Local News in Brief : Jury Selection in Ecclesia Case Begins

Jury selection began Monday in Oregon in the trial of four members of the Ecclesia Athletic Assn. accused of beating to death the 8-year-old daughter of the group’s leader.

The three men and one woman are charged with manslaughter in the Oct. 13 death of Dayna Broussard, daughter of Eldridge Broussard Jr.

Broussard, who ran the Watts Christian Center in Los Angeles, founded the religious-athletic camp at a rural house southeast of Portland.

Prosecutors in the Oregon City case said they plan to present evidence that Dayna was struck hundreds of times, slammed against a wall and floor and hung out a window on the night she died.

Defense attorneys have not disclosed their strategy.

Fifty-three other children at the camp were taken into state custody after Dayna’s death, and authorities said many of them were subjected to ritualistic whippings with a paddle or electrical cord.

Broussard, 35, was in Los Angeles at the time of his daughter’s death and was not charged. He has denied that the children were beaten or abused, saying they were only spanked.