Another Judgment Day

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The government even argued that Koresh and his followers deliberately set the fires that consumed the compound in April in an attempt to kill officers in the inferno. To drive home the point, more than 30 ATF agents who were part of the February attack testified to their terror in what they repeatedly called "an ambush" in open terrain, as they were peppered by guns that included a .50-caliber rifle whose cartridges could pierce metal. "It was raining blood," said Special Agent Bernadette Griffin.

The defense opened its case by playing a tape of a 911 emergency call placed from the compound as the shootout began. "Call them off -- there are women and children in here!" cult member Wayne Martin told a dispatcher. It was a critical moment of drama that contradicted the government claim of Davidians eagerly awaiting a shoot-out. Just 11 witnesses were called by defense attorneys, who made their case largely through cross-examination of such prosecution witnesses as former cult member Kathryn Schroeder. She undermined the government's case by testifying that there was no plot to kill agents. Claims by ATF agents that they hadn't expected armed resistance from the Davidians were undercut by their testimony that they were told that day to mark their blood types on their necks -- an ominous instruction they had never received before.

"I'm so happy! Oh, my goodness!" Koresh's mother Bonnie Haldeman exclaimed when told of the verdict. "God bless them jurors!" Every day since their arrest, the Davidians have consulted their Bibles and the remembered teachings of Koresh, trying to determine how the trial fits in with his prophecies about the end of the world. In their view, it was not they who faced judgment in court but the law-enforcement establishment. To an extent, the jury proved them right.