Eyewitnesses say that Perry Jones died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen during the February 28 raid (Texas Monthly, January 24, 2018; Eonline, March 23, 2023).  The Autopsy Report of his alleged remains attributes his death to a gunshot wound to the mouth.  His wife was not permitted to view the remains before burial.  Photo from Newsweek, May 3, 1993.

The last identification of the Branch Davidian remains was that of 5-year-old Serenity Sea Jones on August 17, 1994.  According to a June 1996 call with Judge James Collier, the Justice of the Peace for Precinct 2 of McLennan County, Texas, no more remains had been identified.

The McLennan County Identification List reveals the Branch Davidian remains were identified variously by dental examination, fingerprint examination, and DNA studies.

Dr. Rodney Crow supervised the dental record identifications, according to the Autopsy Reports.  We have seen in Eenie Meenie Minie—DOE! that Dr. Crow visited the concrete room on April 21 when the hole was 18 to 24 inches in diameter.  Yet, in The Locals Speak, we see that Dr. Crow went on the Maury Povich show and said that the hole in the roof was eight feet in diameter, and that three of the children had blunt force trauma caused by the falling concrete.  Dr. Crow's promotion of the false story does not inspire confidence in the identifications he supervised.

The fingerprint exams were conducted by the FBI Latent Fingerprint Section (e.g.: Mt. Carmel Doe 20, pg. 6.  The DNA exams were conducted by the FBI laboratory in FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.  Yet that was the same laboratory that fabricated evidence of a urea nitrate bomb in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City (Dr. Frederic Whitehurst testimony).  Who would trust identification work performed by the FBI lab?

In reviewing the identification process, we find a number of different situations: (1) Whole bodies were assigned identities, (2) Body fragments were assigned identities, (3) Some identities have never been assigned bodies or body parts, and, (4) Some bodies and body parts have not been assigned identities.  We also find (5) obviously mistaken identities. (All of the autopsies listed below can be found through the Collated Identification Matrix.)

  1. Whole bodies were assigned identities.  Examples:
    • Julliete Martinez, Mt. Carmel Doe 54
    • Perry Dale Jones, Mt. Carmel Doe 80
  2. Body fragments were assigned identities.  Examples:
    • Chanel Andrade, Mt. Carmel Doe 62
    • Melissa Morrison, Mt. Carmel Doe 74
  3. Some identities have never been assigned bodies or body parts.  Examples:
    • The remains of one-year-old Startle Summers have never been identified.  She was white.
    • The remains of Paulina Henry have never been identified; she was a black 24-year-old British citizen.
    • No remains have been identified for Lisa Marie Martin, aged 13.  She was black.
    • No remains have been identified for Sheila Renee Martin, aged 15.  She was black.
  4. Some bodies and body parts have not been assigned identities.  Examples:
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 31C is described by Dr. Peerwani in sworn testimony as "a human leg."  An Autopsy Report is not on file with the McLennan County Justice of the Peace.  The McLennan County Identification List does not mention it.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 31DE has never been identified.  The remains consisted of a fragmentary skull with the complete mandible of a child 11 to 14 years old.  The McLennan County Identification List does not mention it.
    • Mt. Carmel Does 50 and 61—which are said to be of the same individual—"Martin Child" have never been identified.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 51A, the skull of a two-year-old, has never been identified.  The McLennan County Identification List does not mention it.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 59 is the disarticulated head and torso, and articulated pelvis and legs of a 14 to 19-year-old Caucasian female; wearing an Armitron brand watch stopped on 4/20/93 at 6:00 o'clock.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 60 — Left humerus (arm bone) and mandible (jaw bone) of 2 to 4-year-old child.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 65— Toddler—fragmented skull, cervical vertebra, left hand, and ileum (hip bone).
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 67-7 — Toddler, 2.5 years old, pelvis, legs, feet, and a bone from a left arm.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 67-8 — Infant, 13 months old, fragmentary skull.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 72— Child aged 4-5 years, female Caucasian; the fragmented skull is disarticulated from the body.
  5. We also find obviously mistaken identifications.  Examples:
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 31F is a lock of "Negroid hair braided into a small loose dreadlock style" with attached scalp; the Autopsy Report says "See evidence collected for 31A for elements which may be applicable to 31F."  The Autopsy Report for 31A identifies the remains as Aisha Gyarfas Summers, who was white.  The identification of 31A was confirmed by DNA studies on February 8, 1994 (McLennan County Identification List, pg. 2).
    • Isaiah Martinez was four years old (see Clive Doyle's Complete List of Mt. Carmel Deaths).  On April 14, 1994, Mt. Carmel Doe 53 was identified as Isaiah Martinez by DNA testing (McLennan County Identification List, pg. 3).  But the Autopsy Report states Mt. Carmel Doe 53 was a girl of five and a half to six and a half years, not a boy of four.  Note the handwritten notation on the McLennan County Identification List, "Unknown," written after the List was typed.  The remains were apparently buried as "unknown Martinez child" (Inquest Certificate for Mt. Carmel Doe 53).
    • Crystal Martinez was three years old (Clive Doyle's Complete List of Mt. Carmel Deaths).  On April 14, 1994, Mt. Carmel Doe 57 was identified as Crystal Martinez by DNA testing (McLennan County Identification List, pg. 3).  Note the handwritten word "Unknown" on the McLennan County Identification List, entered after it was typed.  The Autopsy Report indicates Mt. Carmel Doe 57 was six years old.  The autopsy photo also suggests the child was about six years old.  Nevertheless, the remains were apparently buried as "Crystal Martinez" (Inquest Certificate for Mt. Carmel Doe 57).  The body of a six-year-old child was buried under the name of a three-year-old child.
    • Mt. Carmel Doe 61 was identified by (FBI) fingerprint comparison on May 6, 1993, as a 29-year-old woman, .  On May 26, 1994, according to the McLennan County Identification List, pg. 3, Mt. Carmel Doe 61 was identified by (FBI) DNA analysis as "Martin Child."
    • On April 14, 1994, Mt. Carmel Doe 75 was identified by (FBI) DNA studies as Rosemary Morrison (McLennan County Identification List, pg. 4).  The Autopsy Report for Doe 75 states: "External genitalia are those of an adult female with Caucasoid hair."  But Rosemary Morrison was black …

As we have already seen, the FBI's flagrant mishandling of the evidence began long before the evidence arrived at the FBI labs.  By standard procedure in such cases, the forensic anthropologists should have been on hand applying standard recovery practices during the excavation of these remains.  Several Autopsy Reports contain references to an "extra parts" bag.  The Autopsy Report for Rosemary Morrison is poignant in this regard: "The body bag also contains unrelated body parts including an extra radius and ulna and incomplete radius and ulna which will be assigned to other bodies by the Senior Anthropologist.  In addition long brown detached scalp hair are [sic] also present."

Facial reconstruction was done in an attempt to identify the victims of John Wayne Gacy, as described in How the Pros Identify Corpses.  There is no indication that facial reconstruction has been attempted on the skull of Mt. Carmel Doe 51A.  Had a reconstruction been attempted, perhaps sketches could have been circulated to the families of the Branch Davidians for identification.  Why wasn't that done for the remains of this 2-year-old child?

Nor is it easy to understand how many unassigned body parts remain not matched to bodies.  In How the Pros Manage Disaster Scenes we saw that anthropologists can estimate how tall someone was by measuring bones and then consulting regression tables.  Those regression tables have been developed over decades of research.  Bone suites should not have been hard to create from those remains.

Recall that in attempting to identify Gacy's victims, anthropologist Clyde Snow drew up charts listing 35 characteristics of the skull.  Then he compared every characteristic of each skeleton to the photographs, descriptions, x-rays, and family accounts of old injuries their children had suffered.  There was no such effort made in Waco.  Again, what made these victims different?

While unmatched body parts are troubling, the presence of an almost complete body of a teenage girl (unidentified, Mt. Carmel Doe 59) is truly unsettling.  The remains were that of a white person, with a head.  Cheekbone structure provides a definitive clue to racial background (Ubelaker, pg. 91).  The two teenagers for whom no remains were found, Sheila Renee Martin and Lisa Marie Martin, were black and thus are no match for those remains.  Who was that person, and how did her remains come to rest in the concrete room?

What happened to the 3-year-old Crystal Martinez and the four-year-old Isaiah Martinez that Clive Doyle knew when they were all living at the Mt. Carmel Center?  And what of the remains called Mt. Carmel Does 53 and 57?  If the remains were not those of Crystal and Isaiah, who were those children?

The renowned forensic anthropologists from the Smithsonian Institution, Drs. Ubelaker and Owsley, who were helping Dr. Peerwani in his efforts, are certainly familiar with state-of-the-art techniques for identification.  Like Clyde Snow, they are authorities in the field.  Going to extraordinary lengths to identify the dead is routine practice among forensic anthropologists.  Yet comparatively little was done to identify the victims of the Waco Holocaust.

Treatment of Relatives in Identification Process

Mary Jones, widow of Peter Dale "Perry" Jones, lost a husband, two daughters (Rachel Koresh and Michelle Jones), a son (David Jones), a son-in-law (David Koresh), and six grandchildren: Chica and Little One Jones, twins; Serenity Sea Jones, Cyrus, Star, and Bobbie Layne Howell Koresh.

Eyewitnesses among the Davidians say that Perry Jones died on February 28 of gunshot wound to the stomach; but the Autopsy Report on the body identified as Perry Jones reveals death by gunshot wound in the mouth.

The bodies of Mary Jones' loved ones were buried without her permission in October 1994.  The burials took place in Rosemound Cemetery, in Waco.  She was not permitted to see the remains before burial.  She does not believe her husband's body was correctly identified.  ("Interview with Carol A. Valentine, Waco Remembrance, July 1995.")

Ruth Mosher, mother of Sherri Jewell, confirms that the FBI lab identified the remains of her daughter by DNA testing.  The FBI refused to give the body back to her until she had agreed to cremation.  At first she refused, but later relented.  She does not believe she received her daughter's remains.  ("July 1995 interview with Carol A. Valentine, Waco Remembrance.")