4 in Ecclesia Face Manslaughter Charge

A grand jury has indicted four members of the Los Angeles-based Ecclesia Athletic Assn. on manslaughter charges in the beating death of the 8-year-old daughter of the group’s founder.

The indictment returned Friday in Clackamas County named Willie K. Chambers, 35; Brian James Brinson, 30; Constance Zipporah Jackson, 37, and Frederick Paul Doolittle, 28, in the death of Dayna Lorae Broussard, daughter of Eldridge Broussard Jr.

The Ecclesia group had kept 56 children at houses near Sandy and Clackamas, east of Portland. The state has been given custody of 53 children, ranging in age from 1 1/2 months to 16 years. Two other children are in protective custody in Los Angeles.

Alfred French, the deputy district attorney prosecuting the case, said the four were charged with killing the child “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.”

The four are being held separately from other prisoners in the County Jail pending arraignment on the charges Monday in Clackamas County Circuit Court. They also are scheduled to appear for a release hearing next Wednesday.

Prosecutors determined last week there was no evidence to prove the four had intended to kill Dayna, so the charges were reduced from murder to manslaughter. They were arraigned and held on $250,000 bail.