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This is Later with Lee Matthews The
Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here weekday

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afternoons on the Drive. Stephen Stephen
Talty. Stephen Talty is an award winning

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author of Agent Garbeaux, Empire of
the Blue Water, the other best selling

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works of narrative nonfiction. His books
have also been made into two films,

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including Captain Phillips and Only the Brave. His newest creation comes on the anniversary

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of what was the tragedy at Waco. It's called Koresh The True Story of

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David Koresh and that Tragedy at Waco
and Stephan, thanks for joining us.

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Great to be here. Let's go
back to the beginning and David Koresh's childhood.

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Yeah, that's really where it all
begins. I went down to Texasus

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and spoke to some of his family
and his friends, and what I found

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is that from the beginning, David
Koresh had a big ego. He was

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a narcissist, and he didn't get
what he needed in childhood, especially from

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the male figures in his life.
His father abandoned him, his stepfather beat

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him and sort of humiliated him.
So he grew up feeling, you know,

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I'm I'm being I'm an important person
who's sort of being ignored and mistreated,

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and he needed a way to sort
of get that respect and that that

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love back in his life. And
what eventually happened is he founded at Waco.

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He began leading this branch Davidian sect, and the more sort of approval

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and love he got, the more
he needed. It was sort of a

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never ending story. What brought him
into a ministry and wanting to be I

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mean, was there some sort of
religious leader or somebody in his life that

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led him to his religion. You
know, he seems to almost have been

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born with this sense of faith.
Would listen to the preachers on the radio

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and Texas growing up, we'd go
to the local congregations. His mother was,

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you know, a Seventh day Adventist, so he had a lot of

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religion around him, but he really
took it seriously. He would pray for

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hours. He was you know,
a lot of people think he was kind

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of just a command but David Koresh
was serious about his faith. I have

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to give him that, and he
just wanted to to lead people and to

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sort of show him his interpretation of
the Bible. Koresh the true story of

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David Koresh and the tragedy at Waco. We're talking to Stephan Talti, who

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is the author of the book.
So in his youth, did he have

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romances or did all of this kind
of keep him away from that type of

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activity. Now, he definitely did. I mean, David Koresh was a

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good looking guy. He was He
had a sort of sports phase where he

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was a great runner, He was
in shape, played the guitar pretty well,

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so you know, he was kind
of a catch. But he had

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this deep conflict within himself. He
thought that he should remain pure for his

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you know, true bride, and
that he was kind of flirting with the

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devil a little bit by playing you
know, Satan's music rock and roll hall.

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So he always had this conflict where
it always led him back to God.

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That was the only sort of path
to greatness he felt that he could

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do without having guilt. So no, David Koresh definitely had girlfriends. I

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spoke to his last girlfriend before he
went to Waco, and they had a

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bad breakup, and he sort of
was looking for whatever whatever you want to

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call it, the truth salvation,
and he found this sort of small religious

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sect in Waco, and you know
everything changed after that. So he found

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them. They did not bring him
in. Yes, he found them,

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but you know, they were sort
of looking for their next profit. The

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Branch Davidians are a very prophetic group. You have to sort of see the

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future to lead them, and that's
what David Koresh specialized in. If he

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if he got you in a room
and he was talking about the Bible,

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you'd be in trance. He was
a brilliant speaker. So slowly he sort

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of pushed out the old leader and
assumed the power that she had and really

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took over the sect. Stephantalty is
with us Koresh the true story of David

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Koresh and the Tragedy of Waco,
And then he starts he starts being very

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prolific in Waco with the Branch Davidians. But it seems pretty benign to me

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at the beginning. At what point
did things start to get kind of where

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they were getting the attention of the
government. Yeah, just to go back

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a little bit, that did surprise
me. I mean, David Koresh really

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did try to be a Christian in
the beginning. I mean he helped drug

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addicts that he came across, He
counseled people, He kind of helped his

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followers find jobs. So in the
beginning he wasn't a dark figure, I

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don't think. But as time went
on, he was promising his followers the

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end times, the apocalypse, and
he would say, you know, the

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other leaders said it was going to
be one hundred years or a two hundred

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years in the future, but it's
going to happen in our lifetimes. That's

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what he was promising them. So
not only did he become more paranoid about

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you know, the young girls he
was sleeping with and the guns he was

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accumulating, he was, in a
way, I think, kind of you

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know, anticipating this confrontation with the
government because he needed to show his followers

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that he was the real deal,
he was the Messiah. It couldn't happen,

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you know, two hundred years from
now. That would do him no

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good. So he was not only
breaking the law, which he really did,

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but he was also looking for ways
to confront what he called Babylon,

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which was America in this two sorry
in nineteen nineties, the federal government.

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He felt that they had become infidels
and that he was going to show America

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the true lights, the true way
forward, and Stephan Talty's with us.

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The book that he's written is called
Koresh and the True Story of David Koresh

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and the Tragedy at Waco. So
what illegalities did he? I mean,

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what was the first thing that got
the attention of the Feds? The first

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thing that really got their attention was
there was a UPS deliveryman who often delivered

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to the compound in Waco, and
one day he had a box going there

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and a casing for a hand grenade
fell down, which is not something you

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see that often. So all it
needed was the black powder, et cetera

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to become active. He got nervous
about it. He contacted the sheriff,

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and the sheriff contacted the ATF,
which you know, which handles these kinds

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of things. So they opened an
investigation and really bungled it. You know,

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they nabbed David Koresh. Outside the
compound. He would go into Waco,

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go to the guitar stores, go
to restaurants. He was you know,

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he was available. But they,
you know, their surveillance teams didn't

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realize this. So they decided on
a raid. The biggest in their history,

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and that initial confrontation left for atf
AG instead some Davidians dead, and

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of course then we went into the
FBI siege. Yeah. Yeah, that's

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what I was getting at, because
from what I understood, he did go

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for regular jogs and they could have
easily enabbed him on one of those jogs.

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Yeah, you know, And I've
I've spoken with the planners, the

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ETF guys who who planned this,
and I have to say, they man

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up. They say, you know, we we mess up this investigation.

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It wasn't the guys on the ground, you know, the eighties plus agents

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who went in that day who messed
up. They performed very well. It's

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really the middle management, the guys
who were overseeing the project who just didn't

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realize that this could have been handled
much much more cleanly, much more simply,

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and decided on this disastrous raid.
Stephen Talty Koresh the true story of

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David Koresh and the tragedy at Waco, and then all of this is said

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to have inspired Timothy McVeigh. Yeah, Timothy McVeigh traveled to Waco. He

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was very disturbed by what he thought
was happening, which as he saw it

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was the federal government really harassing and
attacking these you know, Christian gun rights

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people that McVay felt a kinship with, so he went there. He had

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bumper stickers sort of attacking the federal
government. And Waco really was a turning

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point for mcvayh he once it was
over, he felt he wanted to strike

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back and sort of in a way, get revenge for the French. Davidian

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and you can read all about it
and Stephan Talty's Koresh The True Story of

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David Koresh and the Tragedy at Waco. I thank you for joining us and

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for your new volume, Thanks for
having thanks for listening to Later with Lee

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Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,
and remember to listen to The Drive Live

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weekday afternoons from five to seven and
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