accompanied by a crew from the Arts & Entertainment network, which is making a documentary on Peoples Temple. One night, when Mr. Jones was conducting an hourslong lecture to the commune, she arranged to be placed on duty helping to operate a shortwave radio that transmitted Mr. Jones's directives to cult members in San Francisco. How could I not like the good things they were doing?. Larry Layton wiki ionformation include family relationships: spouse or partner (wife or husband); siblings; childen/kids; parents life. The child talked her out of it. At the pavilion for breakfast, I did my best to appear unruffled. Last spring Deborah decided she had to escape. After that trip, I remember telling myself that never again would I witness such violence at such close range. well, it wasn't there. White Night!" #3 Journalists and Defector Killed Mr. Layton was the only person charged in the United States with criminal acts arising from the events of Nov. 18, 1978, when Mr. Ryan and a group of journalists and relatives of other cult members were ambushed at the Port Kaituma airstrip in the jungle near Jonestown. At the airport, Temple members who found out she was fleeing implored her not to leave. In San Francisco, his church was lauded for its social programs, and Jones efforts to feed the poor and fight segregation found receptive ears with progressive politicians. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Wed have to make multiple trips in the truck. At Port Kaituma, while I ushered the defectors onto a plane, a large red tractor-trailer rumbled onto the airstrip. | California Historical Society. We split up, as Jones had arranged. He was then returned to the United States and charged under a Federal statute against assassinating members of Congress and internationally protected people. Jim Jones led 912 followers in a ritual of murders and suicides. Mr. Layton, who was arrested at the airstrip, was initially tried in Guyana, a small country on the northern coast of South America, on charges of attempted murder against two cult defectors in the airport ambush. In 1972, Mr. Jones married Deborah Layton and Philip Blakey. Last year, Mrs. Layton became ill, and the diagnosis was what she feared most cancer. The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, a U.S.-based cult under the leadership of Jim Jones.Jonestown became internationally infamous when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 909 people died at the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and at a Temple-run building in . Dont know why youre here, but were happy to have you, Jones said. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, it read. [27] Lawton says he regrets his time spent in prison, because he missed out on seeing his children grow up; his grandmother died, and his father became afflicted with Alzheimer's disease while he was inside. [32] By 2010, Lawton had shipped 10,000 DVDs across the country. Jim Jones, and 912 of his followers died by poison and gunfire in mass killings and suicides. Not long after she left, her parents were rounded up with other Jews and placed on a train to a death camp. But the moment I looked down at my own body is locked in my mind. Almost 22 hours after the ambush, I heard the groan of a planes enginefinally our escape had arrived. [28] In 2013, Lawton was made an honorary police officer by the Lake St. Louis, Missouri Police Department due to his work after prison. Never one to accept second-hand information, he decided to embark on a fact-findingand potentially life-savingtrip. To the tarmac. Everybody bolted in different directions. Behind the wheel of an airplane, I waited for the shooting to stop and said my Act of Contrition, praying for forgiveness and waiting for the lights to go out. Jones had a penchant for suddenly getting on the compound loudspeaker long after everyone had gone to bed and shouting, "White Night! The "Greeting Committee" promptly confiscated all their clothes and belongings and, most important, their passports. When people refer to the Jonestown massacre as a mass suicide, I am enraged. [10] High school students can use the time spent in the program towards the 75 hours of community service required for the Bright Futures Scholarship Program. Ryan wanted to investigate. ", 20 Years Later, Jonestown Survivor Confronts Horrors, LAYTON01/B/20OCT98/MN/SLF ---Deborah Layton is a survivor of Jonestown. "I felt we were doing something that had meaning. Debbie stood in line to drink the red liquid that she was told would kill her in a matter of minutes. Infants cannot commit suicide. | AP. [8][9] The 367-page book covers his early life, his string of crimes, and his post-release career. 1978 CULT FIGURE GETS LIFE TERM IN CONGRESSMAN'S JUNGLE SLAYING, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/04/us/1978-cult-figure-gets-life-term-in-congressman-s-jungle-slaying.html. In 1970, as chairman of a committee overseeing prison reform, he assumed a pseudonym and had himself booked, strip-searched and incarcerated for 10 days at Folsom State Prison, revealing his. Over the next decade, Jones moved his congregation and changed its name several times before settling on Peoples Temple around 1964. Layton was brought to trial in Guyana on charges of attempted murder and was acquitted. Lawton gained notoriety for committing a string of jewelry store robberies along the Atlantic Seaboard prior to his arrest in 1996. He is also charged with conspiring to harm Richard Dwyer, a United States diplomat who was wounded in the ambush. But finally her cancer became so advanced that It was necessary for surgeons to remove a lung. At Penn State, still barely able to speak English, she met Laurence Layton, who was studying for a doctorate in biochemistry and needed a tutor in German. Officers & convicted felon give 'real talk' to Havelock Middle School students", "Real-Life Jewel Thief Breaks Down Inaccuracies of GTA 5's Jewelry Heist Mission", "Was ein Ex-Hftling zu "Prison Architect" zu sagen hat", Former Jewel Thief Reviews Famous Heist Movies, From Oceans Eleven to Heat, Posey Presents Reality Check Community Champion Award to Thomas Reed of Rockledge, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Lawton&oldid=1140595137, Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 20:41. Youll see what a wonderful place it is. He took us on a tour highlighting the most favorable aspects of the commune. I would be in the first group; Congressman Ryan insisted that he stay behind to make certain that every person who wanted to leave made it to Port Kaituma safely. When the time of their supposed deaths came and went with everybody still alive, Jones announced it had just been a drill to test their loyalty. But I refused to spend the rest of my life as a victim of Guyanathere were too many of them. The 35-year-old defendant is charged with conspiring to murder Representative Leo J. Ryan, the California Democrat who died Nov. 18, 1978, with three journalists and a temple defector in an ambush at an airstrip near Jonestown. Later, Jones also became enamoured of the new Mrs. Layton and soon added her, too, to his growing harem of temple members. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. "[33] Lawton and the police chief later appeared before United States Congress in recognition of the program. They all swore that Jonestown was the one and only place they could ever consider home. "If I hadn't been sent to Georgetown that day (in May)," Deborah Layton says now, "I would have died in Jonestown. Asserting that the Government wanted to make Mr. Layton a scapegoat for the Jonestown massacre, he said, ''From the State Department point of view, from the U.S. Embassy point of view, the whole matter would be easily resolved if you blamed Larry Layton.'' They were married in 1966 and a year later Larry, who as a Quaker had obtained a draft deferment as a consciencious objector, moved with his new wife to Ukiah in northern California to serve in lieu of military duty as a medical technician at the Mendocino State Hospital. [6], Lawton was born in North Hempstead, New York on October 3, 1961. We heard that the church had weapons, and that Jones was paranoid and possibly on drugs. The approach continued even after hed moved from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. The robbers drew what police at the time believed were firearms, and restrained the store owner. An eyewitness who escaped described how people who did not cooperate were injected with poison where they sat, or were held down and injected with poison.. He preached a social gospel, attracting devotees while promoting a community that did not discriminate or take into account race, background, or previous circumstances. Of the more than 900 members of Joness congregation who had moved there, nearly a third were children. I was later told that he had been shot 45 times. My list kept growingwhat started with two names was now more than 40. At one point, Congressman Ryan interrupted our tour to make sure that the press and Concerned Relatives had been given the transportation to join us. The early release culminated a six-year campaign during which members of his family worked with a core of supporters, first to petition then-President Clinton to commute Larrys sentence, then to convince the Parole Commission to modify its earlier decision on a release date. Instead he proposed a better use of law enforcement resources would be to "help inmates with drug addiction. They recovered and with the help of friends managed to reach Italy, later coming to the United States. There were piles of used syringes at the scene. While the tathiiy was unique in its deep involvment with Mr. Jones, the story of the Laytons tells a great deal about why and how hundreds of other families became tangled in his persuasive web of religion mixed with social activism. He got a job as a student pastor at the Somerset Methodist Church in a poor, predominantly white neighborhood in Indianapolis. Extradited to the U.S. after a Guyana jury found him not guilty of murder, Larry was tried twice on four charges related to the shootings, including Conspiracy to Kill a Congressman. Others, who presumably refused to drink the Kool-Aida flippant, misguided phrase I very much wish could be scrubbed from our lexiconwere injected with cyanide and other poisons. We saw an impressive community with dozens of pathways, cabins, a medical center, a little school, and a large pavilion where the members congregated regularly. He was born in the mountains of West Virginia, between White Sulphur Springs and Charleston, to a family that had helped settle Virginia 225 years earlier and claimed ancestors datmg from the Mayflower. Jones, who demanded that his flock call him Father, was one of the most politically powerful people in San Francisco, wined and dined by such luminaries as Rosalynn Carter, Assemblyman Willie Brown, Mayor George Moscone and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. After her operation, Mrs. Layton moved to Guyana. Philip Wogaman, President and Mrs. Clintons pastor in Washington, D.C. made additional pleas for commutation of Larrys sentence. Jim could really get to people, Deborah recalled in an interview. Hours later at the Jonestown emcampment, Jones led the death rite of himself and his followers. Anyone can read what you share. When people refer to the Jonestown massacre as a mass suicide, I am enraged. The store owner managed to break free and grabbed a .38 caliber pistol and fired five shots at the robbers as they fled. Their accounts led to an expos in New West Magazine planned for publication in summer 1977. The two store owners were bound while two individuals robbed the store and a third acted as a lookout and the other as the getaway driver. And then I realized that confirming one tiny detail could mean that the worst of the testimonies were true. The hospital was not far from the People's Temple community Mr. Jones had established in Redwood Valley. It made no sense that he would be trying to leave Jonestown. That date was later moved back to April 2004, after the board credited him for his time in the Georgetown jail. Tony Tamburello, the defense attorney, told jurors in his closing arguments that the prosecutors had sensationalized the case against Mr. Layton in the three-week trial in Federal District Court. [3][4] He has acted as a spokesperson for prisoners and prisoner issues,[5] been a vocal advocate for prison reform, and made appearances in the media as an expert on robberies. Before I could even comprehend what was happening, about a dozen men leapt from the tractor, leveled their automatic weapons, and fast approached. Five bullets had ripped through me, devastating the right side of my body. Besides, when had a congressman ever been assassinated on foreign soil while on a congressional delegation trip? Larry Layton Net Worth is $14 Million. What an evil thing that Jim Jones did. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. She got on the plane, leaving her mother behind. One, Karen Layton, died in the carnage at Jonestown. Her startling introduction to life there quickly allowed Layton to see the cracks in the facade. A self-anointed minister, as a young man he started proselytizing outside a storefront church in Indianapolis, and by 1955, had formed the Wings of Deliverance church. The robbers had been there the day before and returned asking about a ring. Once, Debbie continued, Jones woke up the camp in the early hours of the morning. Mr. Jones also apparently widened the rift between Larry Layton and his father. Her childhood playmates included cousins and friends from some of the bestknown families of Germany's Jewish aristocracy, such as the Berensons and Rothschilds. Meanwhile, Dr. Layton said, A difficult new field of science in molecular biology was opening, and he began to spend more and more time studying it. [11] He then began robbing jewelry stores along the Atlantic Coast,[3] using his contacts within the Gambino crime family to fence the stolen merchandise. Among them were George Moscone, who the Peoples Temple played a significant role in electing mayor in 1975, and Harvey Milk, the pioneering openly gay city supervisor, who went so far as to write a letter to President Jimmy Carter extolling Joness work and rebutting charges that he was abusive. Within a year, a few Jonestown defectors had managed to return to the Bay Areamost notably, Debbie Layton Blakey, whod been Jones trusted aide and worked as the Temples financial secretary. His appearance was part of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. Layton and her mother arrived in Jonestown in December 1977. Larry, after graduating from Berkeley High School, enrolled at the University of California at Davis and soon was living with Carolyn Moore, a student whose father was a Protestant minister in Davis. A second jury convicted Larry, although four jurors took what the trial judge called an unprecedented step of asking for leniency in Larrys sentencing. Layton, Deborah 1953- PERSONAL: Born in 1953, in Tooele, UT; daughter of Laurence Laird and Lisa Layton; married; children: Lauren. Initially she was allowed to recuperate in a cabin of her own, but later she was moved into a crowded dormitorystyle cabin with other elderly women. It wasnt unusual for Temple members to be awakened at dawn over the loudspeaker and summoned to the pavilion for one of his increasingly unhinged sermons. We accompanied Assemblyman Ryan to shopping centers and campaign events to pass out pamphlets and speak with voters. I never played; I never learned how. In 1968, Carolyn Layton became the first member of the family to be enticed by Mr. Jones's diatribes against the rich, the Vietnam War, social injustice and racism. The daughter of Hugo and Anita Philips, Lisa Philips Layton was born in Germany in 1915 into a family that had engaged in banking for at least 200 years. [16] Then in October 1994, four individuals robbed a jewelry store in Palm Bay, Florida. ''Look at whether their feelings against Jones were spilling over toward Larry Layton. He was born June 30, 1940 in Long Branch NJ to William and Edna (Keller) Layton. Almost immediately, Jones ordered Layton to Jonestown. He was not paroled from an American prison until 2002. While trying to keep the peace, he had been attacked with a knife. Mrs. Layton got a large share of the proceeds, as well as money from the sale of stock they had owned Jointly; this also was given to the cult. In the months leading up to the trip, my boss, Congressman Leo Ryan, had been contacted by worried constituents whose loved ones were members of a San Francisco-based religious group called the Peoples Temple, which had fled to South America for the promise of a utopian commune led by their preacher, Jim Jones. Jones responded by telling them that if any actions were taken to remove John, the entire Jonestown population would commit suicide. Among them were Sams teenaged granddaughters. He is bewildered at how it all happened, groping for an explanation of what he called a Greek tragedy.. But at the time, none of that occurred to me; I was thrilled to be working for a candidate I believed inone who always treated me with respect. I was one of Larry's lead lawyers in his first U.S. trial in 1981, which resulted in an 11 to 1 vote for acquittal on faulty charges of conspiracy to kill the congressman. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Infants cannot commit suicide. As I scanned the hundreds of smiling faces, I never could have fathomed that within 24 hours, virtually every one of them would be dead. Congressman Ryan assured me that there was nothing to worry about. 'I was a fool to leave California, but then I was a fool long before that,' he said. The months passed, and suddenly I finished a book and looked up, and no one was here., I walked up and down the street and looked at the stars and, wondered what I had done wrong, I think she felt was not as affectionate as I might have been, he said. I couldnt bear the vision of her sitting in front of my casket. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro After he passed legislation improving prison conditions, the inmates showed their gratitude by giving him a chess set they had sculpted from toothpaste and toilet paper. 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