Banita Jacks told investigators in a taped interview that she stopped feeding and clothing her demon-possessed daughters, who were growing weaker and throwing up in the days before their death.
She did not admit guilt in the eight hours of questioning.
Jacks, 35, is charged with killing her four girls, who ranged in age from 5 to 17. Their bodies were found Jan. 9, 2008 — seven months after they were killed — when U.S. marshals entered her Southeast home to evict her. She is pleading not guilty and is not planning an insanity defense.
Judge Frederick H. Weisberg watched the interrogation tapes in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday, as part of a motion from Jacks’ attorney to suppress the interviews.
Jacks spoke slowly in a low, husky voice as she recounted the weeks leading to her daughters’ deaths.
“I’m unsure of the demons that possessed the three younger ones, but the older one was Jezebel,” she said of her daughters. “Jezebel was a prostitute. She caused suffering, she spread diseases.”
Jacks said she was being punished for dating Nathaniel Fogle Jr., whom she believed was Jesus Christ. Fogle died of cancer in February 2007.
To “weaken” the demons, Jacks stripped her house of furniture, clothing and anything that would connect her children to the outside world, such as radios and cell phones. She confined them to the house and stopped feeding them as money ran out, she said.
The furniture gave demons “something to hold on to” because it was old, she said. She tossed all clothing because when she hung garments to dry, demons would “contaminate” them with a stench.
Jacks said her oldest daughter, Brittany — whom she called “Jezebel” — fought her constantly. “She would scream … she would bang on the wall … bang on the wall … bang on the wall …” in the room where she was kept, she recalled.
Eventually, “Jezebel became scared to fight back,” and the others “feared they were powerless,” she said.
When Jacks woke one morning to find her youngest child motionless in bed, she “freaked out,” she said. “I didn’t understand … it didn’t make any sense” — a phrase she used repeatedly during the interview.
Jacks’ said her daughters died one by one over the next several days. But autopsy reports revealed her youngest three girls died from strangulation, and her oldest suffered stab wounds. Jacks couldn’t explain the discrepancies between her story and the medical examination.
“I knew eventually this was going to happen,” she told investigators. “Like [the demons] said … they were going to get me … for stopping everything.”
