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04/10/93
Cult releases victims' names; FBI voices doubt about truth of sect's information
By Victoria Loe / The Dallas Morning News
WACO-The Branch Davidians have given authorities the names of six members who died in the Feb. 28 shootout with federal agents, the FBI said Friday.
Special Agent Richard Schwein cast doubt on the accuracy of the information, saying caustically, "Just because he said it doesn't mean it's so.'
However, the report by Steve Schneider, a deputy to cult leader David Koresh, was the most direct to date on the death toll inside the sect's compound.
Agent Schwein declined to reveal the names, although he said the list does include Michael Schroeder and Peter Gent, two cult members previously identified as dead.
If Mr. Schneider's report is accurate, the death toll for the abortive Feb. 28 raid would stand at 10: six cult members and four agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Officials have not yet notified relatives of those reportedly killed because they don't know whether the news is true, Agent Schwein said.
He said the list includes five men and one woman. Mr. Schneider provided no ages or nationalities. He also told negotiators that none of the children in the compound had been injured, contradicting Mr. Koresh who earlier said that a child had died.
Outside the compound Friday afternoon, the tedious vigil for journalists and law enforcement officers alike was broken briefly by the appearance of billowing red smoke just outside the cult's buildings.
A federal official, who asked not to be identified, said the red smoke came from several smoke canisters set off by a cult member about 3:45 p.m. near a compound flagpole.
The smoke, which shrouded the compound for 15 or 20 seconds before being dispersed by wind, was set off after federal negotiators gave the cult permission to send one member outside to burn incense and candles around the grave of a cult member killed in the initial firefight.
"They had asked to do it as part of their Passover observance,' the official said. "I don't know what the significance of the smoke canisters was. I guess that was their incense. Maybe it's all they had. It was a surprise to us. No one expected smoke.'
Cult members also unfurled a sign late Friday listing several verses from Revelation and Psalms in the Bible, including a passage that seeks aid from God to help fight his enemies.
Earlier, bursts of hilarity punctuated the 25-minute media briefing. An air of suppressed hysteria seemed to have settled over the dozens of law officers and journalists held hostage for six weeks by Mr. Koresh's wiles.
Agent Schwein provoked giggles when he speculated that a cult member observed on the roof of the compound late Thursday had sneaked out for an illicit smoke.
He drew a big laugh when, discussing the Jewish tradition of eating only unleavened bread during Passover, he cracked, "I didn't know they were putting unleavened bread in MREs.' MREs are the pre-packaged military meals the cult is believed to be subsisting on.
A journalist brought down the house when he revealed that jailed cult member Brad Branch had said that the government wants to obtain samples of Mr. Koresh's DNA not so it can tie him to crimes but so it can clone a master race.
"Are they all that crazy?' the reporter asked incredulously.
All was not levity, however.
Agent Schwein said that Mr. Schneider "reiterated that neither he
nor Koresh ever agreed to leave the compound by Passover's end.'
The agent then took one of the hardest lines yet when he vowed that "we are going to get them out of there . . . to bring them before the bar of justice for the murder of our agents.'
"They're going to answer for their crimes,' he repeated a few moments later. "That's the bottom line to this whole thing, they're going to come out.'
As always, neither Agent Schwein nor ATF intelligence division chief David Troy would say when-or how-the government plans to dislodge Mr. Koresh from his lair.
But Agent Schwein issued a thinly veiled invitation to any cult member who might be contemplating a defection.
"Surely someone in there must realize that the end is coming, and it's in their self-interest to get out,' he said. "We hope they'll come to their senses.'
Friday, a federal official indicated that their efforts to prosecute any cult members will be directed out of the Justice Department's criminal division in Washington.
A six-lawyer federal prosecuting team has been assembled from the U.S. attorney's offices in Waco and in San Antonio, where the federal prosecutor's office is based for the Western District of Texas, a federal official said.
Supervision of the team has been assigned to the Justice Department because U.S. Attorney Ron Ederer will be leaving office to enter private practice within the next few weeks.
Mr. Ederer declined to comment Friday, referring questions to Washington.
In Waco, U.S. District Judge Walter Smith denied a motion that cultist Livingston Fagan be released. Mr. Fagan, 33, has been held as a material witness in the McLennan County Jail since he walked out of the compound March 23.
Judge Smith also said that Mr. Fagan would be allowed to visit his children, who left the group a few weeks earlier.
Ninety-six people, including 17 children, remain inside the cult compound.
Staff writer Lee Hancock contributed to this report.
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