When journalist Chauncey Wendell Bailey Jr. was murdered Aug. 2, questions arose as to who could have committed such an act, in broad daylight, and what could have motivated the killing. Shortly after the slaying, police arrested Your Black Muslim Bakery handyman Devaughndre Broussard, 19, and charged him with the crime. But deep questions remain, starting with who really called the shots in the killing - and what they were trying to cover up.
In an effort to pick up where Bailey left off, a rare coalition of media rivals and scholastic colleagues - more than two dozen reporters, photographers, and editors from print, broadcast, and electronic media - have formed the Chauncey Bailey Project, an investigative team that will continue and expand on the reporting Bailey was pursuing at the time of his death.
Produced by New American Media, includes brief statements from the Oakland Police Department on the investigation of Bailey's murder. Plus, interviews with Oakland Post publisher Paul Cobb and his lawyer, Walter Riley, regarding how they were questioned by police shortly after the shooting.
KTVU (Channel 2)
Priya David reports on real estate scams investigated by the Cauncey Bailey Project
KTVU (Channel 2)
Chauncey Bailey Project furthers late reporter's work - allegations of deceit
KTVU (Channel 2)
Priya David reports on new questions emerging in Bailey murder case
Audio:
A holiday without
Bay Area radio journalist Bob Butler interviews Chauncey Bailey's family in Atlanta
New Questions Surrounding Chauncey Bailey's Murder Investigation
Oct. 11 audio of the Chauncey Bailey Project and early reporting from the group produced here by KQED public broadcasting and reporter Judy Campbell.
Oct. 11 audio from the KQED-produced newsmagazine California Report with reporter Scott Shafer. UC Berkeley journalism professor Neil Henry is participating
in the project. Henry says Bailey's death raises a lot of questions journalists wanted to answer.
Sidebar
Police tapes reveal suspects confession to Bailey slaying
Broussard says he shot Post editor three times to be sure
Bey matriarch accused of duping creditors
Three houses illegally transferred, bankruptcy trustee says
From staff writers at the Oakland Tribune/BANG, freelance contributions and the Guardian
From staff writers at BANG, KTVU News and freelance contributions
6:30 to 7 a.m.
Chauncey Bailey had a full day ahead of him when his alarm clock rang at 6:30 a.m.
The Oakland Post editor had a dozen things to do - a couple of news stories to write, a meeting with the Post's publisher, a beauty pageant to coordinate, a movie to cast - so he started off bright and early.
For a year and a half, Bailey had lived in a first-floor apartment near the south end of Lake Merritt. His girlfriend, Deborah Oduwa, lived with him the past three months. Leaving her half asleep in bed, he got up and got ready for work.
Bailey was known as a snappy dresser, yet a thrifty one, often proud of his second-hand-store finds of quality pieces. Growing up in East Oakland and Hayward in a working class family meant he appreciated a dollar.
(Read more)
Bailey killing suspect pleads not guilty
20-year-old Your Black Muslim Bakery handyman retracted earlier admission
From staff writers at the Oakland Tribune/BANG
Reports to authorities
Women who claimed to be victims of Yusuf Bey's sexual abuse, or their families, said they made at least 10 complaints that were ignored by authorities.
By Mary Fricker
Money for Nothing
Bakery associate received public matching funds but didn't document spending
By Cecily Burt and G.W. Schulz
Sidebar
Timeline of the bakery's bid for Oakland City Council
How Oakland's fearful politicos enabled waste
A Bey family subsidiary promised jobs for Oakland but instead left taxpayers with a large, unpaid loan
It was a noble cause: Train welfare recipients as home health aides and put them to work caring for homebound sick and elderly clients.
A decade ago, while Your Black Muslim Bakery founder Yusuf Bey enjoyed unwavering support and adulation from black businesses and politicians, his spiritually adopted son, Nedir Bey, pressured and shamed city leaders into giving him a $1.1 million loan to help finance the promise of black entrepreneurial independence.
But the venture, E.M. Health Services, swiftly collapsed. The failure of CEO Nedir Bey to repay a dime of the loan made headlines at the time and prompted most to assume the company's demise was caused by a combination of poor business decisions, bureaucratic hurdles and simple bad luck. (Read more)
E.M. Health Services, a home health care company founded by a high-ranking member of Your Black Muslim Bakery, opened for business in July 1996, flush with a $1.1 million loan from the city of Oakland.
But shortly over a year later, signs of trouble already plagued the business - and a review of documents shows that the founders of the struggling company paid themselves lavish salaries, and lucrative consulting contracts went to bakery associates and family members. (Read more)
In 1996, Your Black Muslim Bakery lieutenant Nedir Bey had a wealth of ammunition with which to lobby city leaders for a $1.1 million loan to fund his health care company, E.M. Health Services.
The previous year, the city of Oakland had agreed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to bring the Oakland Raiders back from Los Angeles, a deal that quickly soured and has cost the city and Alameda County taxpayers more than $20 million a year ever since.
The developers of a new downtown ice rink had defaulted on $11 million in bonds just three months after the facility opened. (Read more)
Sidebar
Who's who of key players in E.M. Health
(Cecily Burt and G.W. Schulz)
Sidebar
At a glance timeline of E.M. Health's loan
(Cecily Burt and G.W. Schulz)
Your Black Muslim Bakery member Nedir Bey speaks before the Oakland City Council on June 4, 1996, to lobby for money for E. M. Health Services, a home health organization. The city council approved the funds. (KTOP Frame Grab)
The exterior of Your Black Muslim Bakery (Oakland Tribune)
Behind the Bey empire
Did real estate fraud help build Your Black Muslim Bakery into an enterprise worth killing for?
By Bob Butler, Thomas Peele, Josh Richman, G.W. Schulz and A.C. Thompson
The Chauncey Bailey Project
Since 2003, Esperanza Johnson, a former key figure within Oakland's Bey organization, and her husband, Antron Thurman, have acquired nearly $2 million worth of East Bay real estate through a string of controversial deals tainted with allegations of deceit.
In five cases those deals led to litigation. Johnson, of Antioch, who also goes by the name Noor Jehan Bey, has twice been accused of fraud. Court records indicate that one of those transactions involved falsified documents.
(Read more)
Click above for a graphic of the East Bay homes featured in 'A trail of dubious dealings.' Produced by Contra Costa Times staffers
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