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By Robert Bryce, Jim Moore and Joe Ellis

April 19, 2000 | WACO, Texas -- The blame game started just after the last body bag was zipped up. Four agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and six Branch Davidians were dead. Dozens of combatants were injured. David Koresh was bleeding from gunshot wounds in his right wrist and left hip. The emergency room at Providence Hospital in Waco was awash in the blood of the wounded.

The bloodiest and most controversial clash in American law-enforcement history had begun. A 51-day siege followed. It ended -- after numerous assaults by federal tanks and repeated tear gassings -- with a fire that rapidly consumed the Davidians' wooden compound. Another 75 people died that April 19. The search to find culprits for both disasters got under way immediately.

The ATF certainly didn't want the blame for the February clash -- what should have been a normal execution of a search warrant. So it quickly found a scapegoat. The raid would have gone smoothly, the ATF insisted, if only a journalist hadn't alerted the Davidians that the raid was imminent.

Cameraman Jim Peeler of Waco's KWTX-TV had run into David Jones, a Davidian and U.S. Mail carrier, on a rural road near Mount Carmel shortly before the raid. When Jones learned the cameraman was looking for the Davidian residence, Jones raced back to alert Koresh. The bloody clash ensued.

Those facts are clear. But one question has never been publicly answered: How did the TV cameraman and other journalists on the scene know the raid was going to happen? The Texas Rangers and the ATF have known the answer for more than a year, and it is disturbing: Media and law-enforcement officials say journalists were tipped off by Cal Luedke, a long-time member of McClennan County Sheriff's Office, who was assigned to support the ATF's raid-preparation team.

Luedke vehemently denies the charge. But Dan Mulloney, a former cameraman at KWTX has told Salon News and the News of Texas that he learned about the raid from Tommy Witherspoon, a reporter for the Waco Tribune-Herald. "Tommy told me he got it from Cal Luedke," said Mulloney. "Tommy told me it was Cal. No doubt about it."

Witherspoon, however, insists he never provided that information to Mulloney. "I have never told anyone who my source was for that tip. The only person I ever told was one editor here at the paper. I deny ever telling Dan Mulloney anything."

Although Witherspoon refuses to corroborate Mulloney's claim, state and federal law enforcement officials involved in the investigation say they have evidence that Luedke was the source of the leaks. Those same sources say that Luedke, the former head of the McLennan County Roadrunner Drug Task Force, has even confessed that he provided details on the raid to the media, and that his confession was forwarded to the Department of Justice for possible action.

The revelation of Luedke's role raises a number of questions. For instance, why haven't the ATF and the Department of Justice told anyone that they have evidence Luedke was the source of the leak? In the years since the raid, Mulloney and Peeler have seen their reputations ruined. The pair were ensnared in a lawsuit brought against KWTX by ATF agents who blamed the media for injuries they suffered after Peeler inadvertently tipped off Koresh. And the two photographers have been forced to shoulder much of the blame for the ATF's fiasco in Waco.

A source close to the investigation says Luedke confessed to federal authorities that he leaked information about the raid, and the transcript and details of his confession were forwarded to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's office in Washington. But Reno has apparently refused to do anything with the information on Luedke. By not resolving the Luedke matter, Reno has let suspicions linger about two federal marshals, Mike and Parnell McNamara, who were wrongly accused of informing journalists in advance of the raid.

Finally, the inside details about the botched raid raise other troubling questions about how the ATF handled the Waco standoff. When David Jones arrived at the Davidian compound that rainy Sunday morning with word of the impending raid, ATF agent Robert Rodriguez, working undercover within the compound, was inside the building talking with Koresh. Rodriguez then left and phoned his ATF superiors, advising them to call off the raid because Koresh had been alerted. But higher-ups ignored Rodriguez's warning.

The 1993 report on the Davidian matter by the U.S. Treasury Department found that Koresh and other Branch Davidians were ready and waiting long before the heavily armed agents hidden in two cattle trailers left EE Ranch Road and drove onto the long muddy driveway at Mount Carmel. Why the ATF chose to proceed with the raid, after the warning by Rodriguez, has never been adequately explained.

For his part, Luedke continues to insist he had nothing to do with the leak. Confronted outside his home last month by a producer for the News of Texas, he refused to discuss the matter. "I'm so goddamned tired of that shit," he said. "I ain't gonna talk to you about that." He suggested that reporters working on the story were "just stirring the shit" and demanded that they leave him alone.

When asked if he had lied about his role in tipping the media in his deposition, Luedke replied, "No, I sure didn't." Luedke also denied that agents from the ATF and Texas Rangers ever interviewed him about his role in tipping the media about the raid on Mount Carmel.

Despite Luedke's assertions, sources confirm that he was interviewed by both the Texas Rangers and the ATF about the leak. Sources close to the Texas Rangers say the inquiry into the leaks, led by Ranger David M. Maxwell, determined that Luedke was indeed the leaker.

The failure to punish or even publicly identify Luedke angers law officers at the state and federal level, who believe that someone should be held liable for the fiasco at Mount Carmel. Indeed, although nine Davidians were sent to prison -- five of them for 40 years -- not a single law enforcement officer has ever faced criminal charges for the events at Waco that ended seven years ago Wednesday.

The Department of Justice's refusal to use the evidence provided by Maxwell has increased the amount of bad blood between the Texas Rangers and the feds. Last year, James B. Francis Jr., the chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Rangers, said the Department of Justice's stances on the Davidian matter were, "in effect, a cover-up. It is not intended to be, but in effect it is. It is a complete stonewall."

Representatives of the Davidians say the failure to prosecute or produce records on the Luedke investigation confirms their belief that the government is still hiding information. "It's like a lot of other things that have occurred in this operation," says Stanley Rentz, a Waco attorney who represented Graeme Craddock, a Davidian who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his role in the shootout and siege. Federal authorities, said Rentz, want to "contain the problem as much as they can. It was just a matter in which they wanted to cover up something, contain the flame."

Next page | More lives ruined by Waco