John Judge is using the examinations of Guyanese pathologist Dr. Leslie Mootoo as a basis for evidence of lethal injections:
If so, the bodies would indicate the cause of death. A new word was coined by the media, "suicide-murder." But which was it?[28] Autopsies and forensic science are a developing art. The detectives of death use a variety of scientific methods and clues to determine how people die, when they expire, and the specific cause of death. Dr. Mootoo, the top Guyanese pathologist, was at Jonestown within hours after the massacre. Refusing the assistance of U.S. pathologists, he accompanied the teams that counted the dead, examined the bodies, and worked to identify the deceased. While the American press screamed about the "Kool-Aid Suicides," Dr. Mootoo was reaching a much different opinion.[29]
There are certain signs that show the types of poisons that lead to the end of life. Cyanide blocks the messages from the brain to the muscles by changing body chemistry in the central nervous system. Even the "involuntary" functions like breathing and heartbeat get mixed neural signals. It is a painful death, breath coming in spurts. The other muscles spasm, limbs twist and contort. The facial muscles draw back into a deadly grin, called "cyanide rictus."[30] All these telling signs were absent in the Jonestown dead. Limbs were limp and relaxed, and the few visible faces showed no sign of distortion.[31]
Instead, Dr. Mootoo found fresh needle marks at the back of the left shoulder blades of 80-90% of the victims.[32] Others had been shot or strangled. One survivor reported that those who resisted were forced by armed guards.[33] The gun that reportedly shot Jim Jones was lying nearly 200 feet from his body, not a likely suicide weapon.[34] As Chief Medical Examiner, Mootoo's testimony to the Guyanese grand jury investigating Jonestown led to their conclusion that all but three of the people were murdered by "persons unknown." Only two had committed suicide they said.[35] Several pictures show the gun-shot wounds on the bodies as well.[36] The U.S. Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Schuler, said, "No autopsies are needed. The cause of death is not an issue here." The forensic doctors who later did autopsies at Dover, Delaware, were never made aware of Dr. Mootoo's findings.[37]
From NYT 12/14/78:
Coroner's jury in Guyana begins formal inquiry to determine if crimes had been committed in mass deaths of People's Temple cultists which occurred in Jonestown (Guyana). Finds first official case of murder as Guyana's chief forensic pathologist Dr Leslie Mootoo testifies that cultist Anne Elizabeth Moore was shot. Mootoo and police officials also reveal in interviews that at least 70 of cultists appeared to have been administered cyanide by injection. Officials close to inquest report that inquest is being held so that Guyanese officials can issue death certificates for dead cultists. Inquest may also prove valuable to US House International Relations Committee investigation. FBI agents and Military Graves Registration Unit officials at Dover Air Force Base (Del) confirm that Robert Edward Kice, man identified as one of gunmen who shot at Repr Leo J Ryan, is among dead cultists (S).
From NYT 12/17/78:
Dr C Leslie Mootoo, Guyana Government's top pathologist, believes murder, not suicide, claimed lives of over 700 of the 911 persons who died at People's Temple commune in Jonestown (Guyana). Also suspects that Rev Jim Jones did not kill himself. Bases his conclusions on over 70 autopsies performed on victims and on inspection of scene (S).
Guyana Pathologist: Most Deaths Forced
From the WP 12/17/78:
The Guayana government's top pathologist has told the Chicago Tribune he belives that murder, not suicide, claimed more than 700 of the 911 persons who died at the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guayana.
"I do not believe there were ever more than 200 persons who died voluntarily," said Dr. C. Leslie Mootoo, chief medical examiner and first doctor at the scence of the Nov. 18 tragedy.
He said that dozens of adult victims whose bodies he examined and died of poison injected into a portion of their upper arms. Mootoo said it is virtually impossible for a person to inject himself in that part of the upper arm.
He said the jungle heat and magnitude of the tragedy made it impossible to conduct autopsies on all 911 bodies. But he said his extensive experience in determining causes of death made him certain of his conclusions at Jonestown.
Mootoo, interviewed in his home in Georgetown, Guayana, said he suspects but cannot prove that cult leader Jim Jones did not commit suicide. He said Jone's body was too badly decomposed to determine exactly how the cult leader died.
"I just don't buy the suicide [theory]," he said. "I don't believe [Jones] was a megalomanic as people have said. I do believe he was power-drunk, but a person like that would never kill himself."
He said he based his conclusions on 70 autopsies performed on victims, as well as his examination of other bodies and an inspection of the scene.
Mootoo has been a witness at a coroner's jury inques into the deaths. The jury is expected to issue a report this week, the Tribune said. Mootoo said the Jonestown deaths occurred over four hours. He said he was convinced most cult members were forced to drink the poison because seeing the first group of people go into convulsions and die "would persuade the others not to take the liquid voluntarily."
He also noted that 260 of the victims were children. "found a 2-year-old child with poison injected into an arm. Could a child that age take his life voluntarily in that way?" he asked.
Guyanese Panel Rules All but 2 Were Murdered;
Guyana Coroner's Jury Rules Murder in All but 2 Cases
From the WP 12/23/78:
A coroner's jury ruled here today that all but two of the more than 900 persons who died at Jonestown Nov. 18 were murdered because they were coerced into taking poison by cult leader Jim Jones and his henchmen.
The jury's rejection of the notion that his followers committed mass suicide by drinking the poison voluntarily was based on its conclusion that "Jim Jones masterminded the situation," according to the jury's foreman, Albert Graham.
"The man made people believe he was a god," Graham said of Jones, "and naturally they moved to his command."
After some confusion, the jury, composed of five laborers from this mining outpost about 35 miles from Jonestown in remote northwestern Guyana, also ruled that Jones was murdered by "some person or persons unknow."
The jury first announced that it had decided that Jones had committed suicide, apparently basing its conclusion on testimony by Dr. Cryil Leslie Moo-too, a pathologist, that Jones was shot from very close range in the "suicide area" of the brain, above and slightly behind his ear.
But Magistrate Haroon Bacchus shouted at the jurors, asking them, "What evidence do you have to support suicide?"
Bacchus told the jurors that Mootoo had stated that the gun was found 20 yards away from Jones' body, and that was inconsistent with a finding of suicide. What the jurors did not know was that the first police officials who reached Jonestown after the mass killings had told reporters that the gun was found no more than five or ten feet from Jones' body on the podium of Jonestown's central pavillion.
In any event, the jurors filed back out, deliberated for 10 more minutes and returned to announce that "some person or persons unknown is clearly responsible for the death of James Warren Jones."
Magistrate Bacchus and the jurors agreed that two of Jones' mistresses, Anne Elizabeth Moore and Maria Katsaris, were the only ones to have committed suicide of their free will. Moore fired a shot into her own head and Katsaris swallowed poison, evidence showed.
The jury's finding that the rest were, in effect victims of murder was not based, however, on unconfirmed news reports of the past week that many of those found dead at Jonestoun had apparently been killed by poison injected into them by the Jonestown medical staff after they refused to drink the Poison.
The only evidence introduced during the 10-day inquest that indicated that anyone might have been injected with the cyanidepoison came fron Dr. Mootoo, who is the Guyanese government's official pathologist.
In a letter that was introduced to augment his oral testimony, Mootoo said "several" of the 39 bodies he had examined on the ground in Jonestown had needle marks on their arms. He drew on conclusions from this finding in his letter.
Other officials have said privately that these victims could have chosen to be injected rather than drink the poison because it is difficult to hold a person still enough for an injection if the person is resisting violently.
It is also possible that theneedle marks could have been made by injections prior to the "white night," of death. Some Jonestown survivors have told of injections of tranquilizers that were given to troublemakers and old people.
Today's ruling has the practical effect of cleating the way for authorities in the United States to issue death certificates for the 914 bodies airlifted bythe U.S. military from Jonestown to Dover.
The coroner's jury found that cyanide poisoning was responsible for the deaths of all but three of those who died inside Jonestown. Besides the gunshot deaths of Jones and Moore, another unidentified victim found in the Jonestown psychiatric ward in a pool of blood may have been killed by a bullet rather than poison.
A Guyanese police official testified today that neither he nor U.S. authorities are certain about how that man died. The jury left the cause of his death open.
The jurors deliberated a total of 17 minutes before reaching their findings, which were clearly influenced by Magistrate Bacchus. At times, he berated the jurors and made strong suggestions to them of what he thought happened during the final hours at Jonestown.
Jury foreman Graham expressed displeasure both with Bacchus and his own jury's findings after the inquest ended. Asked about testimony by Odell Rhodes, one of the Jonestown survivors, that at the beginning, at least, many Peoples Temple members seemed to take the poison voluntarily, Graham said: "I was not there, so how will I ever know?"
But Graham went on to explain the jurors had reasoned that even if some of those who lived at the agricultural commune drank the poison of grape drink, cyanide and tranquilizers, "they were under the influence of Jones at the time."
Since Jones clearly ordered the deaths and armed guards were there to enforce his order, the jurors reasoned, he was criminally responsible.
To some extent, the debate over whether members of the Peoples Temple committed suicide or were murdered depends on how suicide and murder are defined. The hundreds of children who died at Jonestown were clearly murdered, whether or not their mothers gave them their poison, because they did not have the mental ability to choose to live or to die.
According to Rhodes and Stanley Clayton, another survivor who witnessed much of the killing before he escaped, others made no move to drink the poison and were escorted to their deaths by the armed guards. Most did not actively protest, but neither did they choose death willingly, Rhodes and Clayton said. But a large number of those who died did so according to both of the living witnesses without having to be forced in any way. Jones exhorted them "to die with dignity," and they approached the vat of poison without further persuasion.
The jurors concluded that this group was, in effect, brainwashed by Jones, who convinced them that enemies of the Peoples Temple were set to destroy it-especially after Rep. Leo J. Ryan and four others were killed by gunmen sent from Jonestown. These Peoples Temple members may well have believed they would be tortured and killed as Jones had told them, and so chose poison instead.
Others believe that this group of persons simply took the poison because they believed in Jones and believed for political or religious reasons that those who lived at Jonestown, would, after death, "meet in another place," as they were told. Although a certain mass hysteria occurred at the time, it can be argued that these people chose to die voluntarily, in effect committing suicide.