A D.C. Superior Court judge on Wednesday convicted Banita Jacks of killing all four of her daughters, saying she secluded, starved and abused the girls before she murdered them and lived with their bodies for several months.
Judge Frederick H. Weisberg concluded that Jacks strangled her three youngest girls and killed her oldest, Brittany, by torture and maltreatment.
“It was a very lonely assignment and certainly the most challenging and difficult as I’ve had in almost 32 years as a judge,” Weisberg said before delivering his verdict.
Weisberg found Jacks guilty on 11 counts, including four counts of cruelty to children, four counts of felony murder and three counts of first-degree, premeditated murder. Weisberg said he could not find Jacks guilty of first-degree, premeditated murder while armed in the death of Brittany because prosecutors could not prove that the knife found next to the 17-year-old’s dead body was the murder weapon.
Jacks showed no emotion as Weisberg delivered his verdict. Her sentencing is set for Oct. 16.
Officers carrying out an eviction in January 2008 discovered Jacks living with her girls’ decomposing bodies in her Southeast row house. Jacks had cut off all contact with friends, family and even social services by the time officers found her.
Much of Jacks’ 10-day trial hinged on whether or not she could be indicted when little physical evidence tied her to the crime. The girls’ bodies were so decomposed that medical examiners could only say with 50 percent certainty that the three youngest were strangled and the oldest was stabbed. However, the examiners stuck by their assessment that the girls were killed and did not die of natural causes.
“In most homicides, the cause of death is relatively clear,” Weisberg said. “In this case, the bodies were so badly decomposed that the cause of death was undeterminable.”
If more forensic evidence were available, Weisberg said, “This would have been, for me, a fairly straightforward case.” But the decomposition eroded many of the clues he needed to find Jacks guilty.
On the other hand, Weisberg said he had “no difficulty” finding Jacks guilty of cruelty to children. He said Jacks intentionally tortured her children — emotionally and physically — by berating them, isolating them from friends and family, pulling them from school, starving them, and possibly even beating them.
