Making of a Tragedy

Two months later, according to a school system spokeswoman, Jacks withdrew, and there is no record of her graduating in Charles.

By her 20th birthday, in 1994, she was a statistic in the nation's underclass -- a single mother, getting by on public assistance. She filed a paternity petition against a Waldorf man that year, asserting that he was Brittany's father, but the case was slow to move through they system. Then, in 1996, with Brittany in kindergarten and the paternity claim still unsettled, Jacks gave birth to Tatianna, her second child, which led to another paternity case in Charles.

Jacks was living with her mother, Mamie Jacks, in Waldorf when she filed a claim in 1997 against Kevin J. Stoddard of College Park, saying he was Tatianna's father, according to court records. Stoddard, who could not be located for comment last week, acknowledged he was the father in a letter to a judge. "I am fully prepared to financially support her," he wrote.

Stoddard was given visitation rights with Tatianna and ordered to pay $342 a month in child support, but quickly fell behind, according to court records. How much money Jacks received is unclear.

Meanwhile, the court dispute over Brittany's paternity dragged on. The defendant, who denied he was the father, submitted a DNA sample, but Jacks initially failed to give samples of her DNA and Brittany's. After she failed to show up for a hearing in the case in 1999, a Charles judge issued a warrant for her apprehension.

On Dec. 11 that year, a few weeks before she turned 25, Jacks was picked up by county sheriff's deputies and jailed for two days. A day later she provided the DNA samples, according to court records. Tests soon proved that the man she had accused was not Brittany's father.

The father eventually turned up. In 2001, when Brittany was 10, Jacks filed a paternity claim against Norman C. Penn Jr. of Suitland, who acknowledged he was the father, court records show. Penn, who could not be reached for comment, was ordered to pay $388 a month in support. He fell behind on payments as well, according to court records. It was unclear how much money Jacks received.

It was about this time that Jacks began a new chapter in her life, enrolling in Aaron's Academy of Beauty, a cosmetology school in Waldorf. Except for breaks she took when her next two children, N'Kiah and Aja, were born, Jacks remained at the school, as a student and hair stylist, until 2005.

Referring to the horrific tale that unfolded in the District, Stacy Lynch, the academy's director, said: "Sometimes when you hear things like that, you think, 'She must have been troubled forever.' That certainly wasn't the case here. . . . The Banita we know is certainly not that Banita."

As Jacks's former cosmetology classmates absorbed news accounts of the tragedy last week, seeing photos of Jacks and her four daughters, they were aghast, Lynch said. They knew Jacks as a cheerful woman, a serious student and a caring mother.

A stylist's success depends as much on her rapport with customers as her ability to cut hair, Lynch said. "In this industry, it's all about personality." And Jacks had the right touch, Lynch said. Many clients came to the school to have Jacks style their hair.

Among them was Nathaniel Fogle Jr., who liked the way Jacks fashioned his cornrows, a relative of Fogle's recalled last week, speaking on the condition of anonymity for privacy reasons. Court records in the District show that Fogle was sentenced to two to six years in prison in the early 1990s after pleading guilty to possessing cocaine with intent to sell. He later worked in the home improvement business, the relative said.