March 15, 1993

Cult of Death

Holed up in a Texas fortress, David Koresh and his followers fervently believe he is Christ -- and till death do them part

by RICHARD LACAYO
Reported by Jordan Bonfante/Los Angeles, Sally B. Donnelly and Michael Riley/Waco and Richard N. Ostling/New York

David Koresh -- high school dropout, rock musician, polygamist preacher -- built his church on a simple message: ''If the Bible is true, then I'm Christ.'' It was enough to draw more than a hundred people to join him at an armed fortress near Waco, Texas, to await the end of the world. The same message tempted Koresh to entertain a vision of martyrdom for himself. He would die in a battle against unbelievers, then be joined in heaven by the followers who chose to lay down their lives for him.

Koresh moved a little closer to that nightmare vision last week after more than 100 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) assaulted his compound. When the firing finally stopped after an hour, four agents lay dead and 16 were wounded; inside the compound as many as 10 cult members were reported dead, including, Koresh said, a two-year-old girl, one of many children that Koresh has fathered by more than a dozen wives. The body of a man presumed to be a Koresh follower was found outside later, clutching a gun.

Koresh eventually let 21 children -- none of them his own -- and two elderly women leave the compound, but he remained holed up inside with 90 adults and 17 children awaiting instructions from God. He claimed to be wounded, but he sounded remarkably fit as he broadcast his end-of-the-world message across the airwaves in exchange for a promise to surrender. Meanwhile, more than 200 law- enforcement officers surrounded the compound and waited, day after day, for Koresh to make good on that pledge.

The Waco cult is the product of an apocalyptic theology, refined over decades by a succession of zealous but nonviolent splinter groups, that was seized at last by a charismatic and combustible leader. The son of a single mother, Koresh was born Vernon Howell in Houston in 1959. Growing up in the Dallas area, he was an indifferent student but an avid reader of the Bible who prayed for hours and memorized long passages of Scripture. He also played guitar -- not badly by some reports -- using rock music as well as his magnetic preaching to recruit followers. Some of the spartan interiors in the Waco compound were decorated with posters of the wild man rock guitarist Ted Nugent and the heavy-metal band Megadeth.

Koresh dropped out of school in the ninth grade. Raised in the mainstream Seventh-day Adventist Church, he found comfort as a young man in the teachings of an obscure offshoot, the Branch Davidians, which was a mutation of an earlier Adventist splinter group. The Davidians trace their roots to Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant who was expelled from a Los Angeles Adventist church in 1929. Houteff had become obsessed with passages in the Book of Ezekiel in which an angel of God divides the faithful from the sinful before Jerusalem's fall to the Babylonians. Believing that passage to be a warning to Adventists, Houteff established a splinter congregation in 1935 on the outskirts of Waco, in the deeply religious prairie land of Texas.

When he died 20 years later, his widow Florence assumed leadership of the sect. She dissolved it after the failure of her prediction that the last days of creation would commence on April 22, 1959. But some members stayed on near Waco with Benjamin Roden, a preacher who styled himself as the literal successor to King David of Israel.

Howell joined them in 1984, after he was expelled by a conventional Seventh- day Adventist congregation. Before long he was locked in a power struggle with George Roden, who then headed the sect with his mother Lois. It ended with Howell being driven from the sect at gunpoint. He briefly established his own desolate congregation, living with them in tents and packing crates in nearby Palestine, Texas. But the feud between the two men reached another flashpoint soon after, when Roden disinterred the corpse of a female church member with the intention of bringing her back to life. Contending that Roden had violated the woman's body, Howell and a number of followers returned to the Waco compound to shoot it out with the Roden group.

Though Howell and several followers were charged with attempted murder, a jury acquitted the followers, and the charges against Howell were later dropped. But the trial revealed that the Waco sect was already well armed, with at least a dozen firearms, including shotguns and .22-cal. rifles. Roden, who was judged unable to stand trial in an unrelated slaying, is now in a state mental hospital.

With Roden out of the way, Howell became undisputed leader of the Branch Davidians in Waco, completing their transition from congregation to cult. He and a few select followers began recruiting new members on trips around the U.S., Britain and Australia. In 1990 he changed his name legally to Koresh, Hebrew for Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the Jews to return to Israel after their captivity in Babylon. His apocalyptic theology converged with secular survivalism, with its programs for hunkering down amid stockpiles of food and ammo to endure a nuclear holocaust or social collapse.

Koresh began to preach that his followers should ready themselves for a final battle with unbelievers. The Waco settlement, once a collection of old cottages scattered around 78 acres of scrub pasture and woods, was consolidated into a compact fort the size of a city block. Having equipped it with an underground bunker and an armory -- adjacent to the chapel -- cult members discussed renaming the place Ranch Apocalypse. Federal agents began tracking frequent shipments of firepower that they say amounted to 8,000 lbs. of ammunition and enough parts to assemble hundreds of automatic and semiautomatic weapons. Some time ago a package addressed to the compound split open before it could be delivered by the United Parcel Service. The contents: hand grenades.

To equip his flock psychologically for the battles to come, Koresh reportedly played and replayed videos of his favorite movies about the Vietnam War: Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill. His followers prepared themselves physically with weight training, military-style drills and obstacle-course runs. To acquaint them with the experience of famine, their vegetarian diet was strictly rationed. Daily life was a harsh mix of work and Bible study. Men labored at construction around the compound, while modestly dressed women did household chores and schooled the children, who were rarely taken off the grounds. Television was forbidden, and children's birthdays were never celebrated. In caustic monologues, Koresh would lead his zealots through the Scripture in sessions that could last far into the night. To cover expenses, cult members donated their paychecks if they worked outside. Older members chipped in their Social Security checks and food stamps.

''Step by step, you give up everything in your life,'' says Lisa Gent, an Australian whose son Peter and daughter Nicole are believed to be with Koresh, as well as Nicole's two children who were fathered by Koresh. ''You begin to live for a pat on the head,'' adds Lisa's husband Bruce. Ex-cult members warn that some Davidians would do anything for their leader. Australian James Thom recalls Koresh asking him one day, ''How far are you prepared to go?'' When Thom looked puzzled, Koresh asked, ''Which of your two children are you prepared to sacrifice?''

But Koresh had stricter rules for his flock than for himself. Beer, meat, air conditioning and MTV, taboo for others, were available to him. So were any of the female members, though the other men were quartered separately from the women and sworn to celibacy. Some of the women whom Koresh termed his wives were already married to male cult members. Others were perhaps as young as 11 or 12. ''He was fixated with sex and with a taste for younger girls,'' says Marc Breault, who belonged to the group in 1988 and 1989. ''He began to teach that all the women in the world belonged to him and only he had the right to procreate.'' His rationale, according to Elizabeth Barabya, another former member, was that ''God believed it was necessary to send him down to be a sinful Jesus so that, when he stood in judgment of sinners on Judgment Day, he would have experience of all sin and degradation.''

Allegations surfaced that Koresh physically abused the children with frequent harsh beatings for infractions as minor as crying after a nap. But child-welfare authorities who investigated last year found no evidence at the time to support those charges. By 1991 Koresh was also traveling to La Verne, California, where in a gated house he established what police called a ''women's dormitory'' for 18 ''wives.'' When neighbors reported that one of them was 12 years old, police launched a child-molestation investigation against Koresh that is still open.

Paul G. Fatta, a resident of the compound who was out of town on the morning of the raid, told the New York Times last week that firearms were kept there merely to defend against potential attack by disaffected members who have left the group. He also said that Koresh's followers regarded his polygamy as a Biblical trial for the rest of them. ''Do not judge a person by his actions, but by the message that he has,'' Fatta insisted.

Planning for last week's raid began months ago, when federal and state law- enforcement officials concluded that cult members were stockpiling guns and preparing to make legal semiautomatics into illegal automatic weapons. ATF agents acquired a house near the compound, pretending to be neighbors and potential recruits. Search warrant in hand, more than 100 agents charged the buildings early Sunday morning, only to be met by an explosion of gunfire. ''From the moment we stepped out of the trailer we were under fire from everywhere,'' says one agent who was pinned to the ground for 45 minutes.

The failure of the assault led to criticisms that ATF had fatally underestimated its adversary -- or overestimated its own capabilities in a bid for the media spotlight. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, whose department includes the bureau, promised a full inquiry. ATF officials claim that the raid failed largely because Koresh was tipped off. About 45 minutes before the shooting began, an agent who had infiltrated the cult's worship services saw Koresh get a phone call that he believes warned him that attackers were on their way.

Among the questions that remain is why ATF agents did not try to nab Koresh on the frequent occasions when he left the compound to jog, shop or eat in local restaurants. And with children in the buildings, why didn't they treat the whole operation as a delicate hostage situation? ''When these groups are confronted by law enforcement they should be handled gingerly,'' said Marc Galanter, a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, who has studied cults. ''You should establish communication rather than confront them head on.''

ATF spokesman Jack Killorin said that his bureau decided to move because it believed that during a long siege -- or even if Koresh were seized alone outside -- cult members would opt for suicide, taking the children with them. And almost all showdowns with determined and fanatical groups have led to casualties, he insisted, no matter how they were handled. ''We've gone about them in a number of different ways -- ruse, ambush, siege and talk,'' said Killorin. ''In almost every one we lose law-enforcement officers.''

After two days of negotiation that followed the shootout, Koresh promised to surrender himself peacefully if he could deliver a statement on radio. But after his rambling 58-minute address was broadcast on Christian stations around the country, he reneged, saying he was still awaiting ''further instructions from God.'' With Biblical scholars on hand to help them fathom Koresh's thinking, three negotiating teams headed by the FBI remained in periodic phone contact with him and other Davidians. ''The constant theme is, 'When are you coming out?' '' said Jeffrey Jamar, the FBI agent in charge of the operation.

The cult has stockpiled enough water, canned goods, grain and ready-to-eat meals to last several months. Even if electricity is cut off, the group may have its own emergency generators. Koresh is telling negotiators that he is annoyed by reports that he has claimed to be Christ, despite the stories of ex-cult members that he often did so. Though he is reported to have urged his flock last Easter to prepare for mass suicide, he now insists that they will not turn their guns upon themselves. But people who know them well are not reassured. Say the worried Lisa and Bruce Gent: ''They will kill for him.'' And Koresh, a man caught up in a dream of the Apocalypse, may be ready to die as well.