Earlier this month, four sisters - Aja Fogle, 5, N’Kiah Fogle, 6, Tatianna Jacks, 11, and Brittany Jacks, 17 - were found dead, all allegedly killed by their mother, Banita Jacks. Authorities believe they had been dead for months, their bodies decaying in the home where they were slain, 4249 6th St SE Washington DC.
This shrine, the second-largest I have encountered, was still in the process of being erected by shocked and grieving neighbors. A candle-light vigil was being organized for Jan. 17th 2008, to be held among the amassed toys, balloons, written prayers, and tributes, all cordoned within the yellow police tape marking the site as a crime scene.
I met neighbor Lavon Lyles adding bears to the shrine. She told me that her kids were in a state of shock.
She and another neighborhood mother, Ms. Young, expressed their distress at the city's government's admitted failures in the case, and for the safety and welfare of thei own and others' children. (Mayor Fenty has since fired several social workers who his administration deemed negligent.
Madness. And a visible outpouring of grief, memory, and hope.
For more details see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/12/AR2008011202887.html
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