adventist church, they eventually called themselves as the branch davidians. >> pretty stable leadership for a lot of years, and they were known in town as a somewhat bizarre but benign religious group that pretty much kept to themselves. >> the davidians bought property about ten miles east of town, built a compound, and named their sanctuary mount carmel after the sacred biblical site in israel. but in the early 1980s a new member appeared who would change everything. his given name vernon wayne howell. handsome and magnetic, he convinced his followers he would one day be reborn as jesus christ. church members would come to worship him as david koresh. koresh being the hebrew name for cyrus, the legendary persian king and conquerer of babylon. >> he began to present the ideas that he had, and i would say 99% of the leadership of the church that were living at mount carmel accepted him as having a message