Q: Question number one: In a sentence, what is this video all about?

A: This film is about what happens when the American public does not remember what the founding fathers warned us about when they gave us the constitution. If you don’t keep an eye on your government, a very close eye, the government will become something that you do not want to have ruling over you. And that is the issue. We the citizens of this country have to keep an eye on our friendly, local, neighborhood government, it’s only here to help us.

Q: When did your investigation into Waco begin? The first tangible step.

A: I started in May of 1993, I had seen the building burn down the month before, as well as just about everybody else in America. Plus, I saw a film that indicated there was a flame thrower mounted on the front of a tank. That intrigued me. In the process of investigating it I found that in fact there was no flame thrower, but there was another circumstance that might have been involved with the fire, and that was the demolition of the building which was far more severe than most people understood at the time.

Q: When did your investigation for “Waco A New Revelation” begin?

A: My overall investigation of Waco actually continued through the latter part of 1997, and came to a head when director, Jason Van Fleet, approached me in March of 1998 about the possibility of doing another film and basically continuing the investigative work on that basis.

Q: Who else was involved in the investigation?

A: Other people involved in the investigation would have included Peabody Award winner Scott Malone, a former investigative reporter for PBS Frontline; retired Lt. Col. Roger Charles of the National Security News Service; private investigator Mark Swett; David Hardy; retired US Army Air Corp Colonel Jack Frost an ordinance expert; and former FBI Crime Lab Special Agent Dr. Frederic Whitehurst; there were many others as well. Also, we received a great deal of technical assistance in terms of our forensic investigations from McCrone Laboratories out of Chicago. They did all the testing and analysis of the residues from explosives that may have been used at Mt. Carmel.

Q: So you had a lot of technical expertise on this too.

A: Oh yes, Dr. Edward Allard, an expert in daylight and infrared video analyzed the FLIR (forward-looking-infrared) tapes and helped identify gunfire on the ground; Maurice Cox, an expert in solar geometry analyzed the FLIR tapes relative to the contention made by the FBI that flashes on the tapes were merely sunlight or solar reflections. Dr. Ronald Graeser a forensic pathologist analyzed the remains of Jimmy Riddle, the Davidian who was apparently shot outside at the back of the compound building. There were other experts also.

Q: How was the evidence obtained? Through searches of evidence lockers, on-site visits, reviewing old news archives, interviewing experts, all the above?

A: All of the above.

We also got a number of pieces of information, videotapes, documents, and still photos, through the efforts of David Hardy, who did our Freedom of Information Act requests.

Q: And where did those come from, what government agencies?

A: A number of agencies ranging from the FBI to the Justice Department to the BATF, to the Department of Defense, to the US Army, and particular units. We were pretty thorough.

What is fascinating here, a little side story I should tell. In October and November of 1998, as a result of information we had acquired through those attorney's and through FOIA, we presented a request for clarification and further information to the Department of Justice, and ostensibly to Attorney General Janet Reno's attention. There was correspondence in late October, and also through November and the end of November. And one of those documents in particular was rather curious. We sent a letter that was multiple pages with photographs marked as exhibits, and videotape and other documents. One of those photographs was the photograph of the M651E1 CS gas canister. That we asked the Justice Department, ostensibly Janet Reno, what was that doing at Waco if the government said that they had never used any pyrotechnic devices? We had positively identified it, it was a crime scene photo made by the FBI, and we sent it to Miss Reno and her staff dated November the 30th 1998. On August the 26th 1999, Miss Reno made a public statement at her press conference, that she had no knowledge of the use of pyrotechnics at Waco, and has seen no evidence of the use of pyrotechnics at Waco. And yet, the M651E1 CS gas canister, the very thing that the FBI ultimately admitted to using at Waco was sent to her and her staff on November 30, 1998. The question is: why didn’t she know about it? It’s hard to say what the circumstances were except that she was in gross error in her statement, at that press conference on August 26 1999.

Q: Where else was evidence either stored and/or analyzed?

A: Evidence was found in a number of repositories, including the FBI itself, the ATF, the hostage rescue team headquarters in Quantico, Virginia. And the attorney's offices who defended the Branch Davidians in the criminal action, in the beginning of 1994. There were congressional records in repositories, that yielded some information. And there was the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) suit in Arizona, other attempts at discovering information through the FOIA, and information at other locations.

Q: You accessed a number of these? Or all of them?

A: All of them in one way or another. We had questions about the government's handling of the evidence, where it was handled, where it finally wound up; questions that are still unanswered. For example the M651E1's. Those are the CS gas canisters. Apparently they were photographed on the scene. The question is, did they go to the FBI crime lab for analysis? And if they did, why didn’t they return to the custody of the Texas Rangers? Or, where did the projectiles go? We have an evidence custody problem here. We know that certain 40 millimeter projectiles were examined by the FBI crime lab, and yet they remained misidentified in the evidence chain when we discovered them six years later. The question is, how could this happen? It wasn’t just a matter of misidentification on the scene, it was a matter of misidentification by the crime lab itself, in terms of quantifying, qualifying and identifying these objects.

Q: Did you actually personally visit the Waco site? Mt. Carmel?

A: Yes. I have been to Mt. Carmel many times, and in the events of the current investigation, dozens of times. There's some things to be learned by going there, some are emotional, most of them are intuitive, if not spiritual.

We did an excavation this time that was very informative. We wanted to find certain parts of the concrete bunker as the government called it, which was the church vault. We spent several days with a backhoe, and an acetylene torch and took apart the remains of rubble at three different locations at Mt. Carmel looking for these particular parts. What was amazing was we found all the other parts of the structure, except the one particular part we were looking for which was the roof with the hole blasted into the top of it. And for the life of us, we could not find that particular piece of concrete and rebar.

Q: Did you ask where that was?

A: Well, nobody seemed to know. Like a number of other things in the Waco situation, there seems to be missing evidence. If it’s not videotapes and front doors, then it’s the hole in the roof of the bunker. And that's one of the continuing mysteries of life revolving around the Waco situation.

Q: When you first got to Waco and made your first investigation had it already been combed over and a lot of the evidence removed?

A: No, actually not. My first early visits to Waco there was a lot of material that was still there. You have to understand the government basically bulldozed the place and took the top 18 inches of soil with them. And a lot of the rubble and materials associated with the building went also. For example, one of the two white front doors was recovered and in the evidence locker. And so were the propane bottles, that were involved with the fire, particularly the one that ruptured.

Q: When they bulldozed it, did they take a lot of the actual physical evidence away?

A: All the physical evidence was removed before it was bulldozed. And the problem though is that some of the physical evidence may not have been found in the initial investigation and review. And it may have wound up being disposed of with the so-called contaminated top soil and so on and so forth. It’s hard to say.

Basically what happened was, that certain evidence, not all evidence, but certain evidence that was recovered from the site, was declared to be a biohazard. And that evidence was bleached to prevent it from being a biological hazard to those that handled it.

The problem with bleaching is this: if you take evidence and screen it through a sifting screen then wash it off with a high pressure fire hose, then put bleach over it, the evidentiary value of the ballistics on the exterior of the bullet, the hair, the fiber etc. would have been destroyed. Even the Justice Department report, relative to ballistics, said that the ballistics tests were rudimentary, at best and inconclusive. So it’s apparent to me that the way the evidence was handled was in a fashion, predicated on the presumption made by the FBI at the onset, and the Texas Rangers had to assume that presumption as well, that the Branch Davidians committed suicide. There was no discussion of: could they have been killed by someone else from outside of the building.

Q: So the evidence you've seen opens the possibility that the Davidians could have been killed by someone from outside the building?

A: Well, the evidence certainly does more than open it. Experts who reviewed the evidence established that there was a gunfight between the Branch Davidians and federal forces for almost an hour before the fire started. Those forces appeared to have been comprised of the FBI hostage rescue team, and Delta Force operatives.

There's a highlight in the film, that clearly shows two to four men at the back of the building as the fire starts engulfing the building. At that critical moment, there had to be people trying to escape the fire by exiting out the back door, the only door in the whole structure that was left unmolested by the tanks. And indeed, in the aftermath we find fifteen bodies in and around the general location of that door that had died of gunshot wounds. And the question is whose bullets killed them?

Q: And that was never established by the government?

A: Well, as I said, the Justice Department report said that the ballistics tests conducted were rudimentary at best, and inconclusive.