Broussard tells jury about Bailey slaying

By Thomas Peele and Bob Butler, The Chauncey Bailey Project

OAKLAND — As Devaughndre Broussard spent hours on Tuesday telling a grand jury details about the killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men, his mother waited outside a closed door and said she still doubts her son pulled the trigger.

“I am lost and confused,” Audra Dixon said. She said he believes Broussard is “still covering up for somebody” and did not shoot Bailey or the other man he’s admitted killing, Odell Roberson.

*****
KTVU-TV: “Broussard offers chilling account of Bailey murder to grand jury” (John Sasaki).
*****

Broussard told grand jurors that he killed Bailey and Roberson at the order of former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, and that another man, Antoine Mackey, helped him. He also testified that Mackey admitted to him that he killed a third man, Michael Wills.

“Mr. Broussard is coming clean,” his attorney, LeRue Grim said during a break in the proceeding. “He’s a human being seeking redemption. He has been living in a hell. He’s really suffered from this.”

Prosecutor Christopher Lamiero said he couldn’t comment. It was unclear when indictments would be handed up. Grim said he expected movement in the case next week. Broussard’s secret testimony is expected to continue this morning.

As Broussard testified in a sealed courtroom in the basement of the Wiley Manual Courthouse here, Dixon paced nearby, saying she was badly torn by her son’s decision and that she believed that “Yusuf Bey IV had something to do with it.”

Cooperating with authorities “gets you labeled as something real bad,” said Dixon, who has served state prison terms on drug and gun charges.

“I don’t approve of the fact that he is testifying for the D.A.”

Rather, she said she had hoped he would go to a jury trial, testify that someone else killed Bailey, and win an acquittal. Dixon said he believes her son is “still covering up for somebody” and did not commit either killing.

Still, she said, she did respect Broussard’s decision to “look out for himself. He is standing up and being a man, unlike Yusuf Bey IV.”

Grim said Broussard is being truthful about his involvement.

“I am satisfied the truth is being told,” he said.

Bey IV is jailed without bail in an unrelated kidnapping and torture case. Mackey is in San Quentin Prison on burglary charges. Both, in jail interviews with the Chauncey Bailey Project denied involvement in Bailey’s killing.

But Broussard told prosecutors that Bey IV kept a hit list of people “he wanted to get rid off” and that Bailey was on it along with other people who he didn’t know. Broussard said Bey IV ordered him and Mackey to kill Bailey before the journalist could publish a story about the bakery in the Oakland Post.

Bey IV offered the two help in creating fraudulent identities that he said would enable them to secure loans they could quickly default on, Broussard said in a statement given to Lamiero in March in preparation for Tuesday’s testimony.

Dixon said she blames Bey IV for her son’s troubles.

“He used spiritual belief and misguided him,” she said.

Broussard is to plead guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter for killing Bailey and Roberson, according to Grim. In exchange for his testimony he will receive a 25-year sentence. He faced life in prison without parole.

“Twenty-five years is hard to swallow for anybody,” she said. “And that’s my son.”

Thomas Peele is an investigative reporter for the Bay Area News Group. Reach him at mtpeele@bayareanewsgroup.co. Bob Butler is an independent journalist. Reach him at bobbutler7@comcast.net.