Banita Jacks, the Washington, D.C. woman who was charged with murder after her four daughters were found decomposed in her house, said that her daughters were "possessed by demons".
According to the Washington Post, the girls were dead for at least four months before U.S. Marshals found the bodies. The girls, ages 5, 6, 11 and 17, could have died as early as May based on the condition and composition of their bodies.
U.S. Marshals found the bodies Wednesday when they came to the residence to serve an ordinary eviction notice. The mother, Banita Jacks, lived in the desolate two-story brick house with the bodies upstairs. The house had its electricity cut off in September.
Authorities said that Jacks has denied killing the children and said they died in their sleep. Prosecutors said evidence shows otherwise. Brittany Jacks, 17, had three puncture wounds consistent with a stabbing near the neck, they said. Tatianna Jacks, 11, and N'Kiah Fogle, 6, had marks suggesting they were strangled. Aja Fogle, 5, had less-pronounced marks consistent with strangling and signs of blunt-force trauma to the back of her head.
Troubles spiraled in February when Nathaniel Fogle Jr., the father of two of the girls, died of cancer. Soon after his death, Jacks cleared the first floor of furniture, and she grew increasingly distant. She became to live a hermitic lifestyle, where she would not call friends and relatives nor answer the door to her home when others came to visit.
The oldest girl, a student at Booker T. Washington Public Charter School, stopped attending classes months ago. The other girls attended Meridian Public Charter School in Northwest Washington until March, when Jacks withdrew them, saying she planned to home-school them.
"She said that the children began dying in their sleep, one at a time, all within a seven- to 10-day period," the charging documents stated. "She said that as the first three younger children died, she placed them side by side in the room in which they died."
Prosecutors also quoted Jacks as saying that she had not fed the children for a substantial period of time before they died.
Outside the courthouse, Tawana Crump who said she spent the day with Jacks in a cellblock area, told reporters that other prisoners asked Jacks if she had killed the children, and she told them yes.
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