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04/20/93
Cult members' families seek answers to tragedy; `I just can't comprehend it,' relative says
By Victoria Loe / The Dallas Morning News
Monday's horror was only the end of years of pain for families of some Branch Davidians.
As they waited to learn whether their relatives survived the inferno that consumed the sect's compound, they wondered again at the incomprehensible force that had wrested their loved ones from them.
"I just don't know what this David Koresh has done to this group of people,' said Gail Magee, whose sister, Lorraine Sylvia, and Ms. Sylvia's 13- and 2-year-old daughters were inside the compound.
"To think that they could stay in a burning building with children I just can't comprehend it.'
Mr. Koresh's mother, Bonnie Haldeman of Chandler, Texas, remained unwilling Monday night to give up hope that some of those missing in the rubble might yet be alive.
"Today's events have been most disturbing to everyone in our family,' she said in a prepared statement read by a man who identified himself only as a family friend. "We are very concerned about our son, daughter-in-law, three grandchildren and everybody in the compound.
"There are many questions which have not been answered, and we are praying that in the coming hours, we might see more people emerge safely,' Mrs. Haldeman said.
Mr. Koresh's grandmother, Jean Holub of Houston, rejected allegations that sect members started the fire. "No, no way,' she told The Associated Press. "He wouldn't do that to those children.'
But Ms. Magee, who lives in Massachusetts, blamed Mr. Koresh. "I think the FBI waited as long as they possibly could,' she said.
"I don't think David Koresh would ever have come out. He's just a liar.'
Neither her family nor any others who could be reached for comment had been notified that their relatives were dead. However, their names were not among the survivors listed Monday afternoon at an FBI news briefing.
"We're in a waiting game,' Ms. Magee said. "I hate it.'
For a few others, the waiting was over. After 51 days, Balenda
Ganem did what most mothers take for granted. She spoke on the telephone to her son David Thibodeaux, one of a handful of cult members who escaped the burning compound.
It didn't matter to Ms. Ganem that her son was in police custody Monday afternoon nor that the phone call was cut short by authorities. What mattered to her was that she finally got the opportunity to do what she set out to do since she first arrived in Waco from Maine weeks ago.
"He didn't say anything that you would understand,' she told reporters gathered outside her hotel. "We re-established our relationship with each other. I had not spoken directly with him for seven or eight weeks, and now he knows I am here.' Ms. Ganem was thankful her son escaped the compound inferno but saddened over losing her daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.
"I will probably not be able to spend a waking moment of my life without thinking of my son's wife' and the grandchildren, she said, fighting back tears. "I am angry with David Koresh and with authorities for not allowing family involvement from the beginning.
"We wanted our tapes and letters to be broadcast rather than the screaming animals and music they (authorities) played. We felt what they needed was real family contact. We feel we did not get the opportunity to know if our influence might have had a more positive outcome. Now, we will never know.'
Molly Sonobe of Hawaii, whose son, Scott, and daughter-in-law, Floracita, were inside the compound, was philosophical as she waited.
"He deserved it,' she said of her son, who, she said, had ignored repeated pleas to leave the sect. "The boy wouldn't listen,' she said. "He was brainwashed.'
She and her husband were content to gain temporary custody of their
two grandchildren, she said. The children were at school Monday. Mrs. Sonobe said she plans to tell them nothing until she receives official word of their parents' fate.
Ms. Magee said her family, too, had tried to get her sister to leave the Branch Davidians.
"The more we tried to get her out of it, the more she tried to get us into it,' she said.
She said the sect's apocalyptic teachings gave the family "this awful, doomsday feeling,' but "you dismiss those things as kind of crackpot.
"We never thought it was ever, ever going to end like this,' she said.
Ms. Magee said her sister joined the Branch Davidians before Mr.
Koresh took control of the sect. When he did, she said, Ms. Sylvia became increasingly remote, returning all her family photos.
The greatest tragedy, Ms. Magee said, is that most sect members were seeking only to lead a godly life.
"They're so sincere,' she said. "David Koresh made a mockery of everything the people believed in. That's what hurts so much.'
For now, she said, her family's most pressing concern is getting custody of her sister's son, who was released from the compound and is in the care of child-welfare workers in Waco.
"My first concern right now is to get that little boy here,' she said. "That's the only thing that's been keeping us going.'
Ms. Ganem, Mr. Thibodeaux's mother, described cult members as "extremely innocent people' who got caught up in Mr. Koresh's rhetoric -- themselves "completely misunderstood' victims.
"He took control of these people's lives and put them in this situation,' she said. "My son is very strong in his faith. He is very determined to bear what he needs to bear. He's got a long way to go to clear some of the debris from his mind.'
Staff writers Nora Lopez and Todd J. Gillman in Waco contributed to this report.
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