Nevertheless, in 1991, a parole board ruled that Larry would have to serve 20 years, and set his release date for 2006. Its hard to know when it became obvious that he was dead, or when I realized that others werent pretending. I couldnt bear the vision of her sitting in front of my casket. In 1996, the family and friends of Larry launched a campaign for a presidential commutation. 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. Dr. Layton was from a world substantially different from the aristocratic one of his bride. . 'Being in Peoples Temple wasn't always pleasant, but one had the feeling he was really doing something to advance society. Perhaps death is better than this.". Layton's mother, Lisa, had died of cancer 10 days before the mass suicide. A self-anointed minister, as a young man he started proselytizing outside a storefront church in Indianapolis, and by 1955, had formed the Wings of Deliverance church. Other Peoples Temple. ''The story of Jonestown is really the story of a world gone mad. With the camp surrounded by his armed guards, he told his followers to give the medicinegrape FlavorAid and Kool-Aid laced with cyanide and tranquilizersto the children and the elderly first. There is abundant evidence that Mr. Jones used such tactics to divide families and break up marriages. This time, it was not a drill. [7] Lawton attended Intermediate IS 192 and Lehman High School, but did not graduate. From her childhood, friends said, Mrs. Layton had carried a deep fear of cancer. She died of cancer in Guyana three weeks before the death ritual. Id come to Guyana as a congressional aide on a fact-finding mission. [30] The Lake St. Louis police chief praised Larry's message about the consequences of going to prison and said it is not a scared straight program, noting that Lawton said "fear doesn't have a lasting impact. It was just a matter of time. Her mother, on discovering that her husband was having an affair with Lisa's English governess, gave Lisa a detailed account of it and threatened to commit suicide. [3], Lawton was offered a three-year sentence in exchange for disclosing his accomplices but did not take the deal. But ladies and gentlemen, it is notLarry Layton. [41], In 2017, he appeared in a middle school in Havelock, North Carolina to explain his prison experiences. Mr. Layton believes that his wife gave Mr. Jones at least $250,000 and possibly more; he said she had some secret accounts of her own that apparently contained money from her father. Jonestown was the agricultural compound Jones' followers carved out of the Guyanese jungle, 150 miles northwest of the nation's capital, Georgetown. Her father, a talented violinist hated his father for making him go into banking rather than music. Whatever impelled me to send in the card changed the course of my life. I would never have left Jonestown with Congressman Ryan. [10] In 2012, Lawton self-published Gangster Redemption, an autobiography co-written with Peter Golenbock. He is bewildered at how it all happened, groping for an explanation of what he called a Greek tragedy.. The approach continued even after hed moved from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. Members of the press and the Concerned Relatives waited behind on the airstrip until the truck could come back for a second load. It looked staged. 2023 Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple is a, The Campaign to Release Larry Layton from Federal Prison, to petition then-President Clinton to commute Larrys sentence. In 1972, Mr. Jones married Deborah Layton and Philip Blakey. Mrs. Layton's former husband, Dr. Laurence Layton, an eminent scientist, was left behind in Berkeley, Calif., having lost a wife and at least $250,000 that she gave to Mr. Jones. Mr. Ryan, three journalists and a cult defector were killed and 11 others were wounded. The child talked her out of it. Jones had a penchant for suddenly getting on the compound loudspeaker long after everyone had gone to bed and shouting, "White Night! 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. At both trials here the prosecution presented a confession signed by Mr. Layton in Guyana shortly after the killings, saying that he took ''full responsibility'' for the deaths at the airstrip but also saying, ''I don't know why I did it. "I was driving across the bridge," she says when asked why, after all these years, she wanted to revisit the horrors of Jonestown. Months previously, her husband had begun noticing that money and family possessions were dis appearing from the household. Leo Ryan wanted answers. Once, Debbie continued, Jones woke up the camp in the early hours of the morning. Syringes surround one of the vats used to mix up the position drink used in the mass murder at Jonestown. After Larry and Carolyn Layton joined the cult, Larry stopped writing to his parents and would not accept phone calls from them. Subsequently, he said, she urged him to have an affair. [10], Lawton executed his first robbery when he was 28, an inside job to collect insurance money. The retrial was delayed for years because of complex appeals over the admissability of certain evidence excluded by Judge Peckham's rulings in the first trial. [40] Lawton has also shown concern over the prevalence of fentanyl-laced heroin, noting that in the past dealers had tried to sell pure heroin without any additives. I was one of Larry's lead lawyers in his first U.S. trial in 1981, which resulted in an 11 to 1 vote for acquittal on faulty charges of conspiracy to kill the congressman. Asserting that the Government wanted to make Mr. Layton a scapegoat for the Jonestown massacre, he said, ''From the State Department point of view, from the U.S. Embassy point of view, the whole matter would be easily resolved if you blamed Larry Layton.'' ", Looking back on it 20 years later, she says, "I put everything in denial and locked it down. Instead he proposed a better use of law enforcement resources would be to "help inmates with drug addiction. Among them were Sams teenaged granddaughters. To the volatile flight home. She was entrusted with flights to Europe and Panama to open Temple bank accounts, where Jones stashed the millions he was taking from Temple members who freely gave him their life savings, their homes and just about everything else. We accompanied Assemblyman Ryan to shopping centers and campaign events to pass out pamphlets and speak with voters. Of the more than 900 members of Joness congregation who had moved there, nearly a third were children. [8] Lawton later said that he used a BB gun during the robbery. March 5, 1999. A short time later, Larry married his second wife, Karen,whom Dr. Layton would come to know as a loving, sweet person.. [22] Fingerprint evidence connected Lawton to the October 1994 Palm Bay heist, and he was charged with that crime as well. At the airport, Temple members who found out she was fleeing implored her not to leave. The first trial ended in a hung jury. After graduating from the University of California campus at Davis in 1968 with a degree in social science, Layton and his wife moved to the Ukiah area and soon met up with the temple. The hospital was not far from the People's Temple community Mr. Jones had established in Redwood Valley. Chief among my concerns was how cozy Jones appeared to be with members of the embassy: How could any Jonestown resident feel safe reporting an injustice to a U.S. official who is arm in arm with Jim Jones in every image? Her life appears to be light-years from Peoples Temple. Congressman Ryan assured me that there was nothing to worry about. [10][26] While recounting his prison experiences he said: "I saw inmates stabbed and friends die" and "I saw young men raped and pimped out as prostitutes for other inmates. After her operation, Mrs. Layton moved to Guyana. Larry Layton was the only person prosecuted for any of the events in and around Jonestown. [10] He was sentenced for racketeering and robbery and spent 11 years in prison before being released in 2007. I was an orphan and my grandfather didn't let me forget it; he wanted me to work hard; he didn't want to ruin me with praise; I was supposed to be humble. In a book written by his brother, Thomas, after Ryan's death, Larry is quoted as saying he believed in the goals of the community, even though life was not always Utopian. Mr. Jones also apparently widened the rift between Larry Layton and his father. The letters were presented during the hearing which resulted in a recommendation for Larrys release. He had engineered complete authoritycollecting members Social Security and disability checks, and determining when and how his disciples could communicate with their families. Mrs. Layton's daughter, Deborah, joined the cult five years ago. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. [8], In 2019, he made a video with Vanity Fair where he analyzed fictional robberies from films such as The Italian Job and Heat. ", "Every week we're promised death, a relief from this miserable life. Five months later, on the night of November 18, 1978, Jones sent a gang of gunmen to an airstrip in Port Kaituma, where Representative Leo Ryan of San Mateo and a fact-finding party that had visited Jonestown were preparing to leave. SAN FRANCISCO Larry Layton was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for his role in conspiring to murder Rep. Leo Ryan in Guyana in 1978. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. He preached a social gospel, attracting devotees while promoting a community that did not discriminate or take into account race, background, or previous circumstances. All of those children. I wanted to leave my daughter a legacy that wasn't that simple.". Larry's parole came two years earlier than his previously-scheduled release date of April 2004. [30] In 2009, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office spent $4500 on 500 DVDs from the Reality Check program. They recovered and with the help of friends managed to reach Italy, later coming to the United States. Initially discouraged, Larrys family pressed ahead with the petition for early release, collecting another 50 letters in support, including letters from former Temple members and critics, numerous religious leaders, and a former congressman. January 15, 2007. My recovery continuedthough that very word is not an accurate description of the aftermath of being shot. But when Larry Layton was growing up in the 1920's, the land was not worth much. Dr. Layton was from a world substantially different from the aristocratic one of his bride. In 1978, I went to Guyana on a fact-finding mission. Within a year, a few Jonestown defectors had managed to return to the Bay Areamost notably, Debbie Layton Blakey, whod been Jones trusted aide and worked as the Temples financial secretary. My ribs were broken. [10] High school students can use the time spent in the program towards the 75 hours of community service required for the Bright Futures Scholarship Program. Twenty years ago this month, Jones and 912 of his followers committed mass suicide at the jungle compound. ''I feel a tremendous amount of guilt and remorse for the events that happened,'' he said. ref: Sparkle Lee Larry Layton 40-36 Tony Lundy 40-36 Lindsey Page 40-35 2020-01-10: Alicia Napoleon Espinosa: L-UD. I have no idea how much time passed until I turned my head and opened my eyes. He treasured it. 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