Waco

Part Two: The Serpent’s Root

Entering adulthood as a high school dropout, Vernon Wayne Howell had a lot of issues that had yet to be addressed. After suffering a series of rejections in his personal life, he ended up turning toward the one constant in his life, faith. During his search there, he ended up coming across a group of like-minded individuals in central Texas…

The man we usually refer to as "David Koresh" was actually born Vernon Wayne Howell on August 17th, 1959 in Houston, Texas. His mother was Bonnie Sue Clark, a 14-year-old that was incapable of taking care of him at such a young age; his father was Bobby Wayne Howell, a 20-year-old who abandoned Vernon's mother before he was even born. Soon thereafter, Bobby would marry another young woman and sire many more children, and would remain an absent presence throughout most of Vernon's life.

Shortly after Vernon's birth, his mother Bonnie started up a relationship with a man that was fresh out of prison - who turned out to be a violent alcoholic - and he abused both her and infant Vernon. When Vernon was approximately a year-and-a-half old, Bonnie left him in the care of his maternal grandmother, Erline Clark. Bonnie ran off with her new husband and wouldn't return for a few years, after she had married another man.

Vernon would spend these formative years in the care of his grandmother, who was still rather-young herself, and would have two children of her own at around the same time, Kenneth and Sharon. While they were technically Vernon's uncle and aunt, respectively, these two ended up being more like Vernon's brother and sister, and he was close with both growing up.

In multiple accounts, Vernon described his childhood as a lonely one... due in no small part to the sense of stability that eluded him throughout it.

When he was approximately five years old, Vernon was taken back in by his mother, Bonnie, who had married a man named Roy Haldeman. He was taken to live with them in Chandler, Texas for a time, and then later, to Tyler... the Haldemans, it seems, were drawn to towns in Texas with traditionally male first names. In an interview with an Australian television crew years later, Vernon would describe his childhood as abusive, claiming that his stepfather, Roy, often used physical discipline on him. He stated:

"When I used to act up? When I had a bad report card? Can you imagine? We got our tails whomped."

Family members recall that Vernon often pleaded to move back to his grandmother's house, preferring it over the life he had at home. He also struggled to make any inroads at school due to his poor study habits and an undiagnosed learning disability - believed to be dyslexia - which affected him throughout his life. He was held back in first grade twice, and was put into special education classes during third and fourth grade. Having previously been known as "Vernie" by fellow students, he was now known by a different, and more offensive, moniker ("Mr. Retardo").

Despite his struggles retaining knowledge in school, Vernon became a very astute student of the Bible; often turning to it to help find guidance in his life. His mother, Bonnie, would later tell reporters with the Waco Tribune-Herald:

"He would come home and go out to the barn and pray for hours. I've seen him sitting by his bed, on his knees for hours, crying and praying."

Although his faith wouldn't become a predominant part of his life for the next several years, Vernon would become well-versed in scripture by the time he was a teenager. Journalist Dick Reavis would later write in his book, "The Ashes of Waco":

"The Bible was second nature to him. Howell's relationship to the Holy Writ was like that of a current affairs junkie to a collection of newsweeklies. He knew every character in them, and constantly relived their exploits... He made the Bible a smooth running machine."

When he was fourteen years old, Vernon moved back to his grandmother Erline's home. There, instead of sharing a bedroom with his uncle Kenneth - who was around the same age, and as close to him as a brother - he decided to move into the shed in the backyard. His aunt Sharon, who was also around the same age, later told the Washington Post:

"It wasn't for a lack of a bedroom in the house. He just liked the idea of fixing it up."

During this time, Vernon began playing the guitar almost everyday, and expressed some decent musical ability; one of the few things he was talented at and had shown some promise with. This ability to have a space of his own and ability to pursue his own interests allowed him to find some sense of stability for the first time in his life, and Vernon actually found himself being well-liked by kids in the neighborhood... even girls, friends of his aunt Sharon's, who were fascinated by the new kid with long hair.

Sadly, it was not meant to last. Before long, his grandfather - Erline Clark's husband - said that he wanted Vernon to leave. So he did... again, returning to his mother's home near Dallas.

After continuous issues at the public school he attended, Vernon was sent to the church-run Dallas Junior Academy at age sixteen, but only made it through the 10th grade before dropping out. Instead of pursuing his diploma, Vernon decided to begin working a carpentry job, and would never return to complete his education.

For better or worse, his childhood was over. But from this point forward, Vernon would continue to drift through life, constantly moving between his mother's home and his grandmother's, staying with other family or friends here and there. Yet he was adrift, lost in the current of life, unsure of where it would take him.

Years later, he would become known as a notorious cult leader named David Koresh. But at this crossroad in his life, as was the case in many others, he was torn between following his earthly ambitions and adhering to his faith.

Vernon Howell wouldn't meet his father, Bobby, until he was seventeen years old. The two wouldn't have much of a relationship together, but his aunt Sharon later recalled to the Washington Post:

"There was never a very really good role model for him - someone who really took an interest in him and genuinely wanted to spend time with him and teach him something."

During later conversations with members of the Branch Davidian church, it was revealed that Vernon Howell's thoughts about relationships had been influenced by some early traumas in his life; namely, his issues with his parents, who he felt had abandoned and/or mistreated him at different points in his life. He also viewed sex rather despondently, as he claimed that an older girl had tried to engage him in sexual acts when he was just six years old. He also told others that a group of boys had attempted to rape him in a barn when he was a little bit older, but the specifics of that story have been lost to time.

Of course, it's unknown how much of these stories were true - and how much were potential exaggerations from Vernon, a person known to exaggerate or change details in the retelling of stories - but seeing how he had issues with both sex and relationships, it's hard not to see some parallels.

Vernon also struggled with his perception of relationships between older men and younger women, which would become evident throughout his life (especially in the episodes to come). Many draw a straight line between this troubling personality trait of his own and the relationship between his mother and father, who had been 14 and 20 years old, respectively, when he was born. Later, he witnessed his aunt Sharon, who was like a sister to him, marry an older man when she was about the same age; likely cementing in his mind that this was something that was not only acceptable in society, but normal.

All of this to say that Vernon's issues with relationships and sexuality seem to have been deep-seeded, not just something that came out of nowhere when he became leader of the Branch Davidians years later.

There were warning signs. But, sadly, it's not like anyone was looking for them at the time.

With no current direction in life and a lot of free time, Vernon began to focus on the two things that consumed his mind: music and girls. But while these consumed most of his available time, they did little to fill the void that remained inside of him. Kenneth, his uncle, would later tell the Washington Post:

"In his younger years, he had a hard time. He was always looking for something. He had his rock-and-roll; he had his women. But it was never enough."

Vernon spent most of his free time playing guitar, trying to use his talents to impress other youths... namely, girls. Debbie Owens, a 16-year-old waitress at the time, later told the Post:

"It was like nothing else existed when he played, unless he messed up... That was the main thing in his world. I was second. Music came first."

Debbie dated Vernon for a little over six months, breaking up when she found out that he had started seeing another girl back home in Dallas. That girl, she later learned, was pregnant. Vernon was the father. They planned to talk it over and possibly mend their relationship, but Vernon ghosted her... and that seemed to be that.

The girl from Dallas that Vernon had fallen in love with was younger than him - according to some reports, she was just 15 at the time (while Vernon was 19) - but her parents wanted him to stay away. Not only did they not approve of the relationship, they didn't want Vernon anywhere near their daughter or their eventual grandchild. Without much recourse, he had to do just that... and hope that his child was healthy and loved.

During this era, Vernon briefly moved out to California in an attempt to pursue his musical ambitions. However, just like the rest of us that fail to achieve our lofty dreams, he would eventually return to the one place left that would have him: home.

After the bitter disappointment that early adulthood had presented to him, Vernon began to immerse himself in faith. Perhaps the most stable constant in his life, Vernon had always considered himself a devoted student of the Bible, but hadn't fully committed to his faith in any major way.

During this period, that would change.

Having long considered himself a born-again Christian in the Southern Baptist Church, Vernon decided to join his mother's denomination, the Seventh-Day Adventists, at the church she attended in Tyler, Texas (about two hours northeast of Waco). There, he became known as a rather charming young man, who had a lot of influence with the younger members of the congregation... an ability that would get him into trouble pretty frequently.

Vernon began attending church on a regular basis, and through his attendance became enamored with the 15-year-old daughter of church deacon Hardy Tapp. In so many words, he lusted after her, and according to his later recollection, he turned to God for advice. While praying for guidance, he opened his eyes and found his Bible open to Isaiah 34:16, which read:

"... none should want for her mate."

Believing this was a sign, Vernon approached the pastor, and told him that God intended for the two to marry; that God intended for the pastor's daughter and Vernon to become husband-and-wife. As you'd imagine, this was not received well. Later, Hardy Tapp would tell reporters with the Washington Post:

"His response to me was that she was already his wife in a Biblical sense. I said you can call it anything you want, but what you are doing is wrong..."

In another unusual encounter, Vernon had reportedly approached the wife of a longtime parishioner and openly flirted with her in front of others. This earned him the ire of others at the church, which continued to install a divide between Vernon and the church itself.

After being rejected by the deacon, Vernon began to grow more intense during church services, confronting church leaders over differences in opinion, as well as issues regarding the church itself (in one instance, he tried arguing that the church needed to spend an exorbitant sum on a new organ). This led to Vernon taking the pulpit himself at least twice, launching into long-winded sermons about the Scripture and his interpretation of it. He referred to himself as a Prophet, and this ultimately led to his ousting from the church. As remembered by Deacon Hardy Tapp to the Washington Post years later:

"We would like for you to leave, and if you're not willing to leave on your own, if we have to carry you out, we will."

Vernon Wayne Howell was disfellowshipped from the Tyler congregation in April of 1981.

During his time at the Seventh-Day Adventist church in Tyler, Texas, Vernon had attended Revelation Seminars hosted by evangelist Jim Gilley. These seminars featured speeches and images about Armageddon, powerful enough that it was able to inspire a profound change inside of Vernon. His aunt Sharon, who often attended the seminars with him, later recalled:

"That's when it took off. That's when he really became serious."

If Vernon felt seriously about his faith beforehand, that feeling was more than doubled afterward. Vernon began focusing in on the small details of the Bible that he had previously ignored, and actually came to believe that there was something that evangelists like Jim Gilley were missing: information about the Seventh Seal, which could only be opened by a new prophet. And, as described in the Book of Revelation, this prophet would be able to prophesize the calamities that preceded Apocalypse.

This had eventually led to Vernon's disfellowship from the congregation in Tyler, with him taking to the pulpit in order to convince others of what he had discovered. But shortly after being kicked out of this community, Vernon would find a willing audience for his ideas.

In the summer of 1981, Vernon was introduced to a church located in a small town in central Texas. There, a group of apocalyptic Christian believers had been gathering for years. They were the Branch Davidians, and they had settled into a town called Waco. There, Vernon would get to become the truest sense of himself, and found the things that had been eluding him for years. Attention. Authority. Devotion. Stability. Sex.

And through abuses of all five, he would find notoriety.

After the death of Benjamin Roden in October of 1978, his wife, Lois Roden, had taken over the Branch Davidian church just outside of Waco, Texas. She had served as co-president of the church alongside Benjamin for approximately two years before his death, then assumed the sole duties afterward.

Prior to his death, Lois had claimed to have had visions in which the Holy Spirit visited her. Later, she claimed that, surprisingly, the Holy Spirit had been feminine in form. Following this singular incident, Lois began to preach that women, like men, had been made in the likeness of God, and began to deliver her brand of Christianity with a more gender-equal approach.

In 1979, after she had been named Benjamin's successor, Lois began publishing a magazine entitled Shekhinah, which was the Hebrew word for "divine presence" (and which, Lois was quick to remind everyone, was a feminine word). Through it, she promoted a more feminist approach to Christianity, and seemed to defend the idea of Christians having women in positions of leadership, writing in her magazine in 1980:

"The male shouldn't dominate, and the female shouldn't dominate... The Church should play a more active role in bringing about the equality of the sexes."

These beliefs received a decent amount of attention for the time, and as you'd imagine, upset some. None more than Lois's own son, George.

George Roden, forty years old at the time of his father Benjamin's death in 1978, had long been the presumed successor to head the Branch Davidian church. If Benjamin had been seen as the typical 1960s pastor - meek and humble - then George was the natural progression. He was bombastic; a 1980s doomsday preacher from Texas. Everything he did was bigger, louder, and likely involved guns. More seriously, he was known to be unstable, and often threatened those that disagreed with him, a trait that would become more pronounced in the years to come.

Outside of the church, George had gained attention in the past for his ill-advised political campaigns, which were little more than attempts to gain attention. He ran for the U.S. Presidency in 1975 and 1976, and even ran for the Governor of California at one point, claiming to have had the knowledge necessary to solve the energy crisis of the 1970s (citation needed).

As soon as Lois began claiming to have received visions of the Holy Spirit, George began to push back against her, believing - or, possibly, predicting - that she was setting herself up to be the successor to her husband, Benjamin. But George believed that he was the eldest son, so he was the natural successor to head the Church following Benjamin's passing. He also claimed that he was the aforementioned "Branch" that Benjamin had referred to in the formation of the Branch Davidian church years beforehand. After all, Benjamin had pointed to Zechariah 6:12, which read:

"... Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord."

In this case, George had literally helped build the temple that the Branch Davidians worshipped in. So based on this interpretation of the Bible, he claimed, he was the Branch, the prophet that the Davidians had been waiting for for decades.

Before the passing of Benjamin Roden in 1978, George had attempted to push back on his mother's claim to co-presidency, and then attempted to take over after Benjamin died... a move that was looked down upon by the rest of the church. They stated that leadership would be decided by God, not through birth, and they believed that God had chosen Lois by gifting her with visions months prior. So almost no one at the Branch Davidian compound chose to side with George, save for his own family.

Yet, that wouldn't deter George for continuing to fight for what he thought was his. While he never led the congregation and wasn't listed as the Branch Davidian president, he began acting as the leader of the church in a business sense, selling off church assets and conducting deals behind-the-scenes as he saw fit. This eventually led to a legal battle between mother and son, with Lois taking George to court.

In the hearing, George defended himself, claiming that he was the:

"... president and the king of the Branch... the same as Jesus, but I am not the son of God."

Surprisingly, George was the only witness to appear on his behalf.

As you can imagine, Lois had no issue being proclaimed the victor, having the support of almost the entire church. According to an article in the Waco Citizen, the jury only took about 15 minutes to make their decision, and the decision handed down by 19th District Court Judge Bill Logue determined that Lois was the rightful leader of the Branch Davidians. George was ordered to stop referring to himself as the leader, and was disallowed from living on the 77 acres owned by the church near Waco.

From here, George decided to move away to California for a time, starting his own organization named The Branch Association. However, he would eventually return to Mount Carmel.

It was during this period that this episode's two storylines merged, with the arrival of Vernon Wayne Howell in 1981.

When Vernon arrived at the Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist compound near Elk, Texas in the summer of 1981, he was coming out of a personal low point (in a life full of low points). He had recently been disfellowshipped from a church out in Tyler, Texas, and had been rejected by the families of two girls. One of whom he'd gotten pregnant, and was now only able to watch from afar; and the other he'd unsuccessfully tried to assert had been his by divine right, to a man of God, no less.

Now entering his twenties, Vernon Howell was trying to not only find out who he was when he made that fateful drive out to Waco, but what his purpose in life was. After arriving in Mount Carmel, he seems to have found an answer to both questions.

The Branch Davidian compound in Mount Carmel was no stranger to visitors. Adventists or others interested in how the Davidians lived their lives often visited, trying it out for themselves like it was a trial membership at a new gym. But Vernon was amazed. For the first time in his life, he found people who took the Bible as seriously as he did, and viewed it as not just a lens through which to view the past, but as a rubric to understand what was going to happen in the future... hell, what was happening in the present, all around us, everyday.

The congregation at Mount Carmel gathered for "The Daily," their twice-daily gatherings to discuss and study the Bible and receive a sermon from the Branch Davidian prophet (who was, in this case, Lois Roden). They met once in the morning at 9:00 AM and then again at 3:00 PM, and used these gatherings to try and find purpose or meaning in the Bible that the other sects of the Christian faith had overlooked.

Like Vernon, the Branch Davidians also believed that the Book of Revelations was yet to play out. They thought that the final battle between good and evil was yet to come, and they desperately wanted to be on the side of the former.

But despite what modern-day retellings of Vernon's story might tell you, he wasn't immediately viewed as a hero. Actually, the Branch Davidians were rather-skeptical of him at first, treating him no differently than they did the other dozens of passers-by that came and went every year, unable to bear the Branch Davidians' spartan living conditions.

Clive Doyle, a longtime Branch Davidian, later recalled to author Jeff Guinn in his amazing book about this story, "Waco":

"When he showed up, he had this long hair; he didn't look like the rest of us did. He was considered pretty strange. He'd be in his room with his door closed, and he'd be praying so loudly that you could hear him outside. Some made fun of him. He was also of a sort of different age, very in between. Almost everyone else was older or younger. I felt sorry for him."

While Vernon wasn't given special treatment upon his arrival, he also wasn't treated too poorly. It's just that nothing about him seemed to really stand out. He wasn't especially well-spoken, often fumbling his words whenever he tried to talk about his own life or the Bible. Unlike the person he'd later become, he wasn't especially charismatic. He still dreamed of becoming a rock star, but that stood in direct opposition to his faith, so many of the Branch Davidians looked down on him for his childish dreams, which weren't perceived as being very Christ-like.

In fact, if it wasn't for his apparent knowledge of the Bible, there wasn't much about Vernon that stood out to other Branch Davidians when he showed up in 1981.

Yet, over many weeks and months, he began to prove his worth. Not only was he proficient at the guitar, but he was also pretty handy to have around the compound due to his prior construction experience. He was able to help work on projects around Mount Carmel, and was even good at working on car engines, things like that.

Yet, Vernon didn't really start to catch the eye of people at Mount Carmel until their prophet, Lois Roden, took a liking to the young man. The 65-year-old church leader often drove around the state, delivering sermons and speeches to different churches and organizations. As such, she needed a chauffeur. Vernon volunteered, and as author Jeff Guinn notes in his book "Waco," the usually-silent drives between destinations became more and more talkative, as Lois seemed to identify some unnoticed potential within Vernon.

This relationship began to blossom, with Lois inviting Vernon to her room for "private Bible studies" over the next several months. Everyone at the compound quickly grew to realize what was going on behind closed doors, but no one felt the need to talk about it.

In the years to come, Vernon Wayne Howell would become more established at the Branch Davidian compound. Lois Roden had seemingly taken him under her wing, and tutored him to become a better, more charismatic speaker. Soon, he was able to more successfully deliver his message, which he had been working on for some time.

Nowadays, it's commonly believed that the relationship between the two turned sexual not long after it started. The 65-year-old Lois Roden and 22-year-old Vernon Howell are believed to have tried to conceive a child, despite it being physically impossible (with Lois having long since gone through menopause). Yet the two believed that they would have a child, who would be Chosen by God, turning to Isaiah 8:3 for explanation:

"And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived and bare a son."

As you'd expect, no child was to come from this union.

Yet, a presence would soon reemerge and voice his disapproval: George Roden, Lois's eldest son, who returned infrequently from California to visit Mount Carmel. During one of these visits in the early 1980s, he discovered that Vernon and his mother had been intimate, and spoke to the church. There, he claimed that Vernon had been raping Lois, but when neither chose to respond to the allegations, it seemed like no one else believed in them. Everyone knew that the relationship between Lois and Vernon was consensual, and it seems like it remained an unspoken agreement among Branch Davidians to keep it unspoken.

From this point forward, George would become particularly nasty toward Vernon, viewing him as not only an interloper in the Roden family, but as competion for his presumed role as successor. He had set aside his ambition to let his mother succeed his father as the head of the church, but wasn't going to let the leadership role slip from his grasp yet again. However, as an outsider with no authority, George had no one backing him at Mount Carmel. To the Branch Davidians there, Lois was still their prophet and leader, and if she saw potential in Vernon, then so did they.

This tension carried through September of 1983, when Vernon took center stage for the first time. Weeks prior, he had started sharing Bible passages with Lois that he believed God had been revealing to him personally. As had been the case when Lois started receiving visions back in 1977, she was quick to let Vernon take the spotlight during sermons, and he began delivering the messages that he claimed God was channeling through him into existence.

That Fall, Vernon began delivering a Bible study series titled "The Serpent's Root." Through it, he was able to weave together Bible verses - and his own interpretation of them - into an intricate tapestry of doomsaying. Which, to many of the Branch Davidians, revealed that he had been given the gift of prophecy (just like Lois Roden before him).

Many of the Davidians took to Vernon's new, more urgent message, believing him to have received legitimate visions from God. Yet, as his sermons continued, he began to preach ideas that went against what Lois Roden had fought for the past handful of years. In doing so, he seemed to invalidate her as a prophet, and began forcing her into a situation she had unwittingly created for herself.

Tension seeped through everything, and seemed to be forcing Branch Davidians into one of three camps:

- Those that sided with George Roden, a longtime resident and Branch Davidian, who was the presumed successor of his parents but hadn't shown any divine talent and was mentally and emotionally unstable

- Those that sided with Vernon Howell, the young upstart in his early twenties who delivered a divisive, apocalyptic message and was seen as too "worldly" for many's tastes (due to his long hair and his adherence to rock'n'roll)

- Those that sided with Lois Roden, their current prophet that was aging quickly, and unable to choose between her impulsive son and the young man she'd groomed and entered into a sexual relationship with

In summary: it was like something out of a hellish soap opera. And almost anyone with a pulse could see that it was going to end poorly - likely in violence - if left unabated. Especially with George growing more resentful at Vernon for taking his rightful place by his mother's side.

During this tension, a fire broke out at an administration building at Mount Carmel, which George blamed on Vernon and his followers. Yet Vernon replied that he hadn't, that "no man set that fire," and proclaimed it a judgment from God.

Surprisingly, at this point, the two men agreed to go their separate ways. According to Vernon's followers, they chose to leave peacefully. According to those that backed George, he drove away the others at gunpoint. Yet, George Roden would remain behind at Mount Carmel and take over a leadership role at the facility there, while Vernon Howell would leave to start a congregation of his own with approximately two dozen or so of his own followers from Mount Carmel. Many of whom had lived there, outside of Waco, for years, yet believed wholeheartedly in the message that Vernon was delivering.

They were uncertain where life would take them, with Vernon leading them to Palestine in the months to come. No, not that Palestine... Palestine, Texas, a small town approximately 145 miles east of Waco, where they'd camp out in fields and parking lots for a time, with Vernon promising that he'd taken them back home eventually.

At this point, Vernon's followers were willing to follow him anywhere, and would prove to be the first of his loyal supporters.

Caught in the middle of this split was Lois Roden, who was now past retirement age and in the midst of a breast cancer diagnosis, watching her life's work fall apart before her very eyes.

It's believed that in her final months, while living beside her oldest son George, Lois was mistreated, physically and verbally, and viewed as little more than a placeholder until George could assume his rightful place as leader of the Branch Davidian church. But little by little, the remaining followers at Mount Carmel - who were already immensely dwindled - would whittle away. Soon, all that remained were the Rodens and their most loyal family and friends. They, too, would soon start to leave.

In November of 1986, Lois Roden passed away at the age of 70. Her body was later transported to Israel to be buried alongside her husband. Sadly, after her death, the dormant struggle between Vernon Wayne Howell and George Roden would reawaken, pitting the Branch Davidians against each other... and putting them on a path to disaster...