Criminal Minds Season 1 Episode 10

Spencer Reid mentions Jim Jones and The Peoples' Temple in Guyana as an example of a killer cult. Jonestown was supposed to be a peaceful, self-sufficient agricultural community. In reality, Jim Jones ruled his followers with an iron fist, sexually abused children and forced people to do slave labor. He also made his followers rehearse mass suicide. On November 18, 1978, it wasn't a rehearsal. Congressman Leo Ryan and four members of his delegation came to investigate Jonestown and were murdered. Jim Jones didn't want anyone else to investigate him, so he ordered hundreds of his followers to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. This is often described as a mass suicide, but it was actually a murder-suicide. Many of the victims were babies and small children who were given the poison by force.