Jim Jones was an American cult leader and mass murderer who founded and led the Peoples Temple between 1955 and 1978. In what Jones termed "revolutionary suicide", Jones and the members of his inner circle planned and orchestrated a mass murder-suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.

As a child Jim Jones was entranced with two things - Pentecostal preachers and Communism. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."

AND SO HE DID.

He began his religious career in 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, where he launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor.

He felt called to the pomp and circumstance of the Pentecostal movement. There was something about the attention that he just could not get enough of... that would lead him to start his own Church, The Peoples Temple.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton was born on October 5, 1946. He was as Appalachian as you can get. The accent was off the charts and he had moonshine in his blood.

Legend says that he only lit one cigarette in this life, the rest lit by the other cigs he was smoking. He was a moonshiner, a boot-legger and an outlaw.

LINK TO FILM COMPOSER STEVE'S GOFUNDME: https://gofund.me/51ad26ed

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rachael and Greg are back in Indiana on a late holiday visit and after hearing tall tales of the trade we decided to welcome, Rachael's very own Father In-Law - Mike Hunter onto the podcast to tell us about some of the scariest moments he experienced as a High Voltage electrician during his 37 year career.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Part Two of Vanessa's story.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Family friend of our host, Vanessa Paven, is like a second sister to Rachael so when her life was turned upside down by love bombs, gaslighting and a disappearing act - we had to know more... this is only part one.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Silver screen starlet, Lana Turner's last love affair ended with her own daughter killing her mobster boyfriend - but it wasn't the first time murder had hit close to home for Lana.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we left off last week, we had learned about The Dating Game contestant Rodney Alcala’s assault of 8-year-old Tali and his first murder victim in NYC (at least, the first that we know of).

We also reveled in the fact that a couple of his school-aged campers recognized his photo on the FBI Most Wanted list hanging in the Post Office near their New Hampshire camp (and yes, he changed his name to John Berger and worked at a camp for young girls after the assault on Tali and the alleged first NYC Killing). And just to recap, at this point in this confusing back and forth timeline, he is now a registered sex offender is about to land a job working for the LA Times, despite that registered sex offender status and finding himself in jail a couple times before appearing on The Dating Game show in 1978.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Dating Game once had a serial killer as a contestant.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.