Portal:Indiana/Selected biography/11

James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was the American founder of the Peoples Temple group, which committed mass suicide on November 18, 1978. Jones was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head among the 913 corpses there. Jim Jones was born to James and Lynetta Thurman Jones and graduated from high school at Richmond High School in Richmond, Indiana. He became a preacher in the 1950s. He obtained a bachelors degree at Butler University in 1961, and after graduate school from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, Jim sold pet monkeys door-to-door to raise money to fund his own church, Wings of Deliverance.