Told the united states it wants the victims returned to the united states for burial. it will take weeks to recover all of those bodies and ship them home. in the end 909 bodies were found. investigators determined jim jones and his nurse died of gunshot wounds, likely self- inflicted. all the rest it seems either drank the poison or had it injected. former nbc correspondent fred francis. some of those who escaped talked about how the people were with a ring around the pavilion. how it took some of them many minutes to die. and in the five data from the airstrip ambush and 4 dead from the other location the total death tally was 918. it was while combing the compound for clues that investigators made another discovery. jim jones had actually recorded
It s be met when we started rotating the army helicopter over georgetown we could see this massive quilt. we had no idea what we were looking at. as the helicopter made another pass and we got closer the stench came up into the plane. we realized what we were looking at were hundreds of bodies down below. lying on top of one another? if it was something out of a horror movie. we couldn t tell if they were men, women or children until we got on the phone ground. this is the way fred francis reported that story. when the poison were was being passed out men were acting as guards. if anyone tried to leave these were used. i remember walking through jonestown and being stunned. being emotionally blasted.
spear served 15 years in congress before retiring in 2023. the reporters who survive the airstrip ambush all wrote books about it. after jonestown bob flake left nbc news. he died in 2015. steve song became a video editor and occasionally worked on stories for dateline. steve has retired now. fred francis went on to have many big assignments in his 40 year career. he says jonestown is the one story he just cannot shake. this one always seems to poke at me, the enormity of it all. the insanity of it. that smell, even though i cannot resurrect it, it is with me all the time.
The 2024 edition of Carrousel of the Nations will showcase the cultures and traditions of 30 villages around Windsor and Essex County, including seven new villages for this year, organizers say.