No shouting questions!
When it comes to question-and-answer time, raise your hand until you're recognized.
[crew] C controller coming out.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jamar] My name is Jeff Jamar,
and I'm the Special Agent in Charge of FBI operations here in Waco.
We're here because David Koresh and his followers killed four ATF agents.
[dramatic music continues]
Following this tragic incident, the ATF requested FBI support.
The area is a crime scene.
The goal is to resolve this situation with no further bloodshed.
A total of 18 children and two women have been released through negotiations.
Koresh indicated that 20 children, 47 women, and 43 men inside.
We're ready to answer questions.
[reporters clamoring]
Can you give me more details?
After 1:30, you're waiting for him, finally make contact, what does he say?
He says God told him to wait.
[Bob] We now know that this is not going to turn out well.
This man has total control over everybody in there.
The only will that exists is... is that of one person.
God speaks to me.
I have a message to present. You may not believe that.
If you don't believe that, then believe this:
Two thousand years ago, hey, who believed in Christ's doctrine?
The man had to die.
No one would believe what he had to say.
[dramatic music peaks, then fades]
[unsettling music playing]
[Chris] Once the command element realizes that David Koresh is not gonna walk out...
we knew we were gonna have to contain the crime scene,
and make sure that we could protect from people coming out.
So how do you do that?
The ATF had launched their early investigation
from a ranch-style farmhouse that was directly across from Mount Carmel.
We called it Sierra One, but that's just the front of the building.
You still have the entire perimeter of the building
and no idea what's going on out there.
So we found, through surveillance,
there was a garage at the back of the building.
And we put together a plan to assault and secure that garage.
The problem is,
you've got to go by the building that just shot the living shit out of the ATF.
How you gonna do that? We brought in Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
But we knew they had .50-caliber weapons
that could penetrate the Bradley Fighting Vehicles,
and a hot .50-cal round going through the skin is gonna flatten that thing out,
and it's gonna be a milkshake.
So, we steamed down the road, turned right, drove down the driveway,
went around to the back of the building...
- [Koresh] We've got night vision. - [Gary] Yeah, I understand.
[Koresh] And the thing of it is that there's guys coming from the barn,
climbing up from the back of the property, getting closer and closer.
[Gary] Now, we're keeping those guys away. And...
[Koresh] No, you're not. You are not keeping them away.
We're not stupid.
This is really early hours.
I don't even have any FBI negotiators with me yet,
and I'm hearing that there's tactical movement out there,
and I don't know if it's ATF, the FBI.
I've got no channel coming in to the negotiations.
There's frustration in my voice
because I'm really inhibited from knowing what's going on.
[Koresh] So why are they still coming?
[Gary] I... I'm sending another message to them.
- They're telling me they're not there. - [Koresh] No.
They are here. They're lying to you.
I was really worried about them coming in with guns and killing people.
I really thought that that was going to happen.
If they had entered the building, we would all commit suicide.
There was an actual grenade handed to me,
because I was the one woman that could have pulled that pin...
and killed the four or five women in the room that I was in.
It wasn't a matter of...
how is this affecting me as a person? Because...
I'm not a person. I'm God's tool.
[Koresh] You need to get with those guys and tell them to pull back.
[Gary] Okay. We'll... And the word's going out right as we speak to do that.
Uh, somebody's going to send a message in. I'm writing it down.
The hatch opens, I get out, I run, spin around carrying an AR-15.
And I look over, and I see a guy in black come over a mound of dirt.
He had a gun.
I just remember thinking, "That guy's gonna come and kill me."
My team hits the cars, and we're moving car to car,
clearing car to car,
expecting, you know, this big gun fight to break out.
And it didn't.
So, within a very short period of time,
we, the Hostage Rescue Team, now had a perimeter.
Sierra One at the front... Sierra Two at the back.
We have moved in.
We've taken that turf, and we're not leaving.
[somber string music playing]
Hostage Rescue Team had no desire to make anybody in there happy.
They don't have a lot of patience.
They're action-oriented.
Their desire was to get this resolved and get it resolved now.
From the very beginning, after Hostage Rescue Team came in,
they and the negotiators, you know,
had very different views of what was going on here.
The negotiators wanted to, you know,
cool down the temperatures,
to back off,
to develop relationships with people inside the compound,
to establish trust.
And to the Hostage Rescue Team,
David Koresh and his followers were a bunch of criminals and murderers
who had just killed four federal agents,
and we need to haul their asses out of there and bring them to justice.
I would tell the on-scene commander, Jeff Jamar,
"This is what we wanna do as a negotiation team."
Then separate from me,
he would hear of a more aggressive approach,
a simultaneous approach, from the Hostage Rescue Team,
and he would say, "Yeah, go ahead."
Never, I don't think,
fully appreciating the inconsistencies and the mixed signals that sent.
The FBI agents working as negotiators and members of the Hostage Rescue Team,
we had the exact same mission.
But if your business is to go into a building at four o'clock in the morning
and kill the bad guys, and save the good guys,
and risk your life in doing it,
that's a different mindset than somebody who's gonna sit in a room
and try to talk a bad guy out.
[unsettling music playing]
[Gary] Our goal was always saving as many lives as you can,
whenever you can.
In this stage of the incident,
we had to separate ourselves from the tactical people.
- We gotta separate us from them. - From them.
Make "good guy, bad guy."
Don't let what's happening out there come in between what we're doing here.
Somehow, you have to walk that high wire of saying, you know,
"They have a different approach, but you can talk to us."
"We're making good progress."
- [Gary] Thanks so much, John. - [Dolan] Take care.
[Gary] I'll talk to you tomorrow. Good night. Bye.
Good job, John.
[Dolan] He's ill. I really believe he's ill.
[Gary] David... David's down. He's down. That's a good sign.
[Dolan] A good, good sign.
[Gary] Early in the first several days of the situation,
David Koresh had been wounded, and you could hear it in his voice.
And he sent us a video where he showed us the bullet hole.
[Steve] This is David Koresh. Steve Schneider filming.
David, anything you'd like to say?
[child whimpering]
First of all, I'd like to, uh,
thank the, uh, negotiators that we've been discussing with on the phone.
Wanna see one of the holes here?
Here's one of them.
That look nice?
This one went out right here.
- [woman] Oh, it's leaking. - [Koresh] Is that leaking?
[woman] It's bleeding.
- [Koresh] Is this bleeding again? - [woman] Yeah.
So, we're gonna send this tape out now.
And I'm leaking in the back here. I gotta get this taken care of.
Anyway, God bless, and we'll sign off, Steve.
David knew... he was dying.
He was shot in the hand and in the side, and he was 33 years old.
So, there were a lot of similarities between him and Christ.
We were silently rooting for him to die from his... his wound.
Because, number one, if he died,
or, number two, he came out to get medical assistance, game over.
Got a little bit more information on this.
Um, this doctor feels, after viewing videotape...
He advised that he has a deep-seated infection.
We tried to implant in his mind that, you know,
"You're gonna get blood poisoning and die. You need to come out for medical help."
Once the infection gets into the bloodstream,
it will go into every major vital organ, including the brain.
If Koresh had died, this whole standoff would be over,
'cause there's only one single man who controlled this whole situation,
that was David Koresh.
Was Mr. Koresh wounded? If so, how seriously?
The media had the same problems that the cops did.
Nothing like this had ever happened before.
And this was also... For the media, this was a big damn story.
[Bob] By the time we arrived,
we probably have a thousand members of the media.
Within two or three days, we now have 2,000.
My job was... was not to determine what tactics were going to be used,
but try to explain to the public
what we were doing and why we were doing it,
because we knew everything that we're going to be doing
is going to be scrutinized under a magnifying glass.
Yes, back here.
Who is negotiating on the other side?
Are you also talking with other followers? And if so, who?
Do you believe that Mr. Koresh is capable of rational decisions?
Or are you just going to wait and wait and wait?
We are in charge,
and we can turn up the screws again if we want to.
[reporter] Hundreds of reporters and photographers
from all over the country, and all over the world,
have gathered around the Mount Carmel compound of the Branch Davidians.
Cult members involved in Sunday's bloody shootout with federal agents
are still holed up inside their compound.
[Balenda] I sit down to television, and it's real clear.
The name David Koresh is mentioned.
Oh dear. This is where my son is living.
[man] Clear.
[Balenda] He knows I'm here.
- [reporter 2] How does he know? - [Balenda] He knows me.
Dave Thibodeau knows his mom's here
because that's the kind of friend he's got in his mother.
[reporter 3] David's mother came from Bangor, Maine to find her 24-year-old son...
I remember thinking, "My mom's gonna be down here."
I remember thinking, "I wish she wouldn't. I don't... wanna be the face of this thing."
[Balenda] I called the FBI, and I said,
"My son's in there, and I need to know if he's okay."
"And I need to know if I can talk to him."
That agent said to me,
"We don't have any protocol for family involvement
in a situation like this."
"Maybe in the future."
I said, "My son may not have a future."
My instinct told me right off that I needed to work the press
because the feds aren't gonna let me talk to my kid.
[crew member] These people speaking today, Bob A. Ricks, R-I-C-K-S with FBI.
And then here I am at a press conference. My hand went up, and he chose me.
Have you considered at all offering David Koresh the option of saying
whether or not he would like to speak to other familiar voices from the outside?
We explored many alternatives, and, uh, the answer is no.
We have no outside individuals involved in the negotiation process at this time.
The first thing you're gonna do
is make sure that you cut off their contact with the outside world.
It's very important for us to control the communications.
When they picked up the phone, they could only get us.
We're the source of resolving the conflict for them.
And we also don't want them to be able to call out to, say, a loved one
and give them their verbal last will and testament.
We felt very cut off from the world, because the FBI controlled everything.
[reporter 4] They say they've talked to members.
They want to stay on their own free will, willing to die for David Koresh.
Does that sound like the son you know?
[inhales sharply]
[Balenda] That last summer,
before he left Los Angeles to go out to Waco, Texas,
we took a long walk, and he was trying to tell me about David Koresh.
"But, Mom, they're into the Bible." And that kind of halted me.
- I said, "David, that's not who we are." - [producer] Do you meet Koresh?
I never meet David Koresh. We talk on the phone a number of times.
I said, "David, do you feel that you've been sent here by God?"
And he said, "Yes."
And I said, "Are you a prophet? Do you feel that you're a prophet?"
And he said, "Yes, I'm a prophet."
And then I asked the pinnacle question:
"Are you the Messiah?"
And he said, "Yes, I am."
When I hang up the phone, I'm on alert.
Dave's in trouble.
This guy thinks he's the Second Coming.
[unsettling music playing]
[Gary] We're trying to learn everything we can about,
not only David Koresh,
but his followers.
We had people calling former family members,
following up on leads,
former Davidians who no longer were part of the cult.
John has something to add to the briefing. Would you go ahead, corporal?
First girlfriend of David, Linda Marie Campion, who's on the line,
said before 1979, he was a long-haired, fun-loving, guitar-playing guy.
He smoked pot once in a while.
Didn't seek any confrontations with law enforcement.
In 1979, he had a nervous breakdown.
Tremors, convulsions of extremities, under a lot of stress spiritually,
and he started having visual and audio hallucinations,
primarily at night.
And these hallucinations were thinking he was talking to God.
[Lee] David Koresh was the child of a teen mom.
His stepfather was a convict, a thief.
The story was that he was subject to sexual abuse by older boys.
And so,
after he dropped out in middle school,
a lady who had befriended him was talking to him one day,
and he was asking where he could find people who could help open the Bible up.
And the lady said, "Well, you know, there's this group of people over in Waco,
where they had been since the '30s, called the Branch Davidian."
And when he came, people who were there at Mount Carmel
said, you know, he was this sort of
goofy guy.
He was a carpenter.
He wasn't very bright.
He wasn't very attractive.
And this is the way we eat over here, with our fingers.
And you need to come over and join us.
We have literal food and spiritual food.
[Lee] But he got very close to a woman named Lois Roden.
She was the leader of the group.
Lois was 67, and Koresh was a young man.
[Bob] He seduced Lois Roden,
even though there was probably 50 years' difference in their age.
She eventually passed away,
and then there became a battle between her son and David Koresh for leadership.
Koresh gathered up some of his male followers,
all in camo, with guns.
They got into a gunfight with George Roden inside the compound.
And it went... I went, "Bang, bang, bang, bang."
Not pointed at George.
You see? "Bang, bang, bang, bang." That didn't scare him neither.
George, he got wounded slightly, and the sheriff's department was called
and arrested Koresh and his followers.
Charged them with attempted murder.
A jury actually, um, hung on whether to convict,
and so there was no retrial.
And then David took over.
[news theme music playing]
They've come from all over the world,
ordered to the headquarters of a bizarre religious cult in Texas.
Among them, Australian followers of a man who claims to be the son of God.
[Gary] We were able to secure and look at this piece of video footage,
filmed by A Current Affair,
which was an Australian news show that sent this TV crew to film Koresh.
[A Current Affair reporter] Vernon, or David Koresh, as he prefers,
claims to have one wife, Rachel, who was 14 when he married her.
[Koresh] One wife.
In the late '80s, Koresh's teaching evolved.
He introduced what he called the New Light.
He had married a teenage daughter of a longtime member,
and his revelation was that he was supposed to have other wives.
And, at first, took single girls.
And then the revelation evolved,
and he was supposed to dissolve all the marriages of all of his followers
and take their wives.
[A Current Affair reporter] You separated couples?
I have separated couples.
- You have? - You better believe I have.
When David annulled the marriages where people had been married a long time,
my dad went along with it.
I want to know what truth is.
And I'm searching for it.
And if he happens to be the vehicle that shows me, I thank God for him.
And my mom just didn't agree with it,
so she packed up her stuff in the middle of the night and left.
After she left... I wasn't allowed to be around my dad.
I... couldn't eat with him.
I couldn't go outside and...
play like a normal kid, with your father.
Basically, after my mom left...
David Koresh was like my mom and my dad.
Who would allow their wives to have sex with David Koresh,
and be prohibited from having sex with their own wives?
That... that's insanity.
[Kathy] Every single one of us was married to David,
because David was our Christ, giving us the truths from God.
[Bob] They believed that David Koresh was the key to their eternal salvation.
[Kathy] I remember... the Bible studies went all night long,
and women would stay up
in the hopes of being the one that he would take to bed with him.
Okay, I have to admit that I would stay up late,
go to these Bible studies, and hope that he would pick me,
because I wanted my own personal experience.
And, finally, David decided to take me to his room.
The room was special.
The bed took up four-fifths of the room.
That's all it was.
And...
Oh my gosh...
I'm going to be, for the first time...
with God alone...
through David.
I remember him picking me up, scooping me up...
with his hand behind my back, and moving me around on the bed.
The whole time we were having sex, it was a Bible study.
He did it for me.
Not for himself.
[Kathy, voice breaks] He did it to give me...
that one little bit of tenderness...
with my God.
[A Current Affair reporter] Perhaps the most shocking allegation
is that he had sex with underage girls.
There's no doubt that David Koresh had sex with young kids,
some as young as 10.
- [Koresh] And how old are you, Lisa? - Thirteen.
[Koresh] Thirteen. And who is next to you?
I'm Abby.
- [Koresh] And how old are you, Abby? - I'm 11.
[Koresh] You're 11.
I remember, like, talking to the other girls
that were 10 to maybe 13?
They would giggle and laugh about, you know, being one of his wives one day,
and having his kids...
How much it was an honor.
But not me.
He was hard on me about everything, down to the spankings.
With... a really big paddle.
He would take me in his room.
He would make me lay over his lap.
If I tensed up,
he would put the paddle to my butt, and he'd be like, "Okay."
And then he'd pull it back again.
And he wouldn't hit me, until I was not ready for it.
And that was almost every day.
[unsettling music playing]
A lot of people have told me that he was trying to groom me.
[Kathy] People think that a man having sex with a bunch of under aged girls...
is a crime.
And in conventional wisdom, that could probably be very well true.
However,
these weren't under aged girls,
because you come of age at 12.
So, all of these girls
were adults in our... belief system.
[tense music playing]
We knew there was an awful lot of kids in there.
Our goal was always to get the kids out of harm's way.
I think David felt that
letting some kids walk out would go a long way in building trust.
[Gary] Is Heather coming out?
- [Koresh] Yeah, we'll send her out. - [Gary] Okay. What is she wearing?
[Koresh] Uh, what's she wearing?
- Oh, it's a red coat. - [Gary] It's a red coat?
[Koresh] And a red hood.
- [Gary] And she's got blond hair. - [Koresh] Right.
[Gary] Okay.
[Heather] They got me that morning and took me down the stairs.
You could see holes everywhere through the walls.
And my dad was sitting right beside the stairs,
in a chair, and he had been shot.
And my dad told me,
"If you get scared or upset, just think... about me."
[sniffles]
[Heather] I heard David say, "Well, it's almost time."
[David] You have your coat on and everything?
Well, you don't look very happy.
What's wrong? You wanna put a smile on?
Okay. You want a hug?
Hug?
Okay. Well, she wants a hug.
Let me... Let me, um... Okay, we're gonna send her out.
Let me go ahead and let you off the line real quick.
[Gary] Okay.
[voice breaks] And he cracked the door open,
and he pushed me out the door and shut the door behind me.
I tripped... in a pothole,
because I looked behind me,
and I fell, face down.
And then, all of a sudden, there's... guys surrounding me with all this
body armor.
Just... I just remember seeing all this black.
One grabbed this arm, one grabbed this arm.
And then before I knew it,
I was sitting
in this
Army tank...
with a group of men surrounding me in there. [sniffles]
At 8:45 a.m. today, Heather, nine years old, was released.
This brings the total of persons released through negotiations
to 21 children and two women.
[Gary] Because I wanted the kids to be treated with tenderness,
we'd sit down with the tactical people, say,
"Treat these kids like they're your own, turn them over to the negotiators,
and negotiators will bring them back here."
[Heather] Some men take me up the stairs and take me into this room,
and they have my bag of everything I took out with me.
And all these men... laughing,
and tearing apart my stuff.
[crying] Ripping it open with knives.
And I hear them saying
the adults probably sent us out with
bombs or grenades.
[Gary] So now, every time a kid came out,
we'd have them call back in and talk to their parents.
But this now gave us an opportunity,
with regards to those children's parents who we were able to speak with,
to leave an impression with them about, "We're good people."
[producer] Do you wanna hear that last call with your dad?
Yeah.
- [young Heather, on recording] Hi, Daddy. - [Jones] Hi, Heather.
What you doing?
[young Heather] Just sitting in a chair.
- [Jones] You're just sitting in a chair? - [young Heather] Yeah.
[Jones] How'd you like your little ride?
- [young Heather] It was fun. It was bumpy. - [Jones] It was fun.
God has many promises, Heather.
And always... Always remember that.
You be a good girl, and...
And, uh... ask for all the good things.
Don't forget what you know.
I'll see you. Okay?
- [young Heather] Bye-bye. - [Jones] Bye. I love you.
[sobbing]
[crying] Oh my God.
[inhales sharply]
[sobbing] That was the last time I heard his voice.
[somber music playing]
[Koresh] You wanna say hello to anybody out there, of the kids that left?
Yeah.
Say hello. Wave to them.
Hi.
Tell them make sure that they're taking good care of them.
This is little Crystal.
She's my little taco girl. Love Daddy?
Huh?
We live for one thing, and that's the betterment of tomorrow's world,
and that's where our children come in at.
You people go and think what you want to, but, uh, the proof is in the pudding.
You know, our children know how to respect,
they know how to be mindful,
they know how to do right, 'cause they see it here.
I think the negotiation team,
uh, essentially, we looked at Koresh as
being a bit of a con man, a manipulator, a narcissist.
But we think religion
just happened to be the vehicle that he used to control people.
[Bob] I think Gary Noesner believes that he was nothing but a con man. I don't.
I believe not only was David lifted up and told he was this person.
He may have had doubts, he was human.
But because of the nature of the time that he had spent,
and what he had overcome to rise to this level,
to be head of this group,
I believe he truly... he truly believed that he was the Second Coming.
[Koresh] John, I know you take us for a bunch of idiots.
No, I'm taking this real seriously.
- [Koresh] I don't think serious enough. - [Cox] Why?
[Koresh] Because your actions are just definitely provocative.
See, what you fail to understand, John...
[Cox] Yeah?
[Koresh] ...is that I'm not afraid to die. Not at all.
[Cox] Well, that's commendable.
You wanna pray to some people this morning, David?
[Koresh] I think you guys are the ones that better start praying.
I think so.
[somber string music playing]
[Chris] And we knew that David Koresh had said,
"I've got .50-caliber weapons."
We knew that they could punch through the cinder block and the sandbags
and the plates of steel that we sat behind every day.
They were a significant risk to our lives in Sierra Two.
And then, one day, sitting there watching through my scope,
I look up at a firing port on the building,
and the door to that firing port
falls down.
All of a sudden, I see a Barrett .50-caliber rifle
pointed straight at me.
So, I got on the radio and I explained what had happened to the command post.
The command post decided to give that information to the negotiators.
I got a frantic phone call in the negotiation room
from Dick Rogers, the head of HRT.
The Davidians were aiming a .50-caliber sniper rifle at our people.
He said, "You tell them to get that out of the window and not aimed at us,
or we're gonna take action."
[Dick] We just got a report, uh, from one of those guys around outside
that they, um, saw a weapon.
Believe me, they're seeing things.
I checked it out. There was absolutely nothing.
- [Dick] There's no .50-caliber? - [Steve] No such thing as a .50-caliber
or even a broomstick sticking out anything out of that wall.
What do you think of that, John?
[Chris] I watch the muzzle come out of the building.
I watch the port close back up.
And from that point on,
we never knew where the .50-caliber was again.
That was not good for us.
[Gary] So, the tactical team was really angry at the negotiators.
They blamed us.
We only did that on the orders of your boss.
[Chris] Did the negotiators do that intentionally to hurt us? No.
Did it clearly demonstrate the danger
in a breakdown of communication between those two elements?
Fuck yes.
What we had here was a failure to communicate
between the negotiators and the HRT team,
and that plagued this operation from start to finish.
[intense music playing]
Last night, David Koresh has made such statements as,
"We are ready for war."
"Let's get it on."
"I'm going to give you an opportunity to save yourself,
before you get blown away."
[Lee] The next morning,
they get into a back-and-forth where Koresh is threatening them
and saying, "I've got something that can blow your Bradleys 50 feet in the air."
So, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team responds by bringing in Abrams tanks
from down at Fort Hood.
You know, the biggest armored vehicle that the United States military has.
We see all the tanks in a row.
They came down the hill
and started to set up one by one in front of the building.
I couldn't fucking believe it.
There was a threat.
When you got over 200 weapons that are pointed at you
and millions of rounds of ammunition that they have at their disposal,
they are always posing a threat.
And they've already demonstrated that they are a threat
by killing four ATF agents.
[Gary] One day, Mr. Jamar came in,
he had just come from the front lines,
where he had seen the new military Abrams tank
that we had borrowed from the military,
and, uh, he was really excited about the capabilities of this tank.
He says, "That thing can start at this end of the compound
and drive full speed..." And he moves his hand along.
"...all the way to the other end,
without stopping."
And one of my negotiation team leaders unfortunately said,
"Why the hell would they do that?"
He was sent home the next day.
Every step we take, we're taking, is trying to be a logical step.
If you got somebody who's threatening you with a .50-caliber,
you're gonna protect yourself.
Bringing these tanks and stuff around here,
I tell you what, being an American first...
I'm the kind of guy that I'll stand in front of a tank.
You can run over me, but I'll be biting one of the tracks.
No one's gonna hurt me or my family. 'Cause that's American policy here.
- You hear the tanks outside? - Yeah.
- [Koresh] Are you scared? - No.
[Koresh] What's God gonna do to our enemies?
Destroy them.
[echoing] Destroy them.
[unsettling music playing]
[children playing]
[Heather] They take me
to the Children's Home in Waco,
which is a Methodist home.
I felt safe because I was with all the other children.
But they would record us all the time.
One of the young negotiators on our team
came up with the brilliant idea to send in a video of the kids,
to reinforce to the moms particularly, "Your kids aren't going anywhere."
"We're keeping your kids here for you, Mom and Dad."
"They're here. They're your kids."
"Come out. Become a parent. They need you. They love you. They want you out."
And we sent the tape in.
There was a woman inside named Kathy Schroeder.
When we send the tape in,
Kathy sees her young son looking forlorn,
you know, out of place, unhappy.
I have no idea what's gonna happen to Bryan.
He's by himself, and that upset me.
Because the father of her older kids showed up in Waco and said,
"I've got joint custody. These are my kids. I want them."
And he got them.
I feel very relieved.
Um, I'm very happy for the children, and for my family.
[Gary] But her son, Bryan, was still being held
at the Child Protective Services.
- [Dolan] Kathy? - [Kathy] Yes.
[Dolan] John. How are you?
[Kathy] You've probably seen the kids yourselves...
[Dolan] I did. I was over when the tape was made.
[Kathy] You know Bryan was laying on the floor the whole time.
- [Dolan] Um... - [Kathy] Bryan's not feeling too good.
- [Dolan] Right. - [Kathy] He misses his mother deeply,
and it's really affecting him a lot, you know?
He's just gonna really be... hurting from it.
And she was worried about him.
But I thought we needed to twist that
to not just being worried about him, but being responsible for him.
"And here's what Bryan needs."
"We're not talking about you, Kathy, and what you need."
"This is what the little guy needs. You're the only thing in his world."
I was in turmoil.
That made me rethink my entire...
salvation plan.
It made it much more difficult for me to...
do God's will.
It was important for us to get Kathy out.
Kathy Schroeder is a very interesting character in this.
Koresh had a group of guys called The Mighty Men,
who, I guess, were sort of his little army within the larger compound.
And she was considered one of the Mighty Men.
We took nothing for granted
and tried to orchestrate this down to its fine points.
- Hi, Kathy. How are you? - [Kathy] Okay.
- I spoke to you the other afternoon. - [Kathy] Yes.
Yeah. How you doing?
[Kathy] My... three-year-old son
is now alone.
I know.
[Kathy] He's not even with his brothers and sister.
[Dolan] I know.
[Kathy] Although... I'd rather be here,
in order to be with Bryan, I guess I've got to come out.
- [Dolan] Kathy, I know how difficult... - [Kathy] And you realize I don't want to.
[Dolan] I know that very much.
The sooner we'd like to get you out, the better.
[Kathy] Okay, yes. Don't... don't rush me.
No, no. I didn't mean to rush you.
[Kathy] This is a really...
- Tough decision. - A tough thing for me to do.
So, if it's tomorrow, don't... don't think that I'm backing out.
No, I'm not.
[Gary] I have this idea, I write it on a note, and I hand it to John.
John looks up at me and kind of smiles, and he reads it to her.
He said, "Kathy, what Bryan needs now is a hug from his mommy."
...and I know that Bryan will wanna hug his mommy.
I know that's for sure, that's a big guarantee.
It was like an arrow going through the phone line
had struck her in the heart.
For you, it's a tough thing, but for Bryan, it's the right thing.
I'll see you in a little bit.
- [Kathy] Thank you, John. - Thank you very much.
- Thanks, Kathy. - [Kathy] Mm-hmm.
[Gary] Beautiful job, John. Beautiful.
- [man] Yes! - [woman] Good job.
[man 2] Good, John.
- How do you feel? - That is tough. Really feels good.
Way to go.
- I hope so. We can get her out. - That was very nice. Very nice.
[woman] That's a huge nut.
We can get her out.
[Gary] Don't think there's any question she's coming out.
[woman] She's coming.
[somber music playing]
[crew] Is everyone ready?
[indistinct murmuring]
An unidentified adult female has just come out of the compound.
[Gary] This was a huge success for us.
And we learned so much from Kathy,
uh, you know, about the conditions inside, what people were thinking,
how much food they had, how much water.
These were things that we
had a desperate need to want to know and understand,
and she was able to fill a lot of the gaps we had.
[indistinct conversations]
There's my boy!
[man] Here you go, Kathy.
Hi!
Who's this?
Look. Look. Look in there.
[on video] Can you make your war face?
Make your war face!
Good boy!
Bryan, look at me.
Who am I?
- Mommy. - Mommy! Right!
Hug. Hug.
There.
[agent] You spend some time with him. You haven't seen him in a while.
[dramatic music building]
[music stops suddenly]
And then they said that he needed to go eat,
and they took him away.
And then I didn't see him again.
They put me in an orange jumpsuit and shipped me off to jail.
[reporter] Kathy, did you do anything wrong?
Katherine Schroeder did knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully,
conspire and agree with persons known and unknown
to attempt to kill, with malice aforethought,
several Special Agents of the Bureau of ATF.
[reporter 2] The ATF said that anyone coming out will be charged
if the facts are substantiated.
[Gary] I was quite upset, because...
We protested as negotiators.
I said, "The people inside are watching what happens to people that come out."
So, if they thought they were gonna face serious charges,
that was not going to encourage other people to come out.
I was angry.
I was very angry.
You know what? It pisses me off.
Anyone knows that the government's not gonna lose, right?
They're gonna get whatever they want, one way or another.
We didn't believe anything they said.
[FBI negotiator] Would you like to come out?
[woman 1] Yeah, what for? So they can put us all in jail and throw away the key?
[woman 2] We walk out there, you'll handcuff us.
- Put us in solitary confinement. - [negotiator 2] Not gonna...
- [woman 2] Nobody will talk to us. - [FBI agent 2] Why say that?
[man] Everyone will be arrested, everybody will be jailed.
- [Gary] David... - [Koresh] You're... No, you listen to me.
- You are a damn liar! - [Gary] Not...
- Well, you're wrong, David. - [Koresh] You are a liar!
[ominous music playing]
One night, I was on shift, and it's two o'clock in the morning.
I'm sitting behind my rifle.
I'm doing my survey of the building, and I'm looking at that window.
And I look off at something else.
And I look back, and it was David Koresh.
The David Koresh.
He's looking out the window, and he's looking at me.
He doesn't know who I am.
He knows where I am.
He knows what I am.
And he knows I'm looking at him too.
And I'm leaning over my rifle, and I'm looking through the scope.
It's 297 yards from the tip of my barrel to the point of his nose.
And I knew that I could shoot a dime at 300 yards.
The wind is still, elevation's flat, the humidity is low. It's a simple shot.
If I pull the trigger,
the leader's dead.
The kids are safe.
They all come out. It's over.
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades to silence]