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What is the Life Expectancy of a Waco Investigator?
by Vin Suprynowicz
vin@lvrj.com

Special to TLE

The lead lawyer in the Branch Davidians' wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government Monday asked a federal judge to impound all information relating to the 1993 Mount Carmel siege from a Washington-area office where a government infrared expert was found dead last week, reports Lee Hancock in The Dallas Morning News.

Attorney Mike Caddell of Houston said he sought emergency intervention from the court to ensure all significant information was preserved from the Laurel, Md., office and home of Carlos Ghigliotti.

Police were still investigating the cause of Ghigliotti's death this week. Ghigliotti's decomposed body was found in in his office April 28 after the building manager grew concerned that the 42-year-old thermal imaging analyst had not been seen for weeks.

Ghigliotti was hired by the House Government Reform Committee to review tapes of the Waco siege. He made headlines last fall by confirming that government troops fired into the church on April 19, 1993.

"I conclude this based on the ground view videotapes taken from several different angles simultaneously and based on the overhead thermal tape," Ghigliotti told The Washington Post last October. "The gunfire from the ground is there, without a doubt."

Ghigliotti said the tapes also confirm Davidians repeatedly fired at FBI agents during the assault, though he noted return fire came from the building only on the occasions when government tanks actually penetrated or demolished the walls. About 80 Branch Davidians perished that day, some from the fire, others from gunshot wounds.

Attorney Caddell had written to the office of former Sen. John Danforth, now conducting an independent investigation into the Waco holocaust, on April 17, asking investigators to interview Mr. Ghigliotti, saying the analyst had shown him one particularly compelling image on the video in which the hatch of an FBI armored vehicle "clearly opens, and it appears someone emerges from that tank."

Mr. Caddell's letter states that image appeared as the compound began burning and only seconds before a series of flashes appeared near the same armored vehicle.

"I have been trying to reach him for the last few days, but he is apparently out of town," the April 17 letter to Danforth stated. "In any event, his work is by far the most impressive I have seen in terms of analyzing the April 19 (1993 videotape), and I do not think you can fully appreciate his work unless you visit his lab and spend several hours with him reviewing key points."

Attorney Caddell had also told the court last month that he planned to hire Mr. Ghigliotti to replace his principal infrared expert, Dr. Edward Allard, who suffered a stroke in March.

"Mr. Ghigliotti's work product on this issue is extremely important to plaintiffs and to the court's analysis and conclusions," Caddell's Monday motion stated.

But Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the congressional committee chaired by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told police shortly after Ghigliotti's body was found that the analyst's work for the committee ended "some time ago."

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