Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Leo Joseph Ryan Jr. (May 5, 1925 – November 18, 1978) was an American teacher and Democratic Party politician who represented California's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1973 until his assassination hours before the Jonestown massacre in 1978.
When the Red Brigade members came back to Jonestown after Ryan's murder, Tim Carter, a Vietnam War veteran, recalled them having the "thousand-yard stare" of weary soldiers. [168] After Jones confirmed that "the congressman's dead," no dissent is heard on the death tape. By this point, armed guards had taken up positions surrounding the pavilion.
Leo Ryan House California (11th district) November 18, 1978 Peoples Temple (under the direction of Jim Jones) Mass shooting While on an official visit to Guyana to investigate the activities of the Peoples Temple group led by Jim Jones, Ryan was shot multiple times while boarding an airplane leaving Jonestown. [11] Larry McDonald House Georgia
The custody battle triggered a chain of events which led to U.S. Representative Leo Ryan's investigation into the Temple's remote settlement of Jonestown in northern Guyana, which became internationally notorious in 1978 after 918 people – including Stoen's son – died in the settlement and on a nearby airstrip.
When Congressman Leo Ryan insists on visiting, Jones alternates between reluctant acceptance and refusal. Ultimately, Jones allows Ryan, several journalists, and the Concerned Relatives representatives to visit the compound. Jones coaches the Peoples Temple members on what to say, but is surprised by a series of defections.
The murder of Congressman Ryan was the first and only murder of a member of Congress in the line of duty in the history of the United States. [15] Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, [16] 276 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around a pavilion. [17]
A U.S. judge will consider on Monday the fate of President Donald Trump's buyout offer to two million federal workers as Trump presses ahead with an unprecedented effort to dismantle government ...
The Temple is best known for the events of November 18, 1978, in Guyana, when 909 people died in a mass suicide and mass murder at its remote settlement, named "Jonestown", as well as the murders of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and members of his visiting delegation at the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip.