Robert Rozier

Before dawn on a Thursday in late October 1986, city workers began moving families out of a low-slung, pastel-colored apartment complex in Opa-locka, Florida. ^[1] A few hours earlier, two tenants who had publicly criticized the new owners — a religious sect called the Yahwehs — had been gunned down in the street. ^[1]

Police quickly found a man hiding in the bushes near the scene. ^[1] They identified him as 33-year-old Yahweh member Robert Rosier, also known within the group as Neariah Israel. ^[1] Detectives said he wore a white turban when they pulled him from the undergrowth, matching the sect’s distinctive dress. ^[1] Within hours, he was charged with first-degree murder in one of the killings. ^[1]

The two dead men — Anthony Brown, 28, and Rudolph Broussard, 37 — had been among the most outspoken tenants resisting the Yahwehs’ sudden takeover of their homes. ^[1] Their deaths would explode a simmering property dispute into a full-blown emergency that emptied an entire block and focused attention on a secretive religious empire — and on the violent work of the man suspected of enforcing its will.

“We’ll make this respectable” — the Yahweh push into Opa-locka

The Opa-locka complex sat on Northwest 131st Street at Northwest 32nd Avenue, five pastel buildings recently assessed at $710,000. ^[1] Days before the shootings, the Yahweh organization — operating under the corporate name Temple of Love Inc. — had assumed a $480,000 mortgage on the property. ^[1] Former owners said they could not keep up the place, and that the neighborhood’s drug activity made the apartments unprofitable. ^[1]

The new landlords arrived with a mission. Yahweh members said they intended to turn the complex into a “respectable place to live,” and that the way to do it was to force most of the existing tenants out. ^[1] The group had done this elsewhere: from its base at the Liberty City Temple of Love on Northwest 62nd Street, it claimed 12,000 followers around the world and held substantial property along Hallandale Boulevard near Carver Ranches in Broward County. ^[1]

Tenants who spoke out

Once the Yahwehs took control of the complex, tension came fast. For two days, tenants described what one official would call a “standoff”: Yahweh members ordering families to move out, tenants refusing to go. ^[1]

Brown and Broussard emerged as voices of resistance. The men had criticized the sect on television or in newspapers, opposing the takeover of their homes. ^[1] In one TV segment, Brown declared he would not budge “until he received an eviction notice” and insisted the Yahwehs “ain’t going in.” ^[1]

Meanwhile, according to what Broussard told relatives and friends, Yahweh members had already gone in — straight into his apartment. He said they entered without his permission and removed his furnishings. ^[1] His sister, Celine Broussard, said the group took a freezer from his place. ^[1] Tenants later recalled that Brown and Broussard confronted sect members after seeing them carry out a refrigerator that belonged to Broussard. ^[1]

The public criticism, the accusations of trespassing, and the nightly presence of robed men patrolling the property pushed the complex to a breaking point.

1 a.m. on Northwest 131st Street

A suspect in the bushes

Police moved quickly at the complex. Shortly after the shootings, officers searching nearby found a man hiding in bushes close to the crime scene. ^[1] He wore the white turban associated with the Yahweh faithful. ^[1]

Officers identified him as Robert Rosier, 33, a Yahweh member who also used the name Neariah Israel. ^[1] He was taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder in one of the slayings, though authorities did not say which victim they believed he had killed. ^[1]

Rosier’s arrest fit the sect’s internal pattern: members adopted the surname Israel, and the flowing white robes and turbans had become a visual shorthand for the group around Miami. ^[1] Yet there was also confusion, then and later, about who exactly this man was. Newspapers gave his last name as “Rosier,” while later accounts of the same figure — linking him to the Yahweh leadership and to a brief NFL career — spelled it “Rozier” and referred to him by his Yahweh name, Neariah Israel. ^[1][2]

The legal record from that night, however, is stark but limited: Rosier was arrested near the scene, wearing Yahweh garb, and charged in connection with one of the two murders that had just unfolded outside the complex. ^[1]

City hall moves to contain the fallout

Inside Yahweh ben Yahweh

To the families at the Opa-locka complex, the Yahwehs appeared overnight as strict, robed landlords with apocalyptic rhetoric. But by 1986, the network behind them was far larger.

Retrospective accounts identify the movement’s leader as Hulon Mitchell Jr., head of the Yahweh ben Yahweh cult. ^[2] Under his direction, the group expanded from the Liberty City Temple of Love into a web of properties and businesses. ^[1]

Later court documents and summaries would paint a darker picture of the sect’s inner structure. According to those materials, Mitchell formed a clandestine cadre called “The Brotherhood,” an elite group within Yahweh ben Yahweh. ^[2] To gain entry into this circle, applicants were said to be required to kill a “white devil” and bring Mitchell a body part — an ear, a nose, or a finger — as proof. ^[2]

Between April and October 1986, court papers alleged that another faction, dubbed Mitchell’s “Death Angels,” repeatedly descended on Miami to kill random white people. ^[2] These alleged operations were presented as part of a campaign aligned with the movement’s teaching that whites were devils and that vengeance was coming. ^[1][2]

Within this structure, one man stood out in later accounts as the chief enforcer: Robert (or Bob) Rozier, the same figure arrested in Opa-locka under the Yahweh name Neariah Israel. ^[1][2]

Robert Rozier before Opa-locka

Inside, he embraced the group’s identity. Rozier is described as having changed his name to Neariah Israel — a name later said to mean “child of god” — and taken on work in the sect’s businesses, including what sources call the Yahweh “booze factory.” ^[2] His diligence there reportedly earned him “brownie points” with temple elders. ^[2]

From there, according to retrospective narratives and court-based summaries, he moved into a different kind of work for the organization.

The Brotherhood and the “Death Angels”

Later court papers and retrospective accounts place Rozier squarely in the orbit of the Brotherhood and the so-called Death Angels during 1986. ^[2]

One account describes a pivotal night in April of that year. On a Saturday, Rozier allegedly set out intending to “try out” for the Brotherhood. ^[2] He was said to be carrying a 12-inch Japanese-style knife inside his jacket when he left. ^[2]

He went to Coconut Grove, a Miami neighborhood, and, according to this account, prowled the area looking for someone who appeared weak or small enough to overpower. ^[2] The narrative continues: Rozier followed a white man to his apartment, forced his way inside, and stabbed the man in the heart. ^[2]

These allegations, presented in later legal descriptions and summaries, were tied to the broader claim that, between April and October 1986, Mitchell’s Death Angels roamed Miami targeting white victims. ^[2] Within that structure, Rozier was repeatedly characterized as Mitchell’s chief enforcer. ^[2]

Those accusations reach beyond the specific Opa-locka case — and the legal record assembled here does not spell out how, or whether, they factored formally into the charges laid in the wake of Brown and Broussard’s murders. What the retrospective sources do make clear is that by late 1986, Rozier’s life was no longer that of a fringe ex-athlete eking out a living. He was allegedly doing violent work for a leader who preached retribution and absolute loyalty. ^[1][2]

At some point after the Opa-locka shootings and the period of alleged Death Angels activity, those loyalties shifted. One web-archived account states that Rozier later became the prosecution’s star witness in related legal actions against Yahweh leadership and members. ^[2] That evolution — from enforcer to key witness — would make him central to efforts to dismantle parts of the empire he had once helped protect.

What remains unresolved

In Opa-locka, the impact of that October night was immediate and visible: a block-long complex emptied, 80 low-income families forced into emergency shelters, and an entire religious organization barred from returning while the courts sorted out a tenants’ lawsuit. ^[1] Mayor Riley’s assessment — “We had to cool the situation down” — captured how explosive the mix of religion, real estate, and violence had become. ^[1]