A retired UPS driver reveals new details about cult leader David Koresh.
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The
The tragedy in waco in nineteen. Ninety three continues to.
Older. Even though it's been twenty five years there are still revelations and why this story still haunts the american people. Wait, though, was a tale of the religious fringe that decided to fight back against the federal government and murdered federal law,
Enforcement and then at the end of the siege burn themselves up rather than come out was my he had been in. Control of the
branch davidians sect. He was incredibly charismatic. I waited patiently on the lord. He was spellbinding
we are part of a horrible period, is a god and human flesh. He was a classic com.
Someone was the sort of god, and his chosen area of Con god speaks to me was religion. It was my understanding that he was god's son. Do you believe he, the son of god, I hope here my mom was very confident that he was the second coming of christ. They would
do anything for this man. How many young girls to have sex with I'm thinking at least have between twelve and fifteen years of age is? Is my great waterfall looks something that just women can't resist. So it's unclear how many children he had your daddy but easily say hi over a dozen ate a lot of that war, people are being oppressed, he was a Jesus Christ, he could drink and smoke and love guns and rock and roll, but he was going to bring about the end of times.
They began buying guns. My mom made the bullet professed we were getting ready for war. The standoff me going on about forty five minutes and the this touched off a standoff that would become the longest.
Stand on an american law enforcement history
The primary goal was to get the kids out of harm's way. We didn't leave, because this is where we belonged. What he said to me was anybody that's free to leave anytime. They want to negotiate who are now underway with current leader, David Koresh, I'm talking to you somebody's going to get hurt, and he says god has told me to wait. Are you coming out? We aren't going to fulfill our commitment to god, so how did he negotiate with god? There are unanswered questions that still linger and popular culture and haunt the american imagination
And I'll get my story secrets the last twenty five years: everything you think, there's gonna be real. I don't want to take this to migrate
the
It looks like quiet, texas, prairie, but nearly a quarter of a century ago. This was a place where god guns and government collided so violently that its impact
it's still being felt today. But how did it come to this building they're shooting at the children and women in the car? At all? The.
The old guy guy new secrets of waco were revealed for the
very first time on forty eight hours, including the remarkable story of this delivery man who unwittingly armed the cult. My name is Larry gilbert. This is one part of the story of that time that nobody has ever heard a story. Larry Gilbert has agonized over. I have been blamed for what I have been out there for twenty five years. Larry wondered if his actions led to one of the deadliest confrontation
and between federal law enforcement agents and civilians. In u s history, a gun battle of fifty one day stand off and a raging fire that would claim more
Seventy lives, including at least two dozen children, people are being oppressed. Correct was talking about the end of the world happening and a giant conflict award. Winning investigative journalist, Lee Hancock considered one of the countries leading waco experts covered the rise of David caress and the branch the for more than two decades. Hancock is now a consultant for CBS news. David caress was the illegitimate child of a woman who gave birth to him at fourteen years old. He didn't really ever know his father very well. One of the next men that she took up with actually beat crash. We got our tales walt
Tommaso as a young man when grow up, I'm going to do it different. The abuse was so severe that crushes grandmother ultimately took him an in nineteen eighty one, while the news early, twenties David, correct, left his family's hometown in Tyler Texas,
After a religious scandal, seen decided that the preachers daughter had been given to him by god and wanted to have sex with her career sought refuge with the branch. The videos are reclusive group of christians living in waco texas. Since the nineteen twenties they practised a bible based back to base
form of christianity. This was the place where they were going to find eternal salvation. They were on a path to Heaven. The briefly took an exit off that path. Heading the caliph,
when you to try his luck in the music business, but it didn't work out. Instead, he found his stardom in the pulpit, as captured here by Australia's nine network from was the son of god. His commanding preaching.
I'll began attracting followers correction. I were closer than brothers. We had that common bond in
eighteen, eighty six mark bro was just a young divinity student
living near los angeles. When he was introduced to David Koresh by another branch, davidian
when I first met him. He wasn't the son of god. He knew his doctrine really well. The to me
I began studying the bible together and before long bro was hooked on crushes radical form of christianity,
Jesus today so enamoured with caress bro, followed him back to waco texas a year later were correct, decided it was time for people to begin worshipping. Him David said that he was the christ. He was not just a prophet. He was the son of god, but there was a problem. Someone else was running the branch two billion church he and his rival both heavily armed, had a violent confrontation.
a shoot out occurred, then the sheriff's department came out everybody hit. Actually there was one guy who was wounded in a minor way. If we wanted to kill him, he'd be dead, crush, was arrested and charged with attempted murder. His case ended in a mistrial
correct was now the leader of the branch dravidian church and the essence of crashes. Teaching was the first. Christ was a good christ and a wholly christ and a nice christ came was the sinful messiah,
a sinful messiah who apparently had a favorite syn,
later father as many as twenty children with his female followers, some as young as fourteen he want
just to know that we had nothing but to trust in god and to love him to know that the bible was our hope and strength. Sheila, Martin and her husband are harvard law. School graduate were true believers every day he was in contact with god by the late nineteen eighties
caress had dozens of followers sitting spellbound four hours listening to his end of the
old sermons of doom inquisition. There clearly correct would begin building.
An extensive arsenal of firearms and explosives to defend against the apocalyptic attack he had predicted was coming.
I thought it was a little strange that religious people would be ordering guns united, parcel service driver, Larry Gilbert delivered packages to the compound, sometimes making several trips a week for months. He had no idea what was in then he started noticing the labels
There were getting shipments from an orange data, but in texas receiving large shipments of weapons was not illegal there. You can't come in a scapegoat.
Then maybe I can do that by marriage.
by the late nineteenth eighties. David caress had proven himself to a lot of people. He didn't have
the rock and roll drifter with a god complex, had a magnetism and message that was spreading all around the world, including here in australia, and before long dozens of people were following David caress. There were branch to videos from canada, england.
Even Israel, now is nearing excited about meeting this profit. New zealand grace Adams told her story
on american network television for the very first time to forty eight hours in nineteen. Ninety grace, who was twenty nine and her younger sister, Rebecca just talk
One made the exhausting seven thousand five hundred miles joy arriving at the waco compound at about eleven at night gray says they walked into a hellish seen david was onstage.
in a hospital bed and he was yelling and screaming and cussing, and were there children in the room? Yes, they were children, he had a boat paddle and he was hitting that boat pedal on the stage. I'm thinking who is this man, I'm thinking? What did we come to? I knew I was supposed to be scared of him. Joanne by Hugo
just a toddler in nineteen. Eighty seven, when her parents kneel and margarita move the family from hawaii to waco to be with David crash
there's open fields everywhere. There's other kids to play with at first join thought. The compound was like a summer camp
It was me and my mom on a bunk bed. I had the top shed the bottom, but it just remember being very peaceful. This is where we belong to a true believer to this day. Clive Doyle was one of the long timers in the branch divisions doyle joined in the sixties. Long before David caress, it was a spartan lie.
there was no plumbing, so we would go to the bathroom in a bucket and take it outside and bury it where you well fed there. The food was very basic way, while the women did the cookies.
The men tended to the seventy seven acre proper. What did you do?
spare time. Spare time really didn't exist.
Weighing corrosion scene,
in a video shot by a current affair, could sometimes get violent,
even with one of his own children, including a four year old son, he father the only time he was legally married to Rachel Jones.
Fourteen year old girl, I remember one night. We were getting ready for dinner and you just hear him just wailing on his son and he kept going on for a long time
I am sure when says caress, also took pleasure in verbal.
humiliating his followers, including her own father. I heard him yell at my dad to me. It seemed like it went on for good, like our would he curse at him. Yeah to me that was normal. She says Koresh made everyone fear the outside world,
There is a huge gate. You or not.
go anywhere near that what were you told was out there bad people? I remember one time goes: you know what you and I are in a cold
Career said that he did mark brochures, caresses mind, control too
sinister turn in nineteen. Eighty: nine. When he announced a new revelation from god, he called it the new light,
The new life, in a nutshell, was at all. The women of the world belong to him, but bro was happy, none of it and did he say anything to you about.
or wife yeah he's said. Do you know what do you think now that you know I'm gonna be with Elizabeth? Was he going to hand me over to David kurdish? That was a question that I
and because I'm not going if you are and for you that was the breaking point yeah I was already planning on on leaving I I could say that things were getting out of control
but grace Adam says there were plenty of sexual targets at the compound. As a woman you needed to have sex with David in order to go to Heaven and grace Adams, insist it wasn't just the adult women. What kind of ages are we talking about? I'm talking twelve plus.
Any get pregnant by whom his grey says she was terrified. Caress would choose her for sex. I was so frightened that this thing may happen. Then I started to flip. I guess, but instead of retreating, she wanted
to get it over with and decided to knock on the door at about three in the morning I was afraid, must
after him cry flew into a rage, claiming god made all
sexual selections, harassed and woke. Everyone on and began screaming at grace in front of the group were, but was thin there a decided that I need a to b. I say
edit and a cabin she says, caress locked her in a ten by eight foot room under twenty four hour guard for nearly four months. She was fed from a bull on the floor of ST luck.
prisoner, are you essentially in solitary confinement, yeah, my mind ted get me step. One time crush entered her room and the abuse suddenly turned physical. He slapped me around on my face. She says she begged him to let her leave koresh refused, then, when he learned, grace's visa had expired and that immigration authorities may come looking for her. He relented god's sake. You can go now it's time for you to go. Grace did leave but was so traumatized by her experience. She spent more than two weeks at a california hospital in a psychiatric ward.
Brees then flew home to new zealand, but her sister stayed behind at the compound were correct. She was no longer only predicting armageddon but preparing for it. The why the heck with the branch davidians be making ten grand
I don't know it wouldn't be to help people
The.
Fraud,
We will really what happened at the branch davidian compound in nineteen. Ninety three had its genesis years earlier after David Koresh had made a series of trips to Israel crush, had told his followers the apocalypse. The end,
days would occur there and he believed that we were going to go over there and there was going to be a war, but the rose who had left the called were secretly working to sabotage caresses plans from back home in australia, american. I approach these rarely consulate here in melbourne and told them and all of a sudden they shut. That damned bro says is
Israeli authorities kicked Koresh out of the country, it was then the bro say that Koresh decided to bring the apocalypse to waco. No, no, by the way I've had a new revelation. It's all going to happen here, robert serving cook, a local rancher.
has kept secret from the public for almost a quarter century. One day he sought twenty divisions in combat fatigues, open fire in a field they weren't fire net, build that targets they were far and men silhouette gardens practice. India,
Dude, human being that's what it looked like, and even more disturbing robert who is an army veteran heard, the distinct sound of a fifty caliber machine gun. He quietly told police that, like tut tut, tut tut
reflective apparent for war. The lot of the men started weighing on fatigues and they started looking at
we're like in malaysia than a religious group. I want to work farm and why calorie gilbert
members. It was around ninety ninety one when he began noticing that those packages he was regularly delivering to the divisions, we're getting bigger and heavier
Bolin right here, and I would put any realise that the videos were using this building as a checkpoint and they would come out unlock the gate. Let me in and I would take the package inside there where the boxes could be inspected. Larry then drove them to the compound where Koresh, sometimes greeted him and I'd say, probably seventy five percent of the time when I would get there David always came out. He signed for a lot of them. It would only be later that Larry would learn. The exact contents of his cargo are delivered at amadeus. For two twenty three is like a forty sevens or fifteens and big.
Busines, even a grenade launcher hello. What did you just say? A grenade launcher. The dvd, an arms race turned even more ominous in February nineteen. Ninety two when Larry was checking a box in his truck and his life flashed before his eyes. Those a box on the top shelf- I moved it at about six to eight grenades, fell out of it hand, grenades hand, grenades. Did you jump back and I did he says the grenade casings scared him. So much
he told his wife Deborah about what he'd seen it was scary. I mean you're like Larry. Deborah has never told her story publicly. I've ever want to join us until she decided to join our interview, but see we'll get you liked up. While the cameras were rolling.
you're talking about your family and when mama bears family gets threatened. Mama bear reacts, Deborah told the sheriffs department about the grenade casings an extraordinary amount of arms going into the compound somebody had to do something that sheriff called the federal bureau
alcohol, tobacco and firearms. The a tf larry showed them receipts of the arm shipments and that's when the a tf started investigating special agent bill. Buford was one of the a tf agents in charge were started. The surveillance about the first part of january of nineteen. Ninety three from this house across the street. From the compound, a rotating team of eighty f agents, watched the dividends every move. We knew that was spying on. In fact, Larry began working closely with the atm even participating in an undercover operation. They told me we're going to send a a tf agent ride with you. One is delivered today, but there was a problem he had hair down to his shoulders,
And he looked nothing like a gps person, they knew what we look like so they're gonna make you in two minutes after you step off the truck, and I dunno where David just looks at and says
no they're watching us. I went numb after two months of reconnaissance, eighty at headquarters, author rights them to take action. The mission arrest David crash confiscate any illegal weapons and keep the children safe
in this video shot before the raid and broadcast for the first time on forty eight hours, bill buford is seen briefing. His troops to where we came rolling up in a swat van will be very obvious. What was going on and we needed the surprise. Buford and his team came up with an unusual idea, texas, trojan horse or about one mile. They would drive onto the property in to pick up trucks pulling cattle trailers with about thirty five armed agents in each hiding under canvas tarps, we drove in down this drive
and pulled up right here, everyday acquired within seconds. The eighty apps mission went terribly wrong
did you, videos were lying in wait having been inadvertently tip off by a tv
cameron. It was about nine forty, five am february, twenty, eighth nineteen, ninety three, the dividends and the a tf each swear. The other fired first joined by yeager, rushed to look out her bedroom window. On the second floor, I just see black dots running toward us. I had no idea what a waste my mom grabbed me off the bed. She put me on a floor.
and, to put my two older children down, Sheila Martin was right down the hall from Joanne. By the time I reach my ten year old son. All this glass started breaking around here he started screaming. Shots were just coming into the building. Her husband wayne called nine one one.
The traffic nightmare around our building and they're shooting at the children and women. In the at that point, everyone had a gun. There was bullet holes everywhere there were people lying on the floor that were dead. It was warm. Our job was to go on the roof and take over the arms room and corrections bedroom. Both objectives were on the second floor. You can see
You ve in the video from that date, crouched on the roof and taking heavy fire. I took a flashback
and through it in the window. When I get through the window,
Man standing in the room with a bank? They forty seven shot him several times,
seconds later. Buford like this agent, was shot. One wants creased. Girls NOS one from the hip once in the time once russia, where in the bud
thing I remember is.
Slow motion as the rounds would come through the wall and the splinter for sticking in my face, as they came off, not that I'm not going to let them kill me in here. Buford on the hood of this vehicle was rescued by fellow agents. Larry Gilbert was at his sister's house
when the eighty of red went down? He crap these guys are good massacred out there for the eighty
asked. The video for a ceasefire for agents were killed in the raid, twenty eight wounded, the branch divisions lost six people that day for others were wounded among them.
with corruption, who was shot in the wrist and saw a whole lot of, and for now the shooting stopped think of as awful as the firefight was. It was just the beginning,
the
In in the aftermath of the bloodiest gun battle in eighty of history, bill Buford now wishes he would have stood up and refuse to lead that assault. It turns out the eighty of new the divisions were expecting. Should your bosses have called off that read. The red should not have done gone forward absolutely not within hours. The f b I took over two teams would deploy one group to negotiate the other. A technical team special agent byron sage was one of the main negotiators. It was by far the most devastating demanding
Experience that I've ever gone through in forty six years in law enforcement sage got on the phone to the compound. Your primary point of contact, depending on what time of day.
It was her. The f b I sent in a video camera, hoping Koresh, would record scenes from inside. You can't point guns in the integration of my wives and my kid back inside the compound David Koresh was defiant in this telephone call. With the f b, I for a TF agents were killed here. No one had ever been confronted with a show of force like they saw that day. Sage knew every minute of this. Siege was a matter of life and death. Our primary goal was to get the kids out of harm's way
on my second nineteen. Ninety three, after four days of tents, negotiations David caress, agrees to surrender, but there is one condition if we will facilitate airing of fifty eight minute tape. He and all of his people
will come out. Dallas radio station k, R l D, played the tape David careers agree upon the broad character to this day cover previously. They never came out. He said my god told me to wait. The hostage rescue team began, bringing in tanks closer to the building
After hours of talks, correct began, releasing some children in pairs. They were taken to a nearby church
Seven year old, Joanne Vega was one of the lucky ones, but her parents, loyal followers of David caress, willingly stayed behind. You have no clue what's happening in your mom. Just cunning gives you a question she's very calm. She was very confident about her decision.
And you didn't have a choice in this. Rarely seen, video joanne is being counselled by doktor, bruce perry, a child psychologist brought in by child protective services. Joanne.
as never seen this video even looking at it. Now I'm like, why don't I remember any of the these things how'd, you end up in the compound. Would you go there with them? She wasn't that verbal. She disconnects
from the intensity of what was happening. Doktor perry is trying to get a sense of what was happening inside the compound, as well as what caresses plans may be. He said forty eight hours was there when joanne left waco almost twenty five years,
go away by David, correct made another unexpected move. He ordered Sheila Martin to leave with three of her children, leaving behind her for other children and her husband wayne and his new testing. God was the most important thing by the end of the fifth day of the siege. Twenty one children had been released from the compound, but more than two dozen remained behind day. Nine.
Crush tells negotiators. No other children are coming out, but they're willing to die for David Koresh, fearing a mass suicide byron sage implores Koresh to let his people go home. Now loading in there, the f b I tactical unit, begins to turn up the heat by turning off all electrical power into the compound
They started shining light into the compound. They started playing crazy noises.
Of weird saw
forty
in days in with pressure mounting David caresses, mother, hires, famous defence attorney dick together and to negotiate
peaceful surrender. I was doing when a lawyer supposed to do, and that is investigate the case together and says he didn't condone the divisions using deadly force, but once they were under fire he could understand it. You have the right to defend yourself, you don't have to wait to be killed and let it be so
down in court. He wanted it to and peacefully, but he also had his own agenda, which was his agenda, was being able to write his explanation
seven sealed the seven seals is a mystifying passage found deep within the book of revelation. He was saying to me that he would come out ass when he wrote
in seals. It's now day. Forty nine koresh is writing his biblical manifesto and has no idea that attorney general JANET reno has just approved a plan to tear gas. The compound is that appropriate to introduce into an environment where there are all these children we did
because we believed that those parents remaining in there would grabbed those kids and get him out
day. Fifty one april, nineteen.
before six. I am government tanks began ramming
main building to deliver the tear gas in hopes of ending the sea and a fall.
The gap is now and will continue to delay non lethal tear gas. All I was told to stone was trying to get them out. You are under arrest, they stand off is over, but the horror that followed sage says was unimaginable. I think
at the time I was probably in shock. I was stunned. Forty eight hours captured the moment. Zealand viagra was reunited with her sister, but after being released from the branch davidian compound, join us on facebook. At forty eight hours for her journey, we can see planes from two miles away now the plane. Oh, my goodness, the compound became a hell on earth. The question
What about the people inside? What about the children would that fire started
screaming at the tv. Why aren't they coming out? There goes the building more of it. Sulphur soulful sing,
people build tabloid. Greece Adams was watching on tv as her sister perished inside I had been following the whole thing you know. Sheila Martin was watching on tv to knowing her husband and four of her children were burning. I realized, oh those young children, tight. Somehow nine adults escaped the inferno, I'm looking at that these davidians that have come out. Not one of them brought a child. I'm heartsick nearly two dozen children died along with more than forty adults, including David Koresh. Autopsies revealed shocking details of how some of the davidians die
There's that fire raged. There were people who killed one another who killed themselves, who killed their children. David crash actually had a bullet wound into the centre of his head in the ashes
investigators uncovered an arsenal of more than three hundred guns, including forty eight, fully automatic assault rifles and several live grenades. One person who emerged alive was clive Doyle. Doyle took the time to rescue a dog
leaving his eighteen year old daughter behind me, didn't know exactly where she was so you go running through the compound look.
for her. When you in those kind of conditions, you don't always make the smartest choices. I get myself that I did
rescue, somebody aura help. Somebody, my daughter or somebody else.
he is so traumatized you so in pain that she don't think straight. These people they have to live with the decisions and actions that they took. Survivors, insists that federal tanks started the blaze by knocking over lanterns. Sage, however, says that secretly recorded F b, I audiotapes.
Prove that branch divisions ignited the fatal fires pouring flammable liquid
Byron sage is convinced. Clive Doyle had a hand in that his hands were burnt
And the only reason for that, according to the doctors is it they were permeated with diesel fuel is the reason why you you weren't able to go get your daughter is because you are
brooding fuel. That's what I do for you. I would like this to blame me: did you participate in anyway? No was faint delay. The majority of the people,
Mom, I say absolutely david crash. Never
held at much in my life tat. I failed every day. It crossed my mind for twenty five years down in this
as my choice, we had no animosity towards anybody. After all these years, the still gets too good people see the names they're just names I see face. If, given time, if the f b, I had shown more
patience. He may have finished the writing of these seven seals and walked out of that building. I think so too. Why? Wouldn't they wait
It's me for a long time, despite the massive loss of life, despite knowing today that David caress had sex with children, clive Doyle, Sheila, Martin and others believe they're messiah we'll make one last
dramatic entry. We believe this especial resurrection, that'll take place and
david and all those tidal come back and will be reunited with them. Joann villegas parents perished in the flames. I was robbed, while her mother has sometimes come to her in a dream as one of those dreams that you wake up from and your your your body and your mind
so sure that they're real at tena in some ways have you thought about this. She saved your life. Think about that all the time your mother saved you Joanne today is a wife and mother of two. She and her husband help run a restaurant in California. Her life is a rejection of the man who once terrified her
You're not gonna, be defined by David caress. Absolutely not to me he's he's the buggy man he's the person that you
Want your children to never come across in my life right now. He's he's! No one has nothing to me. There were five major investigations. The justice department blamed caress. The treasury depart
was critical of it's own. A t F officers congress, as well as a seventeen million dollar independent review, was critical of both the eighty f and the f b. I the wake
tragedy change the way law enforcement reacts and response to see
miller stand off situations. Eleven branch divisions, including Clive Doyle, were tried for conspiracy to murder. Eighty of officials, nine were convicted on lesser charges and served prison time
Clive Doyle was acquitted of all charges. No branch davidian was ever charged with arson.
The.
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in our new a serious. We look at the kids for cash scandal. A story
Corruption inside america's system of juvenile justice in northeast,
in pennsylvania residents had begun, noticing an alarming trend: children,
we're being sent away to jail in high numbers and often
for committing only minor offences. The f b I began
here to local judges and wonderful
picture emerged. It made national headlines but
Jews were earning a fortune carrying out a brazen criminal scheme, one
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Transcript generated on 2023-06-03.