Jan 10, 2008 11:15 am US/Pacific
Murder Charges For DC Woman Over 4 Dead Kids
WASHINGTON (CBS) ―
A woman found in her home Wednesday with the decomposing bodies of four girls believed to be her children has been charged with murder in their deaths, authorities said Thursday.
Banita Jacks, 33, was expected to appear later Thursday in District of Columbia Superior Court, where the charges will be formally presented, prosecutors said. She faces four counts of murder and could receive a maximum of life in prison, authorities said.
"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.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier said authorities were operating on the assumption that the girls - ages 5, 6, 11, and 17 - were Jacks' children.
CBS station WJZ-TV in Baltimore's Sally Thorner reports the bodies were found Wednesday morning by U.S. Marshals, who arrived at the home in southeast Washington to serve an eviction notice. They found the badly decomposing bodies on the second floor of a small, two-story brick building after a routine search.
"We believe the bodies have been there beyond 15 days," D.C. medical examiner Dr. Marie Pierre-Louis said. She added the determination was "based on the insects that were found there."
How the girls died remained under investigation, but Pierre-Louis said it appeared the oldest child might have been stabbed in the abdomen. The other three children might have been poisoned or asphyxiated, she said. The medical examiner's office was trying to identify the girls using dental records or DNA.
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.
"This is a sick-making situation. It's a horrible thing," she said.
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.
D.C. schools spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said none of the children thought to be living in the home was enrolled in the school system.
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.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
CBS News Interactive: Children In Danger
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
