The siege of Waco: How a 51-day cult standoff cost 76 lives
It's been 30 years since cult leader David Koresh's deadly siege in Texas
Thirty years ago, the apocalypse came to America.
After years of preaching about the end of the world, David Koresh, the strange and terrifying leader of the ‘Branch Davidian’ religious movement, saw his sect’s headquarters, in Waco, Texas, consumed by flames, in a lethal fire of biblical proportions.
For the Branch Davidians, the end of the world had finally arrived.
The blaze – which saw floating pages of burning bibles scatter in the midday sky – concluded one of the strangest events in American history.
For a shocking period of 51 days in the Spring of 1993, heavily armed government agents had laid siege to the home of the Branch Davidians, maintaining a constant threat of violence and undertaking painfully slow negotiations, after hearing that the group were stockpiling weapons.
At the time, the Siege of Waco was the biggest news story in the world. Yet three decades on, it has largely been forgotten, despite being a seminal moment in modern history, involving many themes still central to American life.
The man behind it all ‘really wanted to be a rock star’, says Kevin Cook, author of Waco Rising, a chronicle of the siege.
Although he ended his life as David Koresh, he had been born Vernon Howell in 1959. Growing up in a broken home, Howell didn’t have much interest in formal education, planning a career in music instead.
After a troubled adolescence, he grew intrigued by spiritual affairs, announced himself a ‘born again’ Christian, and joined the controversial Branch Davidian group, who were based in a large compound of buildings named ‘Mount Carmel’, in the dusty Texan countryside.
The Branch Davidians were technically Christians, but most of their fellow believers considered them highly outlandish.
They foresaw the imminent coming of the apocalypse, preceded by the arrival of a new messiah on Earth. After becoming a member, Howell claimed the gift of prophecy and announced himself as God’s representative. Fellow Davidians began to believe him, and Howell – who then renamed himself David Koresh after two Old Testament kings – became notorious.
As Cook tells Metro.co.uk: ‘When David Koresh failed as a musician, he settled for being Christ.’
Koresh was a highly unconventional preacher, speaking in a combination of hippie slang and little-known Old Testament references. He had long dark hair and observers always noted how gentle he appeared.
‘David Koresh was bringing the Bible alive,’ says Tiller Russell, director of the new Netflix series, Waco: American Apocalypse, which uses previously unseen footage to tell the story of the siege.
For his followers, ‘it wasn’t just a book about the past: they felt they’d walked into the middle of it. Americans love larger than life characters who are compelling and dynamic. Koresh fits into that lineage.’
The Branch Davidian members were ‘a shockingly diverse group of people’, adds Russell. ‘Some of them were local people who had never been out of rural areas their entire lives, others came from around the world. Some had higher education degrees, and some just wanted to play in a rock and roll band. But the thing that united them was a desire to connect with God.’
Being the ‘messiah’ gave Koresh permission to act radically and was said to justify his most controversial practice: ‘spiritually marrying’ a number of female Davidians, some as young as twelve or thirteen.
These unions, and the sexual activity that accompanied them, were controversial even within the sect. Some members left the church over them, while others felt they delegitimised Koresh’s messianic status. One wondered in a later interview if these marriages were the actions of ‘God, or horny old David?’.
But Koresh’s behaviour was largely accepted – and 30 years on, some ex-members are still reluctant to criticise it, even as more people have come forward with claims that Koresh molested them as children.
‘Every single one of us was married to David, because David was our Christ, giving us the truths from God,’ insists ex-Branch Davidian Kathy Schroeder, in the Netflix documentary. ‘The whole time we were having sex, it was like a Bible study. He did it for me, not for himself… to give me tenderness with my God.’
Evidence of sexual abuse by Koresh is now clear, but at the time of the siege it was inconclusive to the federal authorities. Certainly, it was not the reason given by the government for storming the Branch Davidians’ compound in early 1993. What really outraged the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were suggestions by locals that the Davidians were stockpiling heavy weaponry.
With a warrant to search the premises for arms, the ATF resolved to raid Mount Carmel, and on February 28 they began their attack. A chaotic and bloody firefight ensued. As soon as the violence started, ‘it seemed like David Koresh’s prophecies about the end of the world were coming true,’ says Cook.
While it’s unclear exactly what happened – and whether the Branch Davidians or the ATF opened fire first – the operation was a clear and embarrassing failure for the government. Helicopters brought in to ensure a hasty victory were forced to withdraw after attracting small arms fire, while four government agents were left without cover and killed. Five Branch Davidians were also shot dead, with many more injured, including Koresh.
The ATF were pushed back into a stalemate. Koresh, speaking with negotiators after this first assault, boasted that the government had gotten their ‘big butts whooped’ – but the authorities had far from given up, and as federal law enforcers had been killed during the initial raid, the FBI now took control of the situation.
They began negotiations with Koresh – talks that would last 51 days and attract the interest of the media worldwide.
For the FBI, this was a military operation, and outside the walls of Mount Carmel they had gathered perhaps the largest military force ever amassed against a civilian suspect in the history of the USA, involving 899 personnel.
As they covered the compound in the blaring gleam of multiple spotlights, agents blasted a range of incessant noises into the area using loudspeakers – everything from the sound of rabbits being killed, to the chanting of Tibetan monks, and the Nancy Sinatra song ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ on repeat. Survivors of the siege have recalled getting only one or two hours sleep each night during the standoff.
Meanwhile, negotiations were proving difficult. The FBI were failing to understand the importance of religious conviction to Koresh and the Branch Davidians. The government negotiators saw the group’s members as hostages to be rescued; but most of the Branch Davidians thought themselves students there by choice, in a process of education. Koresh promised to come out when he’d written a thesis explaining the Book of Revelation, but provided no clear date this could be done by.
‘Waco is an example of a profound failure to communicate,’ says Russell. ‘No one could hear anyone else talking’.
The government remained twitchy. Knowing Koresh’s teachings on Revelation ended in bloodshed, with the righteous and holy waging war on oppressive leaders, the authorities wanted to avoid more violence – so they began making plans for storming Mount Carmel.
On April 19, three days after Koresh had told negotiators his plan for ending the conflict, the FBI heard new reports of child abuse happening inside the compound and launched a fresh assault.
First, tanks equipped with mechanical arms rumbled up to Mount Carmel’s walls and tore them apart, sending concrete flying down onto those inside. Around 400 cannisters of tear gas were launched into the buildings, and many believe that these mixed with candle and lantern flames and caught fire. The FBI maintain that this gas was not flammable, and that the ensuing flames were started in an act of deliberate self-destruction by the Branch Davidians.
Whatever its origin, the fire was monumental. It tore across the entire compound and reached high into the sky. Flaming Bibles were catapulted into the air by explosions, before floating back to earth.
Meanwhile, The Branch Davidians were trapped in the collapsing buildings. In Waco: American Apocalypse, survivor David Thibodeau recalls how ‘the tanks had done so much destruction that you could not have gotten down the hallway. I went up the stairs and this wall of flames swept from the left to the right. It was a fireball and incredibly loud. It just went ‘whoosh’ all the way down the hall.
‘The walls were catching fire by this point. I could my hair crackle and I could feel singeing on my face.’
Thibodeau managed to escape, but he was one of only nine survivors. 76 men, women and children died during the flames, including Koresh – although his death was said to be caused by a gunshot wound to the head. It is not known whether the trigger was pulled by someone else, or himself.
‘I don’t know what hell looks like,’ one witness recalled, ‘but maybe that.’
Could the tragedy have been averted? ‘Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get very divergent answers,’ says Russell. ‘But David Koresh had a vision of the end of the world, with him at the centre of it, leading his flock into this final battle.’
Very quickly, the siege motivated imitation violence by those wanting to assert their power against the American Government. Cook notes how ‘the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 came on the anniversary of the fire, and the same date was used by the school shooters at Columbine.’
And the American far-right is still much influenced by the event. ‘People’s militias talk of Waco as their “awakening,”’ Cook explains. ‘One of the insurgents who stormed the Capitol on January 6 talked about a new battle between armed citizens and the American Government that might be called ‘Waco 2.0.’’
‘The current pastor at the chapel now at Mount Carmel talks Qanon theories, and firmly believes that there are slavery rings run by Democrats. What happened at Waco lives today because it fuels those beliefs.’
And the worst legacy of David Koresh may not yet have occurred. The American far-right shows no sign of fading away and has appeared scarily organised and militant, in uprisings like the January 6 invasion.
‘It’s unsettling,’ Cook admits, ‘when you think about what may be coming…’
Waco: American Apocalypse is available to watch on Netflix from March 22.
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