Leaving the Peoples Temple

The Mills family fled the Peoples Temple before the massacre at Jonestown, but they wouldn't survive. Only a year later, three of four members of the family living in a Berkeley cottage would be gunned down. The lone survivor claims not to have heard or seen a thing from the next room.



Sources cited within episode

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm gonna do. Hey, Hey, welcome back to Autumn's oddities.
I'm Autumn. If my voice sounds a little horse right now,
it's because I just recorded this episode and my recording
software decided not to save it. Uh so this was
a the first time I recorded it. It was a

(00:50):
really good episode. We'll see how this one turns out.
In good news, Brooks House trial is over, you know,
Crystal Rogers ex boyfriend, and to no one's surprise, he's
been found responsible for Crystal Rogers murder. He and his
co conspirators have all been found guilty. They have all
been sentenced. There was a lot, lot, lot of new

(01:11):
evidence presented in this trial, and of course, I mean
we neither had to be because how the hell else
are you going to get an indictment and bring a
case against three different people without having a shit ton
of evidence. It mostly is forensic evidence in terms of
cell phone evidence things like that. It's just I don't

(01:31):
know how anybody in this day and age, in the
year twenty twenty five things they could get away with
just saying an alibi, being like I did this, this
and this, like on the day after she disappeared, after
Crystal disappeared, brooks House said, you know, I did this, this, this,
and this, like had too much of an alibi, and
police were like, dope, we're going to get your cell

(01:51):
phone records and confirm that that's where your phone was.
And guess what. Nuh nah he won any of those places.
He and his brother and his there. We're all at
the Hawk family farm the next day. The only hope
I have is that one of these bastards that was
involved in killing Crystal and covering up her murder, you know,

(02:13):
one of them has a soul maybe and gives her
family the closure that they need and lets them know where,
if any of her remains are located. So let's get
into today's case. You know, good news, bad news. Let's
get into today's case. It ain't good news. You might
look at the title of today's episode and think I'm

(02:33):
covering Jim Jones and his bullshit, and I am, and
I'm also not. I'm not gonna get super into him.
I'm going to talk about some of the survivors and
the massacre at Jonestown, But today's case involves a family
who escaped before the massacre in Guyana, only to be
killed years later, after Al and Jeanie Mills defected from

(02:56):
the People's Temple, Jeanie wrote a memoir about their life
the cult. She called it Six Years with God, and
I obviously used it to research this episode because it's
from the point of view of this family. The Millses
were once some of Jim Jones's closest collaborators, helping him
distribute propaganda and scout locations for Jonestown itself. However, in

(03:19):
nineteen seventy five, they became the first members of the
People's Temple to actually report Jones to the police. A
lot had gone public, they were the first to report him,
and the cult leader would not take the betrayal lightly.
Six Years with God features you know, normal black and
white photographs of the Mills family. In one, their children

(03:41):
look happy, their smiling, their young daughters waving excitedly. On
the next page, she slumped over, passed out while doing
laundry for the temple. Below that shot, brother Stephen, who
couldn't have been much older than twelve, is seen collapsed
against a trash can. They look exhausted and miserable, you know,

(04:02):
probably something you wouldn't want to take a picture of,
and those photos are captioned sleeping on the job nagreat
pretty abusive. Ten years after those photos were taken, Al,
Jeannie and Daffhine were killed on a quiet Berkeley street.
Their murders would send People's Temple survivor People's Tremble, People's

(04:23):
Temples survivors into hiding and cast a cloud of suspicion
which still lingers today over the lone survivor. Before they
fled Jim Jones and his cult, Al and Jeannie Mills
had totally different names. They of course changed those names
and went into hiding after fleeing Jones and the People's Temple.

(04:43):
As one does, both were on their second marriage. Elmer
Myrtle forty at the time, had three children and Dianna Rigby,
twenty nine, had two when they met in nineteen sixty
eight at a Bay Area chapter of Parents Without Partners,
a social group for single parents. Six months later, the
pair were married. In that social group apparently paid off.

(05:06):
The Myrtles were smart, they were ambitious and busy. They
were raising Diana's children, Eddie, who was eight, Dafen who
was six, along with Elmer's children, Steve who was twelve, Linda,
aged ten and Diana nine. The Myrtles owned several rental
properties throughout northern California and lived with the kids on
a small farm in Hayward. Life, however, was not a

(05:30):
dylic idyllic whatever, which was how their paths collided with
the People's Temple, and that's how they get you. The
cults are like, you're not one hundred percent happy with
your life. I got the solution, and if you believe that,
I got a bridge to sell you. In late nineteen
sixty nine, a friend told them about a fascinating preacher
named Jim Jones who was leading a congregation in Mendocino

(05:53):
County in six years with God. Deanna wrote that her
ears perked up when the friend mentioned Jones had quote
helped thirty young people kick the drug habit, the drug
habit and guess what the drug was? Weed? That's it.
Concerned about their young children, at least one of whom
was already smoking weed, yes, Elmer and Dianna decided to

(06:16):
see the man themselves. They were impressed by what they saw,
a charismatic preacher with the multi racial flock that was
focused on community. In Redwood Valley, members of the People's
temple seemed to genuinely care for one another and lived
in a real community. Retirees lived in communal housing, and
when things broke or if someone needed something, parishioners jumped

(06:39):
in to help faux Free. Soon after meeting Jones, something
happened that would change the Myrtle's life forever. Dianna wrote
in her memoir that Eddy had never been very healthy,

(07:01):
and one day he started having chest pains. His parents
were terrified when the eight year old's heartbeat began to stutter,
so they thought he had a heart murmur, and they
drove him frantically to a nearby hospital. The whole way there,
Deanna prayed that not God, not Jesus, but Jim Jones
would heal her son. That doesn't sound great, but okay.

(07:25):
When they arrived at the hospital, a doctor told them
the worst thing that he could see was that the
boy looked a little pale, like you should get on
some sun. So here, okay, here's my guess. I don't
think Jim Jones cure jack shit. In fact, I know
he didn't. I don't think that the child had a
heart murmur to begin with. I think he might have

(07:47):
had a little episode but I don't think for one
second that praying to this murderous asshole healed their child.
But from that day forward, Eddie was able to play
just like any other child. And with that perceived miracle,
Deanna was convinced as fervently as anyone in the People's

(08:07):
Temple of Jones's powers. Right. Okay, so the Myrtles were
powerful allies as Jones expanded his empire. They were also
ruthless and paranoid. Not good things but cult traits, you know.
In Road to Jonestown, crime writer Jeff Gwynn recounted the
story of a nineteen year old girl who hitchhiked her

(08:30):
way to Mendocino County. The Myrtles, who often cared for
Temple children, took her in. The girl wrote letters to
her family back home, but no one ever replied. Heartbroken,
she stopped writing. It was only later that she learned
that the Myrtles had stolen every one of her letters
and given them to Jones, who used them to convince

(08:53):
this girl that he could read her mind. This is
some dark stuff, like even for cult. We were learning
a new set of ethics from Jim. The ends justify
the means, Dianna would later recall, and I'm like, yeah,
that's what That's how narcissists talk. They'll do anything they
have to do to get exactly what they want. They
don't give a fuck who they hurt or what damage

(09:16):
is left in their wake, as long as they get
what they want. Having proved their loyalty, Elmer and Deanna
were named to Jones's Planning Commission, which was his highest
echelon of power. It's impressive. In nineteen seventy three, Jones
asked Elmer to accompany him to Africa and South America
to find a location for a utopian society that he

(09:38):
called Jonestown. And I'd be like, wow, that's creative. Did
you hurt yourself coming up with that? Elmer, the church's
official photographer, accompanied him to a barely livable patch of
jungle in the nation of Guyana. Yeah. Jones ordered him
to very carefully frame those shots so that the area
would look more enticing to his followers. So you know,

(10:01):
all that to say it was a shithole, And he's like, okay,
so shoot it in such a way that it doesn't
look like a giant shitthole. And he did, And that's
how a lot of those people ended up there. Unfortunately,
so this family is complicit in what happened in Jonestown.
Although the Myrtles were steadfast in their face, there were

(10:21):
holdouts when it came to one of Jones's demands. Like
many cult leaders, Jones coerced followers into handing over their assets,
of course, leaving them financially, spiritually, and socially dependent on him.
As abusers do these are. It's just like he picked
up like textbook, the textbook of how to abuse people again,

(10:43):
and he just followed it like to the letter, and
it worked, as it so often does. Jones preached racial
equality and sharing all of life's bounties, and hoarding private property,
he said, wouldn't be in keeping with their mission. You
know it just wouldn't. You got to give me all
your stuff. But the Myrtles, year after year refused to

(11:03):
give up their real estate portfolio, and neither would I.
Can you freaking imagine what that would be worth today?
They owned northern California properties, like fifteen, some at least
fifteen properties in Northern California. Imagine what that would be
worth today? Probably a bajillion dollars. Let's just let's put
a number two a fig a nice round figure bajillion

(11:25):
that much. But finally, before one of their trips abroad,
they agreed to sign over their Richmond Willets and Redwood
Valley properties for the church to manage while they were gone.
They were under the assumption, like, y'all are just gonna
look after this while we're gone, we come back, you
give it back to us, right wrong. The trip ended
up being canceled, and when the Myrtles went to church leadership,

(11:47):
you know, to get their properties back, they were told
not uh no take backs. A much more brutal incident
card in nineteen seventy four, though then this was a
turning point Jones often used to He used to public
beatings to control his block, and that year his ire
turned to Linda Myrtle. He claimed that, you know, the

(12:08):
girl who was barely a teenager was associating with outsiders,
and you know, with coercive control, those tactics, they don't
want any outside opinions because of course someone from the
outside is going to look at what's going on there
and be like, what the shit and report them, you know,
to child protective services or the police something. But that's

(12:32):
not what happened. Her punishment was seventy five wax with
a board whacks, not wax. Wax with a board, and
that was what Jim Jones called hitting children, abusing children,
seventy five with board. Deanna wrote in her memoir that
Jones forced her and her husband to sign a release

(12:53):
that gave Jones permission to beat their daughter. And I'm like, girl,
ain't nobody force you y'all? Walk out? Walk out. Somebody
says I'm going to beat your daughter seventy five times
with the board. I say no, I'm going to put
a bullet between your eyes, point blank period. You're not
touching my kids either way. She said that he forced them.
I'm like, did he put a gun to your head? No?

(13:14):
Walk out? I understand this is a course of control group,
but it's it's your children. And of course the other
children were forced to watch. Linda's older brother, Steve, gripped
his knuckles white as he clutched the sides of his chair,
and I'm sure he wanted to get up and just
break Jim Jones's fat ass in half. It was finally
too much for the myrtles. That was it, I guess
but they let him do it. In the fall of

(13:35):
nineteen seventy five, they defected. Gwynn, the crime writer, called
them the worst sort of enemies that Jones could have imagined. Yeah,
because they did have some money, some influence, they knew
how to do paperwork. Those are not good enemies to have.
Although other defectors had gone public with their allegations, the
Myrtles were, like I said before, the first to actually

(13:56):
go to the police. They told Bay Area law enforcement
that Jones had tricked them into signing over their property,
which he did, and alleged he was smuggling guns which
he was, into his under construction community in Guyana. The
events that would lead to the massacre at Jonestown had
already been set into motion. The Myrtles attempted to separate

(14:19):
themselves from the documents they'd signed as members of the
People's Temple by legally changing their names, you know, as
one does. The new Al and Jeanie Mills moved the
family to Berkeley, California for a fresh start. They founded
the Human Freedom Center, which was a support group for
people fleeing colts just like them, and it was at

(14:40):
thirty two oh eight Regent Street, They also began desperately
petitioning politicians like Bay Area Congressman Leo Ryan to start
an investigation into the goings on at Jonestown. And the
reason you're like, oh, why should he be concerned they're
in Guyana, Well, those are his constituents, nine hundred of them.
In fact, they aren't going to vote for him next
term because they're in Guyana. Oh and also they're going

(15:01):
to be dead. Their efforts did not go unnoticed by Jones,
thousands of miles away. He sent followers to intimidate the family.
They left threatening letters, and mysterious cars were often seen
surveilling their home. Eddie and Dafene didn't want to go
to school alone anymore, so Jeanie started driving them to
and from and she said that each time they went

(15:23):
out in their car that another car followed them, and
that they were living under Jim's reign of terror. In
early November nineteen seventy eight, according to the Millses People's
temple member Tim Carter, suddenly showed up in Berkeley. He
allegedly told them he had left the church and was
looking for employment. In reality, he was on a secret

(15:46):
mission for Jones, and this is, according to the San
Francisco Chronicle, as rumors had reached Jones about a possible
congressional trip, Carter wanted to know who was going on
the trip with Ryan, and when they were leaving, Genie
told the Chronicle he pulled it off real well. Well, yeah,
remember the ends justify the means. He's gonna lie to you, booh,

(16:07):
like you were in this cult too, you should know.
While the myrtles were busy disentangling themselves from the People's Temple,
California Congressman Leo Ryan was extremely concerned, and for a
very good reason. Obviously. The allegations were extremely serious about
you know, that he'd been hearing from Jonestown, which was,

(16:28):
of course, the makeshift settlement carved out of the jungle
in or Guyana where the charismatic Jim Jones decided to
set up shop. And those allegations were serious. You know,
Jonestown sounded more like an enslavement camp than a religious center.
There was talk of beatings, forced labor and imprisonment, the
use of drugs to control behavior, suspicious debts, and even

(16:50):
rehearsals for a mass suicide. Yeah, and we know how
that went. There were more than nine hundred members of Jonestown,
many of whom were Ryan's constituents from the San Francisco
area who'd followed the scandal plagued Jones to South America.
Ryan and his congressional delegation flew to Guyana on November fourteenth,

(17:12):
nineteen seventy eight. A few days later, they arrived in
Jonestown along with various government officials and a group of reporters,
so he stayed overnight. Ryan did at Jonestown at the
behest of worried loved Ones back in the Bay Area.
He had some pretty unnerving encounters, like being passed a
secret note begging for help, and he was convinced something

(17:36):
real bad is happening here. Ryan also met with Jones
and interviewed many of his followers. Not surprisingly, a lot
of families and many several individuals asked to leave with Ryan,
while others just went ahead and left on foot. They're like,
I don't fucking care. I know I'm in a jungle.
I do not care. I would rather walk and be
eaten by whatever is out here than stay, and Jones

(17:59):
was not. Ryan wanted the entire group to fly out together,
fearing retribution for those left behind, but that would require
a second plane, and that delayed their departure, which unfortunately
gave Jones and his and his conspirator's time to come
up with a plan. The group eventually assembled at a

(18:20):
local airstrip on the afternoon of the eighteenth, but as
Ryan's plane prepared to leave, a dump truck from Jonestown
arrived filled with armed men. They opened fire on one plane,
while a cultist named Larry Layton had already boarded the
other plane, and he pulled out a gun and began
shooting in the melee. Ryan and several others were killed

(18:43):
and many were wounded. Meanwhile, back at the compound, Jones
had gone ahead and put his horrible plan into action.
He gathered his followers and ordered them to swallow a
fruit drink that was laced to with cyanide. He rationalized
that the attack on the planes would bring harm to

(19:05):
the residents of Jonestown, and he said this was their
only way out, and I'd be like, no, it's going
to bring harm to you. And whoever planned to kill
the congressmen like that was a stupid move. I'm not
sure why you would do that. A few objected, A
lot objected actually, but in the end, more than nine
hundred cultists, including several hundred children. The number I've seen

(19:26):
is between two and three hundred, were soon lying lifeless
on the ground. Jones two was dead from a gunshot
wound to the head. Even on the FBI's page, it
doesn't say that they were able to determine whether it
was a suicide or if somebody else shot him in
the head, But the FBI soon launched an extensive investigation
in concert with other agencies. Of course, they were able

(19:48):
to claim jurisdiction based on a congressional assassination law that
was passed six years earlier. Working with authorities in Guyana,
agents interviewed survivors of the mass murder suicide, while fingerprinting
and forensics experts from the disaster squad identified the many victims,
including Jones himself. So we know that he's dead, like

(20:09):
he didn't get out and is living somewhere else. He's
really dead. Agents across the nation also searched out and
talked with members of the People's Temple in the United
States for further insights. By the end, you know, along
with helping to unravel the chain of events and bring
closure to grieving families. The FBI was able to make
a case against Larry Layton, you know, the guy that

(20:32):
was lying in wait on the plane who had you know,
inserted himself and pretended to be someone who wanted to escape,
when in fact he was on that plane to shoot
and kill people. Layton was the only member of the
People's Temple tried in the United States for criminal acts
at Jonestown. He was ultimately extradited, convicted, and sentenced to

(20:53):
life in prison. In contrary to the very flippant joke
about drinking the kool aid, few went willingly to their debts.
One third were pensioners, meaning retired people living on their pensions.
I doubt they were going to kill themselves. Another at
least three hundred were babies and children. This is disgusting.
The children had poison squirted down their throats and some

(21:16):
adults were found with injection marks on their bodies, meaning
somebody stuck them with a damn needle of poison. Because
they wouldn't shoot or they wouldn't you drink the kool aid.
Armed guards stood waiting to shoot anyone who tried to flee,
and apparently, moments before his suicide, surrounded by the nine
hundred people he murdered through fear and coercion. Jones had
the Myrtles on his mind. We've been so betrayed, We've

(21:40):
been so terribly betrayed, he said, go in town and
get defector Timothy Stowin. He's responsible for it. He brought
those people to us, he and Diana Myrtle. But people
in San Francisco will not be idle over this and
not take our death in vain. His grammar sucks. I
didn't write that. I'm not paraphrasing or anything that was verbatim.
I just like doesn't have a grasp of grammar. The news,

(22:03):
of course, was devastating and terrifying for former People's Temple
members in the Bay Area. Berkeley police put the Human
Freedom Center under twenty four hour surveillance amid rumors that
assassins were roaming the streets, of course, sent by Jones
to kill defectors. The emotional toll was unbearable, especially for

(22:24):
the Mills kids, who had lost nearly every single person
they knew like they're best friends, kids, they babysit, adults
who'd helped raise them. In an instant, they were all gone,
but the kill squads never came, and life, you know,
fell into a sort of normalcy. Genie told the Berkeley
Gazette that there was more of a chance that we

(22:45):
would be the victim of random street violence than be
targeted by Jones loyalists. All right, the other kids had
already moved out, and Al, Jeanie, Eddie, and Dafine lived
together in a single story cottage style home at twenty
seven thirty one on Woolsey Street. On the same lot
was a much larger residence which the Millses were running

(23:06):
as a care facility called the Elmwood Rest Home. Al's
mother lived in the facility and the whole family often
ate dinner there. One of their friends told the Gazette
that they'd never seen them happier, and they felt that
they weren't going to live in fear anymore. Tuesday February
twenty sixth, nineteen eighty was a little over a year
after the Jonestown massacre, and it was a very ordinary

(23:28):
day for the Millses. Around five pm, they went to
the care home for dinner, like they usually did in
the early evening. Eddie, then seventeen, was visited by a
few friends. The friends remembered that everyone seemed to be
in a good mood, and the family warmed up the
winter night with the fire in their living room fireplace.

(23:49):
The friends departed and quiet descended on Woolsey Street. Around
nine pm, Berkeley Police received a frantic call from Al's mother,
who had left her room for a quick visit to
the cottage. When police arrived at the scene, a bloodbath
awaited them. There were bullet holes in the bathroom door
and behind it they found Jeanie crouched on the floor,

(24:11):
having been fatally shot in the head. In the parents' bedroom,
Al was lying face down on the floor. He too,
had received a single fatal shot to the forehead. Daphene,
who was sixteen, was alive, but just barely. Police found
her splayed across her parents' bed and a bullet in
her temple. She was rushed to a hospital, where she

(24:33):
unfortunately did succumb to her wounds. Eddie, however, was unharmed
and astonishingly said he was unaware of the nightmare that
had just unfolded around him, you know, his whole family
being gunned down. He said he'd smoked a little weed,
taken a shower and watched some TV, which he guessed
might have covered up the sound of the shooting in

(24:55):
the next room. And to that, I say, all wry
eat okay, okay, guy, Like, I'm gonna get into it
further in a second, But is that really what we
think happened? Okay? Uh? The scene that you know, detectives
walked into was a perplexing mix of chaotic and efficient.

(25:18):
The street was and still is, one of Berkeley's most peaceful.
It's a tidy little enclave in the middle class Elmwood neighborhood.
But no one in the care home that was just
yards away, nor did the nearby neighbors report hearing anything
at all. The coroner deduced from the victim's stomach contents
that they had been killed shortly after they'd eaten, which

(25:40):
means that someone murdered them, you know, between six point
thirty and nine pm, hardly the dead of night. The news,
of course, was met by terror with people's Temple survivors.
Virtually everyone contacted about the murders that they would that
they believed it was Temple related. The Gazette reported the
day after the killings, several prominent defectors went into hiding

(26:03):
concerned that the long feared hit squad had finely materialized.
Detectives were faced with dozens of suspects, so many people
who were still loyal to Jones, you know, families who
had lost loved ones at Jones and perhaps blamed the
Millses for their hand in the massacre, and even the
people closest to Al and Jeanie, who often had complicated

(26:27):
relationships with them. Lowell Striker, a psychologist who worked with
them after they defected, was very candid in an interview
with the San Francisco Examiner. When our relationship was good,
it was very, very good, Striker said, And when it
was bad, it was horrid. Jeanie brought terrible habits with
her from the temple, vindictiveness, paranoia, secretiveness, backstabbing, basically cult games.

(26:54):
Although investigators kept all their options open, one person of
interest was apparent Eddie Mills. It was strange, to say
the least, that he had, you know, an ordinary evening
while his family was being gunned down literal feet away. Eddie,
by all accounts, had always been a reserved kid, even

(27:15):
after his health improved. His mother described him in her
memoir as the solitary sort who preferred his own company
up alone in his room reading. He was totally withdrawn,
Striker said, but not sullen or angry, just quiet and polite.
Friends told reporters that they'd never known Eddie to be hostile.
If Eddie got ahold of a gun, I don't think

(27:35):
he would know how to fire it. One friend told
the Examiner he was a really non violent, quiet guy.
You have to know him to understand if a bully
came up, he wouldn't be the first to run, but
he wouldn't fight. He would just stand there and shiver.
It's like, yeah, he was raised in a physically, mentally
and emotionally abusive cult, so I would imagine Eddie was

(27:57):
brought in for questioning immediately after the shootings. Tests were
done on his hands for gunpowder residue, and they came
up positive. Huh. A Berkeley Police Department spokesperson told reporters
that there were some traces of gunpowder on his hands,
but it was such a small amount that it could
conceivably have been come by innocently. All right, Maybe if

(28:20):
you just tested his hands on a random day and
there was gunshot residue, maybe then it would have been
come by innocently, but on the day where he's the
only survivor in a house where the rest of his
family was murdered, and he says he didn't hear anything.
I don't know about that. So police did find a
rifle and a handgun in the home, but they were
not the murder weapons. They had not been fired recently,

(28:42):
there was no murder weapon, and unless Eddie had been lying,
there were no witnesses. Eddie was released and police were
back at square one, and they were frustrated, with one
frazzled Berkeley Police spokesperson shouting at a press conference a
few days after the killings, I'm being on it with
you when I tell you, I just don't know the

(29:02):
goddamned answers, and I appreciate his honesty. A year went by,
on the anniversary of the deaths of al Jeannie and Dafine,
Eddie made a rare public statement. But it wasn't like
about his family. It was it was him dismissing the
rumors that he was a heavy drug user. He said,

(29:23):
I had one hit of dope, that's all. They made
it sound like I was shooting up heroin or something,
all right, and said that he had, or that he
had dropped out of high school, but it was to
help manage his parents fifteen rental properties, So it all
seems like he was about to like he made a
public statement to save face about himself. He said he
rarely saw his other siblings, except for his older brother Steve,

(29:45):
whom he was living with at the time in Oakland.
When asked who he thought killed his family, Eddie replied simply,
I don't know. Cool Eddie, you have no theories whatsoever.
That's interesting and al l Amita County Deputy district attorney,
who spoke with the Examiner, said the family had stopped
cooperating with police, saying that Eddie does have a lawyer

(30:08):
who told him not to talk to us, But it
isn't so much him as the other members of the family,
meaning his siblings and their extended family, who are as
reluctant or clothes mouthed about the incident as Eddie, he said.
And I have a hard time understanding that. Yeah, you
guys really don't want to help find out who killed

(30:28):
your family, all right. In nineteen eighty three, a probate
court found that al and Jeanie left no will their
real estate was sold for over seven hundred thousand dollars,
which is insane because, like I'm sure, just one of
those houses now is worth at least a million dollars,
and the Gazette reported over two hundred thousand of those
dollars would go to Eddie Genie's only living child. Al's

(30:51):
children always remember they had children, then they merged to
their families when they got married. They would split the
remaining half million dollars evenly. For the Mill children, who
had survived growing up in a cult and losing nearly
everyone they loved, it must have felt like the closing
of a chapter. And with that the case faded from
public view, but it wasn't over. On December sixth, two

(31:15):
thousand and five, Eddie Mills got on a plane in Japan,
where he was living with his two young children. He
planned on visiting family back in the Bay Area. When
he landed at the airport in San Francisco, police were
waiting for him at the terminal. Twenty five years later,
he was under arrest on suspicion of murdering Al Jeanie

(31:36):
and defeen. The case had been reopened a few years
prior by a cold case investigator who believed that, you know,
new interviews and forensic evidence were strong enough to charge
Eddie with the homicides. But those investigators were wrong. The
DA's office felt that the case was too thin and
you know, you only get one bite at the apple,
so it declined to file charges. Eddie was free. His

(32:01):
sister Linda was relieved. She said, my personal opinion is
it's an easy way out. Okay, they don't want to
do the footwork to find out who really did this.
It is an easy way out because he's the only
person that didn't get murdered in a house and says
he didn't hear any of it when they were shot. Okay,
I know Eddie did not do it, she added, I
don't care who did it. It's so far in the

(32:21):
past now, which is a very strange thing to say.
So who would kill the Mills family. Whoever committed the
crime was willing to chance the sound of multiple gun
shots in the early evening, or felt confident that they
would not be heard. They were also very bold, you know,
killing three people at once in a home with multiple guns.
That was a huge, huge risk and perhaps most baffling

(32:44):
of all. Who would kill three out of four members
of a household. The San Francisco Gate filed a public
records request with Berkeley Police Department to obtain case notes.
They ain't get much. They received three heavily redacted pieces
of paper, two with Eddie's two thousand and five arrest
information and one with a case summary. It says really nothing.

(33:09):
It says on the evening of February twenty sixth, nineteen
eighty al Jeanie and defend Mills were each murdered by
a single gunshot wound to the head with a twenty
two caliber pistol or rifle. The murders took place inside
the family home located at redacted. Because when you redact,
when you redact legal documents that are going to be
made public. So say you answer discovery and you have

(33:32):
to answer like you know, the planet for the defendants,
birthday address, social security number, any personal pertinent information, you
have to redact it. And you know, the attorney on
the opposing side can request to that information be sent
to them, but if anything is going to be filed
in the courts and become public record, that information has

(33:54):
to be redacted. So redacted. The rest of the page
is blank. Person from the department told various news outlets
at the time that they didn't know if anyone was
still actively investigating the case, and that's good work, you guys,
good job. In all likelihood, it seems that these murders
will remain unsolved. Al, Genie, and Defene Mills are buried

(34:17):
together at Oakmont Memorial Park in Lafayette, California. Their tombstones
bear the names they took after leaving the People's Temple.
Al's headstone is engraved with the words he fought for freedom.
Genie and Defen say mother and daughter. Defien was just
sixteen when she died. She was attending high school. She
was making new friends and despite a lifetime of trauma,

(34:40):
you know, we're growing up in an environment where public
meetings were totally normal. Her friends remembered Dafen as kind
and loving in spite of all that, which is just
a testament to her. Her friend said that she never
did anyone any harm and that she was always extremely
sweet to people. Defeen dreamed of moving away. Her friends said,
somewhere new, maybe where her past wouldn't follow her, a

(35:02):
place where Defiene could breathe deep and start over and
I hope that she's getting to do that in some
sort of an afterlife. This is the section where we
talk about what we think happened, and I've decided to
rename it what the fuck happened? So what the fuck
do we think happened here? Well, like most unsolved mysteries,

(35:23):
it would seem that the most likely scenario is almost
certainly the correct one. You know, one year after the
Jonestown masker, Yes, there were a lot of people who
had some connection to the church that were now virulently
opposed opposed to it and willing to talk to any
reporter willing to listen. So why simply target the Mills family.

(35:45):
Why wouldn't you go after these people who are still
out there, like, you know, talking to the press and
making splashy headlines. And also why would they start and
stop their avenging campaign with just that family. Wouldn't they
want their message to be off, you know, in order
to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies. Wouldn't
the kill squad have left some sort of message, like say,

(36:07):
with the lone survivor to relay to you know, the
press or to the police. That would make sense if
he was left alive and was told by the kill
squad tell everyone, this is revenge from the People's Temple.
I think we have to go. You know, let's refer
to Ockham's raiserund this one. The simplest explanation is usually
the correct one. There's way too much about these murders

(36:30):
that don't make any kind of sense. And there really
are only two scenarios here, you know, that aren't just
like a random act of stranger violence. One Eddie killed
his family, or two a jonestown kill squad took their
revenge on the defectors. But again, why would they not
kill everyone in the house because you know they had

(36:51):
all defected, And why wouldn't they have made it clear
just exactly what the Mills family had been slaughtered for,
you know, wouldn't they gone about, you know, killing the
other defectors. And when those murders have been connected because
of their affiliation with the People's Temple, that theory just
doesn't seem too likely to me. But what do I know?
What do the police seem to know in this nothing? Really? Eddie,

(37:14):
on the other hand, his story it doesn't make any
kind of sense. So an intruder or intruders burst into
your home and shot three members of your family individually
because they were in separate rooms. It kind of sounds like, again,
this is total speculation, but it sounds like Defeen ran
into her parents room, probably for protection, and you didn't

(37:36):
hear a thing. Well, I mean, for that to be true,
Eddie would had to have had, you know, noise canceling
technology that just did not exist back then, or his
family remained completely silent while confronted by gun wielding maniacs
that have broken into their home. Does that seem likely
to you? Would you be quiet? I sure wouldn't. He

(37:59):
said he had the TV on, But like, come come on.
They lived in a really small house and a gun
or guns was shot several times, including through a bathroom door.
Even with the silencer, there would have to be some noise,
and like, let's say that somehow the TV did block
out that noise. Again, his family and the killers would
have had to have been completely silent, put up absolutely

(38:21):
no fight whatsoever for Eddie to have actually heard nothing.
He was in the next room, next room, Come on,
come on. Even with the silencer like that could account
for neighbors not hearing the shots. That could account for
you know, the whatever home behind them. My god, why
can't I think of the name. It's not assisted living facility,

(38:44):
that's what they call them. Now. That's perhaps why I
know one in that house hurt anything either. But it's
really strange that nobody saw anything. You know, like people
in an assisted living facility that live in a residential area,
I'm sure they have windows and they don't have anything
to do in there. Really, they probably look outside a
lot and if somebody was walking up the driveway like

(39:06):
past their house to go to the cottage, they're probably
be a nosey and looking, and none of them saw anything,
none of them heard anything. That's very, very very strange
to me. That says nobody walked in there and nobody
walked out. That's what it says to me. But again,
what do I know. The other possibility was that Eddie
had done harder drugs than what he caught to. You know,
he's like, well, I just took a hit a weed

(39:28):
and he was legitimately passed out. But again, I'm not
sure why he wouldn't have just said that. If that
was the case, They're like, okay, you know, I did
heroin and I passed out. I was unconscious, Like I
couldn't find anywhere because again there's really not much information
other than what was in papers about their murders. I

(39:49):
couldn't find like how they found Eddie, Like if he
was just sitting in his room watching TV when the
police busted in, and you know, they busted in his
room and he's like, what's going on? Like, I don't
know if that's how it happened. I'm just not sure.
That information is not available, so I don't know. But
either way, I feel like if they found him passed out, yeah,

(40:13):
I don't think they found him passed out. I'm just
really not sure though, so I won't speculate on that.
But I've had good weed, I've had good good edibles,
and I'm gonna tell you right now, I did not
become unconscious. And I also did not lose my ability
to hear. I mean, sure, you zone out sometimes on
certain strains, but you can still hear, and you are

(40:36):
still aware of what is going on around you. Your
reaction time might be slowed down, but you still know
what's going on. So the weed thing and the TV
being so loud that like it blocked out gunshots and
most likely your family screaming, begging for their lives, perhaps
even yelling out Eddie, run, defend run, Because I know

(40:57):
if somebody busted up in my house and my kids
were in their rooms and I was out in the open,
I would make myself the target, like for these people
to kill, I would start yelling for the kids to run.
I'd say lock your door, run, scream it. Like his
TV was so loud that you know they you think
his parents didn't do that. I think that Defene did run,

(41:19):
probably because they shouted at her to run. There's no
forced Also, I forgot to mention this. There's no forced
entry into the house. We do know that there's no
forced entry into the house. So you think that people
that defected from a cult, that think they're going to
be murdered by a kill squad left their doors unlocked,
because I don't. Does that make any sense to you, Like,

(41:41):
there is a circumstantial case against Eddie. No, they don't
have a slam dunk case. But there is a really
good circumstantial case pointing to his guilt. And this is
my opinion based on the facts at hand. That's all.
Don't say I'm biased. If you look at this case,
and don't think he could have possibly done it. I
think you have your head buried in the sand. But why,

(42:03):
you know, why would Eddie want to kill his family? Hmmm? Well,
I can think of a few reasons, you know, like
they raised him in a fucking abusive cult for one, Like, really,
I would have hated my parents for that too. You know,
it's one thing not to know any better when you've
been raised in a cult, you'd never known anything outside
of it. But he knew life before and after the cult,
like he he knew what was out there. He knew

(42:26):
that life didn't have to be like it was. Eddie
was probably dealing with the emotional turmoil that would come
with being deprogrammed from a cult, and of course, you
know the emotional and physical abuse that he had endured
and seen other people endure. A complete mental break is
one possibility for very obvious reasons. Back to the TV,
I just thought of something else. If then he had

(42:47):
his TV turned up so very loud that he couldn't
hear shooting several shots, so at least three, because a
bullet was in each of their heads and there were
shots fired through the bathroom door, I would imagine and
if his mother was being shot at in the bathroom,
she would be screaming. I would imagine that, so he
didn't hear any of that. He didn't hear probably father

(43:08):
shouting to daughter, father shouting to son to get out.
You know, of course, if this was a group of
maniacs or you know, the kill squad came in. And
also if it was a kill squad, I feel like
there would be different kinds of gun guns used, and
probably more shots fired, and probably not such like you know,
efficient deaths, just shot in the head. I don't really

(43:30):
feel like they would have done that. I feel like
they would have wanted to send a message and been
as brutal as possible. This almost seems like someone wanted
to kill them quickly and didn't want them to suffer.
And again that that just seems to point back to Eddie.
But if he did have that TV up so loud
that he didn't hear any of that at all, and

(43:52):
he has his door shut, obviously, wouldn't the people or
person doing the killing of the rest of his family
be like, oh, there's someone in the room because the
TV's on super loud. Wouldn't they've gone in there to
kill them, or you know, if it was the kill
squad to relay the message that they were the ones
that did it. I don't know, what do you think?
Another possibility flip side, Eddie didn't want to leave the cult,

(44:15):
and maybe he resented his family for pulling him away
from the only life he'd ever known. Maybe he shook
it upon himself to punish the defectors, and that would
explain the fact that the kill squad hadn't killed other
defectors in the area, the ones that were being really vocal,
really loud, and you know, giving out all of Jonestown's
secrets to the media. Why wouldn't they kill them? Hmm strange.

(44:39):
He also got a lot of money from his parents' estate,
and he knew he would. They owned like fifteen rental properties,
and so did his half siblings. But you know, if
he'd killed them as well, then everyone would know who
did it and why. And if Defeene hadn't been murdered,
they would have split the money. So there's a motive
for killing her. Like I said, I don't think this

(45:01):
case is going to get solved barred just a deathbed confession.
If Eddie did do it, he's never going to confess
to it. Why would he There's no statute of limitations
on murder. And I'm fairly certain Japan will extradite to
the United States, although I'm not sure. I'm not sure
if they would or not. I don't know Japan's extradition laws.

(45:24):
I'm taking a guess that they would because there are
US military bases in Japan, so yeah, they would probably.
We do have a military presence there. And my husband said,
for the Navy, it's like the dream is getting stationed
in Hawaii or Japan, and I'm like, yeah, I'd love
to live there. Either way, he would probably get extradited back.
They waited for him to come back to visit family,

(45:46):
so he probably won't be coming back again. He's like,
I'm not going back to the United States. You'll want
to get me. You got to extradite me. You got
to go through that whole process. Who knows where he
is at this point, I don't. He could be somewhere
else entirely that doesn't have extra tradition treaties with the
United States. There's a very good circumstantial case here for

(46:07):
It's not me being biased because he's the only survivor.
It's all roads seem to lead to Eddie here again,
who the hell goes into a house and kills three
out of four members of the family, And it's like, Okay,
maybe that's a possibility, Maybe say that's possible. But then

(46:28):
the survivor didn't hear anything, didn't see anything, didn't know
what was going on. You know that when guns are fired,
there's a smell and there's smoke. You didn't smell that.
Like this just it's not to me. It's not in
any way, shape or form believable. Gunshot residue was found
on his hands. They said it was a small amount.

(46:51):
I'm like, Okay, did you test everyone else's hands for GSR?
The three victims, If they didn't have any GSR in
their hands, then none of them was the shooter. Because
you could say, oh, maybe it was a family annihilation.
But if it was a family annihilation, why would you
leave one family member alive unless you are the annihilator,
See what I'm saying. I'm I don't know for certain

(47:12):
that they tested the victim's hands for gunshot residue. I
would hope that they did. There was no murder weapon
found in the house. There were guns in the house,
they had not been fired recently, nor did they match
the caliber of the bullet found in each of the
victims heads. So there's no weapon in the house, no

(47:34):
gunshot residue on the victim's hands, But there is gunshot
residue on the lone survivor's hands or hand. I'm not
sure if it was one or both hands. And he
didn't hear or see anything. And he just has no
idea who would want to kill his family. Really, you
guys defected from a death cult and somebody, the leader

(47:57):
who's dead, vowed revenge on you mother. You really don't
have any idea who might have wanted to kill your family.
That's very, very bizarre. And when he did make a
public statement, it was just like, hey, I'm not a loser.
I don't do heroin. I just took a hit a weed,
and I didn't drop out of high school. It'll me

(48:17):
high school dropout. I was managing my parents' property. That
was his statement. It wasn't like I didn't kill my family.
I loved my family. I'm sorry they're gone. I wish
I knew more then I'd be more apt to believe him.
But he just kind of cleared his own name in
terms of like just making himself look better. And to me,
those are narcissistic personality traits. Oh where would he have
learned those? In a cult? In a cult, in the

(48:40):
cult that he was raised in in his formative years. Like,
I really can't think of another good suspect for this
other than the kill squad. But again, they would have
killed everyone. Come on, you know they would have. You
know they would have. You know they would have. And
if they didn't kill him again, they would have left
a message with him. Why would they, Like why when

(49:00):
they lived the daughter alive, you know, and kill It
just doesn't make sense. It just really does not make sense.
I think that Here's what I think happened. I'm just
gonna put forward a theory. I think that Eddie had
his friends over. I think his friends did bring him
some sort of drugs. Who knows what they were. Who

(49:21):
knows if it was like speed or meth or something
that like jacked him up and you know, PCP, I
don't know that was probably a thing back then, gave
him something he bought a new kind of drug, had
a bad reaction. He killed his parents and because obvious reasons,
and maybe his sister was just collateral damage. Or maybe

(49:43):
he and his friends, you know, got together a little
plot to kill his family for the money. Maybe they
had a plan to do something with it. I don't know.
All evidence, though, does seem to point to one person
being the killernderstand why they didn't why the you know,
AG didn't prosecute or the DA. I think it's the

(50:05):
DA in California. Yeah, it is, it's the DA. I
understand why they didn't prosecute because again, you have one
bite at the apple. If you take a flimsy case
to court, especially for a triple homicide, and that person
who's acquitted, you can never try them again for those
crimes ever, even if you even if he the next

(50:25):
day says yeah, I murdered all three of them, he
is acquitted, next day murdered all three of them, nothing,
you can do nothing at all. So I'm sure you
won't know. That's double jeopardy. But so I do understand
why they didn't prosecute it. But again I think, uh,
I think we got a solid idea of who might

(50:46):
have done this, and unless he confesses on his deathbed,
I don't or or who whatever maniac came into their
house and killed all of his family and left him
and he didn't hear any of it. Then, I guess
we'll never know. Well, I appreciate you listening, and you
know where to find me. I'm on all the social media's.
I'm not on Twitter, though, I'm on Instagram at Autumn's Oodcast.

(51:06):
I'm also on Threads at Autumn's Oodcast. I'm on Facebook
at autumns Ooditis, and Patreon at autumnsodd Ease. I recorded
a Patreon exclusive episode. I just put it on the
feed from a Patreon members. I'm recording this on Thursday.
It's available on your feed right now. It is the
Resurrection and Second Death of Knox Martin. It's a real

(51:30):
life Frankenstein case set in the late eighteen hundreds in
Nashville about a prisoner who was executed, brought back to
life and died again or did he don't don't So.
I was looking in Spotify, you know how you can
now make comments on episodes, and I saw my Mary

(51:52):
Shelley episode. One of my listeners commented, oh, have you
heard the case of the real life Frankenstein Knox Martin.
I'm like, no, I haven't, and I looked into it,
and there's not a ton of information because you know,
record keeping wasn't great back then, and he was a
convicted murderer who was also black, So who like, maybe
he did kill somebody, maybe he didn't, you know, how

(52:12):
it was in the eighteen hundreds. Who knows if he
was actually guilty of doing that or if they just
saw a black guy walking down the street and they're like,
you did it. Either way, he was the one who
volunteered to donate his body to science, and he allegedly
was brought back to life and then died again. That's
available on the feed. If you are on a paid

(52:35):
subscription level on Patreon, you can access that right now.
It's one of those cases where again I couldn't find
a ton of information, but the premise is so good,
like so wild, that I was like, I have to
do an episode, and so it becomes a Patreon episode.
It will not disappoint a promise you. I appreciate all
of you listening, and remember, if it's creepy and weird,

(52:58):
you'll find it here. Lifted at the Deep trying to
t