With Mr. Koresh freed, he and other Branch Davidians were free to pursue their twin devotions, the Bible and firearms, which they did until Federal agents tried to storm their heavily armed compound nine days ago. Roots of the Rivalry

Mr. Roden recovered from wounds in his chest and hand. Two years later he killed a man in Odessa, Tex. He claimed the man had been sent by Mr. Koresh to kill him. Mr. Roden was found not guilty by reason of insanity and is now in the state mental hospital in Vernon, Tex.

The rivalry between Mr. Roden and Mr. Koresh over leadership of the Branch Davidians dated to the early 1980's and at various times involved sex, threats, guns and a skeleton with a pink bow around its neck.

A decade ago, when Mr. Koresh was in his early 20's and had recently arrived at the cult's compound, he began a sexual relationship with Mr. Roden's mother, Lois, then in her late 60's. She was the widow of Ben Roden, who had led the Branch Davidians, a splinter group of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, for several years. After Mr. Roden's death in 1978, Lois Roden had assumed leadership, and their son, George, was assumed to be her successor.

George Roden, now 55 years old, soon perceived Mr. Koresh as a rival for leadership and was also offended by the relationship with his mother, former cult members say. A gun aficionado himself, Mr. Roden took to threatening Mr. Koresh. In a Federal lawsuit in 1985, he accused Mr. Koresh of raping his mother, brainwashing her and turning her against him.

The year before that lawsuit, Mr. Koresh had left the Waco compound, which the cult members call Mount Carmel, with virtually all of Mr. Roden's followers. The group went to the East Texas town of Palestine, where without a base or resources, they lived for a time like hobos in wooden shacks.

Mr. Roden seethed over Mr. Koresh's influence on the several dozen members of the sect who had followed him. And in 1987, he challenged Mr. Koresh to a ghoulish contest: whoever could bring back the dead deserved to be the true leader. Koresh Declines the Challenge