| | By 3:00 in the afternoon, Ryan's entourage, as well as fifteen defectors, boarded a truck to take them to the Port Kaituma airstrip; among the defectors was a man named Larry Layton, who caused suspicion among the others that he was a Jones plant. Ryan himself had intended to stay an additional night, but an unsuccessful knife attack by a follower named Don Sly caused Dwyer to compell Ryan to leave. | | By 3:00 in the afternoon, Ryan's entourage, as well as fifteen defectors, boarded a truck to take them to the Port Kaituma airstrip; among the defectors was a man named Larry Layton, who caused suspicion among the others that he was a Jones plant. Ryan himself had intended to stay an additional night, but an unsuccessful knife attack by a follower named Don Sly caused Dwyer to compell Ryan to leave. |
| − | The Congressional delegation, journalists, and defectors were all on the airstrip by 4:45 pm; the planes needed to fly them (a twin-engine Otter and a Cessna) out didn't arrive until after 5:00. Just after the Cessna arrived and was loaded, Layton opened fire with a hidden gun on the passengers at about the same time as the occupants of a People's Temple tractor and trailer pulled up near the aircraft and fired shotguns. Ryan, Robinson, and Harris were killed outright; Brown was hit, his camera still rolling, before another shot ended his life; a defector was also killed, and several others wounded. The Cessna was able to take off, while survivors on the ground his in the jungle; the bodies would remain clustered aound the Otter until Guyanese authorities arrived hours later. | + | The Congressional delegation, journalists, and defectors were all on the airstrip by 4:45 pm; the planes needed to fly them (a twin-engine Otter and a Cessna) out didn't arrive until after 5:00. Just after the Cessna arrived and was loaded, Layton opened fire with a hidden gun on the passengers at about the same time as the occupants of a People's Temple tractor and trailer pulled up near the aircraft and fired shotguns. Ryan, Robinson, and Harris were killed outright; Brown was hit, his camera still rolling, before another shot ended his life; a defector was also killed, and several others wounded. The Cessna was able to take off, while survivors on the ground hid in the jungle; the bodies would remain clustered aound the Otter until Guyanese authorities arrived hours later. |