Adopted name of Vernon Wayne Howell (1959-1993)
US Christian religious leader of the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church that believes in the literal apocalyptic end of history, as described in the biblical Book of Revelation, prior to the second coming of Christ. With a number of coreligionists, he died in a fire at the cult's headquarters in Waco, Texas, as a result of military intervention.
Koresh, born in Houston, Texas, began as a Seventh-Day Adventist. He is said to have memorized the New Testament by the time he was 12, and as a teenager he would pray for hours; his mother thought he was a “good boy”. But he was expelled from the Adventists as a “bad influence on the young”, and joined the Branch Davidians 1981, rising to become leader. Identifying with his own understanding of Christ as a vengeful messiah, he stressed sacrifice and martyrdom and meted out corporal punishment to children who disobeyed. He married a 14-year-old girl, Rachel Jones, in 1983 and considered it his right to have sexual relations with any woman in the group or their children.
The practices of the sect became increasingly repressive under Koresh's leadership, which led eventually to the siege of the Branch Davidians' camp in Waco by the Federal Bureau of Investigation 1993. Their strong-arm military tactics fueled the paranoia of the cult members, many of whom died when a fire broke out at the culmination of the siege.