Following the failure of this prophecy, control of the site (Mount Carmel Center) fell to Benjamin Roden, founder of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Association (Branch Davidians). He promoted different doctrinal beliefs than Victor Houteff's original Davidian Seventh-day Adventist organization. On Roden's death, control fell to his wife, Lois Roden. Lois considered their son, George Roden, unfit to assume the position of prophet. Instead, she groomed Vernon Howell (later known as David Koresh) as her chosen successor.
In 1984, a meeting led to a division of the group, with Howell leading one faction (calling themselves the Branch Davidians) and George Roden leading the competing faction. After this split, George Roden ran Howell and his followers off Mount Carmel at gunpoint. Howell and his group relocated to Palestine, Texas.
After the death of Lois Roden and probate of her estate in January 1987, Howell attempted to gain control of Mount Carmel Center by force. George Roden had dug up the casket of one Anna Hughes from the Davidian cemetery and had challenged Howell to a resurrection contest to prove who was the rightful heir to the leadership. Howell instead went to the police and claimed Roden was guilty of corpse abuse, but the county prosecutors refused to file charges without proof.
Vernon Howell (later David Koresh) in a 1987 mug shot
On November 3, 1987, Howell and seven armed companions tried to get into the Mount Carmel chapel, with the goal of photographing the body in the casket as evidence to incriminate. Roden was informed of the interlopers and opened fire. The Sheriff's Department responded about 20 minutes into the gunfight, during which Roden had been wounded. Sheriff Harwell got Howell on the phone and told him to stop shooting and surrender. Howell and his companions, dubbed the "Rodenville Eight" by the media, were tried for attempted murder on April 12, 1988. Seven were acquitted, and the jury was hung on Howell's verdict. The county prosecutors did not press the case further.
Even with all the effort to bring the casket to court, the standing judge refused to use it as evidence for the case. Judge Herman Fitts ruled that the courtroom is no place for a casket when defense attorney Gary Coker requested it be used as evidence for the case. During questions about said casket, Roden admitted to attempting to resurrect Anne Hughes on three occasions. The Rodenville Eight were forced to carry the casket down the street to a van awaiting the body.
While waiting for the trial, Roden was put in jail under contempt of court charges because of his use of foul language in some court pleadings. He threatened the Texas court with sexually transmitted diseases if the court ruled in Howell's favor. Alongside these charges, Roden was jailed for six months for legal motions he filed with explicit language. Roden faced 90 days in jail for living on the property after being ordered to neither live on the property nor call himself the leader of the religious group in a 1979 case. The next day, Perry Jones and a number of Howell's other followers moved from their headquarters in Palestine, Texas, to Mount Carmel. In mid-1989, Roden used an axe to kill a Davidian named Wayman Dale Adair, who visited him to discuss Adair's vision of being God's chosen messiah. He was found guilty under an insanity defense and was committed to a mental hospital. Shortly after Roden's commitment, Howell raised money to pay off all the back taxes on Mount Carmel owed by Roden and took legal control of the property. After these legal proceedings, it is noted in a 90-minute interview by the Davidians attorney Douglas Martin that the religious group has been back and forth to court since 1955.
On August 5, 1989, Howell released the "New Light" audio tape, in which he said that he had been told by God to procreate with the women in the group to establish a "House of David" of his "special people". This involved separating married couples in the group, who had to agree that only he could have sexual relations with the wives, while the men should observe celibacy. Howell also said that God had told him to start building an "Army for God" to prepare for the end of days and a salvation for his followers.
Howell filed a petition in the California State Superior Court in Pomona on May 15, 1990, to legally change his name "for publicity and business purposes" to David Koresh. On August 28, he was granted the petition. By 1992, most of the land belonging to the group had been sold except for a core 77 acres (31 ha). Most of the buildings had been removed or were being salvaged for construction materials to convert much of the main chapel and a tall water tank into apartments for the resident members of the group. Many of the members of the group had been involved with the Davidians for a few generations, and many had large families.