Leo Ryan’s success in exposing Jones was no accident. The son of two journalists, the 53-year-old congressman had developed a rare expertise in investigating prisons.

Speier along with Ryan, a handful of journalists and concerned family members of Jones' followers flew to Guyana in Nov. 1978. The mass murder-suicide of more than 900 congregants that followed ...

Jackie Speier, an aide to Rep. Leo Ryan, is taken from a plane at Georgetown, Guyana, on Nov. 19, 1978, after its arrival from Jonestown, where Speier was shot five times and Ryan and four others ...

Congressman Leo Ryan went to Guyana in 1978 to investigate reports of American cult leader Jim Jones holding hundreds of his followers captive. Ryan didn't make it out of Jonestown alive.

Speier was then a 28-year-old congressional staffer on a fact-finding mission with her boss, California Rep. Leo Ryan, at the People's Temple compound of cult leader Jim Jones.

Leo Joseph Ryan Jr. (May 5, 1925 – November 18, 1978) was an American teacher and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. representative from California's 11th ...

Leo Ryan's Heroism at Jonestown. Mark Stricherz, RealClearPolitics November 22, 2023. AP. Forty-five years later, what happened in Guyana, South America, is still shocking.