David Koresh is an American sectarian who played a central role during the siege of Waco in 1993. As leader of the Branch Davidians sect, a branch of the Seventh Davidian Adventist Church, Koresh claims to be his last prophet. Originally from a dysfunctional background, Koresh was a member and later leader of the Davidians, a movement originally led by Benjamin Roden, based at the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas. There, Koresh struggled for dominance with another chieftain, Benjamin Roden's son George, until Koresh and his followers took control of Mount Carmel in 1987. The little Roden was then abandoned. jailed for contempt of court in 1988, then incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital in 1989 for killing Wayman Dale Adair.
He rose to prominence in 1993 when his Waco, Texas complex caught fire during a raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, killing him and over seventy of his followers.
