One of the most tragic and controversial incidents in Texas history occurred in 1993 at a compound known as Mt. Carmel on a ranch near Waco. The compound was occupied by the Branch Davidians, a heavily armed religious cult led by a charismatic guru named David Koresh. Spurred by allegations of child abuse inside the compound, federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempted to serve a warrant on February 28, 1993, only to find themselves in a massive firefight, during which several agents and Davidians were killed. A fifty-day siege ensued, culminating on April 19 with a nationally televised assault on the compound with armored vehicles and tear gas. During the assault, a fire consumed the entire compound, killing 74 people, 23 of whom were children.
From bringing down the “Duke of Duval” to becoming the first FBI director to be fired, Sessions was a lawman to his core.
Observing the ATF’s disastrous assault on David Koresh and the Branch Davidian compound should have made John McLemore’s career. Instead, it ruined it. Maybe that was for the best.
Branch Davidians Clive Doyle and Sheila Martin lost almost everything in the Waco fire, but not their faith.
A quarter century after 82 Branch Davidians and 4 federal officers died outside Waco, retired FBI agent Byron Sage still can't stop thinking—and arguing—about what happened.
The Branch Davidians didn't want to die inside their compound at Mount Carmel.
The series smartly relays the fundamental deadlock between the Branch Davidian's beliefs and the FBI's negotiation tactics not through each party's most polarizing characters, but through their most reasonable middlemen.
No matter how the gunfire began at Mount Carmel, ‘Waco’ makes one thing clear: the whole raid hung on false motives.
The second episode of the miniseries reveals that the true danger of the Branch Davidians was their faith—not in their religion, but their leader.
Just when Waco thought it had shaken its reputation, a new miniseries resurfaces the Branch Davidian standoff 25 years ago.
For Clive Doyle, the new miniseries ‘Waco' isn't just TV drama—it's personal.
Texas football made the former ’Friday Night Lights’ actor a heartthrob. Will a Texas tragedy make him a bona fide star in 'Waco'?
We haven’t even begun to reach peak nineties nostalgia, but this is quite an announcement.
A blundered raid and a botched finale don’t change an essential fact about the Mount Carmel standoff: David Koresh is to blame.
Bonnie Haldeman, the mother of David Koresh, dies at 64.
On April 19, 1993, the world watched as the Branch Davidian compound, outside Waco, burned to the ground after a 51-day standoff. Fifteen years later, witnesses and participants—from federal agents to loyal followers of David Koresh—remember what they saw during the deadliest law enforcement operation in U.S. history.
Senior editor Michael Hall revisits Waco's Branch Davidians and describes the challenges and nuances of writing about the remaining followers and the controversies of their tragic history.
After the latest standoff there�by an armed UFO cultist�you might think so. But on the fifth anniversary of the Branch Davidian siege, the Central Texas community is doing just fine, thank you.
Coming Soon: Groacho MarxThe Cockroach Hall of Fame Museum, Plano. Michael Bohdan, who calls himself Cockroach Dundee, runs the museum at his pest-control business, featuring such exhibits as H. Ross Peroach and Liberoche, a dead roach covered with sequins sitting at a miniature piano topped by a candelabra.If It’s Closed,
Just as congressional hearings are set to begin, an exclusive excerpt from a new book casts a different light on the government’s role in the fiery end to the siege at Mount Carmel.
Four quickie Branch Davidian books reveal that the full story has yet to come out.
He was no William Barrett Travis, but in many ways, the leader of the Brand Davidians was an archetypal Texan to the end.
