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04/23/93
Pathologist says no bullet wounds found on cultists
By George Kuempel and Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News
WACO-Contradicting statements by federal authorities in Washington, the pathologist in charge at the Branch Davidian compound said Thursday that none of the dead cult members found so far appears to have been shot.
"There is absolutely no evidence of that as far as we are concerned at this stage,' said Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani.
He cautioned, however, that he won't know for sure about possible bullet wounds until the bodies have been X-rayed and autopsies completed. He said it will be several days before all bodies are removed from the compound, where cult leader David Koresh and 85 of his followers are presumed to have died in Monday's raging fire. Department of Public Safety spokesman Mike Cox said 46 bodies had been pulled from the rubble by Thursday evening. No remains were identified as those of Mr. Koresh.
Several bodies appeared to be those of children, said Dr. Peerwani.
At least 17 children under age 12 are believed to have been in the compound when it burned.
Most of the those killed were burned beyond ready recognition. Dr.
Rodney Crowe, a dentist working with Dr. Peerwani, pleaded for dentists who have worked on cult members to get in touch with medical examiners so that dental records can be used in making identifications.
On Wednesday, U.S. Justice Department spokesman Carl Stern said in Washington that at least three of the dead cult members appeared to have been shot-suggesting they killed themselves or were executed by other cult members before the compound went up in flames. In light of those reports, Dr. Peerwani said, he re-examined the bodies for gunshot wounds and found none.
Mr. Stern on Thursday stood by his statement, saying that Dr.
Peerwani's investigation has barely begun.
Also, some Texas Rangers have apparently become rankled that faraway bureaucrats were making statements-which they believe to be inaccurate-about the investigation they're conducting in Waco. The Rangers were called in to oversee removal of the bodies and preservation of all evidence amid the ruins of the compound.
Gov. Ann Richards called U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno on Wednesday in what the governor's press secretary, Bill Cryer, said was an effort to preserve harmony among all agencies involved in the Branch Davidian case.
"Her call was made to make sure we don't have any conflicts,' Mr.
Cryer said.
Conflicts surfacing
But conflicts-between the state and the feds and between various federal agencies-appeared to be surfacing nonetheless.
Some officials of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms expressed frustration at their limited role in the inquiry. ATF bomb technicians were allowed onto the grounds to search for ammunition and other explosives, but the agency's arson experts are being excluded from the investigation. It was the ATF's failed raid on Feb. 28 that precipitated the siege.
"We know that we have the particular expertise that's necessary on that scene,' one senior ATF official said.
Many in the ATF are irked as well that the U.S. attorney's office is barring the agency from public comment-while the FBI has been permitted to mount an aggressive publicity campaign. The FBI agents who were in command in Waco-and who became familiar to television viewers worldlwide-have granted numerous interviews this week in which they've defended their actions.
The assistant U.S. attorneys overseeing prosecution of Branch Davidian survivors could not be reached for comment.
In other developments:
*U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, a Democrat from Waco, released an affadavit in which former Branch Davidian Marc Breault described how Mr. Koresh "became power hungry and abusive, bent on obtaining and exercising absolute power and authority over the group.' In March 1992 Mr. Edwards received the affadavit, which set in motion various investigations of the cult. The congressman had said he would release it publicly when the standoff ended.
Mr. Breault said Mr. Koresh beat his young son for refusing to say he loved him and forced the sect's women to perform military-style drills under the summmer sun without drinking any water.
He said Mr. Koresh boasted to him of having sex with girls 12 and 13 years old; and that one girl was forced to watch another adolescent give birth to a baby fathered by Mr. Koresh.
Mr. Breault said many of Mr. Koresh's marathon Bible lessons, at which children were present, included lurid descriptions of sexual practices and even discussion of his "wives' ' anatomies.
Poisoning suspected
*McLennan County Sheriff Jack Harwell said he suspects some in the compound may have died of poisoning.
"They had the ability to inject poison, and they had poison,' said the sheriff, who, as part of the negotiations, met face-to-face with cult members during the siege.
He said one woman released earlier from the compound told investigators that she thought about poisoning herself on March 2, the first date on which Mr. Koresh promised to surrender. Authorities say they've since learned that his plan, later abandoned, was to come out and blow himself up with grenades.
The woman, whom the sheriff would not identify, said others had agreed to follow their leader's example. "Some of them were going to blow themselves up, and some were going to commit suicide with guns,' he said. "She couldn't shoot herself, but she was going to inject herself.'
*Ms. Reno told a Senate subcommittee Thursday that she hoped federal agents could find "non-lethal means to resolve future confrontations such as the one in Waco.'
*Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen told a House subcommittee that a White House investigation of the events in Waco, ordered this week by President Clinton, will get under way soon and be conducted by an outside group.
*In a hearing before a separate House subcommittee, top ATF officials were sharply criticized for their handling of the initial raid.
Ammunition found
Monday's blaze, which the FBI says was deliberately set from within, erupted after agents punched holes in the building with armored vehicles and began pumping in an irritant gas in an attempt to flush the cult members out. Officials said huge caches of live ammunition, grenades and other explosives have been found in the smoldering rubble.
Roughly 1 million unspent cartridges have been found in a cinder block "bunker,' about the only part of the compound still standing.
"It's about up to your thigh when you're in there,' Chuck McDonald, a spokesman for the governor, said of the ammunition cache.
Nine charred bodies have been found atop the structure, along with mounted rifles, Mr. McDonald said.
At least one of those was an M-60 machine gun, a weapon that no cult member had a permit to possess, said one law enforcement official. Cult supporters have said that while the compound was heavily stocked with arms, they were all legally obtained.
Dr. Peerwani, dressed in combat fatigues, told a small group of reporters taken near the scene that the bodies of some small children may have been incinerated.
All the remains found so far, he said, "have suffered tremendous heat damage' and must be handled carefully because "they are very soft and crumbling.'
Also on Thursday, The Associated Press reported, based on interviews with attorneys who've spoken to six of the nine surivivors of the blaze, that those survivors said the fire was caused by the FBI tank's knocking over lanterns and a barrel of propane. The FBI has been emphatic that cult members torched their own compound.
According to that information, AP reported, Mr. Koresh spent his final hours in the compound pacing among his followers, making sure the women and children were secure and double-checking that everyone had gas masks on.
Once the FBI started pumping in gas, cult members strapped on their masks and tried to go about their routines. The women had laundry to finish. Some people went to their rooms and read their Bibles. The children remained on the second floor, by their mothers' sides, according to the report.
It was impossible to ignore what was happening. The rickety buildings rattled violently with each ram of the tank.
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