Chris Jennings

surveying the area.

So they thought Randy was presenting an imminent threat to that helicopter.

The Weavers deny that.

Randy turns to run back to the cabin and Sarah and Kevin Harris turn to run with him, kind of all falling in line, racing at full speed.

Vicky, his wife, carrying their baby, Alishaba, who's 10 months old, steps in the front door of the cabin to open the door so that they can pour in quickly because they believe that they're under fire.

And the sniper, realizing he hasn't shot the man he thinks is Kevin Harris, he starts leading him, as they say, with the scope of his rifle to shoot him as they pour through the door of the cabin and shoot.

He shoots just at the moment that Kevin Harris is crossing the threshold.

And he does indeed hit Kevin Harris.

But what he didn't realize, and I believe that he didn't realize it, though others disagree, is that the bullet before hitting Kevin Harris passed through the head of Vicki Weaver, instantly killing her with her baby in her arms.

So that is when the siege truly breaks down because now there's two members of the Weaver family have been killed.

And in both cases, the government so far does not know that either of them are dead.

So the Weavers are living in a totally different reality than the people who are attempting to negotiate with them.

Exactly.

And making matters worse was that the FBI negotiator, not knowing that Vicky was dead and all of their sort of psychological research indicated that Vicky was sort of the strength and the head of the family, directed all of his negotiation at Vicky, which from the inside of the house sounded like a sort of maddening psychological torture.

Exactly.

The short version is that the extenuating circumstances, the tragedy of the tale was so strong that any jury would have been sympathetic to what this man had already suffered.

And the other fact is that Randy Weaver never even pointed his gun at anyone.

Whatever his culpability in creating this situation, he did not murder William Deegan.

And Kevin Harris had a reasonable claim that he shot at William Deegan in defense of his 14-year-old friend.

So a jury – and the Weavers had rather brilliant legal defense and the jury believed it.