Woman says tanks prevented escape

Fire engulfed the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993

By JIM HENDERSON

June 28, 2000 Web posted at: 10:07 AM EDT (1407 GMT)

WACO, Texas (The Houston Chronicle) -- Misty Ferguson came to court Tuesday carrying with her the wrenching reminders of the inferno that ended the FBI siege of Mount Carmel seven years ago.

Dressed in white, her auburn bangs combed down to her wire-rim glasses, she stood with her back to the jury and raised her right hand to be sworn in as a witness.

What the jury saw was the stump of a hand, the fingers amputated.

Speaking softly, sometimes barely above a whisper, she described her last hours in the house of David Koresh; the tanks that poked through the walls and deposited tear-gas canisters; the floors of her second-story hallway, which collapsed and cut off her escape to nearby stairs; and the flames that charred her hands before she finally made it to the outside.

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"I was in my room, and I came out into the hallway, and I felt heat underneath my feet," she said. "I tried to go down the hallway to get out. I didn't want to get burned."

The floor of the hallway caved in from being battered by the tanks, she said.

"I was engulfed in smoke," she testified in the trial of the Branch Davidians' wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. government.

"I couldn't see. I got on the floor and saw a little bit of light down the other way. I started going that way, and I found a hole where the tanks had come in. I jumped from the building there."

Occasionally during her testimony, she reached up with her left hand to brush back her hair and the jurors could see that it, too, was fingerless.

The graphic disfigurement of the hands of the woman, who was just 17 years old when the standoff at Mount Carmel ended, made her testimony among the most poignant so far in the trial.

Houston attorney Michael Caddell, lead counsel for the 100 Davidians and their families suing the government, did not dwell on her injuries.

"(The jurors) know what happened. They saw her hands," he said during an afternoon recess.

Instead, he questioned her about the events of Feb. 29, 1993, when the standoff began with a raid on the Davidian compound by Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who tried to arrest Koresh on weapons charges. Caddell also asked her about April 19, 1993, when FBI field commanders made the decision to end the armed confrontation with tanks and tear gas.

Ferguson and her mother, Rita Riddle, had lived at Mount Carmel for more than two years.

"I just sort of considered it my home," she said.

Her mother left a few days after the ATF raid, but Ferguson remained behind. She expected to be reunited with her mother soon, she said.

As the siege dragged on, she spent most of her time in her third-floor loft room at one end of the women's dormitory.

On April 19, she "woke up early to the sound of tanks all around the house."

Putting on a gas mask, she moved down to the second floor to a room where her mother had lived. When tanks broke through that side of the building, she moved across the hall and waited for a chance to escape.

"The whole building was shaking," she testified. "I was very scared."

The jury Tuesday also heard more deposition testimony about the FBI's tactical commanders who were in charge of the siege.

Caddell has tried to convince the jury that Jeff Jamar, special agent in charge, and Richard Rogers, head of the hostage rescue team, violated a Washington-approved plan by beginning the dismantling of the structure prematurely.

Tuesday, the jury heard comments made by Clinton Van Zandt, a behavioral science specialist for the FBI, when he was asked for his assessment of Rogers.

"I think he believed very strongly in himself," Van Zandt said, "in his ability in the use of force. He saw negotiations as getting in the way. He is a strong proponent and advocate of tactical resolutions to situations."

Caddell has argued that Rogers declined to wait 48 hours to see if the tear gas drove the Davidians out of the structures and, instead, ordered the tanks to begin demolishing the complex two hours after the gassing began.

Caddell rested his portion of the plaintiffs' case in the afternoon. Former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark, who represents another group of the plaintiffs, began presenting his case after Ferguson's testimony.

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