The Waco Siege

Join Kelli as she explores the history that led up to the Waco Siege, where ATF agents conducted a failed raid against Branch Davidian leader David Koresh at his Mount Carmel compound in Waco, Texas. The result of this botched mission was a 51 day standoff. In the end, 4 ATF agents and 82 Branch Davidians were dead, and the whole place burned to the ground. It was a massive failure in communication between the ATF, FBI, Hostage Rescue Team, and negotiators - one of the biggest fumbles in our history. But it wasn't the first.

In addition to the history of his group and how they gained momentum in Waco, Kelli explores the roots of the growing divide between the government and right-wing militias, starting with Ruby Ridge, carrying through Waco, exemplified in the Oklahoma City Bombing, and that still exists today.  

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Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric
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Sources Referenced:
Jeff Guinn - Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage

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Chapters

• 0:28 Intro
• 5:09 Historical Context
• 18:43 David Koresh
• 38:58 The Failed ATF Raid
• 49:06 The Standoff
• 57:08 Final Thoughts
• 1:00:18 Outro

Transcript

The Waco Siege

Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a mostly scripted podcast that makes history more fun and accessible. My kind of history is the unpopular stuff - disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird.

Before we begin, a reminder to support me on Patreon - putting out episodes takes a lot of time, and your support will help ensure that the podcast keeps going strong! I appreciate any help you can give and thank you so much for being a fan. Now, on with the show.

On February 28th, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, or ATF, drove to a compound in Waco, Texas known as Mount Carmel. Their goal? To raid it. They had a warrant with them to search for illegally modified firearms, of which there were plenty, and to arrest the leader of the group who lived there: a man named David Koresh.

David Koresh ruled over a splintered religious group commonly called the Branch Davidians. Koresh saw himself as all-powerful. But it was more than that - he saw himself as the messiah, the second coming of Jesus Christ. Quite the narcissist. And he’s not the only religious leader in history to lead his people to their doom; I did an episode on Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre of 1978, so go check that one out when you’re done here. Lots of parallels.

So on a cold, February morning in Waco, Texas, ATF pulled up ready to ambush Mt. Carmel. Knowing that Koresh had a ton of weapons, they didn’t want to give the Branch Davidians any chances to arm themselves before they could serve the warrant and arrest the leader. But in a terrible turn of events, Koresh was tipped off. ATF knew this and executed the warrant anyway - and it was a disaster. A massive gunfight ensued, killing four ATF agents. But it didn’t stop there because the raid turned into a 51-day standoff that involved ATF, the FBI, negotiators, the Hostage Rescue Team, local police, news media, and family members. But at the center of it all was David Koresh.

It ended on April 19th, 1993, when the FBI pushed in on Mt. Carmel, flooding it with tear gas. But then tragedy struck - the compound was suddenly set ablaze, and the entire structure burned to the ground, killing David Koresh and 75 other Branch Davidians, including dozens of children and two pregnant women.

It was an absolute, undeniable failure by the government to take down a dangerous man, and in the end, on both sides, over the course of 51 days, 86 people were dead.

So what I want to do today is give you a history of the Waco Siege. I want to know how it got so far. Did David Koresh need to be stopped? Yes. Not necessarily for his beliefs, but because he was doing illegal things in his compound. And he also was accused of sleeping with underage girls as part of his cult. Some, allegedly, as young as ten. So there’s no doubt that this man was dangerous and needed to be held accountable for his many crimes. But did the FBI and ATF handle this correctly? Ab-so-lute-ly not. In fact, their mishandling of Waco led to even more division between the government and militia groups, especially when considered alongside events like Ruby Ridge, a similarly mishandled showdown that I’ll cover in today’s episode.

So let’s dive into the historical context to get a better idea of who David Koresh was and how he became the leader of a group of Branch Davidians in a dusty Texas compound. Then, we’ll take a closer look at the initial raid and all the events that led to the fiery conclusion when Mt. Carmel burned down, killing most of the remaining Branch Davidians. Finally, we’ll take a look at some of the after-effects, including how this event directly led to the Oklahoma City Bombings, perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh on the anniversary of the Waco siege in 1995.

So let’s get started.

Historical Context
First, we need to take a look at who the Branch Davidians are and where they came from. And to do that, we need to jump back in time and take a look at the Seventh-Day Adventists, a sect of Protestant Christianity.

Back in the early 19th century, that’s the 1800s, a preacher named William Miller started to warn people that the second coming of Jesus was fast approaching - sometime between 1843 and 1844.

Now I know that not everyone is religious, including me to be perfectly honest, so to be thorough and inclusive, let me briefly explain what the second coming means - because it’s the heart of this story and of the Branch Davidians’ whole existence.

The Second Coming is a Christian and Islamic belief that Jesus will return to Earth. When he returns, he will judge both the living and the dead - those who died will be raised from the dead to be judged. What a terrifying thought. For the wicked, the second coming is bad, right? You’re about to be judged poorly for all the dirty, dirty things you’ve done in your life. But for the “righteous,” it’s awesome, because it will usher in a new age of peace. The righteous, both living and dead, will be taken to heaven to reign with Christ for 1000 years. The wicked will be destroyed. Those who aren’t religious or, quote, “rejected the word of God” will be cast into a lake of fire, suffering from everlasting shame and torment. Lovely. Now nobody is supposed to know when the second coming will happen, but that it will happen at some point, and to be ready.

So back to the story. William Miller claims he got this information from his interpretation of the book of Daniel. When that… you know, didn’t happen… they changed the date. And then changed it again. The resulting disappointment led to disillusionment. Some stopped believing in the second coming of Jesus. Others, still holding onto Miller’s ideas, claimed it was happening, but the date was wrong - these people went on to form the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Side note, one of the defining characteristics of the Seventh-day Adventists is that they practice the Sabbath on Saturday, similar to Judaism, the original seventh day. But most Christian denominations keep Sabbath on Sunday.

Anyway. The Seventh-day Adventists grew and spread across the US. In addition to practicing the Sabbath on Saturday, they also believed that faith alone can save your soul, the dead will be judged with the second coming, and most importantly for our story, that the second coming will happen after a particularly troubling time, and the only way to figure out when is to study the Bible furiously and pick up on its clues. To help uncover this apparently hidden message, God will use humans as messengers or prophets to help interpret the Bible or give us new insights on the day in question.

Now unlike William Miller and his followers, the Seventh-day Adventists didn’t publish a specific date for the second coming. Therefore, they had to be ready to go at a moment's notice. This teaching hit one Adventist pretty hard - Victor Houteff - who believed that his church was too complacent. They weren’t pious enough, weren’t studying the Bible enough, and they certainly weren’t prepared for the second coming. Now Houteff, who was super into the idea that only 144,000 believers would be spared from the apocalypse of the end days, decided to take only the most loyal of his Adventist followers to a place where they could study the bible, prepare for the second coming, and practice in peace. He chose a 200-acre plot of land northwest of Waco, Texas. But just to be thorough it wasn’t the same plot of land that ATF agents raided in 1993. That was purchased a bit later.

Now Houteff named his new property Mount Carmel (after a passage from the Bible) and got to work creating an Adventist stronghold where his followers, around 120 people at its height, lived a strict, Christian life in preparation for the second coming. He named this group the Shepherd’s Rod, and for all intents and purposes, it was an offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventists. He also bought more land around Mount Carmel, so he clearly had ambitions for a big, religious settlement. His own Adventist kingdom. He even got his own printing press installed on site so his sermons and teachings could be printed and distributed to Seventh-day Adventists across the country.

But on the eve of America’s entry into WWII, Houteff encountered a problem - many able-bodied men in his ministry would be drafted. Now in my episode on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment - that was a fun one - I talked about how peace churches had military exemptions, right? Those men who were exempted due to religious beliefs would instead work around the country, and some volunteered for the starvation experiment. But the problem for Houteff was that his little group down in Waco - Shepherd’s Rod, right? - wasn’t a legally certified church, so his boys couldn’t claim exemption due to religious beliefs. To combat this, Houteff reorganized his group around the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Association. Davidian hints at King David and his throne - the idea was that when Jesus did return in the second coming, he would occupy King David’s throne. And since the second coming was at the forefront of Houteff’s mind, this connection worked for him. So they became Davidians.

When Houteff died, age 69, in February of 1955, the Davidians were in crisis. Houteff’s followers saw him as one of God’s messengers - he had done so much for them in living a life according to their interpretation of the Bible and of the second coming. So his death was a shock to the community. Who would take over? And if you’re sitting in your car or vacuuming the living room and saying David Koresh, obviously! Well… not yet. Cool your jets. He comes later.

Now there was no line of succession planned - I guess they never imagined a day when Houteff wouldn’t be leading them. But they certainly didn’t want to abandon the mission of preparing for the second coming of Jesus. So there needed to be a successor - and it ended up being his wife, Florence.

Houteff married Florence when he was 52 and she was 17… this, of course, raised eyebrows. But she worked as his right-hand woman in the organization up until his death. And on his death bed, she claimed that he told her the date of the second coming - April 22, 1959 - a few years away. She explained that Houteff was carefully studying the books of Revelation and Daniel and found the actual date. The Davidians, who of course had been planning for this moment, allied under Florence’s leadership and got to work preparing.

One of the things they did to prepare was to buy a new plot of land in Waco - it was cheaper, and they could sell their current land for a huge profit since it bordered a lake. This new plot of land was called New Mount Carmel, and this was the place that eventually burned down in 1993. The money they got from the sale of the original plot of land was spent on building the new Mount Carmel, but also advertising the second coming. Remember - this is the event they had been preparing for. It was a biiiig deal, and they wanted all their followers and all the other Adventists around the world to know that they had to prepare.

And since we’re all still alive today, we know that April 22 1959 wasn’t the second coming. And when the day came and went without incident, the Davidians knew this too. So did Houteff actually give her the date of the second coming on his death bed? Probably not. It was more likely Florence’s attempt at grabbing power. But either way - if she really was a prophet, she wouldn’t have been wrong about the SECOND COMING OF JESUS, right? Followers started to question Florence and Victor Houteff. Actual Seventh-day Adventists saw an opportunity to bring some of the Davidians separatists back to their church, which was successful. Many left Waco and just went home. Florence sold off most of their land, keeping one small chunk alone for about 50 Davidians who stayed; she ended up leaving for California, where she got a job working as an accountant, re-married, and died in 2008.

So who would take over from the Houteffs? There were still some who believed in their little group, not wanting to leave Waco and the home they had spent so long building. In the midst of this chaos, a husband and wife team stepped in and claimed that God sent them to lead the Davidians on their mission to prepare for the second coming - Ben and Lois Roden.

Ben Roden changed the name of the group from the Davidians to the Branch Davidians - he pulled the word branch from bible passages, of course - and got to work preparing for the second coming. Ben and Lois bought property in Israel and tried to start moving their group over there, where they’d start getting ready as part of the 144,000 who would be saved.

Now Ben and Lois had a son - George Roden - who was… a character. He once ran for President as a democratic party candidate, printing campaign literature from Mount Carmel presses. He didn’t get any votes in the primaries. Seriously - not a one. He later referred to himself as the king of Israel, the scourge of nations, and the deliverer of saints. He even tried to change the Waco property name to “Rodenville.” So when Ben Roden started to become ill in the late 1970s, George declared himself successor… which troubled pretty much everyone. Lois, sensing the chaos, focused her time in Waco instead of in Israel. She knew that she’d have to take over fully once Ben passed. Jeff Guinn writes it best in his book, titled “Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage.” Quote:
“Lois believed that she must succeed Ben. Now in her early sixties, she understood that, for many followers, a Branch Davidian leader best proved himself or herself deserving of primacy by receiving, then sharing, some significant message from God, information that could only be revealed to a legitimate prophet. If Lois did so, that would negate [her son] George’s constant claims that he had been designated as [the leader.]” End quote.

So in 1977, Lois revealed to everyone that God had spoken to her. She told everyone that she looked out her window at 2 am, while pondering the Bible, and saw an angel fly by. It gets a bit weird here with whether or not the Holy Spirit can be feminine, and whether women can be prophets, so I’ll yadda yadda to the point - she took over when her husband died on October 22, 1978. She managed to convince enough people that a woman could be the Lord’s messenger, she was a prophet, and therefore she was the next leader. See how this works? You needed spiritual legitimacy to become the next head of the Branch Davidians. God needed to have spoken to you.

Now what was cool about her, I guess, was that she was super into proving that men and women were equal. She was critical of religious denominations that wouldn’t ordain women, wrote newsletters about women taking leadership roles, spoke to the media a lot about her revelation… she even called herself Bishop Lois Roden occasionally. She stopped calling her people the Branch Davidians, instead using the term “Living Waters” - you can guess where the inspiration for that came from - and then focused on her son, who was actively trying to oust her from power. What a family. She ended up hitting him with a restraining order, so he had to leave the property.

But Lois had a problem - she was getting older, and she needed a successor. And if she didn’t have one lined up, George would swoop in and take over - and he was… he was different. Unhinged. He would be the doom of this little fractured religious group who wanted to prepare for the second coming. And this, dear APHOUT fans, is where David Koresh finally enters the picture.

David Koresh
David Koresh wasn’t born as “David Koresh”. He was born Vernon Wayne Howell to young parents - a 20-year-old father and 14-year-old mother named Bonnie - in Houston Texas. And although this isn’t super relevant to the story I can’t not talk about this - David Koresh’s parents met when the dad was 18 and his mom was 12 years old and in the seventh grade. SEVENTH GRADE. He gave Bonnie a ride home one night, kissed her, and they started dating. He proposed when Bonnie was in eighth grade. Her dad was of course against it - UNTIL SHE GOT PREGNANT. In eighth grade. At 13 years old. I can’t. And she ended up being an unmarried single mother anyway because the dude bounced after she got pregnant.

Anyways, they were all Seventh-day Adventists.

Bonnie ended up getting married a few times, but the second marriage stuck - and this guy was 34. Bonnie was 18. They got pregnant before their marriage, and Vernon’s younger brother Roger was born.

Vernon wasn’t a great student. He was in support classes, so bullies teased him endlessly. To help, Bonnie enrolled Vernon and younger brother Roger in a Seventh-day Adventist school, and this is where the young Vernon - and remember this is David Koresh - thrived. He started memorizing passages from the Bible, and watched nothing but Christian TV broadcasts. But as a teenager, he started getting into hunting, playing guitar, and… well… girls. He left school early to get a job and chase after a love interest, but long story short and simplified - it didn’t work out, and he was left broken and lost. He turned to religion for comfort, something he had loved as a child growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist school, and through a friend heard of the Waco group.

So seeking stability, and pursuing his reinvigorated faith with the Adventists, he went down to meet Lois Roden when he was 21.

He wasn’t immediately loved by all, and it didn’t help that he was a bit weird - he apparently mumbled quite a lot, and when he did speak coherently, would talk about… umm… how do I make this clean… he would talk about how often he made himself happy. And about wanting to become a rock star.

He filled his time at Waco doing carpentry and chauffeuring Lois Roden around - and it was during these moments in the car that Lois spotted potential in Vernon. Remember, she was looking for her successor - it couldn’t be her son, George, so she needed someone to coach. To mentor. To prepare to take over the flock and get them ready for the second coming. And perhaps it was because of his affinity for memorizing bible verses, or maybe because his differences stood out to her, but in the end Lois chose Vernon. The rest of the group initially thought it was a weird choice.

Vernon was just happy to be so close to what many in his circle considered a modern-day prophet. He was quickly caught up on the history of this little Waco group, and of the threat George posed upon Lois’ death. But their relationship was more than just teacher and student; they soon became lovers. Yes, that’s right - Vernon in his early 20s, and Lois in her upper sixties. Vernon justified it with a Bible quote: “And I went unto the Prophetess; and she conceived, and bore a son.” They didn’t have a son, of course, because Lois was post-menopausal.

George was understandably pretty angry - not because his mom was shacking up with a younger man, but because he knew that Vernon was the intended successor. He started coming back to Waco for long visits despite his restraining order, and his mother didn’t keep him away.

Vernon - and again this is our David Koresh - started giving talks to the people up at Mt. Carmel. Since he had memorized so many passages from the Bible, his talks drew attention. He spoke with ease and made sure everyone followed along. He never needed to reference passages. He drew links from the Bible to their modern equivalents; so a sword mentioned in the Bible meant a gun in today’s world. And the people loved his lessons. He had a knack for teaching.

Vernon, after only a few years of teaching his own lessons, outpaced Lois. He was making moves to grasp power away from her. George, who had been spending time there now for a few years, took notice. So to try to remove Vernon from the situation, George reached out to the local district attorney and painted Vernon as the new Jim Jones - the cult leader of the Peoples Temple who led his people to a mass-murderer suicide only a few years prior. Unfortunately for George, and perhaps everyone, the DA didn’t investigate.

Now Vernon took some time out to go to Israel in 1985 - he had married a 14-year-old girl (lots of cyclical family dynamics happening here) and got her pregnant, and wanted his first child born in Israel. He also wanted to investigate, personally, where he and his followers and the 144,000 would warp to when the second coming finally happened. But he returned from Israel before any of this happened, and here’s his story as to why.

I’m quoting this from Jeff Guinn’s book again, but it’s a retelling of what David Koresh (Vernon) told the negotiators during the siege. Quote:
While in Israel, he was “taken up” to Heaven by seven angels, who didn’t have wings. Instead, they roamed aloft in Merkabah, a Hebrew term for celestial chariots, described at length in the first chapter of Ezekiel. With Vernon on board, they soared past the constellation Orion, and when they arrived at their exalted destinations, Vernon was granted critical information, which he explained as three connected parts.

For his first heavenly insight, Vernon was reminded of Cyrus, King of Persia. Babylon conquered Israel in 586 BCE and took many Jews into captivity. But when Cyrus and his Persian army defeated the Babylonians 47 years later, they freed the Jews, returned them to their homeland, and, with the Persian King’s own money, rebuilt the Temple there. Cyrus is described as a “messiah” of God, meaning one appointed by the Lord to provide a special service. Several messiahs are mentioned in the Bible, but Cyrus is the only gentile so designated. Vernon Howell was informed that HE was this same Cyrus, whose name in Hebrew is “Koresh.” Vernon must take that as his name. David was added by the newly dubbed Koresh in tribute to the throne of David, which Jesus would occupy after he returned.

(So for those of you at home, we will now switch to calling him David Koresh, as he did upon his return from Israel.)

Second (and I’m going to paraphrase a bit more now to speed this along), David Koresh was now about to be a father, and HE, not Jesus, was the Lamb mentioned in Revelation - he was going to be the one who could interpret the Seven Seals, which would initiate the End Time and begin the apocalypse. While horrific, this apocalypse was preliminary to final glory, the return of Christ, and the establishment of a godly, rather than sinful world.

Third, as the Lamb mentioned in Revelations, David Koresh would be the head of the forces of God, and his job would be to overcome Babylon, who waged war on the Lamb and his followers. But since Babylon is no longer a thing, and David Koresh was keen on modern-day interpretations, “Babylon” meant any government oppressing their faith.

So to summarize - David Koresh went to Israel and had a vision that seven angels brought him to see King Cyrus free the Jewish prisoners from Babylon. And that he was that Cyrus. And now he is the Lamb, who will be able to start the End Times and usher in the second coming. And finally, as Lamb, it is his job to wage war on “Babylon” - in David’s eyes, the government - for their sins against their religion. But he was also supposed to lose to Babylon - again, the government - as commanded by God. Their deaths will usher in the End Times, and they’d reemerge from death and live on in the new, Godly world.

Oh boy.

David Koresh’s return from Israel marks a significant change. And it wasn’t just in name - his followers noticed that he came back…different. More confident. Cocky, even. And the baby? They named him Cyrus.

His followers were impressed. Consider that these Davidians over the years followed leaders who had received messages from God, who were messiahs, prophets - and then here comes David Koresh with this long, cockamamy story about being Cyrus, and the Lamb, and needing to die to bring about the End Times… it was a lot. But for a group of people who had been preparing their whole life for the second coming and the End Times, this was a big deal.

So David Koresh set about gaining more followers - after all, if he needed an army for the impending clash against the government, to begin the End Times, then he’d need bigger numbers. He went around to Adventist meetings and converted members to his cause. He even went to LA with his guitar - remember he was into that as a teenager - and tried to make it as a rock star, hoping stardom would bring more people in. I mean come on, he’s Cyrus, the Lamb of God, opener of the Seven Seals, bringer of the End Times. Surely he could be a rock star in LA, right? Well, maybe not. But the proselytizing was really successful, and in LA, David Koresh found a lot of his most devoted followers. And their incomes, which would go to help the mission.

The outreach extended beyond the US, bringing in Adventists from Britain and Australia. He was good at playing an audience. He would lead Bible studies, hooking them in, and inviting them back to Texas. The end of days stuff came later once they were already indoctrinated - he’d scare them away if he told them he needed them to fight and die in his army, right? But there was still one problem standing in his way of building this army to bunker down at Mt. Carmel - George Roden.

In 1987, the two had a showdown. Lois had passed away from breast cancer the previous year, and George took over control of Mt Carmel while David Koresh was away recruiting in LA. But now that Koresh was coming back, the two had to square off - and George challenged Koresh to a duel. But not the Alexander Hamilton-Aaron Burr kind of duel. It was one that involved resurrecting the dead. Whoever could resurrect a body from the cemetery at Mount Carmel would be the rightful leader, and the other would have to abandon the claim and leave immediately.

Now David Koresh might have been a lot of things, but he knew that he couldn’t raise the dead. He didn’t claim to have any powers beyond being the Lamb, opening the Seven Seals, and bringing about the End Times. And I’m not sure if George Roden thought he could raise the dead, but that guy was pretty delusional. So David Koresh had no intention of going through with this ridiculous showdown. Instead, he went to the local Sheriff (who he was friendly with, by the way), and told them that George had illegally dug up a corpse - desecration of a grave. Koresh was told to get photographic evidence, which he went and got. But the Sheriff also told him that George had lately been carrying around AN UZI submachine gun, and to be careful. So, David Koresh armed himself too.

A confrontation ensued, of course, because you have a mentally unstable George wielding an uzi, and David Koresh with a handful of followers armed as well. George started shooting, and Koresh returned fire. It was a 45-minute shootout. Police arrived to break it up, and Koresh and his men were arrested, though they weren’t charged - the followers were acquitted, and the jury was hung on Koresh.

Meanwhile, George Roden had been brought into court on various charges - violating that old restraining order to stay away from Mount Carmel and also nobody paying taxes on the property for like 19 years. George lashed out at the judges, telling them, and I have to quote this because it’s insane, maybe God will make it up to you in the end and send you herpes and AIDS the last seven plagues and shove them up your, uhh, let’s go with butts to keep it family-friendly. George was held in contempt of court and spent six months in prison.

Koresh, rich from all that proselytizing and recruiting in LA, paid the back taxes on Mount Carmel and got Court permission to take over the place from George.

George was never a bother after he left prison, by the way. He moved to Odessa Texas, ranting to what small number of followers were still around him. He later killed a guy, was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was sent to a mental hospital. He died there from a heart attack.

Uncontested, David Koresh set about preparing for his mission.

But before we talk about the failed ATF raid, we need to talk more about Koresh’s failures. I don’t just mean this exaggerated religious stuff - I’m not trying to judge too harshly someone else’s beliefs. I can blame Koresh for dragging them into their deaths, but I won’t look down upon people who just wanted to find something to belong to. But you know what isn’t excusable? David Koresh’s sexual abuse of children.

Let’s rewind a bit.

When David Koresh took control of Mount Carmel, uncontested, he started engaging in polygamy. It was 1989, and he revealed what he called the “New Light.” He had this supposed revelation from God, because of course he did, that he was meant to have other wives. First, he spiritually “married” single girls at Mount Carmel, but then moved onto the already married women. His followers’ marriages were “dissolved”, and he took their wives - they were no longer allowed to sleep together, only Koresh could sleep with women at Mount Carmel.

To these women, many of them (not all, but many) saw David as Christ, and sleeping with him was a way of getting God’s truth. Did they really believe this? Well yeah, many of them did. Because Koresh brainwashed them. These women thought he was the key to salvation. According to one of his followers, women would stay up late in hopes that David would bring them to bed with him. They saw him as God, and being with David was being alone with God.

One of his followers who made it out before the end, Kathy Schroeder, said that, quote,
“He gave me a personal Bible study. The feeling was so comforting, [like] my God speaking directly to me. Sex was just part of it. The sermon made every touch not feel like sex at all, just a culmination of my relationship with God that I’d had all my life.” End quote.

Now not all of his followers were cool with this New Light thing - only sleeping with David Koresh. Some members defected. Some of those defectors openly challenged Koresh. But enough stayed that Koresh still felt powerful and in control of his flock.

Now if this was all consensual between adults? I mean, it’s not my cup of tea, but as long as nothing illegal was happening… eh. It’s like watching any other TLC show. But the issue is that he was doing illegal stuff, because he allegedly slept with underage girls - some as young as 10.

One of the girls, nine-year-old Heather Jones, who was rescued before Mount Carmel erupted in flames, had this to say about David Koresh. And this comes from an interview in the relatively new documentary Waco: American Apocalypse, available on Netflix. Quote:
“He was hard on me about everything, down to the spankings. With a really big paddle. He would take me in his room, he would make me lay over his lap. If I tensed up, he would take the paddle to my butt and be like ‘it’s okay’, and he’d pull it up again. And he wouldn’t hit me until I wasn’t ready for it. And that was almost every day. A lot of ppl have told me that he was trying to groom me.”

Another, fifteen-year-old Kiri Jewell, had this to say. Quote:
“David took me on a motorcycle trip with some of the guys to Mount Baldy [in California] when I was about seven. On that trip, he took for me a ride down a mountain ski trail on the chairlift. There wasn’t any snow, but it seemed like we could see the whole world. That was when David said to me personally that one day, I would be one of his wives.” End Quote.

I will remind you that she was seven years old. I will spare you the details, but when she was TEN, David made moves on her and sexually assaulted her. Her mother was apparently fine with it. When TEN year old Kiri asked about if they would leave Mt. Carmel, her mother’s response was that they were never going to leave, so why ask? Mother of the year.

Texas Child Protective Services did investigate allegations of sexual abuse for six months, but couldn’t turn up any evidence - the “marriages” to the other wives, including the CHILDREN, wasn’t on paper, so there wasn’t proof of this. But the allegations were still there that he fathered children with underaged girls. And please don’t forget that he married his actual wife when she was 14 and they had a baby soon after. Her parents were Branch Davidians and consented to the marriage. So, again, HE MARRIED A CHILD. There’s definitely precedence here to suggest the sexual assault allegations were very much real.

Some of the survivors have testified that Koresh did father a lot of children by a lot of women. One woman said she personally helped deliver at least seven of them. So we know it was happening.

Even though the CPS case didn’t amount to anything, Koresh knew his time was coming. Jeff Guinn puts it best in his book, so I’ll quote his words here:
“The forces of Babylon were on the move against the Lamb and his followers, and time was running out. When the End Time came, he and the Branch Davidians were going to still be at Mount Carmel. Koresh announced, “We may not get to Israel. The devil doesn’t want us to go, so he is going to block it. It looks like persecution is coming.” End quote.

Now these allegations did factor into the Waco siege, but not until the end. So let’s take a look at what started this whole mess, including a prior incident involving the FBI and a fringe group with illegal weapons charges.

The Failed ATF Raid
In August of 1992, the FBI raided a cabin in Idaho on a mountain known as Ruby Ridge. Randy Weaver, a self-proclaimed white separatist, his family, and a friend named Kevin Harris were staying in the cabin, off-grid in the northern part of Idaho, not far from the Canadian border - about 26, 27 miles as the crow flies. So why was the FBI there? Illegal weapons. But it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Randy Weaver was a white supremacist who attended Aryan Nation meetings - to be clear he wasn’t a member of Aryan Nations, but he did share their values. He made friends with an undercover ATF informant at these meetings and sold that agent two illegal sawed-off shotguns in October 1989. The ATF tried to use that information to make Weaver an informant, but Weaver refused. ATF pursued a weapons charge against him, but Weaver didn’t appear for trial - to be fair, the date was changed several times and Weaver was given the wrong trial date. But since Weaver didn’t show up for his trial, the Court issued a warrant for his arrest. The US Marshals were brought in to find him, and they concluded that Weaver and his family would likely resist violently if confronted, so they planned a stealth operation. They pinned him down to Ruby Ridge and started planning. Does this sound familiar yet?

On August 21, 1992, Weaver’s dog outed the stealth surveillance team as they closed in on the property. They KILLED THE DOG, which is never okay, and then a shootout began between the US Marshals and the Weavers. Sammy Weaver, the son, was shot in the back and killed. The family friend, Kevin Harris, killed one of the US Marshals.

Weaver, Harris, and the family refused to surrender, so the standoff continued. The Hostage Rescue Team, the HRT, came in. An HRT sniper shot and killed Weaver’s wife in the face as she was holding their baby - the bullet was apparently intended for Kevin Harris, but he obviously missed his mark. The standoff continued for eleven days, and the bodies of the dead were just there for that whole process. Negotiaters were brought in, and they ended the standoff. Harris, Weaver, and Weaver’s remaining children all ended up surrendering.

They were brought on trial for a bunch of crimes, including for the murder of the US Marshal, but an Idaho jury acquitted Kevin Harris of all charges. Randy Weaver was only charged with failing to appear for the original firearms charge that started this all.

The FBI and all the other agencies responsible for this, including the ATF, were heavily criticized for their handling of this case - for their shoddy intelligence, for not ordering their surrender before shooting their dog and starting the firefight, for the sniper’s shots that killed Weaver’s wife Vicki, and more. None of the agents involved were charged, but Ruby Ridge became an example of the antagonism between the government and militias, and many put Ruby Ridge as the beginning point of anti-government, right-wing groups.

Ruby Ridge was a stain on the FBI and its handling of fringe groups. They were still dealing with the backlash and bad publicity from that incident when planning the raid on Mount Carmel. They were eager to prevent another firefight - especially if women and children would be involved. But only six months later, they led the disastrous siege on Waco against David Koresh.

In 1992, ATF got wind that Koresh and his followers at Mount Carmel were illegally modding guns - and we know now that it was in preparation for the second coming. After 8 months of investigating Koresh, it was clear that the Branch Davidians were turning semi-automatic rifles into automatic ones. Oh also, they didn’t really call themselves Branch Davidians, that was the name that Ben Roden used, but it stuck, so that’s what we call them. Anyway, in addition to the guns were some illegal homemade explosives - grenades, really. What was unclear was the motive - did Koresh want to attack? Was he selling them? Was this going to be another Jim Jones/Jonestown situation - a mass murder-suicide? Definitely go listen to that episode - it’s a good one, and there are a lot of similarities.

Now regardless of motive, the weapons were illegal, and it was ATF’s job to take action. A district judge signed off on the warrant and sealed it from public view - the idea was that ATF needed to serve this warrant and raid Mount Carmel with the element of surprise. With the kinds of weapons stashed away in Koresh’s compound, including 50 caliber rifles that could penetrate armored vehicles, the ATF couldn’t take any chances and allow them to prepare for battle - just in case. As it turns out, these were well-founded fears.

Now ATF at the time had two ways of conducting a raid - either surround the property and call out, giving suspects a chance to come out peacefully, or the dynamic entry method - bursting in before they have a chance to resist. The Mount Carmel raid, of course, was this second type. It seems like Ruby Ridge was too. Without getting too deep into the details, the general plan was to surprise them nice and early, arrest David Koresh, find and remove the illegal weapons, and leave before a firefight broke out. They did not want another Ruby Ridge on their hands.

Now given the location of the compound, this was never going to be an easy raid. There’s no real way to “sneak up” on the property, right? There’s one long road up to the front door, and ATF would need to use it to get there.

The ATF did know that David Koresh kept his weapons locked away - a few defectors gave up that key piece of information. They also knew that every morning there was a compulsory Bible study with Koresh. Once that was done, all the able-bodied men would be outdoors working on a project. So if ATF did their raid when everyone was together outside, and all the weapons were locked up inside, it was their best chance of getting in there without a firefight, bloodshed, or general disaster. They were going to conceal themselves in cattle trucks, hoping the Branch Davidians wouldn’t get wind of what was really happening until it was too late. A cattle truck is a pretty common sight in rural Texas.

But of course, it didn’t happen that way. If you can believe it, a newscaster and a mailman foiled the ATF’s plans.

The local Waco TV station, KWTX, sent three men off to cover the story. Though Mount Carmel may not have known the raid was coming (yet), the town of Waco sure knew - there were ATF agents everywhere. The TV station wanted footage of the prisoners taken away, the confrontation - all of it. But one of the cameramen got super lost on the way up to the abandoned house on the edge of Mount Carmel’s land that the ATF used for their command post. So he did what anyone would do in the early 90s without access to GPS satellite data on their phone - he asked someone for directions. A postal worker. The USPS guy would surely know where things are out in the sticks, right? The cameraman explained that he had to get there quickly to film the ATF raid on Mount Carmel.

But the postman was David Jones, a Branch Davidian who lived up at Mount Carmel. He rushed back to tell David Koresh about the impending raid.

Now there was an ATF undercover agent in there, Robert Gonzalez. He had been working on this for months, getting inside Mount Carmel and providing valuable information to ATF. So when Postman David Jones told Koresh about the raid, the undercover agent told his superiors that Koresh knew. To call it off. ATF’s response? And I quote: “I think it will be okay if we go quickly.”

The utter hubris. ATF planned this raid for months on the premise that they didn’t want another Ruby Ridge. They didn’t want to harm women and children, and they knew through their undercover agent that there were a lot of them in there. But ATF didn’t have a plan B, and they didn’t want to reschedule. They were so confident in their plan that they never stopped to think about what would happen if it went south. They had lost the element of surprise, but they went along with it anyway.

It didn’t go well.

ATF agents walked up to the front door. It was quiet - a lot of the agents knew it was going to be bad, and many didn’t want to carry out the raid knowing they lost the element of surprise. But they were told to do it anyway, so they did. Mount Carmel was a haphazardly constructed compound with lots of windows, two stories tall, with a taller tower in the middle. The whole thing was on an incline, too, so anyone approaching from the road would be at a disadvantage. Mount Carmel had the high ground - and lots of windows for snipers.

Koresh told his people not to do anything - he would go outside and talk to the agents. He did, and told ATF to get off his property. When ATF presented the arrest warrant, Koresh slammed the door. And that’s when the firefight began.

I don’t want to go into the details of it all - the second by second play of the initial firefight. There are tons of documentaries and limited series TV shows that will give you a good visual on that. But by the time the firefight ended, four ATF officers were dead, and a bunch of Branch Davidians too. And a lot were also injured. Including David Koresh himself. A ceasefire was called so that wounded ATF agents could be rescued from the no man’s land growing outside the front doors of Mount Carmel.

But the ceasefire didn’t end it - the firefight turned into a standoff that lasted for 51 days.

The Standoff
After the failed raid, the FBI got involved. With them came two different groups. First, we had the negotiators, whose job was to, you know, negotiate with David Koresh to get the women and children out, and hopefully get him to surrender. Second, the Hostage Rescue Team, the HRT, specialists who focus on hostage rescue and counter-terror operations. The sniper at Ruby Ridge, the one who shot Vicki Weaver through the face? He was Hostage Rescue Team.

What you need to know about these two groups is that at Waco, they did not agree on how things should be handled. But even worse - their communication was awful. For example - negotiators might tell David Koresh that they weren’t planning any nighttime raids to gain his trust, right? Well HRT would do that anyway, undermining the entire negotiations process.

Which was difficult enough, because David Koresh was absolutely playing them.

So at one point during the standoff, Koresh told negotiators that he’d come out with all his people, and surrender, if he was allowed to broadcast a 58-minute sermon on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Once that was done, he’d come out, followed by the kids, then the women, then the rest of the men. The Branch Davidians weren’t cool with this plan, because it looked like giving up - hadn’t they been preparing for this exact moment? Didn’t their leader tell them that they would fight and die against Babylon, then be resurrected at the End of Days in Israel, with Jesus on King David’s throne? I mean they had been manufacturing weapons for this exact situation, but here is David Koresh saying they’d give up peacefully. It didn’t jive with what they knew.

ATF, on the other hand, didn’t think he’d do it; they assumed it would be another Jim Jones, mass murder-suicide, Jonestown Massacre situation.

But they planned for it anyway. The broadcast went out. The day came when David Koresh was supposed to walk out, peacefully, and surrender…  Aaaaaand, he never showed up. Another Branch Davidian told negotiators that, quote, “His God says that he has to wait.”

Koresh was playing them, and they knew it.

But negotiations did manage to get Koresh to release a bunch of kids and women. Not his biological children, mind you, but other children. Kathy Schroeder, a die-hard Branch Davidian, was eventually persuaded to leave to protect her child, so she survived the incident. But she told reporters that, quote,
“If they entered the building, we would all commit suicide. There was an actual grenade, handed to me, because I was the one woman that could have pulled that pin and killed the four or five women in the room I was in. It wasn’t a matter of ‘how is this affecting me as a person’, because I’m not a person. I’m God’s tool.” End quote.

They were ready to die.

Now negotiations looked at David Koresh as a con man and a narcissist - religion was just the vehicle he was using to control these people and use all the women and girls at Mount Carmel. The higher-ups at the FBI saw it differently. They thought Koresh was raised to be this way - molded and created by Lois Roden and a lifetime of Adventist religious study. His trip to Israel changed him. He truly believed he was the Lamb and would usher in the second coming.

But regardless of his motivation, or what he really believed, he had to be stopped. It wasn’t just the standoff, but the allegations of sexual assault on minors. And there were plenty of children still in the building.

The standoff ended on April 19th, 1993. It was the culmination of an absolute breakdown in communication between the FBI, the Hostage Recovery Team, and negotiations. They would constantly undermine each other, which only made David Koresh less trusting of the whole process. The longer it went on, the clearer it became that Koresh would not give up. So, the FBI decided enough was enough, and they planned a tactical move on Mount Carmel. No more negotiations. They stressed that it wasn’t an assault. They would be bringing in their massive tanks, they would flood the building with tear gas, and would force people out.

Well, the tanks crashed into the building. Literally opening up giant, tank-sized holes on the first floor. Through these entrances, they threw in tear gas. Snipers from the HRT were ready - the plan was to shoot them if they came out guns ablazin’.

Branch Davidians, of course, fought back. Remember, they had a massive stockpile of weapons because they were waiting for this day - the day when they would be attacked by Babylon (in this case the American government), would die for their cause, and be resurrected when God came down to earth to sweep it clean of the unfaithful.

And at some point, flames erupted. The whole compound was soon on fire. From birds eye view helicopter footage, it looked like the fire simultaneously started in three different places. The FBI said the Branch Davidians started it, and the Davidians of course blamed the FBI. A handful of people came out on the roof as the fire spread throughout the whole building, and they escaped. There was no running water in the compound, so there was no way to even try to put it out. The FBI and HRT were waiting, waiting for people to come running out, to save their lives, or take out any hostiles… but very few did.

Then, an explosion. A fireball. The building crumbled in on itself. But still, nobody else was coming out. David Koresh and 75 others died in that fire.

When it was clear that it was over, and everyone inside was dead, when the building was more or less completely gone, the FBI moved in to look for any survivors and survey the scene. It was described as apocalyptic carnage. Rounds of ammo, burning in the rubble, were popping off. Burnt Bible pages fell from the sky. There were skulls, half-burnt bodies, strewn about on the ground. The bodies of women, children, men, all looking for salvation, clinging to their religious beliefs even as their leader led them to their deaths.

It was over, but the death toll from the whole affair was staggering - 4 ATF agents and 82 Branch Davidians were dead over the course of these 51 days, including 28 children.

It was over, but it was massive failure. And it was seen that way - not just by the Branch Davidians, but by pretty much everyone. Congress came down hard on the FBI and ATF, as well as local law enforcement in Waco.

The biggest problem was the miscommunication between all the different government groups. Here’s a good quote about it from a 1996 New Yorker article. Quote:
“The tactical agents, whose job was essentially to heat things up, found themselves increasingly at odds with the negotiators, whose aim was to cool things down.” End quote.

It was a clash of cultures - the HRT and tactical units vs. negotiations. Sure, negotiations had a hard time ahead of them, but it could have been done. But the HRT and the FBI, just like they had at Ruby Ridge six months prior, operated with the notion that the only way to control this situation was through aggression. But they were dealing with a man who wanted a firefight - he wanted him and his followers to die to usher in the end of days. Did he really believe that, or was he more of a Jim Jones character? Honestly, we don’t know. And it doesn’t really matter. But the legacy from Waco is that the government absolutely overstepped and messed up this raid. When the surprise attack was ruined, they should have turned back. But because of their hubris, they pushed forward anyway, and it cost them a 51-day standoff and 86 lives.

Final thoughts
Two years to the day after Waco, on April 19th, 1995, army veteran Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It killed 168 people and injured 680. McVeigh was convicted on 11 counts of murder, conspiracy, and using a weapon of mass destruction.

McVeigh came to Waco during the standoff. He was one of many who were drawn there, angry at how the government seemingly infringed on the rights of its citizens. McVeigh was part of a growing right-wing militia movement that started with Ruby Ridge, continued with Waco, and still exists today. In a letter later published in the Buffalo News, McVeigh wrote that, quote,
“If there would not have been a Waco, I would have put down roots somewhere and not been so unsettled with the fact that my government … was a threat to me. Everything that Waco implies was on the forefront of my thoughts. That sort of guided my path for the next couple of years.” End quote.

And here’s another one, from a letter sent to Fox News explaining why he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah building in particular. Quote:
“I chose to bomb a federal building because such an action served more purposes than other options. Foremost, the bombing was a retaliatory strike; a counterattack, for the cumulative raids and subsequent violence and damage that federal agents had participated in over the preceding years (including, but not limited to, Ruby Ridge and Waco.) From the formation of such units as the FBI's 'Hostage Rescue' and other assault teams amongst federal agencies during the '80s; culminating in the Waco incident, federal actions grew increasingly militaristic and violent, to the point where at Waco, our government… was deploying tanks against its own citizens.” End quote.

My point here is that Waco wasn’t just an isolated incident. When combined with Ruby Ridge, it pushed more and more people to turn against the government - to see it as a threat to their right to own firearms, their right to own property, and their general sovereignty. Instead of preventing another massacre at Waco, government miscommunication and some poor decisions led to the fiery end of Mt. Carmel. And it didn’t stop there, because Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City as a direct response to Waco - he did it on the anniversary. He wanted people to pay attention to his message - to look into Waco, and Ruby Ridge, and get angry at what had happened. Because at first, the people sided with the government and assumed that Waco was another situation where a crazy man kept his people locked up in there and needed to be dealt with. But Timothy McVeigh wanted people to know about how the government messed up. Unfortunately, he did it by murdering innocent people in Oklahoma City. But it did get people to pay more attention.

The FBI did end up changing their tactics. But it was too late - the damage was done. The right-wing militia movement has only strengthened over time, contributing to an increasing divide that still persists in this country today.

Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things. My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the story of The Waco Siege. Thank you for supporting my podcast, and if you haven’t already checked out my other episodes, go have a listen!

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