SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Six hours before the Branch Davidian compound erupted into a firestorm last April, men could be could be heard planning the blaze, according to transcripts from a listening device.
As the prosecution Monday neared the end of its case against 11 Davidians charged with conspiracy, Judge Walter Smith allowed into evidence a transcript of one of 11 bugs inside the compound near Waco.
"You want it poured?" asks an unidentified man at 6: 05 a.m., April 19. A few moments later, someone asks: "Pablo, have you poured it yet?"
"In the hallway."
The fire broke out at about 12: 07 p.m. April 19, after the FBI began a tear-gas assault on the building, ordering those inside to end the 51-day standoff that began Feb. 28 with a firefight with federal agents.
Four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were killed as they stormed the compound, and six Davidians are believed to have died.
Sect leader David Koresh and 80 followers died in the April blaze. Eighteen cult members had been shot.
Earlier Monday, a Davidian who was burned escaping the fire described her ordeal. Marjorie Thomas, who suffered third-degree burns over 51% of her body, testified in a three-hour videotape made in November and played Monday.
Thomas, a British woman who moved to the compound in 1992, said she was ordered to her room early April 19. She said she knew nothing of plans for a fire, but went to the second-floor women's dorm.
"All of a sudden, we all felt a warm glow," she testified. "The whole, entire building felt warm all at once, and after the warmth, thick black smoke came and the place became dark. I couldn't see anything."
Thomas said she heard "people moving and screaming all around. After a while I couldn't hear anybody screaming."
The gas mask she'd donned earlier was starting to melt and stick to her face, and her clothes had started to burn when she heard a friend, Sheila Martin, in the dark.
"I was making my way out and I said, 'I'm sorry,' " said Thomas, beginning to weep. "Her voice was very faint, and I couldn't see her."
Martin died in the fire.
Thomas jumped to safety from a second-floor window.
In the listening-device transcripts, few speakers are identified. But one remarkable exchange was identified by an acoustics expert as having been between Koresh and his chief lieutenant, Steve Schneider.
"They got two cans of Coleman fuel down there?" Koresh asks at about 9: 20 a.m., April 19, as agents were using military tanks to inject tear gas into the compound.
"Empty," replies Schnieder.
Defense lawyers today are expected to challenge the bug transcripts. Acoustics expert Paul Ginsberg testified the recordings were very noisy and hard to understand.
The recording from one bug ends suddenly with a crash at 11: 56 a.m., probably when a tank rolled over it. Minutes later, the compound burned.
