March 4, 1987, The Washington Post, Layton Receives Life Sentence for Jonestown Attack,

March 4, 1987, The Washington Post, Layton Receives Life Sentence for Jonestown Attack, 322 words

Larry Layton, expressing "tremendous grief and remorse," was sentenced to life in prison for his part in the 1978 Peoples Temple attack in Jonestown, Guyana, on a congressional investigating party in which Rep. Leo Ryan (D-Calif.) was killed.

Layton, 40, a former member of the cult led by the Rev. Jim Jones, also was sentenced to three 15-year terms for related counts but was declared eligible for parole in four years.

"A just sentence requires consideration of the environment at Jonestown in which he and others were virtual prisoners," U.S. District Court Judge Robert Peckham said.

Peckham said he received 60 letters pleading for leniency, including four from jurors and several from prosecution witnesses, including one whose five children died at the Peoples Temple settlement where Jones led 912 followers in a mass suicide and murder binge.

Ryan, a Democratic House member from California, was killed along with three newsmen and a cult defector in November 1978 during an inspection tour of the cult compound by Ryan. Immediately afterward, Jones and his followers died by drinking a cyanide-spiked soft drink.