The D.C. medical examiner positively identified the bodies of the four girls found dead in a Southeast Washington row house last month, but could not determine how they were killed because their organs were so badly decomposed.
The investigation formally confirmed, through DNA and dental records, that the dead were Brittany Jacks, 17, Tatiana Jacks, 11, N’Kiah Fogle, 6, and Aja Fogle, 5, the daughters of Banita Jacks, officials announced Wednesday.
The mother was charged last month in their slayings.
The medical examiner’s office is waiting on a report analyzing insects found with the bodies to narrow down the time of the girls’ deaths. Authorities say the sisters had been dead for at least two weeks and more likely for months before U.S. marshals discovered the gruesome scene Jan. 9 while they were serving an eviction notice.
Even without the cause and the time of death,the medical examiner’s office classified the four deaths as homicide based on the surrounding circumstances, said chief medical examiner Dr. Marie-Lydie Pierre-Louis.
Jacks told detectives during interviews that she had not killed the children, and that they were possessed by demons. She said the children began dying in their sleep one at a time, all within a seven-day period, sometime last summer.
Last month, authorities said Brittany had been stabbed three times in the abdomen, and that the three younger girls had likely died of asphyxiation or poisoning. The youngest has suffered a traumatic blow to the back of the head and had rope or cord marks on her neck.
But Wednesday, Pierre-Louis said that without the organs, the markings alone were insufficient to say for certain that the girls were choked or stabbed to death.
Toxicology tests ruled out most common prescription and illegal drugs and other poisons.
Pierre-Louis said the entomologist report was due in a couple of weeks. The tests would use the life cycle of the maggots, flies and insect eggs found in the bodies to try to pinpoint when the girls died, she said.
She said it was not unusual for the medical examiner’s office to classify deaths as homicides even if it can’t determine a cause.
