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approval by an unspeakable act. The apocalypse would occur soon. More white supremacist groups, more
00:01:17
anti-government groups. David Caresh. Ruby Ridge siege. Timothy McVey. More than 80 people dead. Bombed
00:01:28
a federal building in Oklahoma City. Eight by an unspeakable act. There is so little hope left. Hello. Hello. Yeah.
00:01:38
This Lieutenant Lynch may help you. Yeah. There 75 men around our building and they're shooting at us in Mount
00:01:43
Carmel. Mount Carmel? Yeah. Tell them there children and women in here and to call it off. Try. All right. Uh,
00:01:51
hello. I hear gunfire. Oh [ __ ] Hello. Who is this? Hello. Who is this? Hello. Yeah, this Lynch. Hey, Lynch.
00:02:05
Yeah, that's a kind of a funny name there. Oh, listen. No, now who am I speaking with? This is David Caresh.
00:02:11
Okay, David. Notorious. What' you guys do that for? Well, Dave, what this what I'm doing is
00:02:19
I'm trying to establish some community communication links with you. No, no, no, no. Let me tell you something. Yes,
00:02:24
sir. You see, you brought a bunch of guys out here and you killed some of my children. We told you we wanted to talk.
00:02:32
No. How come you guys try to be ATF agents? How come you try to be so big all the time? Okay, there's a bunch of
00:02:39
us dead. There's a bunch of you guys dead. Now, now that's your fault. [Music] the branch dividians. To talk about this
00:02:59
Christian group known as the branch dividians, we first need to introduce the 7th Day Adventist Church. The 7th
00:03:08
Day Adventist Church is a religious group. It's a Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by
00:03:15
its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian and Hebrew calendar as the Sabbath. Its
00:03:23
emphasis on the eminent second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of days. The branch devidians is a fringe offshoot of
00:03:33
the 7th day Adventist church. The branch devidians emerged from the Devidian 7th
00:03:39
Day community. A guy named Benjamin Rhoden established the branch devidians in 1955. This is a group that are known for
00:03:50
their apocalyptic beliefs and then in the 1990s known for their leader a one Mr. David Caresh. The branch of
00:03:59
Devidians believed in the imminent end of the world and identified the American government as the lamblike beast of the
00:04:08
book of Revelation. Now, much of the Bible is open to interpretation. But with some understanding, the second
00:04:17
beast that appears in Revelation poses as a lamb. Someone who may present himself as a Messiah, but actually is a
00:04:26
false messiah whose speech and talk is satanic in nature. Then I saw a second beast coming out of the earth. It had
00:04:38
two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the
00:04:45
first beast on its behalf and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first
00:04:53
beast whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from
00:05:02
heaven to the earth in full view of the people. because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the
00:05:12
first beast. It deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up
00:05:19
an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give
00:05:28
breath to the image of the first beast so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to
00:05:37
be killed. It also forced all people great and small, rich and poor, free and slave
00:05:45
to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads so that they could not buy or
00:05:52
sell unless they had the mark. which is the name of the beast or the number of its
00:05:59
name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast for it
00:06:07
is the number of man. That number is 666. In the 1980s, David Caresh became the leader of the branch
00:06:19
dividians. As the head of the branch devidians, Caresh claimed to be its final prophet. His apocalyptic Bible
00:06:27
teachings, prophecies, including interpretations of the book of Revelation, the seven seals, and the end
00:06:35
of days attracted various followers. The group lived at the Mount Carmel Center,
00:06:41
which was a large property near Waco, Texas. And the Devidians had their own flag. The flag depicted a sixwinged
00:06:49
serpent and a star which resembled a star of David when viewed from afar flying over top of the seven
00:06:58
seals. David Caresh was born in Houston, Texas on August 17th, 1959. His parents were young and not
00:07:06
married. I would describe his upbringing as dysfunctional and David Caresh was not his birth name. He was born Vernon
00:07:14
Wayne How. Wonder why he changed it. You know what I mean, Vern? His mother was 14-year-old Bonnie Sue Clark and his dad
00:07:22
was 20-year-old Bobby Wayne How. And some details of Caresha's early life vary among the different sources that
00:07:31
are out there. Just like Jesus Christ himself, not much of his childhood is known. After 2 years, his parents split
00:07:38
up. Eventually, little Vernon would go to live with grandma. his mother's mom and she will briefly raise him as her
00:07:47
own to the point of it was implied that she was actually his mother and they gave off this appearance especially
00:07:57
within the confines of most company. So when his mother Bonnie his actual mother
00:08:04
Bonnie would come and visit, she would pretend to be an aunt. I mean of course that's strange. We've heard of those
00:08:12
types of scenarios before, but it this seems a little odd and a little more a skew to me because you would think that
00:08:23
Bonnie would when she's around that she would just pretend to be the older sister rather than an aunt, which means
00:08:30
she's the sister of her own mother. Well, Bobby Wayne, his father, at 20 years old, why would he be interested in
00:08:41
a 14-year-old? It's just a little strange. When he was about 5 years old, he did go back to living with his real
00:08:49
mother and her new husband. And this was after being brought up to speed on things, right? Learning the truth about
00:08:56
all of the family's secrets and who his real mother was. Caresh would later say that it was around this time that a male
00:09:06
relative started molesting him. Caresh described his childhood as lonely, struggling with poor study skills and
00:09:16
dyslexia. Which led him to being placed in special education classes. Some of his troubles learning actually came from
00:09:23
poor eyesight. He had quite poor eyesight when he was little. He was pretty horribly bullied as well by the
00:09:31
other boys at school. He was called horrible names and had longrunning horrible nicknames, some that are so
00:09:38
offensive that I don't feel comfortable repeating any of them. Some of the bullying was sexual in nature. There was
00:09:46
sexual assault according to Caresh and some others with some reports stating that he was gang raped by some older
00:09:53
boys when he was just a small boy. Yeah, look what you did you bullies. You turned this kid into a pedophile with a
00:09:59
messiah complex. But then he started to grow up and he he got good at sports which was a huge transformation for him
00:10:08
for and for his childhood. His interest in sports and physical development brought him some
00:10:15
improvements, but he still dropped out of Garland High School. Anyway, in his junior year, as we said, David Caresh
00:10:22
wasn't great at school, and he wasn't great at work either. He tried various jobs, but was either fired or would
00:10:30
eventually quit them. At the age of 19, he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl who became pregnant.
00:10:37
The teenage mother thought that David Caresh was unfit to be the father of the kid, so she moved away and refused to
00:10:46
see him again. And thus he never saw this baby which was his first born. It was his daughter. Well, obviously he's
00:10:54
going to have a lot of confidence issues when you have this weird situation. You
00:10:59
have a young mother, so she's not able to take care of you. You're passed off to your grandmother and then you find
00:11:06
out that, well, now that my mother is in a better situation, she's going to go surprise, I'm actually your mother. So
00:11:14
this I think would lend itself to some confidence issues and maybe a lot of other issues especially if a child
00:11:22
doesn't feel safe. Yeah. And his him feeling safe is complicated by the fact that he was bullied because of his
00:11:31
learning disabilities when he was a kid. And some of that too, I know that bullying still goes on today and it's
00:11:39
it's unfortunate and something that we are doing better about policing within our schools and it's carried on and
00:11:47
migrated a bit online quite heavily online especially for a lot of these these poor kids that get bullied over
00:11:55
the internet and over social media. But I think I hope there's a big part of me that hopes that the bullying that he
00:12:06
experienced was somewhat a sign of the times or or more so a sign of the times than it would be today based off of his
00:12:15
say I think it'd actually be harsher online because I would assume that there would be a percentage of kids that
00:12:23
wouldn't say it to your face and so be a lot easier either to text or or type to
00:12:30
a kid. So, I can imagine growing up in these times. Yeah, harsh online, but gang rape is pretty pretty harsh. Pretty
00:12:40
pretty downright harsh. Yeah, but I was speaking in general. Maybe you should pay attention. Thank you. This is so
00:12:45
around the same time, right, David Caresh, he's going through a lot of changes. this this 16-year-old girl who
00:12:52
he got pregnant. She moves away, refuses to let him be a part of her life and thus he doesn't get to see his his
00:13:00
daughter. I don't know how involved he would have been. Anyway, it's it's too tough to say. I took a a lot of looks at
00:13:08
this part and this portion of his early life and it's difficult to say if he would have stepped up and been or
00:13:15
attempted to be a legit father. But regardless, he didn't get the opportunity to do that. Now, but he does
00:13:22
start to pull some things together here, Captain. This is when he became a bornagain Christian and wanted to kind
00:13:30
of change his ways. He became born again in the Southern Baptist Church and he later joins his mother's denomination
00:13:38
and she is a member of the 7th Day Adventist Church. He's 20 years old at this point. Now he starts up a
00:13:46
relationship with the pastor's 15-year-old daughter. That's bizarre. This is not something that the
00:13:55
pastor approved of. But Caresh wanted to marry the girl. And so he prayed to God
00:14:03
for answers and guidance on the matter. Or at least he says that he prayed to God for answers and guidance on the
00:14:10
matter. And so as this story goes here, Captain Caresh allegedly during this time of praying for
00:14:19
guidance, he opens his eyes only to find his Bible sitting there in the open position. It was previously closed when
00:14:28
it before he closed his eyes. He opens his eyes and his Bible is open to Isaiah 34:16 which reads, "Look in the scroll
00:14:38
of the Lord and read." None of these will be missing. Not one will lack her mate, for it is his mouth that has given
00:14:48
the order, and his spirit will gather them together." So with his Bible in hand, he approached
00:14:56
the pastor and explained the open Bible story to him, proclaiming this to be a sign from God, that it was God that
00:15:06
wanted him to have the pastor's daughter for a wife. The pastor wasn't so easily
00:15:13
fooled. He dismissed the suggestion out of hand and forbade Caresh from ever seeing his daughter again. Well, good
00:15:20
for him cuz I would have said, "Hey, want to be Jesus boy? How about you pray to God so you don't be a pedophile? You
00:15:28
freaking creep." But Caresh was like, "TLC T-Boss." So, he creeped. Yeah, just keep it on the download. Nobody's
00:15:36
supposed to know. But Caresh gets caught and they get found out and this gets him
00:15:43
expelled from the church and from the congregation as a whole. Well, when you're looking for signs, you're going
00:15:50
to find one. Well, I I'll go and say this. This is completely absurd. Okay, I'm not saying that he didn't open his
00:15:59
eyes and his Bible was suddenly open. I Let's pretend that that happened for a moment. But the reason why it is absurd,
00:16:07
think about a Bible. Think of how short that portion of the scripture is. Isaiah
00:16:13
34:16. It's a whole three sentences. So I what I'm pointing out here is how would
00:16:21
anybody be able to look at an open Bible that is two pages long appearing to be two pages in front of your face and go,
00:16:29
"Oh, that's the one. Out of these two pages, here's the three sentences that God is trying to tell to me that that
00:16:37
wants me he wants me to read these three sentences." Yeah. Chances are he was sitting in the corner holding his his
00:16:44
Bible in one hand and pulling on his pee pee in the other and uh this vision came
00:16:50
to him of this uh 15year-old girl and he said, "Oh, well, there's there's my sign." Even if even if it's one of those
00:16:56
tiny little Bibles with maybe you only have a reading on on each page, who is he to decide which of the two pages he's
00:17:06
supposed to read or or that is supposed to be the message? So, I mean, it's completely But he's the prophet.
00:17:12
Backwards as hell. And I'm sure that look, the pastor probably didn't need to see through that portion of the story.
00:17:20
He just likely didn't want this man being with his 15year-old daughter or handing over his 15-year-old daughter to
00:17:29
this grown man. And I'm not trying to justify anything that David did. But when you come from a situation where
00:17:36
your father is 20, your mother is 14 when they have you. So that seems like a little more normaly for you to be into
00:17:45
somebody younger. But also anybody that is sexually abused or physically abused or they have some kind of traumatic
00:17:54
thing that happens to them when they're younger, they normally are attracted to people of the same age of when that
00:18:02
abuse happened to them, if that makes any sense. So now we're at the summer of 1981 on our timeline here and Caresha's
00:18:10
next move was to go out to Waco, Texas. remember he's just been excommunicated from the church and congregation. Yeah.
00:18:20
So this is where and when he joins this other group, the branch dividians. So the summer of
00:18:28
1981, he goes out to Waco, Texas, where he joined the branch devidians. Benjamin
00:18:34
Rhoden, who had originated the branch group in 1955, died in 1978. So by the time that Caresh gets there, the
00:18:45
founder, if you will, of the branch devidians, Benjamin Rhoden, has recently passed away about 3 years prior. In
00:18:54
1983, Caresh began claiming the gift of prophecy. Around this time, Caresh began
00:19:00
a sexual relationship with Lois Rhoden. She's the widow of Benjamin Rhoden and she's the current leader of the sect of
00:19:10
the branch devidians. Lois is 67 years old at this time. So David Caresh was a man who
00:19:17
clearly had issues with having age appropriate relationships. Well, he's going to sleep his way to the top.
00:19:24
Exactly. That's what the captain did. Caresh eventually became slept my way to the bottom.
00:19:32
Yeah. reverse order. Caresh eventually began to claim that God had chosen him to father a child by Lois, who the child
00:19:42
would be the chosen one. This is this is a really interesting and integral part of the
00:19:50
story here that I that I don't think many people know about, right? because because of her
00:19:57
age. Not only is she the leader and like you pointed out, he's this is a strong attempt by him to create this this
00:20:04
relationship with the leader that nobody else in the group will have and and if he's a good boy, he'll probably get
00:20:11
favoritism from the leader and sleep his way to the top. But on top of that, he devises this plan once it's once they're
00:20:22
outed because they kind of keep this relationship secret from from the group once they're this relationship is
00:20:31
discovered. Caresh turns it into this whole thing of like, well, it's okay. We're meant to be together. Had another
00:20:37
vision touching his pee pee. Not only that, proof of that is I She's pregnant. Are you pregnant? I'm no doctor here,
00:20:45
but a 67year-old, 68-year-old woman getting pregnant would seem like a bit of a miracle to me. Not when you have a
00:20:53
prophet's penis. And so what he's telling the group is that look, I'm not I'm I'm more than a man. Yeah. From the
00:21:01
prophet Britney Spears. I'm I'm not a girl, not yet a woman. And and I'm I'm closer to God and more involved with God
00:21:08
than any of you. And proof of that is I was able to impregnate this old woman, this older woman. And it's it's God's
00:21:18
will. God wanted this to be done. So he he's using this whole thing to separate himself, elevate himself from the rest
00:21:28
of the group, and eventually take over as the leader of the Devidians. And we haven't got to that point yet.
00:21:35
But meanwhile, this is these are all lies obviously that Lois was not pregnant with David Caresh's child. Well, one of
00:21:45
the things that I thought was interesting when looking into this whole Waco situation is it seems like this is
00:21:54
the start of more radical ideas coming from David. And at this point, I don't I don't even believe that he's going by
00:22:03
David, right? I think he's still Vern. It's It seems like his initial teachings were positive, peace, love, a little
00:22:13
more hippity dippity, and then it starts changing into this end times uh prophecy. I'm the chosen one or I'm
00:22:23
supposed to uh give, you know, I'm supposed to u impregnate somebody so they have the chosen one. It seems like
00:22:30
these ideas start shifting a little bit. It's around this time that Lois Rhoden allowed David Caresh to begin teaching
00:22:41
his own message to the Dividians, the Branch Devidians. And his message at was called the serpent's root, which caused
00:22:51
controversy within the group. Lois's son, George Rhoden, was intended to be the group's next leader after Lois. But
00:23:02
as you can see, Caresh is doing one hell of a job to wedge himself in the middle
00:23:06
of the mother and son that were running the show so that he himself could jump rank and become the branch Devidian
00:23:15
leader. You're right, Captain. He's still going by Vern at this point or Vernon.
00:23:21
how it was in 1990 that he filed a petition with the state of California to legally change his name and you have to
00:23:31
give a reason for that and he stated that it was for publicity and business purposes and wanted to change his name
00:23:38
to David Caresh. His first name David symbolized a a direct connection to the biblical king David from whom a new
00:23:50
messiah would descend. Then we have Kesh which is a biblical name of s Cyrus the great a Persian king who is
00:24:02
named a messiah for freeing Jews during Babylonian captivity. So by taking the name David Caresh, he
00:24:10
is according to online reports professing himself to be the spiritual descendant of King David. And of course
00:24:19
David Caresh, David would make sense as well as this group is called is is known
00:24:29
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today. All right, we are back. Cheers, mates, to the windows, to the walls. Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you,
00:30:52
Captain. Body of Christ, cans in the air. Blood of Christ. Now, this is around the time that David
00:30:59
Caresh is going to say that he's going to get some more instructions directly from the lips of God. So, this is when
00:31:07
he announced to the group that God had instructed him to marry a God's just all up in his sex life. Woman named Rachel
00:31:16
Jones. And I I hesitated there because I I don't know I didn't list here in my notes how old she was her age at the
00:31:27
time of this announcement. But they do get married. Yeah, they do get married and she is
00:31:35
technically through the rest of our story and the rest of David Caresh's life she will be his legal wife. Now
00:31:47
remember George Rhoden, the son of Lois, who was going to take over control of the branch
00:31:54
devidians after his mother was no longer in power. We have George Rhoden and David Caresh. They're essentially at
00:32:01
this time battling for control of this sect. Now there's a large fire that did over $500,000 worth of damage to the
00:32:12
compound and the property. It's mysteriously a mysterious arson, let's say. And by somebody in the church.
00:32:22
Yeah. George Rhoden said that David Caresh started the fire. So, you can see where they're they're starting to try to
00:32:29
push and pull and get people get the majority to choose a side so that that person that individual could go on to
00:32:38
become the the new leader. So, George Rhoden says David Caresh started this fire. He's to blame for the fire. He did
00:32:44
all this damage to us. He doesn't love us. He doesn't love you. But Caresh in response to this says, "No man set that
00:32:54
fire." That was a judgment of God. It was an act of God. So George Rhoden had the support of
00:33:02
the majority of the group at this time and he decided to force Caresh and his small group of followers off of the
00:33:11
property. And they didn't do this peacefully. They did this at gunpoint. Caresh and his 25 followers were forced
00:33:20
off of Mount Carmel's compound and large property and they went and set up camp in Palestine, Texas, where they lived in
00:33:31
very rough conditions. Think about they're pretty much camping out long term. They're living in buses and tents
00:33:38
for the next two years. Lois Rhoden died in 1986. In 1987, George Rhoden exumed a
00:33:49
body from their from the group's community cemetery. Rhden said that he was just
00:33:56
moving the cemetery. That that does happen. And in fact, the the cemetery closest to my home was moved in the
00:34:05
1970s and it was almost 2,000 grave sites that were moved. What I would do is just buy a giant boom box, turn on
00:34:13
Thriller, and lead the dance parade to the new new location. Let them do the work for you. Yeah. And be entertained
00:34:23
in the process. That's brilliant. Work smarter, not harder. George Rhoden exumed this
00:34:31
body, or at least Caresh claims so. And Rhoden says, "No big deal. You know, I'm
00:34:37
in charge of the properties here. I'm I'm moving this grave site. I'm I'm I'm going to be moving the cemetery, the
00:34:43
entire cemetery. I don't know the size of this cemetery. I'm guessing it's rather small. David Caresh has got an
00:34:50
answer for this, too. So, he claims that no, George Rhoden is not moving the cemetery. George Rhoden had actually
00:34:58
issued a challenge to David Caresh and to and and to the followers who could resurrect the body, right? Who could
00:35:07
resurrect the body would then prove who the leader should be because that's the powerful one. That's
00:35:15
the one that is doing God's will. And so whoever resurrected the the body would become the new leader or this as David
00:35:25
Caresh is explaining and telling to the the the other followers. And Caresh even
00:35:30
takes this to the local authorities. He goes to the sheriff's office to file charges against George Rhoden for
00:35:38
illegally exuming a corpse. Yeah. The sheriff's like, "Hey, no problem. Just come back here. We need some proof,
00:35:46
right? We can't just go and arrest this guy and charge him with something. We need some evidence to back up your
00:35:51
claims that he committed this crime. So Caresh and a posi of about seven armed cares devidians went to the Mount Carmel
00:36:01
Center attempting to get a photograph of the body of the exumed body. But George
00:36:08
Rhoden wasn't dumb. He believed that Caresh would pull some [ __ ] So Rhoden now by himself gets the jump on
00:36:18
Caressian company and a gunfight breaks out. By the time the sheriff and the deputies respond to this gunfight,
00:36:27
George Rhoden had already suffered a gunshot wound and was pinned down behind a behind a tree. They had him
00:36:33
surrounded. He couldn't come out. As a result of this incident, David Caresh and his followers were charged with
00:36:39
attempted murder of George Rhoden. Now, at the trial, Caresh explained that he went to Mount Carmel to uncover evidence
00:36:47
of a of criminal disturbance of a corpse of a crime committed by this George Rhoden, the one he's accused of
00:36:56
attempting murder on, right? Caresh's followers were acquitted and the David Caresh portion
00:37:05
of the case and trial, it ends in a mistrial. So, a mistrial was declared. No real
00:37:13
outcome there. Nobody gets in trouble. In 1989, Rhoden, George Rhoden, murdered a
00:37:21
man named Wayman Dale Adair with an axe. This guy's a loser. This is after he says Adair stated his belief that he
00:37:30
himself was the true Messiah. Well, and think about how crazy this is. You have a very small group of people basically
00:37:40
worshiping and studying a small group of uh or a small section of Christianity, picking and
00:37:49
choosing what they preach. And within this group, you have all these individuals jockeying for position,
00:37:58
right? So, you have multiple male individuals basically claiming that they're the chosen one. Well, and I tell
00:38:08
you what, this portion of the story is so it's often not told. No. And what what
00:38:16
is what I'm taken aback by here is that you once you start factoring all these things in let's okay
00:38:25
so we have this this battle this infighting that's going on within these branch dividians and a lot of it had there
00:38:36
never been the Waco standoff and siege I don't know that anybody would know about
00:38:42
the all these going on here. No. And and it's kind of sad though, too, because they we we know this event
00:38:54
as Waco, Texas. Oh, remember Waco? This is poor Waco. This is outside of Waco. This is not in the city limits
00:39:06
of Waco, but they've been painted with this brush because they were kind of out there on their own. If
00:39:15
these Yahoos would have just killed each other off, we wouldn't have known any of this
00:39:21
story. They were awfully close to doing so on it appears would appear to be several occasions. But yeah, so you have
00:39:30
all this infighting. Now, let's compound that with all the guns, the gunfights, the digging up of a body, attempted
00:39:41
murder, the fighting for power, the attempted murder. This is like, and it's all happening in Texas. It's like the
00:39:50
wild west of church. John Wayne meets Jesus Christ superstar. So after George Rhoden
00:39:57
murdered this other man with an axe, this is after this man stated that he was the true messiah. George Rhoden's
00:40:05
defense was that the man was sent by David Caresh to kill him. So he was just simply defending himself. And that's a
00:40:13
good possibility. I mean, we have to remember Dave Caresh was on trial for attempted murder of Rhoden.
00:40:22
He gets off on a mistrial. Not much after that, a man that is now claiming to be the Messiah
00:40:29
himself is coming after you. It's plausible that Rhoden was telling the truth that this man this man
00:40:38
was sent to him by David Caresh. Very likely. It it would stand to reason because it goes along with a lot of this
00:40:45
the other items that we covered so far leading up to this portion of the timeline. Ultimately, George Rhoden was
00:40:53
deemed to be insane by the courts. So, he ends up being sent away to a psychiatric
00:41:01
hospital. And this will allow David Caresh and his group with a lot of the the the downward spiral of George
00:41:12
Rhoden, Rhoden was losing followers, right? And they were all starting to go to David Caresh who were living in tents
00:41:19
and buses outside of Waco, not even at Mount Carmel, but with George Rhoden gone. And Rhoden wasn't paying the taxes
00:41:30
on the property on the Mount Carmel property. Well, he probably didn't believe that he had to. Yeah. And I
00:41:35
don't know what type of income was being generated by Rhoden or his followers at
00:41:42
the time because regardless of of your beliefs, if you live here in this country anyway, and you own land, you're
00:41:49
going to have to pay taxes on that land, right? Eventually, what takes place, Caresh and his group, which is almost
00:41:56
everybody now by this point, plus Caresh has picked up some additional followers
00:42:01
in the meantime, they're able to pull together their funds and purchase the property, the Mount Carmel property,
00:42:08
because of all the the it defaulting on the taxes. I was thinking about this. I actually think this is actually a
00:42:16
important part of the story in the sense of we have this group that probably most
00:42:22
of the locals are not paying attention to. They know that they're there. They know that they have maybe some strange
00:42:29
religious beliefs or teachings, but you have this property that nobody's paying taxes on. So when they get rid of Roden
00:42:39
and they actually pay the taxes, you would think that the locals would be going, "Well, they paid their taxes,
00:42:45
they now own the land." And then on top of that, they find some, and I don't know if it was confirmed or not to be a
00:42:52
meth lab, but there's some people that were renting stuff off a rodent. And so then Dave Caresh goes to the authorities
00:43:00
and says, "Hey, there's this drug lab or meth lab. Can you have it removed?" So now, if you're the locals, you're
00:43:07
probably thinking, "Well, at least this religious compound is changing for the better." Well, yeah. And this this
00:43:16
ultimately, and this is something that's not really discussed or talked about, but the the local authorities had no
00:43:22
problem with David Caresh or his or the branch Devidians. And part of that was because George Rhoden was deemed to be
00:43:31
wrong, right? even though they're they're breaking laws and fighting each other, right? But ultimately he gets
00:43:38
sent away to the mental hospital. And so in the eyes of everybody in the community in in the county, uh Jefferson
00:43:47
County, they all believe, well, it was George Rhoden who was the crazy one and who was wrong and maybe even his mother
00:43:55
as well. So whatever problem they had with the branch devidians, the local authorities that the the slate gets
00:44:03
wiped clean when the rodents are no longer around. This act like you said of this meth lab. So these people that were
00:44:11
renting from from rodent when cares gets back there, they they stumble on this meth lab and they
00:44:18
do, as you said, report it to the local authorities that go in and shut it down and clean everything up. And this is
00:44:24
ultimately deemed to be an act of good faith by the branch devidians to the local authorities where now the local
00:44:31
authorities are going okay well clearly the rodents were the problem if there you know and so we we can get along with
00:44:39
and we don't mind these branch devidians being here. They are they're reporting things that are illegal. And that's kind
00:44:48
of how things were at the local level for quite some time now. That's going to start to
00:44:55
change because where we left off with the Caresh and his crew coming back to Mount Carmel, that's around 1989. And it
00:45:03
actually wasn't until the following year when Caresh changed his name from Vernon
00:45:09
How to David Caresh. Old Vern, you know what I mean? Vern. But we start to have some problems, right? So there's there's
00:45:18
some rumors going on and part of this is still some additional infighting. So there were there were branch devidians
00:45:25
that were no longer part of the group that that when Rhoden was removed uh and when the rodents went away that they
00:45:34
left the group and those persons were coming out and going to local authorities with complaints about David
00:45:40
Caresh specifically and saying that he's having sex with underage girls that are
00:45:46
members of the that church and that they are stockpiling weapons And there's truth in these
00:45:55
allegations. There's also there's also reason to kind of hit the brakes on some of these allegations
00:46:02
as well. It's again some of the there's truth in some of these allegations, but some of
00:46:09
these allegations are just purely come about because of bad blood where somebody who was no longer part of the
00:46:16
community, no longer part of the branch devidians decided they didn't like David
00:46:20
Caresh and they were going to go and tattle on him. And it's it gets very dicey to say what allegations were true
00:46:30
and what allegations were completely made up. But they were stockpiling weapons. But part of that
00:46:38
was their income that they were generating. Part of their income that they were generating is think of think
00:46:44
of like a a a guy that owns a comic shop or or a baseball card shop. They're buying guns and then hoping to sell them
00:46:55
later at an increased price to make a profit. Now, they do believe in end times, not only end times, they believe
00:47:02
that they're eminent, that they are closer, that they are close. And so, part of the stockpiling of weapons is to
00:47:10
stockpile weapons, but part of it too is to generate some form of income. Well, one of their main focuses as part of
00:47:17
their religious studies and beliefs and sermons, a lot of this was just based around the book of Revelations. And the
00:47:26
thing here though is it's Texas. You're allowed to own guns. But the claim is that they are
00:47:37
they are in possession of a bunch of illegal weapons. And then of course the claims
00:47:44
that he is sexually abusing the children or some of the children within this group of the branch dividians. Well, I I
00:47:52
also believe there's claims of physical abuse to some of the children as well. Correct. So this is going to morph
00:48:01
itself into what us the general population know to be of Waco. and and when we think of
00:48:11
Waco, what we remember and what we've heard and seen over the years, those are the that's a very
00:48:20
general telling of what led up to February 1993. So on Sunday, February 28th, 1993,
00:48:30
agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, they are going to attempt to
00:48:38
execute a an arrest and search warrants against David Caresh and the branch Devidian compound. The way this story
00:48:48
goes, Captain, is that this was supposed to be an easily executed warrant. The ATF wanted to see what they could find
00:48:57
within the walls of the compound, i.e. weapons, firearms. They also wanted to learn what was actually going on inside
00:49:05
those four walls. Was there any kind of abuse by David Caresh or any of the other adults in the group, right? They
00:49:14
wanted to video, they wanted video documentation of the intrusion for documentation purposes.
00:49:22
And then many suspect after the fact that they wanted to videotape this for the purpose of of sending out to the
00:49:31
media because keep in mind this is 1993. The ATF and the FBI, the US Marshalss just had the horrific standoff
00:49:41
the year prior at Ruby Ridge. And now we all know how that went down. So, a lot of people point to this and say this
00:49:49
February 28th execution of this arrest and search warrant was to be a way for them to clean that up, to clean up that
00:49:57
mess and say, "Look, no, this is what we do. This is this is how we are handling
00:50:03
things now. This is to save face a bit. And we're going to go in there. We're going to do it nice and clean. Nobody's
00:50:09
going to get hurt. We're going to uphold the law. We're going to find, detect, and see if there are any illegal
00:50:18
activities. And if there are, we are going to bring those persons to justice, and we're going to shut down this
00:50:24
operation quick and easy, nice and clean. The problem here, though, that we should point out, part of this is to for
00:50:32
them to go in and and detect potential signs of child abuse, sexual or physical abuse or what have
00:50:40
you. The ATF does a lot of things, but they they're not in charge of that. That's not those are not crimes that
00:50:46
they are to be investigating. They hold no jurisdiction over those type of crimes. So, it befuddles me how that
00:50:54
worked its way into the search warrant in the first place. A judge had to sign off on that. Well, they have an
00:51:01
undercover agent that's made their way into the group, so they're getting reports from him, but they absolutely
00:51:09
have jurisdiction and have power if in fact the branch devidians are housing per purchasing and selling
00:51:17
illegal weapons. But there's a couple other things that are happening here, too, cuz the ATF is in contact with some
00:51:26
ex members of David's clan, if you will. So they are warning against the idea that this serving and the search warrant
00:51:39
is going to go as easy as they believe because they're trying to explain to the ATF and other law enforcement that this
00:51:49
is kind of what David preaches about. you might just uh spark, you know, ignite things into motion that we don't
00:51:58
even know are prophecies that are in David's head. And that's exactly right. They
00:52:06
again this is a group that that believes in the teachings of end times of the apocalypse and that they will ultimately
00:52:18
everybody will then be judged and some people will go to heaven in the arms of the Lord and the the the truly wrong
00:52:27
people who is as this group would believe is the majority of mankind. mind would go elsewhere,
00:52:37
would go would go to hell. In fact, I believe that that part of their belief system is they're a I don't know if they
00:52:44
refer to it as purgatory. I know the Catholics do, but they are a big believer in purgatory or a place similar
00:52:51
to purgatory where you go and even even after you have passed, after you have died, you would go there and and wait
00:53:02
until the actual end times come and judgment comes for all before you can ascend to heaven or descend to hell. And
00:53:12
so, you're exactly right, Captain. That is what the authorities need to be informed of and be concerned of because
00:53:20
they're taught that the end times are near and they may very likely come in they could come in any form or fashion
00:53:27
truly. But there's a possibility that one of those forms that could lead to the to the apocalypse w could be your
00:53:38
own government. your own government coming after you for your religious [Music] beliefs. So much more to get to on the
00:53:55
Siege at Waco. Check out true crimegar.com. Go to the store page. We got a promo code Easter25 for 25% off.
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Join us back here in the garage. And until then, be good, be kind, and don't witter.
00:54:20
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