Larry Layton, who posed as a defector, was captured after badly wounding two people inside a plane trying to take off. [18], Lawton is believed to have hit around 20 to 25 jewelry stores,[11] stealing a self-estimated total of around $1518 million worth of high-value items, including watches, diamonds, and other gems. After graduating from the University of California campus at Davis in 1968 with a degree in social science, Layton and his wife moved to the Ukiah area and soon met up with the temple. Jonestown was the agricultural compound Jones' followers carved out of the Guyanese jungle, 150 miles northwest of the nation's capital, Georgetown. [7] He became known as one of America's biggest jewel thieves and made the FBI's most wanted list in 1996. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Anyone can read what you share. In 1970, as chairman of a committee overseeing prison reform, he assumed a pseudonym and had himself booked, strip-searched and incarcerated for 10 days at Folsom State Prison, revealing his. Mr. Jones's cult included, at ohe time or another, six members of the Layton family. The motion contends that Mr. Layton should be given a new trial because his previous defense attorneys did not know and thus failed to inform him that he faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted on the count of aiding and abetting in Mr. Ryan's murder. ''Why not pin this on Larry Layton, then close the book and not look at the hard questions of why Leo Ryan and all those Americans died?'' Moments later, Congressman Ryan emerged from a throng of people with a torn and bloodied shirt. | Amazon. A bone shot out of my right arm, and a huge hunk of flesh had been blown off my thigh. But Lisa escaped from Hamburg, and in 1938, stunned by the antiSemitism she had seen, she arrived in New York with a determination never to reveal to anyone that she was Jewish. This site houses a variety of PDF documents. He was found guilty of conspiracy and aiding and abetting in the murder of Ryan and the attempted murder of U.S. embassy official Richard Dwyer and was sentenced to Read More This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. [35][36] It also hosts an annual bowling tournament. [8] Lawton later said that he used a BB gun during the robbery. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Lawton gained notoriety for committing a string of jewelry store robberies along the Atlantic Seaboard prior to his arrest in 1996. The book describes the events that occurred in Jonestown, Guyana, where over 900 people lost their lives as the result of mass forced suicide, which constituted the largest loss of American civilian life (other than due to natural disasters or during the course of violence with Native Americans) in United States history until the events of After over twenty years in prison, Larry Layton was released on parole in 2002, largely due to the testimony of Vernon Gosney, one of the few survivors of the massacre, and the Federal Chief Judge, Robert F. Peckham. Her book "Seductive Poison" will be in bookstores in November. His father, an electrical engineer, died when Larry was 8 and the boy had to move in with his grandfather, a stern Methodist preacher. Leo Ryan assured me that there was nothing to worry about. [10] In 2012, Lawton self-published Gangster Redemption, an autobiography co-written with Peter Golenbock. I have no idea how much time passed until I turned my head and opened my eyes. My list kept growingwhat started with two names was now more than 40. Returning to the pavilion area, I sought out other anxious-looking members. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Getting Started | Contributor Zone Contribute to This Page Edit page Larry Layton Personal Details Contact Info It was a message that appealed to the dispossessed, which is why it made sense for the Peoples Temple to relocate to San Francisco around 1972. I dont have any money to donate, but Id like to volunteer. Individually, their insistence would have been hard to question. Larry Layton was convicted in 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco of conspiring in the 1978 murder of California congressman Leo Ryan and aiding and abetting in the attempted murder of. At both trials here the prosecution presented a confession signed by Mr. Layton in Guyana shortly after the killings, saying that he took ''full responsibility'' for the deaths at the airstrip but also saying, ''I don't know why I did it. Not long after she left, her parents were rounded up with other Jews and placed on a train to a death camp. A man followed him and slipped a folded piece of paper into his hand, then disappeared back into the crowd. He spoke often of apocalypseJones chose Redwood Valley because he believed it was one of a few places in the country that could survive a nuclear holocaustyet insisted the Peoples Temple would exist as a sort of heaven on Earth, with himself in the role of God. The land later became the site of a large Union Carbide plant. I wanted to be part of something that was doing things for other people, and besides, Peoples Temple offered a community of friends. I was one of Larry's lead lawyers in his first U.S. trial in 1981, which resulted in an 11 to 1 vote for acquittal on faulty charges of conspiracy to kill the congressman. They recovered and with the help of friends managed to reach Italy, later coming to the United States. Although his mother was of German-Jewish descent, his family practiced the Quaker faith, and Larry was the family's firmest believer, according to his brother. Her marriage was ruptured by Mr. Jopes even before it could be consummated. Meanwhile, Dr. Layton said, A difficult new field of science in molecular biology was opening, and he began to spend more and more time studying it. As I shook his hand, I looked at his sideburns. View Source Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Created by: Mike Added: 6 Apr 2021 Mrs. Layton's former husband, Dr. Laurence Layton, an eminent scientist, was left behind in Berkeley, Calif., having lost a wife and at least $250,000 that she gave to Mr. Jones. A former high school teacher, he was swept into politics by the idealism of the Kennedy era and elected mayor of South San Francisco before running for state Assembly. ''I feel a tremendous amount of guilt and remorse for the events that happened,'' he said. Copyright 2023 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. After he passed legislation improving prison conditions, the inmates showed their gratitude by giving him a chess set they had sculpted from toothpaste and toilet paper. Also there was a strong feeling of community -- people of all races who really cared about each other.'. The morning after our arrival, Congressman Ryan, Jim Schollaert and I attended a closed-door briefing by Ambassador John Burke and his staff at the U.S. Embassy. [10][26] While recounting his prison experiences he said: "I saw inmates stabbed and friends die" and "I saw young men raped and pimped out as prostitutes for other inmates. As soon as it became clear that we would be bringing more than one or two defectors home with us, the communal faade cracked. I asked to speak to Monica Bagby, one of the names on Dons note. There was no movement, but I thought the others might also be playing dead. Dick Dwyer, an embassy official, showed us a slideshow of his visit to Jonestown the previous Mayimages in which he and Jim Jones looked unnervingly chummy; images of tables filled with food, of joyful children on a swingset, of bountiful crops and an exuberant church session. I wanted to leave my daughter a legacy that wasn't that simple.". A second jury convicted Larry, although four jurors took what the trial judge called an unprecedented step of asking for leniency in Larrys sentencing. None of those red flags made the congressman reconsider. Jim Jones with a group of children living at Jonestown, circa 1978. To access these PDF files you must have the free Adobe Reader installed. Subsequently, he said, she urged him to have an affair. Is the Stanley Quencher tumbler worth its TikTok hype? Lawton filed a lawsuit against the prison and staff alleging that they violated his rights. But by the time I showed em, they were all dead.. She is known by many of her relationships - longtime lover of Jim Jones, mother of Jones' child Jim Jon (Kimo) Prokes, sister of Annie Moore, former wife of Larry Layton, former sister-in-law of Debby Layton - as well as the sometimes-mysterious roles she played within the Peoples Temple hierarchy. Anyone running afoul of Jonestowns security detail was put in a labor camp and forced to clear jungle. [15] The robbers took $480,000 ($910,600.81 in 2022)[17] worth of gold and diamonds making it the biggest robbery in the city's history. Its hard to know when it became obvious that he was dead, or when I realized that others werent pretending. Answer (1 of 2): Above: Jonestown Before The Massacre Larry Layton was the only "armed guard" at Jonestown at the time of the massacre to outlive November 18, 1978, when all but a few dozen of the roughly 1,000 residents of Jonestown perished. Years later, after Lisa Layton Joined the People's Temple, she would tell other members of the cult that her husband had been antiSemitic and was ashamed of her being a Jew. Within a year, a few Jonestown defectors had managed to return to the Bay Areamost notably, Debbie Layton Blakey, whod been Jones trusted aide and worked as the Temples financial secretary. Jones had become increasingly paranoid, convinced that the CIA, the FBI and the media were out to destroy him. Over the next decade, Jones moved his congregation and changed its name several times before settling on Peoples Temple around 1964. I was one of Larry's lead lawyers in his first U.S. trial in 1981, which resulted in an 11 to 1 vote for acquittal on faulty charges of conspiracy to kill the congressman. The campaign succeeded in making it to the Oval Office, and seemed to be viable up until 20 January 2001, President Clintons last day in office, but Larrys name did not appear on the final list of pardons and commutations. [21] Lawton was arrested by the FBI on December 2, 1996, in Florida and charged with the Fairless Hills armed robbery. [32] By 2010, Lawton had shipped 10,000 DVDs across the country. Layton's mother, Lisa, had died of cancer 10 days before the mass suicide. It was the final stop for a group that for nearly 10 years had fascinated and, in the end, horrified the Bay Area. We worked quickly to locate and speak to the individuals whose families had contacted our office and had been campaigning for their return. My ribs were broken. The robbers had been there the day before and returned asking about a ring. In the months leading up to the trip, my boss, Congressman Leo Ryan, had been contacted by worried constituents whose loved ones were members of a San Francisco-based religious group called the Peoples Temple, which had fled to South America for the promise of a utopian commune led by their preacher, Jim Jones. The chaos persisted until, abruptly, a silence fell. Philip Wogaman, President and Mrs. Clintons pastor in Washington, D.C. made additional pleas for commutation of Larrys sentence. Twenty years ago this month, Jones and 912 of his followers committed mass suicide at the jungle compound. A string of jewelry store robberies along the Atlantic Seaboard prior to his arrest in 1996 32 by... Store robberies along the Atlantic Seaboard prior to his arrest in 1996 we continuing. Moments later, Congressman Ryan emerged from a throng of people with a and... 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