PBS American Experience Jonestown
Deborah Layton (04:07) Tim Carter Hue Fortson Jr. Glen Hennington Claire Janaro Bryan Kravitz Deborah Layton Janet Shular Jordan Vilchez

Layton joined Peoples Temple as a teenager. She left Jonestown six months before the deaths on November 18, 1978.

Appeal of Peoples Temple
I think in the Sixties and Seventies people felt there was something more we all ought to be doing. I mean Marvin Gaye's song "Mercy, Mercy Me," and I mean his entire album... the whole time I was in college, I would go into the library -- they had headsets -- I'd ask them to put that entire tape on. And it was all about "What is going on here, people," you know? The war in Vietnam, everyone's upset. And that sort of drifted into every aspect of my life within Peoples Temple, that, "What is going on?" You know, we all seem to be lost here and that maybe it is time to get involved in something even if it is hard, even if I can't see my mom and dad regularly, even if I can't go sneak a cigarette, even if I can't hang out with the friends I used to hang out. Isn't it time that I can make this step forward to do more for someone else? And that is how he brought so many young college kids in, so many older black women in, so many people from diverse backgrounds who realized that there was something bigger than themselves that they needed to be involved in, and that Jim Jones offered that.

Turning Point
Jim got on the bus. It was we were leaving now Los Angeles and we would take the eleven-hour trip back to San Francisco and then up on to Ukiah. And he sat down next to me. And we pulled out and I was sitting there and I thought, "That's weird. He kind -- it smells like alcohol next to me." And I thought, "Well, that can't be." And then it was evening when we started this trip and as the bus got dark and everybody went to sleep, because you worked horrific hours and you only slept four hours a night; that was one of the requirements. Whenever you sat down, you fell asleep. And he put his hand on my leg. And he leaned over and he said, "Do you know what you do to me?" And I just sat there in the seat and thought, "Something doesn't make sense here." One, none of us drink. Jim doesn't drink. Jim says we're not to have sex, that we should remain celibate, that sexual talk is not healthy. And then we came to a rest stop, and at that rest stop everyone left and he asked -- at the rest stop he had informed me that I was to come in -- and on Bus 7 there was a room in the back, which is like a... for just him, he had a study, he had books, he had a desk, he had a bed because he, you know, stayed up so long. You know, when the rest of us were asleep, he didn't even sleep was what we were told. So he only was able a few rest times. And when everyone got off the bus at the rest stop, I went into his little room and I sat there and waited for him...

And it was when the bus started again and I sat there and I looked around in his room and I waited and I waited and I waited and finally he opened the door. And without any...without any talk or anything, he just pulled down his pants and... and had sex with me.

Temple passport photo of Debbie Layton.
Portrait  1 2


"...In the Sixties and Seventies people felt there was something more we all ought to be doing."