Nearly 5 decades after Jonestown, attorney Tim Stoen reflects on loss and the power of a second chance
BY California Stories – Giselle Fernandez
PUBLISHED 5:00 AM PT Oct. 05, 2026
Nearly half a century after the horrors of Jonestown, Tim Stoen is confronting the most painful chapter of his life in a new memoir, “My War with the Devil of Jonestown.”
A Stanford graduate and former San Francisco deputy district attorney, Stoen says he was drawn to Jim Jones and the People’s Temple by what he believed was a movement devoted to racial, economic and social equality.
On “California Stories with Giselle Fernandez,” he shares how he eventually became Jones’ pro bono attorney and spent seven years helping build what he says he believed could be a more just society.
“I wanted to give myself to something that was bigger than myself,” he said.
That idealism ultimately came at an unimaginable cost.
Stoen’s 6-year-old son, John Victor, died in Jonestown along with 917 others in 1978, after Stoen had already turned against Jones and fought to get his son back.
In the aftermath, Stoen says he was consumed by both grief and guilt over his role in protecting Jones for so many years.
He later returned to the courtroom, where he continued representing people on the margins and working to reconcile his past with a belief in redemption.
“I’ve made these huge mistakes,” he said. “But… God loves me. I just own up to it.”
Today, Stoen says the lessons of Jonestown remain relevant, warning against authoritarianism, extremism, ideological fervor and the demonization of those viewed as outsiders.
His message is also deeply personal: people can make devastating mistakes, acknowledge them and still find a path forward.
For Stoen, that path has been shaped by faith, family, service and what he describes as the possibility of a second chance.
“One thing about this country that is so great is that there’s a magnanimity built into it,” he said. “It’s the country of the second chance. So I love this country.”