Photos Move Weaver Jurors To Tears -- FBI Says Son's Death Stunned Agents

BOISE, Idaho - Photographs of the slain 14-year-old son of white separatist Randy Weaver reduced jurors to tears yesterday in Weaver's murder-conspiracy trial.

Weaver, 45, sobbed but refused to look at three photos introduced by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Lindquist. Co-defendant Kevin Harris, 25, shielded his eyes as the pictures were flashed on an overhead projector.

Almost all the jurors were visibly shaken. Three of the seven jurors wept openly at the sight of Samuel Weaver's body, which appeared battered and had been pierced by a bullet. The pictures were taken two days after Samuel was killed in an Aug. 21 shootout with marshals near the family's remote northern Idaho cabin.

FBI agents took the boy's body off the mountain after finding it in a shed near the cabin.

"When we found Sammy's body we were not only surprised but shocked," Special Agent Dick Rogers testified. "We didn't know that anyone had been hurt."

Weaver and Harris are accused of killing Deputy Marshal William Degan during the gunfight, which triggered an 11-day siege.

During cross-examination of Rogers, Lindquist repeatedly objected to questions defense attorney Gerry Spence asked about the discovery of Samuel's body and the Aug. 22 death of Weaver's wife, Vicki, 42, at the hands of a federal sniper.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge finally said, "I know this is a tense time, an emotional time. Let's just let the questions be asked and the answers given and not get into these arguments."

Rogers, who commanded the FBI team that laid siege to Weaver's Ruby Ridge cabin, testified that Weaver and Harris were well-armed and more than willing to fire on federal officers even after Degan was killed.

"It was clear to me that this was not even an accidental shooting of a law-enforcement officer. It was shooting that continued even after his death," said Rogers, who also was involved in the deadly siege of the Branch Davidian compound of David Koresh in Waco, Texas.

"It was still a very hostile situation, and as far as I knew those people were just as ready to kill another law-enforcement officer," he said.

But a medic who was on the mountain but not involved in the gun battle testified earlier that the only shots he heard seemed to be from guns carried by marshals.

"I heard shouting, I heard someone say `U.S. Marshal,' and then I heard a gunshot," Deputy Marshal Frank Norris said. "It was the distinctive sound" of the caliber of rifle used by marshals.

That appeared to further undermine the government's position that Harris fired first after marshals identified themselves. The officers were on the mountain trying to find a way to arrest Weaver peacefully for failing to appear at a 1991 trial on a federal firearms charge.

In prosecution testimony, Rogers said he initially authorized federal snipers to kill any armed adult outside the Weavers' Ruby Ridge cabin after the shootout.

But before placing snipers on the mountain Aug. 22, Rogers said he changed the order to include only Weaver and Harris and emphasized deadly force should not be used when children might be harmed.

Later that day, however, Vicki Weaver was killed while standing in the cabin's doorway holding her 10-month-old daughter. Rogers acknowledged that some officers might have taunted Weaver after he called out that his wife was dead. But the FBI agent denied ever hearing Weaver's cries and said Vicki Weaver's death was not discovered until Aug. 28.

Prosecutors have argued that Weaver and his family had been planning a violent confrontation for almost a decade. But the defense contends the Weavers and Harris only wanted to be left alone to practice their Old Testament-based religion and were persecuted by blundering federal agents.