Ep 8 Banita Jacks: Possessed by Demons

Warning: this is possibly the darkest episode we have ever recorded. Four girls were murdered and their mentally ill mother was the only suspect. The Banita Jacks case rocked DC, and changed the way children's services function in US Capital.

Show Intro:

Banita Jacks did not have an easy start in life. She struggled in school and failed to learn as quickly as other children her age.

By the time she was 16 years old, she was only a freshman in highschool, and pregnant with her first child, Brittany.

2 months after giving birth to the little girl, she dropped out of school.

The record goes cold on Banita until 4 years later.

When she was 20 years old, she filed a paternity petition against a Waldorf man that year, asserting that he was Brittany's father.

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.

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 acknowledged he was the father in a letter to a judge. Saying: "I am fully prepared to financially support her," 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.

This is another heart breaking example of the cycle of poverty. She's alone, and struggling, but is consistently described as a loving, doting mother who did everything in her power to provide for her girls. And, it would seem her luck was about to change!

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.

A stylist's success depends as much on her rapport with customers as her ability to cut hair, Stacy Lynch (the director the cosmetology school) 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, Not long after he and Jacks met at the beauty academy, they moved in together. Their daughter N'Kiah was born in 2002, and Aja arrived a year later.

Banita's little girls were bright, beautiful, and healthy. I looked up pictures of them and they are all these gorgeous, apple-cheeked kids. Their hair was always done up in braids and they each have the same big smile.

Jacks brought both newborns to the school to show them off. "Just like a mom," Lynch said. "She loved those kids." And it seemed that whenever Lynch ran into Jacks away from the academy, Jacks had her daughters with her. "We used to joke with her: 'You're going to have a whole cheerleading squad,' " he said.

After taking a break from school while she was pregnant with N'Kiah, and then again with Aja, Jacks returned, Lynch said and obtained a cosmetology license after graduating in 2005.

"For someone to come back twice," Lynch said, "that says she was determined."

Unfortunately, the family would soon fall back on hard times. They would end up in and out of homeless shelters, isolated, and reliant on public assistance. But no one could have foreseen how quickly they would fall apart. The worst was discovered in January 2008 when authorities attempted to evict them from a home in SE Washington.

What police officers found in the house was absolutely horrific. The bodies of all 4 girls were found locked in 2 rooms upstairs. Their mother had been living in the house as her daughters decomposed above her.

The deaths of Brittany, Tatianna, N'kiah and Aja resulted in an investigation that exposed how these girls were failed at every turn, by their families, by their fathers, by their schools, and by the system.

This is Banita Jacks: Possessed by Demons.