Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
On November 18th 1978, Gerald Park tells his 12 year old daughter Tracy to escape in the jungle, and stay hidden until it’s safe. As gunmen and helicopters close in on her, Tracy knows she needs to survive to avenge her mother’s death, and make sure Jim Jones would pay for what he did to her family, and 918 other victims. You might have heard about Jonestown, but this is the story of the little girl who lived. –
This picture hides the most disturbin secret ,it was taken i Guyana on November 18th, 1978.
five people were shot dead.
during the attack ,her daughter tracy went missing in the forest along with four other kids.
this fotage shows the airstrip minutes before the attack ,
the women with the red coat around her waist is patricia. her daughter tracy , has already boarded. this smaller plane.
the final images capture these three men with guns on the right.
the camera captures 12 years -old Tracy wiping tears with her hat. as the parks family asre packing their belonings onto the truck., people from the commune show their anger, yelling at them.
24 hours after this footage was taken, 918 people are found dead and tracy is nowhere to be found.
the events that led to the jonestown massacre would remain a mystery.
Unless by some miracle someone can rescue it´s youngest survivor, 12 year old tracy parks.
the year is 1966 , in the quiet town of Redwood valley, California.
Gerald Parks moves in with his loving family. worried about the Cold War and a possible nuclear disaster, parks and his wife patricia have driven all the way from Ohio with their three kids, their son dale, their daughter brenda and their six week old baby Tracy.
The parks are among the hundreds of people hwo followed reverend jones to california .
Redwood valley is to be the perfect shelter for gerald and his family.A great place to raise little Tracy
1973,7 years laters.
Jones announce that he´s building a paradise city in south america he calls it the people´s temple Agricultural Project, but it will later be known only as jonestown .
this is to be the promise land
but contrary to gerald and patricia, tracy is not at all exited
August 1st 1977 ,4 years later.
An article is published in new west magazine. condeming the people´s Temple. talking about allegations of abuse. still , more and more followers of Reverend jones make the move to this so -called ” paradise city.”
families left behind are worried about loved ones.
months pass ,and no one´s heard from the parks family since they left.
November 17 th , 1978
Senator Leo Ryan from California ,flies to Guyans with his legal aid and the NBC camera crew to investigate
the word we were getting was that there was an armed encampment.
His goal was simply to go there and try to determine if people were being held against their will , and if so to try to get them out of there.
The entire trip to the city of jonestown is documented on tape. the images you see here will later be found abondoned on this guyana airstrip.
leo ryan :” i´m from the united states government, we´re here to inquire into the health and the welfare of american citizens who are here”
As he arrives at the camp …..
leo ryan is met with an unexpected scene,cheerful children playing and smiling…
adults in colorful clothing , dancing and singing.
How could you not be impressed , that out of the jungles of Guyana, they had carved out a ciommunity. rice, black eyed peas , more peas. have different containers surrond the place. we couldn´t go through all the tremendous inventory, they built up kool-aid.”
at first glance jonestown really does look like a great place to live.
but something floats in the air,something hidden behind the eyes. are all these people really happy?when evening comes, the towns folk have prepared a celebration for the senator, it was a vibrant community.i would never imagined that something was very ,very wrong.
leo ryan:” i think that all of you know, that i´m here to findout more about , questions have been raised about your operation here.but i can tell you right now that from a few conversations i ´ve had with some of the folks here already this evening that whatever the comments are , there are some people here who believe that this is the best thing that ever happened to them their whole life.”
but behind this cheerful demonstration hides a disturbing reality as one oif the journalists passes along the pavilion, a man secretly hands him a note. the note reads ,” help us get out of jonestown.”
November 18th ,the next day
the following dasy at 11:30 am. geralds mother, edith parks, walks up to senator ryan directly and says” we ´re being held prisoner here ,taken aback. senator ryan ask gerald if what his mother says is true…..
gerald:” i said ! we ´ve been here seven and a half months. we want to go home.
no one can imagine the horror gerald an d his family went through .
but the next 72 hours will be the worst 12,year- old Tracy will ever live.
Tracy´s story begins in Redwood Valley years earlier. being born in the people´s temple, tracy has been taught her whole life that jim jones is a man chosen by god.
at one gathering, he asks a women in a wheelchair to st and up, as she slowly begins to rise the crowd is overcome with emotion, then he asks her to walk. step after step. he ask her to move towards him , until…
gerald:” when i saw with my own eyes, i thought, how can i deny it ?
what gerald doesn´t knwo at the time. is that the women in the wheelchair ,who stood and walked among the crowd was actually one of jones´secretaries hired for the spectacle.
every wednesday jim jones offers different kind of meeting to his folllowers, he calls them ” catharsis”, the purgin of evil.-. if you got caught talking to people that were not affiliated with the churche, then you would be in trouble for that.
Members , even children could be called to the front and be hit repeatedly with a paddle while the entire congregation is made to laugh at you.
As the parks family is getting ready to follow jim jones to Guyana, Tracy is deeply troubled.
as Tracy gets 0ff the plane with her family, the air is so thick and so hot , she can hardly breathem the family now has to board a tractor. to be taken to jonestown.
Right away tracy ands her family are stripped from all of their belonings,inclusind their passports m then tracy is separatade from her parents,
-They told the parents right then and there,” she´s gonna be staying in the kids ´ area. and the parents gonna be going to a there own cottage.” -Tracy was devasteded.
According to jim jones, family bonds are selfish, but the truth is he wants to turn family members against one another, and the best way to dso that is to isolate them, already ,tracy´s father gerald knows he´s made a misstake.
The next morning while walking around the ground. Gerald runs into his own cousin
Gerald:“and she said,” how do you like jonstown,?” i said , ” i don´t.”that´s all was said.
But the power jim jones has on his followers is already very strong. that night at the gathering gerald is called to the front.his cousin has told on him.
gerald: ” i had to act like i was one of them, but i never give up hope.i thought somehow we´ ll get outta here.
But acting like everything is fine, won´t be easy especially not for little Tracy
she discovers quickly that jones forces his followers to work incredibly long hours, the day start at 6;00 AM, when the guards pass around yellinf for people to wake up.
Tracy jumps out of bed and runs to the breakfast table, rice and mik with bugs in it. and for dinner maybe rice and gravy.
After eating Tracy would have to run to her post where she´d work ther rest of the day until dark.
by nigghtfall, she would attend mandatory meetings of jim jones screaming and preaching for hours most of the time spreading fear.talking about threats outside in the jungle.
jims jones:” i got a hell of a lot of weapons to fight,i got my claws, i got cutlasses, i got guns i got got dynamite, i got a hell of a lot to fight.! i´ll fight ! i´ll fight!
listening to jim jones preached till whatever time on the morning he got done.might be 2, might be 3.you´d get hit with a cane , if you were falling a sleep. the kids would just be laid all over the floor. they couldn´t keep them awake.
and then there are the white night, the nist terrifying meeting of all . to test the loyalty of his followers, jim jones forces everyone to drink a fruit punch that may or may not be poisoned.
Jim Jones : ” who the hell wouldn´t be ready for a white night? how do you feel about you may die tonight?
But Gerald parks knows that for jim jones, this is a rehearsal.
Gerald: i knew those white nights hw was having was fake at the time. but i also knew thar one day one of ´em would not be fake.
since 1976, jim jones and his close crew have been bying cyanide in preparation for the mass murder of his followers.
Gerald needs to act fast.but the Guyana forest is one of the most dangerous in south america.
jim jones makes sure everyone knows this.
-he would often throw that on our face ” go ahead and try to run through the jungle. the panters and ths snakes”
Jim Jones:” see if you can make it to an raylway, see if yo can get to any passport.Try i dare you to try.
November 17th 1978
Jim jones tells his followers ,that sentar ryan is coming.
Jones wants to prevent a possible crisis. he takes certain precautions, Now prepping everybody mentally for ” you bettter not get outta hand, your better be on your best behavior”
They had a big musical. singing, dancing and everything to make him see how happy everybody was
senator: whatever the comments are , there are some people here who believe this is the best thing that ever happened on their whole life.
when hearing this speech , tracy´s heart drops , if senator ryan could be fooled, no one else would come and save them.
November 18sth , the following morning.
Gerald and his mother edith walk up straight to senator ryan to tel him the truth.
gerald : ” i said we have been here for 7 and a half months , we want to go home and he said.” well , you´ll be back in the united states today”
but gerald isn´t so sure. other families begin to come forward as well. soons more than as dozen temple members have stepped up with parks .family wanting to defect.
Jim jones confronts gerald´s family about their intention to leave. Gerald is wearing the white and blue top.
his daughter brenda ,stsan ding behind him.. although jones is obiously shocked by the news, he dosen´t make much of a scene.
Allthough senator ryan thinks he can get these people home safely, no one else is convinced while the defectors are draggin g their belonings ..
..onto the tractor , that will take them out of jonestown, chaos begins to spred.
Gerald: they were calling us names, the lawyer asked me, said, what´s really going on over here?” and i said ,”the bastard´s gonna kill us all.” that´s what´s going on.”
-the road to the airstrip is six miles long and in horrible condition, tension is on everyone´s face.
but no one says a word.
Gerald: my wife was on the truck. our eyes met and i looked at her and neither one of us said anything
As they finally arrive at the landing strip in Port kaituma,33 people prepare to board two planes
splitting the parks family.
The camera is still rolling
you can see Gerald parks aproching the plane with his family in tow.
then behind them at the dirt road, a truck arrives with armed men. they were folllowed . the gunman opened fire…..
right away , patricia parks is shot dead. four more people are killed on the airstrip including NBC reporter Don Harris and senator ryan.
Don Harris
sentor leo ryan
and the cameraman Bob brown is also killed- many more are gravely wounded,
but tracy is on the other plane with her brother Dale. Gerald dosen´t know if they´re alive.
Gerald:” i couldn´t get y seatbelt off , i heard my mom holler: ” look at my wife patty,” i finally looked back ,she wsas set slumped over with her top of her head gone.
Finally , the shooting stops and the truck drives away
Gerald: i just stood there for a few seconds and it´s like a bad dresam or this can´t be happening. we were expecting at any moment for them to come back.
In the smaller plane a man who pretended to be a defector has opened fire at point blank
after shooting one of the adults…
…..he turms his gun towards Dale , tracy´s brother
Gerald sees Tracy running toward him. he means to shield tracy from the horrible site but she´s too fast.
Gerald:” i knew that i had to get her to safety.so i headed the girls towrds the jungle and said ” go in there, don´t go too far”go in there so you can´t be seen and wait till we call you”
As Gerald and his mother remaine on the airstrip,tracy, her sister brenda. amd three other kids are now by them self.
Tracy
Brenda
Gerald: “before night came, we went back to the jungle , stared hollering for the kids and no response. that´s when my heart dropped, because i knew Guyana is one of the most dangerous jungles in the world.
when darkness falls, the kids find a bent over tree to climb and spend the night as the world around them turns pitch black. they hear gunshots.
November 19 th , day 2 . in the jungle
Tracy starts to feel ill ,have nothing to eat or drink, her condition deteriorates rapidly, her sister brenda being the eldest, does her best to keep the children moving, knowing that jones men are probably out there looking for them. night falls on the second day.
a search helicopter flies overhead ,probing the grounds with its light. the chilren find cover to avoid being seen.they can´t risk going back to jonestown.
that night, tracy develops a high fever, everyone else starts to get sick as well.
November 20th, day three, all five children are laying sick and exhausted on the jungle floor.
Brenda no longer has the strengh to carry the group along, but she can´t let her little sister tracy down.
brenda: ” i just remember thinking, that if we don´t get outta here today, we´re not going to get out at all, i heard this music out here in the middle of a jungle. who or where wouldn´t even be playing it. where would it be coming from?
tracy: my sister hit me, she goes ,” get up!”
brenda:” it was like it had snapped me back to reality. which allowed me to think and soon as that happened that music turned to the sound of a generator.
The group follows Brenda through the wilderness, Brenda hurries them to run between the trees, stopping at times to listen for the sound, then ruinning again.after a long while, they see a group of armed men patrolling alongside a river.
tracy: ” i thought they were going to either help us or they´re going to take us back to jones and i was too sick to care.
Gerarld: police come and told me that the kids had been found. for the first time, first time. i had something to smile about.
Tracy and Brenda are reunited with their father , their grandmother and their brother dale alive and well.
although tracy and her sister can finally breath a sigh of relief. the joyof this heartfelt reunion is short -lived. they learned the details of what happened inside jonestown. the day of the attack
November 18th , two days earlier ….
Jim Jones calls the members of the People´s Temple to assemble at the pavilion, the area is surrounded by armed guards. the meeting is recorded on audio tape.
Jim jones: ” gather in folks it´s easy.it´s easy.
Jones has ordered for the cyanide to be mixed with the kool- Aid. then he forces his followers to drink it.
jones: if we can´t live in peace, then let us die in peace.
the tape is 45 minutes long, in it, you can hear jim jones makind outrageous claims, speaking of an army coming to torture them….
jones:” plain as i know how to tell you, i´ve never lied to you.i never have lied to you.
when some of the members protest and wish to leave, he refuses.
jones:” no ,you´r not going.your´not going.
some members take the deadly drink willingly, while others are forced at gunpoint.
the scene turns to chaos.
and the recording becomes unbearable to hear.
jones:” die with a degree of dignity, lay down your life with dignity.don´t lay down with tears and agony. dont´t be this way. oh ,god.
A total of 918 people are killed in jonestown, the first of which was patricia parks tracy´s mother .