Can we rely on David Thibodeau's account of the events of April 19, 1993? Please read the
following and come to your own conclusions.
I see two major problems with Mr. Thibodeau's account(s): (a) important elements in his accounts
keep changing, and (b) none of the accounts are credible.
Some history: By the summer of 1995, the news of how the mothers an children died in the
Mt. Carmel center had made the rounds in the Waco protest movement: The moms and kids had hidden
from the CS in an old concrete records storage room that was being used as a pantry in 1993.
Instead of protecting the moms and kids, the concrete room became their tomb.
The story worried me from the beginning. Mothers are practical people. When the air
is poisoned, the practical solution is to get away from it. But the concrete room was a
catch basin for poisoned air. It was windowless. It had a doorway, but no door.
Poisoned air entering the room from the doorway would have nowhere to escape. Why would the
moms take their babies to a catch basin to escape the CS?
I wanted to know more. So in July, 1995 I interviewed David Thibodeau on the telephone.
I asked David T. whether he had seen the mothers and children on April 19. First he said
no. Then I asked who told the mothers and children to go to the concrete room. He said
he did not know. However, he confirmed that the mothers had gas masks and the children had no
gas masks, so to protect the children, the mothers had buckets of water and cloths and with them;
the mothers dunked the cloths into the buckets of water and covered the children's faces with wet
cloths.
But how could David Thibodeau know what was happening in the concrete room if he had not seen the
mothers and kids that day? I asked him.
Now he said that one of the mothers came out of the concrete room and told him what they were
doing. I asked which mother came out: He said he did not remember which mother.
It is curious. First David Thibodeau had not seen any of the mothers, then he had, but
couldn't remember which. How likely is it that? There were a limited number of
mothers--friends and co-religionists with whom he had lived for years.
One of the mothers inside that room was Michelle Jones, David Koresh's sister-in-law, the woman
David Thibodeau says was his wife. With Michelle were her three children--two-year-old twin
girls and five-year-old Serenity Sea Jones. Since he remembered the incident, and given his
personal interest, we might expect that David would remember which mother had spoken to him.
And what of the buckets and gas masks that David Thibodeau said the mothers were using? The
Texas Ranger in charge of the collecting evidence in the concrete room, Sgt. Raymond Coffman, did
not report finding any buckets or gas masks when he testified at the 1994 San Antonio trial of the
Branch Davidians. Nor do the Autopsy Reports indicate any buckets or gas masks were found in
the concrete room near the bodies, and they do not mention any traces of gas masks on or near the
bodies. (See
Beware of the Causes of Death.)
"I knew that my friends were dying and I only hoped the kids were safe in the
bus." Here is a diagram of the Mt. Carmel
Center. Note in particular the locations of the buried school bus and the concrete room
(called "cinder block" in this diagram). Very different places.
Now let's look at
the September 9, 1999
Salon story. These are David Thibodeau's words:
"It remains hard for me to clearly remember what happened after the tanks made their
move. Walls collapsed, the building shook, gas billowed in and the air was full of terrible sounds:
the hiss of gas, the shattering of windows, the bang of exploding rockets, the raw squeal of tank
tracks.
"There were screams of children and the gasps and sobs of those who could not protect
themselves from the noxious CS."
But remember that according to David Thibodeau's earlier statements, the children were in the
concrete room (or the buried school bus). How could he hear their screams and gasps and sobs
since he was not there?
Neither the concrete room nor the buried school bus would pass sounds from the inside, such as
"screams" and "gasps" and "sobs," to the outside, particularly over the noise of
"… the hiss of gas, the shattering of windows, the bang of exploding rockets,
the raw squeal of tank tracks."
Says David Thibodeau:
"This continued for hours."
Let us look at what we are being asked to believe. That on April 19, the day of the CS and
tank attack, the Branch Davidian mothers and children were herded into a catch-basin for noxious
air, and abandoned to their own devices.
Despite hearing their screams and gasps, the men, including David Thibodeau, whose own wife and
step-children were there, never checked in on them, even though their agony went on "for
hours." And apparently, to David T.'s knowledge, none of the other Davidian men checked on the
mothers and children either.
And we are asked to assume that inside the concrete room the moms (who had gas masks) were
holding onto the children (who didn't have gas masks), covering the kids' faces with wet cloths
while the kids spluttered and gagged and writhed in their death throes, but the mothers' nerves
never snapped. The moms didn't dream of getting up and running out of the gas chamber with
their babies.
The story is not credible. In order to believe that story, we would have to believe the
Davidians — both the menfolk and the mothers — were callous, monstrous people, and I see
no reason to believe that.
David Thibodeau again:
"Inside Mount Carmel, the notion of leaving seemed insane; with tanks smashing
through your walls and rockets smashing through the windows, our very human reaction was not to walk
out but to find a safe corner and pray."
Well, all right. If the concrete room was so safe, why wasn't David T. there too?
"As the tanks rolled in and began smashing holes in the building and spraying gas into
the building, the FBI loudspeaker blared, 'This is not an assault! This is not an assault!
"Around noon I heard someone yell, 'Fire!' I thought first of the women and children, whom I
had been separated from."
David Thibodeau became "separated" from the mothers and children? That implies he was with
them at one point that morning, but he told me he had not seen them (except for the one mother whose
identity he couldn't remember). On the other hand, David T. did not tell the Jerusalem Post
about being "separated" from the mothers and kids--he just thought they were in the buried bus.
David Thibodeau escaped the CS and the fire, and did so very well. Neither he nor any other
of the "fire survivors" needed treatment for smoke or CS inhalation, yet all the moms and
kids died.
I remember the Branch Davidian men as protective of the women and children.
Recall Wayne Martin's words during his 911 call on February 28, 1993: "We
have women and children in here. Tell them to call it off!"
Or David Koresh's words at the front door on that same day: "Now hold
on! We have women and children in here!"
But we are asked to believe that on April 19, the Branch Davidian character
suddenly changed, that the Davidian men became utterly indifferent to the
fate of the women and children and ran like cur dogs to protect their own
hide …
After a catastrophic event in which family members and loved ones die,
survivors are often tortured by regrets and remorse. They often ask
questions based on both intelligence and emotion, questions like:
"What could I have done differently?" or "Why didn't I check in on them?" or "Why didn't I keep them with me?" and "Why did they die, and why did
I live?"
But six and one half years after the event, not one of the fire survivors
has publicly made such an utterance and re-examined a most callous and
uncaring action: sending the moms and kids to a dead air cul-de-sac
on the day of the CS attack, never once checking on them, running out of
the burning building themselves … and letting the mothers and children
die.
The Autopsy reports present even further problems with David Thibodeau's
account(s). Surely the Davidian survivors, their families, and their
lawyers have looked at the Autopsy Reports, yet they never have raised
one question about the anomalies in those reports.
For example, whose child was Mt.
Carmel Doe 51A? The skull of this two year old was found in the
concrete room, but it has not been identified. Is it likely that
one of the Davidian mothers had a two year old, and no one noticed?
Hardly.
What about Doe 65 (remains
of a two-to-four year old), Doe
31DE (remains of a 11-14 year old) ,and Doe
59 (remains of 14-19 year old Caucasian girl.) If these were
Davidians, why have they not been identified?
And if those people were not Davidians, who were they, and how did their
bodies come to rest in the concrete room?
And why are the Davidian survivors, their families, and their lawyers
not talking about the bodies that are entirely MISSING? Where on
earth could those bodies be?
For more information, see Identification
of the Remains.
And why have there been no comments or questions from Davidian survivors,
their families, or their lawyers about the mutilation, beheading, and selective
incineration of bodies in the concrete room? (See Dismemberment
and Agglutination and Incineration.)
Look at the quadruply amputated and beheaded body of John McBean, Doe
32.
or the sawn off arm of Mary Jean Borst, Doe
45.
In Western culture, defilement of human remains is one of the most heinous
acts one can perform. This is particularly true if you are a Christian
and believe the body is the vessel of the soul, to be resurrected on the
Last Day and rejoined with the soul to live in Everlasting Glory with God.
But not one of the survivors talks about this defilement. Instead,
we hear about how the FBI agents pulled their pants down and mooned the
Davidians while they were driving the tanks around …
Surely even the most ardent atheist deplores the defilement of human
remains. But the Branch Davidians are quiet.
Yes, there is something very wrong with the survivors' accounts of what
happened on April 19, 1993, and their reactions to those events.
Without the survivors's stories, our attention would be focused on the
evidence, and the evidence SCREAMS that the mothers and children were murdered
with malice aforethought. The evidence SHOUTS that their bodies were
laundered--mutilated, decapitated, blown apart, and selectively burned--to
disguise the time, cause, circumstances, and even the identities of the
dead.
But the survivors stories divert or attention from the evidence.
We are so horrified by events that as decent, caring people, we can only
offer solace. We would never dream of questioning their word.
We never notice the survivors' stories and the government's story are one
and the same: The US was only trying to get the Davidians to come out that
day, when, ooops!, the mothers and children got dead.
Without the survivors' stories, no one would believe the government's
tale. The unbelievable stories of the Waco "fire survivors" are essential
elements in the cover-up the Waco Holocaust.
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