The Ashes of Waco

Sarah Bain's Memo to the Senate Judiciary Committee

Sarah Bain was the jury foreman in the first Branch Davidian trial. Click the link below to read her memo to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A Juror's View

Here is the letter she wrote to District Court Judge Walter S. Smith, Jr., who presided over the trial:

Dear Judge Smith:

Following the "erroneous" action on Count Three [use of firearms in commission of a crime] by the jury in the trial of the eleven Branch Davidians, it is with some chagrin that I ask the Court to consider some of our discussions as the Court determines the sentencing for the defendants involved in Count Three and also Count Two.

Generally, I feel that it is necessary to address the jury's considerations in bringing guilty verdicts, and specifically, I feel it is necessary to address our deliberations on the involvement of certain defendants.

The jury asked the Court for clarification of what seemed to be a discrepancy in the use of "and" and "or" in Charge Three as it pertains to "using and carrying" versus "using or carrying firearms. . ." The Court advised that the Government would have proven its case if it proved beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant had "used or carried a firearm . . ." With those instructions we found seven of the defendants guilty.

At the time, the jury questioned among ourselves how sentencing could be carried out fairly since there surely must be a more serious penalty for "using" as opposed to "carrying" a firearm, and since we were not charged to identify which defendants, if any, should be found guilty of actually "using" the firearms. To each other, we voiced our desires that perhaps the simple act of "carrying" a firearm might serve to diminish the penalty associated with "using a firearm.

I now understand that the "sentencing guidelines" stipulate a penalty of from five to thirty years in prison. I am incredulous!

Since the crime that the "carrying/using" took place was that of aiding and abetting a voluntary manslaughter and not conspiracy to murder or aiding and abetting murder (all defendants were found not guilty of these charges), there surely must be a different set of sentencing guidelines that can be followed. After we had delivered our verdict to the Court and prior to its being presented to the public, we jurors discussed what most of us felt was the possibility that with the consideration of time already served by the defendants, none would be facing severe penalties. Even five years is to severe a penalty for what we believed to be a minor charge. All of us agreed that Kathryn Schroeder probably would be serving a lesser charge if she had remained a part of the case!

Specifically, I am most concerned with the sentences that are facing two defendants on Count Three and five defendants on Count Two (part two).

Regarding Count Three and the charges faced by Ruth Ottman Riddle and Graem Leonard Craddock:

Graem Craddock was found guilty of Count Three for only one reason: For Count Seven, it had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he had been in possession of a hand grenade. But further in Count Eight, it was proven that he was not guilty of conspiracy to posses such a device. However, since "carrying a firearm . . ." created a guilty verdict in Count Three, we felt we had no choice but to find him guilty in Count Three. We even discussed whether or not this was not a type of double jeopardy -- not of being tried twice for the same crime but of being punished twice for the same crime: possession of a hand grenade. Again, we felt we had no choice.

In the case of Ruth Ottman Riddle, we debated whether "carrying" was to be taken literally, as "moving around transporting a firearm"; or whether it was to be taken figuratively, as "being, even briefly, in possession of a firearm." We were in agreement that Ruth Riddle had, upon her request, retrieved a "long gun" (rifle? shotgun?) from under her bed and had passed it downstairs. It is unfathomable that for this act she is facing even five years, much less thirty years, in prison. Are there no other sentencing guidelines that can be brought to bear? If we had interpreted "carrying" literally, she would be totally free since there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that she even walked to the window of her room while in possession of a firearm!

For these two individuals I beg the Court's utmost leniency.

Further, on Count Two (part two): the five individuals found guilty: Brad Eugene Branch, Kevin A. Whitecliff, Jaime Castillo, Livingston Fagan, and Renos Avraam, were not found guilty of voluntary manslaughter but of aiding and abetting voluntary manslaughter. I implore the Court to recognize that the jury never believed these individuals themselves committed the crime of voluntary manslaughter. Further, we did believe, and the charge to the jury gave credence to the belief that aiding and abetting was "a lesser charge.''

For these five individuals, I beg the Court's utmost leniency.

Finally, regarding what was deemed an error on the part of the jury: finding certain defendants guilty on Count Three after having found all defendants not guilty of Count One [conspiracy to murder federal agents]: In our defense I submit that we determined that certain defendants did "use and (?) carry a firearm during and in relation to the commission of a crime of violence which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States." We further interpreted the following portion of that statement, "to wit: conspiracy to murder federal agents," to mean "for example, conspiracy to murder federal agents" -- with "conspiracy to murder" being but one example of a crime that could be prosecuted in a federal court. On that basis, we began our deliberations on Count Three. We certainly had no knowledge that the penalty for a guilty verdict would be tied to a conspiracy charge as alleged in Count One!

On a more personal note: I cannot explain the honor and responsibility I felt when I was chosen to serve on this jury. It was the most intense forty-eight days (my thoughts did not take a break on weekends and holidays!) of my life. If justice is served in the end, I and my fellow jurors did our duty. It is now in the Court's hands to assure that our intentions are not belied.

Sincerely, Sarah L. Bain Juror #16, Foreman Branch Davidian Trial

Failure Analysis and an Interview with Dick J. Reavis

At the end of last year, Joel visited Dick Reavis, the author of The Ashes of Waco, at his home in North Carolina. Together they recorded an interview that lasted for several hours. A complete transcript will be available when our website goes up, and we will post excerpts here from time to time. In this installment, Reavis describes how he met Branch Davidians after the siege and how he came to write the book:

DR: After it burned, you could walk on the site. I was there within a week afterwards. My wife and I walked around it.

JM: After the Texas Rangers had done their investigation?

DR: I say within a week. It seems to me it was. At some point, it was put off limits for sanitary reasons, but there was a gap.

JM: Cause people were taking souvenirs?

DR: Yeah, people were doing that. My wife and I walked the grounds. You have to understand, she is a South American. We were walking through all this charred stuff. I’m trying to think why I was down there. I think I know, but anyway. I said, “What do you think of this?” I didn’t know what to think of it. She said, “I never thought I would get a chance to see what your country did to the Indians.” And I thought, “What the heck is this? What do the Indians got to do with this?” And she said, “The Indians had a different religion. They had different marriage customs. And they had guns. So, you wiped them out.” And I thought, “Oh my gosh! Revelation to me.” And I’ll tell you why I was down there. After this place burned, I looked for two or three days for the stories that would tell me the other side of the story, and I didn’t see a one. Meaning, the press didn’t interview the people who came out of jail. And I thought, “That ain’t right.” And then I got a call. I’m pretty sure it was from Jim Pace at Soldier of Fortune, who told me that all of the people who had gotten out of jail and all of the other assorted Koresh followers who had never been put in, or whatever, and the children, were all in one hotel in Waco. He called and told me that. And I said, “Well Jesus, they’ve been wanting me to do a story about this and I’ve been refusing cause I couldn’t get the other side.” Well I went to my editor and I said, “Let me check into that hotel for a week.” And it was probably at the end of that week that I brought my wife to Mt. Carmel.  I went down there for a week or so… a week or ten days.  Checked into the hotel.  It was pretty obvious who the Koresh followers were.  I’d seen some of them on TV as they were arrested.  And they wouldn’t talk to me.  And I said what am I going to do -- this happens to reporters.  And I said:  I’m gonna sit here in the lobby and see what I can learn.  Sitting in the lobby, I heard one of them, Ruth Riddle, call her insurance company to file a claim on her car and they said, “What happened to your car?” Tanks ran over it. “Do you have a title?” No. It burned up in the fire. And I saw they didn’t have cars anymore. That’s why she was making the call. Taxis were showing up. Well, I had a car. I said, “If I just sit here in this lobby long enough, somebody’s gonna need a ride. And on the second or third day, somebody did. And the next thing you know, I was taxi service for the survivors. I didn’t charge them nothing. And while I drove them places, I asked them questions. They couldn’t refuse. Three or four days of that, and I had made friends with them.

JM: Did you tell them you were a reporter?

DR: Oh yeah. I told them I was a reporter. When I say they’re not talking, they might have talked to me if I had said I’m a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church at Podunk, Texas. But I told them up front I was a reporter. So they wouldn’t talk to me until they needed a ride. So that’s how I began to get into the story, was a taxi guy to them. Little by little, they’d start inviting me to lunch and stuff. There was a restaurant where they all went, cause they could eat cheap. One day at the restaurant, I said, “Look, ya’ll have seen me smoking and stuff and nobody yet has asked me when I’m gonna accept Jesus as my lord and savior. What kind of religious group are you?” And they said, “We don’t do those kind of things.” And I said, “Why not?” “Because it would take us more than 15 minutes to explain our religion.” Well I decided as long as 15 minutes never came, I’d be willing to talk to them and I began to hear things from them that contrasted greatly from what I had read in the press. And some of them were black and I began to think, “There’s a story here.” I went to my editor and I said, “Look. This is like the Kennedy assassination. It’s gonna take a year after it happens to figure out what happened. Put me on it.” He said talk to Lacey. Lacey said no. Lacey had to attend a conference of alternative weeklies in Austin and I went down there. I said, “Look. You gotta let me spend at least six months figuring out what happened.” And he said no, again. I mean, he said it to my face. And I said, “Why not?” And he said it’s not a Dallas story. And I said yeah well neither was the Kennedy assassination. And besides, in Dallas at that time, there was a great movement of gun rights, patriot, constitutionalism, militia people. They held monthly meetings at which six and eight hundred people showed up. And I had readers. Everything I had written about Waco, we got letters from. So it was a hot topic, just inside of Dallas, and then nationally it seemed to me of some import. He told me no and I said, “I’m going to have to write a book about this to get to the bottom of it. And if I write the book, I’m gonna have to quit my job.” So I wrote a letter to my agent, proposing a book. When I got the contract, I quit my job.

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Next we have the opening minutes of a video made by Failure Analysis Associates and commissioned by the National Rifle Associatation. The tape uses computer models to take the viewer through the various gas attacks that occurred on April 19. The physical origins and development of the fire are also covered, as well as the causes of death and distribution within the building of those who perished that day. Click on the link below.

Failure Analysis Excerpt