The tear gas canister that may have started the fire that killed 76 at Waco
The armored vehicles punched into the Branch Davidian compound on April 19, 1993, and pushed tear gas inside.
A fire broke out during that operation.
Seventy-six people died inside, including David Koresh and more than twenty children.
The tear gas went in by machine.
The question of what started the fire did not.
Online, a theory circulates that the FBI's tear gas canisters ignited the blaze.
It is a theory.
It is not a fact established by the record.
No official finding has settled what caused the fire that day.
The government argued the Davidians set it deliberately.
Defense attorneys argued the FBI's actions caused it.
Two stories of the same fire.
One canister, one assault, one outcome — but no documented answer to the question at the center.
The federal reviews examined the fire's origin.
The 1994 trial of the surviving Davidians heard forensic analysis of where the fire began.
Prosecutors argued one version.
The defense argued another.
The jury acquitted all defendants of the most serious charges, including murder and conspiracy.
No charges were ever filed against federal officials for the deaths at the compound.
That leaves the question open.
What started the fire?
Was it a spark from the tear gas?
Was it a match inside?
That would require evidence the record does not provide.
The canister is there.
The fire is there.
The deaths are there.
The cause is not.
THE RAID AND THE 51-DAY STANDOFF
The warrants were for David Koresh.
The raid was meant to arrest him on federal firearms charges and to search the Mount Carmel Center ranch for illegal weapons.
The Branch Davidians lived there, near Waco, Texas.
The initial investigation centered on allegations that Koresh and his followers were stockpiling illegal firearms, including converted semi-automatic weapons.
The ATF obtained its warrant based on undercover work and informant testimony.
That was the evidence investigators had.
On February 28, 1993, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempted to execute the warrants.
A gun battle erupted.
Four ATF agents died.
Six Branch Davidians died.
The raid failed.
The FBI took over the operation.
The standoff lasted 51 days.
The FBI used psychological pressure tactics and negotiations.
What those tactics were, in detail, is not in the record.
The negotiations themselves are not in the record beyond that general description.
The FBI assumed control.
The tension built.
The stakes were the people inside.
The deaths were already four agents and six Branch Davidians.
The fire was not yet there.
The cause was not yet there.
The assault was coming.
APRIL 19: THE ASSAULT AND THE FIRE
The armored vehicles pushed into the compound on the morning of April 19, 1993.
They inserted tear gas through the walls, according to the investigation and evidence.
A fire broke out during the operation.
It was not a small fire.
It consumed the building while the assault was still underway.
Seventy-six people inside the compound died, including Koresh and more than 20 children.
The siege ended in the deaths of a total of 82 Branch Davidians and four federal agents.
The exact cause of the fire is not established in the record.
The government argued the Davidians set it deliberately.
The defense attorneys argued the FBI's actions caused it.
Two separate reviews followed, one by the Treasury Department and one by the Justice Department.
They examined the assault.
They examined the fire's origin.
They examined the tear gas insertion.
They did not settle the question.
The forensic analysis of the fire's origin became evidence at the 1994 trial of the surviving Davidians.
Survivors testified about what they saw in the final hours.
Ballistics evidence from the initial gunfight was also presented.
The jury heard the competing stories of the same fire.
It acquitted all defendants of the most serious charges, including murder and conspiracy.
Five were convicted only of voluntary manslaughter.
The verdicts read as a rebuke of the government's handling of the siege.
No charges were ever filed against federal officials for the deaths.
The fire remains what the record leaves open.
It is the central fact.
It is also the central question.
TWO STORIES OF THE SAME FIRE
The government argued the fire was deliberately set by the Davidians.
Defense attorneys argued the FBI's actions caused it.
Two stories of the same fire, each resting on the same scattered evidence.
The trial in 1994 put those stories before a jury in federal court in San Antonio.
Eleven surviving Branch Davidians were charged with conspiracy to murder federal agents and voluntary manslaughter.
U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston led the prosecution.
The evidence came in three parts: testimony from survivors, forensic analysis of the fire's origin, and ballistics evidence from the initial gunfight on February 28.
The survivors took the stand.
Ruth Riddle testified.
Clive Doyle testified.
The forensic analysts described where the fire began and how it spread.
The ballistics evidence reconstructed the first gunfight, the one that left four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians dead.
The jury heard it all.
They acquitted every defendant of the conspiracy and murder charges.
Five were convicted of voluntary manslaughter, with sentences ranging from 5 to 40 years.
The verdicts were widely read as a rebuke of the government's handling of the siege.
But the verdicts did not settle the fire's cause.
The forensic analysis did not definitively establish who started it.
That question remains unresolved in the record.
The government's story survived the trial.
The defense's story survived it too.
The jury chose lesser convictions, not a conclusion about the flame.
Who lit the fire?
Who let it burn?
Who was responsible?
That would require evidence the record does not contain.
AND THE STORY STILL ISN'T OVER
No charges were ever filed against federal officials for the deaths at the compound.
The 1994 trial produced convictions, but not the ones the government sought.
The jury acquitted all eleven surviving Branch Davidians of conspiracy and murder.
Five were convicted of voluntary manslaughter, receiving sentences from 5 to 40 years.
The verdicts read as a rebuke, and the record shows it.
The surviving Branch Davidians served their sentences.
They were released by 2007.
The Mount Carmel Center site remains a memorial, a place of pilgrimage for some.
The siege is still argued over in hearings, books, and documentaries.
The FBI's use of force and the tear gas assault have been criticized by many, including survivors' families.
The case changed federal law enforcement tactics.
It changed how the public reads a government operation.
The question of the fire's origin remains open.
There is no pending hearing in the record.
There is no motion.
The story continues in public debate, not in court.
That is where the evidence stops.
The government argued the Davidians set the fire.
Defense attorneys argued the FBI's actions caused it.
The forensic analysis of the fire's origin was presented at trial.
It did not settle the matter.
No official finding has closed it.
Families still ask who let it burn.
Who was responsible?
That would require evidence the record does not contain.
The canister, the fire, the 76 dead.
The record holds the assault, the tear gas, the deaths.
It does not hold the answer.
Advertisement
You may also like
The cotton gin fan tied to Emmett Till's neck — and the evidence that didn't convict
The Tallahatchie River gave up its weight on August 31, 1955. Emmett Till's body surfaced with a cotton gin fan tied to his neck…
A Splash in the Chattahoochee — the Fiber Evidence That Tied Wayne Williams to Two Murders
The bridge over the Chattahoochee was quiet that night in May 1981. Police had staked it out after a tip, waiting on the dark…
The slumber party interrupted: Polly Klaas's last night before the intruder came
The party was a sleepover. Three girls, twelve years old, in the bedroom of a house in Petaluma, California. It was October 1, 1993.…
The .40-caliber pistol traced to New Jersey that linked Andrew Cunanan to Versace's killing
A .40-caliber pistol ended Gianni Versace’s life on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion. That same pistol had been stolen from a prior…
The modified Caprice trunk that hid a shooter from sight during the 2002 sniper attacks
The trunk of a white Chevrolet Caprice opened like a door to nothing. A shooter could lie flat inside, fire through a hole, and…
The door handle that caught a serial killer: inside the DNA hunt
The door handle was on a car parked outside a house in Citrus Heights, California. In 2018, investigators obtained a discarded sample of DNA…