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05/05/93
Agents tell of weary job at cult site; sifting ruins difficult
By Tracy Everbach / The Dallas Morning News
Insects swarmed around rotten cans of food. The stench of decaying bodies wafted through the stagnant, 80-degree air. But in the piles of ashes and soot were possible clues to the Branch Davidian disaster.
Last week, a team of 12 FBI agents from Dallas combed the charred remains of the Mount Carmel compound outside Waco. They were searching for evidence that could help determine what happened during the 51 days that David Koresh and his followers barricaded themselves inside.
The agents' mission: to sift inch by inch through the rubble under a hot sun and in squalid conditions. It was not a choice assignment.
"We were the manual labor,' said Special Agent Bill Eubanks, who heads the Dallas FBI's Evidence Response Team, trained to search crime scenes and collect physical evidence for use in investigations and prosecutions.
At the direction of Texas Rangers, the Dallas FBI team and evidence teams from other Texas FBI offices worked four 12-hour days on the grounds of the compound, now more like an archaeological site. The debris is marked with grids and multicolored flags to signify locations where bodies and bullets had been found. The agents, along with Texas Department of Public Safety officers, heaved shovelful after shovelful of ashes through large sieves, meticulously searching.
The monotonous work was complicated by filth, broiling sun and foul smells. The agents were outfitted in rubber gloves, goggles, boot covers and other protective clothing.
"You had the problem of a fire scene; a fire scene stinks anyway,' Agent Eubanks said. "There was a lot of canned food and stuff that was rotten and burned, and it stank.'
The decaying bodies only made matters more onerous. "It's not a pleasant smell,' he said.
Each day the agents plucked heaps of cooked-off ammunition, weapons parts and explosives out of the rubble. They loaded them into boxes and buckets, labeling and documenting them. Then they carted off the leftover refuse. The evidence was shipped to the FBI laboratory in Washington, which has the most advanced forensic equipment in the nation.
By the end of each day, which began about 7:30 a.m. and ended at the same hour p.m., the agents "were covered with dirt and soot, completely exhausted,' Agent Eubanks recalled.
"And very desiresome of beer.'
During their stay in Waco, members of the team also examined about
a dozen vehicles that had been parked outside the compound, including Mr. Koresh's prized Chevrolet Camaro. The other vehicles-including vans, a red Chevrolet El Camino, a Chevrolet Blazer and several Japanese-made cars-had been riddled with bullet holes from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' raid Feb. 28.
"Some of the rounds went all the way through the vehicles, through seats and steel doors,' Agent Eubanks said. "We're talking some high-powered rounds.'
Investigators pulled bullets out of the cars, measured and tracked their paths and processed fingerprints, all to be sent to the FBI laboratory. Agent Eubanks said that based on the examinations of bullet trajectories, most of the shots in the cars appeared to have been fired from inside the compound.
The evidence team's exhaustive and exhausting work could pay off in the long run, to be used in trials or to to reconstruct and historically record what happened, Agent Eubanks noted.
In the meantime, the team is gearing up for its next assignment- wherever it may be. Members are on call around the clock and are expected to respond at a moment's notice.
"It's likely we'll never encounter a crime scene quite like this,' said Agent Eubanks.
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