Who was this child?  MC Doe 51A has never been identified.

We have just seen that many bodies were either incinerated or dismembered, making identification of the corpses questionable.  But the identity of the players in Waco has always been shrouded in mystery.  Just about the first action of any public agency called to handle a disaster scene—a hostage situation, a hotel fire, a cave-in, a structural collapse, etc., is to get a head-count of the people involved.  Such a list should not have been too difficult for the FBI to come up with.  The Branch Davidians who left Mt. Carmel during the siege should have been able to tell the FBI who was still inside.  After all, according to the Texas Ranger Alan Byrnes, each of the Davidians who left during the siege was immediately "interviewed" by the HRT (see Veracity of Branch Davidian Statements).  But the numbers and names of people inside the Mt. Carmel Center at the time of the raid and the fire shifted with the wind, inexplicably.

We have already glimpsed some reasons for the mystery in the exhibit, "Trojan Horses and Branch Davidians," in the War Gallery.  The Treasury Report ("Activity In The Compound", pg. 92) hints that the federal government planted informants in the Mt. Carmel Center (e.g. ATF undercover agent Robert Rodriguez).  After all, the Waco operation was called "Operation Trojan Horse," was it not?  We have also seen from The Sunday Times, March 21, 1993, that deep cover intelligence agents were in Mt. Carmel prior to the February 28 assault changing the receivers of telephones into listening devices and inserting fiber-optic surveillance devices into the walls.  From the remarks below by Capt. Alan Byrnes, we may infer the Texas Rangers also had intelligence agents inside.

Some of the "Branch Davidians" then, were not really Branch Davidians.  A full list of informants has never been released.

During the 1994 San Antonio trial of the Branch Davidians, Texas Ranger Capt. Alan Byrnes, who was in charge of the Mt. Carmel crime scene, was questioned by government prosecutor Ray Jahn about plans the Texas Rangers made to execute a search warrant of the Mt. Carmel Center early in March when it was thought the Davidians would leave their home:

Capt. Byrnes: Well, of course, we tried to estimate how many people we thought were in the structure there and tried to make that on an estimate.  The best we could get was about a hundred people, and we started making plans to process a hundred people when they came out … (Transcript pgs. 604 and 605).

Byrnes was questioned by defense lawyer Doug Tinker about the number of people the Texas Rangers thought would be coming out (before the fire):

Mr. Tinker: Did you have information—and I'm not offering it for the truth, you know, that it was accurate information—but did you have information concerning what the make-up of those people would be, whether they would be young, old, middle-aged, male or female?

Capt. Byrnes: There were several different make-ups that we were given possibilities.  One—one problem that we had was that there was some belief that our definition of adult was different from the definition of the people inside that were giving some of the information.  So, I think at one time we thought it was going to be like 50/50 male/female and then 75/25 female and male.  It was—it just varied.  We had a rough count of about a hundred people in there, the best we could calculate.  (Transcript pgs. 637 and 638)

Who Were the Spooks?

Who were the "people inside that were giving some of the information"?  Maybe their definition of "adult" was different from the Texas Rangers, but arguably the difference would only be three years—the residents would be younger than 21 or younger than 18.  No problem.  But why should there be any doubt about the male/female breakdown?  What was going on?

Defense attorney Dan Cogdell also cross-examined Capt. Byrnes.  Byrnes admitted that from March 2, 1993, there never was any intention to let any of the Davidians simply leave: Texas Rangers were going to arrest anyone who came out.  Asked if he was given a list of persons to be "processed," he answered evasively:

Capt. Byrnes: We had, you know, some indication of who was in there, I don't think anybody had a complete list.

Mr. Cogdell: The indication, Captain, that you had, was it reduced to writing?  Was there some list, however complete or incomplete, that showed who you intended to take into custody back on March 2nd, 1993?

Capt. Byrnes: Well, there wasn't a list as such, there was a list of, I assume, the people in there.  I don't have that list, I've never, I don't guess, seen a list.  I was told someone probably had a list.  (Transcript pg. 661)

Spooks Run by ATF, Texas Rangers, and FBI

Defense lawyer Mike DeGuerin asked Capt. Byrnes if he had been given a list of the people still in the Center.  Again Byrnes bobs and weaves concerning who was there;

Capt. Byrnes: Yes, we were given a compilation of people, and it was derived from various sources.  One of those sources was ATF.

So the ATF had "confidential human sources" inside the Center, and then the ATF was feeding that information to the Rangers.  And the ATF was just one of "various sources."

Mr. DeGuerin: Okay.  What I'd like to know—and you'd know and I can't think of anybody else that would—was there a compilation of who the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents thought were inside, compared to the separate list of who you and maybe the FBI had decided who was inside—separate lists?

Capt. Byrnes: I suppose there was.  I don't recall seeing that separate.  All of the information was lumped together, Mr. DeGuerin, and—and—

Mr. DeGuerin: By the time you got involved, it was lumped together?

Capt. Byrnes: Well, later on, because the information—I think the information was derived from information that the ATF had, information the FBI had and probably from information that our criminal intelligence people had and, then, probably from people who had been formerly in the compound.  But I—so, there was—that was one reason there was so much, I guess, unsureness about how many people were actually in there.  (Transcript pg. 676)

Throughout the above testimony, Capt. Byrnes showed himself to be a devious, evasive witness.  Yet he was not called on it; he was not compelled to answer the questions.  Why would the question of a list of names of the Branch Davidians provoke such devious responses?

Here the picture paints itself more clearly.  It is possible that some of the agents posing as Davidians (the "Trojan Horses"?) were inside the Mt. Carmel Center, left on April 19, and in their place, incinerated and dismembered bodies were substituted.  The substituted bodies were then found along with the incinerated and dismembered bodies of the real Branch Davidians who were murdered, and the local stooges accepted both sets as belonging to the same population.

Perhaps we are now seeing a purpose for—and highly effective means of—hiding the actual identities of the human remains.  Now the peculiar selection of Dr. Peerwani makes sense.  And the oddly non-standard practices in the Medical Examiner's office.  And the unprofessional conduct of Drs. Ubelaker, Owsley, and Crow.