Banita Jacks, 33, Charged in killing her 4 daughters D.C. (FOUND GUILTY)

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http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/01/10/ap/us/d8u34m8g0.txt

Woman to Face Charges in 4 D.C. Deaths
By SARAH KARUSH
Published: Thursday, January 10, 2008
WASHINGTON - A woman found in her home with the decomposing bodies of four girls faces murder charges, and authorities believe she is their mother, officials said Thursday.

Banita Jacks, 33, was expected to appear Thursday in D.C. Superior Court, where the charges will be formally presented, prosecutors said.

"We are working on the assumption that these are her four children," police Chief Cathy Lanier said at a news conference.

The bodies of the girls _ ages 5, 6, 11 and 17 _ were found Wednesday when deputy U.S. marshals served an eviction notice at the apartment. Medical examiner Dr. Marie Pierre-Louis said the bodies were likely there more than 15 days.

Jacks, who faces four counts of murder, could receive a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

"I don't think anyone in the city can remember a case involving this many young people who have died in such a tragic way," Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said.

The home where the bodies were found is in one of the city's poorest, most violent neighborhoods. The block is lined by virtually identical apartment houses near Bolling Air Force Base. About one-third of the city's homicides last year occurred in the area, according to preliminary police statistics.

Mindy Good, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Child and Family Services agency, said Wednesday that the agency had received one report about a family at that address in April through the city's child abuse and neglect reporting hot line.

"We made several attempts to make contact with these people. We were unable to have any face-to-face contact with them," Good said. "On the last attempt (in early May), it appeared they were no longer living at the address."

Good said investigators later found a new address for the family in Maryland and alerted county authorities there of the report on the family. She would not say where the family was believed to be living.

D.C. Council member Marion Barry, who represents the neighborhood where the bodies were found, questioned why no one had reported that four people were missing.

"Somebody should have known that some people were not in school," Barry said.

None of the children thought to be living in the home was enrolled in the school system, said D.C. schools spokeswoman Mafara Hobson. One child at that address had attended Stuart-Hobson Elementary School but withdrew in 2006 as a fifth-grader, she said.

Larry Jones, who lives next door, said a woman and two or three children lived at the home but he had not seen them since the summer. He said the children appeared healthy at the time.

Jones added that in recent months he has noticed a "strange odor" coming through his vent. "We thought it was probably dead mice in the vent or something," he said.

Resident Rowand Simpkins said her neighbors tend to keep to themselves and that she never saw the woman or children.

"It's really a mystery," she said.

Photos w/ captions on site.

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Mother Says 4 Children Died In Their Sleep 
Woman Charged After Bodies Found In SE House
A mother charged with killing her four daughters says the girls died in their sleep.
http://video.nbc4.com/player/?id=203920

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Mother: Girls Were Possessed By Demons; Died In Sleep
Woman Charged In Deaths Of 4 Daughters

POSTED: 6:02 pm EST January 10, 2008
UPDATED: 10:01 am EST January 11, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The mother of four girls found dead in a Southeast Washington home Wednesday morning appeared in court to face charges of premeditated murder and first-degree murder in connection with the deaths.

Banita Jacks, 33, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Brittany Jacks, 17; Tatianna Jacks, 11; N'kiah Fogle, 6; and Aja Fogle, 5. She could receive a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

News4's Pat Collins reported that during 12 hours of questioning by police, Jacks spoke of demonic possession and starvation but never confessed to the crime, according to sources. According to court records, Jacks claims her children died in their sleep before Pepco shut down power to her house, which took place on Sept. 5. She said she didn't call 911 because she didn't trust them. Jacks didn't feed the oldest girl but did feed the younger three, according to court records.

The bodies of four girls were found by U.S. marshals, who were delivering an eviction notice at about 9:30 a.m. inside a home in the 4200 block of Sixth Street SE, Collins reported.

Collins reported that the three youngest girls were found side by side in a second-floor room, facing the same direction. The oldest daughter was found in another room, and a knife was found on the floor near the bodies.

Apparently there is no furniture in the home, Collins reported. A neighbor told Collins that she saw Jacks and her children beating up furniture behind the home during the summer.

Appearing in court in a white jumpsuit and sandals, Jacks did not speak during the hearing and had a blank expression on her face. District of Columbia Superior Court Magistrate Judge Karen Howze ordered Jacks held without bond. Her attorneys had argued that she be released to the home of an adult relative.

"I don't know how many bodies we need before we determine that Ms. Jacks is a danger to the community," said Deborah Sines, assistant U.S. attorney.

According to a sworn statement by detectives, Jacks said that the children were possessed by demons and that they began dying in their sleep, one by one, within a seven-day period. She also told police that the deaths occurred before electricity at the apartment was turned off, which prosecutors said was in September 2007.

She also said she had not fed her children for a substantial time before their deaths. No witnesses had reported seeing the children since May 2007, the documents stated.

Medical examiner Marie-Lydie Pierre-Louis said the bodies were likely there more than 15 days, "based on the insects that were found there." Some investigators said they believe the children could have been dead for months, Collins reported.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor said Jacks faces a mandatory minimum of 30 years in prison on each count if convicted, and a maximum penalty of life in prison without possibility of parole.

Although autopsies are incomplete, the medical examiner's office reported that there was evidence that Brittany had been stabbed, the charging documents state. There was evidence of binding on the necks of the Tatianna and N'Kiah, and evidence of blunt force injury to the head of Aja and binding on her neck, according to the documents.

When the deputies went to the home Wednesday, Jacks tried to block them from the second floor, according to the charging documents. One of the deputies walked around her and spotted the bodies of the three younger children on the floor of an unfurnished bedroom. He then opened the door to another bedroom and found Brittany's body, also on the floor of a bare room.

The three children were dressed in white T-shirts, the documents said.

Brittany's body was naked but was partially covered by a white T-shirt. An object that appeared to be a steak knife lay nearby, and there was a dried maroon liquid around the body, according to the documents.

Jacks graduated from Aaron's Academy of Beauty in Waldorf in August 2005 with a license to practice cosmetology, said Stacy Lynch, the school's director. She described Jacks as a friendly woman, a good student and a good mother.

"She loved her children," said Lynch ."When you saw Banita outside of school, you saw the girls ... they were always together."

Court records in Charles County, Md., show that Jacks filed paternity suits against three men, two of which were successful. In one case, Norman C. Penn Jr., whose most recent address is in Glen Burnie, is named the father of Brittany. In another case, Kevin J. Stoddard, whose most recent address is listed in Prince George's County, acknowledged he is the father of Tatianna.

The county court records indicated that both men failed to pay required child support. Penn was convicted of criminal contempt and received a suspended jail sentence. Records also show that in 2004, lenders foreclosed on a Waldorf townhome that Jacks had purchased three years earlier.

City officials were scrambling Thursday to understand how four children could have been dead for at least two weeks without anyone knowing. D.C. Council Member Tommy Wells, who chairs the committee on human services, immediately scheduled a hearing for Friday on the matter. However, on Thursday, his office said it would be postponed until early next week to give officials a chance to compile the information.

Nona Richardson, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Public Charter School Board, said Jacks' three younger daughters attended the Meridian Public Charter School in Washington consistently until March 2007.

When they stopped showing up, Richardson said the school immediately tried to contact the mother by mail and telephone. Officials finally went to the woman's home and the woman told a school official that she wanted to withdraw the children and home-school them. They were officially withdrawn in mid-March 2007.

Richardson said D.C. education officials were notified about the withdrawal at the end of the school year, in accordance with procedures.

A child at Jacks' Washington address also had attended Stuart-Hobson Elementary School but withdrew in 2006 as a fifth-grader, public school officials said.

The D.C. Child and Family Services agency attempted last year to investigate a complaint about the family. But investigators could not make face-to-face contact with family members and believed they had moved to Maryland, agency spokeswoman Mindy Good said.

Norris West, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Human Resources, said D.C. officials in June asked social services officials in Charles County, Md., to open a case for the family. However, county officials were not able to locate the family, and it is unclear whether they had actually moved to Charles County, West said.

According to D.C. Superior Court records, Jacks was arrested and charged in January 2007 with driving an unregistered vehicle. In February, she paid a $175 fine and the case was dismissed.

D.C. Child and Family Services representative Mindy Good said, "We made several attempts to make contact with these people. We were unable to have any face-to-face contact with them. On the last attempt, it appeared they were no longer living at the address."

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's attorney general, Peter Nickles, is conducting a thorough review of what, if anything, city agencies could have with this family that could have prevented the deaths. Fenty promised a "high degree of accountability" if anyone failed to do their jobs in this case.

"We are going to investigate every single contact that this family has had with the government, with people who are paid to look out for the welfare of children, and we will come back with a full report," Fenty said. "We will let everybody know very candidly what was done and whether it was done to community standards and professional standards, and if it was not, there will be a high degree of accountability."

D.C. Council Human Services Chair Tommy Wells also is investigating and said it's not a case of an underfunded and overwhelmed agency.

Washington Post columnist Colby King has documented deaths of several people under city care over many years. He said it shouldn't take a special investigation to find out what happened.

Fenty said he'll hold another public briefing Friday morning.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/15024271/detail.html

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Banita Jacks Pleads Not Guilty in Daughters' Murders   posted 12:12 pm Fri September 12, 2008 - WASHINGTON

The 33-year-old woman accused of killing her four daughters and living for months with their decomposing bodies pleaded not guilty Friday in D.C. Superior Court.

On Friday, a D.C. Superior Court judge told Jack's public defenders they would have until the end of September to raise an insanity defense. They also must submit an expert report on her mental state by mid-October.

Jacks trial is scheduled to begin in December. Because of the age of her daughters, if convicted she faces life in prison. She has been in jail since January. » read the court documents
 

It's been eight months since the decomposing bodies of Banita Jacks' four young daughters were discovered inside their home on 6th street in Southeast.

"I have no resentment or hatred for her - we don't as a family, it's just sad," said Michael Powell.

Powell is a cousin of the two younger daughters. He read the court documents in which prosecutors say Jacks stabbed her oldest, 16-year-old Brittany with a knife, strangled 11-year old Tatianna and 6-year old N'kiah and strangled and beat 5-year old Aja.

Last June, family members said goodbye to the four girls, and they hope the gruesome episode will soon be put to rest now that the mother being held responsible for the deaths will have her day in court.

The indictment also charged Jacks with failing to provide the girls with adequate nutrition and medical attention.

Authorities believe the girls were dead for as long as six months before an eviction team discovered them in January.

"With the kids being buried a couple of months and this coming about it brings things more to a closure," said Powell.

The jury also indicted the mother on four counts of first degree cruelty to children saying she did "intentionally torture, beat, and otherwise willfully maltreat" her daughters.

"You know somebody you don't expect somebody you know to do something as heinous as these crimes she's charged with," said Powell.

The gruesome discovery by an eviction team made headlines and sent shock-waves through the community. The home, overgrown with grass is motionless except for a ceiling fan left on in an upstairs bedroom. Reaction to the charges here was all the same.

"I am glad to hear that she getting what she deserves," said one resident.

"Justice was served," said resident Loraine White.

http://www.news8.net/news/stories/0908/552480.html

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Banita Jacks Has Status Hearing   posted 11:32 am Fri October 31, 2008

http://www.news8.net/news/stories/1008/565973.html

Washington - A woman accused of killing her four daughters and living with their bodies for months appeared in court Friday for a status hearing.

In the course of the mental evaluation hearing, it was reveled that Jacks refuses to speak to state psychiatrists. She has told her lawyers she wants her trial to begin as soon as possible.

Jacks will be committed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, the District's public psychiatric facility, for the next 45 days.

On Dec. 19th, there will be hearing to determine whether Jacks cooperated while she was in St. Elizabeth's.

Banita Jacks pleaded not guilty last month to charges of premeditated first-degree murder.

Jacks was arrested in January after federal marshals serving an eviction notice found the bodies of her four daughters - ages 5, 6, 11 and 16 - in the family's southeast Washington rowhouse. Authorities said the girls had been dead since the summer of 2007.

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BANITA JACKS TRIAL
Decomposition Made M.E.'s Job Difficult
Cause of Oldest Daughter's Death Debated

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A District medical examiner told a D.C. Superior Court judge Monday that Banita Jacks's oldest daughter's body was so badly decomposed that he was only about "50 percent" sure that she had been murdered.


The four daughters of Banita Jacks: N'Kiah, left, Aja, Brittany and Tatianna. They had been dead for at least seven months when their bodies were found.

In the fourth day of Jacks's trial, Assistant Medical Examiner A. Wayne Williams said that when he did an autopsy on Brittany Jacks's body shortly after it was found on Jan. 9, 2008, initially he could conclude only that the cause of death was "suspicion of foul play."

Williams said that during the autopsy, he found three puncture wounds to Brittany's abdomen, which were "highly likely" to have been stab wounds, but he was unclear whether the wounds were enough to kill her. "This was a very tough case, very complicated. It doesn't fit the textbook," he said.

Under cross-examination by Jacks's attorney, Peter Krauthamer, Williams said that if Brittany had been stabbed to death, it was unusual for there not to be any blood spatter on the walls or ceiling of the bedroom where her body was found. But that could have meant that she bled internally, Williams said.

Authorities ruled that Brittany, 16, and her three sisters -- Tatianna Jacks, 11, N'Kiah Fogle, 6, and Aja Fogle, 5 -- had been dead for at least seven months when their bodies were found by federal marshals who came to evict the family from the Sixth Street SE rowhouse where they lived. Jacks said the girls died in their sleep, one by one. Authorities said that Brittany was stabbed and that the three youngest girls were beaten and strangled.

Jacks is charged with 12 counts, including premeditated first-degree murder and cruelty to children. She faces life in prison without parole if convicted.

Prosecutors spent much of Monday arguing over how Brittany died and the condition of her body.

One of the poster-size photos used in the trial showed Brittany's body appearing almost mummified, lying flat on the floor with her arms extended above her head. Brittany weighed about 46 pounds and was about 5-foot-5. A knife was also found near her body. After reviewing the deaths of Brittany's younger sisters and consulting with his colleagues, Williams said he was then about "99 percent sure" Brittany's death was the result of a homicide.

Krauthamer tried to raise concerns about Williams's conclusion being influenced by the national media attention to the case or the fact that Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) visited the coroner's office during the investigation and eventually fired six D.C. social workers who had contact with the Jacks family. Williams said no outside factors influenced his findings.

Krauthamer also tried to challenge the testimony of a Capitol Heights woman whom Jacks and her family lived with for about four months in 2006 after they were kicked out of a homeless shelter.

LaShawn Ragland, a friend of Jacks's boyfriend Nathaniel Fogle Jr., told Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Jackson that she watched Jacks and Fogle sitting around and laughing as their two youngest daughters, N'Kiah and Aja, who were ages 4 and 3 at the time, smoked marijuana.

But during Krauthamer's cross-examination, Ragland acknowledged that during her Jan. 16, 2008, grand jury testimony, just a week after Jacks was arrested, she did not mention the marijuana use by the girls. "I wasn't asked," she said.

Ragland also testified that she watched how Jacks and Brittany would argue and how Jacks would withhold food from Brittany as punishment and isolate her from her sisters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072002987.html

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July 30, 2009
Woman Found Guilty of Killing Her 4 Daughters

WASHINGTON — A Washington woman was convicted on Wednesday of murdering her four daughters whose corpses lay decomposing in the family home for months, in a case that shocked this city and exposed a colossal failure in its social services system.

Judge Frederick H. Weisberg found the woman, Banita M. Jacks, 34, guilty on four counts of felony murder and four counts of child cruelty. Ms. Jacks was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three youngest daughters, but was acquitted of that charge in the death of her oldest daughter, Brittany Jacks, because, the judge said, prosecutors had not proven Ms. Jacks had fatally stabbed the girl.

Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 16. Ms. Jacks faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Judge Weisberg described the bench trial as “one of the most challenging and difficult” assignments “I’ve had now in almost 32 years as a judge.”

Calling what happened to Ms. Jacks’s children “atrocities,” the prosecutor, Michelle Jackson, said she was satisfied with the verdict.

Another member of the prosecution team, Deborah Sines, said the case was ”very sad.”

”Nobody comes out of this courthouse happy,” Ms. Sines said. “You can’t bring these kids back and you can’t undo what the last moments — the last months — of their lives were like."

The defense lawyer, Peter Krauthamer, expressed disappointment, saying, “The end result wasn’t good for" Ms. Jacks and vowing to pursue an appeal if possible.

In January 2008, when federal marshals arrived to evict Ms. Jacks from her foreclosed row house in Washington Highlands, a neighborhood in Southeast Washington, they found the bodies of the four girls in two upstairs bedrooms. The three youngest — Aja Fogle, 5; N’Kiah Fogle, 6; and Tatianna Jacks, 11 — were facedown in one bedroom, while Brittany Jacks, 17, was in a second, according to court documents.

Autopsies found that the three younger girls had been strangled, and that Aja had also been beaten. Brittany’s body had stab wounds. An exact date of death could not be pinpointed.

Ms. Jacks told investigators that demons possessed her daughters and that they died in their sleep after she stopped feeding them.

Just before the trial, the judge reviewed a videotaped police interview with Ms. Jacks in which she said she had taken her daughters out of school and described her eldest daughter as a “Jezebel.” She claimed that they had become accustomed to not eating and that she had tried to revive them. She denied killing them.

After the bodies were discovered, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty promised a full inquiry into the deaths, including the conduct of welfare agencies and school officials, and fired six social workers with the city’s Child and Family Services Agency. Last April, a report found numerous problems and coordination failure among a wide spectrum of agencies and services that had come into contact with the family over several years.

Schools of three of the girls never thoroughly checked on the children after Ms. Jacks withdrew them, and monthly home visits did not take place. After a social worker voiced concerns about the eldest daughter, the child services agency closed an investigation without ever contacting the her or Ms. Jacks. Agencies also were not aware that Ms. Jacks’s companion had died in 2007, according to the report.

During the trial, a police sergeant testified that he had filed a report about a home visit in which he recalled seeing Brittany when, in fact, he had not. The Police Department has begun an investigation into the officer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/us/30mom.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=print

[pink angel]

What a tragedy. Those poor children. Bless their souls.

Life in prison. Good.

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D.C. mother who killed 4 girls gets 120 years   

December 18, 2009 - 3:12pm

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Washington, D.C., woman who was convicted of killing her four daughters has been sentenced to 120 years in prison.

Banita Jacks was found in her southeast Washington rowhouse in January 2008 with her children's decomposing bodies.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick H. Weisberg handed down the sentence Friday after first rejecting a defense motion calling into question Jacks' earlier refusal to use an insanity defense.

Weisberg sentenced Jacks to the mandatory minimum of 30 years for the murder of each child. He rejected the defense's suggestion that the sentences should run concurrently.

http://www.wtop.com/?sid=1844061&nid=25