David Koresh - Early Life

Early Life

Koresh was born on August 17, 1959 in Houston, Texas to a 15-year-old single mother, Bonnie Sue Clark. His father was a 20-year-old man named Bobby Howell. Before Koresh was born, his father met another teenage girl and abandoned Bonnie Sue. Koresh never met his father and his mother began cohabiting with a violent alcoholic. In 1963, Koresh's mother left her boyfriend and placed her 4-year-old son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Earline Clark. His mother returned when he was seven, after her marriage to a carpenter named Roy Haldeman. Haldeman and Clark had a son together named Roger, who was born in 1966. Koresh described his early childhood as lonely, and it has been alleged that he was once gang-raped by older boys when he was 8. Due to his poor study skills and dyslexia, he was put in special education classes and nicknamed "Mister Retardo" by his fellow students. Koresh dropped out of Garland High School in his junior year.

When he was 22, Koresh had an affair with a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant. He claimed to have become a born-again Christian in the Southern Baptist Church and soon joined his mother's church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church. There he fell in love with the pastor's daughter and while praying for guidance he opened his eyes and allegedly found the Bible open at Isaiah 34, stating that none should want for a mate; convinced this was a sign from God, he approached the pastor and told him that God wanted him to have his daughter for a wife. The pastor threw him out, and when he continued to persist with his pursuit of the daughter he was expelled from the congregation.

In 1981, he moved to Waco, Texas, where he joined the Branch Davidians, a religious group originating from a schism in 1955 from the Shepherd's Rod, themselves disfellowshipped members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1929. They had established their headquarters at a ranch about 10 miles out of Waco, which they called the Mount Carmel Center (after the Biblical Mount Carmel), in 1935. Koresh played guitar and sang in church services at Mount Carmel Center; his band played a few times at clubs in Waco; former members (such as David Thibodeau) have written that he recruited them through music. He also tried pursuing his own record company but because of lack of funds and support was not successful. His status as a "rock singer" was very localized.