In 1996, the family and friends of Larry launched a campaign for a presidential commutation. She managed to contact her sister in Davis, who wired a ticket to Georgetown, where Layton and other Temple members were staying in a house the Temple owned. [6][11] In 2010, Lawton filmed the pilot and sizzle reel for Lawton's Law, a reality show based on his work with at-risk youth. The parole examiner said he was deeply troubled that Larry had remained in prison for so long well in excess of the five years recommended by the sentencing judge and noted Larrys exemplary behavior while in federal custody. [8][12] At one point, he purchased an Italian pizza restaurant in North Lauderdale, Florida, which he later burned down as part of an insurance fraud. At 16, Im not sure I understood what a state assemblyman did, but when my parents received a solicitation from Leo Ryans reelection campaign in 1966, I mailed back a note: Im in high school. Ryan decided that we would wait until the morning and suggested we keep a low profile until then. Layton's mother, Lisa, had died of cancer 10 days before the mass suicide. ''It is not the proper forum for answering questions about Jonestown.'' The defense attorney urged jurors to consider conditions at Jonestown and their impact on Mr. Layton. But as Hitler consolidated his power in the 1930's, her parents began to see the Nazi holocaust taking shape and they urged her to go to New York to join relatives there. January 15, 2007. Dr. Layton was from a world substantially different from the aristocratic one of his bride. Layton became a senior insider in Jones' entourage. The next year, his church relocated to Redwood Valley, a small community in northern California. To the stretchers. I dove beneath the plane, hiding behind the wheel as bullets thumped against the metal above me. After Jones moved to Jonestown, and with Layton still in California, Layton's sister, a power in the hierarchy of the temple, defected and began to tell of atrocities at the jungle agricultural project. [37], Lawton is an advocate for prisoners and their rights, and comments on the justice system. I was 28, lying on a dusty airplane runway in the Guyanese jungle, and dying. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. In San Francisco, his church was lauded for its social programs, and Jones efforts to feed the poor and fight segregation found receptive ears with progressive politicians. Last spring Deborah decided she had to escape. They had passed. I was even unaffected by the rice weevils and other strange bugs we ingested daily.". In a cabin with about six women from the Temple, I took a top bunk, sweating as a downpour opened up outside. [26] He was incarcerated in many prisons during his sentence, which included Jesup in Georgia, Riker's Island in New York, Edgefield in South Carolina, and Yazoo City in Mississippi. But ladies and gentlemen, it is notLarry Layton. Jim Jones. As one of his top aides, I accompanied the delegation, venturing out on the ice floes where the clubbing took place. The cover of a Jonestown promotional booklet from 1978. Congressman Ryan and I were among the first shift of the delegation to climb in for the excruciatingly slow six-mile drive to the commune. Meanwhile, ex-devotees of the Peoples Temple began sharing stories about Jones darker side. As I was lying seven miles away waiting for medical help, Sam Houstons granddaughters, Patricia and Judy, 14 and 15, were murdered, along with their mother, dozens of other would-be defectors and the rest of the Peoples Temple. Religion: "Raised as a Quaker." Hobbies and other interests: Theater, music, painting, gardening. ''The story of Jonestown is really the story of a world gone mad. Rep. Ryan and I arranged to meet her. The outfits were a ridiculous gimmick, and the role was clearly objectifying. I had read the articles and listened to hours of testimony. Their courtship began in the spring of 1941, and theywere married in October. His suggestion that I would learn far more from first-hand experience was in step with the way he approached politics. Mr. Blakey survived the killings and suicides at Jonestown; he was on a boat owned by the commune at the time of the deaths. Layton joined the temple in the summer of 1968 at Redwood Valley, Calif., near the town of Ukiah, after his wife, Carolyn, became interested in the social philosophy of Jones, preaching from his wooded compound. Subsequently, she arranged to leave the settlement on an errand for Mr. Jones and left Guyana on May 13. [8] Lawton later said that he used a BB gun during the robbery. Congressman Ryans body was probably 15 feet away. In 1969, to get her away from the drugs and other attractions in Berkeley, Dr. Layton and his wife decided to send Deborah to a Quaker school, Ackworth, in the countryside of Yorkshire, England. This site houses a variety of PDF documents. | AP. [10] He also founded the Reality Check program which aims to show teens the consequences of a criminal life. It felt like a Mack truck had just sped over me. They swallowed poison capsules in a suicide attempt and were removed, unconscious, from the train. Over the next decade, Jones moved his congregation and changed its name several times before settling on Peoples Temple around 1964. Larry's parole came two years earlier than his previously-scheduled release date of April 2004. Individually, their insistence would have been hard to question. Larry Layton was convicted in 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco of conspiring in the 1978 murder of California congressman Leo Ryan and aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of Richard Dwyer, a U.S. diplomat wounded in the attack. It was imminently clear Jonestown was a hierarchical community, with the power structure resembling some sort of plantation: the majority of the Temple members were black, while the leadership was almost exclusively white. March 5, 1999. Before the New West issue hit the stands, Jones and hundreds of his followers had left San Francisco for Jonestown, their promised land in Guyana. Layton, 35, emerged as the only defendant alive and available for prosecution in the government's attempt to exact justice from the Jonestown horrors. Larrys parole came two years earlier than his previously-scheduled release date of April 2004. I noticed an elderly woman stuffing pieces of bacon into her pockets; the ample spread was just another showpiece. During my freshman year at UC Davis, when I told him about my major, he offered encouragement: If you really want to learn about political science, you should come and intern in my office. I did, and over the years, worked my way up from volunteer to intern to staffer to senior aide, just as he climbed from the state Assembly to the U.S. Congress. He is the son of Lawrence L. Layton, a prominent biolgist at the University of California, and was raised in a cultural, intellectual atmosphere. . Mr. Jones, Deborah said, callously gave Mrs. Layton that news. None of the Temple members showed any interest in receiving correspondence from home. Mr. Layton was also sentenced to three concurrent terms of 15 years each in related charges of conspiring to kill Mr. Ryan and in the attempted murder of a United States diplomat in the same incident. Peoples Temple follower Larry Layton, center, stands with police following his arrest in the shooting of two people, including California Congressman Leo Ryan, on a remote Guyana airstrip, Nov. 18, 1978. Her brother, Larry, later became the only person ever charged in connection with the airstrip massacre and, after two . Ryan wanted to investigate. The daughter of Hugo and Anita Philips, Lisa Philips Layton was born in Germany in 1915 into a family that had engaged in banking for at least 200 years. "Every week we're ordered to drink some liquid," she writes, culling her memories of the "old tapes (of Jonestown recollections that) are running in my head. Debbie said the couple had gone to court to try to compel the Guyanese government to intervene; Rev. Mini Biography. After Larry and Carolyn Layton joined the cult, Larry stopped writing to his parents and would not accept phone calls from them. . She arrived in London at 16, was met by some cousins and got what she would later call the biggest surprise of her life: I discovered that I was Jewish.. NBC news correspondent Don Harris was part of our delegation, and was well versed on the accusations against Jones. A man followed him and slipped a folded piece of paper into his hand, then disappeared back into the crowd. To the tarmac. Jones himself sat onstage in a throne beneath a sign that read: Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The members sang and danced and, by every appearance, were happy. Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). In the two years since, Jones and most of his followers had left the Bay Area and moved to Jones commune deep in the jungle of Guyana. They recovered and with the help of friends managed to reach Italy, later coming to the United States. The Laytons were a family that seemed to have everything: intelligence, plenty of money, education, a proud family tradition of Quaker nonviolence. Politically, there was nothing to gainand everything to loseby taking on Jones, and there was no telling what hed do if confronted and challenged. [32] By 2010, Lawton had shipped 10,000 DVDs across the country. She mentioned a Bay Area couple, the Stoens, who had defected and were fighting for the return of their young son, John. Politics: Liberal. [15] The robbers took $480,000 ($910,600.81 in 2022)[17] worth of gold and diamonds making it the biggest robbery in the city's history. It was utter pandemonium. At Port Kaituma, while I ushered the defectors onto a plane, a large red tractor-trailer rumbled onto the airstrip. The store owner managed to break free and grabbed a .38 caliber pistol and fired five shots at the robbers as they fled. ''You've heard graphic details about what happenened on the airstrip,'' he said. [43] He also hosted a local talk radio show. In 1970, as chairman of a committee overseeing prison reform, he assumed a pseudonym and had himself booked, strip-searched and incarcerated for 10 days at Folsom State Prison, revealing his identity only when it was time to be released. It looked staged. | AP. Leo Ryan assured me that there was nothing to worry about. Larry Layton was the only person prosecuted for any of the events in and around Jonestown. Among them were Sams teenaged granddaughters. I spoke with a woman named Edith Parks, the matriarch of three generations of Temple members who wanted out. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Nearly 30 years later, her mother long dead in a rotting jungle outpost in Guyana, her brother doing life in a federal prison and her father so broken that he weeps at the mention of anything connected with Jones-, town, Deborah Layton has, as she put it the other day, "decided it was time to come out of the cobwebbed attic.". [10] In 2012, Lawton self-published Gangster Redemption, an autobiography co-written with Peter Golenbock. 'A Tremendous Amount of Guilt'. Traumatizing family rifts erupted on the spot, with mothers and fathers engaged in literal tug-of-wars over their children. The tumult of the late 60s and early 70s had left masses of people searching for a greater sense of security and purpose. The shootings took place on one of the airplanes which were to take the party of Congressman Leo Ryan to Georgetown after his visit to Jonestown. Youll see what a wonderful place it is. He took us on a tour highlighting the most favorable aspects of the commune. By all accounts, Layton was on a small plane about to leave Jonestown when the plot to kill Ryan was set in motion. He was not paroled from an American prison until 2002. After her operation, Mrs. Layton moved to Guyana. Within minutes, Ryan and four others were shot dead. I couldnt bear the vision of her sitting in front of my casket. After spending 18 years in Guyana jails and U.S. federal prisons, Larry Layton, the only man convicted on criminal charges arising from the events of November 18, 1978, was released in April 2002. At the airport, Temple members who found out she was fleeing implored her not to leave. [19][20] One bullet narrowly missed Lawton, but struck his brother. Meanwhile, Dr. Layton said, A difficult new field of science in molecular biology was opening, and he began to spend more and more time studying it. #3 Journalists and Defector Killed Mr. Layton was the only person charged in the United States with criminal acts arising from the events of Nov. 18, 1978, when Mr. Ryan and a group of journalists and relatives of other cult members were ambushed at the Port Kaituma airstrip in the jungle near Jonestown. By that time, darker elements had seeped into Jones sermons. As I scanned the hundreds of smiling faces, I never could have fathomed that within 24 hours, virtually every one of them would be dead. After that, she never stopped going back, Dr. Layton said. Mr. Jones repeatedly sent word to her that he could cure her from Guyana, and she waited for his efforts to work. From her childhood, friends said, Mrs. Layton had carried a deep fear of cancer. Larry Layton was convicted in 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco of conspiring in the 1978 murder of California congressman Leo Ryan and aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of. But finally her cancer became so advanced that It was necessary for surgeons to remove a lung. Dick Dwyer, an embassy official, showed us a slideshow of his visit to Jonestown the previous Mayimages in which he and Jim Jones looked unnervingly chummy; images of tables filled with food, of joyful children on a swingset, of bountiful crops and an exuberant church session. Layton, Deborah 1953- PERSONAL: Born in 1953, in Tooele, UT; daughter of Laurence Laird and Lisa Layton; married; children: Lauren. [6], Lawton was born in North Hempstead, New York on October 3, 1961. The hundreds of elderly were told that if they attempted escape, they would be left to die prolonged deaths alone in the depths of the jungle. So many people wanted to defect that we had to call Georgetown to request an extra plane. | California Historical Society. Laurence Laird Layton, a distinguished scientist whose later life was devastated by his family's involvement with the Peoples Temple cult, died Wednesday in his Emeryville home. Larry, sister Debbie and their mother, Lisa, all joined the temple while it was located in California. As he grew older, Dr. Layton gravitated from Methodism to Quakerism, a faith with roots in the Reformation whose tenets included nonviolence, racial and religious toleration, rigorous selfdiscipline, and love and good works for the needy. Monica confirmed that she wanted to leave. But, as interviews last week with family members and friends revealed, the Laytons slowly disintegrated under the pressures of family conflict, the disillusionment that gripped much of America during the 1960's, drug use, and the soothing, simplistic appeal of Mr. Jones. Hours later at the Jonestown emcampment, Jones led the death rite of himself and his followers. "[33] Lawton and the police chief later appeared before United States Congress in recognition of the program. Suddenly, my body was crushed by a blow to my side. I did not feel confident this was a good idea. Lisa Layton was the next member of the family to join the cult. And it wasn't an isolated incident. In 1968, Carolyn Layton became the first member of the family to be enticed by Mr. Jones's diatribes against the rich, the Vietnam War, social injustice and racism. [23][24] Lawton later said he was the biggest jewel thief of the 1980s and 90s operating within the United States of America. Sam was certain Jones had something to do with his sons death. See the article in its original context from. Mr. Jones also apparently widened the rift between Larry Layton and his father. Jones, who demanded that his flock call him Father, was one of the most politically powerful people in San Francisco, wined and dined by such luminaries as Rosalynn Carter, Assemblyman Willie Brown, Mayor George Moscone and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. But this particular morning, Jones told his followers that they had to kill themselves to keep from being tortured by mercenaries who were preparing an ambush. From eyewitness and survivor accounts, the program recreates the last week before the mass murder-suicide on November 18, 1978. Initially she was allowed to recuperate in a cabin of her own, but later she was moved into a crowded dormitorystyle cabin with other elderly women. Hurrying out of bed, Layton would race toward Jones "in my mud-caked boots, past the tin-roofed cabins, past the wooden outdoor showers where we're allowed our two-minute wash at the end of our 11-hour days in the field." Secretly, she offered her mother a glass of the wine. An uncle, Dr. James Franck, won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1935. I couldnt immediately identify the deafening sound that filled the air. I knew him well enough to understand what would happen next. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/17/us/cult-member-cries-over-plea-to-jury.html. I would never have left Jonestown with Congressman Ryan. Tony Tamburello, the defense attorney, told jurors in his closing arguments that the prosecutors had sensationalized the case against Mr. Layton in the three-week trial in Federal District Court. After that trip, I remember telling myself that never again would I witness such violence at such close range. He was found guilty of conspiracy and aiding and abetting in the murder of Ryan and the attempted murder of U.S. embassy official Richard Dwyer and was sentenced to Read More Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, it read. 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