Jeannie Mills (née Gustafson; July 2, 1939 – February 27, 1980),[1] formerly Deanna Mertle, was an early defector from the Peoples Temple organization headed by Jim Jones.
As Deanna and Elmer Mertle, Jeannie served as head of the Temple's publications office while Al was the official photographer.
[3] The couple left the Temple with their five children in 1974 after Jones beat their daughter Linda seventy times with a paddle for a minor infraction.
After the killings, the Mills family initially holed up with other defectors in the protective custody of a police SWAT team, but eventually decided to resume normal life.
Mills, along with her husband Al and their 15-year-old daughter Daphene, were murdered execution-style inside their home in Berkeley, California, on February 26, 1980,[5][6] just over a year after the Jonestown massacre.