On April 19, 1993, a 50-day FBI siege of the Branch Davidians cult compound near Waco, Texas, end in an inferno that killed 76 people, including 21 children.
To-date what really happened back then is still being debated — and lessons are still being learned.
Twenty years ago today, on February 28, 1993, U.S. federal agents attempted to serve a search warrant on the Branch Davidians — a religious sect that lived in a community just east of Waco, Texas. They also tried to arrest the group’s leader, David Koresh.
After a 51-day siege the ill-advised operation ended in tragedy when 76 Davidians, including 21 children, died in an inferno.
Robert Rodriguez has accepted that he’ll forever be linked with the ATF’s ill-fated raid of the Branch Davidian compound, but he rarely talks about the events that led to one of the biggest calamities in U.S. law enforcement history.
That’s perfectly understandable. Four ATF agents were killed and 20 were wounded on Feb. 28, 1993, when the ATF tried to serve a federal warrant to search the Branch Davidian compound for illegal firearms. Six members of the religious sect were killed or wounded.
Ten years ago: Special Counsel John C. Danforth concluded “with 100 percent certainty” that the federal government was innocent of wrongdoing in the siege that killed 80 members of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993.
Actor Mark Ruffalo is distancing himself from the lead in a new biopic about David Koresh, because he doesn’t want to play the cult leader on film.
Koresh, who bore a striking resemblance to Ruffalo, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect.
A Henderson County grand jury has returned an indictment of murder against 54-year-old Beverly Clark of Chandler for the January death of her sister, Bonnie Clark Halderman, 60.
Bonnie Halderman was the mother of Vernon Howell, who became known as David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidians cult.
Beverly Clark, 54, the aunt of late Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, remained in the Henderson County Jail Tuesday, charged in the stabbing death of Koresh’s mother, Bonnie Haldeman, 64.
A family member told a local newspaper that the woman has a long history of mental illness.
The mother of infamous Branch Davidian leader David Koresh was stabbed to death and her sister was in custody Saturday charged with her slaying, authorities said.
Authorities say they do not yet know what happened.
Halderman wrote an autobiography, published in 2007, called “Memories of the Branch Davidians: The Autobiography of David Koresh’s Mother,” that described how her son, Vernon Howell, became David Koresh.
The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos has received a $20,000 grant to create an online exhibit about the 1993 shootout and standoff at the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco.
The exhibit will be created based on the primary source materials journalist Dick J. Reavis, collected while writing “The Ashes of Waco,” which was published in 1995.
About a dozen federal agents visited the former Branch Davidian compound site Thursday, 15 years after a botched raid began an armed standoff with authorities and didn’t end until a deadly inferno 51 days later.