Former member of Peoples Temple, and survivor of the Port Kaituma airstrip shootings.
Gosney had joined the Peoples Temple in 1973. In March 1978 he moved to the Temple's settlement in Jonestown, Guyana, but quickly became disenchanted with the isolation, the malnourishment and over-work, and the increasingly erratic and unhinged rantings of the commune's leader, Rev. Jim Jones.
It was Gosney who first passed a note to NBC reporter Don Harris on November 17, 1978, saying that he and fellow Temple member Monica Bagby wanted to leave the cult's commune. This began a chain of events which led to more than a dozen other Temple members expressing a desire to leave with Congressman Leo Ryan and his fact-finding entourage. The following day, when the group of defectors, newsmen and politicians reached the airstrip at Port Kaituma, Ryan and his aide Jackie Speier split the group and started boarding them onto two airplanes. Before the planes could take off, a group of gunmen from the Peoples Temple security detail arrived on the scene and opened fire on those people not yet aboard the planes. Ryan, Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple defector Patricia Parks were killed, and a number wounded.
Inside the smaller of the two planes, Temple loyalist Larry Layton, posing as a defector, produced a pistol and shot Gosney and Bagby multiple times before being disarmed by Dale Parks. Later that same day, more than 900 Temple members, at Jones' behest, died by poison. Evidence has shown that many of the Temple members did not take the poison voluntarily. Among those who died at Jonestown that day was Gosney's four-year-old son, Mark.
Gosney recovered from his injuries, went through a period of addiction and recovery, and spent a 30-year career as a policeman in Hawaii.
It is generally agreed that it was Gosney's testimony at Larry Layton's 2002 parole hearing that led to Layton's release from prison after 18 years (Layton had been imprisoned for conspiracy to murder Congressman Ryan, after having been acquitted by a Guyanese court of the attempted murders of Gosney, Bagby and Parks).
Vern Gosney died in 2021 of complications following bypass surgery.
Photo credit: http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/
Gosney had joined the Peoples Temple in 1973. In March 1978 he moved to the Temple's settlement in Jonestown, Guyana, but quickly became disenchanted with the isolation, the malnourishment and over-work, and the increasingly erratic and unhinged rantings of the commune's leader, Rev. Jim Jones.
It was Gosney who first passed a note to NBC reporter Don Harris on November 17, 1978, saying that he and fellow Temple member Monica Bagby wanted to leave the cult's commune. This began a chain of events which led to more than a dozen other Temple members expressing a desire to leave with Congressman Leo Ryan and his fact-finding entourage. The following day, when the group of defectors, newsmen and politicians reached the airstrip at Port Kaituma, Ryan and his aide Jackie Speier split the group and started boarding them onto two airplanes. Before the planes could take off, a group of gunmen from the Peoples Temple security detail arrived on the scene and opened fire on those people not yet aboard the planes. Ryan, Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple defector Patricia Parks were killed, and a number wounded.
Inside the smaller of the two planes, Temple loyalist Larry Layton, posing as a defector, produced a pistol and shot Gosney and Bagby multiple times before being disarmed by Dale Parks. Later that same day, more than 900 Temple members, at Jones' behest, died by poison. Evidence has shown that many of the Temple members did not take the poison voluntarily. Among those who died at Jonestown that day was Gosney's four-year-old son, Mark.
Gosney recovered from his injuries, went through a period of addiction and recovery, and spent a 30-year career as a policeman in Hawaii.
It is generally agreed that it was Gosney's testimony at Larry Layton's 2002 parole hearing that led to Layton's release from prison after 18 years (Layton had been imprisoned for conspiracy to murder Congressman Ryan, after having been acquitted by a Guyanese court of the attempted murders of Gosney, Bagby and Parks).
Vern Gosney died in 2021 of complications following bypass surgery.
Photo credit: http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/
Former member of Peoples Temple, and survivor of the Port Kaituma airstrip shootings.
Gosney had joined the Peoples Temple in 1973. In March 1978 he moved to the Temple's settlement in Jonestown, Guyana, but quickly became disenchanted with the isolation, the malnourishment and over-work, and the increasingly erratic and unhinged rantings of the commune's leader, Rev. Jim Jones.
It was Gosney who first passed a note to NBC reporter Don Harris on November 17, 1978, saying that he and fellow Temple member Monica Bagby wanted to leave the cult's commune. This began a chain of events which led to more than a dozen other Temple members expressing a desire to leave with Congressman Leo Ryan and his fact-finding entourage. The following day, when the group of defectors, newsmen and politicians reached the airstrip at Port Kaituma, Ryan and his aide Jackie Speier split the group and started boarding them onto two airplanes. Before the planes could take off, a group of gunmen from the Peoples Temple security detail arrived on the scene and opened fire on those people not yet aboard the planes. Ryan, Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple defector Patricia Parks were killed, and a number wounded.
Inside the smaller of the two planes, Temple loyalist Larry Layton, posing as a defector, produced a pistol and shot Gosney and Bagby multiple times before being disarmed by Dale Parks. Later that same day, more than 900 Temple members, at Jones' behest, died by poison. Evidence has shown that many of the Temple members did not take the poison voluntarily. Among those who died at Jonestown that day was Gosney's four-year-old son, Mark.
Gosney recovered from his injuries, went through a period of addiction and recovery, and spent a 30-year career as a policeman in Hawaii.
It is generally agreed that it was Gosney's testimony at Larry Layton's 2002 parole hearing that led to Layton's release from prison after 18 years (Layton had been imprisoned for conspiracy to murder Congressman Ryan, after having been acquitted by a Guyanese court of the attempted murders of Gosney, Bagby and Parks).
Vern Gosney died in 2021 of complications following bypass surgery.
Photo credit: http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/
Gosney had joined the Peoples Temple in 1973. In March 1978 he moved to the Temple's settlement in Jonestown, Guyana, but quickly became disenchanted with the isolation, the malnourishment and over-work, and the increasingly erratic and unhinged rantings of the commune's leader, Rev. Jim Jones.
It was Gosney who first passed a note to NBC reporter Don Harris on November 17, 1978, saying that he and fellow Temple member Monica Bagby wanted to leave the cult's commune. This began a chain of events which led to more than a dozen other Temple members expressing a desire to leave with Congressman Leo Ryan and his fact-finding entourage. The following day, when the group of defectors, newsmen and politicians reached the airstrip at Port Kaituma, Ryan and his aide Jackie Speier split the group and started boarding them onto two airplanes. Before the planes could take off, a group of gunmen from the Peoples Temple security detail arrived on the scene and opened fire on those people not yet aboard the planes. Ryan, Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple defector Patricia Parks were killed, and a number wounded.
Inside the smaller of the two planes, Temple loyalist Larry Layton, posing as a defector, produced a pistol and shot Gosney and Bagby multiple times before being disarmed by Dale Parks. Later that same day, more than 900 Temple members, at Jones' behest, died by poison. Evidence has shown that many of the Temple members did not take the poison voluntarily. Among those who died at Jonestown that day was Gosney's four-year-old son, Mark.
Gosney recovered from his injuries, went through a period of addiction and recovery, and spent a 30-year career as a policeman in Hawaii.
It is generally agreed that it was Gosney's testimony at Larry Layton's 2002 parole hearing that led to Layton's release from prison after 18 years (Layton had been imprisoned for conspiracy to murder Congressman Ryan, after having been acquitted by a Guyanese court of the attempted murders of Gosney, Bagby and Parks).
Vern Gosney died in 2021 of complications following bypass surgery.
Photo credit: http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/
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