When the authorities turned up at the compound of doomsday cult leader David Koresh - they had no idea of the horrors that were about to unfold.
In 1993, the government suspected the extreme religious figurehead of hoarding firearms and developing drugs and sent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to launch a raid.
The ATF had a search warrant for the compound, which was just outside Waco, Texas, and arrest warrants for Koresh and some of the Branch Davidian religious cult's members.
The Branch Davidians believed that their leader, who claimed to be the final prophet, was going to usher them through the impending apocalypse.
Knowing the ATF were on their way, the cult members armed themselves with rifles and grenades for what would become the deadliest government-led assault on US soil in a hundred years.
During the staggering 51-day siege, 96 men, women and children were killed in a horrific stand-off and deadly fireball.
Koresh, born in Houston, Texas in 1959, had an illegal relationship with a 15-year-old girl at the age of 19.
He claimed to have become a born-again Christian in the Southern Baptist Church and joined his mother's denomination, the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
He became infatuated with the pastor's daughter and claimed that God wanted him to take her as his wife, so he was kicked out from the congregation.
In 1981, Koresh moved to Waco, Texas and joined the Branch Davidians, where he quickly rose to the top of the sect after claiming he had the gift of prophecy.
One of those prophecies was that the end of the world was coming and they needed to prepare themselves for a fight.
This led the sec to make and stockpile weapons at their Mount Carmel Center compound, which in itself led it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Koresh was alleged to have been involved in multiple incidents of physical and sexual abuse against several children.
While he had a wife, he had other 'marriages' to both single and married women within the sect, but did not follow his own teachings.
He banned men from masturbation and having sex - but he himself had intercourse with their wives and even asked if they were "jealous" of him.
One former follower said Koresh told them: "We're all God’s guinea pigs here. My lot is to procreate, yours is to tolerate. I'd swap with you any day."
And the leader, who had 17 children with 11 women, also said to the male members: "I get all the women. Aren't you all jealous?"
Koresh would give 'private Bible study' sessions to the women in the sect - using them as a reason to have sex against his teachings.
In a book, one of Koresh's followers wrote: "It was about not just the single women [among the Branch Davidians] being his, but all the wives, all the women."
Wives often lingered at night in the hopes Koresh showed an interest because they saw it as an "honour" to give birth to one of his holy babies.
The follower explained: "He gave me a personal Bible study. The feeling was so comforting, [like] my God speaking directly to me.
"Sex was just part of it. The sermon made every touch not feel like sex at all, just a culmination of my relationship with God that I'd had all my life."
But it all came to a terrifying end in 1993 when the ATF started their raid on the compound - not knowing that they would still be there 51 days later.
The FBI took command after the deaths of federal agents and established contact with Koresh, believing they could negotiate.
But an intense gunfight erupted, resulting in the deaths of four agents and six cult members in the fighting.
Armoured vehicles punched holes in the walls and tear gas was fired in to flush out cult members and force them to surrender.
The Mount Carmel Center became engulfed in flames and the fires killed 76 Branch Davidians, including 25 children, two pregnant woman and David Koresh.
The US Government maintains the fires were deliberately started by the Branch Davidians, but some survivors, maintain they were accidentally or deliberately started during the assault.
The Waco massacre is the subject of a new three-part Netflix docuseries, Waco: American Apocalypse.
It tells the stories of people involved on all sides of the siege and includes interviews with Branch Davidians, ATF agents who led the raid and FBI agents who conducted negotiations.
