Teen To Say Koresh Molested Her Girl Raised In Waco Compound Will Testify At Today’s Hearing

A teenage girl raised at the Mount Carmel compound near Waco, Texas, is expected to tell congressional investigators today how she was sexually molested by age 10 by Branch Davidian leader David Koresh.

Kiri Jewell, now a 14-year-old junior high cheerleader living with her non-Davidian father, is among 18 witnesses scheduled to testify on the opening day of joint hearings by two House subcommittees examining the 1993 federal assault on the armed religious enclave.

Her personal account of abuse could blunt a major theme of the hearings, criticism of FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents by other witnesses and Republican subcommittee members. Attorney General Janet Reno has said concerns about child abuse by cult members helped spur the FBI’s tragic final action against the compound.

In eight days of hearings, the subcommittees will probe a bungled, bloody ATF raid on Mount Carmel, the resulting 51-day standoff and the final FBI assault with tear gas and tanks that led to a fiery climax on April 19, 1993.

Four ATF agents were killed in the first shootout, and 81 Davidians, including Koresh and 25 children, died in the initial raid and final assault.

Right-wing groups have cited Mount Carmel as proof of government tyranny.

This growing sentiment has prompted Kiri Jewell to talk publicly for the first time about Koresh molesting her at a Waco motel when she was 10 years old, her father said.

“She decided it’s important after the bombing in Oklahoma City that people understand David Koresh and who he was,” said David Jewell, now a Michigan disc jockey.

“She thinks people are trying to make him into a hero. She knew him. She called him daddy part of her life. He raped her, so she knows he wasn’t a hero. She knows what he was about, and it wasn’t peace and love.”

David Jewell said his daughter is “scared” but determined to testify.