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25 years later, UT Body Farm founder reflects on sending students to Waco siege

Nearly 25 years ago, officials from Waco, Texas, called Dr. William Bass to help recover and identify the remains of the more than 70 people from a fire that ended the siege. He couldn't go, so he sent his students.

On Feb. 28, 1993, agents from the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency stormed the Branch Davidians compound in Mt. Carmel, Texas. It was just east of Waco.

A siege of the compound lasted 51 days, ending with a deadly fire from which more than 70 bodies were recovered.

Officials from Waco called Dr. William Bass, the founder of the UT Forensic Anthropolgy Center and the Body Farm, to help recover and identify the remains. Dr. Bass couldn't go, as he was the department head at the time, so he sent some of his students.

RELATED: 25 years after the raid at Waco: Remembering AFT agent Todd McKeehan

"That was a great teaching experience, Waco was," Bass said. "Forensic anthropology is the identification of skeletal remains. Usually you're dealing with somebody who's been dead weeks or months or years, but occasionally you'll run into the Waco's of the world."

Bass said many of his students are now leaders in the forensic anthropology field.

"These are people who know what they're doing," Bass said. "So you're going to gain much more evidence and much more information of people who are well-trained and they were well-trained."

Nearly 25 years ago, officials from Waco called Dr. Bass to help recover and identify the remains of the more than 70 people from a fire that ended the siege. He couldn't go, so he sent his students.

One of those students was Emily Craig, who went on to be the Kentucky State Forensic Anthropologist.

According to the Department of Justice, several people recovered from the fire died of gunshot wounds, a fact Bass's students helped uncover.

"They all learned something, it was something bigger than they had ever worked on prior to that," Bass said.

Check out the original story from 1993 in the WBIR Vault on YouTube:

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