When I first reached out to Leslie, she seemed reluctant to do yet another interview. People call her from all over the world—a Swedish talk show was the latest supplicant—to ask her to recount one of the most traumatic times of her life. But when we met at a bar near her home in Phoenix, Arizona, she spoke candidly and with occasional humor about life as one of the few people to ever exit this notorious sect.

Some victims of trauma have concerns about people getting too physically close, so when we sat down I asked if I could scoot toward her for the benefit of my voice recorder. “Come on!” she said, beckoning me to slide across the booth. After Jonestown, where adults shared large, communal outhouses, she said she doesn’t have many personal-space boundaries.

Leslie is in her early sixties, is African American, and has high-arching brows that make her look like she’s just made a really good point. When she was thirteen, her mother joined the Peoples Temple, as Jim Jones’s group was called, because she thought it would be good for Leslie’s sister, Michelle, who had gotten involved with drugs. Throughout her teens, Leslie was proud to be part of an organization that was supposedly helping the world by spreading socialism and fighting racism. She wanted to be a revolutionary. The church provided a strong community, which was enveloping and comfortable and made you feel worthwhile. Whenever doubts crossed her mind, Leslie thought she was the only one questioning it. And, it’s worth remembering, Leslie was twenty when she lived in Jonestown—the age at which many people join sororities and fraternities in a quest for identity. She compares the lure of a cult to the toxic embrace of an abusive relationship. “Maybe if I do better, I’ll feel better about it. If I’m not doubting, not thinking about myself, maybe this will pass,” she explained.

“Of course,” she added, “it never did.”

Leslie calls Jones “a brilliant monster.” After sprouting branches in Los Angeles, the Redwood Valley, and San Francisco, Jones and the Peoples Temple came under scrutiny in the media. It became obvious that the “healings” Jones staged were fakes, performed with the aid of chicken gizzards,272 which he told Temple members were cancerous lumps. Jones announced a plan to start a settlement in Guyana, a country on the north coast of South America. He told his followers that in the jungle, they would finally live a utopian existence free of racism and capitalism. Fictitious promotional videos filled with picturesque scenes helped seal the deal.

By that point, Leslie was already beginning to see through him. Jones, who insisted that Temple members avoid nice clothing and jewelry, at one point informed his flock that he needed a Mercedes for protection. It struck Leslie as far-fetched that a man who cast himself as an all-powerful “Father” would need a luxury car to guard him.