Jessica Banks, 65 was the pastor of a small church in Riverside County, California and adopted five girls about five years ago. She was convicted in July of 16 felonies for child abuse, and this week was sentenced to 36 years and 8 months in prison, along with two consecutive terms of 15 years to life.
Jessica Banks kept the girls locked in an unheated garage, and kicked and beat them daily with cords and sticks, high heeled shoes, extension cords and belts. The five girls were between 4-11 of age at the time, and were forced to wear two layers of diapers and long black dresses, according to authorities. Jessica Banks also fed the girls spoiled food and made them take sleeping pills, and sexually abused them with paint sticks.
Jessica was arrested in 2005 when one of the sisters, 6 was found bruised, starved and curled up on the pavement in front of a business near the church where Jessica Banks was a pastor.
According to Jessica Banks, the girls led normal lives and were all lying; she also stated that they were mentally disabled.
"All the things they said about me are not true," Banks told the judge. "They're lies. I know it's all a lie... I don't know where all this stuff comes from," the San Jose Mercury News reported.
Despite testimony from the girls and physical evidence, "she still does not acknowledge that she did anything to these kids," Curtis, Jessica Banks attorney said. "This is a defendant who's not seeing the same reality as everybody else." Her attorney stated that the first few years that she fostered the girls were ok, and the children led very normal lives, but somewhere along the line she just snapped, and it became to much for her to raise them, the Mercury News reported.
In Utah, a couple adopted a baby from Russia and the adoptive mother killed the baby, and abused their four year old son who was also from Russia. The president of Save a Child Foundation stated that the parents took on more than they could handle with two children, according to a KSL report.
The superior court judge in Riverside described it as the worse abuse case he had ever seen, the Mercury News reported.
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Comments
Horrible!!! I'm just too disgusted for words. Why don't they take the children away and make inquiries after that first time when it was so obvious?? Protect the children already PLEASE!!!
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