Psychiatrist found accused Oakland college shooter mentally ill

OAKLAND (Reuters) – A former nursing student charged with killing seven people at a Christian college in Oakland this year has been found by a psychiatrist to suffer from schizophrenia and unfit to stand trial, his lawyer told a judge on Monday.

One Goh, 44, is charged in Alameda County Superior Court with seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in the April 2 shooting spree at Oikos University, where he once attended nursing school. He has pleaded not guilty.

The shooting spree was the deadliest at an American college since 2007, when a Virginia Tech University student killed 32 people and wounded 25.

Deputy Public Defender David Klaus said at a hearing in Alameda County Superior Court that a court-ordered psychiatric report concluded that Goh was “presently incompetent to stand trial due to his longstanding paranoid schizophrenia.”

A hearing on Goh’s competency was postponed until January 7 because a second psychiatrist, who the court also ordered to issue a report, was unable to interview the Korean-born defendant until a translator could be found.

Goh, who weighed 220 pounds when he was arrested a few hours after shooting, looked emaciated as he sat in a jury box in a red jail suit, his hands and feet shackled. Klaus estimated Goh, who refused food for four weeks after his arrest, had lost up to 75 pounds.

“I’ve felt strongly since the beginning of the case that he’s severely mentally ill,” Klaus said after Goh’s brief court appearance. “I believe that mental illness is, if not the direct cause, certainly the catalyst for this terrible tragedy that he committed.”

Klaus said the confidential psychiatrist’s report found that, based on interviews with family members, Goh has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia for nine to 15 years. He never sought treatment and has refused treatment in jail.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, who has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty, declined comment.

Authorities said they believe Goh became angry after he dropped out of the nursing school last year and administrators refused to refund his tuition. A Presbyterian minister from Korea founded Oikos University as a vocational school in 2004.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Todd Eastham)

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Black Friday and the Triumph of Marketing

A century ago “Black Friday” referred to the market crash of Sept. 24, 1869, which was caused by two financiers’ failed attempt to corner the gold market. Today we know Black Friday as the country’s busiest shopping day, falling right after Thanksgiving. How did that happen?

One popular but false explanation is that the name marks the day retailers end an 11-month stretch of red ink and harvest profits for the first time all year. Others say it refers to the dark day thousands of retail workers will spend greeting shoppers, stocking shelves, folding garments, and ringing registers.

In fact, factory owners in the 1950s first coined Black Friday to lament the high number of workers who wouldn’t show up for work, as linguist Ben Zimmer pointed out last year. The connection between Black Friday, crowds, and shopping came in the early 1960s from some Philadelphia cops, he explained. They used the phrase to describe the mad traffic downtown on the day holiday shoppers converged with football fans arriving for the Army-Navy game, traditionally played in Philly on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The name Black Friday, picked up by the press, presented a branding problem from the start. Zimmer quotes a 1961 story from Public Relations News that called the label “hardly a stimulus for good business,” and notes city spinmeister Abe Rosen’s efforts to replace it with the anodyne “Big Friday.” The Philadelphia newspapers refused, and Black Friday stuck.

It’s not exactly clear when, in the decades since, retailers across the country embraced the name. By the time they did, it came with the reassuring myth that Black Friday was the day they turned a profit to be “in the black.” (A quick look at retailers’ quarterly earnings should put that canard to rest.) The retail industry shed any queasiness it had about the Black Friday brand in recent years, as big-box stores and shopping malls embraced “door-buster” sales that got shoppers to line up for discounts before opening time.

Although Black Friday has long been called the busiest shopping day of the year, that’s only become true in the past decade, according to data from retail analyst ShopperTrak. Before 2004, holiday shopping generally peaked on the Saturday before Christmas, the International Council of Shopping Centers reported (PDF). But after enough years of retailers and reporters and shoppers repeating that Black Friday was the busiest day, the myth eventually became true.

More recently, the hoopla has spread throughout the week. Cyber Monday was invented in 2005 by the National Retail Federation’s digital division in an attempt to promote online shopping when office workers get back to their desks after the holiday; it was not the highest volume day for e-commerce sales. In 2010, American Express (AXP) made up Small Business Saturday, with promotions and rebates aimed at getting gift-seekers to swipe their AmEx cards at local merchants’ shops. Note to retailers: Three days of Thanksgiving week remain unbranded. Or four, if Thanksgiving itself is not off limits.

And, of course, it’s not. Black Friday has been creeping earlier, from dawn to midnight to Thursday evening. Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) plans to open its doors on Thanksgiving day at 8 p.m. this year, two hours earlier than last year, a decision that’s helped provoke some workers to strike. Perhaps the earlier hour is an attempt to avoid the sometimes unruly crowds that door-buster sales attract. Last year, a Wal-Mart shopper in California reportedly pepper-sprayed fellow customers to reach coveted merchandise. But even that’s not Black Friday’s darkest moment: In 2008, Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old Queens man who took a seasonal job at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y, was killed when a pre-dawn Black Friday mob broke the glass doors and trampled him to death.

Long before such deadly excess, some activists seized the symbolism of Black Friday to make people think twice about consumer culture. Since the 1990s, the day after Thanksgiving has also been dubbed Buy Nothing Day, an idea championed by Adbusters magazine and, lately, the Occupy movement. The thought of getting masses of consumers to stay home on what has become the biggest shopping day of the year may sound like a pipe dream. But Black Friday only holds its current place in our culture through miracles of marketing, spin, and rebranding. Those celebrating Buy Nothing Day, at least, don’t have to explain the name.

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Canada pledges again to balance budget by 2015

OTTAWA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Canadian government on Friday reiterated its intention to balance its budget by 2015, three days after projecting there would be deficits until 2016-17.

In separate appearances in Quebec City and New York, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were at pains to say they still intended to end the red ink by 2015.

“It remains the government’s plan, intention, to balance the budget prior to the next federal election. The recent economic and fiscal update by the minister indicates we are actually very close to that objective,” Harper told reporters in Quebec City. The next election is in October 2015.

Flaherty’s fall fiscal update on Tuesday had pushed back the target date for eliminating the deficit by a year, to 2016-17, citing a weak global economy.

But the minister said in a speech in New York that the government was on track to balance the budget in the next two to three years, barring major external events, and he later clarified that he intended a balanced budget by 2015.

“The prime minister’s always correct,” he chuckled.

He sought to explain the discrepancy by saying the fiscal update had built in a C$ 3 billion ($ 3 billion) contingency cushion, meaning there was an underlying surplus of C$ 1.2 billion for 2015-16. He said the projection of a C$ 1.8 billion deficit amounted to about half a percent of the C$ 275 billion federal budget.

“There’s lots of water to go under the bridge between now and then,” he said.

The opposition New Democratic Party noted the discrepancy in a release headlined: “Stephen Harper makes stuff up about balancing the budget.”

It pointed out that balancing the budget by the next election was not the same as balancing it by 2016-17.

As it is, even the 2015-16 timetable is a year later than offered in the Conservative campaign for reelection in May 2011. They had promised a balanced budget by 2014-15, followed by major personal income tax relief before the 2015 election.

Flaherty’s timetable drew criticism this week from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which said the minister had become expert at kicking the can down the road.

The projections could be thrown out of whack if the United States goes off the fiscal cliff, a set of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are to be triggered on January 2 if legislators and the White House cannot agree on a more nuanced budget deal.

Flaherty said U.S. failure to avert the fiscal cliff would cause a significant and immediate decline in Canada’s gross domestic product, and he would counter it.

Referring to a possible economic shock from Europe or the United States, he said: “If that were to happen and if the Canadian economy were to be pushed back into recession with the resulting danger for higher unemployment and the danger always of a prolonged recession, then we would act.”

He added: “We would not stand by and let that happen. The kinds of measure we can take: there are various tax measures we can take, there are measures with respect to stimulus we can take, these are things that we have done before and we can do again.”

On Tuesday, Flaherty spoke of having prepared various contingency plans.

(Additional reporting by Louse Egan; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Online gaming firms urge EU to open up markets

LONDON (Reuters) – Online gaming companies have accused Belgium and Greece of keeping them out of their markets illegally and urged European competition authorities to take action.

A long-running dispute over licenses in Belgium made headlines last week when Belgian authorities questioned one of the co-chief executives of bwin.party, the world’s largest listed online gaming group.

The bwin.party case has underlined the problems faced by companies in the growing online gaming sector when they operate in countries where regulations are unclear or restrictive.

Bwin.party says it is losing 700,000 euros ($ 889,400) in gaming revenue each month after access to its websites was blocked in Belgium.

Executives from 12 gaming companies including bwin.party said the European Commission had failed to follow through on concerns over Belgian laws first raised in 2009.

“We hope that the Commission will now enforce compliance with the European treaty and do so swiftly,” they said in a letter to the Financial Times.

“Countries such as Belgium and Greece that are in clear breach of EU law and that are seeking to enforce those laws domestically are likely to be at the top of the list,” it added.

“The time for polite rhetoric is now over. It is time for deeds not words.”

Belgian rules state that a company must offer the same services both online and offline to obtain a license. Opponents say that favors companies based in Belgium and means pure online providers cannot operate.

In Greece, bookmakers including Britain’s William Hill launched a legal challenge to monopoly operator OPAP after being denied licenses.

(Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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Bieber sweeps American Music Awards with big wins

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Canadian pop star Justin Bieber swept the American Music Awards on Sunday, topping strong competition from Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, and sending newcomers British boybands One Direction and The Wanted home empty-handed.

Bieber, 18, won all three categories in which he was nominated, including the night’s biggest award, artist of the year, over Rihanna, Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and Drake.

“This is for all the haters who thought that maybe I was just here for one or two years, but I feel like I am going to be here for a very long time,” Bieber said on stage, dedicating his first win of the night to his mother, Pattie Mallette, who accompanied him after his widely reported split from girlfriend Selena Gomez.

“It’s hard growing up with everything going on, with everyone watching me. I wanted to say that as long as you guys keep believing in me, I want to always make you proud,” Bieber said at the end of the night.

Bieber, who also won favorite pop/rock male artist and favorite pop/rock album for “Believe,” took to a bare stage to sing an acoustic stripped-down version of his latest single “As Long As You Love Me” before livening up the show with Nicki Minaj for “Beauty and a Beat.”

The American Music Award nominees and winners are voted online by fans, and the awards are handed out during a live three-hour broadcast featuring performances by artists.

R&B singer Rihanna, 24, and rapper Minaj, 29, led the nominees going into Sunday’s awards with four apiece.

Minaj won favorite rap/hip hop artist and rap/hip hop album of the year for “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded.” The singer, known for her extravagant on-stage performances, sang her latest hit “Freedom” in a winter wonderland-themed set.

Rihanna came away with one win. She couldn’t make the show because she is in Berlin, midway through a seven-day tour across seven cities around the world promoting her upcoming “Unapologetic” album.

Canadian pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen, 26, picked up the coveted new artist-of-the-year award over One Direction, Australian artist Gotye, indie-pop band fun. and rapper J. Cole. She performed her hit “Call Me Maybe.”

“I am floored,” the singer said, thanking Bieber along with her fans in her acceptance speech.

ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC AWARD

Newcomer British-Irish boy bands One Direction, which had three nominations, and The Wanted, which had one nomination, went home empty-handed, losing out in the favorite pop/rock group category to well-established Los Angeles group Maroon 5.

French DJ David Guetta won the first-ever American Music Award for electronic dance music over DJs Calvin Harris and Skrillex.

“It’s wonderful also to see electronic music recognized at this level in the U.S.,” Guetta said in a taped acceptance speech.

Only 13 of the 20 awards were handed out during the live broadcast. Katy Perry was named favorite female pop/rock artist, Shakira was named favorite Latin artist, while Beyonce was voted favorite soul artist. None of the three attended the show.

Country-pop darling Taylor Swift, 22, scored the favorite female country artist award before performing her latest single “I Knew You Were Trouble” from her chart-topping album “Red,” on a masquerade ballroom-style stage with dancers in tuxedos, gowns and Venetian masks.

R&B star Usher kicked off the night with a medley of his hits on a laser-filled stage, while pop-rocker Pink teamed her performance of her latest single “Try” with a dramatic interpretive dance covered in paint with a male dancer on a stage filled with burning debris.

1990s ska-punk band No Doubt performed “Looking Hot” from their first album in a decade, “Push & Shove,” while rockers Linkin Park performed their latest “Burn It Down” after winning favorite alternative rock band over The Black Keys and Gotye.

Korean rapper Psy didn’t score any nominations, but he was named the AMA new media honoree for his viral hit music video “Gangnam Style,” accompanied by his trademark horse-riding dance.

The star closed out the show with his hit song, joined by surprise guest MC Hammer, one of the pioneering rappers from the 1980s, who was known for his catch phrase ‘Hammer Time.’

Singer Brandy paid tribute to the late Whitney Houston, who died suddenly at age 48 on the night before the Grammy Awards in February this year from accidental drowning.

AMA founder Dick Clark, who also passed away earlier this year, was given a touching tribute by veteran soul singer Stevie Wonder, who sang a medley of hits including “Hotter Than July” and “My Cherie Amour,” against a backdrop of pictures of Clark. Wonder was introduced by “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest, who also paid homage to Clark’s influence.

“Dick loved the power of music and the ability to create pure joy,” Seacrest said.

The awards show, which marked its 40th anniversary this year, treated the audience to some of its greatest moments, including R&B star Beyonce performing “Single Ladies” at the 2008 show, Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff at the 1989 awards show, and various clips of AMA regular, the late singer Michael Jackson.

(Additional reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by Christine Kearney and Philip Barbara)

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One in 20 youth has used steroids to bulk up: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – About five percent of middle and high school students have used anabolic steroids to put on muscle, according to a new study from Minnesota.

In addition to steroid use, more than one-third of boys and one-fifth of girls in the study said they had used protein powder or shakes to gain muscle mass, and between five and 10 percent used non-steroid muscle-enhancing substances, such as creatine.

Researchers said a more muscular body ideal in the media may be one factor driving teens to do anything possible to get toned, as well as pressure to perform in sports.

“Really the pressure to start using (steroids) is in high school,” said Dr. Linn Goldberg, from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

“You get the influence of older teens in high school, so when you’re a 14-year-old that comes in, you have 17-year-olds who are the seniors, and they can have great influence as you progress into the next stage of your athletic career.”

The new data came from close to 2,800 kids and teens at 20 different middle and high schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. During the 2009-2010 school year, those students completed a survey on food and weight-related behaviors, including activities tied to muscle gain.

The majority of kids surveyed were poor or middle-class.

Almost all of them had engaged in at least one muscle-building activity in the past year, most often working out more to get stronger. But up to one-third of kids and teens used what the researchers deemed to be unhealthy means to gain muscle mass, including taking steroids and other muscle-building substances or overdoing it on protein shakes, dieting and weight-lifting.

Student-athletes were more likely than their peers to use most methods of muscle-building. Steroid use, however, was equally common among athletes and non-athletes.

According to findings published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, Asian students were three to four times more likely to have used steroids in the past year than white students. Most Asians in the study were Hmong, lead researcher Marla Eisenberg from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and her colleagues noted.

Their study shows higher adolescent use of steroids and other muscle-boosting substances than most other recent research and “is cause for concern,” according to the researchers. But it’s not clear whether the findings would apply to an area outside of the Twin Cities, or among wealthier students, they noted.

ROID RAGE?

Anabolic steroids are synthetic versions of testosterone, the male sex hormone. Steroids are prescribed legally to treat conditions involving hormone deficiency or muscle loss, but when they’re used for non-medical purposes, it’s typically at much higher doses, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In those cases, steroids can cause mood swings – sometimes known as roid rage – and for adolescents, stunted growth and accelerated puberty.

Anabolic steroids have become pervasive in professional sports, including baseball, football and boxing. (Another example of performance-enhancing drug use is “blood doping” with erythropoietin or EPO, which is behind the Lance Armstrong cycling controversy that caused him to be stripped of his Tour de France titles last month.)

Experts have worried that the drive to get ahead of competitors at any cost could trickle down to college and high school athletes, as well.

Goldberg, co-developer of the ATLAS and ATHENA programs to prevent steroid and other substance use on high school teams, said it’s important to give teens healthier alternatives to build muscle.

“I would stay away from all supplements, because you don’t know what’s in them,” Goldberg, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

“What’s important is to teach kids how to eat correctly,” he said. Goldberg said getting enough protein through food, eating breakfast and avoiding muscle toxins like alcohol and marijuana can all help young athletes get stronger without shakes or supplements.

Eisenberg’s team did not find clustering of steroid use and other muscle-enhancing behaviors within particular schools.

“Rather than being driven by a particular school sports team coach or other features of a school’s social landscape, this diffusion suggests that muscle-enhancing behaviors are widespread and influenced by factors beyond school, likely encompassing social and cultural variables such as media messages and social norms of behavior more broadly,” the researchers wrote.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/jsoh2P Pediatrics, online November 19, 2012.

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World stocks up amid optimism over US budget

BANGKOK (AP) — World stock markets rose Monday, registering optimism after negotiations late last week between President Barack Obama and leaders of Congress raised hopes the U.S. would avoid its “fiscal cliff” before the end-of-the-year deadline.

Obama met with the top leaders of the House and Senate on Friday to discuss ways to avert a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 in the absence of intervening action. U.S. lawmakers have said a budget deal before Christmas is possible.

Economists have been warning of the consequences if no action is taken. The spending cuts and higher taxes — plus the expiration of extended unemployment benefits — would mean that $ 671 billion is sliced out of the American economy next year. That’s enough to throw the world’s biggest economy into a recession.

European stocks were mostly higher in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.4 percent to 5,654.78. But Germany‘s DAX gained 1 percent to 7,0167.87. France‘s CAC-40 advanced 1 percent to 3,374.21.

Wall Street was set for a higher open. Dow Jones industrial futures rose 0.3 percent to 12,602. S&P 500 futures gained 0.3 percent to 1,363.80.

Investors looking for good deals following a global stock market slump that occurred in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election helped push Asian stock markets higher.

Hong Kong‘s Hang Seng added 0.5 percent to 21,262.06 and South Korea‘s Kospi rose 0.9 percent to 1,878.10. Australia‘s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6 percent to 4,361.40. Mainland China‘s Shanghai Composite Index inched up 0.1 percent to 2,016.98. The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index rose marginally to 800.84.

“Because Hong Kong dropped for two weeks, maybe there is some bargain hunting,” said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong. He said that the budget negotiations in the U.S. are occupying the spotlight in the near term, but the ultimate issue is the state of the global economy.

Investors were particularly concerned by data last week showing U.S. industrial output falling 0.4 percent in October and the 17-country euro area falling into another recession.

The yen’s recent weakness helped boost Japan‘s Nikkei 225 and its heavy orientation toward exporting companies. The index in Tokyo jumped 1.4 percent to close at 9,153.20, its highest close since Sept. 19.

A weak yen reduces the cost of Japanese products overseas, and that helps companies whose survival depends on sales beyond their home turf.

Toyota Motor Corp. rose 1.4 percent. Yamaha Motor Co. gained 1.9 percent. Canon Inc. surged 4.5 percent. Nikon Corp. added 4.7 percent.

Heavy industrial shares also posted gains. South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. rose 2.8 percent. Japanese heavy equipment maker Komatsu Ltd. rose 3.4 percent. Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. gained 3.4 percent.

Australian surf wear company Billabong International soared 10.1 percent after news that its U.S. business head Paul Naude was considering a leveraged buyout of the company.

Benchmark oil for December delivery was up 79 cents to $ 87.71 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $ 1.05 to finish at $ 86.92 per barrel.

In currencies, the euro rose to $ 1.2781 from $ 1.2727 late Friday in New York. The dollar was unchanged at 81.22 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

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Shirtless photo a “joke,” says FBI agent who began Petraeus inquiry

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The FBI agent who began the investigation that led David Petraeus to resign as CIA director said that a shirtless photo he sent to a woman at the center of the probe was a “joke” sent to many friends, and was not meant to be sexual.

Frederick Humphries told the Seattle Times in an interview published Thursday that the photo in the unfolding adultery scandal that brought down Petraeus was sent to Tampa, Florida, socialite Jill Kelley in 2010.

Humphries, who has been identified in media reports on the scandal mainly as the “shirtless” FBI agent, was a “top-notch” operative, according to a prosecutor who worked with him on the “millennium bomber” case years ago.

Andrew Hamilton, now a senior deputy prosecutor for King County, Washington, said Humphries was assigned to the case partly because he spoke excellent French. Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999, claimed to be from Quebec and spoke French.

“That’s the first time I met him, as a case agent,” Hamilton told Reuters. “We spent a lot of time together over the next couple years getting ready for trial, and I couldn’t have asked for more as a case agent. He was very, very thorough, and very honest. We always thought we were very lucky to have him.”

Five months ago, Kelley ignited the FBI investigation that led to Petraeus when she asked Humphries whether the bureau could look into harassing emails she had been receiving.

The investigation eventually revealed that the emails to Kelley were sent by Paula Broadwell, an Army reserve officer in military intelligence and co-author of a biography of Petraeus.

The FBI investigation revealed Broadwell’s affair with Petraeus, who cited the relationship when he resigned as CIA chief last week. The probe also ensnared General John Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, whom agents found had exchanged “flirtatious” emails with Kelley, law enforcement officials said.

(Editing by David Lindsey and Jim Loney)

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Movie industry has shed 16,000-plus jobs in L.A. since 2004, study says

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The motion-picture industry has lost more than 16,000 jobs in Los Angeles County since the peak year of 2004, according to a new study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

And according to the study, “runaway productions” that have moved out of the county due to tax incentives in other areas could be to blame.

The study noted that the motion-picture and video production sector of the entertainment industry – the largest segment of the industry in Los Angeles County – was responsible for 118,200 jobs in the county in 2004, a peak year for the sector. In 2011, by contrast, that number dropped to 102,100 – a 13.6 percent decrease that accounts for 16,100 jobs.

“Arguably, runaway production has had a deleterious effect on industry employment,” the report notes. “New York State alone added 14,100 jobs in this sector over that period, while Georgia added nearly 800 jobs. Meanwhile, Louisiana added over 2,200 jobs since implementing its own tax-credit program in 2002. Other states added jobs in the sector as well.”

The study also points out other factors that could account for the job drain, such as piracy and international competition in such farflung areas as Canada, India and Nigeria, which surpassed Hollywood in 2009 as the second-largest film producer in the world, following India’s Bollywood, according to a report from UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics.

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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown

From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.

But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.

She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.

“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”

Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.

PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.

After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”

“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.

Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?

Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre

In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.

“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.

“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”

Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.

Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.

“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”

In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.

WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre

“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”

Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.

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