David Koresh
Encyclopedia
David Koresh born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian
religious sect
, believing himself to be its final prophet
. Howell legally changed his name to David Koresh on May 15, 1990. A 1993 raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
, and the subsequent siege
by the FBI ended with the burning of the Branch Davidian ranch
outside of Waco, Texas
, in McLennan County. Koresh, 54 other adults and 21 children were found dead after the fire.
Early life=
Koresh was born in Houston to a 14-year-old single mother, Bonnie Sue Clark. His father was a 20-year-old man named Bobby Howell. Before Koresh was born, his father met another teenage girl and abandoned Bonnie Sue. Koresh never met his father and his mother began cohabiting
with a violent alcoholic. In 1963, Koresh's mother left her boyfriend and placed her 4-year-old son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Earline Clark. His mother returned when he was seven, after her marriage to a carpenter named Roy Haldeman. Haldeman and Clark had a son together named Roger, who was born in 1966.
Koresh described his early childhood as lonely, and it has been alleged that he was once gang raped by older boys when he was 8. Koresh dropped out of Garland High School in his junior year.
When he was 22, Koresh had an affair with a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant. He claimed to have become a born-again Christian in the Southern Baptist Church and soon joined his mother's church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church
. There he fell in love with the pastor's daughter and while praying for guidance he opened his eyes and allegedly found the Bible open at Isaiah 34
, stating that none should want for a mate; convinced this was a sign from God, he approached the pastor and told him that God wanted him to have his daughter for a wife. The pastor threw him out, and when he continued to persist with his pursuit of the daughter he was expelled from the congregation.
In 1981 he moved to Waco, Texas
, where he joined the Branch Davidians, a religious group originating from a schism in the 1950s from the Shepherd's Rod
, themselves disfellowshipped members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1930s. They had established their headquarters at a ranch about 10 miles out of Waco, which they called the Mount Carmel Center (after the Biblical Mount Carmel
), in 1955.
Koresh played guitar and sang in church services at Mt Carmel; his band did play a few times at clubs in Waco; former members (such as David Thibodeau) have written that he recruited them through music. He also tried pursuing his own record company but because of lack of funds and support was not successful. His status as a "rock singer" was very localized.
. It is speculated that Koresh had a sexual relationship with Lois Roden
, the prophetess and leader of the sect who was then 76 years old, eventually claiming that God had chosen him to father a child with her, who would be the Chosen One. In 1983, Roden allowed Koresh to begin teaching his own message which caused controversy in the group. Lois Roden's son George Roden
intended to be the group's next leader and considered Koresh an interloper. When Koresh announced that God had instructed him to marry Rachel Jones (who then added Koresh to her name), there was a short period of calm at Mount Carmel, but it proved only temporary. In the ensuing power struggle, George Roden, claiming to have the support of the majority of the group, forced Koresh and his group off the property at gunpoint. Disturbed by the events and the move away from the philosophy of the community's founders, a further splinter group led by Charles Joseph Pace moved out of Mount Carmel and set up home in Gadsden, Alabama
.
In 1985 Koresh and around 25 followers set up camp at Palestine, Texas
, 90 miles from Waco, where they lived under rough conditions in buses and tents for the next two years, during which time Koresh undertook recruitment of new followers in California, the United Kingdom, Israel and Australia. That same year Koresh traveled to Israel where he claimed he had a vision that he was the modern day Cyrus
. The founder of the Davidian movement, Victor Houteff
, wanted to be God's implement and establish the Davidic kingdom in Palestine. Koresh also wanted to be God's tool and set up the Davidic kingdom in Jerusalem. At least until 1990, he believed the place of his martyrdom might be in Israel, but by 1991 he was convinced that his martyrdom would be in the United States. Instead of Israel, he said the prophecies of Daniel would be fulfilled in Waco and that the Mount Carmel Center was the Davidic kingdom.
After being exiled to the Palestine, Texas camp, Koresh and his followers eked out a primitive existence. When Lois Roden died in 1986, the exiled Davidians wondered if they would ever be able to return to Mount Carmel. But despite the displacement, "Koresh now enjoyed the loyalty of the majority of the [Davidian] community."
By late 1987, George Roden's support was severely withering. To regain it, he challenged Koresh to a contest to raise the dead, going so far as to exhume a corpse to demonstrate his spiritual supremacy. Koresh went to authorities to file charges against Roden for illegally exhuming a corpse, but was told he would have to show proof (such as a photograph of the corpse). Koresh seized the opportunity to seek criminal prosecution of Roden by returning to Mount Carmel with seven armed followers attempting to get photographic proof of the crime. Koresh's group was discovered by Roden and a gunfight broke out. When the sheriff arrived, Roden had already suffered a minor gunshot wound and was pinned down behind a tree. As a result of the incident, Koresh and his followers were charged with attempted murder. At the trial, Koresh explained that he went to Mount Carmel to uncover evidence of criminal disturbance of a corpse by Roden. Koresh's followers were acquitted, and in Koresh's case a mistrial
was declared.
In 1989 Roden murdered Wayman Dale Adair with an axe blow to the skull after Adair stated his belief that he (Adair) was the true Messiah. Roden was convicted of murder and imprisoned in a mental hospital at Vernon, Texas. Since Roden owed thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes on Mount Carmel, Koresh and his followers were able to raise the money and reclaim the property. Roden continued to harass the Koresh faction by filing legal papers while imprisoned. When Koresh and his followers reclaimed Mt. Carmel, they discovered that tenants who had rented from Roden had left behind a methamphetamine
laboratory, which Koresh reported to the local police department and asked to have removed.
The name Koresh is a transliteration of the Hebrew word for "belly".
It is also a transliteration of the Persian name of Cyrus (Modern Persian: کوروش, Kurosh), the Persian king
who allowed the Jews who had been dispersed
throughout Babylonia
by Nebuchadnezzar to return to their homelands. His first name, David, symbolized a lineage directly to the biblical King David, from whom the new messiah would descend. By taking the name of David Koresh, he was "professing himself to be the spiritual descendent of King David, a messianic figure carrying out a divinely commissioned errand."
Regarding the allegations of child abuse, the evidence is less compelling. In one widely reported incident, ex-members claimed that Koresh became irritated with the cries of his son Cyrus and spanked the child severely for several minutes on three consecutive visits to the child's bedroom. In a second report, Koresh was said to have beaten the eight-month old daughter of another member for approximately forty minutes until the girl's bottom bled. In a third incident, a man involved in a custody battle visited Mt. Carmel and claimed to have seen the beating of a young boy with a stick. Finally, the FBI's justification for forcing an end to the 51 day standoff was predicated on the charge that Koresh was abusing children inside Mount Carmel. In hours following the deadly conflagration, Attorney General Janet Reno
told reporters that "We had specific information that babies were being beaten." But FBI Director William Sessions publicly denied the charge and told reporters that they had no such information about child abuse inside the Mount Carmel. A careful examination of the other child abuse charges found the evidence to be weak and ambiguous, casting doubt on the allegations.
The allegations of child abuse stem largely from detractors and ex-members. The 1993 U.S. Department of Justice report cites allegations of child sexual
and physical
abuse. But despite the merits of the charges, legal scholars point out that the ATF had no legal jurisdiction in the matter of child protection and it appears that these accounts were inserted by the ATF to inflame the case against Koresh. For example, the account of former Branch Davidian Jeannine Bunds is reproduced in the affidavit. She claimed that Koresh had fathered at least fifteen children with various women and that she had personally delivered seven of these children. Bunds also claims that Koresh would annul all marriages of couples who joined the group, had exclusive sexual access to the women, and would also have regular sexual relations with young girls, though some of these charges are clearly exaggerated. There is no question that Koresh had multiple children by different women in the group. His House of David doctrine based on a purported revelation involved the reproduction of 24 children by chosen women in the community. These 24 children were to serve as the ruling elders over the millennium after the return of Christ. In his book, James Tabor states that Koresh acknowledged on a videotape sent out of the compound during the standoff that he had fathered more than 12 children by several "wives." On March 3, 1993, during negotiations to secure the release of the remaining children, Koresh advised the Negotiation Team that: "My children are different than those others," referring to his direct lineage versus those children previously released.
At the time, in Texas, the age of parental consent
for a minor to marry
was 14, as was the age for consent to engage in sexual relations. In the documentary film, Waco: The Rules of Engagement
(long version), Jack Harwell, Sheriff of McLennan County, stated: "You have to have proof to go into court . . . Keep in mind, too, that most of the girls who were involved were at least 14 years old and 14 year olds get married with parental consent. So if their parents were there and letting things happen in the way of sexual activities and what have you with their 14 year old kids, you have common law husbands and wives. Uh, I don’t say that I agree with that and that I approve of it. But at the same time, if parents are there and they’re giving parental consent, we have a problem with that in making a case."
As the standoff continued, Koresh, who was seriously injured by a gunshot wound, along with his closest male leaders negotiated delays, possibly so he could write religious documents he said he needed to complete before he surrendered. His conversations with the negotiators were dense with biblical imagery. The federal negotiators treated the situation as a hostage crisis despite a two hour video tape sent out by the Davidians in which the adults and older children/teens appeared to explain clearly and confidently why they chose of their own free will to remain with Koresh.
The 51-day siege of Mount Carmel ended on April 19th when U.S Attorney General Janet Reno
approved recommendations of veteran FBI officials to proceed with a final assault in which the Branch Davidians were to be removed from their building by force. In the course of the assault, the church building caught fire. The cause of the fire was later alleged by the "Danforth Report", a report commissioned by The Special Counsel, to be the deliberate actions of some of the Branch Davidians inside the building. However this hypothesis is disputed by some scholars as well as in the documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement which argues that the fire was deliberately set when the FBI fired an incendiary device into the building after loading the building with CS gas
. CS (aka tear gas) can be an explosion and fire hazard in conditions such as those created by the FBI attack on Mount Carmel. High levels of CS in a confined space, experienced by the barricaded sect members under the six-hour insertion of the chemical warfare agent.
"A single spark produced by the tracks of the twenty-nine-foot-long, fifty-two-ton M60 combat engineering vehicle (CEV) in metal-to-metal contact during the insertion and penetration of the Mount Carmel Center would have been sufficient to ignite the initial fire." The first indication on such was observed in a FLIR at 12:07:41 less than two minutes after a CEV breaches into the southeast corner area of the building. "By noon, Mount Carmel was a virtual tinderbox after the massive insertion of CS, which coated everything inside the building, producing a flammable vapor-air mixture."
The following account was recorded by two FBI crisis negotiators in one barricade incident. In attempting to force suspects out of a building, the police fired a CS canister into the area where they thought men where holed up. When the SWAT team fired the CS, the “gas canister landed on a sofa and burned down the entire structure." No details was offered about how the CS canister’s could set the sofa on fire. The fire was thus attributed to ignition of CS. "At the subsequent trial of the surviving Branch Davidians, the jury listened to edited parts of a tape-recording from hidden microphones inside Mt. Carmel during the final attack and fire of April 19. These consisted of sounds of static during which one could faintly hear a voice saying ". . . fire . . . ". A government expert testified that through electronic enhancement, he had reconstructed some clearly incriminating comments, even if the jury could not hear them.
It later transpired that the FBI, when meeting Koresh's demands that milk be sent in for the children's wellbeing, also sent in tiny listening devices concealed inside the milk cartons and their styrofoam containers.
Barricaded in their building, seventy-six Branch Davidians, including Koresh, did not survive the fire. Seventeen of these victims were children under the age of 17. The Danforth Report claims that those who died were unable, or unwilling, to flee and that Steve Schneider, Koresh's right-hand man, probably shot Koresh and committed suicide with the same gun. Autopsy records indicate that at least 20 Branch Davidians were shot, including 5 children. Waco: The Rules of Engagement claims that FBI sharpshooters fired on, and killed, many Branch Davidians who attempted to flee the flames. While the few Branch Davidians who did successfully flee the fire supported this claim, the Danforth Report concluded that the adults who died of gunshot wounds shot themselves after shooting the children. Independent third party investigations refute the Danforth Report. On the final day of the Branch Davidian siege in 1993, aerial FLIR film was shot by the FBI that seemed to show automatic weapons fire directed into the burning buildings. Former Senator John Danforth
, under the direction of Acting Attorney General Eric Holder
, conducted a 14-month, $17-million investigation that exonerated the government of any wrongdoing.
.
Several of David Koresh's albums were released including Voice Of Fire in 1994.
The Mount Carmel raid and the 1992 Ruby Ridge
incident were cited by Timothy McVeigh
and Terry Nichols
as motivations for the Oklahoma City bombing
. This terrorist act was carried out on April 19, 1995 -- timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the Waco assault.
In 2004, Koresh's 1968 Camaro
with a 427c.i. swap, which had been damaged by the military during the raid, sold for $37,000 at auction.
On January 23, 2009, Koresh's mother, Bonnie Clark Haldeman, was stabbed to death in Chandler, Texas
. Her sister, Beverly Clark, was charged with the murder.
Branch Davidian
The Branch Davidians are a Protestant sect that originated in 1955 from a schism in the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists , a reform movement that began within the Seventh-day Adventist Church around 1930...
religious sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
, believing himself to be its final prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
. Howell legally changed his name to David Koresh on May 15, 1990. A 1993 raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a federal law enforcement organization within the United States Department of Justice...
, and the subsequent siege
Waco Siege
The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, and ended violently 50 days later on April 19. The siege began when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located east-northeast of Waco,...
by the FBI ended with the burning of the Branch Davidian ranch
Mount Carmel Center
Mount Carmel Center was the name of the Branch Davidian home outside of Waco, Texas, led by Benjamin Roden and later David Koresh. Named after the Biblical Mountain in northern Israel, it was here that the infamous 1993 Waco Siege occurred in which four ATF agents and 83 Branch Davidians died...
outside of Waco, Texas
Waco, Texas
Waco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. Situated along the Brazos River and on the I-35 corridor, halfway between Dallas and Austin, it is the economic, cultural, and academic center of the 'Heart of Texas' region....
, in McLennan County. Koresh, 54 other adults and 21 children were found dead after the fire.
Early life=
Koresh was born in Houston to a 14-year-old single mother, Bonnie Sue Clark. His father was a 20-year-old man named Bobby Howell. Before Koresh was born, his father met another teenage girl and abandoned Bonnie Sue. Koresh never met his father and his mother began cohabiting
Cohabitation
Cohabitation usually refers to an arrangement whereby two people decide to live together on a long-term or permanent basis in an emotionally and/or sexually intimate relationship. The term is most frequently applied to couples who are not married...
with a violent alcoholic. In 1963, Koresh's mother left her boyfriend and placed her 4-year-old son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Earline Clark. His mother returned when he was seven, after her marriage to a carpenter named Roy Haldeman. Haldeman and Clark had a son together named Roger, who was born in 1966.
Koresh described his early childhood as lonely, and it has been alleged that he was once gang raped by older boys when he was 8. Koresh dropped out of Garland High School in his junior year.
When he was 22, Koresh had an affair with a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant. He claimed to have become a born-again Christian in the Southern Baptist Church and soon joined his mother's church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...
. There he fell in love with the pastor's daughter and while praying for guidance he opened his eyes and allegedly found the Bible open at Isaiah 34
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
, stating that none should want for a mate; convinced this was a sign from God, he approached the pastor and told him that God wanted him to have his daughter for a wife. The pastor threw him out, and when he continued to persist with his pursuit of the daughter he was expelled from the congregation.
In 1981 he moved to Waco, Texas
Waco, Texas
Waco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. Situated along the Brazos River and on the I-35 corridor, halfway between Dallas and Austin, it is the economic, cultural, and academic center of the 'Heart of Texas' region....
, where he joined the Branch Davidians, a religious group originating from a schism in the 1950s from the Shepherd's Rod
Shepherd's Rod
The Shepherd's Rod is a message believed and adopted by Davidian Seventh-day Adventists or Davidians, and authored by Victor T. Houteff . Davidians have claimed themselves a part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church but the majority were disfellowshipped because they follow the interpretations by...
, themselves disfellowshipped members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1930s. They had established their headquarters at a ranch about 10 miles out of Waco, which they called the Mount Carmel Center (after the Biblical Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ; , Kármēlos; , Kurmul or جبل مار إلياس Jabal Mar Elyas 'Mount Saint Elias') is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
), in 1955.
Koresh played guitar and sang in church services at Mt Carmel; his band did play a few times at clubs in Waco; former members (such as David Thibodeau) have written that he recruited them through music. He also tried pursuing his own record company but because of lack of funds and support was not successful. His status as a "rock singer" was very localized.
Ascent to leadership of the Branch Davidians
In 1983 he began claiming the gift of prophecyProphecy
Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
. It is speculated that Koresh had a sexual relationship with Lois Roden
Lois Roden
Lois Irene Scott Roden was a president of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church, an apocalyptic Christian sect which her husband, Benjamin Roden founded. The sect began in Texas in 1955 as a succession to the Shepherd's Rod movement led by Victor T...
, the prophetess and leader of the sect who was then 76 years old, eventually claiming that God had chosen him to father a child with her, who would be the Chosen One. In 1983, Roden allowed Koresh to begin teaching his own message which caused controversy in the group. Lois Roden's son George Roden
George Roden
George Roden was a leader of the Branch Davidian sect, a Seventh-day Adventist splinter group, and the former husband of Amo Bishop Roden. In 1987, he was evicted from the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas by his rival David Koresh...
intended to be the group's next leader and considered Koresh an interloper. When Koresh announced that God had instructed him to marry Rachel Jones (who then added Koresh to her name), there was a short period of calm at Mount Carmel, but it proved only temporary. In the ensuing power struggle, George Roden, claiming to have the support of the majority of the group, forced Koresh and his group off the property at gunpoint. Disturbed by the events and the move away from the philosophy of the community's founders, a further splinter group led by Charles Joseph Pace moved out of Mount Carmel and set up home in Gadsden, Alabama
Gadsden, Alabama
The city of Gadsden is the county seat of Etowah County in the U.S. state of Alabama, and it is located about 65 miles northeast of Birmingham, Alabama. It is the primary city of the Gadsden Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 103,459. Gadsden is closely associated with the...
.
In 1985 Koresh and around 25 followers set up camp at Palestine, Texas
Palestine, Texas
Palestine is a city in Anderson County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 17,598, and 18,458 in the 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Anderson County and is situated in East Texas...
, 90 miles from Waco, where they lived under rough conditions in buses and tents for the next two years, during which time Koresh undertook recruitment of new followers in California, the United Kingdom, Israel and Australia. That same year Koresh traveled to Israel where he claimed he had a vision that he was the modern day Cyrus
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
. The founder of the Davidian movement, Victor Houteff
Victor Houteff
Victor Tasho Houteff was a religious reformer and author.Houteff was born in Raicovo, Bulgaria, and as a child baptised as a member of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. As a young man, he was engaged in the mercantile trade...
, wanted to be God's implement and establish the Davidic kingdom in Palestine. Koresh also wanted to be God's tool and set up the Davidic kingdom in Jerusalem. At least until 1990, he believed the place of his martyrdom might be in Israel, but by 1991 he was convinced that his martyrdom would be in the United States. Instead of Israel, he said the prophecies of Daniel would be fulfilled in Waco and that the Mount Carmel Center was the Davidic kingdom.
After being exiled to the Palestine, Texas camp, Koresh and his followers eked out a primitive existence. When Lois Roden died in 1986, the exiled Davidians wondered if they would ever be able to return to Mount Carmel. But despite the displacement, "Koresh now enjoyed the loyalty of the majority of the [Davidian] community."
By late 1987, George Roden's support was severely withering. To regain it, he challenged Koresh to a contest to raise the dead, going so far as to exhume a corpse to demonstrate his spiritual supremacy. Koresh went to authorities to file charges against Roden for illegally exhuming a corpse, but was told he would have to show proof (such as a photograph of the corpse). Koresh seized the opportunity to seek criminal prosecution of Roden by returning to Mount Carmel with seven armed followers attempting to get photographic proof of the crime. Koresh's group was discovered by Roden and a gunfight broke out. When the sheriff arrived, Roden had already suffered a minor gunshot wound and was pinned down behind a tree. As a result of the incident, Koresh and his followers were charged with attempted murder. At the trial, Koresh explained that he went to Mount Carmel to uncover evidence of criminal disturbance of a corpse by Roden. Koresh's followers were acquitted, and in Koresh's case a mistrial
Trial (law)
In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...
was declared.
In 1989 Roden murdered Wayman Dale Adair with an axe blow to the skull after Adair stated his belief that he (Adair) was the true Messiah. Roden was convicted of murder and imprisoned in a mental hospital at Vernon, Texas. Since Roden owed thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes on Mount Carmel, Koresh and his followers were able to raise the money and reclaim the property. Roden continued to harass the Koresh faction by filing legal papers while imprisoned. When Koresh and his followers reclaimed Mt. Carmel, they discovered that tenants who had rented from Roden had left behind a methamphetamine
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
laboratory, which Koresh reported to the local police department and asked to have removed.
Name change
Vernon Howell filed a petition in California State Superior Court in Pomona on May 15, 1990, to legally change his name "for publicity and business purposes" to David Koresh. On August 28, 1990, Judge Robert Martinez granted the petition.The name Koresh is a transliteration of the Hebrew word for "belly".
It is also a transliteration of the Persian name of Cyrus (Modern Persian: کوروش, Kurosh), the Persian king
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
who allowed the Jews who had been dispersed
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
throughout Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
by Nebuchadnezzar to return to their homelands. His first name, David, symbolized a lineage directly to the biblical King David, from whom the new messiah would descend. By taking the name of David Koresh, he was "professing himself to be the spiritual descendent of King David, a messianic figure carrying out a divinely commissioned errand."
Accusations of child abuse and statutory rape
The child abuse and sexual abuse claims have been widely circulated in the press coverage though it is often difficult to separate the purported claims from the evidence. Koresh's doctrine of the House of David did lead to spiritual marriages with both married and single women in the group and with at least one underage girl. The underage girl was Michele Jones, the younger sister of Koresh's legal wife Rachel and the daughter of life-long Davidians Perry and Mary Belle Jones. Koresh took Michele as a spiritual wife when she was thirteen, evidently with the consent of the Joneses. This means Koresh was in violation of state law and could have been prosecuted for statutory rape in Texas. A six-month investgation of child abuse allegations by the Texas Child Protection Services in 1992 failed to turn up any evidence likely because the Davidians concealed the spiritual marriage of Koresh to Michele Jones, assigning a surrogate husband (David Thibodeau), to the girl for the sake of appearances. A second allegation involved an underage girl, Kiri Jewell, who testified in the Congressional hearings on Waco in 1995. She claimed Koresh engaged in improper sexual touching and other behaviors that would have brought sexual assault charges against him. There is no independent confirmation of this incident, however, and Kiri's family was split over whether they believed her story.Regarding the allegations of child abuse, the evidence is less compelling. In one widely reported incident, ex-members claimed that Koresh became irritated with the cries of his son Cyrus and spanked the child severely for several minutes on three consecutive visits to the child's bedroom. In a second report, Koresh was said to have beaten the eight-month old daughter of another member for approximately forty minutes until the girl's bottom bled. In a third incident, a man involved in a custody battle visited Mt. Carmel and claimed to have seen the beating of a young boy with a stick. Finally, the FBI's justification for forcing an end to the 51 day standoff was predicated on the charge that Koresh was abusing children inside Mount Carmel. In hours following the deadly conflagration, Attorney General Janet Reno
Janet Reno
Janet Wood Reno is a former Attorney General of the United States . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11...
told reporters that "We had specific information that babies were being beaten." But FBI Director William Sessions publicly denied the charge and told reporters that they had no such information about child abuse inside the Mount Carmel. A careful examination of the other child abuse charges found the evidence to be weak and ambiguous, casting doubt on the allegations.
The allegations of child abuse stem largely from detractors and ex-members. The 1993 U.S. Department of Justice report cites allegations of child sexual
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
and physical
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
abuse. But despite the merits of the charges, legal scholars point out that the ATF had no legal jurisdiction in the matter of child protection and it appears that these accounts were inserted by the ATF to inflame the case against Koresh. For example, the account of former Branch Davidian Jeannine Bunds is reproduced in the affidavit. She claimed that Koresh had fathered at least fifteen children with various women and that she had personally delivered seven of these children. Bunds also claims that Koresh would annul all marriages of couples who joined the group, had exclusive sexual access to the women, and would also have regular sexual relations with young girls, though some of these charges are clearly exaggerated. There is no question that Koresh had multiple children by different women in the group. His House of David doctrine based on a purported revelation involved the reproduction of 24 children by chosen women in the community. These 24 children were to serve as the ruling elders over the millennium after the return of Christ. In his book, James Tabor states that Koresh acknowledged on a videotape sent out of the compound during the standoff that he had fathered more than 12 children by several "wives." On March 3, 1993, during negotiations to secure the release of the remaining children, Koresh advised the Negotiation Team that: "My children are different than those others," referring to his direct lineage versus those children previously released.
At the time, in Texas, the age of parental consent
Parental consent
Parental consent laws in some countries require that one or more parents consent to or be notified before their minor child can legally engage in certain activities....
for a minor to marry
Marriageable age
Marriageable age is the age at which a person is allowed to marry, either as of right or subject to parental or other forms of consent. The age and other requirements vary between countries, but generally it is set at 18, although most jurisdictions allow marriage at slightly younger ages with...
was 14, as was the age for consent to engage in sexual relations. In the documentary film, Waco: The Rules of Engagement
Waco: The Rules of Engagement
Waco: The Rules of Engagement is a 1997 documentary directed by William Gazecki about the conflict in 1993 between the Branch Davidians, a non-mainstream Christian group led by David Koresh, and the FBI. It was nominated for an Academy Award....
(long version), Jack Harwell, Sheriff of McLennan County, stated: "You have to have proof to go into court . . . Keep in mind, too, that most of the girls who were involved were at least 14 years old and 14 year olds get married with parental consent. So if their parents were there and letting things happen in the way of sexual activities and what have you with their 14 year old kids, you have common law husbands and wives. Uh, I don’t say that I agree with that and that I approve of it. But at the same time, if parents are there and they’re giving parental consent, we have a problem with that in making a case."
Raid and siege
On February 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) raided Mount Carmel. The raid resulted in the deaths of four agents and six Davidians. Shortly after the initial raid, the FBI HRT (Hostage Rescue Team) took command of the federal operation, since FBI has jurisdiction over incidents involving the deaths of federal agents. Contact was established with Koresh inside the compound. Communication over the next 51 days included telephone exchanges with various FBI negotiators.As the standoff continued, Koresh, who was seriously injured by a gunshot wound, along with his closest male leaders negotiated delays, possibly so he could write religious documents he said he needed to complete before he surrendered. His conversations with the negotiators were dense with biblical imagery. The federal negotiators treated the situation as a hostage crisis despite a two hour video tape sent out by the Davidians in which the adults and older children/teens appeared to explain clearly and confidently why they chose of their own free will to remain with Koresh.
The 51-day siege of Mount Carmel ended on April 19th when U.S Attorney General Janet Reno
Janet Reno
Janet Wood Reno is a former Attorney General of the United States . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11...
approved recommendations of veteran FBI officials to proceed with a final assault in which the Branch Davidians were to be removed from their building by force. In the course of the assault, the church building caught fire. The cause of the fire was later alleged by the "Danforth Report", a report commissioned by The Special Counsel, to be the deliberate actions of some of the Branch Davidians inside the building. However this hypothesis is disputed by some scholars as well as in the documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement which argues that the fire was deliberately set when the FBI fired an incendiary device into the building after loading the building with CS gas
CS gas
2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile is the defining component of a "tear gas" commonly referred to as CS gas, which is used as a riot control agent...
. CS (aka tear gas) can be an explosion and fire hazard in conditions such as those created by the FBI attack on Mount Carmel. High levels of CS in a confined space, experienced by the barricaded sect members under the six-hour insertion of the chemical warfare agent.
"A single spark produced by the tracks of the twenty-nine-foot-long, fifty-two-ton M60 combat engineering vehicle (CEV) in metal-to-metal contact during the insertion and penetration of the Mount Carmel Center would have been sufficient to ignite the initial fire." The first indication on such was observed in a FLIR at 12:07:41 less than two minutes after a CEV breaches into the southeast corner area of the building. "By noon, Mount Carmel was a virtual tinderbox after the massive insertion of CS, which coated everything inside the building, producing a flammable vapor-air mixture."
The following account was recorded by two FBI crisis negotiators in one barricade incident. In attempting to force suspects out of a building, the police fired a CS canister into the area where they thought men where holed up. When the SWAT team fired the CS, the “gas canister landed on a sofa and burned down the entire structure." No details was offered about how the CS canister’s could set the sofa on fire. The fire was thus attributed to ignition of CS. "At the subsequent trial of the surviving Branch Davidians, the jury listened to edited parts of a tape-recording from hidden microphones inside Mt. Carmel during the final attack and fire of April 19. These consisted of sounds of static during which one could faintly hear a voice saying ". . . fire . . . ". A government expert testified that through electronic enhancement, he had reconstructed some clearly incriminating comments, even if the jury could not hear them.
It later transpired that the FBI, when meeting Koresh's demands that milk be sent in for the children's wellbeing, also sent in tiny listening devices concealed inside the milk cartons and their styrofoam containers.
Barricaded in their building, seventy-six Branch Davidians, including Koresh, did not survive the fire. Seventeen of these victims were children under the age of 17. The Danforth Report claims that those who died were unable, or unwilling, to flee and that Steve Schneider, Koresh's right-hand man, probably shot Koresh and committed suicide with the same gun. Autopsy records indicate that at least 20 Branch Davidians were shot, including 5 children. Waco: The Rules of Engagement claims that FBI sharpshooters fired on, and killed, many Branch Davidians who attempted to flee the flames. While the few Branch Davidians who did successfully flee the fire supported this claim, the Danforth Report concluded that the adults who died of gunshot wounds shot themselves after shooting the children. Independent third party investigations refute the Danforth Report. On the final day of the Branch Davidian siege in 1993, aerial FLIR film was shot by the FBI that seemed to show automatic weapons fire directed into the burning buildings. Former Senator John Danforth
John Danforth
John Claggett "Jack" Danforth is a former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican United States Senator from Missouri. He is an ordained Episcopal priest. Danforth is married to Sally D. Danforth and has five adult children.-Education and early career:Danforth was born...
, under the direction of Acting Attorney General Eric Holder
Eric Holder
Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. is the 82nd and current Attorney General of the United States and the first African American to hold the position, serving under President Barack Obama....
, conducted a 14-month, $17-million investigation that exonerated the government of any wrongdoing.
Aftermath
David Koresh is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery, Tyler, TexasTyler, Texas
Tyler is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Texas, in the United States. It takes its name from President John Tyler . The city had a population of 109,000 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau...
.
Several of David Koresh's albums were released including Voice Of Fire in 1994.
The Mount Carmel raid and the 1992 Ruby Ridge
Ruby Ridge
Ruby Ridge was the site of a violent confrontation and siege in northern Idaho in 1992. It involved Randy Weaver, his family, Weaver's friend Kevin Harris, and agents of the United States Marshals Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation...
incident were cited by Timothy McVeigh
Timothy McVeigh
Timothy James McVeigh was a United States Army veteran and security guard who detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995...
and Terry Nichols
Terry Nichols
Terry Lynn Nichols is a convicted bomber's accomplice. Prior to his incarceration, he held a variety of short-term jobs, working as a farmer, grain elevator manager, real estate salesman, ranch hand, and house husband. He met his future co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, during a brief stint in the...
as motivations for the Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
. This terrorist act was carried out on April 19, 1995 -- timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the Waco assault.
In 2004, Koresh's 1968 Camaro
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is an automobile manufactured by General Motors under the Chevrolet brand, classified as a pony car and some versions also as a muscle car. It went on sale on September 29, 1966, for the 1967 model year and was designed as a competing model to the Ford Mustang...
with a 427c.i. swap, which had been damaged by the military during the raid, sold for $37,000 at auction.
On January 23, 2009, Koresh's mother, Bonnie Clark Haldeman, was stabbed to death in Chandler, Texas
Chandler, Texas
Chandler is a city in Henderson County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,099 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Chandler is located at ....
. Her sister, Beverly Clark, was charged with the murder.
See also
- Doomsday cultDoomsday cultDoomsday cult is an expression used to describe groups who believe in Apocalypticism and Millenarianism, and can refer both to groups that prophesy catastrophe and destruction, and to those that attempt to bring it about...
- List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
Further reading
- Reavis, Dick J. The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995). ISBN 0-684-81132-4
- Samples, Kenneth et al. Prophets of the Apocalypse: David Koresh & Other American Messiahs (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994). ISBN 0-8010-8367-2