CONTENTS
Guide
David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage
Waco
Jeff Guinn
Bestselling author of Manson and The Road to Jonestown
In memory of Iris Chang: Historian and Hero
A fog of crosscutting motives and narratives, a complexity that defies storybook simplicity: that is usually the way history happens.
RICK PERLSTEIN, THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE
A Note on Nomenclature
Victor Houteff founded the organization originally known as the Shepherds Rod, then later as the Davidians. The proper term for the group subsequently led by Ben Roden is Branch Davidians. When Lois Roden moved into the leadership, for a time she called her followers the Living Waters, but they ultimately remained the Branch Davidians. David Koresh did not emphasize a group name. Most followers led by Koresh identified themselves as Bible students, or, less frequently, as Students of the Seven Seals. In 1993, the name on the deed to Mount Carmel was General Association of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, so members of the media covering the initial ATF raid and subsequent fifty-one-day FBI siege identified the besieged as Branch Davidians in their reports. Since this is the name ingrained in public consciousness, its the one I use most frequently in this book.
Lois Roden is pictured on the front page of her newsletter, Shekinah. The Lord revealed to her that the Holy Spirit is both masculine and feminine. (The Texas Collection, Baylor University)
The son of Branch Davidian leaders Ben and Lois Roden, George Roden claimed group leadership should be his by right of succession, and fought David Koresh for the role. Commanding the Branch Davidians was not his only ambition. (The Texas Collection, Baylor University)
David Koresh poses with his legal wife, Heather, and their infant son, Cyrus. (Getty Images)
A century before Vernon Howell renamed himself David Koresh and announced himself as the Lamb in the Bibles Book of Revelation, Cyrus Teed proclaimed himself to be Koresh and the Lamb. (Ralph Lauer)
This copy of Koreshanity: The New Age Religion was acquired by the Waco-McClennan County Public Library in November 1972, almost nine years before Vernon Wayne Howell arrived at Mount Carmel and joined the Branch Davidians. (Ralph Lauer)
Kiri Jewell with her father, David Jewell. Following the Mount Carmel conflagration in April 1993, fifteen-year-old Kiri testified to a Congressional investigative committee that David Koresh first made sexual contact with her when she was ten. (Getty Images)
This map shows how ATF agents set up their undercover or U. C. House directly across from Mount Carmel. There was scant cover from the road to Mount Carmel. (September 1993 Treasury Department Report)
ATF agents in the Bellmead Civic Center staging area scramble to grab their combat gear immediately after being informed that the Branch Davidians know were coming. Four agents died, and sixteen more were wounded in the subsequent raid. (Bill Buford Collection)
After exiting two cattle trailers amid a hail of virtually point-blank gunfire, ATF agents took what cover was availablemostly behind carsand began returning fire. (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms website)
After a cease-fire was finally in place, ATF dead and wounded were taken away from Mount Carmel on whatever vehicles were available. One critically injured agent was held in place on the hood of a truck inching down the curving Mount Carmel driveway. (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms website)
Global news media descended on Waco during the fifty-oneday siege of Mount Carmel by the FBI. Many media groups set up elaborate camps. (The Texas Collection, Baylor University)
When the FBI denied them direct contact with the media, besieged Branch Davidians wrote messages on sheets and hung them out Mount Carmel windows. (The Texas Collection, Baylor University)
Prominent defense attorney Dick DeGuerin was hired by Bonnie Haldeman to represent her son, David Koresh. DeGuerins consultations inside Mount Carmel with his client resulted in Koreshs offer to surrender peacefully with his followers if he was first allowed to write explanations of the Book of Revelations Seven Seals. (Getty Images)
An Army tank driven by an FBI agent deliberately crashes into the rickety wall of Mount Carmel on the morning of April 19, 1993. Fifty-three Branch Davidian adults and twenty-three children died in the ensuing fire and collapse of the building. (Associated Press)
Following the conflagration, federal agents and Texas Rangers searched the smoking wreckage for bodies and evidence. The concrete vault, where ammunition was stored and women and children sheltered and died when the roof collapsed, was left partially intact. (Getty Images)
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