Dr. Rodney Crow | Waco - The Inside Story | FRONTLINE (original) (raw)

Excerpts from FRONTLINE interview with Dr. Rodney Crow, Chief of Identification Service and forensic dentist, who worked closely with Dr. Nizam Peerwani in the Waco investigation. Interview conducted August 1, 1995. (As of November 1995, Dr. Rodney Crow was still chief of ID Service.)

Q: Were there weapons to be seen?

A: There were weapons everywhere. I don't remember moving a body that didn't have a gun melted to it, intertwined with it, between the legs, under the arm or in close proximity. And I'd say 18 inches to 20 inches would be close proximity.

Q: Including the women?

A: The women were probably more immersed in the weapons than anyone else, because there was so much weaponry inside the bunker. It was like sea shells on a beach, but they were spent casings and spent bullets. If you had rubber gloves and tried to smooth it away, you'd tear your gloves away from the bullet points that are unexploded, or unspent ammunition. Then as you went through layer after layer, you came upon weapons that were totally burned. Until we got down to the floor, and it was mint condition ammunition there. Ammunition boxes not even singed.

Q: Now that was the bunker?

A: That's the bunker. They stored the weapons in the safest place. Then on top of the bunker is where the 50-caliber was found. It was larger than the others and in the proximity of David Jones. I found a bayonet in proximity with one of the women in this area; several pistols, large caliber pistols.... a 44-caliber pistol. And I noticed probably more weapons per person and a variety on those people that were on top of the bunker--those were some of the men that represented the seven that went in with Koresh into the shootout. I've always associated them as the people that went down fighting-- those that were on top of the bunker.

Q: Could you describe their cause of death?

A: A lot of gunshot wounds there. My theory is there was a lot of euthanasia and mercy killing. That group probably were just about as active as anywhere in the compound, mercifully putting each other out of misery in the last moments.

Q: Generally, as a group of people, who did you find at the bunker?

A: A tremendous amount of children. We later discovered that there was no other place in the compound, except inside that room, is where the children were. And it later turned out that all of them that were in there were mothers too. And they were in one group. We found Rachel with her three children; we found Lorraine with her daughter Rachel and her little small girl, Hollywood. They got together as family groups packed in the room. There weren't children separated from mothers. Even at the moment of death.