The 1993 Waco Siege

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – "The 1993 Waco Siege"

Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: May 21, 2026
Episode Summary:
In this episode, Josh and Chuck take on one of the darkest chapters in American law enforcement history—the 1993 Waco Siege. Their conversation provides a deep dive into the origin of the Branch Davidians, the rise of David Koresh, the events and missteps leading up to the siege, and the tragic, incendiary ending that reverberated for decades afterward.

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Main Theme

The Waco Siege: An Examination of a Tragedy
This episode focuses on unpacking the complex, controversial, and still highly debated events of the Waco Siege—an operation that resulted in the deaths of 86 people, including 20 children, and left a lasting legacy of mistrust and conspiracy theories regarding law enforcement and government overreach.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Branch Davidians: Origins and Beliefs

• The Branch Davidians originated in 1955, split from the Seventh Day Adventists, led first by Benjamin Roden and then Lois Roden (05:13).
• "I thought that Davidians came from David Koresh. ...But the Branch Davidians, they got that name because in 1955, a guy named Benjamin Roden started a branch, a new sect of Seventh Day Adventists, a Davidian sect..." – Chuck (04:33)
• David Koresh (born Vernon Wayne Howell) joined in his 20s, eventually becoming the undisputed leader after a violent internal struggle (08:03).
• The group was millennialist, believing they were precipitating the end times.
• The community engaged in legal and illegal weapons trading and had complicated, at times abusive, relationships involving polygamy and underage marriage.

2. The Rise and Rule of David Koresh

• Koresh rose to leadership through charisma, biblical knowledge, and manipulative tactics, including claiming revelations from God to justify his actions (09:59).
• His leadership involved proclaimed polygamy, including with underage girls, and claims of Messianic identity.
• "He said, God has told me that I need to bear a lot of children and I need to have multiple wives..." – Chuck (10:38)
• Abuse allegations came to light via investigative journalism, not law enforcement (12:03).

3. Federal Investigations and Failed Undercover Operations

• The ATF investigated the group, focused on weapons violations, after reports like an unwitting UPS driver noticing grenade shells (13:46).
• Multiple federal undercover operations failed comically; the Davidians identified infiltrators almost immediately (16:19; 18:19).
• Despite evidence Koresh could have been apprehended away from the compound, the ATF opted for a militarized raid, partly motivated by budgetary incentives and a need for public spectacle (19:07; 23:55).
• "They had every incentive to go in unnecessarily. Roughly." – Josh (23:55)

4. The Botched Raid (February 28, 1993)

• A media leak through a chance encounter with a Branch Davidian mail carrier spoiled the ATF’s element of surprise. The raid went ahead anyway (22:38).
• A three-hour gunfight ensued; four agents and six Branch Davidians died (24:53; 26:19).
• Unclear who fired first—both sides still dispute this ("a lot of disagreement still today who was the first one to shoot" – Josh, 24:53).
• The compound’s design put federal agents at a tactical disadvantage (27:01).

5. The 51-Day Siege: Negotiations, Tension, & Escalation

• The FBI took over after the failed raid, staffed with both negotiators seeking peaceful resolution and the Hostage Rescue Team inclined toward escalation (33:14; 36:04).
• Koresh promised to surrender after completing his interpretation of the Book of Revelation but repeatedly delayed, citing messages from God (34:17; 39:40).
• Negotiations led to the release of 21 children, but subsequent escalation by law enforcement—including show-of-force tactics, sleep deprivation efforts, and destruction of property—made progress difficult (35:12; 41:42).
• FBI failed to fully understand the depth of the group's religious conviction or the fact that adults were there voluntarily, not as hostages (36:04; 40:48).
• "It was almost like two different branches of the multiverse...you had the FBI negotiators...simultaneously, you had the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team..." – Josh (36:04).

6. The Assault and Fire (April 19, 1993)

• With negotiations stalled and growing frustration, Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the use of tear gas (42:50).
• The FBI announced over loudspeakers to those inside, then began pumping tear gas, which was hindered by high winds and use of gas masks.
• Tanks penetrated the building; soon after, multiple fires broke out inside.
• Evidence strongly suggests the fires were set in at least three different places by the Davidians themselves, though controversy persists (47:27).
• Only nine people managed to escape the fire. Seventy-five others, including at least 20 children, died—many from gunshot wounds or blunt force trauma caused by debris and the building's collapse (44:55; 45:42; 47:21).

7. Aftermath & Legacy

• No high-ranking government officials faced charges. A damning report became a case study in failed law enforcement tactics (49:07).
• The tragedy catalyzed the American militia movement and directly inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing (50:10).
• "Waco to people who believed in that, This was proof positive that...the government would send a tank through your house and set it on fire and kill you." – Josh (50:55)
• Remaining Davidians eventually rebranded, some maintaining their beliefs about Koresh and the righteousness of their cause (51:07).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Accountability:
  "There hasn't really ever been any real accountability for Waco, despite attempts. ...There just wasn't any huge reckoning over it. And there should have been, because it was an American tragedy." – Josh (03:00)
• On Tactics:
  "It was almost like two different branches of the multiverse...you had the FBI negotiators...simultaneously, you had the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team...it just kept going like that." – Josh (36:04)
• On Misunderstanding the Group:
  "Nobody was being held against their will. ...They all believed that what they were doing was right and was God's plan in the end." – Chuck (35:12)
• On the Unresolved Nature:
  "Nobody won, you know." – Chuck (52:30)
• Dark Humor:
  "Apparently David Koresh...told one of the Branch Davidians that God had told them 'I will give Madonna onto thee.'" – Josh (52:58)
• On the Militia Legacy:
  "This really helped. That and Ruby Ridge both really fed into this end of the millennium paranoia that I think the X Files rode so high on." – Josh (50:55)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:33] – Origins of the Branch Davidians and misconceived links to Koresh’s name
• [08:03] – Koresh’s rise: affairs, contested leadership, and sex abuse history
• [12:03] – Media uncovering of abuse; legal focus remained on weapons
• [14:28] – UPS tipoff and beginning of the federal investigation
• [16:19] – Comedic failures of undercover operations
• [19:07] – The unnecessary and poorly planned raid
• [22:38] – Media leak ruins raid surprise; subsequent escalation
• [24:53] – Raid turns into an all-out firefight; confusion over who fired first
• [33:14] – FBI’s rapid takeover and start of negotiations
• [36:04] – FBI internal divisions undermine negotiations
• [41:42] – Hostage Rescue Team’s escalation tactics worsen the standoff
• [42:50] – Decision to use tear gas and introduction of tanks
• [44:55] – The compound catches fire: chaos and tragedy
• [50:10] – Waco’s role in radicalizing right-wing militia movements
• [51:07] – Legal aftermath, survivor convictions, ongoing Branch Davidian presence
• [52:58] – Koresh’s Madonna prophecy

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Tone and Language

Throughout the episode, Josh and Chuck maintain their trademark conversational, slightly irreverent tone while handling the heavy subject matter with appropriate caution and gravity. They balance empathy, skepticism, and occasional dark humor.

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Conclusion

The Waco Siege remains a harrowing case study in the failure of both religious movements to self-regulate and law enforcement to balance force and negotiation. Its legacy is felt in American mistrust of government and the rise of the anti-government militia movement. As Josh and Chuck note, "Nobody won," with accountability still elusive and many questions about the true sequence of events remaining to this day.

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Podcast Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. And there's Chuck. And Jerry's here too. And this is stuff you should know. And if you're gonna do it, do it right. Do it with us.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is that a song?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's a George Michael.

[Podcast Announcer]

So.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

I don't remember the song. He's like, baby, I'm your man. Don't you know I am?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think that's Wham, isn't it?

[Josh Clark]

Maybe. Could be. They're virtually interchangeable. Sorry, Andrew.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, my goodness.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Did you know George did everything with last Christmas? I mean, he. He wrote it all, he composed it, he sang it, and he played the instruments.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I didn't know that. I didn't know, he played instruments, and I even saw a documentary on him.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't either, but I saw that somewhere. I didn't follow up about it. Now I'm sweating that it's not true.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, hopefully at the end of this episode, no one will remember talk of George Michael's Christmas song.

[Josh Clark]

Great point, Chuck, because this episode is much more serious than George Michael's heart that he gave away foolishly last Christmas. This is about one of the darkest moments in American law enforcement history.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And very maddeningly one that the federal government just basically walked away from, like, just kind of dusting off its hands, like. Yeah, we got out of that one. There hasn't really ever been any real accountability for Waco, despite attempts. Like, there were tons of, like, hearings and stuff like that. But really, like, overall, there just wasn't any huge reckoning over it. And there should have been, because it was an American tragedy. Even if in some ways, the Branch Davidian group were, you know, at least partially responsible for their part too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like, I hope that comes across in this episode because I know we're gonna get a little probably riled up here and there about, like, how it was handled. But I'll go ahead and just say my takeaway at the beginning. You know, you can't hole up and be a pedophile in a house. And you can't illegally, like, collect and modify guns into machine guns and sell those. Like, no one's disputing that stuff. I think the issue is the way this all went down in the end, when it could have probably gone down with the loss of zero lives, much less the loss of. What was it, 86 people total?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Including 20 kids and four.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So that's sort of the issue at hand for me, personally.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think that hits it on the nose.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, let's talk about the Branched Davidians, eh?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, let's.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because I. Up until two days ago, I thought that Davidians came from David Koresh. I thought they got that name from him as their leader, just because I didn't know a ton about it, aside from, you know, kind of following it as it happened when I was in college on the news. But the Branch Davidians, they got that name because in 1955, a guy named Benjamin Roden started a branch, a new sect of Seventh Day Adventists, a Davidian sect, which had, you know, to do with the monarchy of Israel under King David. It had nothing to do with David Koresh's David.

[Jonas Brothers Member]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

He retrofitted his name. He was actually born Vernon Wayne Howell. And he's like, yeah, you know, I could probably get a lot further trying to become the leader of this sect if I change my name to the same name as the name of the sect.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So, yes, they actually split. They were a branch, but then they split fully from the Adventist church because they started to predict the date of the, you know, end times, started to follow leaders as prophets. And the. The Seventh Day Adventists are like, we did that like a century ago. We don't do that anymore. You guys go away. And so the. The teachings, though, of the people before David Koresh, when he came in, there was a woman named Lois Roden. They attracted dozens of people. At any given time, there were probably somewhere around a hundred people who were living and working in, worshiping, I guess, at the. What was called Mount Carmel, their compound outside of Waco. The branch Davidians were pretty well suited for the Waco, Texas area. They were into guns. They were into religion. They interacted with the rest of the community. They were free to come and go. They didn't believe that David Koresh was God. Like, it wasn't like a cult in the way that it's often portrayed or that we generally think of cults. But at the same time, they were millennialists. They thought that end times was coming and that essentially what they were doing and what the ATF was doing to them was bringing about Judgment Day. That's what was going on with these guys. And they were such believers that they were willing to dig in and sacrifice their own lives to help bring Judgment day sooner, I guess. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But some of them fully believed he was the Messiah, by the way.

[Josh Clark]

That's really.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Did you watch the documentary?

[Josh Clark]

No, I didn't see the documentary. I saw just the stuff I read basically, was that they believed he was the lamb, which is the person who can interpret the seven seals that will bring about judgment Day. But beyond that, he wasn't like God or anything like that. He was a prophet of sorts, but not like a messiah. That's what I saw.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, he said with his own mouth, I am the Messiah. And there are Davidians that are still alive that believe he was the Messiah, so.

[Josh Clark]

Well, there goes me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Another thing I didn't know is that Mount Carmel had been active since 1935. So it had been around a long, long time. It's about 13 miles northeast of Waco, Texas. And so they had been around for a long, long time. And in 55 is when that official split came. And then 59 was when. And I think that's why they were like, hey, don't predict these second comings because when they don't happen, you end up looking kind of dumb.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that happened in 1955. The second coming did not happen. And so they ended up there with that last group, like you said, about 100 people. Koresh had been around since he was in his early 20s. He got off to a kind of a rocky start there because he had had an affair with Lois Roden, who I guess was Benjamin Roden's wife. Yes, if the math checks out, she was in her 60s and he was in his 20s and he got into a squabble with her son about who was going to become leader and ended up shooting him. And like he was arrested and everything and it was a hung jury so he never had to serve time for that shooting.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So he took over. Like after that he was pretty much the undisputed leader. One of the first things he did was he married a 14 year old member of the church and her parents consented and said, yeah, sure, be, be married to our 14 year old daughter who you're 10 years older then, which made it legal in Texas at the time. That was, you know, sign number one. But if, if you rewind a little bit. Before he showed up at the Branch Davidian compound, he had actually been de. Fellowshipped is what it's called, where the Adventists kick you out. Because he had seduced, which I think means that he sexually assaulted and actually successfully sexually assaulted a 15 year old daughter of one of the church's elders.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you know, he had a pretty rough upbringing before that. Like you said, he was born in Houston. He was reportedly had suffered sexual abuse of his own at the hands of older boys. He had dyslexia and did not do well in school. I think he failed first grade a couple of times and was a dropout by the time he was in middle school. And yeah, so you know, that was his sort of rough childhood for sure.

[Josh Clark]

And over the years he kind of got into guns. He really got into the Bible. Like that was one of the things that I think people were drawn to about him at the Branch Divinity sect was like he knew what he was talking about. He was also very charismatic and he could essentially run Bible studies that ran, you know, 10, 12 hours at a length. And people weren't getting fatigued, like they were still just jazzed the whole time. So he definitely knew what he was talking about. He wasn't just making stuff up off the top of his head. Like he very Much understood the book of Revelations in particular.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. One of the first things he did once he was in charge was he said, God has told me that I need to bear a lot of children and I need to have multiple wives in order to do that. I think he was supposed to. God told him to have. Or at least he said God told him to have 24 children. And they would be sort of the rulers in the future kingdom. And so at first he started with the single women of the group, and then that wasn't enough. And he was having a lot of kids. I think he had 17 in the end. Then he moved on to the married women and separated the couples out and said, all right, you can no longer be with your husband. I'm the only one here. I'm the only male here who is allowed to have intercourse. All the other guys have to remain celibate. And they all went along with it. And this included taking children up. Girls. There was this one woman, Kathy Schroeder, who was. It's very disturbing. Cause she still believes all this stuff. But she was interviewed who said that they were all trying to stay awake. All the girls at the end of these marathon Bible studies, even though they were exhausted. So he would pick them to go back to his room and have sex with them. And she also. It was really hard to watch, but she still, to this day, was like, they weren't children. We weren't children. Sure, some of them were as young as 10, but they were adults in our culture.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, man. You know how the world found out about that, too, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

About which part?

[Josh Clark]

Well, about him sexually abusing minors. Children. It was a current affairs show. Well, first, the Waco Tribune Herald did a series of articles on it, so that caught the local attention. But a current affairs show called A Current Affair, the Australian version, back in 1992, went and interviewed David Koresh. And this is before anybody knew who David Koresh was. So they had a lot of foresight and they went and investigated it. Because this is a. I mean, obviously it's a really big deal that there's a. Yeah. Essentially what everyone thought of at the time and still do in a lot of ways. A cult leader who is sexually abusing the children of his sect. That's definitely worth investigating. That's not what the ATF investigated him for, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, they're the atf. They don't dabble in that kind of stuff. What they do dabble in is guns and firearms. And that is what got them. You know, I mentioned early on they were illegally collecting and buying and selling and retrofitting, basically making machine guns and then selling those illegally at gun shows. And so that's what caught their attention. And you know, they were collecting these guns and supposedly like more than like close to 2 million rounds of ammunition, training everyone there to. To use, like, including the kids, to use these weapons. They were preparing for, you know, the end days.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly. And they were going to go out with guns blazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, which is what they did.

[Josh Clark]

Allegedly. The, the thing that initially caught the ATF's attention, they were already aware that there was such a thing as the Branch Davidians and that they had a business selling guns at gun. But the thing that really caught their attention was apparently a UPS driver was delivering a box and I guess the box fell open and a bunch of grenade shells fell out. And the UPS driver thought, that's odd. Like, who gets 50 grenade shells delivered to their compound? And I guess alerted the federal authorities and that's when they really started investigating the branch civilians. I say we take a break and talk about how well that investigation was conducted. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we'll be right back.

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[Chuck Bryant]

All right. I think I snickered when we left because you, Riley, said, we'll talk about how that went, because it did not go well for a while. In fact, none of this went well. Before the raid ultimately happened. There were a lot of just kind of stupid moves from the atf. One time they were like, hey, we need to keep an eye on this. So there's a house sort of nearby. I think it was, like, 70 acres, the whole compound. But there was a house about a half a mile away. And they said, let's pose as college students that are, like, renting this house, but they come in there. I feel like anytime these people try to go undercover like that, like, let's pose as kids out having a good time, and it just never goes well. And it didn't. They had suitcases. They had rental cars, like, new rental cars. They eventually were like, I think they're onto us, so let's have a party. And one of the Branch Davidians came to the party, and I'm sure they were like, hey, would you like a brewski? And the Branch Davidian went back, and, like, by the way, those are definitely not college students.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Right. Don't you hate mortgages, too, fellow young person? I saw they also carried briefcases as well, rather than backpacks and stuff. So, yeah, it wasn't the best undercover operation. They sent another undercover agent to pose as a UPS employee, and he did all sorts of stuff that UPS employees don't do. Like, he insisted that they Branch Davidians let him use the phone in a bathroom. And then he went to another part of the compound and tried the same thing. And they met him at the door with a roll of toilet paper. And then another guy, Robert Rodriguez, he actually managed to successfully embed himself in the Branch Davidians. He showed up as a student and a follower and started attending Bible studies. And it was successful in that. Like, he was never kicked out, but it was unsuccessful in that they knew that he was a federal agent almost from the outset.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And later on, I think during these negotiation talks, the FBI was like, well, if you knew he was undercover, why didn't you kick him out? And I don't remember who said it. One of them said, we liked him. Like, we saw it as, Corey was a good guy, and we liked being around him. We came to like him, so why would we kick them out? So it was really weird. Like, they were almost toying with the Feds because they knew the Feds were investigating them. And it was so clumsy that they didn't feel particularly threatened at this point. But the whole thing started in May 1992. And by February 1993, I guess the ATF was like, we have enough information that we're going to carry out a raid. We're not just going to show up and ask them to come out. We're going to carry a hard hitting raid. And why did they do that, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I mean, they got a warrant, so they had enough information to at least get a, like a legal warrant to search everything. Their goal initially was to just get those illegal weapons, arrest David Koresh, who by the way, and I think you found this, was that like he had a relationship with the local sheriff. And at any point the local sheriff could and I think did say, like, hey man, why don't you come in and like talk to us about what's going on? And that happened. So, like, none of this seemed to have been completely necessary. I think they also were under the impression that like, they were bunkered in and like, he never left the compound. But upon further investigation, they found that he kind of regularly would leave the compound and they probably could have lured him out. But they, you know, they were kind of bungling this from the beginning. So they planned a surprise kind of raid warrant serving where they would force entry. And they were like, we're going to catch them off guard. They won't have time to arm themselves and it's going to go great.

[Josh Clark]

They had a lot of bad intelligence too, that this raid was based on one. I don't know where they got this, but they were under the impression that all of the weapons were kept under lock and key and that you only access those with Koresh's direct permission. That's not true at all. The weapons were all over the compound and basically everybody walking around the compound knew how to use them and was prepared to. Right. That's a really big intelligence failure when you're planning a raid. Another is there was a pit that they assumed that most if not all of the men would be working in. And apparently during the surveillance, the most bend that had ever been seen there at one time was 13. So that was a bad assumption. And then like you said, they. They were like, he's, he never leaves the compound, so we have to raid them. There's one other thing about the raid. So the ATF was conducting the raid at the time. The ATF reported to the Treasury Department, and they planned this raid based on the element of surprise. Right. The whole thing was supposed to have the element of surprise. And later on, there would be a lot of disagreement about whether this was said or not. But supposedly the higher ups at treasury were like, if there's no element of surprise anymore, if you lose it, don't do the raid. And that's not what happened.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. And, you know, part of this makes me wonder if they were feeding that informant bad information too.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't ever see anything about that. But, like, I've seen enough movies to know if they kept inviting this guy back to Bible study, then they may have been saying, like, you know, all the guns here are under lock and key or whatever, but who knows? That is Chuck's speculation, so don't quote me on it. It seems like it could be, but yeah. So the raid is blown because of another just. This wasn't so much a blunder by the atf, it was just a blunder by the media because it was a cameraman named Jim Peeler and a reporter, he's all over this documentary. He stopped on the way out there. Cause he was tipped off. They don't know who, maybe a sheriff's deputy or somebody tipped him off that this was gonna be going down, so he wanted the scoop. So he couldn't find the compound. And he stops a mail truck, a friendly mail carrier. It's like, hey, where's this Branch Davidian compound? I think there's a raid going on and I want to cover it. And that mail carrier was a Branch Davidian. So he hightailed it back there and was like, we're about to get raided, you guys.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so when he tells David Koresh this. We're about to get raided. Robert Rodriguez, the undercover student who had embedded himself as a follower who they knew was a Fed, he's standing right there talking to David Koresh when the mail carrier, David Jones, runs up and tells him they're about to get raided. So knowing that the element of surprise has been blown, Robert Rodriguez runs back to the safe house to call his superiors, gets in touch with them, and apparently is like the. The surprise is blown. We need to call off the raid. And the. I guess the superiors are like, oh, bad, bad connection. I can't hear you. See ya. We're going to go raid him now. And that's essentially what happened. They carried on with the raid, knowing full well that Koresh knew they were coming. And that apparently gave them a sense of urgency that hadn't even been there before. And then on top of that, one of the reasons why they planned the raid in the first place. This big whiz bang for entry raid with like. Like a tactical team going in, was that they were up for budget review, Congressional budget review. And. And they wanted something splashy to get the attention of Congress and be like, see, this is what you give us money for. So they had every incentive to go in unnecessarily. Roughly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So on February 28th, there were 76 armed agents that came up from Fort Hood. They were obfuscated in cattle trucks. They had canvas thrown over the back of these trucks, hiding. Of course, Koresh and them knew they were coming anyway, so it's not like that mattered. And at the very beginning of this thing, David Koresh comes to the front door and it's on video. Like all this stuff you can watch happen. And eventually you were watching it in real time as it played out, but it's all over, this documentary. Like, Koresh comes to the front door and opens it and says, hey, man, there's a bunch of women and kids in here. You don't want to do this. Kind of quickly shuts the door and goes back in and all hell breaks loose. And from the descriptions I saw and just sort of watching it, like rewatching it, I guess it was a war, like thousands and thousands of rounds being exchanged.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And there is a lot of disagreement still today who was the first one to shoot. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is. And again, later with the fire, you still get two completely conflicting stories from each side.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the Branch Davidians say that the Feds fired first, and the feds obviously say the Branch Davidians fired first. The thing that supports the Branch Davidians claim is that there was an ATF agent who was part of the raid who apparently told an investigator right after the raid that they may have shot first because one of the agents shot a dog as they were coming into the compound. And that that would have set off all of the. The shooting in general. He apparently later retracted that when asked about it. But apparently the Branch Davidians also say that their dogs were shot, too. So it's entirely possible that that's when the shooting started. It's also possible the Branch Davidians started shooting first.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because in their. On their side, at least, this is what they say. They said that the first rounds that they heard is the ATF speaking were from an M60 and a 50 cal rifle, and those are guns that they didn't have. And I'm just reminded, didn't they shoot the dogs at Ruby Ridge?

[Jonas Brothers Member]

Too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah. So like you said, this was like a war. People died here. Like, I think four agents.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, four agents.

[Josh Clark]

Four agents died during this raid. I mean, the Branch Davidians had like massive firepower. And I think six Branch Davidians were killed in the exchange as well. A bunch more were wounded. David Koresh was wounded. And all of a sudden this raid had been so thoroughly botched that it became day one of a 51 day siege where the ATF and then eventually the FBI surrounded Mount Carmel and were trying to get the Branch Davidians to come out. And the Branch Davidians were like, no, we're not coming out. You guys go away.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And, you know, they also had the superior ground. I think one of the guys was like, you know, when we pulled up on this place, we were all of a sudden a little shaken. He said it was full of windows. He said it was the high ground. And he said, this is not the kind of like. Like we were immediately at the. Oh, what do you call it when you're at a disadvantage?

[Jonas Brothers Member]

That's the worst.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a siege of a castle up on a cliff. You're not in the best position unless you're in the castle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it also had a tower. That's where Koresh's bedroom was.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. It was also made almost entirely of like plywood. Right. There was some concrete to it, but wasn't the most part, Wasn't it wood?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, it was huge, but it was definitely one of those things that was kind of built by hand over many years. Yeah, for sure. I think it was a three hour gun battle. And eventually there was a call from the inside to the outside where David Koresh gets on the phone with an Officer lynch and he says, he's Officer Lynch. And Koresh says, that's kind of a funny name. And then he says, this is David Koresh, the Notorious. And he said, what'd you guys do that for?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's the. I think that's the thing, Chuck. Like, I'm so conflicted about this is like he was genuinely a bad person for sexually abusing kids. They. They were preparing for the end of days. But at the same time, he was aware enough of what they must have looked like to outsiders, like a crazy cult or something like that, that he was like, he wasn't out of his mind. It seems like at any given point in time, he was just kind of like a average dude who had kind of worked his way into this really unique situation and then abused it in many Many different ways. But he wasn't crazy. He wasn't some really. It wasn't like talking to Charles Manson. Like, imagine trying to negotiate with Charles Manson. It was nothing like that. It was like negotiating with somebody who had different views with you than you that were so far out, as far as religiousness goes, that even a religious negotiator wouldn't have common ground in that sense. Right. So they seemed crazy to the FBI, even though they weren't crazy people. It's really hard to get that across and not sound like an apologist or like, I'm crazy myself.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. We should point out that Koresh was wounded in this initial gunfight, and the religious imagery was not lost on his followers because he was shot through the wrist and he was shot through the side. You know, those were the wounds Jesus suffered on the cross. And he was 33 at this point. And I think most people think that's how old Jesus was when he was crucified. So they all think this is, like, you know, supreme, like, religious symbolism happening.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Do you want to take a break and come back and start talking about the siege and the negotiation attempts?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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We created our own podcast called hey Jonas.

[Chuck Bryant]

We invented a podcast.

[Jonas Brothers Member]

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[Jonas Brothers Member]

We just contributed to First People to do Podcasts.

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[Jonas Brothers Member]

Yeah. Pretty wide range of podcasts, but this one's extra special. So how did we. How do we actually come up with the name hey, Jonas? Guys, I honestly don't remember.

[Josh Clark]

I think it was on a call

[Jonas Brothers Member]

about what we should call it, and we were thinking. I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers was. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing a

[Chuck Bryant]

bit for the podcast.

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People could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad. Hey Jonas. And offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that. Guys, listen to hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it out here.

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[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, so like I said, the raid very quickly turned into a 51 day siege. Which makes it very ironic that one of the ATF agents was so confident that the raid would be over and done with very quickly. He had set up a tee time for the same afternoon as the raid and he missed the tee time, obviously, because like I said, it turned into a siege at first. So the FBI was on the scene almost immediately because when a federal agent is killed, the FBI investigates and they're like, well, we might as well stick around since this is now a siege, we're going to take over from the atf. So basically on day one, the FBI took over this and their negotiators started getting to work. Apparently they had trouble finding the phone number for the compound, but I think the Branch Davidians called them first. Is that correct?

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, I know that during the shootout they called out, but I'm not sure about afterwards.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, at any rate, they were in communication on the phone very quickly, I think maybe even the same day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And things were going pretty well. Like negotiations were going well at first. I mean, I think forefront in everyone's mind was, let's get these kids out of here. Cause they knew there were a lot of children inside. And so they were trying to get Koresh to agree to get the kids out. He said, yep, we can do this two by two is what he said. And he said in return, I want to broadcast this hour long sermon on the Christian Broadcasting Network and that'll be the swap for the kids. And so they're working on this. They're trying to get everybody out basically. And surrendering. And on March 2, it was almost there, like, everybody was about to come out, and they were relenting. And then Koresh said, no, I got a message from God, and he told me to wait.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I'm sure the FBI negotiator pinched the bridge of his nose harder than he ever has in his life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

So that kind of did that. I think more children were released after that. 21 total between the first day and the 5th of March. That left about 20 still remaining in there. And they started negotiating for milk. The. I guess Kathy Schroeder, who you mentioned earlier, she was on the phone with the FBI negotiators saying, hey, we need a bunch of milk for the kids. And they're like, all right, you send out some kids, and we'll give you some milk. And she's like, what are you talking about? Our little kids need some milk. Just give us some milk. This isn't a bargaining chip. They ended up bringing them, I think, six gallons of milk three times. And I guess the Branch Davidians gave them proof of health and wellness by sending videotapes of the kids.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I think the other thing those videotapes did was it sort of sent a chill through the FBI, because it was really clear when you watch these videotapes that no one was being held hostage. Nobody was being held against their will. They all believed that what they were doing was right and was God's plan in the end. Like, Janet Reno never saw those tapes. So there's a lot of speculation on what information she was being fed. Cause she had been on the job for, like, a week or two.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.

[Chuck Bryant]

And so they are basically saying, like, no, they kept those tapes from her because it showed a different picture of what was going on inside. And he was painted to her as, like, you know, a sex offender illegally selling guns. They killed four of ours. And it's a cult that's holding, like, he's kind of holding all these people hostage inside.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which apparently was never the case.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that was the general consensus among law enforcement. This is a crazy cult, just like all the other crazy cults. And that just did not fit into that whole paradigm. Right. And so that kind of undermines a lot of what you're trying to do. And there was a. A lot of undermining going on within the FBI itself, because essentially, it was almost like two different branches of the multiverse that. That were this event layered over one another at once in one reality. Because you had the FBI negotiators who were trying to negotiate and get this resolved peacefully. And simultaneously, you had the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, which is like the FBI's version of the SWAT team. Yeah, like, let's just go in there and get this guy and we'll just end it like that. And they kept. There was like, just this tension. Like, the negotiators would make some progress, and then the hostage rescue team would do something to tick off the Branch Davidians. And so that would put a kibosh on those recent negotiations. And it just kept going like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they weren't communicating well either. It was just a real message. At one point, a very sort of legendary criminal defense attorney in Texas was called by Koresh's mom and said, I need you to go get my son out of there and like, do this in court. And so he went out there, he managed to talk the FBI into letting him walk up and knock on the front door. And he went inside. He's the only one who ever got inside and met with Koresh and was like, hey, listen, man, I'm a criminal defense attorney. My job is to look after you and see that you and everyone here gets out alive and that we handle this in court. He said, because between you and me, they haven't done this right. And like, you know, you've got a lot going in your favor. And Koresh was like, all right, I trust you, but what I need to do is stay in here until I write. God told me to write my own version of like, an updated book of Revelation, basically. And when I deliver that manuscript, I'll willingly come out.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that was thanks to two Bible scholars, Philip Arnold and James Taber Tabor, who had been following this like everybody else, at least in the United States, on CNN and every news network. It was just constant wall to wall coverage. You could just get up in the middle of night and watch what was going on at the siege in Waco for weeks. Right. These guys had seen it, and they. It became clear to them that, like, the FBI had no idea, no touch point with what the Branch Davidians believed and that they were just talking over each other. They just couldn't grasp who they were dealing with. And these guys were like, we can. We're Bible scholars. We understand what's going on. So I guess they went on TV and were talking about what the Branch Davidians believed. Koresh saw it and he. That's when he was like, I need to write down my interpretation of Revelations and give it to these two who can actually do something with it that are trustworthy for safekeeping. So that lawyer, like you said, negotiated that. And Koresh was like, sure, I will come out. And there's. I read a transcript of him talking to negotiators, and they're like, what does that mean, though? What does it mean you're going to come out? Like, you can come out guns blazing. You come out in two weeks, 10 days, one day, like, when are you going to come out? And he's like, I'm going to come out right after I'm done. What is that, like, two weeks? What does it mean you're going to come out? It's like, I'm going to come out and go into a jailhouse. So it was very clear that he was willing to come out after this. The FBI was like, we don't believe you. Like, we've already. You've already missed deadlines left and right. This is just a stalling tactic.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So they're hearing one thing from the FBI negotiators, like, trying to get them out peacefully in the meantime on the news and with their own eyeballs out the windows, they see them pulling up with Bradley fighting Vehicles, like, clearing obstacles and setting up a perimeter. So they see some of the kids get let out and immediately, like, are kind of jumped on and having all their stuff searched right in front of them. They see Kathy Schroeder leave and get arrested, and, like, see her in an orange jumpsuit on the news. And so they're getting all these mixed messages. Eventually, they see two Abrams tanks pull up. That's the mother of all. I think it's the largest war vehicle in the US Fleet is an Abrams tank. And they. At one point, one of the guys is bragging. He's like, you know, I could take one of these tanks and drive through this house from one end to the other. And the FBI negotiator said, why would you do that? Yeah, like, what are you even talking about? So it just kind of puts a pin on, like, how in conflict they were.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And the FBI in general was just treating this like a normal hostage situation. But again, the Branch Davidians weren't hostages. They were there on purpose. And I guess when you have a normal hostage situation, you. You have demands. And then you also are slowly, or maybe even not that slowly increasing, like, your tactical presence, like, showing up with tanks. I think there were 14 other combat vehicles on site, basically showing, like, there's no way out of this except you coming out. If you want to do this peacefully. And they also did a lot of tactics that had been used before in normal hostage situations, which was basically, you keep everybody inside from being able to sleep, from being able to think, from being able to hear themselves. And you do that with really bright lights all night and loudspeakers playing all sorts of annoying stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Like, they were. I think, on March 21, they were close to having this resolved again. I think Koresh was in the final stages of his book of revelation, and they were negotiating, like, fairly successfully to get more people out. I think they got five people out. On March 21st. The guy in the documentary said two dozen more were set to be released. And that's when the hostage, the HRT team, started unilaterally just making decisions, like playing that music. They were. They played these boots are made for walking 24 hours a day. They just. As a complete, like, show of power. They ran a tank over David Koresh's antique Ford ranchero vehicle in full view of everybody. So they're doing this stuff to, like, they're purposely agitating them. These people that are already in one of the Davidians is like, we were already like. Like, you think this is going to solve anything? To agitate us further with this music? And by keeping us awake, he was like, this could only lead to tragedy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so since the FBI started buying the idea that his agreement. Koresh's agreement to come out after he finished his book of revelations interpretation was just stalling. They went to Janet Reno, and they're like, look, we have this plan to go in with gas. It's not lethal gas. They're not gonna like it, but it'll make them come out and just sign off on this. But that was essentially, like, the premise of them going in. And they basically did what you said that one guy was talking about. They drove a tank through the wall, at least one wall of the compound, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

But, yeah, they called in and said, hey, we're not shooting. We're not coming in, but we're placing tear gas in the house. Like, that's what we're doing. I know you see us coming to the house. All we're doing is placing tear gas in there. It's not gonna kill you. It'll just irritate your eyes and skin because we're trying to get you guys out so we can get this resolved without any more bloodshed. So they fully announced they were doing this. They fill the house up with tear gas. There were a lot of high winds, so they think it was, like, kind of blowing the tear gas away. So that's when they rammed the tank through. Cause they thought they were kind of huddled in this bunker where the tear gas couldn't get to them. And they also had gas masks. So they're ramming this thing with the tank at this point, and all of a sudden, hell kind of breaks loose again.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The place starts to catch on fire. Very importantly, this is about four hours after the tear gas was used. Right. So just remember that once the place caught fire, that was. That was essentially it. We kind of talked about how it was made mostly of wood, and it was kind of made slipshod. It was can. It went up really fast, not just because it was made of wood, but also they had, like, blocked entrances with hay bales and mattresses and stuff like that. So there were Coleman lanterns everywhere. There was a lot of fuel and accelerant for the fire, so it went up pretty quick.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I think what I took from listening to the people, like, all the agents and everyone was they all to a person said, we thought, all right, they gotta come out now. Like, they just kept waiting, like, any second now, people are gonna come pouring out of there, and we're not gonna lose any more life. And that didn't happen. I mean, I think a handful of people came out, but everyone basically stayed in there. And it's sort of anyone's guess what happened in there. I know Koresh was found dead from a single bullet to the head forehead. And there's a lot of speculation that his number two, Steve Schneider, kind of realized he was a fraud and shot him in the head and then killed himself. But no one knows what bullet ended up in David Koresh's forehead.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think you said some people, just a few people rushed out of the building. There were nine people who left while this building was on fire. Right. Like, imagine, like, your dedication to your beliefs that you're like, nope, not going to leave this burning building. There were 75 other people inside. At least 20 were kids. And I think 13 of the adults were found to have fatal gunshot wounds. 2. Most were to the head. Two were in the back, which is very awful to think what was going on with that. And then three kids were shot to death. And I think six women and children were deemed to have died of blunt force trauma. And the narrative that was created around that was that they were beating each other to death. Apparently, later on, it was determined that they died of blunt force trauma. When the FBI came through with their tank And a bunch of concrete fell on these women and children and killed them. That was where the trauma came from. But that's not to say that they didn't do other unspeakable things. Like we said, three kids were shot. One boy died of a stab wound to the chest. Like there's just no other way to interpret that, you know, like you don't accidentally stab a three year old to the chest when the FBI is coming through your door, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and I think that's where all the speculation comes from is like, what was going on inside there? I know one of the guys was like shot in the stomach and asked to be put out of his misery by his own people, which they did. So. Yeah, it's just. I mean, I can't imagine what was going on inside that place. It's horrific to think about it.

[Josh Clark]

And I mean, all this happened in minutes, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Once that fire started, it was pretty quick.

[Josh Clark]

The thing is, you know, there are plenty of accusations by the Branch Davidians and the supporters and critics of the federal government that the FBI actually started this fire. The FBI said right off the bat, we didn't use any incendiary tear gas canisters. And then three years later, they're like, well, we use some incendiary tear gas canisters. Despite that, it does not seem that the Feds started this fire. Remember, they used tear gas. And the fire didn't start for four more hours. It started in three different places, none of which coincided with where tear gas was used. So the teargas almost certainly didn't do it. They also had, I guess they had like, monitor, like listening devices inside. Is that right?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

I saw somewhere that they had monitoring, like they were monitoring them over audio and that they had heard them talking about, like previously talking about lighting the place on fire. So it's almost 100% certain that the Branch Davidians set the place on fire.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, the surviving Davidians say that absolutely did not happen. And it was all framed to look that way. So it's. And then the guy comes on right after and says, well, he's a liar. So it's definitely one of those things where they're both still digging in.

[Josh Clark]

The thing that got me, Chuck, this really upset me was after all this was done, after the fires were put out and everything was like, starting to get calm, somebody raised the ATF flag on the compound's flag pole. They had just been conquered. And I found that really awful.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty awful. And like you mentioned earlier, no one from the government side was brought up on charges or anything. The FBI and the Clinton administration was cleared of wrongdoing in 2000. There was a, a report in 1993 that was, you know, they didn't say they did it right. It was a pretty damning report about the ATF raid. And that became like, you know, a teaching moment for any new ATF students coming in there. Like, hey, look how bad things can go when you really screw things up. And the one big result from this was it really inspired and galvanized the militia movement and right wing anti government radicals. Like there's video footage of Timothy McVeigh there. He went to Waco during the 51 day siege and was like selling anti government bumper stickers and talking about how awful this was. And then of course, you know, on the Same day on April 19, two years later, carried out the Oklahoma City bombing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, killed 168 people and 19 children as payback for, for Waco. And yeah, I remember very clearly in the, throughout the 90s, like that whole new world order, black helicopter, FEMA, concentration camps, conspiracy theories. And that was, I mean, Waco to people who believed in that. This was like proof positive that yes, the go if you had guns and you were religious, the government would send a tank through your, your house and set it on fire and kill you. So this really helped. That and Ruby Ridge both really fed into this end of the millennium paranoia that I think the X Files rode so high on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah. I mean this was less than a year after Ruby Ridge, so I'm not that guy at all. But I remember being in college and all this stuff was going on and it was just a real uneasy feeling in time. For sure.

[Josh Clark]

It really was for sure. The Branch Davidians are still around too, Chuck. Did you know that although they have changed their name to Branch, the Lord our Righteousness, but they're still at Mount Carmel.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Nine of them were convicted. Nine of the nine survivors, that is five on voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges. I think a few got weapons charges and one other. I don't know what the charge, but it just says a lesser charge. But they're all out. They've all been out since at least 2007 and you know, at least the two surviving members that stayed till the end or I guess the one was arrested, they're still believers and still think David Koresh was the Messiah and that they were doing God's will and they don't have any regrets. The One woman who got out as she was one of the children that was released. Just really, really, all of her interviews were just devastating because she's just a lost person now, you know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, she lost both of her parents. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, her mom split once. They said, separate and I'll start impregnating you. Her mom left in the middle of the night, but they removed her from her father, basically, and said, you can't even be with him in the compound anymore.

[Josh Clark]

Man, that whole story is just rough from beginning to end, huh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, nobody won, you know.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, definitely not. There's a lot more that you can read about this stuff if you're interested. Be very, very careful who you believe in, where your sources are, because there's a lot of conspiracy theories out there. And then of course, there's a lot of COVID up associated with it too, but there's a lot more to read. This is basically just the tip of the iceberg.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, tell them about Madonna. You got to tell them about Madonna.

[Josh Clark]

So apparently David Quresh, he had a picture of Madonna taped to his motorcycle and he had told one of the Branch Davidian members that God had told them, I will give Madonna onto thee. So basically he was just waiting for God to have Madonna come hang out at the compound and he'd get to impregnate her, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we started out talking about George Michael and we ended up talking about Madonna.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who knew?

[Josh Clark]

The funny thing is, is under different circumstances, like, you know, he might have had a shot with, with early 90s Madonna.

[Chuck Bryant]

He might be right.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

I got anything else.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well then that's it for Branch Davidians as far as we go. And that means it's time for listener.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, I don't have a listener mail prepared. So we just want to remind everyone once again that if you are interested in getting aboard the Valiant lady of Virgin Voyages and spending a little time with us out at sea, you can do that this fall.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. October 2nd to 7th, we're going from New York City to Bermuda and then back to New York City and we're going to be doing a live show. Stuff they don't want you to know. It's going to be doing a live show. There's going to be a lot of podcast centric fun on this voyage the whole time.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And just go to virginvoyages.com stuff and we'll see you on the high seas.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And in the meantime, if you want to send us an email, you can do that. Send it off to stuff [e-mail]

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