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| Jan 10, 2008 7:32 pm |
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DC: 4 youths found dead, mother charged |
| L J
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Murder Charges For DC Woman Over 4 Dead Kids
CBS News Interactive: Children In Danger
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.
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http://cbs2chicago.com/national/banita.jacks.bodies.2.627011.htmlPrivate Reply to L J (new win) |
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