November 25, 1978, The Victoria Advocate (L.A. Times-WaPo News Service) page 1A, Guyana Count Nearing 800, by Leonard Downie Jr.,

November 25, 1978, The Victoria Advocate (L.A. Times-WaPo News Service) page 1A, Guyana Count Nearing 800, by Leonard Downie Jr., [Continued page 12A: Body Count Error Reported]

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- U.S. military personnel, finding "smaller bodies under larger bodies and children under those," discovered Friday that "as many as 780" Americans died in Jonestown last Saturday when cult leader Jim Jones led them to commit suicide.

A week-old estimate of just under 400 bodies, apparently based only on a rough count made by the Guyanese authorities, who were the first to reach the death scene last weekend and did not move the bodies, was "found to be seriously in error" Friday, according to a U.S. spokesman, when military personnel packing the dead in plastic bags neared 400 and realized there were many more to go.

"The way all this happened was that nobody (in the U.S. military task force) stopped to count" when they reached Jonestown early this week, said another U.S. official. "But as they bagged the bodies, they noticed the pile wasn't going down."

"We simply began to discover more and more and more bodies," said Air Force Capt. Don J. Moscatelli, spokesman for the U.S. Military rescue task force here.

"Under adults we found smaller adults and children, and more small babies than anticipated."

Most of the previously overlooked bodies were found at the bottom of what turned out to be a three and four deep pile off to the side of the open-air pavilion from which Jones supervised the distribution of the poisoned Kool-Aid to followers herded around him by encircled armed guards. Jones himself was later found shot to death on the alter at the front of the pavilion.

Friday's unexpected discovery was a swift, shocking blow to both U.S. authorities and relatives of Peoples Temple church members that both doubled the death toll at Jonestown and snuffed out hope that many more survivors might be found.

"You don't know whether to be relieved or horrified," said U.S. Consul Douglas Ellis who has been the liaison between the embassy here and the 32 known survivors of Jonestown as well as relatives seeking to discover whether their loved ones are dead or alive. "It appears that there may not be anybody to search and rescue."

All week long, officials had agonized over the mystery of what had happened to several hundred Jonestown residents apparently not counted in the original estimate of about 400 dead. U.S. military helicopters were scheduled to begin flying over the dense rain forest surrounding Jonestown and broadcast loudspeaker appeals to any survivors who might have fled there.

Now, however, the numbers that had been in contention here all week appeared to be adding up.

The Guyanese government said Friday that its records showed 950 Peoples Temple church members had entered Guyana since the Jonestown agricultural commune was founded five years ago.

Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy Friday examined and photocopied 803 U.S. passports the Guyanese authorities had recovered in Jonestown. The copies will be sent to Washington for a determination of now many persons they cover. That number could be more than 800 because some children may have traveled on parents' passports, and others have been born in Jonestown. Markers in a small cemetery found at Jonestown indicate that only about 10 residents died there before last weekend.

Against that evidence are these numbers:

-- "As many as 780 bodies" counted in Jonestown by Friday afternoon.

--Four other Peoples Temple church members inside the Georgetown headquarters Saturday night, and one defector from the commune who was shot to death along with Rep. Leo J. yan, D-Calif., and three newsmen after they left Jonestown earlier Saturday.

--Thirty-two other Jonestown residents who escaped Saturday's violence, some of whom left with Congressman Ryan's group and survived the ambush at the Port Kaituma landing strip near Jonestown, and others who slipped out of Jonestown before and during the forced mass suicide.

--Forty-six other Peoples Temple church members still under armed guard and house arrest inside the Georgetown headquarters house.

They include Jim Jones' son and top lieutenant, Steve Jones, and other members of the Jonestown basketball team, which was in Georgetown playing the Guyanese national team last weekend during Congressman Ryan's visit to Jonestown.

According to Guyanese police sources, some cult members now in that house are being investigated for the murder of People's Temple member and house resident Sharon Amos Harris and her three children, who were found in the Georgetown house Saturday night with their throats slashed. Survivors from Jonestown have told authorities that members of the basketball team were trained sharp-shooting security guards who practiced with firearms in the forest around Jonestown.

-- Four other Jonestown residents found aboard the cult's coastal freighter, the Albatross, when it landed in Trinidad this week after leaving Guyana well before last weekend's violence. Those four are being temporarily held by Trinidad authorities, who are in communication with Guyana.

-- Two or three more Jonestown residents reportedly found by a Guyana defense force patrol boat aboard the cult's fishing boat, the Cudjoe, three days ago just 20 miles north of its Port Kaituma dock. They are being questioned by police here. A third boat used by the Jonestown commune, named the Marcellene after Jim Jones' wife, is still missing.

These numbers make a total of between 850 and 900 Peoples Temple church members now accounted for in Guyana.

The only remaining live lead on more possible survivors from Jonestown is a report from a Venezuelan government agent that the pilot of a Venezuelan military plane patrolling its disputed border with Guyana saw what appeared to be 30 or 40 people heading west toward the border from the rain forest around Jonestown and Port Kaituma. Guyanese government spokesmen denied knowledge of such a report.

Meanwhile, the grim airlift of bodies from Jonestown continued at a brisk pace Friday. By mid-day 485 bodies had been taken during the past three days in plastic body bags by helicopter from Jonestown to Timehri International Airport, where they were transferred to aluminum holding coffins and put into military cargo planes bound for the U.S. air force base in Dover, Del.

Friday afternoon, the government of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham made his first public report to the Guyanese people about the Jonestown affair. Deputy Prime Minister Ptolemy Reid delivered the report in a 15-minute statement to Parliament, that was broadcast across the country by the Guyanese Broadcasting Service radio. 

Reid's address, in the crowded House chamber of the 150-year-old pink and white neoclassical Parliament was essentially a chronological listing of the steps his government took at Jonestown after the violence occurred. Nothing not already known was revealed.

Reid, a large black man with a full grey beard, who, like the 53 members of the House and observers and members of the press, wore an open-necked shirt and no coat in the tropical heat, also stated his nation's "deep regret and sympathy" to the American people for the tragedy that occurred at Jonestown.

He pointedly indicated throughout his statement that h believed his government acted as quickly as possible at every stage of the emergency.

For example, he said that after the ambush of Congressman Ryan's party at the Port Kaituma airstrip, "one of the more seriously injured persons was conveyed that very evening to the hospital in Georgetown where a medical team was on standby and the injured person received immediate attention. Others were flown out the following day."

Later, he pointed out that, after the first report was received of a possible mass murder or suicide at Jonestown, the Guyana defense force mobilized troops as quickly as possible at Matthews Ridge, 20 miles away, and "moved by foot and train to Port Kaituma and then to Jonestown Sunday on foot.

"It should be noted that all this was done under very adverse conditions," Reid told Parliament, explaining that the terrain was very rough and rain was falling heavily.

Reid ended his address by saying that he wished to "reiterate our deepest sympathy to all who are grieving. We mourn with all of them."

After finishing, Reid strode hurriedly off the House floor, pushing his way through reporters and bystanders. He was chased by catcalls from members of the opposition Peoples Progressive Party, whose acting leader tried to insist that Reid answer questions as is frequently parliamentary procedure.

When the speaker of the House ruled that, for technical reasons, the Jonestown matter could not be discussed on the floor, cries of "Shame, shame," and "cover up" rang out.

Some members of the opposition party and its newspaper here have raised questions about the apparently close relationship between Ptolemy Reid in particular and the Burnham government generally with Jim Jones.