Peoples Temple in San Francisco - After The Incident

After The Incident

On the evening of November 18, 1978 in Jonestown, Jones ordered his congregation to drink cyanide-laced Flavor Aid. In all, at Jonestown, a nearby airstrip and Georgetown, 918 people died, including over 270 children, resulting in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the incidents of September 11, 2001. Congressman Leo Ryan was among those killed at the airstrip.

Judy and Patty Houston, the girls about whom Carolyn Layton threatened Joyce Houston not to move for custody at the Sutter Street commune, were also found poisoned. John Stoen, the son of former Assistant District Attorney Timothy Stoen, was found poisoned in Jim Jones's cabin.

Sharon Amos, who had earlier led political pamphletting campaigns in San Francisco, murdered her children with a knife and committed suicide at the Temple's Georgetown, Guyana headquarters (150 miles from Jonestown) at the behest of Jones.

412 unclaimed victims are buried at Evergreen Cemetery, in Oakland, as many of the local members of the church had come from Oakland. A memorial plaque with the names of all victims was placed at the site in 2011, which controversially included the name of Jim Jones, the architect of the mass killing, who is not buried at the cemetery.