D.C. Woman: "Demons" Possessed Slain Girls
Mother Says Children Died In Their Sleep; Girls May Have Been Starved, Stabbed, Strangled
-
-
This artist's courtroom sketch shows Banita Jacks during her appearance at the District of Columbia Superior Court in Washington on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008. Jacks, found in her home with the decomposing bodies of four girls was charged Thursday with murder after reportedly telling investigators that the children were possessed by demons and died in their sleep. (AP Photo/Dana Verkouteren)
-
District of Columbia medical examiner's office personnel remove the first body from a house where the bodies of four dead youths, estimated to be between 5 and 18 years of age, were found in varying states of decomposition in southeast Washington, Wednesday Jan. 9, 2008. A woman found in her home with the bodies of four girls believed to be her children has been charged with murder, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
-
-
Interactive Children In Danger Warning signs, state-by-state child services information and a history of child welfare reforms.
City officials were scrambling to understand how four children could have been dead for at least two weeks without anyone knowing.
Mayor Adrian Fenty said Thursday that officials were working to determine what other contacts city agencies had with the family.
"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.
Several relatives stopped by the house to visit or to deliver child support checks, but Jacks didn't answer the door. Jacks sometimes telephoned after the visits and reported that everything was under control, they said, according to the Washington Post.
"Sometimes she wouldn't answer the door," recalled Tywana Richardson, godmother to the two youngest girls, who said she tried to stay in touch with the family after Fogle's death. "No one would answer the door. That happened a lot. . . . When I kept going and she wasn't there, I figured she had upped and moved."
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.
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 tried 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.
Outside the courthouse, a woman who said she spent the day with Jacks in a cellblock area, told reporters Jacks admitted to killing her children.
"She kept talking about her kids had demons in them," said Tamara Crump, who was locked up on a drug charge but let go after authorities declined to prosecute her. She said Jacks "smelled like death," an odor so strong that Crump and other prisoners asked for masks, according to the Washington Post.
"The woman is crazy," Crump said.
Fenty said Thursday that besides at least one contact with child welfare officials, the family had at least one brush with D.C. police.
According to court records, Jacks was charged in January 2007 with driving an unregistered vehicle. In February, she paid a $175 fine and the case was dismissed.
© MVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From U.S.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
... - 7
- next
See all 138 CommentsWhen we are all lined up in the great judgement, there will be no one to hide behind and point fingers saying that guy was an idiot and I do not believe in God because of how that idiot lived their stupid life. So someone living stupid is your reason for your choices?
And if it turns out there is no God after all and there is nothingness after life, what does it matter what anyone believes or how they lived, i.e. Hilter went to the same nothingness as the innocent children he murdered in the holocaust.
So there must be something to true Chrisianity. Don't let one demon possessed or mentally ill women make your choices for you. Unless you are using her mixed up tragic life as an excuse for the choices you have already made.
p.s. God does hate religion. He said so in the Bible. He wants us to live from the heart, not rituals and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christianity has been so distorted by charlatans and the mega church business enterprises which are so far from what the Messiah Jesus taught. He never advocated violence against anyone who did not follow his teachings. Just read the Scriptures for yourself particularly what he taught personally.
Many of those who were tried as witches were actually Christians who refused to worship the hierarchy and placed their trust in God instead. Read history for yourself during the dark ages when many "Christians" were persecuted for their faith.
If anyone was possessed by an evil spirit, it was this woman who murdered her children. In the Chrisian religion, Jesus set free many who were demon possessed, but nowhere did God instruct any disciple to murder a demon possessed person. Just look at the percentage of movies that are being produced today which present plots with demon possession which do not endorse any faith only fear. It is lamentable that there was no one close to this family to rescue the girls from a disturbed parent.
Posted by brianbwb at 12:07 AM : Jan 12, 2008
----------------------------------------------------
read proverbs and ecclesiastes and discover who is "foolish "
----------------------------------------------------
What you list as the symptoms of being "controlled by sin" are simply your own discriminations, and come not from Satan, but from yourself, as those who practice your "vices" do so not because of Satan, but from their own volition.
Posted by brianbwb at 12:13 AM : Jan 12, 2008
------------------------------------------------------
The bible says when you choose God to lead your life, you choose righteousness, however if one chooses to do evil ,you have chosen to serve satan, the father of lies. Whom do you serve??
Mental illness. Too much religion, not enough education, dead beat dads.
Really bad choices.
Tragedy.
Posted by yamuttya at 11:34 AM : Jan 11, 2008
Posted by yamuttya
Too much Religion? Why, because a crazy woman who murdered her children said they were possessed by demons? Any mention of her going to church. Any mention at all of God?
Dead beat dads? What about a woman who has *** with so many different men that she takes them all to court to determine paternity?
Mental illness. Too much religion, not enough education, dead beat dads.
Really bad choices.
Tragedy.
Posted by yamuttya at 11:34 AM : Jan 11, 2008
Ever see someone who drinks until they vomit? Theres a hint right there. Ever see those who, after they vomit, try to order another drink? An even stronger hint. A barfight? Yep, another one. It is all self abuse, which is just one form of insanity. Insanity can be temporary or permanent, ya takes yer choice, and pays the price.
Your personal description of schizophrenia was interesting, have you ever considered that the "other voice" you hear is also yourself, simply involuntarily disconnected from your whole being, because of a guilt imposed during your childhood? That your teachers, parents, religious leaders, in forcing you to hold opposing ideas in your head (theirs and yours) brainwashed you into disassociating yourself with those thoughts that don''t fit what they were forcing upon you?
Posted by jankebenz
Yet, I remember reading posts where you support the killing of innocent Iraqis, only because the Arabic name for the God of Abraham is Allah.
What you list as the symptoms of being "controlled by sin" are simply your own discriminations, and come not from Satan, but from yourself, as those who practice your "vices" do so not because of Satan, but from their own volition.
Posted by jankebenz
No, it is not becoming more commonplace, only the reporting of it is. You seem to have missed the part in the bible where Solomon wrote to his nephew that those who say that modern times are worse than former times are fools. Therefore, you have also rejected wisdom in the holy texts, which you only use to justify hatred for other people, while hiding behind the supposition that they don''t follow your version.
The state of American so-called " Christianity " today is an obvious trainwreck as proven by these silly and misguided comments.
Name calling, mystical nonsense, racist stupidity,on and on....
America , heal thyself.
Posted by Keithle1 at 09:34 PM : Jan 11, 2008
He didn''t say A Christian could/would not kill, he said a Christian could not murder, Please Google the difference.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
... - 7
- next
See all 138 Comments