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05/01/93
Remains may be those of Koresh, sheriff says
By Lee Hancock and Enrique Rangel / The Dallas Morning News
Investigators believe that they have recovered the body of Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, tentatively identifying his remains after finding them with some of his belongings, McLennan County Sheriff Jack Harwell said Friday.
Sheriff Harwell said that he was told of the discovery by investigators when he visited the site Friday afternoon, but that he was told few details of where the body was found or its condition. The sheriff said investigators expect it to take several days to positively identify the body using dental records obtained from Mr. Koresh's family.
"They thought it was him because they did find some things on it that they thought were his personally,' he said, but he was not told what the belongings were.
An official at the Tarrant County medical examiners' office said late Friday that none of the bodies recovered so far has been identified as Mr. Koresh.
McLennan County Justice of the Peace David Pareya, who has been announcing identifications of the bodies, said he could not confirm Sheriff Harwell's report.
"There has been absolutely no positive identification of Mr.
Koresh,' he said. "This is the first that I've heard of this.'
He said the investigation by him and other justices of the peace, which includes autopsies and announcing identifications, is separate from that of law enforcement officers.
Investigators for more than a week have been combing the wreckage of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco for the bodies of cult members killed in the fiery end to a 51-day standoff.
The heavily fortified headquarters was set afire April 19 as FBI agents tried to force Mr. Koresh and his followers out with repeated tear gas attacks. FBI officials say cult members set the fire; some surviving cult members say the fire was set when shocks from armored vehicles ramming the building overturned lanterns.
The standoff began Feb. 28 when federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the cult trying to serve search warrants and an arrest warrant for Mr. Koresh alleging federal firearms violations. But the ATF ran into an ambush in which four agents and several cult members were killed and 16 agents were wounded.
Seventy-two bodies have been recovered from the compound, the last seven recovered late Wednesday and early Thursday. Seven of the bodies autopsied so far had gunshot wounds, authorities have said, and 32 were found inside a concrete bunker that FBI agents said was Mr. Koresh's refuge from the tear gas attacks.
Investigators also have recovered two guns dropped by ATF agents wounded in the Feb. 28 raid, along with at least 50 machine guns, 10 silencers and a sawed-off shotgun, another law enforcement official said Friday.
Also Friday, authorities bulldozed the concrete bunker that was the compound's last standing remnant.
"We had determined that it was structurally unsound because of a support beam in the middle of it had become detached,' said DPS spokeswoman Lauren Chernow.
Next week, possibly Monday or Tuesday, the Texas Rangers expect to resume pumping water from a warren of tunnels and a school bus buried beneath the compound to remove five bodies believed to be in that area, Ms. Chernow said.
The bodies are believed to be those of the cult members who died in the Feb. 28 gunbattle.
Justice of the Peace James Collier, in whose district the Branch Davidian compound was located, said that 17 of the remains appear to be those of children. Their ages appear to range from infancy to 12 years, he said.
He said the bodies were found in a concrete bunker along with about 13 adults in the area where the ammuniton had been located.
"They were all in a mingle with one another,' Judge Collier said.
"I was in the funeral business for 40 years, and I never saw
anything like this. This is the worst because of the sheer numbers of it. It's mind boggling.'
Another cult member's body has been identified, Judge Pareya said Friday, but the name was being withheld pending notification of kin. That brings to seven the number of bodies positively identified.
Friday evening, Judge Pareya released the names of two British citizens who died in the fire. The bodies of Stephen Henry and Livingston Malcolm, both 26, were identified through dental records and with the help of the British government, Judge Pareya said.
Mr. Henry, who was found in the kitchen's stairway, may have died of a gunshot wound and inhalation of carbon monoxide, Judge Pareya said.
Mr. Malcolm, who was a native of Jamaica, may have died from inhalation of smoke and carbon monoxide and a gunshot wound, Judge Pareya said. His body was found in the chapel.
Thus far, McLennan County authorities have released the names of five of the seven identified fire victims. The other three, all Americans, are James Riddle, who would have turned 33 last Sunday;
David Michael Jones, 38; and Shari Doyle, 18. All three suffered gunshot wounds, authorities said.
Earlier Friday, an attorney representing David Thibodeau—a cult member who escaped the April 19 inferno-filed a lawsuit against National Enquirer Inc., which publishes a tabloid newspaper based in Lantana, Fla. Gary L. Richardson of Tulsa, Okla., said that in its May 4 edition the Enquirer printed a false report of his client's story.
A spokesman for National Enquirer Inc. said the newspaper stands behind its story.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen has chosen Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams, former Watergate prosecutor Henry Ruth and University of Southern California journalism professor Edwin O. Guthman, a former official in the Justice Department, to oversee the administration's investigation of the Feb. 28 raid. The newspaper reported senior officials as saying that Mr. Bentsen is expected to announce the appointments Monday as investigators from Washington travel to Texas to begin their review.
The Washington Post quoted Assistant Treasury Secretary Ronald K.
Noble as saying Friday that senior Treasury Department officials, heavily distracted by the World Trade Center bombing, initially refused to approve the Feb. 28 raid and relented only after being assured by the ATF that agents would be able to storm the compound by surprise.
The newspaper said that Mr. Noble, who will head the Treasury Department's investigation into the raid, indicated that he and acting Assistant Secretary John Simpson later dropped their opposition after ATF Director Stephen E. Higgins specifically cited the potential for "mass suicide' by cult members and Mr. Higgins assured them that raid might be the last opportunity to catch the cult members unprepared.
"The plan turned on the element of surprise,' Mr. Noble was quoted as saying. He added later: "Something completely different happened. … The question is: Why did the plan go forward if the element of surprise was lost?'
In Houston, the arson investigator who headed the inquiry into the compound fire reiterated Friday that his team found "proof positive' that cult members intentionally started the fire in at least three places. And he angrily lashed out at people who have questioned the integrity of his findings because of his past associations with the ATF.
Paul Gray, acting arson bureau chief for the Houston Fire Department, declined to discuss details of his findings, saying they are evidence in ongoing criminal investigations.
Arson specialists from the Los Angeles Fire Department, the San Francisco Fire Department and Allegheny County, Pa., which includes Pittsburgh, worked with Mr. Gray on the fire investigation. Their final report is to be submitted to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.
"My investigation is based on fact and will be supported by hard evidence,' Mr. Gray said.
From 1983 to 1990, Mr. Gray served on a joint task force of local and federal arson investigators, working out of the ATF's Houston offices. He helped develop a course in arson investigation for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center at Glynco, Ga. And, "as if this is anybody's business, I married in 1991 an ATF secretary whom I had met while I was assigned to their office,' he said.
Houston lawyers Dick DeGuerin and Jack Zimmermann, among others, have said those ties to the federal agency taint Mr. Gray's independence. The two have been adamant in their assertions that the fire was started by the FBI vehicles that rammed the compound repeatedly so tear gas could be pumped inside.
Mr. DeGuerin, who represented Mr. Koresh, did not return a telephone call Friday.
Mr. Zimmermann, who represented Steve Schneider, Mr. Koresh's chief lieutenant, said: "When we see an injustice, we speak out. That's the duty of a lawyer. We do not impugn the personal integrity of any individual. What we do question, however, is the wisdom of appointing the fox to guard the henhouse.'
Mr. Gray also said that cult members, had they chosen to do so, could have survived the fire—or at least protected the children in the compound—by resorting to a tunnel accessible through a trap door. The tunnel, about 50 feet long and tall enough for an adult to stand in, led to a concrete-lined pit that was open on top. That opening, he said, would have provided fresh air sufficient to sustain people in the tunnel and to keep temperatures bearable.
Staff writer Bruce Tomaso in Houston contributed to this report.
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