A marriage made in hell - Branch Davidian trial

National Review, April 4, 1994 by Mary G. Gotschall

EIGHTY people died in the Waco raid last April--including 25 children burned beyond recognition. The raid and the siege that preceded it cost the taxpayers $13 million, and the seven-week trial of 11 surviving Branch Davidians that ended last month in San Antonio cost an additional $1.3 million. The 11 defendants were acquitted of the more serious charges against them (capital murder and conspiracy), and one official report, plus much testimony in the San Antonio trial, have shown that the authorities acted rashly, incompetently, and, above all, deceitfully in the siege itself and in the cover-up that followed the tragedy. Yet because the victims were religious cultists, no one seems very interested in punishing this official malfeasance. As the facts become known, however, this public complacency may be difficult to sustain.

An offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Branch Davidian sect has made Waco its home since 1935. Its followers espouse an apocalyptic vision and eschew the things of this world. Different leaders have come and gone. But they had coexisted peacefully with the Waco community for fifty years.

"They was decent folks," said Tommy Spengler, who worked at a local junkyard where he saw Koresh just three days before the raid. "They never caused no problems." In fact, before the raid, McLennan County Sheriff Jack Harwell--who had been David Koresh's occasional fishing buddy-- said he could pick up the phone and ask Koresh to come down to his office any time he wanted.

Beginning of a Plot

NONETHELESS, in 1992 complaints about Koresh surfaced from disgruntled former Davidians like Marc Breault. And then came a disturbing development: in May, UPS deliveryman Larry Gilbreath saw fifty hand grenades fall out of a package destined for "The Mag Bag," the Davidians' workshop and gun dealership near the Mt. Carmel compound. Local law-enforcement officials notified the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) in June. The agency began investigating Koresh's purchases of guns and explosives.

Little by little, over eight months, the ATF began plotting a militarystyle raid on Mt. Carmel. In formulating this operation--by far the biggest and most complex one it had ever undertaken-the ATF chose to bypass local law-enforcement officials who had the greatest familiarity with the Davidians. Instead, the agency set up an "undercover house" across from Mt. Carmel, manned by several ATF agents posing as students. One of these agents, Robert Rodriguez, found that Koresh had a distinctly apocalyptic world view. He referred to the government as "the Beast," spoke of a final battle between the true believers and the outside world, and showed the Davidians movies such as Breaking the Law in the Name of the Law: The ATF Story. Ironically, the Federal Government would do much to justify that view.

By late 1992, the ATF estimated that the Davidians had built up an arsenal of about three hundred weapons, worth over $262,000. It included semiautomatic rifles that were being illegally converted to automatic ones, 50caliber rifles with bullet-piercing ammo, grenades, and other explosives.

At this stage, however, the violations the Davidians were accused of were mostly technical. As the evidence at the trial made clear, the Davidians were buying and selling weapons in gun shows around the state as a means of livelihood. (They also ran a yard-work service, "The Yardbirds," and an automotive garage.) This was not by any means unusual in the guntoting culture of Texas. Gun shows are a popular family amusement and draw thousands of people every weekend. But the Mag Bag was operating without a federal firearms license and had failed to pay taxes on its gun sales. Nor had the Davidians registered any of their hand grenades or firearms. This was obviously serious cause for concern. But there was no evidence of the Davidians actually trying to shoot anyone or commit violent crimes. According to Jack Zimmerman, a Houston lawyer who represented Steve Schneider, one of Koresh's top aides killed in the fire: "The maximum these people would have gotten for their weapons violations was ten years."

Besides the gun violations, the ATF was trying to nail Koresh on drug charges. In the initial search warrant, ATF Case Agent Davy Aguilera claimed that there were drug infractions going on at Mt. Carmel, involving methamphetamine production. Because of these allegations, the ATF was able to get permission from Governor Ann Richards to use three National Guard helicopters during the raid. (Normally, it is illegal for the government to use military weapons in a civilian law-enforcement effort.)

However, in the aftermath of the raid, it was learned that the drug charges against the Davidians dated from 1987, when George Roden was their leader. There was no evidence of any drug activity at the compound since Koresh deposed Roden.

Most important of all were the allegations by Marc Breault that child sex abuse was taking place at Mt. Carmel. Such rumors, indeed, were rife among the estranged families of the cultists, and they were given credibility by Koresh's own claims of sexual dominion over the compound.