In one of the only surviving recordings from Scott’s first radio show, Say It Ain’t So, on Free Radio Austin 97.1 FM, here is his long-lost first interview, with surviving Branch Davidian David Thibodeau from 1999.
The following is an automatically generated transcript.
Scott Horton 0:00
Well, you guys, I’m just almost at 5000 interviews now it looks like it should be this Friday. And now I have this one to add to the very bottom of the list. My long lost first interview I ever did on Free Radio Austin 97.1 FM in 1999. With surviving Branch Davidian, David Thibodeau. Well, part of it at least, all the tapes in my first show, “Say it Ain’t So” we’re stolen out of my friend’s storage shed years ago. So this is one of the very few recordings of it that remain. An old friend from Chaos Radio, had it and posted it on YouTube, which served it up to me in the margin just a couple of months ago. So thanks to Matt Dr. S for that. And also thanks very much to Jeremy deal for helping me to clean up the audio at least as much as possible. So here you go, my first interview from 20 years ago, David Thibodeau.
Well, everybody listening out there, this is Free Radio Austin 97.1, you’re listening to “Say it Ain’t So.” I’m talking with a very fine gentleman by the name of David Thibodeau, who is a survivor of the fire at Mount Carmel that was set by the federal government. And, in fact, before I forget, there was something in your book that this was the first time I’d ever heard this and this definitely goes to show toward the fact that they were planning on murdering all of you guys the whole time. Tell us about the order of body bags.
David Thibodeau 1:25
Oh, yeah. Good point, there was a couple of very disturbing reports that I’ve collected through all this what of course we call department Memorial Hospital exam, and they have the fire six hours before the fire, the FBI call that will be available and basically, they should expect burn victims fine here. And of course, television, that little bit of information came out is because the FBI was gonna refuse to pay pocket hospital profit. And part of my hospital was gonna sue because of this phone call that occurred two hours earlier. And they said you absolutely can it was gonna be a fire you call and we’ll take you to court on that, oh, well, we don’t want to do that. Let’s just pay for that. And the second thing was a few days before the fire call was put into a couple of the mortuaries in Waco, Texas. And they put an order for over 80 body bags, so they can have the body bags on hand.
Scott Horton 2:25
My friends did you hear that? Say it Ain’t So out there. I mean, come on. They ordered over 80 body bags. How many days Two days before?
David Thibodeau 2:36
I think it was like a week before.
Scott Horton 2:38
Okay. Say so my friend that just blows me away. It’s absolutely incredible. Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, boys and girls. We’re talking to David Tibideaux. He’s the author of a new book called a place called Waco, a survivor’s story. Again, I must reiterate, in case anybody’s just tuning in everything you ever knew about Waco, or thought that you knew whatever lies you might have believed etc. all came from the point of view of the government surrounding the place full of demonized people. And even if you’ve seen the rules of engagement, even if you have read the Davidian Massacre by Carroll Moore, or something like that, this is this is the first real taste of finding out what it was like Inside Mount Carmel during the siege. You get to find out why David was there, you get to find out what the federal government did to these people from the perspective of inside the house, and I just that cannot be denied to anyone, anyone with the slightest interest in this or, or anyone out there who says that me and my friend, David here are nothing but a couple of Kooks and that the government is harmless. I challenge you to go read this book and tell me when you’re done whether the government is harmless or not. It’s called A Place Called Waco Survivor Story by David Thibodeau. And I got to recommend that everybody rush out and get a copy. Before before we get into all the questions and answers here real quick. waco woke me up. See, I always knew I didn’t really like George Bush very much or what have you. But the fact that the demonization of divisions, I guess that’s not even really what you guys are supposed to be called anyway, but the demonization was so effective. I realized that we had to have a really big problem for this to be able to take place in this country. And I’d also like to say that waco is what got me interested in talk radio, the first time that I ever heard in my entire life. The Davidian side of the story, anyone besides the ATF or FBI describing what happened there? I was flipping through the am stations here in town, and I heard I believe it was, it was Catherine Madison, on another station here in town, and I realized it hit me It struck me for the first time that I didn’t even realize this was the first time I had Ever heard what one of the people inside Mount Carmel had to say. And so, to me that just shows the power of talk radio, because now here I am carrying it on myself. My friends, David Thibodeau, has a brand new book called a place called Waco, A Survivor’s Story, which I’m sure you can get a copy of anywhere I went and got mine at book people, it’s autographed and everything. An excellent book, I guess gave it we should just start at the beginning. Who are you? Where are you from? And how’d you get to Waco?
David Thibodeau 5:33
I grew up in Bangor, Main. mostly. And, you know, after small town, high school kid, I just wanted to get out and I’m doing my dream of being a drummer in a band. And nothing was bad. So I went to music school, make a long story short ended up David Christian, Steve Schneider, at a Guitar Center, Sunset Boulevard of all places. And we just kind of started talking, they gave me their card, corseted on this religious scripture on the back. And I wasn’t really looking to get into any kind of Christian Bennett time around, you know, living in Hollywood, very wary of religious groups.
And it just wasn’t my thing. But after a little while, I could tell that they actually had something of depth, and they didn’t come on preach your religious at all, they just came up, and they had a knowledge of what was really happening. Because I got to know these people over the course of a couple of months, I could see that they had incredible insight. And it became something that I genuinely wanted to know. I mean, I always knew there was a mystery behind the Bible. And then I knew that millions of people throughout the course of history didn’t die for the Scripture, there had to be a power behind it. And, you know, I knew that it was something that I wanted to understand if nothing else from a historical aspect. I had all my questions answered, beyond any comprehension that that I was prepared to receive.
Scott Horton 7:00
So so at the time, you weren’t particularly looking for any sort of Christian message, and then even after you met Koresh, it wasn’t so much his personality or his friendship that you gained that got him interested, it was actually the depth of his knowledge of the Bible that got you listening to him is that correct.
David Thibodeau 7:19
That’s the way but it wasn’t like, you know, his eyes, glow. I mean, he wasn’t, you know, that charismatic. People like to think, you know, he was just very real and honest about what was happening. Wouldn’t beliefs were and like I said, I mean, he could just not only answer every question you ever had, when he gave a study, for example, it was like he was there was like it lived in, which made it just phenomenal. The guy, like he was both revelation of Genesis. And everything in between, but into the flesh. It was way to describe something taken me months to a conclusion that there was truth there. And that’s why it’s so hard to really get into what it was all about what it was all like, in writing a book with Waco. I knew that I would have faced a lot of things on both sides. But I also knew that I would never be able to really get into depth of the Seven Seals to be able to really give someone an understanding of who David was. [indistinguishable]
Scott Horton 8:32
Is it correct? I believe in your book, he stayed that, from what you learned from Koresh that when he took a trip to Israel in 1985, but he had a vision and it it occurred to him that he, he pretty much like perceived the entire Bible from start to finish. All just like in one shot.
David Thibodeau 8:52
He had studied, you know, ever since he was a memorizer questions that already came back and Metreon a lot of the old people coming to me before he left, he was Vernon Wayne Howell. It was he’s been living out there at Mount Carmel for some time studying under Lois Road, was a prophet, basically, the Mount Carmel community there for six years, under three different leaders, and each leader, their divine inspiration, but they’re all pointing to one that would come in the latter days, and would be able to put the whole string together. And after 1985 Lois realized that that was David Koresh. And then he started to cry and basically take over the group and other people tell me, you know, when he first came on the scene he was he stuttered all the time. To be all that intelligent, all the cars that he worked very hard for the community. But that was basically after 85 Everything came together he stopped stuttering became a credible teacher. And every single one of them believed that he was the one that probably back to who Benjamin Roden who originally founded the movement out there at Mount Carmel was speaking this person, the person David Koresh wasn’t just some fly by night thing, something that group of people out there had been waiting for for a long time. And that the people that have been teaching them had been talking about this person would immediately feel and then of course, that was David Koresh that did that.
Scott Horton 10:24
Okay, I don’t really want to spend no, you don’t want to spend too much time on that I basically just wanted to. And I think he did a great job of pretty much getting out of the way the whole media hype lie that this guy was some kind of Charles Manson, look at you and hypnotize you to charismatic cult leader that it really was his message, not himself personally. That was the attraction here at Mount Carmel. Right?
David Thibodeau 10:48
He was always pointing back to the book and saying it’s me. Teaching I’m showing you for yourself, if you think I’m putting my own interpretation here, let me know and we’ll you know, we’ll talk about it further. But if you pick this is what it says that he believed that’s where he would go to whole chapters, to show you that that’s what it really said, basically see it for yourself. So the people there that believed in him, believed in God believe in the book, more so than they believed in him he was the person was pointing away. And he often said that he was like, addicted to be thrown away when he was used. Because you know, what’s the flesh, we’re all going to die, but the only thing we know is that we’re born, we’re gonna die. What happens, I think, is up to you. We do have to be more agents, we have to choose what we want to do with that. And I think God opened up a lot of paths once you make the right choice. For me, I always knew that I was going to have an interesting life. I mean, that it wouldn’t be any kind of normal corporate life would be more of an adventure. And in meeting David Koresh, that adventure really began.
Scott Horton 12:07
All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you’re just tuning in, this is Free Radio Austin 97.1. And we’re interviewing David Thibodeau, the author of a new book, a place called Waco, A Survivor’s Story. He escaped out of the front of the building, and so he was not machine gun, like the people on the backward, we’ll get to that. But tell me, how did you guys first learn that you were under the investigation or under investigation by the federal government?
David Thibodeau 12:36
Well, we realized that there was the there was a place across the street. And these people have moved in. Helicopters are flying very low over the building, pretty pretty consistently. But when these people across the street movement, you know, we started very suspicious, because, you know, they were in their late 30s, early 40s. Yet they had, you know, Rolex watches, sunglasses, there were these four guys that were claiming that they were going to the FTC CFTC, which is a community college, interested in philosophy. Their stories didn’t fit. You know, we were very wary. But I think David, one of the one of the agents, Robert Rodriguez starts to come in and get studies with David. Of course, he was there to investigate. But David’s attitude was, you know, this person, I don’t care who he’s with. The FBI, ATF CIA, doesn’t matter. The person has a soul So if I could show him what I’m all about here, we can see that there’s nothing illegal going on and maybe he can hold off, hold off he has the authority. Music, local court, wanted to get the music out, start playing, getting out mounts or playing with people and have them kind of question the truth that way. So he totally worked. I mean, we know we invited the ATF when they were raiding. Henry McMahon was a licensed firearm dealer. His good friend of ours started to take David to gun shows showing the business. Be careful about three months before our raid rated. We’re having a lot of questions about Koresh.
You should ask personal questions about Koresh. So it goes the other realm. David Koresh, and he says, David, ATF are out here they’re going through all my yellow sheets are asking me a lot of questions about you. What do you want me to do? And David said, Well, you know what Henry? Put them on the phone and I’ll talk to them. They get any of the they can check any of the yellow sheets we have on any of our firearms. And of course, the vehicle lire Heading out the investigation kind of pantomimed. No. Hang up. We didn’t have them out there. They did not want to do it that way they had an agenda. And, of course, the agenda wasn’t just to go in with a bunch of religious fanatics. I think they they did not want to work with us. They wanted a dynamic entity, what they called Showtime. And I think that two bad conditions, killed many people. And all they had to do was work with him. They did not want that at all.
Scott Horton 15:39
Well, and that really is unprecedented in the history of law enforcement for someone under investigation to invite the cops to come on out, and for them to refuse isn’t that unprecedented kind of way of doing things?
David Thibodeau 15:52
Yeah. I think so. David had worked with the sheriff, Jack Harwell on a first name basis. And the sheriff wasn’t afraid to come out and had in the past, these people. They didn’t want to list the reasons. It’s kind of the way I look at it. They had their agenda. It’s just a terrible thing. Two cattles trailers filled with men come up to your building, and Three helicopters in the back shooting at the building and firing like the set of a Rambo movie. And if you’re claiming that they’re there to protect the women and children kind of question their motives for the operation.
Scott Horton 16:38
yeah. Well, there was a lot of hubbub about how the element of surprise has been lost. But in reading your book, it doesn’t occur to me that they wanted it to be a surprise at all. I mean, they haven’t the obvious. undercover agents live in right across the street. Obviously, this guy Robert Rodriguez knew that Koresh knew that he was working for the ATF. Even if they hadn’t had the media out there all early, and and if the helicopters hadn’t arrived that much earlier than the cattle trailers full of men. It still it seems like there was no element of surprise to start with, for them to lose.
David Thibodeau 17:20
Yeah, I mean, pretty much knew what was going on. I mean, we knew the scriptural standpoint that something was going to happen to us we just never knew, to what extent or what how it would actually occur. You know, but people out there were definitely prepared for some kind of shenanigans by the government. And, of course, the government never took that into consideration.
Just it just floors me with these people. You know, they, they forget that there are public servants. You know, and they think that they are above the law. And, you know, last time I read the Constitution, that wasn’t the case. And this whole phenomenon, dynamic entry means just taking the country in a terrible situation, having had visiting the country as a police state, and if you study history, and you understand what happened with, with Germany under under the nazis, and how Hitler did things, you know, it’s not that this is not a totalitarian state dictatorship. But it follows a lot of the same guidelines. If you read the gun control laws Hitler wrote after he came to power, they almost are identical American.
Scott Horton 18:39
Well, in fact, that’s an excellent point. In fact, I just heard on, I believe it was Liddy show, on another station here in town. He said that the German Gun Control Act of 1938, Hitler’s Gun Control Act of 38, was literally translated and sent to the Congress of the United States and was passed as the Gun Control Act of 1968. Here in America.
David Thibodeau 19:06
Yeah, yeah, that’s true. I mean, I thought through some of that material,
Scott Horton 19:09
absolutely insane.
David Thibodeau 19:11
Very, very parallel. And, you know, I mean, I just read this thing today. There’s all this news breaking all the time. I certainly before I forget you were talking about the book earlier. Anyone that’s listening that would like to get a copy of that book, in order directly through me and that way, they can get an autographed copy. You know, I can’t do book signings all the time. But I do like to make myself available to people that are interested. And two ways you can get the book for me is going to my website, which is www.aplacecalledwaco.com (does not work). Just the title of the book, a place called waco comm or call me at 877 Why Waco? My toll free number for an instructions
Scott Horton 19:54
at 877 Why Waco,
David Thibodeau 19:58
which is a figure it out on the keyboard here 9499226.
Scott Horton 20:07
And I must recommend this book, I just finished reading it last night. And I’ll tell you, as someone who’s been interested in this, since it originally took place when I was only 16 years old. I’ve read a lot of articles and a few books. And I’ve seen obviously a lot of videos and especially waco the rules of engagement. But it occurred to me, this is not necessarily for you David, but for the people out there who are interested in the story. All we know about what happened there is from the yard looking at the house, you know, that’s the best that we can tell. And you know, watching the congressional hearings and what have you. But if you want to know what really happened in Waco, you’ve got to get this book a place called waco survivor story. It’s just absolutely incredible to understand the Waco siege from the perspective of inside the complex their Mount Carmel, rather than from the FBIs point of view. Yeah, perimeter.
David Thibodeau 21:07
That’s never been allowed before. I mean, you know, we made a tape for the public during the 51 day siege. And it was basically all the people were interviewed on the inside their own interviewed by Steve Snyder. He was just asking, you know, what’s your experience? Do you want to leave? Can you leave at any time? What happened on February 28 how come you want to stay here? Basically, everyone interviewed, I mean, the entire congregation that was in there, we send an FBI. Of course, this came on a congressional hearing, they suppressed that tape to the public, because they felt that it would cause much public sympathy for the video.
Scott Horton 21:43
Oh, sure. I mean, their party line was that this guy was Charles Manson. And you guys were all his mindless slaves. And if they had seen that, if we the public had seen that footage, that would have been the end of that. For them right there,
David Thibodeau 21:54
I think about that for a minute. And then suppressing that thing. Well, this would have caused much public support. What do they say? What they’re saying is that there’s no way that we can really achieve what we want to achieve here if the public knows what’s going on. So you just got to deal with what we’re telling you and take that as face value. The interesting thing is the political agenda that it’s in right now, you will be the question. This entire administration. We’re basically all around in the 60s, the 60s, Marshall was to question authority. And I’d like to know what happened to these people. Once they came into power, they seem to forget that and now that they’re in power, okay. They want to make it illegal for you to question authority. So these are the liberals, people. You know, I’ve seen a complete turn around this country where it appears to me that the Democrats that become Republican Republicans literally become the Democrats that I knew 10 years ago before Clinton came into power. So it’s kind of like a pendulum reversal in the nation, and the fact that they can have like, there’s a quote, I love that really puts it into perspective. Senator Henry Clay in 1800s. He said the devices of power and its minions are the same in all countries in all ages. First, it marks its victim then denounces it to excite the public hatred. This concealing its own abuses and encroachments. Think about that for a minute. What Senator Henry Clay was saying is that for the government to be effective, they’re gonna go in, they’re going to demonize you, they’re gonna basically wipe you out. And they’re going to do this to conceal what they’re really doing. That’s exactly what Hitler did. This has appeared throughout history over and over and over again. And I you know, come to the conclusions in my life that if the sheeple if the majority of the people feel one way that I had the other way to find the truth because I’ve seen over and over again in my life, the majority of people don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. And they don’t want to like for example, I have a friend that works at Dell computer and he’s got my book out on his desk. He says that all day people come by and look at the book they go wow, I want to check this out and they got to get to their desk reader for like a half hour go through it bring it that way you know, I know this guy David, he’s a friend of mine. You want to book just the things we don’t want that I don’t I don’t want to have that book in my house.
Scott Horton 24:32
Oh, yes. What if What if the SWAT team came to search my house and and found your book on my shelf I might be in even worse trouble.
David Thibodeau 24:40
But a major publisher very balanced. Well, other reviews and other for my own but other reviews are talking about how well written is. And yet you know, there’s still this fear out there that it’s some kind of naughty thing to learn the truth. And I just have to have to Wonder what is going on this is American land of the free hunt the brave the place where people can come and achieve the idealistic dream and be able to live without any kind of repression. And, you know, everyone’s running scared now. The government has become far more powerful when our constitutional founders and forefathers have wanted it to be. And these are just the points that my experience is the exclamation mark to that point. You know, I think that literally, this is the most important events ever occurred in America. For people who ignored or not care about it. This shows our apathy to everyone’s doing well, no one wants to eat crumbs. No one wants to rock the boat.
Scott Horton 25:49
Well, no one wants to admit how wrong they were about you guys in the first place. I mean, the people I meet people now who go Yeah, you know what happened to Waco? Yeah, that was a bad thing. But they don’t really want to get too far into it. Because they might have to remember just how easily they fell for the party line in the first place. And that’s not comfortable.
David Thibodeau 26:09
They may become very terrible habit. And once you become convicted, you either move on and live with your conscious or you do some about it. And how many people are really willing to do something about it. I wrote the book, in part because I’m worried about it. Now, there’s seven people in jail right now. Some of them are in jail for 40 years and a weapons violation that the jury thought was thrown out. In fact, I’d spoken with the hatchery, foreman, Sarah Bay. And she told me that had the jury been able to hear all the evidence that the judge says while there’s managed to suppress from them, everybody would have been acquitted on all charges. Perfect, they weren’t around a year to hear this information is phenomenal. That could happen in this country, and that there is a judge to be that powerful.
Scott Horton 26:58
Right. And this is. And this is the same judge that is now presiding over the civil trial, right and posing as the hero taking all the evidence from the Justice Department.
David Thibodeau 27:08
Get rid of this guy, no matter what we do. He’s coming around. And, you know, it’s just it’s a terrible, terrible miscarriage of justice. That’s why frankly, you know, I hope for the best expect the worst. That’s really all I’ve seen out of this whole experience in this whole scenario. And I don’t expect that the government, the Congress, or the civil cases, will produce too much. I mean, I hope that they do. But the authorities are so good, so brilliant, at spinning things, and keeping things under wraps. I don’t know how they do it. I mean, frankly,
Scott Horton 27:46
it really is incredible. I think, actually, it’s been proven to me before, how many of the people at the top levels of the mainstream media have master’s degrees and PhDs in social psychology. And they definitely put that to us very well. It’s just absolutely incredible. In fact, the one that’s really getting me lately is now that they’re finally talking about this FLIR footage that we’ve all seen since it came out at the trial. And since it was included in Waco, the rules of engagement, and they’re willing to discuss to a certain extent that gunfire in the backyard, but nowhere is the mention of the double flash in the window, the gymnasium with a Firestone
David Thibodeau 28:23
that’s why I bring that point up every single time that I speak. Because you know, the world’s first building, no one’s accounted for the mainstream will not touch it. They won’t touch it. I don’t know why. I mean, it was funny to me when all this started to break again, that they were concentrating heavily on the fact that a couple pyrotechnic devices were used.
Scott Horton 28:50
Well, and even the pyrotechnic devices that they admitted to, they sent Danny Coulson, the pretend whistleblower baby killer to come forward and say, Why yes, we did fire Incendiary rounds, 50 yards away from the house into a puddle of water six hours before the fire broke out. There must be an investigation. Yeah. So I have a feeling that you’re right, at least as far as the so called congressional and Dan force, trilateral is independent investigation, that partisan close to independent party. As far as that goes, I think you’re right that we’re going to get nowhere. Hopefully, at y’all civil trial. Some of this stuff will come out
David Thibodeau 29:27
I feel pretty comfortable with the fact that we have no real Spark, former Attorney General the United States Of course, these are our counselors to different monsters, there’s houston lawsuit Condell, there, they’re dealing with most of the survivors started most of the families that lost and there’s Ramsey suite that is dealing with most of the survivors. I went with Ramsey super that was a little more radical. I mean, he was one of the people were shot. explosions that the government actually absolutely want to kill these people. The Houston attorney Little People were shot but is a little less favorable, aggressive. People just don’t understand. Even the attorneys. Everyone has gotten such a bad rap on this. You can go into any any town and take the most pious old woman in the town and start a campaign to slander her. And the truth of the matter is you probably do very well it takes it takes five positive statements to undo one negative statement
Scott Horton 30:38
You just had a really interesting point, David about how this guy a lawyer from Houston even believe some of their stuff. I noticed one of his quotes in the Dallas Morning News where he talks about how the government lied about not having the ground level footage. The government lied about this and lied about that. And one of the things that he mentioned is that the government lied about not knowing what Koresh was planning in there. And I just thought, wait a minute, man. Now what angle is this guy going for? Is he is this guy Kadell? You think, Dan? Is he going to go for the angle that correct did set the fire but that the Fed should have known and therefore backed off? Or
David Thibodeau 31:16
it appears to be that way? Yeah.
Scott Horton 31:18
Well, that’s just absolutely sick. I hope that somebody can get a hold of this guy. Well, you told me David, you were inside that last day, or and even the 51 days leading up to that? Did you ever hear any discussion of mass suicide? Especially out of the mouth of David Koresh? Was there ever any plan to commit suicide? And is it or is it not the fact that if you’re a Christian, it is a basic part of your belief system that suicide is the worst sin of all, because you can’t ask for forgiveness afterward.
David Thibodeau 31:49
Absolutely right, god gave you life for a reason and you’re supposed to I mean, he’ll take a whole lifetime to work with someone and bring them around. Bring them out of whatever they’re doing. And sometimes it takes a lifetime to do that. You’re basically spitting in the face of God, if you kill yourself, you’re giving up that gift and saying that no, God, you can’t. I can’t take part of salvation. And part of the experience of this life is taking that learning to deal with it.
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