Something Was Wrong - S4 E6: Learned to Fight Back in my Dreams

Episode Date: March 7, 2020

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Hey, prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast, Killer Psychy Daily, I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the cold-butter killers you read about in the news. Listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast Killer Psychy Daily in the Amazon Music exclusive podcast killer psyche daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences. Many episodes discuss topics that

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please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Thank you. I'm going to go home. Thinking of me, you don't know me well. We ended up, uh, we're most way out. The parks went ahead of us because me and my sister could barely walk anymore. So they'd gone ahead and, and came out. Then they'd send some locals up the river with some good news they'd gotten us we came back out down there if you just get a little scratch or anything else but you better get

something on it quick factoring comes real fast down there he didn't know that one that we'd even been hit. No, I hadn't. So we came out. That's what we found out we've been hit. Yeah, I know. The three days later. And it isn't exactly like you can do a lot of searching in the jungle. It's just so vast.

It could be anywhere. Tom and his sisters were finally rescued from the jungles of Guyana after two nights, three days on November 20, 1978. The Boge family was ecstatic to be reunited, especially because neither group knew who had been injured at the Port Caitouma Airstrip shooting on November 18. During the reunion, Tom learned that five people had died during the airstrip shooting. Congressman Leo Ryan, defector Patricia Parks, a photographer from the San Francisco Examiner, and two NBC news reporters were tragically lost

during the shooting. Congressman Ryan remains the only US representative to be killed in the line of duty. 12 others were wounded, including Tom and his sister Tina, both of which had been shot in the leg. The Bogue family and the rest of the congressman's group learned of a mass murder at Jonestown from locals while staying at a small disco in town. Jim and Edith Bogue's daughter and Tom's sister, Marley, and 917 others died that fateful day. People use the term like drink the cool aid, but not everybody necessarily even drink it. Like some people were held down. There's other ways that it happened, so certainly not suicide. It was

I think some took it just simply because they were tired. Yeah, I'm having enough. What do you think Jones wanted the most? because they were tired, you know, having enough. What do you think Jones wanted the most? You think it was a power? Attention, power and everything else to get the attention. Well, you know, it's kind of like, you know, we see on the news about that neighbor who has all these people buried in their backyard

and everything, right? And they're talking to the neighbors of that individual. And they're like, they were just the nicest person. I know, I can't imagine that. That's right. That's who they are, right? So, right. So, it's kind of the way less.

So, you think about it. All this awful stuff is going on inside the church, but with all this, there's dynamic of goodness being shown to the public, right? They can't even begin to think anything like that would be occurring inside. And that's what he did. And big time was just part of the control you had to have. Make it all work. If you're into true crime, the Generation Y podcast is essential listening. We started

this podcast over 10 years ago to dissect some of the craziest and most notable murders, crimes, and conspiracy theories together, and we'd love for you to join us. Generation Y is one of the longest-running True Crime podcasts out there, and we are still at it, unraveling a new case every week. We break down infamous cases like the Evil Genius Bank robbery, and lesser known cases like the case of Kimberly Rico. Did she actually kill her husband after they took part in a murder mystery game? We cover every angle, breaking down theories, diving deep into forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case. And with over 450 episodes, there's a little

something for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y Podcasts on Amazon Music or every Listen to Podcasts, or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app. Freedom of the Press has been a long-standing tradition in the United States. In today's political and social climate, the news is often labeled fake, alarmist, or bias.

I think it's important to highlight that without the push of Congressman Ryan and journalists like Tim Reiterman investigating Jonestown, the Boge family, as well as the other defector families may not have lived that day. Raven author Tim Reiterman was also injured during the airstrip shooting when he was shot in the arm. He recounted, In all, 913 perished in his final white night, very few people in Jonestown escaped death, very few outside the reach of Jonest voice followed his orders. On that horrible Saturday, no one kicked over the vat of Poison or turned guns on their leader to stop him.

No one could stop him, not after he had manipulated his people into believing their fortunes lay only in the grandiose final statement. Not after he had sealed their compact with the airstrip murders and the command, bring the children first. The executioner had initiated an act of such a normity and tragedy that Jonestown, the life-sustaining symbol and dream for his followers, would become a degraded international synonym for unspeakable evil and waste. From the day of the Holocaust, outsiders refused to accept the interpretation Jon sought

to place on the self-destruction of his movement. They viewed it as madness, cruelty, and later as deception by a satanic leader, not as a political or social statement. The terrible images of poison being squirted down the tiny throats of babies, of screaming adults twisting on the ground in death-throws, or being forcibly injected with poison, of entire families dying inside a perimeter of guns, crossbows, and jungle. The incomprehensibility of all of this caused the world to shudder in revulsion and disbelief.

We ended up having to spend the night in the local bar there, because in a way else to stay. And the next morning they flew us out. And then I was in the in the Georgetown hospital for a month recovering from my leg. How did you pay for the hotel? Well, we didn't pay for the hotel and they charged this I got a charge against me yet from the hotel. The government paid for it as a primary and then Dad was backbilled for it from the government.

How lovely. Yeah, yeah. We stayed there and they sent us some money to why we were there, my family did. In fact, my family bought all of our tickets to come back and they wouldn't let us on the plane yet. And finally, they called and they even called the President, I guess, my sister and one time sister-in-law, and they were working like crazy from San Francisco and they was calling everybody, and then they finally let us on the plane

to leave down there Then we came back and we got to the states and we were interviewed several hours by the FBI and Individual trailers which was really strange and we went to the big warehouse And here's all these trailers and each of one of us are sent to a trailer So several hours of that we spent the night again and then we flew from New York to San Francisco for a whole nother adventure. Did you feel relieved when you came back to the States? I don't know.

I was doing the same thing. Even after Jim Jones' death, the People's Temple defectors continued to fear retaliation. I was saying the same thing. Even after Jim Jones' death, the People's Temple de Factors continued to fear retaliation from the Church's remaining members. And here's the scary part. Is Jones were always saying that if anything ever happens, there are those who are to kill any survivors. Okay? When we left, and I believe it was sometimes within the

first two years between 17 and 18, but it was that that Moscone was killed. Here's the scary part about that. It's at the meeting that Moscone came to in the church and spoke. And Jones spoke very highly of them and everything else, right? Shown all the support and everything after he left that meeting, Jones continued to speak about him and he said, anything ever happens to us, he's going to die. So within the first two years of, you know, he dies. Oh, you think survivors weren't freaked out? And then you hear about the mill's family getting shot.

Do they try to put it on the sun? But they couldn't freaked out. And then you hear about the mill's family getting shot. They tried to put it on the sun, but they couldn't prove it. You know, so those were previous defectors. I know I personally was very concerned after that for quite a while. And not being of an age really even built to put the pieces together, but only to build to have an emotional response to things that happen.

You know, not a logical response, not a factual response. So it was, that was a scary time for me. We had to get it straight in our mind about America again and release all this crap out of our minds from down there. One of the biggest things that you deal with when you get back is all the people, the numbers of people. You know, have you spent time down there in that kind of seclusion? You have to make to that seclusion and then so you develop a sense of being a naturalist in a sense and then you come here and now you deal with all the commercialism, all the people, all the

fads and everything else going on and you sit back and you question, what is the point of all this? Hell, it's better to be back to being somewhat secluded. And to many levels, I still feel that away. And while people know me say, really, you, you don't like being around all kinds of people and everything else? Well, no, but I've learned to be around people and to interact with them. But inside, I still want more of this conclusion. So that is an adjustment you make. It coming back here, and that part never really leaves you. Of course, I had to get things together, and got Tina and Juanita and a computer school.

But were you all living together then? Yeah, in my sister's house. Yeah. What did that feel like to finally be? I started realizing how my sister wanted to be Queen B. You do it my way. I mean, it wasn't do it my way or else or anything. You just do it my way. And I got common computer school, but he learned more about girls and he did computers

and he kind of flunked out of that. He went, we first got back. I had to tell him one day, Tom, you've got to get a job because you had something like 12 jobs in one year. It's like I'm bored. I had to say, I don't know, you're going to sleep in doorways or in the gutter wherever you want to do, but I said I'm taking you out of my wallet.

Tom, that was today, I thought he was gonna whop me one day. Would you say that you had post-traumatic stress? They didn't even know what that was back then. I remember the nightmares. I've always trying to escape in my dreams. And over time, actually, it happened with such frequency to get it to stop. I actually learned to control my dream

because it was just happening so much that I learned to fight back in my dreams. You know, who does that? You know, but yes, that's all part of what I believe to be the post-traumatic stress to syndrome. And back this is a new thundermout. I mean, I got into drugs, I'm in the whole role. I became homeless, all that.

And it actually wasn't my current wife before I really started coming out of this mess. Were you interviewed right away by a bunch of people in the media? Like, was it in your face? Like, I imagine it would be now, media on your doorstep? After getting back to San Francisco,

within the first couple of years, yes, there was actually quite a few people trying to interview I recall only doing one initially and me and young man are not really knowing anything about theatrics really and I remember afterwards just despising that interview and the people who controlled it

because they had me do stuff like you know like ringing my hands like I was really distraught and stuff and and gross Yeah, re-traumatizing you great right or trying to make me look more traumatized than what reality I was from that point on any next interview. I would tell him right off the bat I said look you can ask your questions. I will decide what I'm going to answer, what I'm not going to answer. If I tell you I'm not going to answer and you push, we're done. That can be a question. We're done, which I was going to tell you and I forgot.

So, yeah, but no, but from that point on, I was going to control my interviews. Yeah. And what you want to share and what you don't want to share, and that's absolutely you're right and anybody who would push you and make you feel uncomfortable, it's not somebody who deserves your story. No. And I just want to say, it's very refreshing to actually sit here and speak to somebody who wasn't just as part of the research, wasn't just looking for the surface

story as I've been contacted with so many times prior in all the interviews I've gone to and I've done well over a hundred of them. Okay. This is the first time that actually somebody, and I'm referencing you, has actually taken a moment to try to understand the actual mindset of what occurs as these things develop. Because most interviews, it's very basic to me, but most interviews are, so what happened? Oh, well, and not once they said, well, why do you think that is? It's more, do you recall this and this and this and this? Oh, yes, I do. that is, you know, it's more of, do you recall this and this and this and this? Oh, yes, I do.

Sure, I'll elaborate on that. But not once did they really go into the underlying story, the one that actually informs people of not only the psychology of what occurred, but provides a different an outlook of what to be aware of. So I just want to take a moment to say thank you for that. Well, thank you. It's very refreshing And and I honestly got into it with one crew They were trying to get me to say something about my mother, but because I knew that Society wouldn't understand it or or or having not been there and just knowing one

portion of it would really make her look bad without understanding the other portion and most people who tend to remember the first part of what they hear. Not the tail end of the explanation. I read the headline I know the story. Okay so and because of that I was like you know I told her I forgot to get it. No I'm not gonna do that because I am not gonna you know, I don't write if they get it. No, I'm not going to do that because I am not going to make my mother look like that when That isn't who she is and never was it was due to a circumstance at the time At that time it was one of the things of one of the ways they kept the nucleus broke up is If you if it was one of your family members and they were in trouble and you didn't openly and strongly chastise them,

not only were you in trouble now, but whoever that person, the family member was, is now in double trouble. So, so by doing this open chastise and you were actually saving them from being in more trouble. Okay, but that isn't the part that people tend to remember. They don't remember the headline. So they wanted me to read this paper stuff

and I told them I wouldn't do it. They started pushing and finally I got to the point where I just told them, they look, you know what? Remember what I said? This is one of those times. Say one more thing, try to push it. And you with the camera, get off from behind my shoulder because he was trying to film me holding the paper at least

so they could use it later. And that's when I got up and I turned around to producer and I said, I asked them, point blank, would you do this to your mother? And he said, no, then I said, think, get off of me or this interview is over. And that's when they all just kind of backed off like, oh crap. Good for you. crap. Good for you. Donor I got afterwards because let's face it from growing up in that bubble really having little to nothing to do with society as a whole. The last two and after years of my life I was living

in the middle of the jungle with a group of people of that same bubble and then to come here and have to learn about society, all the good and the bad that goes with it was a challenge. It was a real challenge because these are the things that other kids learn growing up. You know, from the first time they went to kindergarten at five years old, till they graduated high school at 17, 18 years of old of age, I missed all of that. So I learned none of these things. I didn't learn how cruel people can be. And I'm going to say that is one of the things that still just amazes me to this day and just how cruel people can be

for no other reason but to be cruel. It just astounds me. So as I've gotten older, I've analyzed a lot of my behaviors today while I didn't think back though I was the renegade, the troublemaker, openly and clearly defiant of everything, but still underlying almost on subliminal level, I was still taking in those lessons. I remember the first time I was scammed. I was probably 22 years old. I didn't even hurt a scam. I didn't know that there was people on the world

that would do that. That would just, you know, take advantage of you, just because they could. That was a huge lesson for me. Just like it was another lesson for me when I was like 19 years old. I mean, we're talking about a year and a half after I got out and I'm walking through the neighborhood

I lived in in San Francisco with this young lady and this guy twice my age just comes up and slugs walking through the neighborhood I lived in in San Francisco with this young lady and This guy twice my age Just comes up and slugs me in the face and keeps walking. I didn't know I needed to be on my guard I didn't know I needed to be aware of my surroundings like that that somebody just come out of nowhere and Try to do bodily harm. You know, these are the things you learned younger in life like high school, right? You know, you're the bully of the younger in life, like high school, right? You know, you're the bully of the school, which come up, jack you up, right? And actually, everything that happened to me growing up was all from the leadership. It was never from the commoners of the temple. It was always the leadership that did these things to

you. So you actually learned to have an acute awareness of the leadership, not from everybody who's basically on the same stature that you are. So then to come out into a society where now you're dealing with that. And racism, I don't know what racism was. I mean, I knew what it was in almost a definition type sense, but ever really being subjected to it. No. Even when we were in school here in the States, we were a unit.

We were a group. So, even on that level, for me, I never was really subjected to that type of mentality. Because, yes, I do, what was raised in a very political organization. So, we were acutely aware of all the things that we're going on in the in the 60s early 70s Civil rights all that so you might say well, how could you be subjected to that not really know? You know, you know, well you have to understand I wasn't subjected to racism Most of the people in our group we didn't subject each other to that

So when you come down to now going into a society where that no longer existed, now you have to go into those words. You know, I grew up judging a person on their character, not on the color of their skin. A person is a good person or a bad person. And racism back then, even in the late 70s, 80s, 90s, was in many ways more profound than it is now, because it was kept in the closet. How does surviving and experience like that change you as a person?

One thing it does, and I don't know if it affected everybody the same, but you always have a survivalist part of you in there. You never, that never goes away. Right. So it's almost like you're always preparing for, for something bad to happen. And you're not content until you feel yours secured and you have a place to go. We're a way to escape or a way to survive. That never leaves your personality. It may seem like it has to others.

I remember several years back. I forgot what it was now, but it really triggered it. I mean, triggered it bad in me. It's such a manner that I wouldn't make sure we had tents, we had all this stuff to survive in the wilderness if we needed to. And I even knew it.

I even knew I was overreacting and still couldn't stop it. It took almost a week and a half to two weeks for it to start diminishing at all, even though I knew I knew it. I was like, why are you doing this? Society is not collapsing. Things aren't going that crazy. I think it was like, that's when I was at gas prices or something back then. I forget what it was, but I just remember so well thinking to myself, what your reactions are to this are not real, but yet I couldn't stop. Make sure I'm covered. And it was just, I mean, but that was really probably the second time I realized

That there had more had happened to me mentally Then I'd even knew and it caused me to evaluate myself more and more and more Of the way I look at things to my thoughts. So everything else is self-evaluating heavily next time heavily. Next time. You think you know me, you don't know me well at all. You think you know me, you don't know me well. Something was wrong is written, recorded, edited and produced by me, Tiffany Reese. Thank you so much to the Boge family for participating in this season. Music by Gladrads. Listener Cover by CatWhiteCatWhiteMusic.com.

Follow me on Instagram at lookibo. L-O-O-K-I-E-B-O-O. Resources mentioned on the podcast can be found, linked in the episode notes, or at somethingwaswrong.com slash episodes. If you would like to help support the growth of something was wrong, please consider leaving a five-star review on iTunes supporting the podcast on patreon.com, supporting our sponsors, or sharing it with your friends and stylist, neighbor, bestie, friends with benefits.

You think you know me, but you don't know me well. You think you know me, but you don't know me well. You don't know you. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.