Besides being the leader of a cult and the reason for almost 80 deaths, Koresh exhibited devious behaviour even before the Waco Incident occured. He was an illegitimate child born Vernon Wayne Howell to an unwed fourteen year old mother named Bonnie Clark, on August 17, 1959 in Houston, Texas.  Koresh never met his father, and his mother began cohabitating with a violent alcoholic. In his senior year, Koresh dropped out of Garland High School to take a carpentry job. While in his early 20s, he spent a short time in Los Angeles unsuccessfully trying to make it as a rock star. When he returned to Houston, the Seventh Day Adventists kicked him out of the church for “disruptively ranting and raving”.