Big Questions Linger in Bailey Slaying

What, exactly, was Bailey working on?

Police say alleged shooter DeVaughndre Broussard, a 19-year-old bakery handyman who since has recanted his confession, initially told them he had killed Bailey in anger over stories the veteran journalist had written in the past about the bakery, its employees and its leaders.

Oakland Post Publisher Paul Cobb has said Bailey was investigating the bakery's bankruptcy and other financial doings as well as stories about police corruption. Cobb has denied telling police - as a detective's notes indicate - that Bailey was probing the bakery's role in "murders and other felonious activity.''

But for the past two months, Cobb has declined to let reporters review Bailey's notes or a story the journalist had completed a few weeks before Bailey was murdered. That story - the first in a planned series - was never published because it was too one-sided, Cobb said, adding he'd asked Bailey to do more reporting.

And police said Tuesday although they'd asked Cobb for those materials early on, they never got them - and later decided they didn't need them.

"After consulting with the DA (district attorney) and looking at our investigative process, it was decided that this information is immaterial to the case and as such we have not sought to pursue that information any further,'' Assistant Chief Howard Jordan said.

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