Waco survivor recalls his harrowing escape from siege and how he crawled over leader David Koresh’s bloody body

A SURVIVOR of the Waco siege has recounted his escape from the doomed Branch Davidian compound weeks before it would erupt into flames, killing almost 80 people – including 10 of his relatives.

Kevin Jones, now 41, was born and raised in Mount Carmel, a religious compound near Waco, Texas, that was run by self-proclaimed profit David Koresh who believed the rapture was imminent.

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Koresh and his fringe doomsday sect would make headlines around the world on February 28, 1993, when agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) attempted to serve a warrant at the compound.

The ATF had received reports Koresh and his followers were illegally stockpiling weapons and potentially abusing children inside Mt. Carmel.

But unbeknownst to the ATF, Koresh had been tipped off about the planned raid with minutes to spare and he and his acolytes were waiting in ambush by the time 80 or so agents pulled up outside of the remote property.

It’s unclear who fired upon who first, but an explosion of gunfire erupted and didn’t cease for almost three hours.

Four ATF agents and numerous Branch Davidians were killed, including Kevin’s grandfather, Perry Jones.

A ceasefire was eventually reached but Koresh and the roughly 100 other occupants of Mt. Carmel refused to surrender.

The extraordinary gunfight would mark the beginning of a 51-day siege that would culminate in a deadly, towering inferno of unknown origin akin to the hellfire Koresh had spent the last three years prophesying about to his followers.

Five days into the standoff, Kevin, then 11, was released from Mt. Carmel by Koresh – who was married to his aunt Rachel – as part of negotiations with the FBI in exchange for food and other supplies.

Speaking with The U.S. Sun in an exclusive interview, Kevin said: “My brother [Mark] had been released the day before, and I think it was one of my aunts who asked me if I wanted to leave early the next morning.

“I told her yes. I wanted to be with my brother. He was my best friend and I’d been miserable without him.”

Early the following morning, Kevin was awoken by his aunt Rachel who told him to gather his things because it was time for him to leave.

He collected what he could, including a teddy bear he found in his late grandfather’s office and a new pair of blue jeans, and started making his way down the hallway toward the compound’s kitchen.

It was near the entrance of the women’s quarters that Kevin encountered David Koresh, whom years earlier he and his brother Mark had nicknamed “Uncle Meanie Pants” for his often hostile and dismissive demeanor.

Koresh was laying on the floor blocking the walkway. He had been hit twice in the initial shootout with police: once in the stomach and once in the hand, but survived his injuries.

“He started talking to me, asking me if I was ready to go,” Kevin remembered of Koresh.

“I had the tip-toe around him because where he was laying he was blocking the walkway,

“I tried walking over him and accidentally brushed where his bullet wound was, and he winced and told me to be careful.

“But I ended up doing it a second time, slightly more lightly this time, but I eventually got around him.”

‘HANDS UP!’

Standing on the other side of the hallway was Kevin’s dad, David Jones, one of Koresh’s most loyal lieutenants.

Kevin hugged his father tight, who told him to be good and that he’d see him soon.

Tragically, no such reunion would be forthcoming, but that devastating fact wouldn’t be realized by Kevin for several weeks yet.

Kevin’s aunt led him to a metal exit door of the compound that had been mangled and punctured by federal bullets.

He reached up to open the door and cut his hand on a shard of jagged metal.

He then stepped out into the dark morning light alone with his teddy bear thrust beneath his arm.

It’s usually been that with me – and my sister included – that I kind of wished I’d have gone with them, stayed in the compound, and died

Kevin Jones

“I walked out the gate and walked down the long driveway all by myself,” said Kevin.

“I got maybe 30 yards away from an FBI carrier tank sitting close to the front gate when a guy popped out from around the back with a gun and told me to stop and put my hands up.

“He turned me around in a circle and made me face away from him as they approached me or I walked back to them – I can’t remember.

“They patted me down, took my bag of clothes and my teddy bear and put me in the back of a vehicle, and drove me through a bunch of reporters to a local airport hangar.”

IN THE DARK

For the next few weeks, Kevin had no access to a television, radio, or any other kind of media and was completely unaware of the ongoings at Mount Carmel.

But the rest of the world was watching on, transfixed to their screens, as relations between Koresh and FBI negotiators grew increasingly fraught with each passing day.

A peaceful approach to negotiations from federal officials had proved successful in the opening days of the siege.

But eventually, negotiators hit a wall, with Koresh prolonging the stand-off by debating with authorities about his interpretations of the Bible, declaring that his God-appointed authority placed him above the jurisdiction of the U.S. Government, and prophesizing the FBI’s actions would result in rapture.

Two factions soon developed within the FBI, with one side believing peaceful negotiation to be the best way to achieve a resolution and the other believing that increasing hostility would will Koresh into submission.

It was the latter approach that prevailed, with investigators blaring music, recordings of jet planes, and Buddist chantings outside of the compound all night to deprive them of sleep.

They also cut all power and water to the building, forcing the remaining members to survive on rainwater and stockpiled military rations.

In mid-April, after religious scholars reached out to Koresh through a radio discussion of the teachings of Revelation, Koresh sent a message to the FBI that he’d received word from God and was now writing his message on the Seven Seals.

Koresh said he would surrender to authorities when the work was complete.

But he was never afforded the chance. After 51 days, on April 19, 1993, the FBI moved ahead with a plan to breach the compound by breaking holes into the building using Army vehicles and deploying hundreds of canisters of tear gas inside to smoke Koresh and his acolytes out.

FBI spokesman Bob Ricks said at the time that negotiators had called Steve Schneider, Koresh’s second-in-command, that morning and notified him about the plan, but Schneider had slammed the phone down in response.

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The gassing began around 6am – but by noon tragedy would strike as several fires suddenly broke out around Mt. Carmel and gunfire was heard thundering out inside.

Within hours, the compound was razed to ash.

Seventy-six people would perish in the devastating blaze, including 25 children, two pregnant women, and Koresh.

Many of them had suffered fatal gunshot wounds before being consumed by the flames, suggesting suicide or murder-suicide.

One three-year-old boy was stabbed in the chest and two other minors sustained fatal blows to their heads.

Only nine of the people inside survived, none of whom were related to Kevin.

Kevin’s father and several aunts and young cousins all perished in the blaze.

He wouldn’t be made aware of their fates for several weeks yet.

HELLFIRE

After being held at the airport hangar for several days, Kevin was eventually moved with his brother, Mark, and sister, Heather, to a children’s home with other escapees.

One morning a few of the children had been sitting in the living room when one of them switched on the TV out of sight from the supervising social workers.

The news came on the screen and images of Mt. Carmel almost entirely engulfed by flame were bring broadcast before their eyes.

The children around him screamed and cried but Kevin sat there still, petrified in confusion.

“I saw the building burning on TV but I didn’t know what happened or if people were still in there,” he said.

“We just saw it burning and the parents ran in and shut off the TV and that’s pretty much the only bit of information we got.”

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Kevin couldn’t recall the specific moment he was told his father and other relatives had died, but he believes the news was broken to him by his mother who had fled the sect years earlier after becoming disillusioned by Koresh’s radical sermons.

But from day one, the government’s handling of the Waco siege was heavily criticized.

Its fiery and deadly culmination was unintentional, said then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who had green-lighted the tear gas attack.

“Today was not meant to be D-Day,” she told reporters afterward.

“We were prepared to carry it out tomorrow and the next day and do everything we could to effect a peaceful resolution of this matter.”

‘I WISH I’D DIED TOO’

Despite the Waco tragedy’s infamy, authorities and survivors remain torn over key details during the siege, including which side fired the first shot, and how the deadly fire was struck.

In 1999, the FBI acknowledged that its tear gas canisters could be flammable under certain conditions but said they were deployed long before the fire broke out.

The agency sustained its belief that the Branch Davidians intentionally torched the buildings in an act of mass suicide to fulfill Koresh’s apocalyptic prophesies.

Survivors of the group have long denied that was the case.

For Kevin, he said he can never be certain of what is true and what is not.

What he does believe, however, is that the entire siege could’ve been avoided had authorities just arrested Koresh during one of his frequent visits to the local town, or during one of his morning jogs on the outskirts of the compound’s grounds.

Gut-wrenchingly, Kevin also admitted that he’s never taken much satisfaction in being one of the few to survive the siege.

In fact, he says, sometimes he wishes he’d have stayed and died alongside his father in the fire.

“It’s usually been that with me – and my sister included – that I kind of wished I’d have gone with them, stayed in the compound, and died,” Kevin emotionally declared.

“Life outside that place was so difficult and new.

“We were little kids when we at Mt. Carmel, so we didn’t see any of the bad stuff that was going on […] it was a very simple and sheltered life, but the outside world was much more complicated.

“Suddenly, I was seeing so many evil things on the news – people bombing each other, killing each other – and we’d been sheltered from all that stuff.

“It almost seemed easier that if we could go back in time and not leave, and we could just die there with everyone else, so we wouldn’t have to deal with any of the nonsense we have to deal with today, then we would,” he added.

“My sister struggled with the same thing […] Life can be too hard and painful to deal with sometimes.”

THE BRANCH DAVIDIANS

Today, Kevin, a contractor delivery driver, runs a Waco survivors group on Facebook.

Reconnecting with former members and old childhood friends, he says, has provided him with much-unexpected solace and helped him to come to terms with his once insurmountable loss.

Kevin and his siblings were born into the Branch Davidians at a turbulent time.

The group, a fringe off-shoot of the Seventh-day Adventists, was founded by Ben Roden in the early 1960s and believes the Bible to be the literal word of God and they look to it for clues of an impending Armageddon and the second coming of Christ.

When Roden died in 1978, his wife Lois succeeded him as the head prophetess of the sect.

But three years later, a 22-year-old convert named Vernon Wayne Howell arrived at the compound and caused a stir.

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Howell – who would later change his name to David Koresh – became involved romantically with Lois, then in her 60s, and after her death clashed with her son, George, over who was her rightful heir.

The Branch Davidians divided into two separate factions, but then, in 1987, a gun battle ensued during which George Roden was shot in the head and chest.

Koresh and seven of his followers – including Kevin’s father – were arrested and put on trial for attempted murder.

All seven followers were acquitted and Koresh’s case ended in a mistrial.

By 1990, Koresh was entirely in command of the group and considered their “Lamb” – or the only person capable of unlocking the Seven Seals and revealing to the world the true meaning of the Bible’s teachings.

The identification allowed Koresh to justify some of his controversial and down-right disturbing practices, including taking various “spiritual wives”, some of who were reportedly as young as 11.

Koresh was legally married to Kevin’s aunt Rachel, with whom he tied-the-knot with when she was just 14.

He was also sexually involved with another of Kevin’s aunts, Michelle, who had given birth to three of Koresh’s children by the time she was 18 years old.

But for Kevin, he was unaware of the illegal ongoings and other disturbing acts being carried out under the whims and desires of his Uncle David.

He wasn’t even sure how old his aunts were until he left the sect.

Instead, he spent much of his childhood in an oblivious state of bliss, utilizing his free time outside of school and his uncle David’s apocalyptic sermons to adventure with his older brother Mark.

REMEMBERING WACO

As the horrific acts of his uncle David have been laid bare over the last 30 years, Kevin says he now sees the self-proclaimed messiah for what he was: a fraud.

“He was always using the Bible to justify his whims or – as I learned later – fulfill his sexual desires,” said Kevin.

“I don’t see God coming to anyone and telling them to take everyone’s daughters, wives, and children to start their own haram, basically – and I’m not okay with that.

“But whenever he changed his mind on something – like when he started sleeping with other people’s wives – he would just pull a line out of the Bible and say that God was telling him this was what he wanted him to do.

“I never really liked him too much anyways,” added Kevin.

“He was always busy and didn’t really have time for anyone, but any time I did ask him something he’d just blow me off.

“He never spanked me or anything like that, but he just wasn’t very nice.”

Over the last few years, Kevin has abstained from attending an annual service near the grounds of Mt. Carmel to commemorate the anniversary of the siege’s tragic end.

In years prior, he had spiraled into a weeks-long depression afterward, with the emotions of the occasion too much for him to bear.

But this year, which marks 30 years since the siege, Kevin will return to the Mt. Carmel grounds to pay his respects to his fallen sect mates.

When asked if he believed Mt. Carmel was a cult, he responded: “Until any religious movement is widely accepted by the majority of the world it’s considered a cult.

“But who’s to say that if none of this happened, the group wouldn’t have spread and become widely accepted as a religious group and not a cult anymore?

“But I haven’t stepped in a church for around 12 years,” he added.

“I started to feel that organized religion is just a sham and a way for these big churches to make money.

“You don’t have to go to church to have faith in God.

“I’d rather just say home and read my bible.”

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