A woman born in Casper and raised on a ranch near Riverton, along with her young son, were among the more than 900 people who died at Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978, when self-styled pastor turned messianic figure Jim Jones infamously commanded them to drink a poisoned potion.
Wanda Shirley Swinney moved to Jones’ People's Temple compound in Guyana in August 1977, reuniting with her husband and son.
How Swinney’s life went from her Wyoming beginnings to ending with the command of a cult leader in Jonestown is a tale of family tragedy, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, a father’s introduction, and years of brainwashing from the cult’s exalted leader.
The bottom line is Swinney was devoted to Jones.
In a letter to him written in Guyana, she thanked her “precious Father” for providing their life in Guyana.
“There is no limit to what we can do if we follow your teachings and put them into practice,” she wrote. “Thank you Father for the privilege of being here with you.”
When It Came Tumbling Down
A California congressman, along with journalists, flew to the jungle community in November 1978 to check on his constituents and other Americans who were at Jones’ compound, dubbed “Jonestown."
U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan had heard that people wanted to leave, but were not allowed.
There was no heavenly outcome.
Headlines and history record 918 deaths in Guyana that included Ryan’s assassination and the murder of journalists who accompanied him at the hands of Jones’ deluded followers. Of those, 909 died by drinking the “potion."
Jones died by either self-inflicted gunshot or at the hands of an obedient assistant. Some followers slit their throats, but most of his congregants drank a cyanide-laced potion at his command.
In his now-infamous “Death Tape,” Jones tells his followers “how much” he loved them and tried to give them “the good life.”
In the nearly 45-minute speech, he characterized Ryan’s visit as a betrayal by “a handful” of sect members “who have made our life impossible.”
Ryan and his party were to fly out with some cult members and children that Jones characterized as “stolen” from Jonestown.
Jones said the actions of angry sect members at the airport to get their children back using weapons meant the only solution for the rest of the congregation was not to “commit suicide,” but to “take the potion as a revolutionary act.”
He quoted scripture “that no man takes my life from me, I lay it down” and then referred to himself as a communist.
“We can’t go back and they won’t leave us alone,” Jones said. “The best testimony we can make is to leave this (profanity) world.”
Born in Casper as Wanda Shirley Werner on Aug. 20, 1947, she was raised in the early part of her life on a ranch outside Riverton.
It was 31 years later when Wanda Shirley Swinney’s life ended when she — along with her young son — obeyed her “father” and drank Jones' “potion.”
Temple Visit
“We went to one of the meetings,” recalls Darlene Parrish, Swinney’s niece.
Darlene and her sister, Tina Parrish, of Carson, Nevada, are the closest living connection to Swinney. They are the daughters of Swinney’s older sister, Jeanie Lou Parrish. Their mother died in October 2023.
Darlene Parrish said that as a young girl, she accompanied her mother on a visit to see her sister in California.
Her mother and aunt took her to the People’s Temple in San Francisco, where Jones preached and commanded his congregation.
She doesn’t remember a lot from that visit except that in addition to Jones and his followers, there was a monkey at the service.
“Mom told us she remembers Jim Jones getting up there, talking and everything,” Darlene Parrish told Cowboy State Daily. “He said he was ‘Jesus’ and the Bible was just a bunch of lies about him.
"She said he took the Bible and stomped on it.”
Tina Parrish was 9 months old when her aunt took her life, but she heard the story about the temple visit several times while growing up.
“That was a big story in our family,” she said.
Wanda Shirley Werner was born to Chelsea Guy Werner and Jean Evelyn Werner, the youngest of siblings that including Leonard, Jeanie Lou, and Chelsea Jr.
The Parrish sisters said their mother was born in Missouri and the family moved to Wyoming where their grandfather and grandmother eventually ranched a few years after her birth.
They believe their grandmother also was possible a teacher for a time.
Mother’s Death
A Casper Star-Tribune article on March 17, 1958, recorded their grandmother’s death.
“Mrs. Jean Evelyn Werner, former Casper resident, died suddenly in a Riverton hospital according to word received here today,” the newspaper reported. “She was 43 years old. Mrs. Werner was born in Huntsville, Missouri. She lived in Casper from 1946 to 1949.”
Darlene Parrish said her mother was 15 at the time of her grandmother’s death and became a surrogate mom for Wanda and Chelsea Jr.
The Parrish sisters said one story their mother told about Wanda involved her as a young girl playing on a stump and disturbing a nearby beehive.
The bees swarmed on Wanda and their mom, Jeanie, had to quickly run and grab the girl and pull her away, swiping bees off as the girls tried to escape.
After their grandmother’s death, their grandfather got a job driving trucks over the road and went through a succession of wives.
The Parrish sisters said they did not know their grandfather well and visited him once after he moved to Grants Pass, Oregon.
Their mother’s life stayed centered in Wyoming and they don’t know why Wanda and their grandfather ended up in California.
But the Richmond Independent newspaper listed Wanda Shirley Werner as among the 751 graduates of Richmond High School on June 15, 1965. Richmond is in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Three years later on March 27, 1968, Wanda Werner’s photo is in the same newspaper as a graduate of U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.
But her military career was cut short by an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and birth of a biracial son, Darren Eugene Werner.
Darren was born on Sept. 8, 1968, in Oakland, California.
The Parrish sisters say that it was the stigma at that time associated with having biracial baby that led to Wanda Werner’s involvement with the People’s Temple.
Headlines across California and the country informed readers about the unfolding tragedy and the People’s Temple cult after the mass murder and suicide. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
A photo showing bodies from the mass murder and suicide at the People’s Temple cult in Jonestown was published in the Santa Barbara News Press on Nov. 26, 1978. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
The San Francisco Chronicle covered Rep. Leo Ryan’s body being brought home after his murder in Guyana. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
Headlines across California and the country informed readers about the unfolding tragedy and the People’s Temple cult after the mass murder and suicide. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
Newspaper front pages, including the San Francisco Chronicle, covered the Guyana tragedy as it unfolded. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
The Sacramento Union newspaper in December 1978 ran a series on the People’s Temple and Jim Jones. (Courtesy Newspapers.com)
An Introduction
“It was my grandfather who kind of got her in it not knowing what it was at the time, of course,” Tina Parrish said. “He was driving truck with a member of the People’s Temple and they also had a mixed-race child.”
She said her grandfather thought that Wanda would find more acceptance with those people as friends. That introduction likely took place in late 1968 or 1969.
At the People’s Temple, Wanda Werner, then 22, married Timothy Swinney, 32, in 1970, after he had divorced his first wife.
Swinney was considered a “pioneer” at the People’s Temple because his parents and family followed Jones from their home in Indiana as Jones moved from that state to California.
The Ukiah Daily Journal on Oct. 21, 1970, listed Wanda Swinney as the secretary of the Ukiah Area Council that met at the First Methodist Church. The group’s order of business was to make preparations for food baskets for people for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
San Diego State University, which hosts a website that contains information about Jonestown, and the People’s Temple lists Wanda Swinney as moving to Guyana on Aug. 10, 1977.
Her husband had gone there on March 18, 1974, and it lists her son, Darren Swinney, as entering the country on Nov. 24, 1975.
Prior to Guyana, Wanda Swinney worked as a bus driver, accounting clerk, and had skills in animal husbandry, farming and cooking, the website states.
Darlene Parrish recalls one thing her mother talked about was that as girls on the ranch in Wyoming, both she and Wanda enjoyed horses and horseback riding.
In Guyana, Wanda lived in a separate residence from her husband and was listed as being in charge of the livestock, the “piggery,” and large animals.
Although Wanda Werner was patriotic enough to join the Marines during the Vietnam War, undated letters from her to Jim Jones reflect she believed Jones' Marxist anti-American messages and preaching that came out of his pulpit in the years leading up to the Jonestown event.
Darren Swinney was the son of Wanda Werner and adopted by Timothy Swinney. (Courtesy Find A Grave) 
Wanda Werner spent much of her younger life in Wyoming. (Courtesy Tina Parrish) 
Followers gather around the Rev. Jim Jones, left. This photograph is a reproduction of one of the undated color photographs in a photo album, found among the dead in the Jonestown commune in Guyana after the mass suicide in 1978. (Getty Images) 
An FBI file document includes and interview with a former member about punishment at the People’s Temple. (Courtesy FBI)
Brainwashing
A massive FBI file created after the Nov. 18, 1978, mass murder and suicide includes a Nov. 21, 1978, message from the Omaha, Nebraska, office to the San Francisco office that contained an interview with a woman who joined the People’s Temple with her then-husband in Los Angeles.
They were told to move to Ukiah, California.
“(The woman) advised although the group on the surface appeared to be a religious group, it was actually politically oriented and Jim Jones professed a political philosophy adhering to the teachings of Marx and Lenin,” the FBI memo states.
“All members of the group had to attend closed instructional meetings two or three days a week, each last several hours,” it continues.
Swinney’s letters to Jones were written while she was in Guyana. She wrote her “Father” that among the reasons she left the United States “were because it is a capitalistic nation and we are Socialists and trying to learn more of Socialism.”
Swinney wrote that the U.S. economy was not going to “exist much longer,” according to an economist, and that the nation was quickly approaching a day of “race war.”
She foresaw a time when the “fascist government” would round up people and put them in ghettos and concentration camps that were already prepared.
“It is a known fact that train box cars are strategically located, just waiting for the signal for when people will be herded like animals into these camps,” Swinney wrote. “Nuclear war is a constant threat also and here in Socialist Guyana we are safe from the radiation fallout if war does break out.”
'Precious Father'
Tina Parrish said because of her aunt’s involvement in Guyana, while in college she did a research paper on Jonestown and the People’s Temple. But she was unaware then of her aunt’s letters to Jones.
When told about the content, Tina Parrish said one thing was clear.
“I don’t think she would have gotten that from Wyoming or from her dad,” she said.
Darlene Parrish remembers the day her grandfather called her mother with the news of Wanda Swinney’s death.
“I felt bad for her. I didn’t know exactly what was going on. She got off the phone and she was just sobbing,” she said. “Mom said later on that he (Chelsea Werner Sr.) decided because it was such a mess out there that instead of bringing her home, he would just have her buried with the people there.”
Records from the San Diego State University website show that the remains of Wanda and Darren Swinney were eventually brought back to Oakland, California, and buried in Evergreen Cemetery.
“Next of kin could not be located,” the file states. “Buried by receiver on June 19, 1979.”
Wanda’s Son
A remembrance by Don Beck, a People’s Temple member who directed the children’s choir while Jones remained in Redwood Valley, California, characterized Darren Swinney as a boy who in second grade struggled until Beck directed the youngster to report to him each day on his way home regarding his performance.
“Darren was like many of our kids. They needed more of our attention, consistently,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, we were often too busy to give the extra attention our kids needed.
"This was one reason we wanted to build a community.”
While both Parrish sisters never knew their aunt or their young cousin who was a year older than Darlene, they still feel the ties and loss that a blood relation brings.
Darlene Parrish said people who make flippant remarks about happened in Guyana are not thinking about those who were left behind.
“Our family, it hit us pretty hard,” she said. "And none of us like the jokes that people make about 'drinking the Kool-Aid.' It’s ridiculous.
"think about (the fact) that there are family and friends who are still alive that knew those people and were affected by it a lot.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
