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The survivor, John Cobb, said many of his family were also members.
In the newly created Jonestown in Guyana, Cobb was in the security detail for Jones and a member of the inner circle.
“The fact that we were able to be Jim Jones’s personal guards for well over a year. We got to see everything that was happening in detail. We really got a chance to know him. And we didn’t believe in him. We got to see him for really what he was and we knew he was wrong,” Cobb said.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the cult was being investigated. This prompted Congress member Leo Ryan to fly to Guyana to see the situation for himself.
Ryan’s group was at the airport preparing to leave with a small group of defectors when gunmen from the Peoples Temple shot and killed Ryan, three journalists, and a defector.
Shortly after the airport attack, Jones ordered the poisoning of all 918 members, including over 300 children.
During this time, Cobb was in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, for a basketball tournament. He talks about when he and his teammates returned.
“We went there to identify bodies. We got there and the first thing we did was look to make sure Jim Jones was dead and he was. And then we identified some of our other family members and people. And after a while, it was just no need to keep on going. They were all. Everybody was dead. There were 900 plus people just on top of each other and the bodies were very distorted,” Cobb said.
He regrets not being at the compound believing he could have saved some lives, including his own family.
“Oh, God. I lost 11 total family members – mother, four sisters, younger brother, two nieces. I lost a son that actually died before November. He died of natural causes. His mother. And just a couple more nephews. All together it’s 11,” Cobb said.
He and other survivors helped create the Jonestown Memorial at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California. The remains of more than 400 victims are buried in a mass grave there.
“I think it’s a very befitting memorial and it’s one of the better things I’ve done in my life. I feel so much better about this because those were really some great people, selfless people that need to be remembered properly. They didn’t have a chance to live their lives and we did. And I feel very good about this that people have a place to come and recognize them,” Cobb said.
Even after all these years, he remembers his family. It is a wound that will never heal.
“They speak about a closure. There’s never closure on that. You never forget. You remember your loved ones at some point if it’s only for a second every day of your life. You just learn to deal with it and go on and live. It’s what they would want us to do,” Cobb said.
