WACO, Texas -- Branch Davidian leader David Koresh is described as a man who plays the guitar, drinks beer, carries a 9mm Glock pistol at all times and believes he is Jesus Christ.
Born Vernon Howell at Houston, the 33-year-old Koresh changed his name two years ago to enhance his musical career. He was described as a rebellious teen who used drugs and played rock guitar in Dallas-area bands.
Koresh, who says he has a ninth-grade education, also worked as an auto mechanic before joining the Davidians he has led since the mid- 1980s.
In 1984, Koresh married 14-year-old Rachel Jones, the daughter of a high-ranking Davidian official. At about that time, a rivalry developed between Koresh and George Roden, the son of another cult leader.
Koresh and his followers were forced at gunpoint off the cult's land in 1985, and they settled near Palestine in east Texas where his believers built and lived in 8-by-12 foot boxes.
Two years later, Koresh and seven other men were charged with attempted murder in a shootout with Roden at the Waco camp. A mistrial was declared in Koresh's case and the charge against Koresh was dropped. The other seven men were acquitted.
El-Hadi Shabazz, identified as an assistant Texas district attorney who prosecuted Koresh on the attempted murder charge, told KCAL-TV in Los Angeles Monday night that, 'We predicted that his group...was just a time bomb waiting to go off.'
After Koresh was acquitted in what Shabazz called, 'a very bizarre trial,' authorities returned the virtual arsenal of military style weapons that had been confiscated and 'decided not to pursue (Kerosh), but to watch him.'
'There's no doubt those arms...were used against the federal officers on Sunday,' Shabazz said. 'It's my belief they were ambushed. '
Koresh, under the Howell name, owns a large, 2-story frame house in La Verne, Calif., about 30 miles east of Los Angeles.
La Verne police Officer Chuck Ochoa said Koresh had 18 women living there, including a 12-year-old girl he considered to be a wife. Because of her age, police in 1991 opened a child-molestation investigation, a case that is still open.
In 1990, Roden was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the killing of an Odessa, Texas man and was sent to Vernon State Hospital.
The Waco Tribune-Herald, which conducted a lengthy investigation of the Davidians, reported that Koresh abused children physically and psychologically, bragged that he had sex with underage girls in the cult, claimed the right to all women and has said he has at least 15 wives.
ATF spokesman Jack Killorin said Monday that women in the group are purported to believe that bearing Koresh's child gives them a place in heaven.
Koresh has convinced his followers that he alone can open the Seven Seals of Revelation, setting loose catastrophic events that Davidians believe will end the world and send Koresh and his followers into heaven.
One ex-follower of Koresh told the Tribune-Herald, 'We were thought of as God's Marines. If you can't die for God, you can't live for God.'
