He was among more than people originally holed up at Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas, when ATF agents attempted to execute a search warrant on February 28, They were acting on allegations the group - led by charismatic preacher Koresh - had broken federal law by trading and amassing weapons.
However, the confrontation quickly turned into a firefight in which six Branch Davidians and four federal agents were killed. After retreating from the compound, over the ensuing seven weeks the FBI and ATF laid siege to the buildings as they tried to negotiate with Koresh and persuade him to surrender. Despite weeks of negotiations and a few dozen people - including Livingstone - exiting the building, the Government's patience ran out on April Agents stormed it and 76 members were burned alive when the huge buildings caught on fire.
To this day, remaining members insist the Government covered-up evidence that federal agents started the fire. This is despite recordings appearing to show Branch Davidians discussing setting Mount Carmel on fire as a type of biblical last stand. In one of the recorded conversations, later played in court, a group of men can be heard chatting about "pouring fuel".
One asks if there is a way to "spread fuel in there", before someone else asks: "So we only light them as they come in, right? Livingstone, who was 34 at the time, told The Sun Online: "If they had killed all of us and nobody came out they would have sold that narrative to you.
The audio recordings he calls "fake, manufactured evidence" and "orchestrated", adding he didn't recognise any of the voices on the tapes. Livingstone went on to spend 14 years in a US jail after being convicted of voluntary manslaughter and using a firearm during a crime.
He originally arrived at Waco in the months before the siege having originally first met Koresh in He says he was attracted to the group's "doctrine and theology" - all of which he still believes in today. He says this is crucial to understanding how members acted. Consequently, much communication with the prisoners is done by letter and phone.
It's not like they are hateful. I don't find them super angry or wanting revenge. I don't hear those kind of comments coming from them. I think they have taken what the Lord has allowed to happen to them pretty gracefully. The Davidian prisoners' spirits were buoyed in when the U. Supreme Court unanimously overturned Judge Smith's decision to accept the government's recommendation and sentence most of the seven to 40 years in prison.
As a result of the opinion, Smith was forced to reduce most of the sentences to 15 years. As with many who became indoctrinated into the Branch Davidian cult, Fagan was of the belief that Koresh was an incarnation of Christ, and that he was blessed with the divine gift of prophecy.
Though unlike many of the public religious figures in the United Kingdom in the late eighties, Koresh was cool. He was handsome, engaging, a skilled guitar player with radical views and the kind of self-possession not often seen outside of a rock star. This, combined with his electrifying public presence and previously-established cult of followers back in Texas, gave Koresh the kind of messianic aura seemingly hand-crafted to draw people like Fagan in.
On subsequent visits Fagan would bring along his family, including his two children and eventually even his mother, Doris. Looking back, it now seems inevitable that disaster would strike eventually. The Davidians, believing as they did in the apocalypse described at length in the Biblical Book of Revelations, soon became convinced that war was on the horizon.
Under the banner of their new messiah, the Davidians would go on to stockpile arms — ostensibly for the purpose of re-selling them on at gun shows.
While legal, this activity soon drew the attention of the ATF, and when allegations of sexual misconduct involving underaged girls were thrown into the mix, Koresh soon became a person of interest in the eyes of the US judicial system.
Fagan, who had briefly been a member of the Territorial Army and had some degree of training in firearms, was one of the Branch Davidians to take up arms against the US government during the siege. Regardless of the intent expressed by Koresh and his followers, the siege was set to be an important moment for the US government. Less than twelve months prior to the siege, the ATF had received extensive criticism following the deaths of Vicki and Samuel Weaver, the wife and infant son of suspected terrorist Randy Weaver, at their home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
An undercover agent, Robert Rodriguez, was sent to investigate the cult and, although his identity was quickly uncovered by Koresh, Rodriguez was able to remain within the Mount Carmel centre long enough to report back to the ATF.
If the Branch Davidians, with their apocalyptic teachings, were preparing for the end of days, so too were the ATF. In a move jarring in both its fatalistic and eerily practical nature, ATF agents were advised to enter the compound with their name and blood type written on their neck in permanent marker, should they need a sudden transfusion as a result of unexpected gunfire.
Despite this, Fagan does note that it would have been easy for the Branch Davidians to take out the oncoming ATF trucks during the initial raid, asserting that much as the Pharisees and Roman Senate has ordered the death of Christ, the US government were intent on destroying Koresh and his followers. He was swiftly arrested and held at a nearby jail, where he watched the final days of the siege unfold on television.
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