Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993 TAG: 9309050016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LEE HANCOCK THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Long
Schneider "had given up everything that he owned to this man," said Ricks, who was the FBI's chief spokesman and one of the bureau's three commanders in Waco during the cult's 51-day siege this year. "In the end, we think he probably realized he was dealing with a fraud. After he [Koresh] had caused so much harm and destruction, he [Koresh] probably now wanted to come out, and Mr. Schneider could not tolerate that situation."
Ricks made the comments in an Aug. 25 speech to a Tulsa civic group. His speech offered the first public suggestion by any official involved in the siege or investigation that Koresh's death April 19 was not either a suicide or part of a suicide pact.
Ricks' account supports the contention of FBI siege commanders and senior FBI officials that Koresh was a fraudulent sociopath unlikely to commit suicide. The account also reflects most of the other key psychological theories that FBI agents emphasized during the siege.
Survivors of the standoff and attorneys who represented Koresh and Schneider, who was Koresh's lieutenant during the siege, have said the two men and other sect members would not have willingly caused their own deaths or the deaths of other Branch Davidians.
An FBI spokesman in Oklahoma said Ricks, who heads the bureau's Oklahoma City office, declined to be interviewed.
Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani, who performed autopsies on the two men's bodies and on more than 80 others recovered from the compound after the April 19 fire, said Koresh's body was too badly burned to determine whether the single gunshot to his forehead was self-inflicted or was a homicide.
But he said "it is possible" that the cult leader was killed by a vengeful Schneider, who also died of a high-velocity gunshot and whose body was found next to Koresh's.
Although it is impossible to tell whether the two were killed by the same gun, Peerwani noted that Koresh was unarmed and that Schneider's body had a rifle next to it.
"The FBI has something we don't have: There were listening devices in there," Peerwani said. "I can't rule it out."
Several officials outside the FBI but familiar with the ongoing Branch Davidian investigation expressed surprise at the detail with which Ricks described Koresh's death. "I've never heard that," one said Friday. "It doesn't mean it didn't happen, but I've never heard that."
FBI officials have declined to comment on the Branch Davidian case, citing pending criminal prosecutions and an ongoing Justice Department review of the standoff.
In a recording of his Tulsa speech, Ricks stated that "evidence we have today" indicated that Koresh died trying to come out. The agent added that at least some of Koresh's followers also had been executed by fellow sect members as they tried to flee the compound.
"As we gassed, apparently, many inside decided they wanted out. Over 20-some-odd people were shot that day," he said. "As a warning to others, they were shot and executed."
Of 42 dead sect members identified so far, 17 suffered gunshot wounds, including 12 who died in the fire, according to McLennan County authorities.
Citing intelligence sources he refused to identify, Ricks said Koresh ordered his followers to saturate the compound with kerosene about 10 minutes after FBI agents began inserting tear gas into the compound on the morning of April 19.
Sect survivors have maintained that the fires were caused by lanterns inside the compound that were knocked over by FBI tanks. But independent arson investigators have determined that the fires were intentionally set by those inside.
An arson report by Houston Fire Department investigator Paul Gray indicates that several "pour patterns" - distinctive charring left when gasoline, kerosene or other fuels are ignited in arson fires - were found in the compound, one law enforcement official said.
"That building was just saturated," the official said.
Gray could not be reached for comment Friday.
Although FBI commanders repeatedly have refused to confirm their use, federal officials have acknowledged that listening devices sent into the compound during the siege picked up sounds of the cultists planning and setting the compound fire.
McLennan County Justice of the Peace James Collier, who is still trying to determine the cause of Koresh's death, said he had no information to suggest how the cult leader might have suffered his fatal gunshot wound.
"I think probably the devil came out of hell and killed him," Collier said. "I don't think we'll ever know."
Peerwani said he also saw evidence suggesting that some people died trying to get to the underground school bus where FBI agents had said the cult's children could have survived the fire.
"We found several bodies lined up literally one after another in what used to be a hallway downstairs. There's a strong possibility that they were trying to get to the underground bunker," Peerwani said. "They were near the trap door leading underground, but the trap door had collapsed because the exterior wall had been knocked down onto the trap door.
"They couldn't have gotten through that door," Peerwani said.
That calls into question statements by FBI officials that 17 children who died in the fire might have survived by being sent into the underground bus.
by CNB