Direct answer: The Guyana archive currently contains one solved/adjudicated case file: the 18 November 1978 deaths at Jonestown, Port Kaituma and Georgetown. Official U.S. records count 918 deaths—909 at Jonestown, five at the Port Kaituma airstrip and four in Georgetown. The FBI describes Jonestown as mass murder and suicide. Larry Layton was later convicted on four federal counts arising from the airstrip attack; that verdict did not adjudicate every Jonestown death.
Original editorial illustration; not a photograph, crime-scene image or depiction of any victim, suspect or physical evidence.
Cases appear here only when reliable records establish responsibility through verified evidence and, where applicable, a final judgment.
Documented cases in which individual criminal responsibility has not been established through reliable records.
The file separates death totals, organizational responsibility, individual convictions and unresolved legal questions.
The archive uses the FBI's Jonestown history and RYMUR records, contemporaneous State Department cables, the National Archives and the published Ninth Circuit opinion in United States v. Layton. These sources support the event chronology, official death totals, the Port Kaituma victim record and the only U.S. federal convictions tied to the attack.
The case is placed in the solved section because official records identify the responsible organization and leadership, and Layton's conviction was affirmed. The label is deliberately qualified: Jones and many participants died in Guyana, so the 909 Jonestown deaths were not comprehensively adjudicated in a criminal trial.
The wording mass murder-suicide follows the FBI and avoids treating all deaths as voluntary. More than 200 children died, and evidence of coercion means children and coerced residents are victims, not suicide participants.
Short answers about totals, terminology and case classification.
One fully sourced case file is published: the 1978 Jonestown and Port Kaituma case.
Official U.S. records count 918 deaths in Guyana: 909 at Jonestown, five at the Port Kaituma airstrip and four in Georgetown.
Jim Jones and Peoples Temple members were identified as responsible in official records, and Larry Layton was convicted on four federal counts arising from the Port Kaituma attack. The label does not imply that every Jonestown death was adjudicated in court.
No. The FBI describes the event as mass murder and suicide. More than 200 children died, and evidence of coercion means the victims cannot all be characterized as willing participants.
No. Layton's federal convictions concerned the Port Kaituma attack, including conspiracy and aiding and abetting the murder of Representative Leo Ryan. They were not a trial of every death at Jonestown.
