The ‘brainwashed’ victims who died in Texan cult disaster
n a remote, dusty, wind-swept road a few miles from the Texas city of Waco, Dr Phil Arnold stood watching in horror as a devastating fire killed 76 members of one of history’s most notorious cults.
It was 25 years ago, but this wellspoken biblical scholar remembers the blaze, whose victims included 24 people from Britain, like it was yesterday.
Worse, Dr Arnold still believes to this day that he could have saved them.
“Had the authorities given me access to what they were hearing, I could have saved the lives of all the people inside, I really believe I could”, he told me in between gulps of water as we endured the midday sun in the dry, arid heat.
Long hot days like this one are remembered well by eyewitnesses to those events in early 1993. Charismatic cult leader David Koresh believed he was the new Christ and had attracted more than 100 followers to join him
They were known as Branch Davidians and they would live peacefully on a 77-acre site called Mount Carmel for many years, until events began to take a far more sinister turn.
Credible allegations from former cult members of child abuse and the stockpiling of military grade weapons prompted the authorities to act.
A botched raid then led to one of the longest gunfights in American law enforcement history, with four agents and six cult members killed.
A protracted siege situation followed, lasting for 51 days. On one side, David Koresh and his right-hand man Steve Schnieder. On the other, FBI negotiators. According to Dr Arnold, they could not have been further apart.
“When the siege began, I realised the FBI would never understand the religious ideas of this group and how seriously they were taking them,” he
recalls. "David Koresh was operating on a world-view based on the Bible and the authorities were saying, 'we don't want to talk about that, we just want to talk about food and surrendering':' Dr Arnold proposed being part of the line of communication between the negotiators and the Branch Davidians. In the making of the new End Of Days podcast, the BBC discovered a tape recording which we believe very few people have heard. In it, Koresh's most trusted lieu-tenant is heard asking for Dr Arnold by name, suggesting a dialogue with him "would go a long way” and that if they could agree something with him, those inside “are out of here”.
But the requests were ignored. According to the FBI, Koresh’s message was “Bible babble” and nothing more. One of the questions the BBC tries to answer in the podcast is why so many people made the journey from Britain. The UK recruitment drive began at a Christian college in Bracknell, Berks. Koresh and Schnieder persuaded students to attend off-campus Biblestudy sessions. It was from here, Koresh would seduce vulnerable believers – and soon it spread nationwide. Diana Henry, who lived in Trafford, Greater Manchester was already convinced. In her 20s, she had just got a degree and was due to start studying for a Masters when she decided instead to travel to join Koresh in his growing commune outside Waco.
“She was hooked like a fish,” says her father Sam Henry, “She dropped her studies and would have followed this wicked man anywhere. This was the devil’s work and she was bewitched”. Sam, a married builder and father of five, knew what he had to do and bought a ticket to the US. He arrived in Waco to bring his daughter home, but Koresh tried to persuade him to join the cult.
“I told my daughter that this guy was a fanatical infidel”, he remembers of the confrontation, “I told her that we must leave, that this man was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He began to curse me and threatened to whip me, but even then she wouldn’t listen. My daughter was under a cloud of deception”.
Sam returned home to Manchester without Diana. Within months, his world would fall even further apart as the rest of his family decided to follow Diana to Texas. Sam, now 82, would never see them again. He lost wife Zilla, 56, and children Diana, 28, Stephen, 26, Pauline, 24, Philip, 22, and Vanessa, 19, in the blaze.
As the FBI ran out of patience, Sam joined the rest of the world in watching live pictures of the assault on the Mount Carmel site.
Armoured vehicles punched holes in the walls, firing in tear gas to flush out cult members and force them to surrender. But none did. At around midday, a fire broke out and quickly spread.
The US Government maintains the fires were deliberately started by the Branch Davidians. Others, including some survivors, maintain they were accidentally or deliberately started during the assault. Yet, some of those survivors still believe. Livingstone Fagan lives in Nottingham. Koresh ordered him to leave Mount Carmel during the siege and he was later charged with conspiracy to murder an agent and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He served 14 years before returning to the UK. He had a message for me and for the listeners to the podcast. “Waco is not over,” he said in earnest tones, “it was the lighting of a fuse and it’s been burning for 25 years. He will return you know?” “Who, David Koresh?” I asked. “Yes, absolutely. The heavens will open and people will see David.” ■■End of Days – the story of Waco by BBC Radio 5 Live – can be heard on BBC Sounds at bbc.co.uk/sounds
I told my daughter this guy was a fanatical infidel. She wouldn’t listen SAM HENRY LOST HIS ENTIRE FAMILY IN THE WACO BLAZE