David Koresh: The Final 24 (Full Documentary)

april 18 1993 david koresh is the most notorious religious leader in the united states when christ reveals himself it's going to be according to the book to his followers he's a modern day messiah he gave me every reason to keep believing many feel he's been hand-picked by god if he said the sky is green they were going to believe it i think david crush 100 believe that he was a prophet but to the authorities he's a dangerous criminal this guy is a liar and a fraud and he took sexual advantage of children he said it was his duty to have 21 children by virgins and soon he will lead them and the rest of his flock to their very own armageddon we had no idea what we were in for this is the last 24 hours in the life of david koresh waco texas april 18 1993 12 30 pm david koresh the leader of a doomsday cult known as the branch davidians is barricaded in a religious center 100 miles south of dallas he's been seriously wounded in a shootout with law enforcement and in just 24 hours he'll be dead outside more than 700 armed federal agents have surrounded the area you saw multiple law enforcement agencies emergency equipment federal agencies buses swat teams civilians it had every element of humanity and law enforcement that you could possibly see koresh and 83 of his most loyal followers including 21 children have been holed up here at their mount carmel compound for the last 50 days we expected that one by one we'd eventually all come out we're kind of waiting on god through you know to convey through david as to what we were to do i was very encouraged to continue on because he gave me every reason to keep believing employing more than 40 negotiators the fbi work around the clock to persuade koresh and his followers to surrender leading those negotiations is byron sage david was a master of deception and a master of delay i guess he felt the longer he delayed the more exposure he had on the world stage i mean think about it by this time he had been on the front page of nearly every news magazine in the united states and for the fbi the intense media scrutiny only adds to the pressure the average amount of time of a hostage barricade situation in the united states is about six to eight hours hours the whole thing was just totally unprecedented authorities view quresh as a glorified con man who's brainwashed his followers [Music] one of those who followed him was dana okamoto he was really good at talking around things in using semantics to get you off track and into where he wanted to go negotiating with the davidians is not like negotiating with the local dope dealer or cop killer because david and the other people in charge want to talk about the bible and the fbi is not trained to talk about the bible david koresh believes that this standoff with authorities was prophesied long ago in the bible david's predecessors and david two believed that the army of babylon believed to be an army of unbelievers would attack them now the so-called army of babylon prepares to break the stalemate and according to quresh is about to set off an apocalyptic prophecy a prophecy that david koresh has been preaching for the last eight years as the leader of the branch davidian cult an offshoot of the seventh-day adventists the davidian's whole belief system centers on the literal interpretation of the book of revelation and no one could interpret the word of god quite like quresh he understood what to tell us how to explain it to us um we felt very close to god when david was teaching us the way we've been brought up the way we've been taught for years was it if somebody had a message from god that kind of made them a prophet the group that was around david would believe anything he said if he said the sky is green they were going to believe it using the bible quresh rationalized the use of force to defend the faith and he quite often cited the scripture in which jesus tells his followers on the eve of his own arrest sell your cloak and buy a sword which in today's terminology would be by an m16 or an ak-47 david koresh's interest in weapons would eventually lead to his downfall david korash and the people at mount carmel began to attract the attention of the atf when a shipment of grenades they had order hollowed out grenades meaning inert grenades when a shipment of these broke open and a ups delivery man saw them he called the local authorities given the group's radical beliefs the atf the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms placed mount carmel under surveillance and on february 28 1993 they organized a secret raid on the compound to arrest quresh but he was informed by a follower that the authorities were on their way clive doyle was at quresh's side he'd heard somebody was coming just what to expect i don't know what he was expecting but he he went to the front door a master manipulator karesh believed he could talk his way out of the jam former davidian david thibodeau remembers the cult leader's words says now everyone they're coming they're on the way don't anyone do anything stupid i want to talk to them i'm going to try to work this out it's a matter of dispute as to who fired the first shot and then all hell broke loose and it just seemed at that point that shots were coming from all around the building with 21 children inside one of the davidians made a desperate 911 but for more than two hours both sides continued shooting four atf agents and six branch davidians were killed more than 20 other agents were wounded before a ceasefire was finally negotiated for authorities the raid was a full-blown disaster what the atf did not understand was that the people at mount carmel when they looked out their windows said oh here is the army of babylon come to destroy our faith we must defend our faith i remember being amazed at how many people had come to take us down if you will i saw a couple of their faces and they actually looked just stunned that they were walking away from the situation with federal agents murdered by the davidians the fbi took charge in the skirmish david koresh was seriously wounded shot in the hip and wrist i think he thought he was going to die quresh called his mother got a recording remember they shot me and i'm done all right but i'll be back real soon okay and i'll i'll see y'all in the skies his mother bonnie holderman later tried to call him back of course i picked the phone up and start trying to call back and i couldn't get anybody so i guess it wasn't meant to be for me to talk to him and she never would again and now 50 days later the botched atf raid has not only left koresh dangerously wounded but also led to the longest siege in modern american history a siege that will soon end in catastrophe waco texas april 19th 1993. it's 2 a.m and david koresh has less than 11 hours left to live for the past 50 days koresha's cult of the branch davidians have been locked in a bitter standoff with authorities who are preparing to finally force him from his sanctuary however koresh has no intention of giving up just yet despite being wounded in an earlier fire fight he's writing his interpretation of one of the bible's most contested passages in the book of revelation the book of revelation says that only the lamb who is a holy figure can unlock the seven seals koresha's claim to fame was that he was the lamb and he and only he could explain those passages that refer to the seven seals one of the lead fbi negotiators is clint vanzant the great carrot that david koresh held out to the fbi and federal government was that when i finish my interpretation of the seven seals and i'm into it when i finish this interpretation then we're all gonna come out his interpretation was that it was a big build up to the final days and how god would reveal himself to the world and his kingdom would be set up on the earth and that the group of people he was talking to us we were the people who would help deliver that message to the world but the fbi are not interested in debating religious prophecies throughout the siege the fbi have employed extreme psychological tactics in an attempt to flush out david koresh and his followers agents have cut off the electricity and bombard the compound with sound the fbi officials had some tibetan chants on a tape that was being played over a loud speaker system blasting it into the branch davidian compound [Music] then they started playing the sounds of rabbits being slaughtered nancy sinatra these boots were made for walking they had sirens they had jets they had breaking glass and things sounds that were being played in and again it was kind of psychological operations it's like let's keep them up just like we're being kept up let's stress them out like we're being stressed out so mutually we'll come together and say hey we're all tired of this but despite his wounds koresh remains defiant he records a video message and sends it out to the fbi and bringing these tanks and stuff around here i tell you what being an american first i'm the kind of guy but i'll stand in front of a tank you can run over me but i'll be biting one of the tracks no one's going to hurt me or my family it was just basically a moral question we had to make a stand for what we believed david koresh believes that he has the right to oppose the forces surrounding him but he has no idea that in a few hours the fbi are planning to hit the compound with tear gas to drive him from mount carmel [Music] his home for the last nine years [Music] koresha's first home was in houston texas where back on august 17 1959 he was born vernon wayne howell to bonnie sue clark a teenaged high school student i was very much in love with david's father but my daddy wouldn't allow us to get married he was 19. i was 15. bonnie's boyfriend barely got a chance to meet his tiny newborn son and soon enough the teenage romance was over he saw him a couple of times two or three times and then after he was four vernon was four i moved away to the dallas area from houston desperate for stability she jumped into a marriage with another man who began to take his violent temper out on the young boy there was a couple times that he whipped him sort of hard left bruises on there on his behind it was about two years we were together it didn't work out now out of options 18 year old bonnie dropped off her son at his grandparents and promptly left town to find work i don't know what i'd done without my mother she was a big help to me because i was searching for myself young david was five before he lived with his mother again by then bonnie had remarried and the boy was faced with yet another father figure and if home life had been a trial for david so was school they started evaluating david because he was having problems with certain areas in school even though he had a high iq and was very smart so they sent him to special classes plagued with learning difficulties the young boy soon earned the nickname mr retardo i said well you know you're not [ __ ] so just don't pay any attention to them [Music] a failure at school david found comfort in music and fell in love with the guitar david wanted to be a rock star that was his goal and he sure could play loud enough to be a rock star next young david discovered the holy bible like the rest of his family he'd been raised in the ways of the seventh-day adventist church [Music] whose members believe in the second coming of christ he really took an interest in learning the scriptures and taking them to heart and studying and wanting to know why why things happened and why god did this and that and he was really interested and especially in in the the old testament what appealed most to david was the power of the bible when he prayed he began to believe that god was actually speaking directly to him david soon discovered evangelical preachers who also claimed god was speaking to them and i had bought him a nice big radio and he would listen to the radio preachers armed with the mighty word of god the preacher was a powerful figure he could wield strong influence on his followers which was appealing to a young and impressionable david koresh and now some 20 years later as he struggles to complete his manuscript in the besieged compound the leader of the branch davidians is about to lead his adoring flock into infamy waco texas april 19 1993 5 59 am in the mount carmel center a wounded david koresh is slowly waking up he has less than seven hours left to live outside the compound after 51 days fed up with koresha's stalling tactics government agents decide to move things along by unleashing a tear gas attack fbi head negotiator byron sage informs the davidians of that plan and i put the call in about six o'clock in the morning warning them that we were prepared to introduce tear gas they started to play on the speaker systems the siege is over we're going to be inserting tear gas into the building and um you're all under arrest come on out with your hands up and they just kept saying that over and over the tear gas plan was actually two plans at the low end of potential violence is the introduction of cs tear gas that was plan a but if they opened fire on us with deadweight force then we would go immediately to plan b and plan b was to saturate that compound every room as rapidly as we could but with 21 young children locked inside using tear gas is a dangerous proposition and i remember going to bed the night before knowing that that next morning gas was going to be inserted i didn't sleep that night just after 6 a.m the gassing begins it was put in through this long probe type device on the front of this tank retriever as well as it was fired in in canisters the davidians have a supply of gas masks i'm getting my gas mask putting it on feeling rather scared at that time i remember hearing the sound of breaking glass and the popping sounds all over like around the building and you'd hear the gas brace somewhere but gas masks are not made for children they will be the most vulnerable during the attack we banked on the fact that the parents through a natural parental instinct once that tear gas started to be inserted into that location would move heaven and earth to get their kids out of there i would but we were wrong although bedridden for much of the siege as a result of his gunshot wound on this day koresh is up and about organizing the defense of mount carmel david koresh ordered the women and children to take shelter in the concrete room which was a walk-in cooler and was called the bunker by the fbi that was the safest place in the building for koresh the children are the cult's most precious possession twelve are his fathered with his various wives [Music] like his own parents karesh had his first child when he was just a teenager long before getting involved with the davidian cult when david was around 19 he met his first love her name was linda she was around i think 14 or 15. beautiful beautiful blonde headed girl i didn't realize that they were actually having sex together but anyway she comes up pregnant her dad refused to let david see her anymore lose and linda had a very big impact on david's life because i know he loved her very well cut off from linda and his child the 20 year old was suddenly adrift looking for his place in the world in 1981 he washed up on the doorstep of mount carmel and the living waters branch of the seventh-day adventists the davidian sect has existed since the 30s as a breakaway group from the seventh-day adventist church and the davidians have long believed when jesus will return the world will be destroyed i look at the branch davidians as a whole separate country they speak a whole separate language they have a whole different belief system from what mainstream america has there was nothing about david either at his first visit or subsequent visits that indicated he was anything special he was just you might say a new convert koresh caught the eye of the then leader of the davidians 67 year old lois rhoden and she was so impressed with the young man's interpretation of the bible that she took him under her wing one morning she got up and says david crash had been coming and studying with her at night in her house and had been showing her things and she urged the others to start listening to him because she thought he had a unique message or new light to bring onto the scriptures they were studying revelation of john the apostle soon others began to see koresh in a new way hailed as a prophet he seemed to have a gift when it came to interpreting the word of god my first thought when he walked in the door was so the prophet of god is a hippie the whole package was oh my god and that was my first impression of the prophet of god but he once he sat down and started to speak everything changed for me because i felt the presence of god in the room he could recite whole passages paragraphs and paragraphs from the bible without looking at any source david krish made a whole lot more sense than other people [Music] and i was very impressed by what he was able to put together and explain in the bible he had gotten the group to the point where he didn't have to speak from the bible anymore he could just speak as if from god god's lips to your ears [Music] but koresha's work didn't end at the pulpit he was soon sharing the bed of the center's matriarch lois rhoden which was quite shocking to most people if only because of the better than 20-year difference in their ages quresh moved to the other extreme when he next married 14 year old rachel jones daughter of a highly influential davidian family if you believe god's condoning it or ordering it you tend to accept it his marriage also strengthened his position as the cult's leader in waiting but lois rhoden's son george also had his eyes on the leadership prize george was very upset because george saw himself as the heir apparent to the group because he was lois rodin's son so he felt he should be the leader against the lord and against his anointing in 1984 three years after david arrived at mount carmel the power struggle between david koresh and george rhoden finally came to a head and koresh and his sympathizers were kicked out of mount carmel george rhoden was a menacing person and david took his followers out of mount carmel because he wanted to avoid fireworks after finally finding his purpose and his voice david koresh was being silenced but now nine years later as the standoff with the fbi comes to a head david koresh prepares to make his final statement one that will be heard around the world april 19th 1993 9 a.m for the last 51 days holed up in his waco texas compound wounded branch davidian leader david koresh has refused to surrender to authorities and now he and his followers including 21 children are being tear gassed by the fbi david koresh has less than four hours to live in a crowded hallway koresh reassures the davidians and gives his final orders to a select few for quresh the prophecy of the end times has finally arrived and he's determined to make his final stand [Music] school teacher and fellow davidian graham craddock gets a moment with his spiritual leader he was sitting on the floor i went up to him and i saw a box grenades but by his side he looked at me and he said do you know how to use one of these koresh hands him a homemade grenade he didn't tell me what to use it for i didn't really want to take it mainly because if i put in my pocket gal from my pocket i ended up half named for the last three hours gas attacks orchestrated by the fbi have failed to flush koresh or his followers out of their sanctuary but things are about to get much worse and the branch davidians began firing their weapons out at the fbi army vehicle the tactical team took that as their cue then to advance the clock to let's put a lot of gas in and let's really drive them out of there as the fbi escalates the gas attack tanks smash their way further into the building i watched the tank take the two front doors and push them back into the building to where i was so i had to back up more into the chapel area i'll never forget what it's like to see a tank coming through the front door the place that you live it's it's devastating as the armored vehicles maneuver around the compound they inadvertently sever koresh's phone line with the fbi he is no longer able to communicate with his attackers david came down to the chapel area and said you know they severed the phone cord so right now there's no negotiation um we're just going to show them that we're not going to come out and hopefully they'll get us another phone line with the phone line cut the fbi continues to deliver their message over loudspeakers tanks penetrate deep into the building ripping the structure apart with the situation growing ever more desperate quresh refuses to be driven from his sanctuary but nine years earlier in 1984 david koresh had been thrown out of his precious mount carmel by george rhoden son of the then leader lois rhoden however koresh determined to hold on to his ministry took his followers to a pinewood forest 90 miles away in palestine texas he dropped me off all by myself out there with an axe and a tomahawk it says cut a road into the middle of that this was like a pine forest and a lot of underbrushes too he said i'm going off to get some building supplies i'll be back he ended up coming back with some guys and a truckload of lumber and we built a communal building there that we could all meet in a needy when i arrived there was the one log cabin in the center and then there were a bunch of buses that had been hollowed out and people were living in the buses there was no plumbing there was no electricity i call it the piney woods it's just one of the most picturesque places i've been but back at mount carmel which george rhoden had renamed rodenville things were not going so well his mother the group's figurehead passed away and george was losing members to quresh and so rhoden issued quresh a bizarre challenge in it the two davidian leaders would compete to raise a 20 year old corpse from the dead george rhoden had dug up anna hughes and had her casket sitting above ground and this came to koresha's knowledge and he and his followers said hey digging up corpses is illegal let's get george arrested they went to the county sheriff who said bring me proof that anna hughes has been dug up koresh and eight others set out to get photographic evidence of the corpse and of rhoden's crime knowing that the leader of rhodenville was prone to violence they came armed they went to shoot the photo and got in a gun fight with george rhoden in which no one was killed but for which david was arrested none of them were convicted meaning none of them did time because their argument was that it was self-defense within a year george rhoden himself ended up in jail on charges including murder and koresh sees the opportunity to reclaim mount carmel many shall see it and fear now the undisputed leader of mount carmel koresh celebrated his return by changing his name when vernon howe took the name david koresh it was as if a person had taken a new name upon baptism david styled his new persona from two biblical heroes king david and koresh a legendary biblical leader you take a new name to say i am a changed person i am different my life will be different as he developed his new identity at mount carmel he turned to his love of music well aware of its seductive powers [Music] he said you know mama uh music is how god is gonna bring the kids in you know to learn music is where it's at [Music] things were going well for david koresh he was even able to capitalize on his love of music by integrating concerts into his bible studies what began happening over a course of time is the it was almost like a tradition where after dinner they would call the band and we'd play for about an hour so they would start playing his music uh it could be 9 30 10 o'clock at night and we knew that was the time to come down people would start coming in and david would would go off into a study that could last anywhere from just a couple of hours to eight or nine hours in addition to their home at mount carmel the davidians had a residence in la verne california that became an integral part of david's plan to promote his music career and recruit new members after david became the top dog at mount carmel the group bought a house in california which was used when they were trying to make it in hollywood and in the music scene it was their base of operations for the musical ministry in its attempt to christianize the world through hollywood koresh was now able to blend both of his childhood fantasies preacher and rock star but after 51 days under siege david koresh the self-appointed lamb of god watches helplessly as his apocalyptic church falls to pieces for quresh and his followers the end of the world is indeed coming april 19th 1993 10 30 a.m as the fbi continues to pound the branch davidians with tanks and tear gas david koresh's situation is growing ever more desperate the building is starting to collapse around him he has only two hours to live the armored vehicles are now penetrating deep enough to reach the inner sanctuary in the fbi camp agents listen in through electronic bugs trying to get a picture of what david koresh and his followers are doing inside the compound but over the roar of the tank assault it is difficult to hear anything the ceiling of the vault begins to give way on the women and children inside in the chaos graham craddock thinks he sees another follower pouring fuel and there was a guy he looked like he was pouring something out of his camp out of a fuel can onto the floor i heard this scream out from one of the other guys wait wait not inside do it outside a few minutes later i heard a call from upstairs saying the building's on fire to authorities it's clear the blaze has been started deliberately by the davidians there's no doubt in my mind that the branch davidians struck the individual matches that set that compound on fire but the davidians tell a different story i never believed that any of the davinians started the fire i mean i never saw anyone pouring any kind of accelerant or anything like that i don't think that they killed themselves and the reason i say this is because the women and children were supposed to live on particularly the children there was nothing in the message about the children being killed for any reason with mount carmel in flames koresh and the davidians either have to flee or be burned alive throughout the siege by way of fbi negotiations some davidians have been allowed to leave the compound one of those is sheila martin who watches on with horror while the rest of her family is still trapped inside my thought was where is everyone i could see places on the building where there was no flames no smoke i kept hearing that's where they were the wall to my right caught fire when it didn't siege the side of my face and i can hear some hair crackling the worst fears of the fbi are being realized as soon as we saw the smoke my instructions became a request and as that fire built the request became a plea david don't do this and the roar of the fire once it started cooking off i mean it was loud it was like a train coming down the track at you but so strong is quresh's hold on his flock that his followers are fearful of leaving a few years earlier koresh was able to tighten his grip on his followers by bringing in tough and controversial new edicts people have asked me what it was all about for david was it money was it love was it power i believe it was power it was about a man who wanted a group of people to obey him at mount carmel david had strict rules regarding discipline when children misbehaved they were paddled with a little wooden stick david used it sometimes himself when adults misbehave they were scolded or denied certain privileges i have memories that i i'm not proud of i actually started disciplining my older son closer to six months and i remember spanking him once and looking at the paddle and it had his blood on it and if there is one thing i regret it's that moment most drastic of all was koresh's new vision for himself he basically taught that he was a christ but with our afflictions without with our weaknesses whereas jesus had lived free of sin koresh as the new prophet embraced sin he referred to himself as the sinful messiah in what he called the new light quresh taught that as the one closest to god he was the only one worthy of fathering children [Music] the men and women who were married at mount carmel or who thought of themselves as husband and wife were no longer husband and wife everyone was married to christ whose word or spokesman was david koresh under the revelation of the new light men were expected to practice celibacy and even masturbation was outlawed while for quresh who had a taste for young girls followers as young as 14 were his for the taking and the fact that it might be illegal in certain states or in this country or whatever was not an issue if he figured he was being obedient to god it sounds insane and would be insane to most people where koresh has babies as many babies as possible for the kingdom of god and he gets all the the women i realized i was being called to do something for god and that if i did this i could i could open my bible and see it right there and go this is what i'm doing this is my part in the story quresh had finally gained the power he had lacked as a bullied child mr ritado was now running the show who was worthy to open this book and to lose the seals thereof but with the continuing growth of his cult came the expense of running it david had to support about 120 people who cost him about 150 dollars a month he had to have an income this was when koresh turned to trading guns they would sell guns and other things i remember they bought an army disposal store that was going out of business they bought everything they had it was meals ready to eat there was you know military uniforms and boots and they bought the whole stock the legal semi-automatics that karesh and his people bought doubled in value during the years that koresh was leading mount carmel paresh's money-making venture was alarming to federal agents the thing that i think gave all of us pause was the fact that the entire focus of the branch davidian faith was centered on the concept of a a major battle the end of the world the battle of armageddon and the end times and now for david koresh and his followers the end of the world is almost here april 19 1993 12 20 p.m after a 51-day siege in waco texas the branch davidian compound is a blazing inferno over their pa system the fbi pleads with koresh and the others to come out as the building burns to the ground those still alive have run out of options i said well i'd rather be shot than burn to death and i really had the feeling upon magazine the building that i was going to be shot and i kind of stumbled over all of this tuba fours and sheet rock and come out the hole i remember when i came out my jacket was all melting and skin was just rolling off my hand in all only nine davidians make it out alive reaching the survivors fbi agents drill them about the location of the cult's children he's screaming at me where are the kids where are the kids i said i don't know i said i haven't seen any of the kids none of the nine survivors are children and there's no sign of quresh my greatest fear was that he would have a secret david koresh tunnel and that the building would be hot it would take a day or two to cool off and then after three days david koresh would pop up out of a spider hole three days christ has been resurrected and that every religious wacko nut in the world would make their way to waco the new mecca and would be there to worship david korush the risen savior but for the self-appointed savior his time on earth has run out three days later forensic investigators discover 33 year old david koresh's body in the charred ruins in his forehead they find a single gunshot wound the autopsy suggests that david koresh was killed at close range either he pulled the trigger or he was shot by one of his followers i think he was a manipulative functional psychotic a sociopath i think he took terrible advantage of the branch davidians i think those people died because of his failed leadership in all 74 people die at mount carmel 21 of those are children all under the age of 12. three-quarters of those are david koresh's own children despite the carnage some still keep faith in their tax and messiah i believe david will be resurrected and i'm gonna see my grandchildren again i believe that in a sense god was willing to sacrifice this group of people for a greater cause but others see koresh in a different light david's biggest failure was the fact that the kids were not released during the siege at some point that's the unforgivable thing is that these kids never had a chance the fbi was also left to account for its own failures it had tragically misread the cult and made a series of disastrous tactical mistakes we grossly underestimated the extent of control that david koresh held over all of those people i think the federal government failed i think korusha's master plan was carried out by david koresh and i think we fbi atf other agencies i think we facilitated that master plan we didn't nail him on the cross we burned him to the ground [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

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Id: 65rUlirPCjI

Length: 48min 2sec (2882 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020