Mother refuses mental testing

Doctors have been unable to determine whether the woman accused of killing her four daughters and living with the bodies in her D.C. rowhouse is competent to stand trial, court records show.

Officials from St. Elizabeths Hospital, a psychiatric facility, filed a report this week in D.C. Superior Court stating that Banita Jacks has been uncooperative in examinations. Mrs. Jacks was sent to the hospital in October after refusing a mental evaluation at the D.C. jail to determine her competency to stand trial.

According to the report, she has repeatedly refused to speak with doctors, but has shown improved behavior after being injected with Haldol, an anti-psychotic medication.

Since being admitted, Mrs. Jacks has displayed depressive, irritable and inappropriate emotions. At one point, officials read a description of the decomposition of her daughters’ bodies and she began smiling, doctors said.

In addition, she has not complied with basic hospital procedures, such as allowing workers to monitor her vital signs. She recently closed her fingers into a door then refused X-rays.

Mrs. Jacks has provided hospital officials with reasons about why she’s not answering their questions, including the fact that she’s already told her story to police and a psychologist at the jail.

In some instances, she also cited her religious beliefs as basis for her behavior. She said she follows Islam and has met with an imam in the facility.

During an interview, Mrs. Jacks was mistakenly told that she was charged with 10 felony counts. But she corrected the official saying, “No, I have 12 felony counts.”

Doctors said she began to open up after receiving two injections.

“She expressed severe loss in the past year to include losing her husband to cancer, being homeless, losing her car, her dog and her children,” the report said.

With the drugs, Mrs. Jacks became more cooperative with staff, peers and her attorneys. However, she has told her attorney she wants to protest the involuntary medication. Doctors point out that it was only after being medicated that she expressed such concerns about the medicine.

Doctors think the medication will help Mrs. Jacks “think through things more clearly and have a better rational understanding of her mental illness/thought disorder,” according to the report.

Because she has not fully participated in evaluations, doctors said they cannot provide the court an opinion about her competency to stand trial or her competency to waive the insanity defense.

Mrs. Jacks has a status hearing scheduled for Friday morning.

She has been jailed since January when the bodies were found. Authorities think the girls had been dead since summer 2007.