This episode contains audio and descriptions depicting violence, as well as some harsh language.

Please take care when listening.

In the spring of 1993, Michelle Rausch was a journalism student at Southern Methodist

University in Dallas, Texas, about 100 miles north of Waco.

Waco was attracting worldwide attention with the standoff with our federal government.

Still no break reported tonight outside of Waco.

Cult leader David Kaurish apparently remains holed up in his heavily armed.

It was on the evening news every single night.

I remember watching the live updates that the FBI and ATF had every night.

They advised that they are still in a standoff situation at Mount Carmel.

The bulk of information that was coming out was just these

spoon-fed news conferences.

And as a budding journalist, I wanted to know more what was going on down there.

Michelle and a friend who was a photographer decided to make the 90-minute drive down to Waco.

She drove and we were kind of driving around and I had no idea what I was going to find.

I just was there and I knew I would find my story when I saw it.

It was a desolate road. There was nothing out there.

In literally in the middle of nowhere, I see a car with these two large signs propped up.

What is the mark of a beast? And then the other one said, what do seventh day

Adventists really believe? I said, stop the car, my stories on this hill.

Spectators and onlookers had flocked to Waco from all over the country,

but because of the roadblocks, they couldn't get anywhere near the compound.

...