WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The Mills Family 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:17.560 Thinking Sideways stories of things we simply don't know the 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:22.439 answer to. Hie there and welcome to another episode of 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:28.800 Thinking Sideways. I'm Joe, joined as always by Steve and 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.680 and we're here to solve another mystery. Are you ready sure? 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.000 What are we talking about? This week? We're gonna be 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.200 looking into the mystery of the Mills family of Berkeley, California. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.600 Alan Jennie Mills lived at Woolsey Street in Berkeley with 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.400 two of their five children, Eddie and Daftning. And in 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.159 February nineteen eighty, Al, Jeannie and Daphne were found murdered 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.800 at each one shot execution style with the twenty two 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.640 caliber bullet in their heads. And they were exploding twenty 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.080 two bullets, weren't they. I've seen that somewhere. I did 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.080 not see that particular one as possible, and you could 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.200 have an exploding one like I'm guessing mostly just a 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.360 hollow point, but yeah, yeah, I mean you can. You 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.720 can make things like that. You see did you see 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.520 David the Jackal or read the book? Yeah, he made 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.280 these little exploding once using mercury. That's off the point, 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.479 but I was just I've seen it said that they 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:22.720 were shot in the head with exploding twenty two caliber routes. Yeah, uh, 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:24.479 that I did not know. I think just a regular 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:26.679 twenty two round will probably do the trick, though, I 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.520 think almost anything point blank. You think probably actually blanks 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:32.920 would kill you a point blank yeah, I think probably 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.560 even like a pellet gun point blank would like you 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.959 in the right place. Yeah, there's some damage. Yeah, oh, 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.399 anyway that But of course Eddie is unencountered for here. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.400 Eddie was not killed. Eddie was seventeen at the time. 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.760 He was in his bedroom. He apparently said that he'd 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.440 gone into his room, smoked a little pot, was watching TV, 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.280 and he lived through the whole thing and didn't hear anything, 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.600 was completely unaware. Apparently his grandmother came over for a visit, 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:01.760 and she's the one who discovered the bodies, and then 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.200 maybe wasn't knocked on Eddie store and said, hey, Eddie, 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.000 you wear that everybody's dead out here. It was. It 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.160 was a Genie or Dafty who didn't die that day, 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:15.200 but two days later in the hospital. That's that's why 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.320 I'm asking, because I can't remember which one it was, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.840 but one of them survived for a short amount of 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.320 time because she locked herself in the bathroom. I think 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.760 back to back to our murder. No murder weapon was 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.200 found and they never found it, and so are unsolved. 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.120 Mystery here is who killed the Mills family. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.320 good question, right, It's a very good question. Yeah. The 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.240 police were suspicious of Eddie because, after all, gunshots make 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.720 a lot of noise, and it seemed impossible that he 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.600 couldn't have heard them. Well, he could have been washing 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.480 his hair, just like Chutney. Yeah, it could have been 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.600 why I could have had the volume in his TV. Yeah, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.240 the gym got a perm, got in the shower, washed 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.320 her hair, and then come found what movie are you 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.680 playing off of? Bond? You guys not memorized that movie. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.200 I haven't even seen it. Actually, I've only seen bits 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.680 of it. Sorry. Yeah, well I was going to say 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.960 about Eddie is I've only I only found one source 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.320 for this, but one source said that he was actually 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.079 in his room listening to the stereo with headphones on. Yeah. 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.320 I've heard that too, so that that could also account 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:23.480 for it. And also nobody explained why he didn't hear 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.519 the shots. Yeah, well I don't think that will explain it. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.720 Is there are there's a little thing called the suppressor. 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.400 You know. Well, and if he was watching TV loud, 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.600 if it was like a violent show or you know, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.960 something like that, something would like Yeah, no, I I 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.200 looked up what was on TV that day? What was it? 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.880 I don't it was sitcoms because there there was three 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.160 major networks that in this is there's not a lot 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.160 of TV channels and they were all sitcoms at the time, 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.160 So it wasn't anything that would have had violent gun 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.440 battles going on. That might have blended in with the shots. Sure, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.280 but like really loud yelling or things like that, that's 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.840 a mainstay of sitcoms, and laugh tracks and things like that, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.640 all the laugh tracks. Interestingly enough, laugh tracks didn't exist 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.480 in the eighties, but that's another story for another train. 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.880 Um No, genuinely they didn't. But this, um, I don't know. 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:18.599 Maybe with the headphones on, he could have been watching 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.320 TV with headphones on yea, or like again, they used 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.839 to suppressor. You know, it doesn't make them silent, right, 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.520 but it does it will make them much quieter. And 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.040 if you got loud noises on in the other room, 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.520 then you're pretty much golden. Yeah, And I'm not sure 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:35.680 where his bedroom was. I assume it was upstairs. I 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:37.479 got on street view and looked at the look at 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.760 the neighborhood. It's all older, two story houses. And another 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:43.480 reason I think they might have used to suppress here 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.960 is the houses are really close together. Ye, neighbor hurting anything, 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.960 I was gonna say, nobody reported hearing. There are no 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.520 shouts or shots reported by anybody. Yeah. The shouts thing 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:55.200 is like the weirder part to me, I guess, And 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:57.279 I'm sure we'll get there, But I think we have 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.440 other things to be talking about right now. Right I 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.200 wold have been screaming and shouting. I have a serious 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.640 to why they didn't do that. Okay, Yeah, we'll get there. Yeah, okay. 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.480 Another another police were suspicious of that because of it 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.920 because of the gunshot thing. Also, there was no sign 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.960 of any forest entry, which again is not necessarily completely damning. 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.000 I would say, not even well. I mean, yeah, they 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.640 tested his hands. They found a little bit of gunpowder residue. 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.320 On the right hand, there was a possible motive for 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.160 Eddie to kill them, which is that he eventually did 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.640 wind up in heriting some money two seven thousand dollars, 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.920 which would be over seven hundred thou dollars in todays money. Okay, 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.280 well that's that's an okay motive. I don't know if 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.040 I don't know if i'd kill my family over seven 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:42.800 hundred grand I don't think I would. I don't think 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:44.840 I would either, But I like my family. It depends 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.520 on the day for me. Yeah. Yeah, that's the whole point, 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:50.200 right is do you like your family? Do you have 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.280 a good relationship with your family? Although, in fairness, I 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.000 don't think I would kill anyone. I don't I wouldn't 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.680 kill three strangers. Now, I wouldn't do it either. But 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.960 the local district attorney's office didn't bring any charges against 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.640 Eddie in the case was dropped. They started a lack 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.960 of evidence. And yeah, and there was another consideration, which 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.120 is that Alan Genie Mills had enemies who wanted them dead, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.400 and these people had killed people before, and so possibly 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:22.520 we don't know that for completely ironclad sure, but quite 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.120 quite possibly. Yeah, well some of them did actually do 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.240 some killing, but we'll talk about that later. Um. And 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.800 so in the absence of a really ironclad case, I mean, 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:32.840 Eddie's defense attorneys would have had no trouble at all. 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.080 Convincing the jury or at least planning a little doubt 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:40.279 in their heads that was somebody else who did that. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:42.800 so another great reason not to bring a case, and 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.880 I trying to put them on trial. You probably want 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.680 to know about those deadly people I was talking about. 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:49.160 I'd like to know about them. Yet you want to 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.040 know about them, okay? So Alan Ginnie and their kids 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.520 had been involved for several years with the church called 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.039 the People's Temple, which had been and probably most of 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.440 our listeners have heard of the People's Temple, Jim Jones Jones, Yeah, 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.120 Jonestown and all that stuff. Yeah, they were involved with 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.080 those guys, and they started in nineteen sixty nine. I 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.160 believe they joined the church and uh stayed with it 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:15.360 until nineteen seventy five after they left the church. It 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.800 sees me the Temple they set in motion a chain 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.640 of events said eventually would result in assassination, lots and 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.560 lots of murders, and a whole bunch of suicides as well. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.240 Although almost everybody in the People's Temple died, probably about 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.240 a hundred survived. And of those hundreds, some of them 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.160 were okay, And they were just regular people who have 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.440 been kind of been held prisoner in Jonestown or wherever, 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.880 and some of them were actually psychos who participated in 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.520 the whole killing school there. There was I'm getting a 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.640 little ahead of myself, but you know, everybody thinks that 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.000 Jonestown they all they all drank the Koolid and died 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.680 committed suicide. But as it happens that it appears that 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.000 a substantial number of the people there were actually murdered. 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.480 And I yeah, yeah, And I know we're we're going 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:00.960 to dive into this pretty deep or shortly, and I 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.320 guess yeah, But I do want to clarify for those 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.520 listeners who are unfamiliar, Joe is not just using a term. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.320 It's not a turning a phrase of drinking the kool aid. 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.680 In this situation, people literally drank the kool aid and died. 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.680 I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit, but 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.000 I just wanted to go ahead and point that out. 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.360 Fun fact it was actually flavorid. Yeah, not cool aid. 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.840 Oh sorry, yeah, you know that's just so Yeah. Again 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.320 another mark against Jones. He cheaps out it doesn't drink. 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.360 It's one of those things. Uh, I can't think of 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.080 the term for it. When a brand name becomes so 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.640 recognized with a product that that's what everybody calls it, 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:43.640 regardless of what it is. It's like clean X, I 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.200 need a clean X, or a band aid or a 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:50.960 band aid. Yeah, it's it's exactly that. But that's why 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.280 it's the kool Aid, because that's what everybody called it, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.920 no matter what it was. Yeah, that's how I would 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:57.840 have gotten out of being forced to drink the kool Aid. 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.400 And I said, I'm sorry, I don't drink that cheap crap. 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.720 You can get me some cool aid. Then we'll talk. Okay, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.400 where was I I don't know, Oh yeah, okay, So 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.319 I was talking about how their actions eventually caused the 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.720 whole thing that happened at Jonestown. I mean not obviously, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:16.760 they didn't deliberately wish for all those people to die, 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.000 quite the opposite. But among the survivors were the worst 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.040 of the worst, the ones who acted as temple as 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.040 guards and who administered beatings to people, and the ones 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.080 who forced people to drink the kool aid in the 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.880 end and murdered a bunch of people at the airstrip. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.079 And we'll talk about that a little later too, And 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.560 you can bet that those people blamed Alan Jennie Mills 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.520 for the destruction of their nifty Little cult being the 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.560 strum that broke the camel's back. Yeah kind of. I mean, 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.040 I mean, Jones was unstable and he'd been talking about 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:50.320 mass suicide the earliest Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll talk about 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.280 the White Knights. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, the White Knights 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.280 are crazy. The whole thing is actually, this whole episode 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.199 is just insane. I read I read quite a quite 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:03.079 a large num road FBI files on this whole thing. Yeah, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.560 and they interviewed all the survivors and stuff, and uh, 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.040 although the insanity of this whole thing, it's just and 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.520 I'd always known about this, but not in such detail. 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.040 This is one of those ones where you start reading 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.120 it and then you just get sucked into the documents 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:18.760 and wait, I got to read the next one, and 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.280 I got to read the next one, and I know 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.480 it's midnight, but I got to read the next one. 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:25.480 I didn't do that with this one, but I did 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:30.320 that with something that's upcoming. So it's easy to do. Yeah, 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.959 it's really easy. Do it fairly frequently. Just yeah, I 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.000 waste a lot of time on this stuff. Although it's 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:37.840 not a total waste of time. I I leaned some 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.360 good information out of there, absolutely, but it was it 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:42.360 was like a lot of reading and then here's a 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.520 little nugget, and then here's a little nugget, because well 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.600 it's the FBI files. They're all redacted, so it's it's 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.600 hard to read that. Yeah, all all these blacked out things, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.480 you know. Yeah, Alan Genie Mills used to be called 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.000 Elmer and Deanna Myrtle, and then they changed their name 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.240 after they left the People's Temple. So the Myrtles joined 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.720 the People's Temple when it was in Yucayak, California. Originally 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.880 they started out in Indiana eventually, and then Jones got 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:09.880 a little paranoid about nuclear war, and he'd read an 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.000 article in the Atlantic where he heard that, you know, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:16.480 the whole northern California kind of Redwoods area is a 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.480 really good place to survive on nuclear war, which is true. 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.480 Is that why you left the Indiana I thought it 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.360 was just that he was starting to get a lot 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.120 of negative press. I think it was partly that too, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.960 But there was He's he apparently was very concerned about 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.120 the possibility of nuclear war, and of course this wasn't, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.840 and it was the sixties one. You know, a lot 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.440 of people were kind of concerned about that possibility. Still 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.040 slightly concerned about it today. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I'm 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.199 more concerned about like asteroid impacts. But we'll talk about 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.640 that in another episode. Yeah, so I've already talked about 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.240 Jim Jones, James Warren Jones. He preached the gospel at 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:52.920 the Myrtles, kind of like it's all about equality and 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.440 people helping each other. And he was opposed to racism, 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.480 and he was kind of more and more he got 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.280 more stridently sort of socialist. You can blame the rich, Yeah, 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:03.800 I blame the rich for all the ills of the 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.199 world and stuff. And in the early days to Temple 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.080 really did do some good works. They would take in 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.200 drug addicts and straighten them out, you know, And of 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.520 course that's kind of like what the scientologists do too, 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:15.240 So I don't know, maybe maybe they had an alter 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.760 your motive there. They also encouraged adoption. They encouraged all 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:20.679 their members to adopt kids if they if they could 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.160 afford it. Jim Jones and his wife adopted five kids, 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.480 So it's a pass all the kids. That's a whole 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:27.160 lot of kids, and they also had one of their own, 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.520 Stephen Jones, who turned out to be kind of even 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.920 a bigger psycho than his dad. That's so weird. Sorry. 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.920 Growing up next to me, there was a family that 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.880 moved into this very large house and they were Evangelical Christians, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.640 and they had one child and they adopted five more. 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.680 Whether it was their name Jones, no, I'm not gonna 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.320 tell you what I'm guessing basically this just hearing that, 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:57.640 reading that kind of Yeah, that's right, that's weird. They were. 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.560 They were a little creepy. They were definitely was definitely 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.760 Flanders esk creepy, creepy way. Yeah, anyway, sorry, back to 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.679 the start. Okay, so the Mills, even though they were 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.760 at this time still named Myrtle, the Myrtles, are the 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.120 are the Mills? They changed their entire names. Yeah, first 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:21.120 and last names. Okay, got it. Yeah, clarifying, So from 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.880 this point forward, are we calling them the Myrtles or 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.600 the Mills. I'm just going to call them the Mills. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.559 That's probably a good way to go. Yeah, I think 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.200 so too. Jennie Mills eventually became a head of the 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:35.760 temple's publications office and and Al served as the official 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.760 church photographer among the things, because I think they still 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.199 kept their day jobs, or I'm pretty sure Al did. 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.720 And even though the Mills liked the temple and they 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.800 liked Jim Jones, he was pretty authoritarian even back then. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:49.600 And that was the thing that just grew and grew 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.800 and grew. It's just time went by. He just slowly, 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.160 just slowly, just amped up, papped up the nuttiness. He 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.920 also had a lot of strange rules. Everybody was required 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.360 to write out and sign a confession to some heinous 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.000 crime or another like a murder, rape, robbery or something 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.440 to just like whatever, then sign it and then they 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:08.680 had to and then hand to hand a confession over 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.400 to Jones for safekeeping. Well that's a good way to 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.040 control the crap out of when you have a signed 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.400 confession from somebody. They do this or I'm giving this 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:19.680 to the cops. But I also wonder if it was 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:21.840 just if it I'm just trying to figure out how 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.280 that was pitched to get people to do it, and 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.600 wondering if that was something that he pitched as this 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.880 is a form of confession. Maybe you know you're you 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.480 didn't do this particular thing, but it's going to free 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.840 your soul or wipe the path the slate clean for you. 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.960 I mean, just not to draw too many how much 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:42.440 do you How do you get people to do it? 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.840 I think you know, not to draw too many parallels. 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.080 But you know, we've talked about the Scientolo. The Church 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.120 of Scientology gets people to sign contracts for literally all 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.720 of the rest of their lives for eternity. So that's 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.160 I mean, how do you pitch that without I mean, 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.120 there's some stuff that people do for religion or belief 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.440 just that is unexplainable to most of us. And I 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.280 and again we've had this conversation. I'll probably hold back 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.640 on a bunch of that today because I just it 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.960 baffles me. Yeah, I agree though, Yeah, he probably did 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.760 pitch it somewhere than I I want some black mail material, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.560 But I sure you didn't put it out quite like that. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.800 Not Yeah, but still, you know it would strike me 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.640 as a little bit odd. Yeah, I wouldn't do it, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.160 but I don't think it was. You are. Also, every 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.200 time you went to church, I don't know what they 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.400 called it, they called it mass or whatever they come 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.280 you went to the temple. Yeah, every time you went 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.120 to the temple um you were required to sign a 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:35.880 blank sheet of paper, sign your name on a blank 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.240 sheet of paper. And they said it was for attendance 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.440 taking purposes. But couldn't she sign, like just have a 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.520 piece of paper that everybody signed their names. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.480 and instead of one sheet of paper per se, and 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.520 for clarity's sake, the people's temple. What denomination were they 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:58.080 even strenuously connected to? Were they? They were Christians? Weren't they? Yeah? 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.360 I can't remember what branch, but they really kind of 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.520 kind of evolved away from Christianity, right, I'm not going 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.000 to brand whatever they were, but they started out as 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.520 a quote unquote Christian, Yeah, yeah, but then became like 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.400 un Christian because towards the end they're saying they didn't 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.600 believe in God. Yeah. Well that's yeah, that's that's a 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.520 whole another ball of wax. But yeah, but they were, 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:21.960 you know, they moved to San Francisco, and they were 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.640 preaching the gospel and they were trying to do good things. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:27.280 They were doing a few good things at the beginning. 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.800 At the beginning, presumably these sheets of paper you could 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.720 type of confession in over the signature. Later on, so yeah, 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.280 there could be. That's probably whatever. And people said that 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.640 they signed just dozens and dozens of these things. Well, 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.320 and then why even make them sign a like, why 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.440 even tell them that you're writing these confessions? Yeah? Why 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.120 not just do it on the downlow? Yeah? Okay, I 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:53.840 don't know. I don't understand a lot of this, so 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.600 I guess I should just asking questions. I mean, this 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.680 entire episode, as I said, it's just crazy, just so 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:09.160 we're that something crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also the 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.600 physical abuse started at one point. If you violated any rule, 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.679 and there were lots and lots of rules, then you 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.600 were beaten with paddles or with boards or whatever. Yeah, paddles. Yeah, 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.480 Jones loved a good padlin. Yeah, I know. And that's 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.760 what caused the Mills to leave the People's Temple. In 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.960 their daughter, Linda was beaten seventy times seventy smacks with 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.400 the paddle I guess, pretty hard. And they were upset 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:39.320 about that, so they left. Do you remember why? No? No, 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.439 I never actually heard what the actual offense was. Okay, 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:47.159 The offense was that their daughter had a friend that 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.720 Jones didn't like, and she ran up and gave her 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:56.479 a hug and Jones again didn't like her, branded her 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:01.920 as a lesbian and basically was punishing her for hanging 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:07.000 out with a lesbian who could corrupt her. I don't 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.239 know if this girl was in fact gay, and it 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:14.120 doesn't matter. It's that Jones decided that she was, and 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.159 because he had said, don't hang out with that girl, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.280 and she probably went, oh my god, I haven't seen 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.720 anyone forever on over gavel a hug and got spotted 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.280 by Jones himself or one of the cronies. She got 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.320 thrown over his knee and beaten with a paddle thrown 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.520 over his knee. Well, I don't know if she actually 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.639 was bent over his knee, but she's seventy or seventy 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.560 five times, and that's that's a lot of whooping day, 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:44.120 it really is. Yeah, once is enough to set me right. Oh. 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.560 I remember as a kid getting in trouble and getting hit. 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.880 You know, I'd earned five whatever I did, earned five 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:58.760 smacks and that was enough. I didn't do anything for days, yes, ma'am, No, ma'am, yes, mama, no, mama. Sorry, 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:05.320 I'm like you. I wasn't as a child. I've got 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.359 a belt in the other room. Can you know, Okay, 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.359 I got a paddle. Not interested. Let's hear more about 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.360 the Mills, the mid family. So they left, and from 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:20.000 the temple's point of view, they defected and Jones. Jones 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:25.600 was not cool with people leaving the temple. Yeah, strangely enough, Yeah, 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.320 he said that, and it's got more and more frequent 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.480 as time went on. He said that the factors from 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.040 the temple should be killed, but most especially the ones 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.280 that should be killed are the ones who publicly criticize 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.920 the temple, which the Mills did. Yeah, the Mills did. Yeah, 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:42.480 we'll talk a little bit more about that in a 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.320 minute here. A few de factors did die are kind 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.160 of mysterious circumstances. The most mysterious one of alls, most 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.359 of them. Actually, it's kind of hard to say, but 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.119 there was one guy named Robert Houston Jr. Who was 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.600 a railroad world worker for his day job, and he 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.879 was a member from sixty nine to seventy six. Uh specifically, 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.720 October two, nineteen seventy six, he called his ex wife 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:07.399 and told her that he was leaving the People's Temple. 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.359 Three days later, on October five, his mangled body was 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.440 found on the railroad tracks where he worked. It was 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:15.920 listed as a train accident. But that's quite a coincidence. 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.200 Is a huge coincidence. And he was in San Francisco 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.880 where the temple was, Yeah, because the temple was still 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.320 in San Francisco at that time. Yeah, Okay, yeah, they 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.920 didn't They didn't leave the States until nineteen seventy seven. 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.560 But we'll get and actually it's still maintained a presence 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.960 in San Francisco even after they moved to Jonestown. But yeah, 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:35.960 so that's a strange one. There was another one who 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.680 was found hung in her garage and that was ruled 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.600 a suicide, but her son, Daniel believes that she wanted 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:42.960 to get out of the temple and she and that 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.440 she didn't kill herself. That was Maxine Harp. Maxine Harp, 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.680 her children were placed in a temple, temple foster homes 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:51.760 and a lot of welfare it was collected after she died. 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.840 So there, I suppose there's a motive. I'm not sure 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.080 about that that one. It's hard to say. Probably not. 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:00.520 That's another one who had a heart attack occupation that 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.280 they she but she was in her sixties. Um and 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.399