Maria Katsaris

Maria S. Katsaris (June 9, 1953 – November 18, 1978) was a member of the Peoples Temple cult led by Jim Jones. She is known for being one of the most high-ranking figures in Temple leadership and one of Jim Jones' lovers.

Background Katsaris was born in 1953 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania into a middle-class Greek Orthodox family. According to her father Steven, Katsaris became "emotionally confused" during the 1960s due to political changes in the United States. She worked as a teacher's aide at Trinity School in Ukiah, where her father also worked, and attended the College of the Redwoods and Sonoma State University

Peoples Temple role Katsaris began her tenure in the Peoples Temple by helping with letter-writing campaigns, rising through the ranks to take on a major role in the organization's Planning Commission. She moved to Guyana, where the Temple had established its Jonestown settlement, in June 1977. Her father Steven stated his belief that Katsaris was one of the three most powerful people in the organization. It was reported that John Victor addressed Katsaris as "mother".

Like other high-ranking Peoples Temple women such as Carolyn Layton, Grace Stoen and Teri Buford, Katsaris was sexually involved with Jim Jones.

Events at Jonestown Katsaris' father Steven was the chief organizer of the Concerned Relatives, a group of family members and Temple defectors who believed Temple members in Jonestown were being held against their will, and whose pressure prompted Congressman Leo Ryan to investigate the settlement in person. Katsaris' 23-year-old brother Anthony traveled to Jonestown on November 17, 1978, with Ryan, other Jonestown relatives and a news team, while Steven stayed behind in Guyana's capital, Georgetown.

On November 18, Leo Ryan left Jonestown with his entourage, including Anthony, and several defectors. Jim Jones sent Temple gunmen to ambush them at the Port Kaituma airstrip, killing Ryan and four others and wounding Anthony. Later that day, Jones called all Temple members in Jonestown to the pavilion to commit suicide. Katsaris and Jones' other aides prepared a large metal tub with poisoned Flavor Aid for that purpose.

Before the mass murder, Temple members Tim Carter, his brother Mike Carter, and Mike Prokes were given luggage by Katsaris containing $550,000 in US currency, $130,000 in Guyanese currency, and an envelope, which they were told to deliver to the Soviet Union embassy in Georgetown. Katsaris also reportedly arranged for money to be transferred from accounts in Swiss banks in Panama to the Soviet Union.

Katsaris was a signed witness to the last will and testament of Jim Jones' wife, Marceline, as well as Carolyn Layton.

An audio recording, known as the Peoples Temple "Death Tape", documents events leading up to, and a portion of, the mass suicide. On the tape (@-18:00), as the adults are giving the poisoned Flavor Aid to their children, a woman tells the crowd to keep calm, and infamously says that the children are "not crying from pain. It’s just a little bitter tasting". This woman is widely believed to be Maria Katsaris.

Death and legacy Katsaris died on the night of November 18 along with over 900 other Jonestown residents, though unlike the vast majority of victims, she died in Jim Jones' cabin. The cause of death was assessed as probable cyanide poisoning. A coroner's jury in Guyana ruled that of the victims of Jonestown, only Katsaris and Anne Moore, another of Jones' mistresses, had committed suicide of their own free will.

Katsaris is buried in Potter Valley, California.