The Branch Davidians believed they were living in a time when Biblical prophesies and divine judgment was coming were imminent ahead of Christ's second coming. A headquarters was first established near Waco in 1935, by a Bulgarian immigrant Victor Houteff, Victor Houteff. At its height, 900 people moved there awaiting a sign from God. Following Houteff's death in 1955, the segment of the group loyal to Houteff continued as the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, led by his wife Florence. She gathered hundreds of faithful followers together at their Mount Carmel Centre near Waco in 1959. Later Benjamin Roden formed another group called the Branch Davidians and succeeded in taking control of Mount Carmel. David Koresh rose to power as a young man in the 1980s, in part by taking its leader, Lois Roden, a woman in her 60s, as a lover. When she died in 1986 at 70, there was a power struggle between her son George Roden and Koresh.

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