David Koresh

About David Koresh

David Koresh (born Vernon Howell, August 17, 1959 – April 19, 1993) was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. A 1993 raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and subsequent siege by the FBI ended with the burning of the Branch Davidian ranch. Koresh, 54 adults and 21 children were found dead after the fire, though the time of death is in dispute.

He was born Vernon Wayne Howell in Houston, Texas, to a 16-year-old single mother, Bonnie Sue Clark. His father was a 20-year-old man named Robert Howell. The pair remained unmarried. Shortly before Koresh was born, his father met another girl and left. He never met his father and his mother remarried to a violent alcoholic, who would severely abuse his two-year-old stepson. In 1962, Koresh's mother divorced her second husband and sent young Koresh to be raised by his maternal grandmother Earline Clark, so Bonnie could attend medical school. However, when he was seven, he was brought back into his mother's custody after his mother remarried a carpenter named Roy Haldeman. Haldeman and Clark had a son together named Roger, who was born in 1968. Koresh described his early childhood as lonely, and it has been alleged that he was once raped by older boys. A poor student diagnosed with dyslexia, Koresh dropped out of Garland High School when he was seventeen. Due to his poor study skills, he was put in special ed classes and nicknamed "dumbass" and "Mister Retardo" by his teachers and fellow students, but by the age of 11, he had memorized the entire New Testament.

When he was 19, Koresh had an affair with a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant. He claimed to have become a born-again Christian in the Southern Baptist Church and soon joined his mother's church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church. There he fell in love with the pastor's daughter and while praying for guidance he opened his eyes and allegedly found the Bible open at Isaiah 34, stating that none should want for a mate; convinced this was a sign from God, he approached the pastor and told him that God wanted him to have his daughter for a wife. The pastor threw him out, and when he continued to persist with his pursuit of the daughter he was expelled from the congregation.