While visitors to Koreshan State Park in Estero have often asked whether there was any connection between Cyrus Teed Koresh — the man who founded The Koreshan Unity which called the land home beginning in the early 1800s, and David Koresh — the man who led the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas from the mid 1980s until the group’s fiery demise during an FBI siege gone wrong on their Mount Carmel compound on April 19th, 1993 — the answer was always no, there is no connection between the two and the similarity between their names is purely coincidental.
Well, new evidence has come to light that seems to prove there was most certainly a connection of some kind, the details of which are included in one of our guest's new book. Jeff Guinn is author of numerous books, including “Manson,” “The Road to Jonestown,” as well as his latest “Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage.”
We talk with him about his new book and the connections he uncovered between David Koresh and the story of Cyrus Teed Koresh; and with Lyn Millner, she is a journalism professor at Florida Gulf Coast University and author of “The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet.”
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