By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Banita Jacks, the Southeast Washington woman accused of killing her four children, referred to her eldest daughter as "Jezebel" and got into at least two fistfights with the teenager, a D.C. police detective testified yesterday.
At a pretrial hearing, Detective Mitchell A. Credle provided new details about Jacks's turbulent relationship with 16-year-old Brittany Jacks and the horrific conditions inside the family's Southeast rowhouse. It was there, authorities said, that Jacks killed her daughters and left their decaying bodies for months.
Jacks, 33, has been jailed on murder charges since Jan. 9, the day that U.S. marshals serving an eviction notice discovered the girls -- ages 5, 6, 11 and 16 -- in two upstairs bedrooms at the house on Sixth Street SE. Brittany was in one, a knife near her body, and her sisters were in another.
In his testimony yesterday, Credle said that all four girls suffered for months from neglect and starvation before they died but that Brittany was a special target of the wrath of her mother. The detective said that Jacks referred to Brittany as Jezebel, a wicked biblical character, and claimed that the girl was possessed by a "Jezebel demon" and was a bad influence on her sisters.
Credle quoted witnesses as saying that Jacks referred to Brittany -- an honors student until her mother pulled her out of school -- as a "whore" and a "prostitute." He did not give specifics about the fistfights they allegedly had.
In an eight-hour interview with police after her arrest, Jacks maintained that her daughters died in their sleep, Credle said. Jacks told the detectives that she would look at the little girls' bodies after they died, but never at Brittany's.
Jacks said she never considered calling police because she did not want to get into trouble, Credle testified.
Police are awaiting autopsy results to determine how the children died. Brittany had at least three puncture wounds in her abdomen consistent with a stabbing, police said. They said Tatianna Jacks, 11, and N'Kiah Fogle, 6, bore marks suggesting they were strangled. Aja Fogle, 5, had less-pronounced marks consistent with strangling and signs of blunt-force trauma to the back of her head, police said.
Jacks told police that the weaker the children got, the weaker the demons got, Credle said. Jacks, who quoted the Bible during the interview with police, never admitted harming the children, he said.
Yesterday's proceedings in D.C. Superior Court detailed many warnings that the girls were in trouble -- and opportunities that were missed by neighbors, various agencies and others.
Credle revealed, for example, that Brittany ran away from home in January 2007 and stayed for a while with a neighbor. In March, Jacks showed up at the neighbor's home and ordered Brittany out of the house, he said.
At that time, Brittany was attending Booker T. Washington Charter School. But Jacks pulled her out of school March 9, fearing, she told police, that Brittany would run away from home again.
Jacks also pulled Brittany's three younger sisters out of Meridian Public Charter School. She told authorities that she was home-schooling her children, although she had only a ninth-grade education herself.
In ensuing weeks, witnesses told Credle, Jacks refused to let counselors, police and school officials see Brittany or come into the house when they visited to check on the children.
During one police visit in the late spring, as Jacks stood outside the house talking to the police, one of her younger daughters yelled from the open door, "I don't want y'all to take my mommy," Credle testified.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has said that city agencies failed to do enough to help the family, noting that five government agencies had contact with Banita Jacks in the months before the deaths. Fenty (D) has fired six child welfare workers for failures in the case.
The children were increasingly isolated. Brittany had a MySpace page on the Internet, but her last entry appeared April 2. Witnesses told police they lost track of Brittany in May or June. Before long, they weren't seeing the other children, either, they told police.
When neighbors asked Jacks where her daughters were, she replied, "They're upstairs," Credle said. At another point, she said they were in South Carolina, Credle said.
Neighbors recalled seeing the children put the family's furniture in the back yard around Mother's Day last year, Credle said. Jacks told the neighbors they were free to take the items, which she said were infested with ants, the detective added.
Around August, neighbors began noticing a "terrible odor" coming from the house, Credle said, and some thought it was dead rats.
Under cross-examination by Jacks's public defender, Credle said police have no evidence that any of the children complained to neighbors, relatives or school officials about their treatment.
Conditions continued to deteriorate, with electricity to the house shut off in September. It had no water or phone service. Credle said that authorities found no furniture, food, medicine, toilet paper or clothing inside. There were two high school-level schoolbooks in Brittany's closet.
Neighbors sometimes gave Jacks jugs of water, food and cigarettes, Credle testified.
Police interviewed Jacks's relatives, Credle said, and they told authorities they had not seen her or her children for two or three years. Relatives said they would have helped had they known of her situation, he said.
More than a dozen family members filled nearly three rows of the crowded courtroom during yesterday's four-hour hearing.
Jacks, sitting at a table next to her public defender, appeared to listen attentively to the detective's account. She occasionally looked at paperwork and whispered to her attorney. She glared at the prosecutor as the government presented its case.
"This was a prolonged, torturous experience," Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Sines said.
Defense lawyer Peter Krauthamer argued that because the cause of death remains undetermined, Jacks should be released into the custody of a family member until her next hearing April 4. "We don't know how these children died or when they died," he said.
Judge Frederick H. Weisberg ruled that the evidence was sufficient to move forward. He ordered that Jacks remain in jail, where she is under medical supervision.
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