Home searched in faith-healing death

OREGON CITY, Ore. – Detectives searched the home of members of a faith-healing church Thursday where a baby boy died last weekend.

No one has been charged in the death, and because of that, names of the family who are involved are not being named. Several sources within the Followers of Christ church have told KATU News reporters, Thom Jensen and Dan Tilkin, that the mother of the baby boy who died, experienced complications several days before the baby was born two months premature.

Officially, the medical examiner said it was “a natural death involving a premature infant and laboratory tests to determine the cause of death are pending.” Detectives, however, still collected evidence Thursday to determine if any laws were broken.

The house, where the baby was born without a doctor present, belongs to the baby’s grandparents.

About a half dozen Clackamas County detectives and crime scene specialists spent the morning inside the house. They removed what appeared to be computer components. Several members of the church were kept outside.

A church member who did not identify himself, tried to block the camera of a KATU News photographer and refused to answer questions and called the media liars, saying it couldn’t get the story straight.

The baby boy was laid to rest Wednesday at the church’s cemetery outside of Oregon City. Although not related to Ava Worthington, who was the subject of the first criminal prosecution under Oregon's new faith-healing law, the child was buried next to her.

You might remember that in the Ava Worthington case, the child's parents, Carl and Raylene, were arrested and charged with felony manslaughter after their 15-month-old daughter died from pneumonia and a related blood infection in March 2008 that could easily have been cured with antibiotics. But both were acquitted by a jury on that charge. Carl Worthington, however, was found guilty of criminal mistreatment, a lesser charge, and served almost 60 days in jail.

Ava’s death, and the death of her 16-year-old uncle, Neil Beagley, a few months later, died of natural causes as well, the medical examiner ruled. But the medical examiner said they could have survived with medical treatment.

The uncle’s parents, Jeff and Marci Beagley, are scheduled for trial in January.