The State - News from May 1, 1987

Convicted Peoples Temple gunman Larry Layton, seeking a new trial, told a federal judge in San Francisco he is now willing to talk about his part in the cult’s jungle ambush that killed Rep. Leo Ryan (D-San Mateo). Convicted Dec. 1 of all four counts of federal conspiracy charges and sentenced to the mandatory life term, Layton, 41, was made eligible for parole in five years, less one year for time he has previously spent in prison. But Layton criticized his lawyers’ failure to put on an insanity defense. Despite his lawyers’ testimony that he strongly opposed a psychiatric defense because he feared his testimony would lead to disclosures that he engaged in sex with cult leader Jim Jones, Layton told U.S. District Judge Robert Peckham he would have preferred to “put all the chips on the table, so to speak, and let the jury decide.”