Her book "Seductive Poison" will be in bookstores in November. Last spring Deborah decided she had to escape. They visited her brother in Ukiah, listened to Mr. Jones's teachingswhich in many ways paralleled those of the Quakers and before long even Mr. Blakey's mother had flown from England to join the People's Temple for a short while. None of those red flags made the congressman reconsider. 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. [32] By 2010, Lawton had shipped 10,000 DVDs across the country. Politics: Liberal. His first encounter with organized crime was through his father, a metal worker who delivered bribes to the New York mafia. 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. We listened as she offered a detailed and disturbing account of her experience. Larrys parole came two years earlier than his previously-scheduled release date of April 2004. "The reason I did well," Layton says now, "is that I'm a little soldier and I follow orders so well.". One of the defectors wed interviewed claimed that Jones dyed them black. There is abundant evidence that Mr. Jones used such tactics to divide families and break up marriages. I was even unaffected by the rice weevils and other strange bugs we ingested daily.". 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. | AP. "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. Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, it read. Jones became active in local politics, giving money, running food programs and busing Temple members to attend rallies and get out the vote for his favored candidates. His father, an electrical engineer, died when Larry was 8 and the boy had to move in with his grandfather, a stern Methodist preacher. I felt my stomach knot. How could I not like the good things they were doing?. According to trial testimony, as the attack began, Layton pulled a gun inside the plane and wounded two temple defectors. A man followed him and slipped a folded piece of paper into his hand, then disappeared back into the crowd. "And I thought, if I get hit by a truck, my epitaph will be, 'Jonestown survivor dies on Bay Bridge.' He genuinely believed that he had some sort of protective shield around him, despite the fact that we werent traveling with any military escort or protection. Hours after Mr. Ryan and four others were shot to death at the airstrip near Jonestown, which was the headquarters of the cult, the cult's leader, the Rev. I grew up with the Bible and the Puritan work ethic, he recalled in an interview. He went, and pursued the destiny that brought him to trial in San Francisco. 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.''. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Monica confirmed that she wanted to leave. Left-right: Jim Schollaert, Jackie Speier and Congressman Leo Ryan. Larry Layton was the only person prosecuted for any of the events in and around Jonestown. My mother had cared a lot for my father, but Jim broke it up.. Layton's mother, Lisa, had died of cancer 10 days before the mass suicide. In Congress, he joined a March 1978 Greenpeace mission to investigate the slaughter of baby seals in Newfoundland, Canada. Of the more than 900 members of Joness congregation who had moved there, nearly a third were children. Hours later at the Jonestown emcampment, Jones led the death rite of himself and his followers. ''You've heard graphic details about what happenened on the airstrip,'' he said. Be the first to contribute! The retrial was delayed for years because of complex appeals over the admissability of certain evidence excluded by Judge Peckham's rulings in the first trial. In a cabin with about six women from the Temple, I took a top bunk, sweating as a downpour opened up outside. Individually, their insistence would have been hard to question. The robbers drew what police at the time believed were firearms, and restrained the store owner. In the weeks leading up to the White House decision on the petition, a number of former congressmen and religious leaders including Rev. Jim Jones had taken my place. It did not sit well with me. It was imminently clear Jonestown was a hierarchical community, with the power structure resembling some sort of plantation: the majority of the Temple members were black, while the leadership was almost exclusively white. Dr. Layton was from a world substantially different from the aristocratic one of his bride. [38][5][9] In 2013, the Brevard County Jail re-introduced chain gangs as a pilot project with the goal of deterring crime. . The campaign succeeded in making it to the Oval Office, and seemed to be viable up until 20 January 2001, President Clintons last day in office, but Larrys name did not appear on the final list of pardons and commutations. Onboard, every bump we hit shot an arrow of pain through my body. Her startling introduction to life there quickly allowed Layton to see the cracks in the facade. While trying to keep the peace, he had been attacked with a knife. It felt like a Mack truck had just sped over me. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Getting Started | Contributor Zone Contribute to This Page Edit page Larry Layton Personal Details Contact Info bout wiki. Jim Jones would order more than 900 of his followers to commit suicide. 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. Mrs. Layton moved out of their home on Labor Day 1979. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Twelve hours had passed as I lay, teetering on deaths precipice when a light turned on inside me: The simple fact that I knew I was dying was proof that I was, indeed, still alive. Politically, there was nothing to gainand everything to loseby taking on Jones, and there was no telling what hed do if confronted and challenged. [15][18] Local police believed there was a connection between this robbery and a robbery that took place in May 1994 in Daytona Beach, and contacted the FBI. John Ford. '', See the article in its original context from. 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. | AP. It made no sense that he would be trying to leave Jonestown. They reported the car's license plate, which linked the car to Lawton. From what Ive seen, he said, there are a lot of people here who think this is the best thing that happened in their whole life. He was interrupted by manically enthusiastic cheering. Jones had become increasingly paranoid, convinced that the CIA, the FBI and the media were out to destroy him. Reassured that they were on their way, we parked ourselves at a few picnic tables in the far corner of the pavilion area. [10] In 2012, Lawton self-published Gangster Redemption, an autobiography co-written with Peter Golenbock. By that time, darker elements had seeped into Jones sermons. At the end of the evening, Rep. Ryan walked onstage and thanked the group. They swallowed poison capsules in a suicide attempt and were removed, unconscious, from the train. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. The approach continued even after hed moved from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. | Amazon. Dr. Layton recalls that his wife began to resist his sexual advances and, when he protested, offered to move out. 'I was a fool to leave California, but then I was a fool long before that,' he said. ref: Sparkle Lee Larry Layton 40-36 Tony Lundy 40-36 Lindsey Page 40-35 2020-01-10: Alicia Napoleon Espinosa: L-UD. 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. 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. Many hours before the plane came, somehow, word filtered in that after Jones had released his death squad to the airstrip, he had led more than 900 of his flock into his White Night of death. Family Tragedy: Hitler's Germany to Jones's Cult, https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/04/archives/family-tragedy-hitlers-germany-to-joness-cult-the-layton-familys.html. Their courtship began in the spring of 1941, and theywere married in October. [31] The DVDs contained condensed versions of Lawton's program and were 67 minutes long. His suggestion that I would learn far more from first-hand experience was in step with the way he approached politics. 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. Youll see what a wonderful place it is. He took us on a tour highlighting the most favorable aspects of the commune. He was cracking. 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. I just needed to hang on. 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. He. The hospital was not far from the People's Temple community Mr. Jones had established in Redwood Valley. The temple sent Layton to school for training as an X-ray technician. Besides, when had a congressman ever been assassinated on foreign soil while on a congressional delegation trip? Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. [15] The robbers took $480,000 ($910,600.81 in 2022)[17] worth of gold and diamonds making it the biggest robbery in the city's history. [21] Lawton was arrested by the FBI on December 2, 1996, in Florida and charged with the Fairless Hills armed robbery. This site houses a variety of PDF documents. Mrs. Layton saw Mr. Jones strip Larry of two wives. On November 17, we landed at the tiny airstrip at Port Kaituma. He is bewildered at how it all happened, groping for an explanation of what he called a Greek tragedy.. Larry shot and wounded two people at the Port Kaituma airstrip on 18 November 1978, and he attempted to shoot a third. 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. [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]. Biography Mini Bio (1) Larry Layton is known for Viva (2007) and Escape to Grizzly Mountain (2000). 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. NBC news correspondent Don Harris was part of our delegation, and was well versed on the accusations against Jones. 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 . "I was driving across the bridge," she says when asked why, after all these years, she wanted to revisit the horrors of Jonestown. | AP. Dr. Layton was perplexed by his wife's behavior but began sleeping beside her on the floor. Secretly, she offered her mother a glass of the wine. I had read the articles and listened to hours of testimony. Infants cannot commit suicide. Jones died from a bullet to the brain. 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. Years later, after Lisa Layton Joined the People's Temple, she would tell other members of the cult that her husband had been antiSemitic and was ashamed of her being a Jew. The bodies of Jones and 912 cult followers lay sprawled under the tropical trees of the commune, victims of an incredible murder-suicide rite. Layton's mother, Lisa, had died of cancer 10 days before the mass suicide. A year later, I applied to college, and he wrote me a letter of recommendation. ''I submit they were presented to inflame you, to arouse your passions, to prejudice you. 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 was beaten once a month. American author, Youtuber and jewel thief, "Police hunt clues in Cannes jewelry heist; ex-jewel thief says it was a pro job", "Florida sheriff reintroduces chain gang", "Ex-jewel thief says of Kim K's purloined baubles: 'They're gone. [8] Lawton later said that he used a BB gun during the robbery. He has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Christian Broadcasting Network, and Fox News. Under the Federal parole system, a person sentenced to life in prison is not normally considered for parole until 10 years have been served. Nearly 30 years later, her mother long dead in a rotting jungle outpost in Guyana, her brother doing life in a federal prison and her father so broken that he weeps at the mention of anything connected with Jones-, town, Deborah Layton has, as she put it the other day, "decided it was time to come out of the cobwebbed attic.". With organized crime was through his father, a number of former congressmen and religious leaders Rev... 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