settle free a little bit in the '70s and for me it means you can be yourself as a unique individual. what could be more important what could be more important than -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight our topic will be murder as a growth industry. >> murder has become an epidemic in america. >> in the last ten years, the homicide rate has increased by leaps and bounds. >> my god, somebody fired a shot. >> these tragedies keep getting closer and closer to home. i'm afraid to let my kids walk out the door. >> the urban crime wave will touch off a new round of gun buying. >> step out, mr. bundy. >> i'll plead not guilty right now. >> there has been a disturbing growth in the cult phenomenon in this country. >> i shall be god and there

shall be no other. ♪ ♪ >> all the elements are present for one of the most sensational trials in american history. seven people brutally murdered in the glare of hollywood

publicity. young girls supposedly under the spell of a bearded svengali who allegedly masterminded the seven murders. >> the '70s is a decade of just brutal violence on every front and anywhere that you look in america. >> at the time of a mass murder, there's a lot of media coverage. but usually after a brief period of time the identity of the perpetrator tends to fade from the public's consciousness. but not so with the manson case. >> it was the biggest publicity case the d.a.'s office had ever had. >> the manson trial begins the 1970s on such an evil, sadistic note. seven innocent people died, steve parrot a teenager, abigail folger, folger coffee. jay sebring, wojciech frykowski, jason sebring, gary hinman, leno labianca, rosemary labianca and sharon tate. >> all of you know how beautiful she was.

only a few of you know how good he was. >> and you had charles manson himself, the charismatic leader of the family who didn't know any remorse or any respect for the system. >> are you all happy with your courts? good. am i happy? it's your court. i wouldn't accept it. >> the problem was he did not physically participate in these murders, but only manson had a motive to commit these murders and that was helter-skelter. >> manson envisioned that white people would turn against the black man if they thought they committed the murder and there would be a civil war between blacks and whites. manson foresaw the black man would win this war but he said the black man because of inexperience would not be able to handle the reins of power. so you have to look at the white people who survived, who escaped from helter-skelter, in other words, turn over the reins of power to charles manson and his family. pf when the words a

helter-skelter were found in blood, i argued to the jury this was tantamount of manson's fingerprints found at the murder scene. >> manson sat through this saying nothing but had an "x" scratched inhis forehead. it's his way of saying he has x'd himself out of society. ♪ susan atkins, patricia krenwinkel and leslie van houten sang as they went to and from court today as if to show they are with manson and he is with them. >> the three women were coached by charlie every morning, here's things i want you to do. so they would do everything from singing mocking songs to the judge to when charlie is making one of his impassioned speeches mouthing the words along with him. . >> i don't have any guilt. i know what i have done and no man can judge me. i judge me. >> are you bitter? >> bitter, no. price?

you have eyes. open them. >> charlie manson is a great presenter, but vincent was better. and when he put these two antagonists into a courtroom, america thought this is entertainment. >> people who are curious about the tate murders go to the los angeles hall of justice where they wait in long lines. some people are so interested that they get to the courthouse at 4:00 a.m. something else this trial has done is gather together again those members of manson's family who are not in jail. >> the world is getting crazy. >> one read part of a letter that manson wrote the district attorney. >> i am writing to you because i don't think i'm getting a fair trial. i'm an individual, one man standing alone defending myself. contrast this with the facilities you have available to you. >> i note, for example, the coverage of the charles manson case. here is a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight

murders without reason. here's a man yet who as far as the coverage was concerned appeared to be rather a glamorous figure. >> l.a. times the next morning, manson guilty nixon declares. manson got ahold of the paper, stands up in front of the jury with a silly little smile on his face, and he shows the jury the headline. >> a tight ring of security surrounds the hall of justice today as the manson jury deliberates. meanwhile, members of the manson clan continue their vigil outside the hall of justice. they've been there since the start of the trial. >> if charlie were convicted of these charges, what happens to the rest of the members of the family? >> there's no if. charlie will get out. all the people in jail will get out, and we will all go to the desert together. >> the jury hearing the charges against charles manson and three girl members of his so-called family brought in its verdict this afternoon. >> and outside the court

manson's girl followers got the news by radio. >> they've convicted these people, and you are all next. all of you. there's a revolution coming very soon. >> today the judge formally passed sentence on charles manson and his girls, the death penalty he said for seven senseless murders. he said not only was the sentence appropriate but almost compelled in this case. so death in the gas chamber, he said. >> the very name "manson" has become a metaphor for evil, catapulting him to almost mythological proportions. and there's a side to human nature, for whatever reason, that is fascinated by pure, unallowed evil. >> if the death penalty is to mean anything in the state of california other than two empty words, this unquestionably was a proper case for the imposition of the death penalty. >> the california supreme court ruled today that the death

penalty is unconstitutional. that will save 5 women and 102 men, including charles manson, from the gas chamber. >> should there be a supreme penalty for committing a crime? >> what do you think? >> i'm the one who's asking you. >> yeah, but if i don't give you the answer you want -- >> doesn't matter to me. it's your opinion. >> well, i don't have the authority to say anything like that. >> you have the authority to believe. >> i believe what i'm told to believe, don't you? nothing fits, huh? not surprising... ...with that bloated belly. you got gas. i can see it and i know you feel it. get gas-x. it relieves bloating in minutes. plus that uncomfortable pressure. no wonder it's the #1 gas relief brand.

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ask your doctor about lyrica. the boy was shot right at the side of the car, and the girl apparently tried to run. she was shot and found 28 feet further on. >> do you have any idea what the possible motive might be for this killing? >> we have no motive at this time. >> the zodiac killer, this unknown person, committed dozens of murders in the 1960s, the 1970s. we really don't know the full dimensions of the case, but we know he is the zodiac because he started to write to the police claiming credit in great detail, articulating and explaining what he did to these victims. >> "the chronicle" received two letters. they notified us immediately. the criminologist was sent over

to the newspaper, as were inspectors, and the two letters were examined and opened. >> the zodiac's reaching out to the police repeatedly and in great length was something new. >> the psychotic killer has already murdered five, one at a lover's lane near a lake just north of san francisco, three others in nearby vallejo, the latest a taxi driver in san francisco. the zodiac killer seems to crave publicity. he sent letters and cryptograms to newspapers and police, recounting his crimes, threatening more murders, and making bay area residents very edgy. >> in the '70s, there was a certain kind of killrt who had the skill to get away with murder long enough to assemble a body count where they would be classified as a serial killer. >> in los angeles, a killer the police are calling the hillside strangler has murdered ten young women and left their bodies on the hillsides along the highways.

today the police found another, number 11 they think. >> two young paper boys discovered what appears to be the latest victim. the body had been dumped an embankment in a residential neighborhood. the victim was a 20-year-old woman, and the body was nude. >> the series of murders has had a chilling effect on the people in the city. >> in los angeles, more women than ever before are learning to defend themselves. susan ball skipped night school for a week. she says she can't sleep because of the murders. >> i guess i just want to learn how to give myself a few seconds so i can live. >> there have been enough bodies over a wide enough area to strongly suggest more than one killer. but police say they really don't know. >> today the los angeles police say they have a suspect, a man in jail in another state. >> los angeles police say they have enough evidence to charge 27-year-old kenneth bianchi with ten of the hillside stranglings. police focused on bianchi after he was arrested last january for the murder of two college

students in washington state. >> what the police did not know was that there is not one strangler but two. >> today in a bellingham, washington, courtroom, kenneth bianchi confessed to participation in the los angeles hillside stranglings and accused his cousin angelo buono of being his accomplice. >> kenneth bianchi, to a great extent he was motivated because he was trying to show his older cousin who he revered that he was tough. and for angelo buono, he enjoyed the fact he had his younger cousin listening to him and we saw this time and time again. pairs of killers who urge each other on and together they are extremely vicious and violent. >> is there any doubt that this is a body? >> no doubt. skull and bones and everything. >> when did you first get word there might be some bodies buried here? >> this morning. >> had you had any indication before? >> the man behind the killings

was dean corll, 33 years old. he was shot and killed wednesday evening by wayne henley, 17 years old. he was one of two teenagers that lured teens to corll's home. >> corll would lure kids to his house. once he had them in the house, he would incapacitate them and put them on what he called his death board and rape and kill them. >> the texas killing have become the worst murders in american history. four bodies of boys were dug up today and that brings to 27 the number of bodies discovered so far. >> some people trying to make it appear that the police department has not done all that it could or should have done in these cases. the police department feels that these parents are not exactly discharging their own responsibility so far as raising and disciplining their children. >> these shocking murders finally focus national attention on a major problem, that of runaway children and what can happen to them.

>> the children that run away from home today are not the children we had running away in the '60s. in the '60s we had what we called flower children, and they ran away for sociopolitical reasons. today children are running from a situation rather than to a situation. >> kids were disappearing, and the police would say, they probably ran away. it was to the demise of many who in fact were picked up by sexual sadists like john wayne gacy. >> in illinois, near chicago, a man who served time in prison for sex crimes was let out. today they found the bodies of at least three young boys buried under his house. >> police today found six more bodies under the john gacy house. >> illinois authorities made their first positive identification of the 28 bodies unearthed so far. this grisly search ended tonight and will be resumed after christmas. >> prior to his arrest, gacy was well known in the community. he frequently dressed in a clown outfit for the benefit of youngsters.

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from new york, this is abc news. >> good evening. the supreme court ruled today that there is nothing unconstitutional in the death penalty. >> the court says the death penalty is an expression of of society's moral outrage at particular crimes. >> in the 1970s, we had a four-year moratorium on the death penalty. the u.s. supreme court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. eventually, in 1976, with new statutes, the u.s. supreme court said it's constitutional, and then we started seeing the death penalty back in place, death row populated with new criminals like gary gilmore. >> it seems that the people of utah want the death penalty but don't want executioners. i took them literal and serious when they sentenced me to death. >> his crimes were not especially extreme. it was two robbery murders. but when he was convicted, he wanted to die. he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. so two years later he was put to death by a firing squad and

became the first person in america in this new era to be executed. and his words were "let's do it." >> the order of the fourth judicial court of the state of utah has been carried out. gary mark gilmore is dead. >> tonight our topic will be murder as a growth industry. these are the national homicide figures. for the past ten years, every year has set a new high for murder in america. >> the statistics were stupendous. i mean, violent crimes of all kinds were soaring. the spectacles that people were seeing on their tv screen were unlike anything they had seen before. >> a small grocery store has been robbed. the owner of the grocery store, nathan hurt, has been shot and killed. >> what happened today? >> as i understand, a man to into the store and had a gun and asked for the money. and my grandfather reached for a

gun he had and grabbed at the man's gun and it went off or he shot him twice and my grandfather fell to the floor. >> why did he feel he had to have a gun? >> because there erre so many robberies in the area and he thought he needed it for protection. >> today ordinary citizens who would not otherwise dream of having a gun are buying one because they are scared out of their wits. >> william rubiak is a ukrainian immigrant who owns a store outside of washington, d.c. he's been robbed at gunpoint four times in the past two years. now william rubiak has bought a gun and he says next time he will use it. >> i will shoot and i will shoot to kill. >> fear is the biggest seller of guns. studies have shown each urban crime wave has touched off a new round of gun buying. >> we have german rugers, small revolvers, magnums. some of these saturday night specials are small and can be palmed in your hand. >> it was shortly after 10:00 california time when the

president left his hotel. not seen by the following cameras but scattered by secret service agent larry buendorf was a hand with a gun in it coming through the crowd. the commotion erupted. secret service agents forced the assailant to the ground and then handcuffed her. she was identified as 27-year-old lynnette alice fromme, one of the earliest followers of charles manson who was involved in the tate/bianca murders of 1969. >> about the same time gerald ford becomes president, charlie in prison writes to squeaky that he's got new rules. they want to do one big thing that's going to get the nation's attention back on charlie. so squeaky, wearing a red robe, comes up to the president of the united states with a big gun, points the gun in his face. the secret servicemen wrestle her to the ground, and squeaky's first words were, can you believe the gun didn't go off? >> following your own close brush with death a few weeks ago

in sacramento, i wonder if this has convinced you at all that we need tough gun control legislation in this country? >> i prefer to go after the person who uses the gun for an illegal or criminal purpose. that to me is a far better approach than the one where you require registration of the individual or the gun. >> just minutes after making those statements, gerald ford walked into the street and heard the sound of gunfire. >> my god, there's been a shot! there's been a shot. we're being pushed back by the police. somebody has fired a shot here. we don't know if anybody has been hit. my god! somebody fired a shot. >> the president was not hit. witnesses heard the sound and saw a puff of smoke. the woman identified by police as sara jane moore was immediately seized.

>> sara jane moore jumped out of the crowd, fired off a weapon and was tackled by another citizen. her background it turned out was as sort of an eccentric, sort of lower rung political figure. she was kind of an odd duck. >> when gerald ford became president, within the space of one month were two attempts on his life, squeaky fromme and sara jane moore. they both tried to shoot him. it's like, what's going on? why can't this be stopped? >> so once again this nation has narrowly escaped the tragedy, the trauma of the assassination of our president. above all else, this points out the need for some additional measures, some additional precautions, to protect the life of the highest elected official in the country. will it take another assassination in our lifetime to finally force some action? imagine - she won't have to remember passwords. or obsess about security. she'll log in with her smile. he'll have his very own personal assistant.

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in the '70s, new york was really in danger. the whole social fabric had been torn in half and crime was just one of the many indications that we were lost.

>> i would say the last ten years, the homicide rate has increased by leaps and bounds. we hit our peak probably in 1972 when the bronx had 430 homicides. in the '70s, the bronx looked like berlin after world war ii. literally looked like berlin. >> 1.5 million people live in this borough. once that smoke on the horizon signified industry, progress, jobs. now it means someone is burning down a building. it has become the arson capital of the world. it happens 30 times a day, and the flames are the signal of a national disaster. >> is there anything that can change the situation? >> the bronx in my own estimation is doomed with a capital "d." >> a lot of gritty stuff went down in new york and when you think of new york in the '70s you of course think of the son of sam murders. >> christine freund, soon to be married, is dead today. dead in a shooting that has no apparent motive. >> the end of 1976 they

transfer me to queens homicide. and the first victim i came of across was a woman named christine freund who was sitting there with her boyfriend coming from a movie and got her head blown off. >> the comparison determined it was the same killer using the same gun, a .44 caliber weapon, on these homicides. therefore, the police nicknamed it the .44 caliber killer. >> he struck again on april 17th at 3:00 in the morning, killing 18-year-old valentina suriani and her fiance, 20-year-old alexander esau as they sat in a parked car in the baychester section of the bronx. >> we get the shooting back in the bronx, a girl named valentina suriani. but at the scene where that shooting occurred addressed to my supervisor and called himself the son of sam. >> he talks about being possessed by a man he refers to as sam and the man he refers to to as his father, and he says

his father requires blood. >> this got people's attention. i think it was just the sheer randomness of it. the fact you could be doing something as simple as talking to a friend in a car and someone would come behind you and open fire. it was pretty terrifying. it was frightening. >> i was in charge of the nighttime operation. there was part of the task force that wanted to shoot him on site. that was our job, take him out on the street. we flood the streets of new york. >> there's people dying, and we're trying to stop it. it's everybody. it's not you. it's everybody. that's all we're trying to do. >> okay. >> in terms of the victim count, that doesn't place him at the top of the list in terms of the most deadly serial killers. but it was new york city. and what happens in new york city, well, that's international news. >> good evening. harry is on vacation. here are our top stories. 100 more police join the hunt for the son of sam killer in new york. >> the search continues for

the .44 caliber killer who has come to be known as the son of sam. >> he warned in one of his sick and threatening letters to the press and to the police, sam is a thirsty lad and he won't let me stop killing until he's had his full of blood. >> it was a really miserably hot summer in new york, and everything went dark. i heard someone on the street go, oh, it's a blackout! the looters were out almost instantly. and it felt apocalyptic. i remember going to bed that night thinking it was the end of the world. >> new york city in the early morning after a night of no electric power. what it did have in the dark streets was a wild outburst of crime. >> when the greatest city in the world goes black, it showed a crumbling america. then you have the son of sam on the loose.

>> we always look for patterns in victims. there was this belief that he was only killing women with long dark hair. >> i know the .44 killer is after girls with long brown hair so when me and my friends go out at night we put our hair up. >> my hair was down to my shoulder. >> i cut it short because of the .44 caliber killer. >> well, his last victim was actually blond. >> a 20-year-old new york city girl died this evening a day and %-p of sam. he's the nighttime killer who has stalked new york residential boroughs for a year. >> a postal worker walked out of his yonkers apartment last night, turned the ignition key in his car, and found himself surrounded by police. well, he said, you've got me. police say those words ended the biggest manhunt in new york city history with the capture of son of sam. and this is what they say

tripped up the .44 caliber killer, a parking ticket. david berkowitz drove this cream-colored ford galaxy from his home to brooklyn. police say he went to stalk his 12th and 13th victims. but in the place he parked was this fire hydrant, and police had the lead they needed. >> when we get him and i interrogate him, my attitude at this time, i want to take him and throw him out the window. this guy was so pathetic. it was like talking to a zucchini, never blinked, constant smile on his face. after a while i start to feel sorry for the guy. he is gone. >> i feel great. and i think the people of our city will feel great relief. >> praise the lord. it's over. we're very, very happy. >> that was the first thing we heard this morning. it was fantastic. it was great. >> serial killers tend to be cunning. that allows them to stay at large. and when they get caught, it's

usually because of luck. good luck for us. bad luck for them. >> when we caught him, we searched his car. in the back on the seat was the .44 caliber gun that did the shootings. what more do you need? and then a machine gun fully loaded in the backseat and the night of interrogation that i directed, i said, well, what were you going to do with the machine gun? and he said, i was on my way to the hamptons. and i was going to spray the place and kill as many people as i could. get gas-x. it relieves bloating in minutes. plus that uncomfortable pressure. no wonder it's the #1 gas relief brand.

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there are so many miracles in this church that it is hard to tell about one without telling about two or three because they blend together. you know, for 30 years, i prayed to a sky god and i got nothing but disappointment and heartache. now we have a father who loves each one of us so much. how thankful we are for him. thank you. ♪ >> the '70s were a very fertile period for this new religious movement. what was so interesting about the rise of cults in our country

was how many people wanted to ally themselves with these stigmatized and fanatical organizations. >> and i must say it is a great effort to be god. i lean upon another but no one else has the faculty that i do. when they do, i will be glad to hold their coat. in the meantime, i shall be god, and beside me there shall be no other. >> yeah! >> yeah! >> jim jones was an extraordinary figure. he was a community leader, a social worker and minister. and he carried his ministry to california. ♪ walk with me ♪ walk with me what was particularly distinctive about him at that time is he created a community that was united between whites and blacks. and this came at a time when the country was racially divided and churches were not integrated. >> some leading scientists say we have to have euthanasia. oh, no. oh, no. who's going to decide who and

when a person is going to die? we must never allow that. because this is the kind of thing that ushers in the terror of a hitler's germany. we must not allow these kind of things to enter our unconsciousness. >> i wanted to write a story about this guy and his power and the reach he had. so i began to contact ex-members, and they said all is not so good inside. there were beatings if you got out of line, a lot of sex abuse. and the story took on a new life at that point. very soon afterwards, the church members began leaving san francisco for guyana. he figures, if i'm in guyana, it really doesn't matter what's said or written. nobody's going to get me here. ♪ we are a happy family ♪ we're a happy family yes we are ♪ >> it was an escapade that's

almost unparalleled in the history of religious movements. they had very little communication with their loved ones at home. and naturally there was concern about where they'd gone and what was happening out there in the jungle. >> i think that jim jones took his group down there because he was afraid to face the publicity and answer the questions here in this country. >> he was talking integration. he was talking helping people. he was talking better this and better that. >> what about now? what's your impression now? >> my impression now, those are fronts for him. i think he's gone crazy. >> congressman leo ryan started hearing the name jim jones more regularly, and he wanted to ç expose what he believed was going on down there that was wrong. and he thought it was certainly worth inviting members of the press to join him. >> very glad to be here. this is a congressional inquiry.

and i can tell you right now that whatever the comments are there are some people here that believe this is the best thing that happened to them in their whole life. >> it's toward the end of the evening. don harris, who was the nbc reporter, had been walking around the pavilion, and two people slipped him notes. and he hands the notes over to congressman ryan who opens them and says, oh, my god, it's true. everything we have been told is true. >> and then word spread, and more and more people wanted to leave. >> do i both understand you to say that you both want to leave jonestown on this date, november 18, 1978? >> yes. >> and then i remember seeing this couple with a child between them. >> get back here!

you bring them back! don't you take my kids! >> you could feel the tension. >> last night someone came and passed me this note. >> people play games, friend. they lie. they lie. what can i do about liars? you people leave us. i just beg you. please leave us. >> instead of just letting that plane take off with minimal damage to his movement, jones snapped. >> good evening. for about the last 30 hours, we here at nbc news have been trying to establish what happened last night at the airstrip at a place called port kaituma. we do have a particular interest in it. two nbc newsmen were shot to death there. >> don harris was killed. bob brown was killed. congressman ryan was shot 45 times. >> every time somebody would fall down wounded, they would

walk over and shoot them in the head with a shotgun. >> i was shot five times. i was lying on my side with my head down pretending i was dead. and then all of a sudden they just came and shot me at point-blank range. >> they are shooting. people die, including leo ryan. and back in jonestown jim jones is calling for a revolutionary suicide where we're all going to kill ourselves and make a statement to the world. >> i first flew into jonestown last evening around sunset. there was absolute silence. nothing living was around. jonestown by this evening was the city of the dead. >> they found tremendous

quantities of potassium cyanide poison. it had been mixed with kool-aid. it killed quickly, within five minutes. >> we will never know how many people voluntarily drank the poison, but other people were either coerced, brainwashed or took it against their will. they were murdered. >> i was lifted into this medevac plane, and i was so grateful. >> good evening. the searching american soldiers have finished counting the bodies in jonestown, guyana. 910 died in the poison ritual of the people's temple last week. >> this was americans killing other americans and themselves. in its own interest for its own well-being, this nation will have to find out why. but to get from the old way to the new,

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there were a lot of strange people who had committed a lot of strange crimes in the 1970s, but none of them was as mediagenic as ted bundy. >> were you surprised to be in jail. >> i didn't know what to expect. never been in jail or arrested before. >> theodore bundy was a prolific

se serial killer. we don't know how many killed. we know dozens. he was handsome, involved in politics. was in law school. didn't seem like the glassy eyed lunatic that many americans believed that serial killers would be. >> we still don't believe it. it just can't be. i keep shaking my head day after day saying how can this be because our son is the best son in the world. >> what the press wrote about bundy, his crimes wasn't the full details. the full extent of the barbarism, the fact he would have sex with their corpses, mutilate the victims, that didn't fit with this image of the boy next door. >> you issued a statement saying you feel that everything will turn out all right, that you are innocent. do you feel that still? >> more than ever. >> you think of getting out of here? >> well -- well legally, sure. >> bundy was to stand trial on them charge of murdering a young woman in aspen. the trial never completed. during a court hearing break he was left alone in a law library.

he bailed out of the second floor window and escaped. >> he high tailed it up to the hills where they chased him nearly a week. he got lost up there and probably would have died of exposure if they hadn't arrested him. they caught him and he was put back in jail and at christmastime 1977, he escaped again. >> bundy, starved down to less than 140 pounds slipped through a hole in the ceiling of his cell and was free again. >> the fbi responded by putting bundy on the ten most wanted list. posters with a picture of ted bundy were circulated throughout the nation. >> ted did not have a plan when he escaped. he just wanted to get as far away from where he might be identified as he could. so he stole a car and went to florida. >> his new quarters are cramped. he's under 24-hour guard and faces intense questioning. he is theodore bundy, jailed in florida. >> bundy was living in tallahassee at the time when five florida state university coeds were attacked on or near

the campus. two of the young women died as a result of the attacks. >> the police in pensacola, florida, stopped a man driving a stolen car and found to their surprise, and perhaps pleasure it was bundy. >> step out, mr. bundy. what do we have here, an indictment. why don't you read it to me. >> mr. bundy -- you told them you were going to get me. he said you were going to get me. you got the indictment. it's all you are going to get. >> bundy, having had some law training and a great deal of arrogance decided to represent himself. for him he was the star in the courtroom. >> since i have been in dade county -- >> don't shake your finger at me, young man. >> inside the courtroom, the trial will be covered by a still photographer and one television camera. upstairs there are some 250

reporters and television technicians from around the country. >> bundy's personality is fascinating to a lot of people. he doesn't fit the usual profile of a criminal. when he defends himself in court it is fascinating for people to watch. >> each day the courtroom is filled with spectators drawn bay -- by a fascination with theodore bundy himself or the gruesome details of the crimes. what is unusual to see is many of the onlookers are women, young women. >> you are fascinated by him? >> very. i'm not afraid of him. he doesn't look like the type to kill somebody. to try to imagine yourself in his place and see how he is feeling. >> the bizarre spectacle of ted bundy as a sex symbol really bummed out feminists, as you can imagine. he became a folk hero. there were t-shirts because he was handsome. on the other hand, his violence was so incredibly women hating and his insouciance about that -- we wound up being pretty

depressed. >> i had a broken arm and crushed finger. >> i had five skull fracture and multiple contusions on my head. >> is that man in the courtroom today? >> yes, he is. >> would you point him out for us, please? >> are you prepared for a guilty verdict? >> i think so. but you never know. i've never had to go through this before. >> after six and a half hours of deliberation, the jury had a verdict, 32-year-old theodore bundy remained composed as he listened. guilty of first-degree murder in the strangling deaths of two florida state university sorority sisters 19 months ago. >> it is therefore the sentence of this court that you be sentenced to death by a current of electricity and such current of electricity shall continue to pass through your body until you are dead. >> in some ways, ted bundy is an icon of the '70s. he mixed kind of showbiz and

violence in a way that had never been done before. >> at the end of the '70s, we have had a destruction of our innocence we had at the beginning of the '70s. >> it became an era where americans began to expect the worst. >> america had certainly lost its way. criminals were lauded and killers were romanticized. >> it was the news media that helped to carry this message that america is a dangerous place. that americans had a love affair with violence. it was much more like a marriage and the marriage for some people was until death do them part. >> for a crime social scientists the violence that struck our cities as an epidemic and identified the causes, poverty, broken homes. for some, violence has become a permanent part of the fabric of life. sociologists call it a subculture of violence. the current wave of violent

crime is well in to the second decade. while we have deplored violence, we've not done much about it. perhaps this is because confronting the problem of violence forces us to confront the most serious defects in our society. the following is a cnn special report. this is the way jonestown looked the day it died, november 18th, 1978. >> die with a degree of dignity. lay down your life with dignity. >> a self-proclaimed religious paradise in guyana in south america. carved out of the jungle by jim

jones, a man who called himself god. >> how very much i've loved you. how very much i've tried my best to give you the good life. >> who convinced his followers to kill their children and then kill themselves. >> let us be done with it. let's be done with the agony of it. >> drinking a kool-aid-type fruit punch laced with deadly cyanide. >> something to put you to rest. oh god. >> 30 years later in a place where words could kill and did, there is silence. an empty field, the people gone. almost no trace of their lives or dreams.

this is the site of jonestown's open-air meeting hall where i'm standing right now, where the reverend jim jones led his followers into the worst mass murder and suicide pact in america's history. only small golden flowers grow where bodies once lay. on that fateful morning there are more than 940 people living are more than 940 people living in jonestown. by nightfall only 33 would still be alive. for most of the few who did survive, it took incredible courage to defy jim jones and step away. this is their story. one of desperation and daring and in the end a story of human triumph amid horrible tragedy. >> it was a slave camp ran by a mad man with a huge ego. >> as a young mother leslie wilson went to guyana because her husband had taken their son there. in jonestown, she found not enough food, not enough sleep, too much fear.

>> for me to think i was going to see the age of 21 was a miracle. i didn't think i was going to see 21. >> she recoiled the first time jim jones called together peoples temple members for a suicide drill. >> and i remember him looking at me and me looking, please, don't ask me to do this because we really didn't know if it was real or not. >> on the last morning she said she wanted to take her child on a picnic and started on a day-long trek to a town 30 miles away. >> everyone can look up and see us walking, and i was just shaking. i was so, so frightened. >> for years, leslie wilson would not let anyone know she was a jonestown survivor. >> because i would sit at the table sometimes at work, whatever, and they would talk about jonestown. i didn't say a word. i mean, i lived under a veil of secrecy for 20-something years. >> vernon gosney, now a

policeman in hawaii, remembers jonestown as an armed camp supposedly to guard against outsiders. >> but many of the times the guns were pointed towards us. >> gosney wanted to leave as soon as he arrived but couldn't until a california congressman, leo ryan, came to guyana in the fall of '78 on a one-man investigative mission. >> i had decided i was going to pass a note asking for help to escape. >> by that next afternoon, as gosney dragged his trunk towards a departing truck, more than a dozen others had decided to go. >> i thought i was going to die at any moment. i never thought that i would ever be permitted to leave. >> when the group reached the small airport nearby, gunmen opened fire. >> there was blood everywhere, and i thought i'm dying and then i blacked out.

>> that same day, gerald parks, seen here in the blue and white shirt, talking with jim jones, sensed it was his last chance to get his family out. >> you can feel death in the air. you can actually feel it. >> the parks family asked to fly back with congressman ryan's group. >> and i told him who i was and i said we've been held prisoner here. >> at the airport, a tractor pulled a farm wagon up alongside their plane. >> about five or six guys stood up and pulled their guns up and started firing at us. i heard my mom holler, my god, look at patty. >> jerry parks' wife was killed and so was congressman ryan and three newsmen. parks ordered his daughter tracy, her older sister and three other youths to run for

safety into the jungle. >> we ran too far, and, of course, it's so thick that, like, once you get so far you can't -- you get lost in your direction. >> before night came, we went back to the jungle and started hollering for the kids and no response. and i thought oh, my god, don't tell me they're lost. >> i was the organizer, and anything that needed organizing they gave to carter. >> tim carter, seen here in '78, was a trusted aide to jim jones. he saw jonestown through different eyes. >> it was beautiful. i mean, something about nature, being in the jungle. it was beautiful. >> carter stayed almost till the end. he saw the gunmen come back from the airport. >> the tractor trailer that had

come from the airstrip came up behind and stopped at the kitchen. and these guys jumped out and he said we got the congressman. >> that's when the reverend jim jones told his people this would be the day they'd have to die. >> the congressman is dead. please get us some medication. it's simple. it's simple. no convulsions with it. it's simple. just please get it. >> the children were killed first. >> tim carter saw his 1-year-old son poisoned. >> malcolm was dead. his little lips covered with foam. this is what happens with arsenic and cyanide as it foams at the mouth. >> he held his wife as she died. >> i put my arms around gloria as she was holding malcolm and just kept on sobbing i love you so much. i love you so much. >> carter lived only because he was sent away on a final errand. he came close to shooting himself that night.

>> and i knew that i would never get the sounds and the smells and the sights of jonestown out of my mind ever again. >> so few survived jonestown. for most only by determination borne of desperation. for others by a twist of circumstance. over the next two hours we will follow the lives of these survivors, then and now. "escape from jonestown" continues. do you like the passaaadd? it's a good looking car. this is the model rear end event. the model year end sales event. it's year end! it's a rear end event. year end, rear end, check it out. talk about turbocharging my engine. you're gorgeous. what kind of car do you like? new, or many miles on it?

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the reverend jim jones left no doubt as to who he thought he was. >> when i say, i'm god, then i feel it well up in my soul and i see it well up in you, and i see the sick healed and the blind see and the dead raised. >> in truth, he was a liar, a charlatan, a phony faith healer. this from the same sermon in 1972 talking about a 90-year-old with a bad leg.

>> his leg was healed instantaneously because he saw me as god, god, god, god, god! >> watch this woman who jones said had a broken leg. >> you will see her walk. >> a helper cuts through the cast. >> now the leg was broken yesterday? now run! >> jones asks if she feels any pain. >> jump up and down real quick. no pain whatsoever. that's it. >> they traveled around the country and held these meetings, pulled these fake healings and fake miracles and people would shell out money like you wouldn't believe. >> this is jerry parks as he looked back then.

he was fooled for years. >> but it was all through lies and fake healings and all that stuff. the man was fake. i know now that he was fake from the beginning. >> by his own account, jim jones was born on the wrong side of the tracks in a small indiana town in the depression years. at 21, jones became a student pastor by taking a correspondence course. within a few years he had started his own church in indianapolis. named it peoples temple and opened its doors to african-americans. he and his wife marceline became an interracial family through adoption and embraced racial harmony in an era that resisted it. but even then jones preached of catastrophe. >> at that time the cold war was going on, and he was saying a bomb was going to fall and there

would be a nuclear war. >> in the mid-'60s, jones moved his church outside the town of ukiah in northern california. >> he got this revelation to come to ukiah, california. and there was a cave out here. >> a cave in the hills around redwood valley that would shield everyone from nuclear fallout. >> i know now as sure as i'm sitting here and i knew and have for a long time there was no such place. it was all one of his lies. >> jones built this church and offered sanctuary there, a safety net to the elderly and poor, usually blacks from the inner city. they signed over their social security checks and the peoples temple cared for them for the rest of their lives. >> he built this whole thing on the premise of brotherhood, economic equality and a world where no babies go to bed hungry.

>> jerry parks and his family followed jones from the midwest out to ukiah in 1966. jerry got a job in a supermarket. >> he started talking about everybody giving 25% of their income. i sat down one time and figured after i got back how much money i gave that man, and it was around 76,000 bucks. >> his youngest daughter tracy learned to fear jones when she started school and was told to stay away from other children. >> if you got caught talking to people that were not affiliated with the church then you would be in trouble for that. >> trouble at jim jones' wednesday night meetings. he called them catharsis, the purging of evil. >> so i was scared to do anything wrong because i was scared i would be called up and be beaten. >> leslie wilson was 13 when she first encountered the peoples temple and the hold it had on members.

>> what happened in catharsis? >> if you were doing something incorrectly which nine times out of ten someone would find something you did incorrectly you would be called to the floor and disciplined. >> how? >> either by a paddle or being spanked. >> you were hit? >> uh-huh. >> in front of the whole church? >> oh, yes. >> grown people? >> yes. >> spanked? >> yes. >> who did the spanking? >> whoever he deemed to do it. >> her mother joined the peoples temple as a haven where leslie's sister michelle on the right could get help for her drug problem. as a minister, leslie said, jim jones could be spellbinding. >> he could quote scripture and turn around and preach socialism. he appealed to anyone on any level at any time. >> even so, racial equality came with exceptions. >> the majority of the congregation was african-american. >> the people who ran the

church, the leadership, were they majority african-american? >> no. they were majority caucasian. >> the dark side of jim jones was always there. what did you have to call him? >> father. >> like he was god? >> correct. >> jones would boast openly in church about his sexual couplings with both women and men. >> for me sitting there listening to it, i thought it was insane. and i don't understand, soledad, why my mother didn't grab our hands and run like crazy when he spoke of having sex with men and women on the pulpit. i don't know what drove her to stay. i'll never have that question answered. >> just ahead, rehearsing suicide. >> five minutes later jones says, you've all just been poisoned. you have an hour to live. nothing fits, huh? not surprising... ...with that bloated belly. you got gas.

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membership, now numbering in the hundreds in redwood valley, california, in the '70s. by then tim carter was already getting an early taste of how it would all end. >> we had a very small vineyard on the ranch in redwood valley. and they said, hey, grapes would come in from the ranch and they have wine, does anybody want some wine?

and so each of us got this styrofoam cup with -- three-quarters filled with wine and drank the wine and like five minutes later, jones says, you've all been poisoned. you have an hour to live. >> it was a test for jim jones' trusted inner circle. they did not panic or resist. >> now when i look back on that whole thing now, you know, you think that might have been the wake-up call that it was time to get out of dodge? yeah, absolutely. that should have been -- i should have been gone the next day. >> carter stayed on. he was a marine vet who survived some of the worst fighting in vietnam. he came home bitter, a cynic, a hippie and joined the peoples temple in 1973. that same year, jim jones reached a deal in guyana to begin clearing land in the jungle for a future settlement he would call jonestown.

jones chose guyana because its government was socialist, its people black and english-speaking. it is a small country, not even a million people on the north coast of south america. >> beautiful promised land. >> beautiful promised land. those were jones' words for his creation, a place where he and his people could practice socialism, live in harmony and answer only to themselves. >> we wanted to have a better world. you know, a better society, one without racism, sexism, ageism, economic equality for people. >> verne gosney joined the church in california about that same time. he and his wife, an interracial couple, were welcome. >> the peoples temple was a rich tapestry of people. they were people who had survived adverse situations,

racism, discrimination, just very difficult lives, and they had triumphed to that point. >> in 1975, jones moved his church headquarters from redwood valley down to san francisco to a larger stage where he became a political force and a face in photo-ops. >> roslyn carter was campaigning for jimmy carter. i believe that was 1976, and there was going to be a rally downtown. literally, we stuffed the building. we were the rally. >> this photo of tim carter with the woman he loved, gloria, was taken at the golden gate bridge during another public appearance. >> when jim jones was asked to give the benediction for the new suicide prevention barrier that had been erected. >> that's right. only a year before jonestown

took its own life, jim jones was praying over a suicide prevention barrier. in that summer of 1977, jones was facing increasing criticism from some members who fled the church because they no longer believed in jones. when "new west" magazine published an expose article about church beatings, jim jones suddenly decided to leave the country. he began putting his flock on planes to south america, by the dozens, day after day. teenagers and young children were among the first to go. parents followed. >> i got this phone call that says, it's time for you to go, and this voice entered my head that said if you don't go now, you will never see your child again. >> leslie wilson had become pregnant at 18. this is her son jakari.

the father took the boy to guyana first so leslie followed. what was it like in guyana? beautiful? paradise? >> not paradise by any means. >> did it feel like you were in captivity? >> oh, right away, right away. your passports were taken right away, seized. >> and this did not raise red flags or it did? >> it did. in your heart of hearts you had to know that there was no way out. there was no way out. ♪ >> tim carter praised jonestown in this testimonial. >> it's beautiful. i can't -- i've never been so totally happy or fulfilled in my life. >> as long as he was not being eaten up by bugs. you could see him scratching the bites.

these are home movies made by jim jones to attract church members to his namesake. >> american bananas are nothing like these. >> he showed off the supplies. >> flour, flour, rice, black-eyed peas. >> and then this. >> kool-aid. >> kool-aid. the reality of jonestown, hard work, long hours, too much heat, too little sleep, and as leslie wilson remembers, meager food. >> dinner was rice and gravy and sometimes soup with chicken feet sticking out. >> she wrote this letter to a friend there in jonestown. >> i now feel as if my whole being is worthless here. i'm now 21 years old and my life will surely consist of nothing more than it does now. >> at the bottom she wrote -- >> destroy this now.

>> but at a wednesday catharsis meeting -- >> my letter was being read by jim in front of the whole congregation, and if i could have crawled in that guyanese soil and dug a hole so deep, i would have done it. i was just in fear. >> your best friend turned you in? >> my best friend turned me in. >> as punishment, leslie was placed on a hard work detail. for her the promised land was a failure. >> we're not going to make a difference in the world because no one knew about us. no one cared. we were just this bunch of folks living in the jungle, surviving. >> the utopia was a hoax? >> it was a hoax, and that realization itself was overwhelming. >> when we return, a secret plan to kill. >> cyanide is one of the most rapidly acting poisons. i would like to give about two grams to a large pig to see how

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as soon as jerry parks arrived at the entrance to

jonestown in the spring of 1978 with his wife and youngest daughter, he saw guards with guns. >> i seen those armed guards. that's when my heart fell. i knew then -- i didn't have to wait until i got in jonestown. i knew then that i had made the biggest mistake of my life. >> reverend jim jones' home movies helped lure parks and his family to guyana. >> it was going to be a city right in the middle of a jungle and made it sound like really a paradise. >> instead, he found -- >> hell on earth. >> jerry parks complained about the heat, the food, the confinement. >> life don't get any worse than that. that was literally a jungle prison. >> in front of the congregation, jim jones told parks -- >> the only other thing you can do is either adjust and walk through the jungle and it's meet snakes and panthers and all that

[ bleep ] and one wants to do that and guns. can be arrested by police and be put in a federal penitentiary. >> jones would punish parks. >> he called me up front and he says, i hear you want to go back home, and he started beating on me. he had two, three security that were karate experts hammering on me pretty good. >> parks was put on a hard work crew out in the hot sun digging ditches. in jonestown, even his 11-year-old daughter tracy parks got up for work before dawn each day. >> i had to work in the rice fields. you had to use a big machete or the big rake that had the knife at the bottom and you had to cut the grass down. >> one day she went to the infirmary with an earache. >> and they looked in there and pulled out a cockroach the size of my -- half of my thumb, huge. >> tracy parks saw no future in

jonestown. >> i knew that in the first month there that i'm stuck here and that i'm most likely going to die here. >> verne gosney came a month after the parks. he brought his 4-year-old son, mark. his wife had fallen into a coma during childbirth and never came out. gosney sank into a haze of drugs. >> i did use heroin. i used amphetamines. i used cocaine, marijuana, lsd. >> he came to jonestown to get clean and did. >> their idea of a drug treatment was, you know, work you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and if you mess up, beat your ass. i mean, that's their drug treatment program. >> he soon found jim jones controlled everything. >> it's a dictatorship. it was supposed to be a socialism, but it really was

fascism. >> jones' own words. >> this organization is built upon the dictatorship and the proletariat. and i am, goddamn it very much the goal. >> jonestown was failing. not much was growing in the fields. most food had to be shipped in and jim jones had begun to talk about another move, to communist russia. ♪ long live this socialist dream ♪ >> that's beautiful. >> church members were told to learn a new language. >> you had to say something in russian before you could get anything to eat. little old ladies coming up, older people, elderly people, you know, they couldn't do it. they couldn't memorize anything and he would turn them away. >> yet unknown to parks, unknown to gosney or almost anyone outside the inner circle jones was already preparing for their death. this is a memo written to jones by the peoples temple doctor six

months before the mass suicide. it reads in part -- >> cyanide is one of the most rapidly acting poisons. i would like to give about two grams to a large pig to see how effective our batch is. >> the test apparently was never carried out, but that's not the point. while in guyana we made a startling discovery. the church had been buying cyanide long before most of the members arrived here in jonestown. cnn has learned that for at least two years the church was buying a quarter pound of the deadly poison each month. by the time congressman ryan first began raising questions about jonestown, six pounds or more of cyanide had already been shipped here, strong evidence that the reverend jim jones had been plotting the death of his followers long before that fateful day. we're told jonestown had obtained a jewelers license to buy the cyanide which can be

used to clean gold, but there was no jewelry operation in jonestown. in that last year, jones never left the jungle camp, a prisoner of his own making hiding from a court custody fight over this young boy he claimed he sired by another man's wife. jones would summon his people to mass meetings they called white nights and rant about suicide if under attack by the cia or the guyanese army or other unknown forces. >> if you're not prepared to die for your children, you will not stand up for your children. >> for months jones will tell parents their children might have to die. >> at some point you will sacrifice your children. you have to make that commitment. >> at one meeting jones tried to get jerry parks to promise to kill his daughter tracy if the camp were invaded. >> how old is your child?

>> 11. >> at 11 unless it came to an overwhelming invasion. then we would gently put them to sleep which we have and they would never know what has hit them. we've already prepared for that are. >> and i thought, you know what? am i the only one in this cotton picking group that's got the guts to stand up and say, no, i don't want to commit suicide? >> from that moment on jerry parks said, he knew he had to get his family out. >> i knew those white nights he was having was fake at the time, but i also knew that one day one of them would not be fake. >> next, running away from death. >> i was horrified. i was so, so scared.

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in mid-november 1978, congressman leo ryan flew to south america to see jonestown for himself. >> i'm from the united states government, and we're here to inquire into the health and the

welfare of american citizens who are here. >> a number of ryan's california constituents were complaining that relatives were being held captive. his legal aide jackie speier who made the trip with ryan was worried about ryan's own safety. >> i placed his will, which i had custody of, in my top desk drawer. >> reverend jim jones was worried some of his followers might try to leave. he warned the members. >> see if you can make it to any railway. see if you can get to any passport. try. i dare you to try. you don't know who you're talking to. just because i don't use the language of the church, i am that which they call god. >> that audiotape, like many others, was found later in the radio room of jonestown recovered by the fbi.

>> i will see you in the grave, many of you. >> by now jones was deep into drugs himself. an autopsy would show so much barbiturate abuse it should have killed him. church member verne gosney. >> i do know what a person sounds like when they are very impaired from either drugs or alcohol, and he was. at one point he actually needed help walking. >> the day before congressman ryan arrived, jones said this. >> i'm going to shoot them in the ass so bad for so long that i'm not passing this opportunity up. i don't care whether i see christmas or thanksgiving, neither one. they don't either. >> when ryan entered jonestown that friday, leslie wilson was waiting for the first chance to run away. >> i remember going to the kitchen and grabbing a butcher knife and sticking it down the front of my pants. ♪ that's the way of the world

>> jonestown put on a musical extravaganza that first night in this open-air pavilion. >> an nbc news camera team accompanied congressman ryan. you're watching their footage. >> i can tell you right now that from the few conversations i've had with some of the folks here already this evening that whatever the comments are, there are some people here who believe that this is the best thing that ever happened in their own life. >> the cheering lasted more than a minute. desperate to leave, verne gosney mistook nbc reporter don harris in the blue for a ryan aide. >> i tucked a note in his elbow as he walked by and the note dropped to the ground, and i picked it up and gave it back to him and told him you dropped something, and a small boy then

shouted, you know, he passed a note, he passed a note. >> it said, help us get out of jonestown. >> when i heard that i think verne gosney had passed a note that he wanted to leave, we were just like, oh, my god. >> as word spread, tension grew. time was running out on jonestown for all the children and everyone else. yet their last night on earth would end in song. ♪ no matter what they take from me they can't take away my dignity ♪ >> jones forced the reporters to leave and go back to the nearby town of port kaituma. ryan and his aide jackie speier spent the night in jonestown. >> and i was awake a good part of the night thinking, how quickly can we get out of here tomorrow? >> leslie wilson was thinking

the same thing. a small group of black members hoped to walk out that next morning to go on a picnic, so they said. but at first her husband, joe wilson, seen here in yellow, a top security guard for jim jones, told her she could not take their son jakari but suddenly he handed the boy back to leslie. >> and we immediately started taking off. and so to say i was panicked is -- i was horrified. i was so, so scared. >> nine of them left. these five adults, plus three young daughters in one family and leslie's 3-year-old son. >> and i started carrying him tied to a sheet on my back. >> they had to climb a hill in the open to leave. >> everyone can look up and see us walking. i was just shaking. i was so, so frightened. >> they heard a truck approaching as they reached the thick jungle near the entrance to the compound. >> we dove in and hid the kids.

diane, who worked in the pharmacy, had made -- this so ironic a cocktail of valium and kool-aid for the children to keep them calm. the truck was bringing the nbc crew and other reporters back to jonestown that saturday morning. guard shack that we could hear their voices, their conversations. >> the truck passed. leslie found the railroad tracks nearby that led to another town, almost 30 miles away. >> we did not have a clue if we were going to make it to the next town, if we were going to live, if we were going to die, but we knew that we had to leave. >> that railroad is now gone. represented up, the jungle reclaiming the route. all that remains is this railway bridge, which leslie remembers with dread. >> i recall a bridge. i have a horrible fear of heights. horrible.

it was an area we had to cross. and i just had to gettan my hands and knees and cross it. >> look closely and you'll understand her fears. you can see straight through the railroad ties to the river below. >> she was really scared. i was scared, too. >> robert paul joined up with leslie's group just before that bridge crossing. he had been a security guard for jim jones and believed in jones until he got to guyana. >> at first he was so good and then all that evil came down. i thought i'd met god. but i met satan. >> paul and another man also left that morning. the trek through the jungle was exhausting for everyone. >> it was hard. it was hard. we was really tired. >> how difficult was the walk carrying a child on your back? >> oh -- >> three other little kids. >> it was a tough walk. but then, too, it wasn't a -- it was a freedom walk. it was a walk to freedom.

>> a passing train stopped and gave leslie's group, now 11 people in all, a ride over the last several miles. when they came to the end of the line in the town of matthews ridge, suddenly they came face to face with more fear. >> walk up to the police station and then we have guns drawn on us. we don't know why. the captain proceeds to tell us there's been shootings in port kaituma. >> coming up, the last hours of congressman leo ryan and the reverend jim jones. ♪ ♪

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i'm going to cabo! [ music plays ] don't settle for u-verse. xfinity is perfect for people who want more entertainment for their money. you could feel death in the air. you could actually feel it. >> jerry parks had a sense saturday, november 18th, 1978, would be his last day in jonestown, one way or another. >> i knew that we didn't have long. i knew that if we got out of there, it was going to have to be pretty quick. >> parks wanted his family to

leave with the others who walked away that morning. >> i had clothes stashed in a plastic bag in the tall grass where i worked. >> but then he seen someone approaching it. >> i seen him pick up the bag and start walking. first thing i thought, oh, no, someone has turned us in. >> so his 64-year-old mother, edith parks, sought out congressman ryan's aide jackie speier. tim carter seen here overheard the conversation. >> and edith parks walked up to jackie speier, and said, i'm being held prisoner here. i want to go home. >> this is jackie speier walking back with edith parks to talk to the rest of the family. in this nbc video from that day. tim carter will never forget what a jones loyalist said to him. >> and she goes, well, it looks like we're all going to die.

>> speier tape-recorded a statement by the oldest daughter, brenda parks. >> what is your wish today? >> to go back home. >> and where is home? >> the u.s. >> jackie speier walked off to find jim jones. the woman she passed is patricia parks, jerry's wife, in the last hours of her life. speier confronted jones with the defectors. >> he became agitated, tried to talk with them. he was sweating, beads of sweat on his face. >> jerry's youngest daughter tracy parks was confronted by jones' wife marceline. >> first off i thought this was the day i was going to die. >> marceline left her an opening to rejoin her family. >> sheist goes, i don't want to leave, do you? and i said, if you take me to

them, i'll talk them out of it. >> jerry parks faced down jim jones. >> i said, what the hell have he done for me beside hold my family prisoner here for seven and a half months? >> as jerry parks turned away -- >> i look over there. and jones is sitting on the bench. and he's just sitting there a dejected, beaten man. >> yet, another confrontation awaited jim jones when he sat down with nbc reporter don harris for an interview. >> last night, someone came and passed me this note. >> harris gave him vern gosney's note asking for help to go home. >> that's who we're talking about. he wants to leave his son here. if jonestown is a bad place, why does he want to leave his son here. >> in fact, vern gosney had to agree to leave his young son mark behind before jones would let him go. >> all decisions around my son i

-- will, you know, haunt me for the rest of my life. >> jones raged at harris. >> people play games, friend. they lie. they lie. what can i do about liars? are you going to leave us? i just beg you. please leave us. we will bother nobody. anybody that wants to get out of here, they can get out of here. we have no problem about getting out of here. they come and go all the time. i don't know what kind of game -- people like the publicity. i don't. >> the sky turned black. the wind came up. and i mean it came up strong. and it was just torrential rain. >> when the rain came, the parks family and others took shelter in an open-air shed. that's little tracy parks on the right in the blue windbreaker. jim jones is there, too, talking with the bogue family who had been among jones' earliest followers and now wanted to leave, as well. >> that really -- that sent