On November 18 and 19, news broke of the mass suicide of 900 members of the Peoples Temple. The cult had relocated from San Francisco to Guyana. California Representative Leo Ryan was in Jonestown to check on the remote community, and he was killed by gunfire at an airstrip as he tried to escape the tense situation. Dan White remarked to two aides who were working for his reinstatement, "You see that? One day I'm on the front page and the next I'm swept right off."