David Thibodeau (born February 13, 1969) [1] is an American Branch Davidian, a survivor of the Waco siege, and a musician. He was born in Bangor, Maine. [1] In early adulthood, Thibodeau sought to become a musician in Los Angeles, California, where he converted to Branch Davidianism after meeting David Koresh in a Guitar Center in 1990. [2] [3] Thibodeau was present at the Mt. Carmel compound on February 28, 1993, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) conducted a botched raid. He stayed for the 51-day siege until escaping, with eight other survivors, the fire that consumed the compound.
Thibodeau was born in Bangor, Maine, to Balenda (incorrectly reported as "Belenda" in the Waco Tribune-Herald ) Ganem. [4] His parents divorced after he graduated from Bangor High School in 1987. He lived with his single mother in Bangor and Portland, Maine before moving to Los Angeles in 1990 to pursue a music career. [5] In the late 1980s, he attended Musicians Institute of Technology to study drumming. [6] [5]
Thibodeau met David Koresh in the Sunset Boulevard Guitar Center in Los Angeles, California in 1990. [3] [7] Reportedly, Thibodeau did not show much interest in the group originally since they were a Christian band but eventually joined because of people like Steve Schneider. [7] He moved to the Mount Carmel Center in 1991 to continue playing in the Branch Davidians' band. [8]
At the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas, Thibodeau married Michele Jones upon Koresh's request. [2]
Thibodeau escaped the April 19, 1993, fire that ended the Waco siege along with eight other survivors. Thibodeau was jailed in McLennan County Jail but soon released on a US$5,000 bail by a federal magistrate. [9] [10]
Almost immediately after the fire destroyed the Mt. Carmel compound, Thibodeau was active in voicing his perspective on the siege. In 1995, congressional hearings were held that turned partisan over the issue of the Republican-led investigation's association with the National Rifle Association of America. [11] [12] Thibodeau, who in The New York Times was described as a Republican witness, argued that the ATF could have served Koresh's arrest warrant without the use of a raid since Koresh regularly jogged outside the compound. [13] [14]
Thibodeau was held as a material witness against other Davidians charged with various crimes in relation to the Waco siege. [15]
He (re-)married in 1997 and has at least one daughter. [16]
In 1999, he co-authored a memoir called A Place Called Waco: A Survivor's Story with Leon Whiteson, a Zimbabwe-born novelist, critic, and architect. [17] Thibodeau runs a website called "Waco Survivors," in which he archives media related to the Waco siege. [18]
In 2018, the miniseries Waco aired featuring Rory Culkin playing David Thibodeau and Thibodeau himself in a cameo role as an unnamed character. [19]
Thibodeau is a drummer for the band The Blast Addicts, and he resided in Texas as of 2020. [2] [20] He played drums for other bands after the Waco siege as well, including Grooviest Maximus. [16]
The Branch Davidians are an apocalyptic cult founded in 1955 by Benjamin Roden. They regard themselves as a continuation of the General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, established by Victor Houteff in 1935.
The Waco siege, also known as the Waco massacre, was the siege by U.S. federal government and Texas state law enforcement officials of a compound belonging to the religious cult known as the Branch Davidians between February 28 and April 19, 1993. The Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, were headquartered at Mount Carmel Center ranch in unincorporated McLennan County, Texas, 13 miles northeast of Waco. Suspecting the group of stockpiling illegal weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) obtained a search warrant for the compound and arrest warrants for Koresh and several of the group's members.
The Mount Carmel Center was a large group of buildings used by the Branch Davidian religious group located near Axtell, Texas, 20 miles (32 km) north-east of Waco. The Branch Davidians were established by Benjamin Roden in 1959 as a breakaway sect from Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, and was later led by David Koresh starting in the 1980s. Named after the Biblical mountain Mount Carmel in Israel, it was the site of the 51-day Waco siege. The siege began on February 28, 1993, when federal agents attempted to execute a warrant and arrest some Davidians living inside. A subsequent firefight left four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents and six Davidians dead. At the end of the siege, on April 19, 1993, a fire started leaving 76 Davidians dead.
The Waco Tribune-Herald is an American daily newspaper serving Waco, Texas, and vicinity.
George Buchanan Roden was an American leader of the Branch Davidian sect, a Seventh-day Adventist splinter group. In 1987, he was evicted from the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas, by his rival David Koresh. He was later confined in a Texas mental hospital for a 1989 murder until his own death in 1998.
David Koresh was an American cult leader who played a central role in the Waco siege of 1993. As the head of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventists, Koresh claimed to be its final prophet. His apocalyptic Biblical teachings, including interpretations of the Book of Revelation and the Seven Seals, attracted various followers.
Waco is an American television miniseries, developed by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, that premiered on January 24, 2018, on Paramount Network. The six-episode series dramatizes the 1993 standoff between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas and stars Michael Shannon, Taylor Kitsch, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Sparks, Rory Culkin, Shea Whigham, Melissa Benoist, John Leguizamo, Julia Garner, and Glenn Fleshler. The miniseries received a mixed response from critics who praised the performances and tension, but criticized the show's sympathetic approach to Branch Davidian leader David Koresh. A sequel titled Waco: The Aftermath premiered on April 16, 2023, on Showtime.
Steven Emil Schneider was an American Branch Davidian commonly called a "lieutenant" to David Koresh, the leader of the new religious movement. He was formally married to Judy Schneider, but in the community Koresh impregnated Judy and she bore a child with him. Steve Schneider was raised in a Seventh-day Adventist household in Wisconsin. Schneider studied at Newbold College in the United Kingdom, and eventually worked to receive a Ph.D. in comparative religion at the University of Hawaiʻi. In approximately 1986, Schneider encountered Marc Breault, an indigenous Hawaiian Branch Davidian, and converted to Branch Davidianism.
Douglas Wayne Martin, was an American Branch Davidian and Harvard-trained attorney who left the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He worked as an attorney in multiple fields, including contract, child custody, and real estate law, and provided the proceeds to the Branch Davidians. He was nominally married to Sheila Judith Martin, another Branch Davidian, but she was "carnally" married to David Koresh, the Branch Davidian leader. Wayne and Sheila had seven children, four of whom died in the 1993 fire: Wayne Joseph, 20; Anita, 18; Sheila Renee, 15; and Lisa Martin, 13. Sheila Martin, who left Mount Carmel Center on March 21 in the middle of the siege, eventually won custody over the three surviving children: James, Daniel, and Kimberly Martin. Wayne Martin was present at Mount Carmel Center when the February 28, 1993, raid occurred. He was the first person in the compound to call 9-1-1 to local authorities and asked to call off the raid for risk of harming women and children. He was considered the second- or third-in-command at Mt. Carmel, behind or equal to Steve Schneider. He died in the April 19, 1993, fire with three of his children. Wayne Martin was a character in the 2018 miniseries Waco, played by Demore Barnes.
Clive Joseph Doyle was an Australian leader in the Branch Davidian movement after the Waco siege in 1993. He was a Branch Davidian and a Davidian Seventh-day Adventist before the Waco siege. Doyle was one of nine survivors of the 19 April 1993 fire that destroyed the Mount Carmel Center at the end of the siege. He along with other survivors built a new chapel on the site of the siege in 1999.
Sheila Judith Martin is an American Branch Davidian and a survivor of the Waco siege. She was the wife of Douglas Wayne Martin, a Harvard-educated lawyer, who died in the April 19, 1993, fire that destroyed Mount Carmel Center. Four out of her seven children died in the fire: Wayne Joseph, 20; Anita, 18; Sheila Renee, 15; and Lisa Martin, 13. In September 1993, she received custody of James Martin (1982–1998) who has cerebral palsy and is blind because of a meningitis infection at 4 months old. By 1994, she obtained custody in Texas state court of her two other children – Daniel and Kimberly.
Livingstone Fagan – sometimes misspelled as Livingston Fagan – is a British Branch Davidian who survived the Waco siege in 1993. He was born in Jamaica but moved to Nottingham in 1964 with his parents as part of the Windrush generation. He joined the Branch Davidians in 1989 while studying to join the Seventh-day Adventist ministry in the United Kingdom. He moved to Mount Carmel Center with his wife, Evette, and mother, Doris Adina, both of whom would die in the 19 April 1993 fire. He left the Mount Carmel Center before the 19 April fire. He was tried and convicted in the United States of voluntary manslaughter and using a firearm during a crime. He was given a 30-year prison sentence and spent about half of it in various holding facilities in the United States. He was released in July 2007 and deported to the United Kingdom where he currently lives.
A Place Called Waco: A Survivor's Story is the memoir of Waco siege survivor David Thibodeau. He co-authored it with novelist Leon Whiteson (1930–2013). It was originally published in 1999 by PublicAffairs, and it was re-released by Hachette Books in 2018 with the title Waco: A Survivor's Story as a revised and updated version. It corresponded with the release of Waco, a 2018 miniseries partially inspired by Thibodeau's account. Aviva Layton co-authored the re-release with Thibodeau and Whiteson. Robert Fass narrated the audiobook version of Waco: A Survivor's Story. According to Publishers Weekly, the book was originally rejected by over 20 publishing houses before reaching PublicAffairs.
Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America is a 1995 non-fiction book written by James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher on the Waco siege and the anti-cult movement in America. It was published by the University of California Press. The same press reprinted it in 1997 in paperback. The appendix of the book contains an unfinished manuscript written by David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, on the Seven seals in the Book of Revelation. The appendix has a preface written by Tabor and J. Phillip Arnold. The manuscript was obtained from a survivor of the fire, Ruth Riddle. The final pages of the book provide a list of Branch Davidians who died in the 28 February 1993 raid, the 19 April 1993 fire, and who survived.
Ruth Ottman Riddle is a Canadian Branch Davidian and survivor of the Waco siege. Riddle was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She was born as Ruth Ellen Ottman. Riddle was one of nine survivors of the 19 April 1993 fire that destroyed the Mount Carmel Center and most of its occupants. She carried with her after leaving the compound a copy of David Koresh's final incomplete manuscript which after creating he agreed to leave. It was reprinted in James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher's book Why Waco?: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. She was married to another Branch Davidian, James Loyle Riddle, who died in the 19 April 1993 fire. Her niece, Misty Dawn Ferguson, survived the fire as well. She was formerly of Tweed, Ontario. However, other sources indicate she is from Oshawa, Ontario.
Dana Okimoto is an American former Branch Davidian. She moved to Waco, Texas, from Los Angeles, California, in approximately 1988 with Robyn Bunds, a former Branch Davidian turned critic. She is originally from Hawaii and is a registered psychiatric nurse at Kaneohe State Hospital, and remarried to Roy Kiyabu, a chef, as of 2003. She gave birth to Sky or Skye Borne Okimoto and Scooter Okimoto, who are both children of David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians.
Charles J. Pace is the current leader of The Branch, The Lord Our Righteousness, the supposed successor group of the Branch Davidians after 1993. According to the Toronto Star, he is from Collingwood, Canada. He joined the Branch Davidians in the 1980s, but he left just before the Waco siege that destroyed the Mt. Carmel center. He claims to be the successor to David Koresh as the prophet of the Branch Davidians. He returned to Waco, Texas, in 1994 after having left the Mount Carmel Center in the mid-1980s in order to start his own religious movement. He is trained as a reflexologist, nutritionist and colon therapist, according to the Toronto Star. A tractor reportedly amputated his foot sometime before April 2013. National Public Radio and other news sources note that he is an herbalist and gardener. He is married to Alex Pace and has two children, Michael and Angela Pace.
Brad Eugene Branch is an American former Branch Davidian who was charged and convicted of aiding and abetting voluntary manslaughter of federal agents during the 1993 Waco siege and weapons charges. He was sentenced to ten years in prison for the voluntary manslaughter charge and thirty years for the weapons charges. Originally, the charge of carrying a firearm during a violent crime was based on a conspiracy to murder charge on which Branch and other Davidians were acquitted, but federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Walter Smith to reinstate the weapons charges, which he did. The Branch Davidians, including Brad Branch, attempted to appeal the charges, but the appeals were turned down in 1997. The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear appellate arguments from the Branch Davidians including Branch in 2000. In response to the Supreme Court's ruling that Smith overstepped his power in his sentencing, he reduced his and other Davidians' sentences to five years for the weapons charges.
Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias is a 2023 non-fiction book by journalist Kevin Cook about the Waco siege. It was published by Henry Holt and Company.
Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage is a 2023 non-fiction book by journalist Jeff Guinn about the 1993 Waco siege. It was published by Simon & Schuster.