Hundreds Attend Funeral for Slain Family

Slain community activist Earnestine Harper, her daughter and three grandchildren were eulogized Wednesday in rousing sermons by her evangelist sons, who assured hundreds of mourners reeling from the unsolved crime that “God saw all of it.”

Minister Robert Harper, Earnestine’s oldest son, said the killing of his family members might be difficult to understand but is part of God’s broader plan.

“Because we don’t understand does not make what God does wrong,” he said. “It is not a reason for us to become fainthearted or discouraged.”

The funeral at the Bakersfield Convention Center, which was open to the public and broadcast live on local television, brought together friends and strangers struggling to cope with one of the city’s most gruesome crimes in memory.

“It’s such a horrible thing to happen to such babies,” said Helen Brown, 52, a Bakersfield teacher. “I’m here to support them, even though I don’t know them personally. But growing up in Bakersfield, they’re sort of like extended family.”

The three-hour ceremony was also attended by Earnestine Harper’s son-in-law Vincent Brothers, 41, the only identified suspect in the case. Brothers, who has been tailed by undercover police since returning to town last weekend, entered the auditorium with other family members, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief as a man and woman looped their arms through his.

Later, at the burial ceremony, he gave a swaying, extended hug to Robert Harper and other in-laws, who have said it would be a travesty to judge him now if he is not guilty.

On July 8, a family friend found the bodies of 70-year-old Earnestine Harper; her daughter Joanie, 39; and Joanie’s children, Marques, 4; Lyndsey, 2; and Marshall, 6 weeks, in their home in central Bakersfield. The family had last been seen at church services the previous Sunday.

On the day the bodies were found, Brothers walked into a police station in Elizabeth City, N.C., where he had been visiting his mother.

Bakersfield police, who flew out to meet him, arrested him but released him for lack of evidence. He has refused to talk to them.

The Bakersfield Police Department, assisted by the FBI, has put more than 30 detectives and officers on the case. Search warrants have been served in Bakersfield, Elizabeth City and Columbus, Ohio.

Brothers’ attorney, Curtis Floyd, has said his client wasn’t there when the slayings occurred.

Police know that Brothers left Bakersfield on a bus for Los Angeles International Airport on July 2, but they have not revealed whether they have pieced together his travels up to July 8.

From a stage that rose above a row of white coffins and colorful sprays of lilies and roses, a procession of dignitaries, ministers and family members took turns Wednesday remembering the family, and reminding the crowd of the Harpers’ passionate Christian faith.

A number of speakers said it was that faith that motivated Earnestine Harper to take up social causes, including her aid to a young local black man, Offord Rollins IV, whose murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court in 1995.

Rollins, whose case was closely followed in the local media, began to cry as he remembered Harper’s help.

“Her body of work is before us -- think about that,” he said. “I will never forget when she just took a moment of her time to make a change and make a difference in one person’s life.”

Joanie Harper, a standout high school basketball player, was remembered as a loyal daughter who was determined to raise her children the way she had been raised. The infant, Marshall, was buried in the casket with his mother.

When Robert Harper and his brother Eddie took the stage, they said it was their mother’s firm hand and religious conviction that motivated them to become ministers in the Church of Christ.

The crowd was momentarily puzzled when Robert Harper told them that his mother had put him and his siblings “on drugs.”

The auditorium erupted in laughter and applause when Harper explained: “She drug us to every church service, drug us to every Bible class, drug us to every Gospel meeting....”

The brothers said they were comforted by the conviction that their mother, sister and two nephews and a niece are in heaven.

“We feel the loss greatly,” said Robert Harper. “But because we are Christians, because we know God, and because our hope is not in the world but in the world that is to come, we sorrow, not as others who have no hope.”