In May 1978, she was sent by Jones to Georgetown to chaperone some Temple children on a cultural exchange. ''Why not pin this on Larry Layton, then close the book and not look at the hard questions of why Leo Ryan and all those Americans died?'' Layton said the temple started out as a civil rights movement and he compared Jones to Martin Luther King Jr., but 'obviously things turned out differently,' he said. But the moment I looked down at my own body is locked in my mind. Clearing away those cobwebs meant writing a book -- it's called "Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple." Breathing heavily, I pulled myself to my feet, stumbled to the planes baggage compartment and took shelter. Later that night, Jones had another suicide exercise. Her mother, on discovering that her husband was having an affair with Lisa's English governess, gave Lisa a detailed account of it and threatened to commit suicide. Increasing numbers of people approached us. Five bullets had ripped through me, devastating the right side of my body. 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. Three witnesses appeared on Larrys behalf before a parole hearing at the federal prison at Lompoc, California, including attorney Frank Bell and Loren Buddress, the former Chief Probation Office for the Northern District of California. Larry Layton: Survivor of the Peoples Temple Larry Layton, Quaker and pacifist, entered the Peoples Temple in 1968 to join the march to social justice as charted by the temple's mesmerizing. They had passed. It was the final stop for a group that for nearly 10 years had fascinated and, in the end, horrified the Bay Area. With its bell-ringing calls for social justice -- this was in the fractious 1960s and early '70s -- the little-known church near Ukiah catered to the closet revolutionary in Deborah Layton. I wanted to be part of something that was doing things for other people, and besides, Peoples Temple offered a community of friends. | California Historical Society. 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. 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. "I was ready to be overwhelmed by emotion," she says, "but when we got into the area, it just wasn't there. "[27] Another time he said: "I had my arms pinned down, and I was beaten and peed on by the guards. [25], Law enforcement officials and judges have supported the program. [42][13], Lawton has made many media appearances. 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. While he was never charged with shooting Mr. Ryan, the Government contended that Mr. Layton conspired with Mr. Jones and other cult members to kill the Congressman and others in his group to prevent them from returning to the United States with negative reports about Jonestown. I was later told that he had been shot 45 times. I felt my stomach knot. [6][11] In 2010, Lawton filmed the pilot and sizzle reel for Lawton's Law, a reality show based on his work with at-risk youth. Ryan joined us for the trekone of roughly two dozen of us crammed in the bed of the truck, with dozens of would-be defectors left behind, belongings packed, waiting to escape. 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. ref: Benjy Esteves Jr Mark Consentino 94-95 Larry Layton 94-95 John McKaie 94-95 There was no movement, but I thought the others might also be playing dead. It felt like a Mack truck had just sped over me. Larry Layton was the only person prosecuted for any of the events in and around Jonestown. A short time later, Larry married his second wife, Karen,whom Dr. Layton would come to know as a loving, sweet person.. But Lisa escaped from Hamburg, and in 1938, stunned by the antiSemitism she had seen, she arrived in New York with a determination never to reveal to anyone that she was Jewish. He said the accusation probably been inspired by Mr. Jones as part of a systematic effort to break up families in the church. The Laytons were a family that seemed to have everything: intelligence, plenty of money, education, a proud family tradition of Quaker nonviolence. Subsequently, he said, she urged him to have an affair. We accompanied Assemblyman Ryan to shopping centers and campaign events to pass out pamphlets and speak with voters. "If I hadn't been sent to Georgetown that day (in May)," Deborah Layton says now, "I would have died in Jonestown. After a while, Mrs. Layton began sleeping on the floor of their home in Berkeley and made her husband sell a Cadillac they owned. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. Left-right: Jim Schollaert, Jackie Speier and Congressman Leo Ryan. "Every week we're ordered to drink some liquid," she writes, culling her memories of the "old tapes (of Jonestown recollections that) are running in my head. And it wasn't an isolated incident. Hurrying out of bed, Layton would race toward Jones "in my mud-caked boots, past the tin-roofed cabins, past the wooden outdoor showers where we're allowed our two-minute wash at the end of our 11-hour days in the field." Larry's parole came two years earlier than his previously-scheduled release date of April 2004. ", "Every week we're promised death, a relief from this miserable life. Then-State Assemblyman Leo J. Ryan behind the bars in a Folsom prison cell in Feb. 1970, where he spent a week living as an inmate to learn needs for reform. Before I could even comprehend what was happening, about a dozen men leapt from the tractor, leveled their automatic weapons, and fast approached. Her life appears to be light-years from Peoples Temple. Life in Jonestown became a drab and exhausting routine of dawn-to-dusk labor in the fields, replete with swarms of voracious mosquitoes that even went after the toughened soles of people's feet. He'd work you so hard you didn't have time to complain, and he'd blackmail you; he destroyed marriages and humiliated you.. Though driven by the kind of underlying insecurity that so often fuels tyrants, Jones appeared to offer hope, redemption, and an idealistic new life. I never played; I never learned how. Children had their own special punishment, Layton writes. I was an orphan and my grandfather didn't let me forget it; he wanted me to work hard; he didn't want to ruin me with praise; I was supposed to be humble. The child talked her out of it. They joined. The suit was later dismissed. See the article in its original context from. Mr. Jones, Deborah said, callously gave Mrs. Layton that news. Moments later, Congressman Ryan emerged from a throng of people with a torn and bloodied shirt. By all accounts, Layton was on a small plane about to leave Jonestown when the plot to kill Ryan was set in motion. His appearance was part of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. The temple sent Layton to school for training as an X-ray technician. [44] Lawton has a YouTube channel, and he has made videos analyzing heists in movies and video games such as Grand Theft Auto V; he also plays Prison Architect.[44][45]. Lisa Layton's youngest son, Larry, is now under arrest in Guyana, accused of murdering Representative Leo J. Ryan and four other persons in the attack that eventually led Mr. Jones to order the mass deaths. 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. 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. Later on, I decided I had to show them. [2] The book is published in Italy, France, Australia, Germany, Thailand and United Kingdom. But when Larry Layton was growing up in the 1920's, the land was not worth much. Almost 22 hours after the ambush, I heard the groan of a planes enginefinally our escape had arrived. But he ordered them separated before they had consummated the marriage, and Mr. Blakey eventually left California to join the party establishing the cult's Guyana settlement. 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. Her book "Seductive Poison" will be in bookstores in November. From her childhood, friends said, Mrs. Layton had carried a deep fear of cancer. Don put it in his pocket and took a few more steps before carefully unfolding it. They swallowed poison capsules in a suicide attempt and were removed, unconscious, from the train. He spent 12 years in prison, and once released, began a career as a motivational speaker, life coach, and author. Their daughter, after working briefly as a physical therapist in New York, went for graduate study as a therapist to Pennsylvania State University, where her uncle, Dr. Franck, was teaching. . ''It is not the proper forum for answering questions about Jonestown.'' Ten years later the road came to a dead end in the jungles of Guyana. "I felt we were doing something that had meaning. Her father, a talented violinist hated his father for making him go into banking rather than music. After that, she never stopped going back, Dr. Layton said. Port Royal Speedway hosts a weekly schedule of local Sprint Car, Late Model, and Pro-Stock dirt track racing, and is nicknamed "The Speed Palace".Several national touring series organizations visit the track during the racing season, including the World of Outlaws . 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. 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. She was entrusted with flights to Europe and Panama to open Temple bank accounts, where Jones stashed the millions he was taking from Temple members who freely gave him their life savings, their homes and just about everything else. He had on a big yellow poncho, and his eyes were set in a sullen glare. 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. His father, an electrical engineer, died when Larry was 8 and the boy had to move in with his grandfather, a stern Methodist preacher. Larry Layton, who had boarded the small Cessna aircraft began open firing on its occupants which wounded several of them before he was disarmed by one of the people inside. At Port Kaituma, while I ushered the defectors onto a plane, a large red tractor-trailer rumbled onto the airstrip. [1][2], In 2007, he started the Reality Check Program to help educate at-risk youths on the consequences of breaking the law. [26] He was incarcerated in many prisons during his sentence, which included Jesup in Georgia, Riker's Island in New York, Edgefield in South Carolina, and Yazoo City in Mississippi. The news at the time and the history lessons to follow usually fail to mention that a number of Peoples Temple members were shot, several of whom were in the field between the pavilion and the jungle, clearly trying to escape the massacre. '', ''In a sense,'' he said, ''it would be easy to transfer the responsibility of Jones and put it on Larry Layton.'' One of the defectors wed interviewed claimed that Jones dyed them black. I have no idea how much time passed until I turned my head and opened my eyes. His suggestion that I would learn far more from first-hand experience was in step with the way he approached politics. Infants cannot commit suicide. 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. [38][5][9] In 2013, the Brevard County Jail re-introduced chain gangs as a pilot project with the goal of deterring crime. Jones became enamoured with Carolyn Layton and told Larry he wanted her for his own. On the plane to Guyana, Nov. 18, 1978. 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. Ryan and I asked one or two Temple members at a time to come talk to us. We compiled similar testimonies from other defectors who corroborated Debbies reports of physical and sexual abuse, forced labor and captivity. Individually, their insistence would have been hard to question. Mr. Layton was also sentenced to three concurrent terms of 15 years each in related charges of conspiring to kill Mr. Ryan and in the attempted murder of a United States diplomat in the same incident. In the summer of 1977, after an expose of Peoples Temple in New West magazine, Jones and his followers fled to Guyana. [21] Lawton was arrested by the FBI on December 2, 1996, in Florida and charged with the Fairless Hills armed robbery. [39] Other issues he is concerned with include prison conditions as well as post-release debt loads and their influence on unemployed ex-convicts. ''I submit they were presented to inflame you, to arouse your passions, to prejudice you. I admired Ryans worthy missions, but questioned if I shared his bottomless capacity to bear witness. The robbers drew what police at the time believed were firearms, and restrained the store owner. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, it read. The motion contends that Mr. Layton should be given a new trial because his previous defense attorneys did not know and thus failed to inform him that he faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted on the count of aiding and abetting in Mr. Ryan's murder. 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. Laurence Laird Layton, a distinguished scientist whose later life was devastated by his family's involvement with the Peoples Temple cult, died Wednesday in his Emeryville home. His first encounter with organized crime was through his father, a metal worker who delivered bribes to the New York mafia. Peoples Temple follower Larry Layton, center, stands with police following his arrest in the shooting of two people, including California Congressman Leo Ryan, on a remote Guyana airstrip, Nov. 18, 1978. Over the next decade, Jones moved his congregation and changed its name several times before settling on Peoples Temple around 1964. To go back to the gunshots. We didnt want a group to present a canned response or any individual to look to others for their answers. As I was transferred onto a gurney, I was conscious enough to look up and see a big, gleaming white plane with The United States of America written on the side. But I was one of very few women who held senior staff positions in Congress at the time, and I was concerned that if I gave in to my reluctance and let a male colleague go in my place, Id be setting back women in politics. The hospital was not far from the People's Temple community Mr. Jones had established in Redwood Valley. But, as interviews last week with family members and friends revealed, the Laytons slowly disintegrated under the pressures of family conflict, the disillusionment that gripped much of America during the 1960's, drug use, and the soothing, simplistic appeal of Mr. Jones. Other Peoples Temple. [10][26] While recounting his prison experiences he said: "I saw inmates stabbed and friends die" and "I saw young men raped and pimped out as prostitutes for other inmates. [16] Then in October 1994, four individuals robbed a jewelry store in Palm Bay, Florida. He was born June 30, 1940 in Long Branch NJ to William and Edna (Keller) Layton. Layton's mother, who came from a wealthy family, divorced her husband and donated $300,000 to Jones' cause. Once, Debbie continued, Jones woke up the camp in the early hours of the morning. Returning to the pavilion area, I sought out other anxious-looking members. During my freshman year at UC Davis, when I told him about my major, he offered encouragement: If you really want to learn about political science, you should come and intern in my office. I did, and over the years, worked my way up from volunteer to intern to staffer to senior aide, just as he climbed from the state Assembly to the U.S. Congress. But by the time I showed em, they were all dead.. It was impossible to cope with the pain. Mr. Jones, they said, could cure cancer. Instead he proposed a better use of law enforcement resources would be to "help inmates with drug addiction. The bodies of Jones and 912 cult followers lay sprawled under the tropical trees of the commune, victims of an incredible murder-suicide rite. 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