Detective Society

Warning: this is possibly the darkest episode we have ever recorded. Four girls were murdered and their mentally ill mother was the only suspect. The Banita Jacks case rocked DC, and changed the way children's services function in US Capital.

Banita Jacks did not have an easy start in life. She struggled in school and failed to learn as quickly as other children her age.

By the time she was 16 years old, she was only a freshman in highschool, and pregnant with her first child, Brittany.

2 months after giving birth to the little girl, she dropped out of school.

The record goes cold on Banita until 4 years later.

When she was 20 years old, she filed a paternity petition against a Waldorf man that year, asserting that he was Brittany's father.

Then, in 1996, with Brittany in kindergarten and the paternity claim still unsettled, Jacks gave birth to Tatianna, her second child, which led to another paternity case.

Jacks was living with her mother, Mamie Jacks, in Waldorf when she filed a claim in 1997 against Kevin J. Stoddard of College Park, saying he was Tatianna's father, according to court records.

Stoddard acknowledged he was the father in a letter to a judge. Saying: "I am fully prepared to financially support her," Stoddard was given visitation rights with Tatianna and ordered to pay $342 a month in child support, but quickly fell behind, according to court records. How much money Jacks received is unclear.

Meanwhile, the court dispute over Brittany's paternity dragged on. The defendant, who denied he was the father, submitted a DNA sample, but Jacks initially failed to give samples of her DNA and Brittany's. After she failed to show up for a hearing in the case in 1999, a Charles judge issued a warrant for her apprehension.

On Dec. 11 that year, a few weeks before she turned 25, Jacks was picked up by county sheriff's deputies and jailed for two days. A day later she provided the DNA samples, according to court records. Tests soon proved that the man she had accused was not Brittany's father.

The father eventually turned up. In 2001, when Brittany was 10, Jacks filed a paternity claim against Norman C. Penn Jr. of Suitland, who acknowledged he was the father, court records show. Penn, who could not be reached for comment, was ordered to pay $388 a month in support. He fell behind on payments as well, according to court records. It was unclear how much money Jacks received.

This is another heart breaking example of the cycle of poverty. She's alone, and struggling, but is consistently described as a loving, doting mother who did everything in her power to provide for her girls. And, it would seem her luck was about to change!

It was about this time that Jacks began a new chapter in her life, enrolling in Aaron's Academy of Beauty, a cosmetology school in Waldorf. Except for breaks she took when her next two children, N'Kiah and Aja, were born, Jacks remained at the school, as a student and hair stylist, until 2005.

A stylist's success depends as much on her rapport with customers as her ability to cut hair, Stacy Lynch (the director the cosmetology school) said. "In this industry, it's all about personality." And Jacks had the right touch, Lynch said. Many clients came to the school to have Jacks style their hair.

Among them was Nathaniel Fogle Jr., who liked the way Jacks fashioned his cornrows, Not long after he and Jacks met at the beauty academy, they moved in together. Their daughter N'Kiah was born in 2002, and Aja arrived a year later.

Banita's little girls were bright, beautiful, and healthy. I looked up pictures of them and they are all these gorgeous, apple-cheeked kids. Their hair was always done up in braids and they each have the same big smile.

Jacks brought both newborns to the school to show them off. "Just like a mom," Lynch said. "She loved those kids." And it seemed that whenever Lynch ran into Jacks away from the academy, Jacks had her daughters with her. "We used to joke with her: 'You're going to have a whole cheerleading squad,' " he said.

After taking a break from school while she was pregnant with N'Kiah, and then again with Aja, Jacks returned, Lynch said and obtained a cosmetology license after graduating in 2005.

"For someone to come back twice," Lynch said, "that says she was determined."

Unfortunately, the family would soon fall back on hard times. They would end up in and out of homeless shelters, isolated, and reliant on public assistance. But no one could have foreseen how quickly they would fall apart. The worst was discovered in January 2008 when authorities attempted to evict them from a home in SE Washington.

What police officers found in the house was absolutely horrific. The bodies of all 4 girls were found locked in 2 rooms upstairs. Their mother had been living in the house as her daughters decomposed above her.

The deaths of Brittany, Tatianna, N'kiah and Aja resulted in an investigation that exposed how these girls were failed at every turn, by their families, by their fathers, by their schools, and by the system.

This is Banita Jacks: Possessed by Demons. 

Guest Host Jacob Griffin joins us to talk about the murder of Jayna Murray, AKA the Lululemon Murder. Join us as we discuss corporate culture, almost cults, and vicious yogis. 

Just a quick trigger warning: descriptions of sexual assault

On March 11th 2011 Jayna Murray and Brittany Norwood were working the closing shift at the Lululemon Store in BEthesda, MD. Lululemon was and still is a popular, high end store that sells athletic and leisure wear (that year they actually struggled to keep up with the demand for their luxurious line of yoga pants)

That night though, the 2 women were just closing down the store.
Jayna was about 10 minutes away from the store when Brittany called her to ask her to come back and unlock the door. Brittany had forgotten her wallet.

She turned her car around.

No one would hear from the girls again until 8 AM the next morning.
No one would hear from Jayna ever again.

When employees came to open up the store on Bethesda Row, what they found was a literal nightmare.

They immediately knew something was wrong. The store was a mess and they could hear moaning and bloody footprints led to the back room.

Brittany was tied up on the floor, where she had been all night. They could see she'd been beaten and the seam of her pants and underwear had been torn open.

Jayna's body was unrecognizeable. I saw the crime scene photos and I don't suggest our listeners do the same. I literally did not know that a human body contained that much blood.

When police arrived, brittany was a complete wreck. She seemed to be deeply traumatized and flinched when anyone went to touch her.
The store had not cameras or secutiry system, but Eventually, Brittany was able to tell them exactly what had happened.

Two men had broken into the store, they'd forced the girls into the back room where they savagely raped both of the women before turning their rage on Jayna alone.

Norwood described being raped with a coat hanger by one of the men while another beat Murray and dragged her across the floor by her hair.

“They were laughing the entire time,” she said in the police interview. “They thought it was funny.”
Later, investigators would find that multiple weapons had been used to murder Jayna. She had over 300 stab wounds, caused by a hammer, wrench, a knife and peg used to hold merhcandise up to the walls of the store.

Brittany was treated for her wounds, and a rape kit was administered. Jayna's family was notified of her murder.

Police begain a manhunt for the 2 men who had murdered Jayna. But just 6 days later, on March 18th, Brittany Norwood, the woman who had been beaten and bound, who had endured the attack along side with Jayna was arrested for her murder.

This is the Lululemon Murder.

Thanks to a shout out from The Knights of the Kitchen Table Podcast, we take a look at a slew of murders in the Las Vegas area. Was Neal Falls an uncatchable serial killer? Or an inept small-time crook? On this minisode we examine the 2015 attempted murder of Heather Saul.

Co-host Rebecca Johnson joins Natalie to discuss Joseph Palczynski, the quadruple-murderer, and 97-hour standoff that led to his capture. We drink a lot of wine and get side-tracked.

In 1987: Amie Gearhart was 16 a normal teenager, hanging out on the beach, when Joby, her 19 yr old exboyfriend, beat her in front of her brother and friends, then held her captive. Marching Amie and her brother Jason at gunpoint to the Delaware state line and trying to coerce Jason into beating his own sister.

When Jason refused, Amie screamed for him to run.

With Jason gone, Joby told the girl to choose her death: drowning, choking or beating.
Either she would die, or her family would.

Later, X-rays and photographs taken at the medical clinic at 93rd Street showed Amie suffered contusions of the left eardrum -- she couldn't hear correctly for months -- lacerations and swelling of her cheek and nose, a contusion of the right eye that caused it to hemorrhage, and a bruised rib cage.

In 1988: Amie spotted Kimberly, who was 16 with a black eye. She was Joby's new girlfriend.
He had searched Kimberly's bedroom without permission when she was in the shower. While searching he found birth control pills. He became enraged and punched her, held her to the ground. He screamed and dragged Kimberly into the bathroom where he tried to have sex with her. When she refused, he became very angry and very forceful. and threatened to cut her throat with a razor blade.

He spent 2 years in prison, but in 1991 less than six months after his release from jail, He met Sharon, who was 17 when he attacked her at her school. He pushed her up against the wall. she pleaded with him not to hit her but the next thing she knew she was on the ground screaming.

He has also threatened her parents. To kill them and leave me living to suffer. He said if he goes to jail he would kill her or get someone else to hurt her! He had sent people to her house before.

Out on bail, Joby was ordered to have no contact with Sharon. But he phoned her repeatedly, she complained, threatening "to blow her brains out" if she didn't drop her charges against him.
But Sharon insisted on pressing charges, and Joby was sent to Spring Grove State Hospital for evaluation. On Dec. 16, 1991, two days after arriving at the facility, he escaped and fled the state with the identification cards of a friend.

In 1992: He would show up in Gooding, Idaho, where he assaulted a 15-year-old girl and threatened to kill her brother. He was apprehended and eventually returned to Maryland.

Things looked pretty grim: Less than a year after leaving jail, he now faced charges of violating federal gun laws, of battering and threatening Sharon and of escaping from Spring Grove Hospital. Any conviction could return him to prison.

Unless he was judged legally insane. And that's just the beginning.

These are the victims of Joseph Palczynski.

This week we explore first case ever to use the Insanity Defense! Natalie and Michael ramble about infidelity and the dogs misbehave.

Teresa Bagioli was born into a prominent family of creatives and musicians in NYC in 1836 (they were a society family...)

Teresa was beautiful, bright, and said to have spoken 5 languages by the time she was 15. The picture on google--total smokeshow.

Around the time that she was born, her uncle, a professor at the newly founded NYU, invited a young protege named Daniel Sickels to live in his home while he studied.

daniel went on to become a lawyer and politician and stayed close to the Bagioli family for the next decade until she proposed to Teresa. He was 33, she was 15.

The family opposed the marriage, due to the age difference, but Daniel and Teresa were desperately in love! And in 1852 they get married anyway.

They were young (one of them more than the other), they were in love, and they were successful.

They moved to DC where their popularity skyrocketed, Teresa was a charming and welcoming hostess and Daniel was appointed the secretary of the U.S. legation in London, and later elected to as a member of the New York State Senate

And they lived happily ever after...

Nope. this is a murder show. In 1857 just 5 years after getting married, in the middle of Lafayette Plaza, across the street from the white house, Daniel would gun down Teresa's lover in broad daylight

What followed was a scandal that would rock America and change the history of US criminal Law.

This is the Sickles Insanity Defense. 

In this week's episode, we discuss the murders of Mildred Horn, Trevor Horn, and Janice Saunders, the complicated legacy of this case, and the publishing of "Hit Man" a controversial manual on contract killings. Then Natalie and Michael reflect on the trials and tribulations of being alive in 2016.

Lawrence Horn was born in 1939.

Not an easy time to be born black, but he joined the navy and aimed to make something of himself.

He spun records aboard aircraft carriers and honed his skills with electronics, so when he was looking for a job after being discharged

And by all accounts he was a natural; crazy-smart, talented and a hard worker

Combining his musical and technical talent, he became Motown’s premier engineer, pioneering vocal mixing processes that are still being used today.

Horn, the chief engineer on “My Girl,” was on fire. He was behind the boards for hits from Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder.

He was on top of the world.

But, as we all know, the good times for Motown Records didn't last forever and by the early 90s Horn had been laid off and divorced twice. His second wife had taken the children and moved across the country to Silver Spring Maryland from Los Angeles.

He was literally just scraping by when he was notified that his ex-wife and 8-year-old son had been brutally murdered.

So How was it that just one week later he became the prime suspect in their murders? Even though he had been on the opposite side of the country at the time of their deaths??

This is Lawrence Horn triple murder.

In our first murder-free-mini-episode we talk about Dontee Stokes, who shot a popular local priest in Baltimore, MD. Is there more to this story? Listen, and find out.

Episode 3 follows the attacks of the DC Snipers. Guest co-host, Arianne Llerena, gives us a first hand account of what it was like to live in Washington, DC in 2002 during the attacks. And the third Detective Society dog makes his appearance.

Everyone thinks this story starts October 2, 2002. With the murder of James Martin as he returned to his car after buying groceries.

but the Truth is, it started much much earlier when, in 1999, 38 year old John Allen Muhammad befriended THIRTEEN YEAR OLD Lee Boyd Malvo. RED FREAKING FLAG.

Malvo was born in Kingston Jamaica, but in 1998 moved to Antigua with his mother. A woman, who according to Malvo, was extremely physically abusive.

Muhammad had kidnapped his children from his second marriage and brought them to Antigua around 1999 after violating a restraining order.

In Antigua, Lee Malvo had been a student, where he was beloved by friends and teachers at his Seventh-Day Adventist school and was excelling academically. His achievements were all the more remarkable because at the time he was living alone in a single-room plywood shack without electricity or running water, by this time having been more or less abandoned by both his parents because eventually, Malvo's mother would enter the US illegally, leaving her son in Muhammad's care.

RED FLAG NUMBER 2 YALL.

Well it turns out this was not an uncommon practice for Malvo's mother who was known to leave him with just about anyone for months on end. Teachers, Cousins, and in this case, basically a stranger.

RED FLAG NUMBER 3

I want to take a minute to point out how insane this relationship is. This is a situation where one party is almost 3 times older than the other

For the next few years, Malvo would live with Muhammad full time. Until 2001, when he was reunited with his mother in Miami and then Washington State where he was allowed to attend school. He was described by classmates as a smart but isolated young man. ***Note: this is the year that John Allen changed his last name from williams to muhammad

Unfortunately, any sense of normalcy would always be short-lived for Malvo. The pair was soon arrested by immigration.

But by December of that year, Malvo (out on bond) was reunited with Muhammad.

While living in a homeless shelter together, Muhammad put Malvo on a very strict diet and exercise regimen.

"Muhammad had Malvo steal a 223-caliber Bushmaster AR 15 rifle from a local gun shop and began subjecting the boy to a rigorous training program: leopard-crawls across the forest floor, calisthenics, revolutionary literature, target practice, and military theory. Each night before he went to bed, Malvo was made to memorize passages from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Often the pair would drive deep into the stands of white oak and Douglas-fir to practice marksmanship, using makeshift targets with paper plates for heads. Other times Muhammad would tie Malvo up for hours in the brumous foothills of Mount Baker, where he would go without food, water, or sleep until the older man came back to free him."

On February 16, 2002, Keenya Cook was shot and killed at the front door of her home in Tacoma, Washington. Keenya was the first of 17 victims, on a killing spree that would hold the nation hostage and span 9 months.

These are the attacks of the DC Snipers. I'm natalie Levy, and ______, and this is detective society.

This Episode examines the murder of Viola Drath, a Washington, DC author and socialite who was found dead in her home.

Viola Drath was an extremely influential writer, journalist, and political advisor living in Washington, DC. She was known for her humor, intellect, and impeccable sense of style. 

Both Drath and her husband, Albrecht Muth, were highly educated ex-pats from Germany. They'd been married for over 20 years and counted amongst their friends most of Washington DC's elite, including former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

On Aug. 12 2010, Muth, called 911 and reported that he returned from his morning walk to find Viola splayed on their bathroom floor.

He had no idea what had happened. He assumed she must have slipped and fallen, it would not be unheard of considering Viola was 91 years old.

When paramedics arrived on scene at the georgetown home the couple shared, they found Viola unresponsive.

The very next day, her death was ruled a homicide.
4 Days later, her husband would be arrested for her murder.

This is the murder of Viola Herms Drath.

Episode 1 explores the serial killer known as The Southside Strangler, his victims, and David Vasquez who was falsely imprisoned for a murder he did not commit.

Carolyn Jean Hamm was a Duke graduate and Lawyer in 1980s Washington DC. She was intelligent, reliable, and strong. If you look up pictures of her online, she really was just gorgeous. She has this thick brown hair and a really beautiful smile. Clearly a BOSS. On the morning of Tuesday, January 24th 1984, Carolyn failed to show up for work, after a call from her secretary, her body was discovered nude and facedown in her basement.

Carolyn had been murdered in an absolutely horrific way. She had been raped, strangled, and her hands had been bound behind her with a venetian blind cord. She had been hanged. Later that week, police received a promising lead when Muriel Ranser called them to report seeing a man named David Vasquez leering at Hamm the day of her murder. According to Ranser, Vasquez was a total creep. She had seen him peeping at Carolyn as she sunbathed in her yard. A neighbor named Michael Ansari seemed to back up Ranser's account. Telling the police that he had seen Vasquez behaving strangely in the area, the day after Hamm's body had been found.

The police investigation moved quickly. Not only did they find pubic hair at the scene that could have matched vasquez, but when they brought Vasquez in for questioning, he confessed not once, but 3 times. Jack pot. Vasquez was arrested and charged for the murder of Carolyn Jean Hamm. The next year he would be convicted. Justice had been served...

Except here's the thing, guys. Vasquez hadn't even touched Carolyn Hamm. Vasquez, a 36 year old man with an IQ of less than 70, still lived with his mother in Manassas, 30 miles away from Carolyn Hamm's home in Arlington, VA. Neither Vasquez nor his mother drove, which meant that an unnamed accomplice would have had to help him. The semen found at the scene did not match Vasquez's blood type. The sightings by Ranser and Ansari would never be corroborated. And he had only confessed after being heavily pressured and fed details by police.

It would take five long years for Vasquez to be exonerated and for the real killer to be identified as Timothy Wilson Spencer. Spencer would go on to take the lives of at least 4 more women, and forever change the way crime is investigated in the United States.

This is the story of the Southside Strangler.