He is bewildered at how it all happened, groping for an explanation of what he called a Greek tragedy.. Jones himself sat onstage in a throne beneath a sign that read: Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The members sang and danced and, by every appearance, were happy. Layton was accused of conspiracy to murder in the November,1978, violence that triggered the mass deaths -- the airstrip attack on Rep. Leo Ryan and his party in which the congressman and four others were killed. 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. Mr. Layton's first trial ended in a mistrial on Sept. 26, 1981, when the jury was unable to reach a verdict on any of the counts. The cover of a Jonestown promotional booklet from 1978. [39] Other issues he is concerned with include prison conditions as well as post-release debt loads and their influence on unemployed ex-convicts. He was cracking. Jones had become increasingly paranoid, convinced that the CIA, the FBI and the media were out to destroy him. Jim Jones with a group of children living at Jonestown, circa 1978. Congressman Ryan and I were among the first shift of the delegation to climb in for the excruciatingly slow six-mile drive to the commune. Oh my God: Its true. I couldnt immediately identify the deafening sound that filled the air. [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. Her book "Seductive Poison" will be in bookstores in November. Education: Attended college in the area of San Francisco, CA. Members of the press and the Concerned Relatives waited behind on the airstrip until the truck could come back for a second load. Congressman Ryan assured me that there was nothing to worry about. Larry Howard Layton, 80, of Green Valley, AZ passed away December 10, 2020 from complications of COVID-19. I did not recover my old self; bullets render that impossible. Larry Layton was convicted in 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco of conspiring in the 1978 murder of California congressman Leo Ryan and aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of Richard Dwyer, a U.S. diplomat wounded in the attack. As I was lying seven miles away waiting for medical help, Sam Houstons granddaughters, Patricia and Judy, 14 and 15, were murdered, along with their mother, dozens of other would-be defectors and the rest of the Peoples Temple. By that time, darker elements had seeped into Jones sermons. 'I was a fool to leave California, but then I was a fool long before that,' he said. [13], In May 1994, three males robbed a jewelry store in Daytona Beach, Florida, netting $500,000 (nearly $950,000 in 2022)[14] worth of gold and diamonds. Mr. Layton cried as his attorney described conditions at Jonestown and said that many prosecution witnesses must feel guilty for leaving loved ones behind to die. It was the final stop for a group that for nearly 10 years had fascinated and, in the end, horrified the Bay Area. 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.". Mr. Jones, they said, could cure cancer. I grew up with the Bible and the Puritan work ethic, he recalled in an interview. [2] The book is published in Italy, France, Australia, Germany, Thailand and United Kingdom. Also there was a strong feeling of community -- people of all races who really cared about each other.'. While on the phone listening to the allegations that would soon be made public, Jones scribbled a note to his aides: We leave tonight.. [28], After release he went to Palm Bay, Florida and started LL Research and Consulting and met a business partner. By his own admission, Layton came of age in Berkeley, Calif., during the turmoil of student protests and the Vietnam war. Mrs. Layton saw Mr. Jones strip Larry of two wives. [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. Larry Layton, a former member of the People's Temple cult, was sentenced today to life in prison for aiding and abetting in the murder of Representative Leo J. Ryan at a jungle airstrip in Guyana in November 1978. Layton became a senior insider in Jones' entourage. 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. I was feet away from Jones, close enough to hear him trying to convince people to change their minds. 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. In a cabin with about six women from the Temple, I took a top bunk, sweating as a downpour opened up outside. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. As I took down their names, I looked over at Don Harris, who was interviewing Jones. | AP/San Francisco Examiner. He had on a big yellow poncho, and his eyes were set in a sullen glare. ADDRESSES: Home Berkeley, CA. Layton was attracted to the Utopian principles of the temple and its multi-racial flock, living and working together under the guidance of Jones, a combination professed faith-healer and leftist political prophet. There is a sickening recording of Jones coercing his followers that day. 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. "[10], Lawton also founded the Reality Check Foundation, which is a 501(C)(3) charity that includes a mentoring program, and an annual golf outing. 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. Children had their own special punishment, Layton writes. A year later, I applied to college, and he wrote me a letter of recommendation. Last May, while serving Mr. Jones as a trusted aide, she escaped from Jonestown and tried in vain to alert the world that he was preparing for a mass suicide in order to establish a place for himself in history. (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. I was later told that he had been shot 45 times. 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. Her marriage was ruptured by Mr. Jopes even before it could be consummated. [29][13] The program is four hours long. Larry Layton Net Worth is $14 Million. After that trip, I remember telling myself that never again would I witness such violence at such close range. And, I thought of them like Mormons. ''This is a criminal case against Larry Layton,'' he said. The parole examiner said he was deeply troubled that Larry had remained in prison for so long well in excess of the five years recommended by the sentencing judge and noted Larrys exemplary behavior while in federal custody. ''I feel a tremendous amount of guilt and remorse for the events that happened,'' he said. On November 17, we landed at the tiny airstrip at Port Kaituma. [7] In grades one through six, Lawton served as an altar boy at St. Francis de Chantal in The Bronx,[8] where he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest. | California Historical Society. ''You've heard graphic details about what happenened on the airstrip,'' he said. I did not feel confident this was a good idea. Ever on the alert for malcontents, Jones would order recalcitrant Temple members -- those who questioned his authority -- into "The Box," a stifling underground cubicle the size of a coffin. Friends of Larry Layton recall that Mr. Jones took both Carolyn and Karen from him after having the women watch him force Larry to submit to a homosexual act. Deborah Layton is now 45, lives in an elegant house in Piedmont and takes her 12-year-old daughter to play in soccer games. White Night!" 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. 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. He was acquitted after presenting a defense of brainwashing. He was to use the skill when the flock made its planned migration to the Guyana settlement, which Jones already had picked out and named Jonestown. bout wiki. Almost immediately, Jones ordered Layton to Jonestown. By Robert Lindsey Special to The New York Times. The "Greeting Committee" promptly confiscated all their clothes and belongings and, most important, their passports. Their courtship began in the spring of 1941, and theywere married in October. Larry shot and wounded two people at the Port Kaituma airstrip on 18 November 1978, and he attempted to shoot a third. 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. He had engineered complete authoritycollecting members Social Security and disability checks, and determining when and how his disciples could communicate with their families. Larry Layton can be an professional, known for Get away to Grizzly Hill (2000) and Viva . Youll see what a wonderful place it is. He took us on a tour highlighting the most favorable aspects of the commune. 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. 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. In June, she filed an affidavit with the State Department detailing the horrors in Jonestown, but got no response. Leo Ryan wanted answers. Among them were Sams teenaged granddaughters. Not a single person we spoke to expressed a desire to leave, not even those whose family members had flown all the way to Guyana. Her father, a talented violinist hated his father for making him go into banking rather than music. The morning after our arrival, Congressman Ryan, Jim Schollaert and I attended a closed-door briefing by Ambassador John Burke and his staff at the U.S. Embassy. 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. Anyone can read what you share. In the summer of 1977, after an expose of Peoples Temple in New West magazine, Jones and his followers fled to Guyana. Under the Federal parole system, a person sentenced to life in prison is not normally considered for parole until 10 years have been served. John Ford. My ribs were broken. My recovery continuedthough that very word is not an accurate description of the aftermath of being shot. . And he assigned two of his staff members to come along: Jim Schollaert and me. 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. Like all of the tracks in the United States, it closed during the World War II years (1941-1945) and re-opened in 1946. She used a telephone in the radio shack to call her sister in California, who arranged to have an airline ticket waiting for her at the airport in Georgetown, Guyana. 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. In 1978, I went to Guyana on a fact-finding mission. After over twenty years in prison, Larry Layton was released on parole in 2002, largely due to the testimony of Vernon Gosney, one of the few survivors of the massacre, and the Federal Chief Judge, Robert F. Peckham. With Joness wild gaze on us, I tape-recorded affidavits of their wishes to return to the United States. 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. The hospital was not far from the People's Temple community Mr. Jones had established in Redwood Valley. Dr. Layton recalls that his wife began to resist his sexual advances and, when he protested, offered to move out. Larry Layton was convicted in 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco of conspiring in the 1978 murder of California congressman Leo Ryan and aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of. But Layton, saying he wishes he could ease the pain. In addition, Mr. Layton was convicted of aiding and abetting the murder of Mr. Ryan and the attempted murder of Mr. Dwyer. This time, it was not a drill. Inquisitive by nature, he was a proponent of experiential legislating, preferring to go out and experience issues firsthand before he decided what to do. He spent 12 years in prison, and once released, began a career as a motivational speaker, life coach, and author. Jones responded by telling them that if any actions were taken to remove John, the entire Jonestown population would commit suicide. It was to be the secret of her life. Suddenly, my body was crushed by a blow to my side. [38][5][9] In 2013, the Brevard County Jail re-introduced chain gangs as a pilot project with the goal of deterring crime. And it wasn't an isolated incident. 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. 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. [10] Afterwards, another jewelry store in Lower Bucks County became suspicious of a person they believed was casing the place for a future robbery. [21] Lawton was arrested by the FBI on December 2, 1996, in Florida and charged with the Fairless Hills armed robbery. [31] The DVDs contained condensed versions of Lawton's program and were 67 minutes long. 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. '', He said that Mr. Layton ''did not kill anybody'' at the airstrip, nor did he ''aid and abet or conspire to kill Leo Ryan.'' The approach continued even after hed moved from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. [10] In 2012, Lawton self-published Gangster Redemption, an autobiography co-written with Peter Golenbock. 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. Infants cannot commit suicide. What an evil thing that Jim Jones did. Her brother, Larry, later became the only person ever charged in connection with the airstrip massacre and, after two . At both trials here the prosecution presented a confession signed by Mr. Layton in Guyana shortly after the killings, saying that he took ''full responsibility'' for the deaths at the airstrip but also saying, ''I don't know why I did it. At the airport, Temple members who found out she was fleeing implored her not to leave. The other, Carolyn, became one of Mr. Jones's mistresses and also his principal fnancial adviser; it is not known whether she is alive. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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