Episode 13 God’s Highway
Q1054 Part 3 Jones: I’m not gonna be able to withhold the truth any longer, people are going to find their way to this truth and why not? Because when people see God in me, they reproduce God in themselves. If you see me as the other fella, if you see me as the Devil sittin’ up here, you’re gonna be the meanest devil when you get through with this meeting that you ever were. Because you, what you see is what you get. See me as God. Say, how do you feel when you preach this? Never do I feel so good. I’m just laying it out as it’s plain as a day. I’m just layin’ it out so you can smell it, breathe it, and see it. But sometimes I’ll speak in parables. And when I speak in parables inside, I’ll be choked up and my chest will feel tight, but when I say I am, THE I AM! When I say I Am God! When I say I Am God! When I say I Am God!
Vera Washington: You didn’t question him. You have to be away from him to start to think with some kind of clarity.
Jordan Vilchez: Very possible that there were things in the, put in the food that made us more complacent. Sometimes Jonestown is a big blur to me.
Yulanda Williams: So he promoted constant fear, but I will never believe that everybody just said “Willingly, yeah, we’re just gonna die together for the cause,” no.
Mike Wood: And if somebody tells you the ends justifies the means they’ve just told you that you are the next means to whatever end that they happen to espouse.
David Parker Wise: You know, that’s what’s so funny about the closed loop, is that Jim was copying society and becoming cult-like, now I see a cult-like society copying Jim.
Denise: Was Peoples Temple an experiment? I don’t know. It was a bizarre time, I’ll tell you that. It -- it started out one way and ended up being something else.
Welcome! [Peoples Temple Children’s Choir]
Welcome back to Transmissions from Jonestown. This is episode 13: God’s Highway. I am often asked why I continue to examine the tragedy in Jonestown. Many years ago, when I first discovered the death tape and analyzed it for clues, I found myself sucked into what some people call the Jonestown vortex. Every time I found an answer to a question curiosity led me to ask a million more. I wanted to wrap my mind around how and why the people in Jonestown died. What might seem like a simple question really isn’t. Everyone has their story and perspective. Even the facts are in dispute amongst experts regarding how and why the tragedy occurred. But as we know it did occur. On November 1978, 918 people died in a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown. I wanted to know why, and in fact thought the world needed to understand it so that it doesn’t happen again. Every twist and turn of this story led me down a rabbit hole: rogue CIA agents, body-doubles with fake mustaches, mysterious deaths, MKUltra, the Symbionese Liberation Army and so on. Mysteries light the fires of discovery that drive my desire to go deeper. But understanding the motivations of the people of Jonestown, of Jim Jones himself is a mystery that many a red herring distracted me from. I began to realize that truth might be found by identifying the source of Jim Jones’ power. The source of all Jim’s power was his people.
The Attention Span Recovery Project would like to remind you that the truth about Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple may never be found in the many books and films and yes, even podcasts that examine everything from an outsider’s perspective. As always we encourage you to do your own research and form your own opinions. Because we are dealing with eyewitness accounts, insights, and opinions of people who volunteered to share their stories I highly encourage you to remember that everyone has their unique perspective. Opinions are not facts. The “Truth” in regards to Peoples Temple can be a rather abstract concept.
The last three years has taught me a lot about cult mentality, isolation, catharsis, and the power of fear. Information is powerful and ideas can be dangerous. In this confusing time of legend, lies have teeth that can rip apart nations, conspiracy theories form constructs not unlike fundamentalist religions and the future is obscured by an invisible, highly contagious viral enemy. The crisis of 2020 for those of you listening twenty years from now, (here’s hoping) has drastically changed my perspective. All this time I was searching for the truth. I ignored the psychedelic elephant in the room. Former members of the Temple, the survivors, have as many questions about what happened in Jonestown as I do. The Temple functioned on a need to know basis and everyone has their unique position.
Every November, there is a gathering of former members on the anniversary of the Jonestown Tragedy. There they share stories about their lives and memorialize their lost loved ones. Throughout the years, these stories have come together like pieces of a puzzle and form a much clearer picture of life in Jonestown and what it was all about. I have spent the last three years gathering stories and insights from as many sources as would allow me to interview them. I invite you to forget everything you think you know about Peoples Temple and Jonestown and let go of your outsider’s perspective as I stop snooping around the Temple’s foggy windows and going through their trash and cross the threshold to go inside.
Q962 Jones: The story’s told just a little different. It’s like four people is on a corner watching an accident.
Mysteries linger in our minds long after we discover them. Logic dictates that the answer is out there if we just dig deep enough. Searching for clues lures us into an excited state of heightened perception. Each new discovery draws us deeper into the mystery while sharpening our ability to recognize the synchronicity of all things. Haunted by a mystery, we find that same synchronicity in our day to day lives, forever altering how we see the world. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, is everything I think I know wrong?
Q1059-1 Jones: If you have any question, you out there, and the reason I’m talking so– in absolutistic terms, I’ve got– you tar-mite finks, setting here, masquerading as a Baptist, and I know you’re an investigator, and you know also that little thing you’ve got recording, it’s about the size of a–, lighter, because I don’t smoke these filthy capitalist cigarettes. I want you to get everything taped. I’m not even taking it from you. But I’m gonna take your life. Your life’s gonna be gone in June. You’re gonna be gone, and I won’t even move my finger. Not one of my people will move their finger, I’m just gonna breathe on you in a mirror, and you’ll be finished. Because I have a picture of you in my mind, and my mind’s just not like any mind you ever seen, and so I’m gonna out-picture on you, and reverse the energy, you’re in trouble, brother.
The mysteries surrounding Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple were the theme of the first season of Transmissions from Jonestown. If you’re joining us for the first time, I highly recommend that you stop here and listen to the first season. The story of Peoples Temple has many twists and turns and not all of them will be revisited. We’ve received many anonymous tips from listeners doing research and solving mysteries of their own. You, the audience, have become a part of this now as you search for clues and come to conclusions. A recurring theme amongst questions we receive concern mysterious deaths attributed to the Temple and Jim Jones before going to Jonestown. The following is an excerpt from an email I received from a family member of a former Peoples Temple member. She wishes to remain anonymous as she is still frightened for her safety and that of her family. This is what the email said:
“Long before the Jonestown Massacre Jim Jones was killing people in Ukiah. Many people who opposed the church were killed. They always made it look like a suicide or an accident. None of it was properly investigated because the assistant DA was a Temple member. The Temple took over Ukiah and had the police in their pocket, the sheriff of Mendocino County was corrupt. In 1966 Jim Jones paid a tow truck man to run a family of four off a cliff. The family survived but their baby daughter died. They had been talking about leaving the Temple. It was never investigated.”
Jones: How much I desired to take that river to a point of no return of mortal suggestion…
Marion Whitey Freestone struggled to stay alert driving down the windy narrow highway. Two of his daughters, seven-year-old Theresa and 3-year-old Belinda slept in the backseat, exhausted from the long church service that went on well into the night. His wife Opal sat beside him in the passenger seat humming an old hymn popular with the Golden Rule: “There is a River.”
For several years Opal and Marion Whitey Freestone had all the faith in the world in Jim Jones. When they left Indianapolis to follow Jim Jones to his Utopia in California, they turned over their money and property. He promised them safety from the nuclear war he prophesized was coming. An article Jones had read said that Ukiah, being west of the Sierra Mountains, was downwind from any possible fallout caused by the bombs after they exploded over the big cities. The caves that dot the landscape throughout the valley would give them a place to hide and a chance to rebuild a better world out of the rubble of this broken one.
Mile after mile in the dark, Whitey navigated around the sharp turns and steep embankments of Highway 101. The white-knuckle terror of the 100-foot drop-offs, mercifully shadowed by night, have claimed the lives of many a nervous driver but Whitey had something they did not. Jim Jones had not only promised life after nuclear holocaust but vowed his powers could protect his flock from sickness, accidents and even death itself. Using anointed prayer cloths and photographs of Jim Jones people claimed to have been saved by his miraculous powers.
Q1057-4 Jones: You heard what I said about that– those wrenches under the driver’s seat? And the spark plug, the– the spark plugs? How many heard me? Be sure they did. It’ll save a broken neck. I’m answering that question generally, I’d have no moving heavy metal object inside the vehicle. I mean, I saw a danger to your leg, you see– that applies I think universally to people, to get objects that can float free, you know, and come move like a missile through the vehicle, get them out of the way. Pays to listen to me, I’ve had a pretty good record all these years. With having no one killed on the highway. Nobody on the highways like we are.
On October 16, 1966 Whitey Freestone’s car went over an embankment while driving on Highway 101. The accident claimed the life of his youngest daughter Belinda and left him disabled for the rest of his life. Jim Jones and his psychic powers to protect his followers from car accidents, not to mention the efficacy of the anointed prayer cloths had been tested. If Whitey Freestone planned to leave the church and was waiting for a sign, this was it. But the Freestone’s didn’t leave Peoples Temple for five more years.
Q1053-1 Jones: Now the time has come for you to join us, socialist comrade. Get in fully, we need you. Because this has saved your life. That cloth being on your body would save you from a tragic accident. Keep it now.
Just weeks after the accident Jones speaks about it during a Temple meeting. He praises Opal Freestone who has just lost her 3-year-old daughter Belinda, for accepting his divine revelation that God has called her child to a purpose beyond, out of this uncertain plane. Conversely, moments later Jones reprimands Whitey Freestone for not being a good spiritual helpmate. The audio you are about to hear was recorded in 1966 at Ridgewood Ranch. This is one of the oldest recordings in the Peoples Temple audio archive.
1055-2 Jones: How blessed we are that a mother can sit here and stand up and tell us as Opal [Freestone] did today, she thanked God for our love, because a divine revelation came about her child.... But yet on the contrary party, her helpmate [Marion “Whitey” Freestone], who is really no spiritual helpmate at all, at this stage of his unfoldment, can a sit in this assembly room, and heard the prophecy of God speak with infallible certainty that the next time we are in car accident, it will be fatal.
Jim Jones disliked Whitey Freestone even before the accident, referring to him as someone from a lower plane of existence who lacks moral character. This is a tactic Jones would often use on Temple members he feared might have doubts or question his paranormal abilities. If he couldn’t gaslight Whitey into believing he was spiritually bankrupt, then he could at least convince everyone else. I began to question Whitey’s faith and commitment to the Temple. What happens next in the recording indicates that Jim Jones may have been wondering the same thing and just maybe had found a way to profit from the situation.
1055-2 Jones: He stands out this morning with some consternation and feels a bit sorry for himself and a bit saddened, because he doesn’t understand the full weight and impact of this revelation or his revelator. Mr. Freestone, Whitey Freestone said to me, he’d been given some statement that he was to perhaps receive a hundred thousand dollars from this accident. And he said I will give all of it to you. Of course, you can imagine I didn’t accept it. But this is the privilege you have, in your midst, that most men, when they’re offered a hundred thousand dollars, would do anything in the world to placate the representative of that offer and to deal with them softly. But last Sunday, I rebuked him because he needed a rebuke. And it went straight to his heart.
It’s no wonder Whitey might have had his doubts after the accident. Over the next five years Jim Jones prophesized dates for an apocalyptic nuclear war that never came. He warned them to look south when the bomb hit San Francisco to avoid burning their eyes. Whitey had visited the cave, little more than a hole in the ground, where Jones claimed they would take refuge and one day rebuild society. As time went on Whitey Freestone stopped worrying about the bomb and started worrying about this unconventional church with its demanding schedule and increasingly bizarre leader. Later, in a rare interview Whitey would claim he never believed in Jim Jones, that he had only stayed with the church because of his wife Opal.
Whitey Freestone: But, uh, I, I really couldn’t see--see it myself, I, I really didn’t believe it, but I had to come with her because she thought the sun just rose in him. He said he was Jesus Christ too, and she believed it, of course.
Opal Freestone: Oh, he got so he didn’t believe in the Bible and he tore the Bible up.
Whitey: We see him threw it in the floor. God damned thing is full of lies, every time it’s rewritten the Catholics fill it full of lies.
At the time of their accident in `66, the Freestone’s gave no indication that they suspected Jim Jones of being behind the accident that killed their youngest daughter. Whitey struggled to find work due to his injuries. They received a small insurance settlement and donated $1200 to the Temple. Over the next five years, the Temple would begin a highly successful and expensive period of expansion, traveling the country in Greyhound buses, recruiting new members, and opening churches in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In 1970, at 1:00 in the morning, Opal Freestone was called to the Temple in Redwood Valley and issued an ultimatum by one of Jim Jones associate pastors, Archie Ijames. If the Freestones didn’t start donating 25% of their income to the Temple, their lives would be in danger. Opal already worked day and night baking delicious cakes and pies to be sold at Temple services. She bought the ingredients herself and donated all the profits and hours of her time to the church. Confronting Opal Freestone with an ultimatum seems to have been miscalculated if the desired effect was continued loyalty. The Freestones stopped going to Peoples Temple meetings.
Jim Jones wasn’t going to make it easy for the Freestones to leave him and resume a normal life. He warned the congregation that outside of his aura of protection, bad things happened to people. According to Opal, the Temple harassed her calling at all hours threatening that if they didn’t go back to the church Whitey would be investigated for crimes. Opal was instructed to move at least twenty miles away. The Freestones wanted to move back to Indiana and get as far away from Jones as possible but with Whitey’s disability, Opal would have to find a job to support the move. Opal said nowhere in Ukiah would hire her. Jones and his people had infiltrated several businesses in Mendocino County and turned the town against them. Opal got a job waiting tables several miles outside of the city. Later in an interview she recounted how the nightly 22 miles drive to and from work filled her with dread and horrible flashbacks of the accident.
Q870 Jones: We are recording.
Pat: OK
As the Freestones tried to save the money they needed to move away, Jones realized that the threats and warnings had failed to bring them back into the fold. His ego bruised and frightened of what the Freestones might tell outsiders, Jim Jones sent one of his trusted disciples on a mission. Under the ruse of buying a house trailer from Whitey, an unknown Temple member going by the name of Pat Holder agreed to spy in order to find out what he was telling people behind Jones back. A clandestine recording proves that it was just as Jones feared. Whitey was telling stories about the strange Temple up in Redwood Valley to anyone who would listen.
Q870 Pat: How long ago did you guys come out?
Whitey: We come out in `65. Then we had an awful accident, in uh 66, we was coming from Ridgewood Ranch the Christ Church of the Golden Rule, church meeting on Sunday night about 10:30 at night, I thought well shoot, I’m gonna slow down and let him go, and saw that he was cutting in to my side, started around me, I thought he was gonna go around me, but he cut in on my side and shoved me right off that mountain. We rolled 300 feet down clear to the bottom. Killed our baby, three years old, caved my chest in broke my breastbone across here.
Pat: Killed your baby?
Whitey: Hmmm?
Pat: Killed your baby?
Whitey: Yeah, she never regained consciousness.
Pat: Awww. Well, you know I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a group like you were talking about.
Whitey: Peoples Temple.
Pat: I’ve never heard…
Whitey: Just pitiful, boy, I’ll tell ya. He doesn’t preach the Bible-- he preaches out of his own book. He preaches reincarnation.
Pat: Is he really a minister?
Whitey: He’s supposed to be. Everybody thinks he is. The Reverend Jim Jones, Disciples of Christ Denomination. No sir, I could take a shotgun and I could take him down and fill it full of lead, just kill him dead right there in the floor and I wouldn’t lose a winks sleep over it, that’s just how much I hate him. Now that’s awful to say a thing like that, but it’s the God-a-Might’s truth. He took us for several thousand dollars! Just because my wife, she worshipped the ground he walked on! He had her bugged! Brainwashed, you know?
Pat: I’m glad to stay away from that church.
Whitey: Boy, don’t let them suck you. They’ll suck you in out there, I’m telling you. Keep your children away from them.
Pat: hmmmm
Whitey: They might talk you into letting your children come, join the church. God almighty, don’t do it.
Something interesting to note about this recording is the Temple clearly hadn’t perfected its spy game yet. Years later, Peoples Temple would successfully spy on the Guyanese government and manipulate powerful political figures in LA and SF. Pat had made a tiny mistake. Marion Whitey Freestone went by Whitey to his friends, but Marion to strangers, so when she refers to Marion as Whitey in the recording, the jig was up.
Q870 Pat: Is your first name Whitey?
Whitey: Why’d you call me Whitey? Marion is my first name.
Pat: Marion? I thought that lady in the laundry mat told me that your name was Whitey.
Whitey: Everybody calls me Whitey. My name’s Marion. But, uh, nobody knows my name.
At the time few people had spoken out against what was going on behind closed Temple doors, Jim Jones obsessive paranoia over the loss of a few parishioners would be comical if this was just another church. But as we all know, Peoples Temple was never just another church. Opal and Whitey Freestone did something Jim Jones’ revelations had failed to see, yet he always knew was coming. They went to the press.
They told Carol Pickering of The Indianapolis Star that Jim Jones was a charlatan who used mass hypnosis during faith healings and created an atmosphere of terror for anyone who attempted to leave the church. They said Jones kept a 38-caliber pistol behind the podium during church services. He was frightened of being assassinated and had armed guards around him at all times.
Q956 Jones: There was a man named Whitey Freestone, an old honky bastard. His name was Whitey Freestone. One time he did something so despicable – cause I don’t do things, I said, I don’t drink, and I don’t get engaged in the low planes of sex for self-satisfaction or my own interest. No. ‘Cause I feel I owe something more to you. I have had every temptation common to man. I’ve known every frailty that you have had to undergo, because I could not be a savior to you come out of Zion, if I had not walked through your own sufferings. Now thus far, I have not lost one person ever who’s listened to me. Never lost one. This is grape juice, child, cranberry juice and other little concoctions of natural juices that have kept many alive in this place, because I’ve anointed it to be so.
Lester Kinsolving, an ordained Episcopal priest, and religion editor for the San Francisco Examiner, was writing an eight-part series of articles that would have been the most critical coverage of the temple to date. In an article titled the “Reincarnation of Jesus Christ in Ukiah,” he interviewed the Freestones, itemizing their complaints against the Temple. They spoke about Jones Doomsday prophecy and the cave that was in fact just a hole in the ground. Whitey showed Lester a survival kit filled with medical supplies and vitamin pills he claimed were a staple part of the Temple’s diet regimen. Lester noted the pistol holstered on Whitey’s hip during the interview and Whitey responded, “We’re scared of those people at Peoples Temple. As soon as we can save enough money, we’re moving out of here.”
Q1015 Jones: I know someone by the name of Whitey Freestone. Whitey Freestone will never survive. He will never– he will never live on in the next dimension. He is too base. He’s lower than the animal level. He will not survive. The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die. The Hebrews said, the spirit, the psyche that is basically sinful or degenerate will not live, it will surely die. So Whitey Freestone could not survive, there’s no way he can survive, he is intrinsically uh, undeveloped. He’s the one that caused the only bad newspaper article we had. He molested his child. Molested two of his children. We tried to give him corrective therapy. He wasn’t a member of the church, but we tried to get him to get psychiatric treatment. He wouldn’t do so, and he went out and lied on the church, and then– And I think there’s a man by the name of Kinsolving, I don’t think there’s any intrinsic soul or spirit to him. He has no feeling or sensitivity. I think he’s from a lost plane.
Whitey and his wife Opal managed to escape the Temple but two of their children were still members. Months after the tragedy in Jonestown, Whitey spoke about one of the worst accounts of child abuse ever witnessed by a former member. On a camping trip in Oregon four-year-old Tommy Kice was eating his dinner. According to Whitey, Jim Jones didn’t think he had eaten enough and forced him to keep eating until he vomited. Jones then forced the child to eat his own vomit. He repeated this over and over. His reason? To teach the child discipline.
Q940 Jones: Yes, yes, yes, yes. What form of punishment would you suggest Sister Tucker? What form of punishment.
Alleane Tucker: First cut his hair off, and, uh, I, [stifled laugh] I, well I was thinking that when they...
Jones: SHHHH! Peace! Well, I would like to hear it!
Tucker: Cause, what I was thinking was really hard [stifled laugh] and so they should be not allowed to have any clothing but I said, like, you know– it would be probably would be too much.
Jones: What are we gonna do after they’re naked, Sister? I’m interested. I said, what more punishment would you suggest after they were naked?
Tucker: I said I didn’t uh– you know, I didn’t think of any– uh, any further punishment you know–
Jones: I am asking you to think of further discipline, now. Nakedness is not sufficient.
Tucker: Well, uh (laughs)– uh, uh, like, you– they say the cat-of-nine-tails, I think if you give ‘em uh, uh, a genu-wine good spurring with that, it’ll make ‘em think.
Jones: What is a good spurring, sister? How many?
Tucker: Uh, forty.
Jones: All right, I’ve got a commitment : forty. Uh– forty’ll put them to their knees. In a faint, they’ll be– they’ll be (stumbles over words) they’ll go unconscious with uh, forty whips of the cat-of-nine-tails.
Peoples Temple members held many county posts in Mendocino County. The Welfare Department, Sheriff’s Office, and the District Attorney’s Office just to name a few. In 1972 Whitey made a formal complaint about Temple abuses to Attorney General Evelle Younger. The signed statements were turned over to the District Attorney’s Office, and into the hands of the assistant DA Tim Stoen. At the time, Tim Stoen was a powerful Temple leader and devout follower of Jim Jones. Whitey claimed that Tim Stoen showed the statements to Jim Jones and used his influence to end the investigation. Whitey also claimed that some of Jones disciples had made an attempt on his life by tampering with the steering mechanism of his car.
Even after the tragedy in December of 1978, a month after Jim Jones was dead the threats against the Freestones persisted. An anonymous caller identifying himself as a representative of the West Coast Auxiliary Guard informed police that two hit men were coming to take care of the Freestones. Real or not, the threats proved that even after death, Jim Jones could get to the Freestones and fill them with terror. Gripped by the terrible images of mass murder/suicide all over the news and stories of Temple hit squads Jones called his Angels, the Freestones knew they had barely escaped with their lives.
1059-1 Jones: It’s not a happenstance that some of you were nearly involved in accidents last night, and you called on my NAME, it’s not accident. It’s not accident. It’s not accident that some sitting on the front row, a car catches fire and a tire rolls, and no one has their hands on the wheel, it’s NOT AN ACCIDENT! No! no! I’ll tell you, why don’t you just try to accept that you don’t understand the law of electricity, why don’t you try to use me? It works. It works.
Male: (Sings) No longer a dream, but he’s real, real, real. He’s answered our prayer for the Kingdom to come, on earth among men and his will to be done. [plays under narrator]: His deity cannot be denied, for he is perfection personified. He’s no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but he’s real, real, real. He’s no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but he’s real, real, real.
Ten years after the Freestones’ car went over a cliff on Highway 101, another Temple member would die in an eerily similar accident. Long time Peoples Temple member Maxine was driving up Highway 101 at 6:00 in the morning when her car flipped. Her body was crushed, and she was killed. An unknown source reported to the Ukiah Daily Journal that Jim Jones claimed Maxine’s car had been run off the road because she had talked about leaving the Temple.
We’ve devoured newspaper articles, combed through FBI files, and referenced all the documents to be found about the Freestone accident. The story we’ve uncovered fits the narrative of the mysterious email. The assistant DA was a loyal Temple member and Temple members were in fact everywhere in Ukiah. Being amongst the first whistle blowers likely painted a target on the Freestones. Jones hated anyone who spoke negatively about him to the press and often made threats against those who left the Temple. Whitey himself believed Jim Jones had tried to have him killed no less than three times.
Maybe more importantly we know that years later Jim Jones will order his followers to commit revolutionary suicide. We have seen the violence and carnage brought about by his revelations and false promises. But beware…When you know how a story ends the most mundane details can become the harbingers of doom. We have the privilege of viewing these events from a safe distance and from a comfortable place nestled within our own biases. Without the luxury of nearly half a century of hindsight, would we come to the same conclusions?
Do what Father does; live what Father lives; care like Father cares.
Was Jim Jones behind the mysterious deaths of Temple members he feared might defect or go to the press? Several journalists and historians think so. Many of his followers feared that he had psychic abilities and could kill from afar, others believed Jim Jones when he diagnosed them with terminal diseases like cancer and told them he was all that kept them alive. The planning and execution of the perfect crime, a murder that looks like an accident possibly caused by a paranormal being, would have taken at least one confederate if not a conspiracy.
Understanding Jim Jones’ capacity for violence, and what motivated inner circle members is one the greatest mysteries of Peoples Temple. A mystery that will never be solved until we listen to the voices of those who were there, and part of this inner circle.
Mike Wood: You know, I am the greatest living authority on anything related to Peoples Temple from 1963 to 1976, December 1976. Now, I say that jokingly, but in a way it’s true, that doesn’t mean I knew more than anybody else, it just means everybody else is dead.
Mike’s family joined Peoples Temple in 1959. Though they were from what is referred to as the Indianapolis era, Mike and his family met Jones in Ohio while he was preaching on the road. His mother, Patty Cartmell quickly became one of Jim Jones’ most trusted members of staff. Mike himself was a member of the church for 17 years. He rarely does interviews, but given the state of our country today, and his unique insights into what is considered to be the most infamous cult in America, he graciously agreed to share his experiences with us and help us set the record straight.
Mike Wood: Mom and I had a kind of a tough relationship, but she was always trying to correct me and we had a kind of battling relationship but she would have said, no, he was always trying to fuck things up, he’s not trying to set straight anything straight. [Laughs]
I do believe that, you know, the obligation of the survivors is to tell a story, but you know the question is how do they do it? OK, so I do it by writing articles that take my interest or inspire my interest, and then you know by making posts on Facebook which as you say are done to set things right.
So, what do you remember about Whitey Freestone?
Mike Wood: Whitey was a very bizarre character. He had some strange incidents in the Church where he was sexually aggressive with some of the nurses. He was kind of an easy figure to poke fun at too because he was such a strange character that you know Jim was always criticizing him for one faux pas or another and the incident with the nurses and the hospital was very serious and Jim had to use all of his political pull in order to keep that out of the papers and keep Whitey out of the public eye as well.
The church went through several iterations, in terms of a) its message, b) its locations, and c) its population. The church In Indiana and Ohio was really kind of a Pentecostal church in terms of its population, lot of working class, white people, who were Evangelical Christians in their outlook and in their, their attitude and just saw Jim as a modern day prophet because of his, you know, paranormal ministry. And so, that was one group, and that was the group that first came out to California. The next iteration of course, was more black people, the next was more young, disaffected white people who were joining us because we were probably one of the few organizations in California that was really committed to opposing the War, to securing Civil Rights for people of all races, and generally positive social justice message. Whitey was the first iteration, and those people, if you were to attend a church meeting in let’s say 1971 or 1972 you would look around and say what an odd mixture of people and that’s because it was composed of so many different subcutlures, if you will.
On October 16, 1966, Mike and his family rode home from a Temple meeting at the Golden Rule. Jim Jones drove the car, following a convoy of other Peoples Temple members on their way back to Redwood Valley.
Mike Wood: So, it was, uh, October. I had just started college at Santa Rosa Junior College. We had finished up the day at Ridgewood Ranch. Ridgewood Ranch was the physical location of Church of the Golden Rule. We met at Ridgewood Ranch every Sunday from, I guess was probably late 1966 through late 1968 when we finished building the Peoples Temple church in Redwood Valley. So, we were on the way from Ridgewood Ranch back to Redwood Valley, where we lived, or Ukiah, where we, where my mom and dad lived, and what you need- what’s important to know about the drive is that it’s on 101, very mountainous section of the road. There are, you know, some guardrails, protecting the people from the overhangs, I mean from falling off the overhangs, and all that. It was very modestly protected, the few side protections on the road. You had to be careful coming down this 101. It was a fast highway, there was a point at which this four-lane highway became a two-lane highway. It was at that point that some driver smashed into Whitey Freestone’s station wagon and it went over the cliff. When we pulled up to that area just after the accident, and we stopped because there were a number of Temple members with flashlights who were out, you know, looking down the side of the mountain to see what they could see. And so, we pulled over to check out the incident. Jim was actually driving our car, we were taking him home that night for whatever reason, so he was driving the car. So we pulled over, and he gets out, and mom gets out, I get out, and my sister gets out and we’re all looking over the hill and we learned from those who were standing by that Whitey’s station wagon had been hit and had careened over the side of the mountain and was down somewhere in the ravine. And so, Jim had a flashlight and said, you know, “my place is down there.” So he started to walk down the side of the hill but it was really cliff-like and there was no walking down, I mean, so he immediately fell on his butt and just started skidding down and I jumped off the cliff to follow him down thinking that I would somehow be able to save him, uh, not realizing that [laughs], it’s rather absurd, but it’s so funny because when I started to jump off, a couple of the guys behind me helped push me down, pushed me off so that I would get down there as quickly as possible to help Jim. And I had no idea where the hell we were going except that we were just careening down the side of this cliff. It was like a bizarre kind of amusement ride. And it tore up my pants, cause we were riding down on our backsides. Tore up my pants, tore up Jim’s pants, but because he had the flashlight in his arms, and you know, I could see him and he could see me, we must have gone two or three hundred feet, when he looked back at me and then we stopped at the bottom of the ravine, and we both stopped simultaneously. He said, “Hey, are you okay?” and I said, “Yeah, are you okay?” And he said, “Yeah, I think so,” and I noticed he had flip-flops and I said “Hey, why don’t you wear my shoes, because I know you really need to get to the station wagon, to Whitey’s car, so you take my shoes and I’ll take the flip-flops. He said, “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” So we switched off, and he went over there and I went over there and it was really, it was eerie, because one of the wheels was still turning. There was no sounds coming out of the car--none, and we knew it was baaaaad, baaaad, bad. And about two minutes later the firemen show up, and they came down the hill on these, wire cables, I mean, they were, they weren’t being carried in that sense, but it was so steep that they had to hang on to those and they had, uh the cables were moving up and down to move the stretchers and equipment and to move the car out of the ravine. And, so we looked around that site, and Jim couldn’t get in the car, we tried to get in and we couldn’t get in and there was nothing, I mean, there was no sound at all. No movement in the car. Whitey was there, he was in the car. Opal was there, Opal is Whitey’s wife. I didn’t know how many other people were there. So anyway, Jim and I get back at the top. And we go back to the top because we were pulled up by the cables that the firemen had brought down. So we were being pulled up to the top. We go to the hospital, we were OK, except [laughs], I tell you, my butt was pretty badly scarred up. So they released us, Jim stuck around. I had to leave I was going -- go back to school the next day. Whitey’s youngest daughter was killed in that accident. The incident had a major effect on my relationship with Jim. I had always been close to Jim up to that point, because when we were still in Ohio my mother sort of organized his Ohio trips. Jim’s actually from Indiana, but he had a circuit riding mission which would take him to Ohio every year for weeks and he would preach in various churches around the state. And my mother who was very ambitious in that way became his Ohio secretary, so he stayed with us a lot so I got to know him pretty well, and he and I had a friendly relationship and I genuinely admired him and he understood the depth of my family’s dysfunction and was very empathetic with my position in the family, and was very concerned about my well-being, and so he was like a favorite uncle to me. I so admired what he was doing because he seemed to live what he preached. We’d had, we’d had a good close relationship, but the accident and my jumping off the side of that cliff to follow him down, transformed our relationship in this way: it made us even much, much closer and he came to see me as someone he could really trust. The next weekend when I came home from school in Santa Rosa, he dropped by and said, “you know, I want you to know how much that meant to me. In my life, no one, no one has ever exposed themselves to that level of danger to protect me. I can never forget this.” So, that was the beginning of my rise in the hierarchy of the Peoples Temple, because he felt that he absolutely could trust me -- and he could. So that was, that was that incident in a nutshell.
Jim Jones presence at the accident and his attempt to rescue the Freestones might explain why Whitey was never suspicious of Jones early on. Jim Jones had literally jumped off a cliff after his people in an adrenaline-fueled rare moment of heroism.
If you are thinking this is out of character for Jim Jones, the fact that Mike was so moved by his heroism that he followed him down into the steep ravine says volumes about what we don’t know about Jones' character or how his followers perceived him. Twelve years before the tragedy in Jonestown, a 17 year old boy had seen something in this man that inspired death defying devotion. This moment would come to define Mike’s relationship with Jim Jones and shape the course of the next ten years of his life.
In Jonestown, Jim Jones required his flock to earn his trust and prove their loyalty by risking their lives. The further you were willing to go for Father and the Cause, the more important your role in Peoples Temple would be. People didn’t always understand the risks when following Jones’ orders, but those closest to him knew he went out of his way to make situations more dangerous. Jones knew he could get his people to blindly follow the reincarnation of Christ. He viewed it as a simple parlor trick he had seen other evangelicals do. You can get thousands of followers by interpreting scripture. But a believer who is willing to die for you, who understands the risks and takes the plunge down a ravine after you, that is not just a follower, that is a disciple. A soldier for the coming revolution.
Mike Wood: I mean, the risks and chances we took, I mean, right out of a god damn movie. I mean that’s what pissed me off, we did all this and why did we put ourselves at such real risk here. we’re not talking about, you know, some theoretical hazard.
Driving on Highway 101 in the dark when you’re well rested and in perfect weather is risky. The accident that killed Maxine Swaney would have likely been impossible to choreograph. The car slipped off the road and flipped several times, throwing Maxine from the vehicle and crushing her. Her husband Nathan survived the accident and eventually went to Jonestown where he died in the mass tragedy. Maxine helped run a care home located across from the Redwood Valley Temple. Her patients and family were devastated when she died. The care home provided easy and sustainable income for the Temple and the people who ran them were highly valued members. Maybe what happened to Maxine was just an unfortunate accident. It’s possible Nathan Swaney, exhausted by an all-night meeting, simply fell asleep while driving. Before going to Jonestown, that’s exactly what Nathan said happened.
I asked Mike about other mysterious deaths attributed to Jim Jones and the Temple. He mentions the death of former Peoples Temple member Bob Houston.
Mike Wood: Yeah, I think it’s still--it’s a mystery surrounding all that. I think what really happened is that, I think Bob had expressed some doubts about being in the church, I mean who wouldn’t? We had this terrible schedule and people would stay up all night and would have to go to work the next day and you were just dead tired, and I think he was probably so sleepy that was on one of those railcars and fell asleep and fell off and was crushed by the train. I know that happened with Maxine Swaney, so, and of course the first thing that had to be addressed was making sure, in a situation like that, making sure everyone knew it wasn’t Jim’s fault. Jim had tried to warn somebody, or keep them from going, but they left anyway. And, in Bob’s, somehow, I remember, that in Bob’s case, we kinda thought Bob spent too much time contemplating leaving and that’s why Jim had to put him down. It was just, you know, shit like that. So, was anybody ever really subject to violence who left? I just don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me, but I just don’t have any personal knowledge of it. Jim was afraid of calling too much attention to himself in the legal world, because remember he spent a lot of time building up relationships with people in government, so he would not have wanted to put himself at risk.
Bob Houston’s body was found mangled along the railroad tracks. His gloves neatly folded on the coupling. He was a probation officer during the day and a railroad worker at night. Bright and conscientious, Bob was known to be a hard worker. Everyone was shocked when his death was ruled an accident and the predominant theory was that Bob had fallen asleep and been crushed by the train. Jones privately claimed that Bob had somehow wandered out of his aura of protection and paid for the misstep with his life. Bob’s family heard rumors of foul play. There was a story floating around that Bob had a disagreement with Temple leadership and was threatening to defect just days before his death. Bob’s father Sam, a photojournalist, heard the rumors about his son’s death as well as what people were saying about Jonestown. When Sam’s two granddaughters, Patricia and Judy Houston were sent to Jonestown he decided to call upon an old friend to intervene. Before becoming a congressman, Leo Ryan taught government to high schoolers. Bob had been one of Leo’s best students. Frightened for the lives of his grandchildren Sam appealed to Leo Ryan asking him to go to Jonestown and investigate the church that may have murdered his son. As most of you know, the rest is history.
Leo Ryan: This is a congressional inquiry. I think that all of you know that I’m here to find out more about uh, questions that’ve been raised about your operation here, but I can tell you right now that, from the few conversations I’ve had with some of the folks here already this evening, that uh, whatever the comments are, there are some people here who believe this is the best thing that ever happened to them in their whole life.
Drawing the attention of a sleeping giant, a formal congressional investigation into human rights abuses was the embodiment of Jim Jones’ worst nightmare. Leo Ryan’s visit to Jonestown would be Jim Jones’ final attempt to put on a good show and be the humanitarian prophet he claimed to be, but by then his lies and deceit were bleeding through the beautiful picture Jonestown presented through films and pamphlets.
As Mike said earlier, after Bob’s death -the first thing that had to be addressed was making sure everyone knew it wasn’t Jim’s fault. Being outside of Dad’s sphere of influence covers for the fact that there was an accident Jones could not prevent. Claiming that Bob was thinking of leaving the Temple explains why Jones wasn’t willing to resurrect him and could have been designed to strike fear in the hearts of anyone questioning their faith. Jim Jones' people aren’t supposed to die unless he orders them to. So the mystery remains, prior to November 18, did Jim Jones orchestrate the murder of any of his followers who wished to leave the Temple?
Mike Wood: A lot of people in the church were given to conspiracy theories, and this sounds like the kind of conspiracy theories I hear from time to time, about, you know, murders in Redwood Valley or Ukiah or some such place. And trust me, we weren’t murdering people at that point [laugh], we just weren't. You know, we were working with, we were working very, not closely, but you know Jim was really on first name terms with all the politicos in the area; what would've been the point? I mean, if we were going to murder anybody, we would have murdered Lester Kinsolving. You know, we wanted to make their lives miserable, we were happy doing things that would do that, but we hadn’t crossed the murder line at that point. And you know, murder is, particularly planned murder is a hard thing to pull off because there’s always these bizarre circumstances that get in your way, you know? Jim would never have left it to chance like that. We just- we weren’t murdering people at that point.
In almost every case of a mysterious death attributed to the Temple you hear about Temple members who worked in the Welfare Department, in the District Attorney’s office, and in the Police Department. Wouldn’t it be easier to get away with murder if half the town was in on it?
Mike Wood: Well... that of course is the underlying theme of most murder mysteries. And, Is it possible that that would happen? Yes, but you can’t corrupt everybody and there are honest people who want to do their jobs and take facts wherever they lead them. Now can people be corrupt? Yes, absolutely, but generally speaking the people we had in these, in these organizations were not the high- we cultivated the high-ranking people but our people were in various low-ranking positions, except for Tim Stoen. The fact that one or two people may be corrupt doesn’t mean that everybody is, and sure Ukiah is a small town, and, and Redwood Valley is even smaller. But the people there who are in law enforcement and these oversight agencies, they’re pretty damn professional. I don't mean to be defensive, but I worked in those organizations and-and I saw those folks and seeing how high quality they were that--that inspired me to leave the church and lead the kind of lives they were all able to live. So, you know, I think that argument, that, your argument is one that, I’m not saying it’s yours, but as a devil’s advocate that is the piece which underlies every conspiracy theory: that all government people are corrupt and they’re all bought off and they all conspire and that’s the underlying, that’s one of the underlying supports of the “Truther” movement, or the Flat-Earth movement or the group that denies that we ever landed on the moon. You know, it’s all this corruption and everybody is on the take, and all you have to do is give somebody. I mean, come on, I mean, really somebody is going to sacrifice their career and their professional reputation? Yes, somebody might, but everybody? No! These people didn’t get to those positions without having some kind of decent character. So, I think that’s kind of a bogus argument, I mean could it have happened, yeah. Anything can, there is a dark corner of the universe where the laws of reality and science don't’ apply and in that dark corner you will find, you can say that you know all these conspiracies have occurred but you also have to say that Santa Claus exists, and Superman exists, and 2,500 gods that people believed in exist in that same dark hole. You know, if you want, I guess the point I’m making is this, if you want to make an accusation like that, since it is so common to every conspiracy theory in the world, you really have to make your point with something more than just that statement. Where's the evidence for it? You know, asking me to prove a negative about something that’s you know, universal or extensive, is, that’s a logical fallacy. So, unless somebody can show me actual proof, even a shred of proof I’m going to say that’s bullshit, and in my own experience I just have to say we wouldn’t have done it because we simply didn’t have the capability at that time and it would have been too big a risk. Now if you're telling me that individuals’ found dead cats and rats and mice on their porches from time-to-time, or that, you know, someone had said something to affect their job negatively, would we have done that? Oh yeah, no problem, that I can believe, that would have been within the realm of our capabilities, but murder, particularly murder, murder that is so well done that there’s no leads back to you? Nah, that wouldn’t have been done. We didn’t have the professional capability to do it. I’m not saying we didn’t want to do it, I’m just saying we couldn’t have done it. Jim had no dedication to the truth and he would not have been averse to telling someone that he had had a hand in something that had happened bad to people just because he wanted to establish his credibility about his overweening power to wield, that he could wield any way he wanted. So, I’m sure he was not averse to taking claims for deaths of people that he had nothing to do with.
Jim Jones' complicated relationship with his followers and his fear of the truth were the source of many plots and conspiracies found in every layer of Temple’s history. Looking at these accidents decades later we cannot help but view them as a tiny part of a far larger conspiracy that eventually ends in tragedy. Retracing our steps through the rubble of Peoples Temple in an attempt to find the truth is an ominous trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Fact and mythology meld into one as time has it’s way with memory and the Internet sifts the most compelling and often least sourced versions of the truth to the top of our Google search. If we can go back to the beginning, to a time before nightmares of car accidents and nuclear bombs kept Jim Jones awake at night, maybe we can identify the source of some of those fears.
Q415 Announcer: This worship service “Church in the Home” is brought to you each week from our radio and television chapel in Los Angeles, California. Now here is your radio and television pastor, Fred Jordan.
Fred Jordan: Our God and our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for your son Jesus Christ who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” We thank thee for these precious little darlin’s that have come to us today as our guests from the far-off land of Korea. We pray that you’ll bless them, bless these parents who are filled with all kinds of emotions as they receive today the new little babe that’s going to go home with them to distant states and to become their very own. In the name of that same Christ, we pray. Amen.
It’s October 1958, Jim Jones and his wife Marceline appear on the television program Church in the Home, hosted by the evangelist Fred Jordan. Fred Jordan’s ministry has sponsored the adoption of several orphans from Korea. Jim & Marceline are about to make their dreams of starting a rainbow family, a family of needy adopted children from every race, a reality.
Q 415 Fred Jordan: And now we have a minister and his wife here from back East, and uh, we’re so happy to have them receive two children from our orphanage today. I want them to come right now, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. God bless you. I wonder if we can just have a little testimony of your experience. When did you find Christ as your savior?
Jim Jones: Six years ago, I found Him, as I was pastoring a formal church, and I was the pastor, but I was converted in my own church.
Fred Jordan: You mean– (Laughs) You mean you was the pastor and you was converted–
Jim Jones: Yes, I was born again in my own church–
Fred Jordan: Well, I don’t know whether we should say this or not, but uh, well, most of the churches are in session today, say do you suppose there might be other ministers that need to find Christ that are (laughs) pastors of churches?
Jim Jones: I’m certain. In this particular orthodox movement, there are many, because they never asked me whether I knew Christ personally, they just asked me if I had a desire to help people, and of course, that is important, but we need a personal experience with Christ.
Fred Jordan: That’s right! And that’s what we’re here for in “Church in the Home”! God bless you. Mr. and Mrs. Jones, they’re receiving two children, so they’ll both have their arms full here and he’s a pastor, and they have a nurse– uh, a home for the aged, and now two brand new babies. And I think you’ve reared one or two others from– that you’ve taken in.
Jim Jones: Three.
Fred Jordan: Three you’ve taken in. Uh– Could I ask your age?
Jim Jones: Yes, I’m 26– 27, I guess, and she’s 31.
Fred Jordan: Twenty-seven, and already taken in three and all this. Oh, that’s wonderful. God bless you. Can I hold you, honey? Oh, that’s wonderful. Now tell us about this girl first.
Lorraine: Fred, this little girl was brought to us from another Korean orphanage. She was very sick and malnutritioned there, and neglected, and a GI saw her and had real compassion on her, and uh, asked us whether we would take her in. She had a very bad infection from a burn on her leg, and she responded beautifully to love and treatment, and we’re so thrilled to see her have this privilege of coming to the States.
Fred Jordan: Isn’t that wonderful? And look at that pretty doll. where did you get– Let’s let them see, you pretty doll. That’s an American doll. Isn’t that a beautiful little doll? And we’re so happy that you could be here. You’re a wonderful girl, God bless you, you are God’s angel, to have fifty little babies to take of, and we’re so happy to have this one to present to Mr. and Mrs.
Jones. And now tell us about this young man.
Lorraine: This little boy [the soon-to-be Lew Jones] also came to us as just an abandoned child, we don’t know anything about its parents, we uh, know that he was really neglected.
Fred Jordan: And now both these children go to the Joneses? You sure you’re not making a mistake?
Lorraine: No– No, I’m not making a mistake.
Jim and Marceline named the two-year-old boy Lew Eric and the four-year-old girl Stephanie. They cherished the new members of their family taking them on outings and parading them for church members. Adopting the needy orphans set the ultimate example of selfless Christian kindness. Marceline had reservations about having natural children because of her health but had passionately wanted little ones to raise. Jim Jones recognized adoption as an opportunity to be the Christ-like figure he was trying to project, a living symbol of racial harmony. But by all accounts, he was entirely taken by Stephanie and doted on her with great affection. Settling into her new home with the Joneses, Stephanie befriended a little girl named Denise, and even though Stephanie barely spoke English the two became best friends. They spent every other weekend at each other’s homes, playing together and trading small gifts as little four-year-old girls are prone to do. Denise looked forward to spending time with Stephanie more than anything else. She gave Stephanie a tiny pearl choker and bracelet.
Denise: Stephanie Jones was the cutest little thing, we were children together; she could barely speak English, she was from Korea. She was-- she was so beautiful and sweet and kind.
In May 1959, little Stephanie accompanied her father to Cincinnati. They spent the day at the zoo looking at all the animals, one of Jones favorite things when he was a child. That night, there was a terrible thunderstorm. Jones stayed behind in Cincinnati while his daughter carpooled with trusted temple members Mabel Stewart, Dallas Johnson, Pearl Nance, and Barbara Payne. Stephanie’s mother, Marceline, stayed home in Indianapolis that day. She was pregnant with her first and only natural born child and did not feel fit to travel. In a tragic scenario that would replay itself years later, on Highway 101, Mabel ferried Stephanie home, traversing dark slippery roads after a long church service. As Mabel attempted to pass another vehicle, her car was struck by oncoming traffic. The accident tragically claimed the life of Stephanie Jones, as well as four other Temple members.
Denise: We would spend every other weekend visiting with each other and the weekend she was killed coming back from the Cincinnati Zoo was the weekend that I was supposed to have been with her. That was my weekend to go-- I couldn’t go because we had some sort of a family event that my parents wouldn’t let me go. And when she died, I was, it was pretty devastating, and I remember being a little kid. When she was buried, she was buried in a blue dress. She had little white pearls on her necklace, a little pearl choker that I had left at her house, and a little bracelet that I had left at her house. I remember going into the funeral home and seeing her there, and I remember that it poured rain that day, it was horrible, horrible rain, and I remember all the umbrellas. And when we got to the gravesite, it was muddy, I remember it being muddy. I remember later about Marceline crying during the church services and telling the story about how they had buried their beautiful daughter in water, there was water coming into the gravesite, because at that time it was a segregated cemetery that they had to bury her in. So she was buried in the Black section of the cemetery rather than the white, because she was not considered white. And I remember thinking, how horr-- as a child even, thinking how horrible that was. That’s what I remember about Jim and Marceline in the early days in the early days, that struggle to try to bring equality into the world, to try to bring that kind of civil justice, where people were considered people regardless of the color of your skin or what your background was. But, somewhere along the line, the message got blurred.
Black Baby
In a note believed to have been written by Marceline, she remembers the funeral:
The cemeteries were segregated, and our daughter was Korean. Blacks and other Third World people were buried in the lowlands, where water often stood, inches deep. Jim was told that he and I could have our child buried in the “white section.” He replied “I cannot bury our child any place where a member of my church can’t be buried” … Our five-year-old being lowered into a grave, half filled with water in swamp land. It was a painful memory, but one which I would not erase, nor do I regret it for a moment.
Less than a month later on June 1, 1959, Marceline gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She named him Stephan Gandhi Jones spelled S T E P H A N as a memorial to little Stephanie.
The night Stephanie died; Marceline had an inexplicable premonition of her own. She told Denise that as she waited for Stephanie to come home it poured down rain. Late in the night she heard a knock at the door. When she answered Mabel Stewart and Stephanie were standing at the door, dripping with rain, and drenched to the bone. Marceline rushed off to gather some towels to dry them off, when she returned to the door they were gone. The next morning Jim Jones, having stayed up all night identifying Stephanie’s body for the coroner, calmly broke the news to Marceline about the accident. She was in disbelief, Stephanie and Mabel could not be dead. She had just seen them the night before.
On the day of Stephanie’s funeral, as her tiny coffin was submerged in water, Marceline remembers that horrible night and the image of her daughter, soaked in water, shivering at the door.
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