michael prokes was a television reporter in modesto, california, on the day in 1972 when he cracked open the phone book to dial jim jones at his house in redwood valley. jones had been a methodist reverend in indiana, where for ten years he’d led an increasingly areligious social group he called the peoples temple, bringing together underrepresented minorities with the promise of actualisation through socialism. in 1965 he’d picked up the group’s 140 or so members and moved them to redwood valley, a few hours north of the bay, and by the time michael prokes picked up the phone, jones had become a figure of note, with a few thousand followers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds, and new branches open in san francisco and los angeles. in september of 1972, les kinsolving, on the religion beat for the san francisco examiner, had published a 4-part series on jones and his group, and prokes thought there might be a story for him in the growing power of this pastor who preached empowerment in tumultuous times.

someone else may have been on the line for that call, as well. prokes wrote that he was contacted days later by a man claiming to work for the government, who offered prokes $200 a week (or around $1k/week now) to infiltrate the temple as a staff member and file reports. prokes gained an audience with jones and sensed a more interesting story than just a one-off for the nightly news; if he poked around, he might glean enough for a book or a screenplay, so with what he claimed was the utmost of skepticism, michael prokes quit his job and became a government informer working full-time for the peoples temple in san francisco.

years later, prokes wrote confessionals that detailed the erosion of this skepticism. however jones might have conducted himself and his people, his message was one of self-empowerment: the dispossessed could make their lives better themselves, by forming communities that supported each other heavily. jones, prokes felt, was not content to lead this community, but also felt the responsibilities of a member, offering genuine kindness and care for the elderly, the poor – even animals – both publicly and in private. he was legit, prokes wrote, and his message was right. weighed down by the moral responsibility he felt, prokes maintained that he quit his work as an informant and stayed on as a convert of the peoples temple.

he rose to prominence within the organisation, drawing upon his experience and connections to function as the peoples temple’s media advisor and press liaison. prokes developed relationships with san francisco assemblyman (later mayor) willie brown and mayoral candidate george moscone; temple support of moscone helped win the election, and the new mayor rewarded jim jones with a seat as chairman of the san francisco housing authority commission. prokes was in many cases the temple’s affable public face, and helped jones develop the group into a political force. prokes also grew more personally integrated with the group: in late 1974, he had married jones’s mistress, carolyn layton, perhaps to legitimise her son with jones, jim jon, who was born in january 1975; and as jones devoted more time to developing the temple’s agricultural commune in northwestern guyana, prokes made repeated trips to help out, moving to jonestown full-time by august 1977.

on november 18, after congressman leo ryan and three journalists were killed investigating jonestown, prokes, along with brothers tim and mike carter, was given a suitcase containing almost $700k in cash as well as transfer information for bank accounts containing over $7mm; he was ordered by senior temple administrator maria katsaris, on behalf of jones, to deliver the money to the communist party of the soviet union via their embassy in nearby georgetown. as they scrambled through the jungle, over 900 residents of jonestown committed suicide. prokes and the carters were arrested by guyana police before they could make it to georgetown, recorded in the annals of history among the few survivors of a great american tragedy.

it took about four months to prepare the materials. in march of 1979, prokes was back in modesto, using what remained of his contacts to muster a press conference; only eight reporters visited him at his room in modesto’s motel 6, but they nonetheless crowded the small space. he distributed a packet of information, and read a statement roughly half an hour in length that argued that evidence would ultimately exonerate jones, that history would show that every person at jonestown chose to go to their deaths, that death was the only road left to someone committed to thinking, feeling socialism. michael prokes then excused himself, walked into the motel room’s bathroom, closed the door, turned on the faucet, and shot himself in the head with a smith & wesson .38. “it’s just a legacy of death,” he had told reporters. he was 32.

prokes wrote this note to san francisco chronicle columnist herb caen days before his suicide, which caen reprinted in the paper:

“the ‘total dedication’ you once observed of me was not to jim jones – it was to an organization of people who had nothing left to lose. no matter what view one takes of the temple, perhaps the most relevant truth is that it was filled with outcasts and the poor who were looking for something they could not find in our society.

“and sadly enough, there are millions more out there with all kinds of different, but desperate needs whose lives will end tragically, as happens every day. no matter how you cut it, you just can’t separate jonestown from america, because the peoples temple was not born in a vacuum, and despite the attempt to isolate it, neither did it end in one.”

(i was researching harvey milk’s relationship with the peoples temple when i came across some info on michael prokes and was riveted. i wanted to tell his story, but i feel i must add a caveat: this is not meant as an endorsement or a condemnation of jones, the peoples temple, or anything related.)