Jeannie Mills (née Gustafson; July 2, 1939 – February 27, 1980),[1] formerly Deanna Mertle, was an early defector from the Peoples Temple organization headed by Jim Jones. With her husband and Elmer Mertle, she co-founded the Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple Members organization[2] in 1977. Mills was murdered in 1980 along with her husband and one of her daughters, in a killing which remains unsolved. It has been suggested by author and Jonestown researcher Michael Meiers that Jeannie and her family were executed by the Central Intelligence Agency along with George Moscone, Harvey Milk and a number of other former associates of Jim Jones due to their knowledge of Jones' relationship with the CIA. This contention is supported by the purchase of the rights to her book "Six Years With God" by an obscure, newly formed publishing company that took it out of print almost immediately, then simply ceased to exist.[3][4]

Background

Jeannie Mills, her husband Al, and her children joined the Peoples Temple in 1969. As Deanna and Elmer Mertle, Jeannie served as head of the Temple's publications office while Al was the official photographer.[5] The couple left the Temple with their five children in 1974 after Jones beat their daughter Linda seventy times with a paddle for a minor infraction. The family legally changed their names to void the power of attorney they had earlier given Jones.[6]

After her defection, Mills published a memoir, Six Years with God: Life inside Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple, and established the Berkeley Human Freedom Center with her husband. She later co-founded the Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple Members, a support group for Temple defectors and their families. The Concerned Relatives eventually persuaded U.S. Representative Leo Ryan to undertake a fact-finding mission to the Temple's Jonestown settlement in Guyana, which ultimately led to Ryan's murder and the mass murder-suicide at Jonestown on November 18, 1978. After the killings, the Mills family initially holed up with other defectors in the protective custody of a police SWAT team, but eventually decided to resume normal life.

Murder

Mills, along with her husband Al and their 15-year-old daughter Daphene, were murdered execution-style inside their home in Berkeley, California, on February 26, 1980,[7][8] just over a year after the Jonestown massacre.[1][9] Their 17-year-old son Eddie was home at the time, but was left unharmed.[10] There was no forced entry, and burglary was quickly ruled out as a motive.[6] Eddie claimed he was unaware that the killings had taken place, even though police found gunshot residue on his hands.[11]

The Mills murders raised the fear that Temple "hit squads" – former members out to "avenge" the Jonestown deaths – were involved. The theory was never substantiated. With no leads, the investigation was eventually shelved and the case went cold. In 2005, police re-interviewed several surviving members of the Mills family. On December 3, 2005, 43-year-old Eddie Mills was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after returning to the U.S. for the first time in several years. However, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office declined to file charges, citing a lack of evidence.[12] Eddie Mills returned to Japan, where he lives with his wife and two children.[10] The Mills murders remain unsolved.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Loren L Coleman, The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines. Simon and Schuster, 2004, p. 71. Author identifies the couple as Elmer and Deanna Mertle.[ISBN missing]
  2. ^ "A Story of Deprogramming – Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple".
  3. ^ Mills, Jeannie (1979). Six years with God: life inside Reverend Jim Jones's Peoples Temple. New York: A & W Publishers. ISBN 978-0-89479-046-1.
  4. ^ Meiers, Michael (2013). "Chapter 14: Sanctioned Assassinations". Second Holocaust: How the AIDS Epidemic Was Created in a CIA Black Operation. Dog Ear Publishing. pp. 133–139. ISBN 978-1-4575-2503-2. The CIA needed to know what the Mertles or now the "Mills" knew, so they looked to their closest asset for an answer. Tim Stoen suggested that Jeannie write a book. Stoen took care of everything. He found Jeannie an agent, a publisher, and a rather generous $30,000 advance on royalties. She used the money to buy a Mercedes Benz. Jeannie Mills told everything she knew about Jones in her book, entitled Six Years With God, but she had no control over its publication. Stoen had arranged for the copyright to be held by an untraceable group called MBR investments, who edited Jeannie's text that was published by A&W Publishing. There was only one press run. MBR investments and A&W Publishing immediately declared bankruptcy. Thirty days after publication, an unknown assassin entered the Mills home and shot Al, Jeannie, and their daughter, once in the head, execution style. All of the murders in the US were professional hits; one small caliber bullet to the head, no misses, no struggle, nothing taken, no evidence left, no one charged; all unsolved.
  5. ^ Eric W. Hickey, Encyclopedia of murder and violent crime. SAGE, 2003, p. 109.
  6. ^ a b The Mills Family Murders: Could It Be Jim Jones' Last Revenge?, People Magazine, Clare Crawford-Mason and Nancy Faber, March 17, 1980
  7. ^ "Hit Squad? Temple Defectors Slain". The Press Democrat. February 27, 1980. p. 1. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  8. ^ "Hit Squad? Temple Defectors Slain". The Press Democrat. February 27, 1980. p. 12. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  9. ^ Locke, Michelle (December 9, 2005). "No charges filed against son in 1980 murders". Associated Press.
  10. ^ a b "Who murdered Al and Jeannie Mills?". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple. August 2, 2016. Retrieved June 10, 2019 – via San Diego State University.
  11. ^ Ex-Berkeley man held in family slayings, SFgate.com, Henry K. Lee, December 7, 2005
  12. ^ Retired officer works old cases – to no avail, San Francisco Chronicle, Henry K. Lee, December 10, 2005
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