Audio Links Davidians to Waco Fire

W A C O, Texas, July 10, 2000 -- Unidentified Branch Davidians were heardasking “start the fire?” and “should we light the fire?” inrecordings played today in the $675 million wrongful-death trialagainst the government.

U.S. District Judge Walter Smith, a panel of five jurors andattorneys listened to nearly an hour of mostly unintelligibleconversations leading to April 19, 1993, when the compound burnedto the ground.

Some 80 sect members, including leader David Koresh, died fromeither gunshots or fire that day.

The excerpts were presented in audio and transcript form as thewrongful death trial filed by surviving Branch Davidians and familymembers entered its fourth week. They contend the government usedexcessive force against the sect and contributed to the blaze.

“Let’s keep that fire going,” a male voice said on the finalday of the siege as tanks rumbled in the background.

Suicidal Davidians or Mishap?Federal agents were heard warning sect members of an impendingtear-gassing operation and urged them to surrender the morning ofApril 19. On the same excerpt, a male voice was heard asking,“Should we light the package?”

A day earlier, an unidentified male said, “you always wanted tobe a charcoal briquette … There’s nothing like a good fire tobring us to the earth.”

The standoff began Feb. 28, 1993, when agents with the Bureau ofAlcohol, Tobacco and Firearms unsuccessfully tried to search thecomplex and arrest Koresh on illegal weapons charges. A gun fightensued; four agents and six Davidians were killed.

The audio clips, government attorneys say, help prove thatsuicidal Davidians, not federal agents, caused the three fires thatconsumed the rickety wood complex.

Plaintiffs say tanks used in an FBI tear-gassing operation onthe final day turned the compound into kindling by punching holesin the walls, allowing wind gusts to feed the flames.

They also say the tanks could have knocked over lanterns used toilluminate the compound after the government cut off electricity.Potentially incendiary tear gas canisters launched into thebuilding also may be a culprit, they contend.

The recordings were made with tiny eavesdropping devices hiddenamong supplies that were sent to the compound by the government.

Fiery RumblingsEarlier today, an FBI agent recalled peering through hisbinoculars and seeing a sect member bending over in a second-floorwindow seconds before smoke and flames erupted around noon on thefinal day of the siege.

“Shortly thereafter, I noticed smoke and fire coming out ofthat fire,” Ronald Elder testified. “He got up and moved out ofmy view, and that’s when I saw the fire and the smoke coming out ofthe window.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Caddell questioned Elder’s abilityto see that far even with binoculars, saying Elder was a littleless than half a mile away from the complex.

Caddell also wondered why Elder never reported what he had seenuntil two months later during an FBI interview.

“When I observed something, I would speak out to other teammembers. The team leader would report it if it needed to bereported,” Elder said. “Our main concern was if these individualsinside the building were going to come out compliantly or in ahostile manner.”