WTH is wrong with PEOPLE?????

[DaemonSeid]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The bodies of four youths who had been dead at least two weeks were found Wednesday inside an apartment where authorities had tried last year to investigate concerns about the family who lived there.

U.S. Marshals serving an eviction notice on the property in Southeast Washington found the decomposing bodies on the second floor of the small, two-story brick building about 10 a.m., after a routine search, U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Cole Barnhart said.

A woman who answered the door was taken into police custody for questioning.

"She was apparently calm throughout," Barnhart said.

District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty said he was told by the medical examiner that the youths had been dead at least two weeks. The bodies were so badly decomposed they could not be positively identified, he said. "It is going to take scientific tests run by the chief medical examiner's office," Fenty said.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the bodies appeared to be of juveniles ranging in age from 5 to 18. Authorities were investigating how and when they died.

"It's hard for us to say, and hard for the medical to say right now, how long these bodies have been in there," Lanier said.

Police said they would not rule the case a homicide until the medical examiner determined the cause of death. Lanier said there were no signs of forced entry into the home.

Authorities did not release the name of the woman being questioned. It was not clear if she was related to the four victims, Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes said.

Mindy Good, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Child and Family Services agency, said it had received one report about a family at that address in April through the city's child abuse and neglect reporting hot line.

"We made several attempts to make contact with these people. We were unable to have any face-to-face contact with them," Good said. "On the last attempt (in early May), it appeared they were no longer living at the address."

http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/H...Y&pageId=1.1.1

there is sooo much more than is being told...no one knew this family at all...and these 4 gilrs just.....died

[Honeykiss1974]

Wow

[Senusret I]

Dude.....not only does this sound like it's straight out of The Wire, but this is CRAZY! Every piece on the news today has been about violence against youth!

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

Dude.....not only does this sound like it's straight out of The Wire, but this is CRAZY! Every piece on the news today has been about violence against youth!

Yeah..but at least it happened in DC...I tole ya I can't bear to watch the Wire

[UGAalum94]

It's always sort of bewildering to me that kids can disappear and not be missed. Their families must be leading kind of invisible lives: moving frequently so the neighbors don't know them, not enrolling kids in school or social services programs, not being in touch with any relatives.

How can four kids be dead for two weeks and nobody even looking for them?

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

It's always sort of bewildering to me that kids can disappear and not be missed. Their families must be leading kind of invisible lives: moving frequently so the neighbors don't know them, not enrolling kids in school or social services programs, not being in touch with any relatives.

How can four kids be dead for two weeks and nobody even looking for them?

Better yet...how can 4 kids be dead in a ROWHOME and noone smells it??????

[DaemonSeid]

An update to the story....if you can, read the whole thing because now it becomes a question if the city (or who would be ultimately resonsible) failed to keep up with this family as they slipped thru the cracks:


A Southeast Washington woman accused of killing her four daughters told police that they were "possessed by demons" and that they had been dead for at least four months before marshals found their bodies, according to police and charging papers filed yesterday.

Authorities said they believe the girls, ages 5, 6, 11 and 17, could have been killed as early as May, noting that the bodies were in an advanced stage of decomposition when discovered Wednesday by marshals serving eviction papers at the two-story brick rowhouse. The mother, Banita Jacks, lived a hermitic existence with the bodies upstairs, in a house that 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, prosecutors said.

Jacks, 33, was charged yesterday with murder. While she was being ordered jailed without bond by a judge in D.C. Superior Court, city officials were investigating how government agencies failed to identify a family in trouble. Among the questions: How could Jacks's children disappear for so long without school officials, police or social workers noticing and stepping in to help? Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) promised some answers today.

Some who knew the family said that 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, they said. At one point, she put an Xbox game system in the front yard of the home, in the 4200 block of Sixth Street SE, and invited neighbors to take it.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Among the questions: How could Jacks's children disappear for so long without school officials, police or social workers noticing and stepping in to help?

This is REALLY easy to do in DC.

High school kids won't get looked for. Public high schools are wayyyyy too understaffed to worry about one missing girl, who most might assume is just truant or a drop out.

Elementary schools don't fare better. Sure, there is a process that is SUPPOSED to be followed....but hell, what can you do when the counselor is marking children as "present" behind the teacher who has already marked them absent?

It's happened to me first hand. People are lazy and don't want to follow up. People are overworked and can't possibly follow up. People have to work second jobs so its impossible for them to follow up.

I am sooooo home-schooling.

ETA: I would never be a social worker in DC -- they are more overworked than school personnel. Even my friend who is a case manager for the department of mental health has like 90 clients! She is only supposed to have up to 45 or so.

[1908Revelations]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

Elementary schools don't fare better. Sure, there is a process that is SUPPOSED to be followed....but hell, what can you do when the counselor is marking children as "present" behind the teacher who has already marked them absent?

Good point Senusret.

The state dept (at least where I am) determines how much money that school gets based off of the first 90 days attendance (maybe 60), so in those first few months almost no kids will get suspended (even if they did the crime) and a lot of times they do change the records. I can only speak for where I have worked, but I am sure it happens elsewhere.

[nikki1920]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

This is REALLY easy to do in DC.


ETA: I would never be a social worker in DC -- they are more overworked than school personnel. Even my friend who is a case manager for the department of mental health has like 90 clients! She is only supposed to have up to 45 or so.

My good friend worked for DC Child and Family Services in DC. She had a caseload of......






wait for it..........









900 cases.
The average is about 100.

She left.

[UGAalum94]

I didn't mean to seem like I was blaming people for not keeping up with the kids; more that I'm just saddened and stunned that it could happen.

How could they no so few people that among the four of them, no one even noticed or followed up?

It's so deeply sad.

Senusret, two things: there's nothing wrong with homeschooling and more power to you if you go that route, but not all public schools are as bad as what you dealt with; your experience sounds truly horrible. And I like the new signature, but what's up with that?

[CutiePie2000]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Some who knew the family said that 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, they said. At one point, she put an Xbox game system in the front yard of the home, in the 4200 block of Sixth Street SE, and invited neighbors to take it.

My take is that the woman likely had a touch of mental illness to begin with, and the stress of her husband dying gave her a full-blown disassociative disorder or something like that. All in all, a sad and bizarre story.

[Still BLUTANG]

Sad story all around. i cried when they showed the house on the news. Apparently Mayor Fenty is going to do some shake-ups at the famlily services department.

from the Washington Post, "D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said today that he will fire a division director and at least five other child welfare employees for inadequately responding to warnings that four girls were being held captive by their mother and could be in danger."

:-(

[Senusret I]

^^^ An insider at CFSA called my coworker and told her they gave the employees 30 minutes to clean their desks and leave the building.

[nikki1920]

WOW..

It's hard sometimes to get people to follow through with possible neglect cases, with confidentiality rules and etc. .