Commune Founder’s Child Killed; 6 Members Jailed

A Watts-based group that set up camp in rural Oregon--ostensibly to help inner-city youths through what it called “toughness training”--became the target of a criminal investigation this weekend when authorities arrested six of its members in the fatal beating of their leader’s daughter and took custody of 53 children under the group’s care.

The children, aged 3 months to 16 years, are all from the Los Angeles area and were found living in a four-bedroom farmhouse in Sandy, Ore., about 25 miles east of Portland. Some had “old injuries” that indicated possible physical abuse, officials said.

The probe into the Ecclesia Athletic Assn. began Friday morning with the death of 8-year-old Dayna Lorea Broussard. Her father, Eldridge Broussard Jr., founded Ecclesia as an outgrowth of the Watts Christian Center, which he began a decade ago to address the problems of the inner city.

Last year, Broussard moved Ecclesia to Oregon, where he had played college basketball. The group operated from two residences--the Sandy farmhouse on 18 acres and another home on seven acres in nearby Clackamas.

The group sparked controversy in both Oregon neighborhoods, where residents were disturbed by the group’s secrecy, by its militarism--including silent drills and lineups by height--and by what they viewed as cult-like practices, such as the requirements that members take a “vow of poverty” and “relinquish even the rights of decision-making” to Broussard.

“We had this gut feeling that we were dealing with a cult, if you will, and that someday this was going to happen,” Jack Westfall of Clackamas said in a telephone interview.

“It does not come particularly as a surprise,” said Gayle Gow of Sandy, who, along with Westfall and others, complained repeatedly to authorities about Ecclesia. “They were a group that appeared to be destined to self-destruct.”

‘Let Those Children Down’

She was upset that no agency had intervened sooner. “It’s unfortunate, but it seems to me that this is just the result of a parade of bureaucratic failures,” Gow said. “They really let those children down.”

However, Bart Wilson, manager of the Clackamas County branch of the Oregon Children’s Services Division, said by telephone that he knew of no complaints that the Ecclesia group was abusing children.

“There was great concern up here in the community, and there’s a whole lot of polarized emotions,” he said, but “if those complaints and assertions don’t reach a level . . . where there is indication of severe risk to children, then we’re not at liberty to go knocking on anybody’s door because a neighbor may find a life style or practices disagreeable.”

It was Ecclesia members themselves who sparked this weekend’s investigation when, at 12:17 a.m. Friday, four of them brought Dayna Broussard’s bruised body to a Clackamas County fire station in the rural Happy Valley area, not far from Sandy. The girl’s parents were in Los Angeles at the time and were reportedly on their way to Oregon on Saturday.

Extensive Beating

The child, who was dead on arrival at the fire station, had been beaten on her head, chest and extremities and died of “multiple blunt-force injuries,” state Medical Examiner Larry V. Lewman later told reporters.

The four members were immediately arrested by county sheriffs. Willie K. Chambers, 35, of Los Angeles was arrested on suspicion of murder, and the three others--Brian James Brinson, 30; Sherion Melinda Johnson, 32, and Josie Ruth Faust, 50, all of Los Angeles--were arrested for allegedly hindering prosecution, according to Deputy Judy Gage, the sheriff’s spokeswoman.

At 1 a.m. Saturday, Gage said, two other group members--Constance Zipporah Jackson, 37, and Frederick Paul Doolittle, 28, both of Los Angeles--were also arrested in the girl’s death after they showed up at the sheriff’s station to be interviewed.

All those arrested are being held at the Clackamas County Jail, Gage said.

As part of the homicide investigation, sheriff’s deputies visited the group’s farmhouse in Sandy, where they found the 53 children living under the supervision of three adults, whom authorities did not name.

The children--29 boys, 11 of whom are under age 5, and 24 girls, two of whom are under age 5--are in the custody of the Oregon Children’s Services Division, which has placed them in foster homes in the state.

“I think it’s fair to say that they’re basically OK,” said Wilson, the branch manager.

He said that his agency is interviewing the children and that there will be a preliminary Juvenile Court hearing Monday to determine whether they can remain in state custody. Wilson said some of the children will be returned to their families in Los Angeles, but he could not provide details on how many were separated from their parents.

“It’s probably going to take us all weekend to do the interviewing and get through the basic investigative process,” he said.

Because the group has maintained two Oregon residences--and because it apparently moves back and forth between Los Angeles and Oregon--how long the children had been staying at the Sandy farmhouse remains unclear.

No one from the Ecclesia organization could be reached, but Broussard’s father, Eldridge Broussard Sr., said that his son “gave leave for the group to take them (the children) on vacation” and that the children had been there for five or six weeks.

‘God’s Will’

The elder Broussard said he believed it was “God’s will” that his granddaughter had died and also said the girl’s parents were on their way from Los Angeles to Oregon but were delayed Saturday when their car broke down.

In Sandy, residents said they saw few signs that the Ecclesia group was in town.

“It’s been pretty quiet around here for about a year,” said Sandy resident Randy Proctor. “They stayed pretty much in the Clackamas area. . . . I saw two people there a couple of days ago, and that was it.”

When a small group of Ecclesia members first moved to Sandy last spring, Proctor said, he and other neighbors welcomed them. The group pitched tents and began a communal life of farm labor and physical workouts, in which Broussard’s followers picked strawberries in silence, breaking occasionally to jog around a field or practice regimented cheers and jumping-jack routines.

When the group grew to 100, residents like Proctor objected, saying that the crowd was destroying their rural solitude.

Neighbors also had memories of the controversial Rajneesh commune in Oregon, and they likened Ecclesia to that sort of cult--a reference to which Broussard strongly objected. At one point, he fasted in seclusion for 80 days, refusing to answer questions about Ecclesia from the community or the press.

Broussard applied for a permit to legally house the group on the land, but withdrew the application in June of last year. In July, Broussard announced that he was suspending Ecclesia’s activities. Neighbors said the Sandy residence has been relatively quiet since then.