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Fern5827
November 2nd 03, 08:19 PM
Heartwarming story. ;-((

Conflicting portraits of couple emerge

Sunday, November 2, 2003

Questions remain in Collingswood starvation case
By JASON LAUGHLIN
Courier-Post Staff
COLLINGSWOOD


Loving parents overwhelmed by money problems? Or sadists who conned everyone?

The motives of Raymond and Vanessa Jackson remain a mystery even after a week
of steady revelations about the life of the four adopted boys they are accused
of starving.

The scene described by investigators during an Oct. 25 news conference was a
horrific one: An emaciated boy digging through garbage and eating pieces of
wall for sustenance. Young people so malnourished their growth was stunted.

Some child advocates called it the worst case of child abuse they'd ever seen.

The four boys, two of them teenagers, had a combined weight of 136 pounds.
Bruce, 19, weighed 45 pounds. Keith, 14, weighed 40 pounds. Tyrone, 10, weighed
28 pounds. Michael, 9, weighed 23 pounds. All were diagnosed with severe
malnutrition.

They had rotting teeth and lice. They hadn't visited a doctor in five years.
They hadn't been fed properly for five years.

Investigators say hunger drove the children to eat pieces of wall and
insulation and gnaw on window sills. Even more bizarre, the family's two
adopted daughters, one foster daughter and four biological children still
living at home seemed healthy and well-fed.

It's a scenario at odds with the one provided by the Jacksons' friends. The
Jacksons happily shouldered burdens others shied from by adopting not one but
six children, kids no one else wanted, their pastor, Harry Thomas, said.
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From interviews, official accounts and records of their business dealings, the
following portrait of the family has emerged.

Religious devotion was one of the Jacksons' most prominent traits, friends and
longtime acquaintances said. Raymond Jackson, 50, sang with a gospel group
called Emblem of God, said family friend Josselyne Jackson. He sang in church
and at nursing homes, and volunteered to feed the homeless in Philadelphia.
Vanessa, 48, was quiet and unassuming.

Every Sunday the family of 14 occupied one of the front rows at Come Alive! New
Testament Church in Medford. Their 12 children - five biological, six adopted
and one 10-year-old foster daughter - always dressed well for services.

There was little doubt within the church the Jacksons were a happy family.

What impressed church members was how the Jacksons felt compelled to adopt
children, even as they struggled to raise a now-adult biological daughter with
epilepsy and other health problems.

"They had a real heart for these kids and wanted to bless their little lives,"
their pastor said.

Church acquaintances said the Jackson children, while unusually small, never
looked sickly or underfed, except for the diminutive Bruce. The youth with the
dark, hollow eyes never looked well, and the other children told Thomas stories
about Bruce eating pieces of the walls and even kitty litter. The Jacksons told
the pastor the 4-foot-tall Bruce had an eating disorder, and that they had to
lock the kitchen to keep Bruce from gorging himself to the point of vomiting.

Documents from the Department of Youth and Family Services say Bruce had
digestive problems, described by Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi as
acid reflux. The DYFS reports also report that Bruce suffered from depression.

The Jacksons had convinced the four children they had eating disorders,
according to Sarubbi. Doctors found no evidence of any eating disorder or
disease or genetic defects that could explain the children's small, frail
bodies, authorities said.

Neighbors seemed to notice some of the Jackson children looked unhealthy.
Next-door neighbor Peter DiMattia even wondered if the children were suffering
from AIDS.

They never seemed to have time to play.

According to Thomas, though, quite the opposite was true. He described the
children as joyful, and said they were the first to sign up for church talent
contests. They usually performed a hip-hop song and danced at these events, he
said.

The children were home-schooled, though investigators have said there was no
sign of educational books in the home.

The family seemed to constantly be adopting children, and DYFS dealt with the
Jacksons for years. The Jacksons took in Bruce in 1991 and adopted him five
years later. They steadily increased the size of their family through adoption
five more times in subsequent years.

DYFS social workers made 38 visits to the home in four years, authorities said.


During one of those visits, while power was off in the home, a caseworker knelt
with the family and prayed for relief, authorities said. But she never reported
any sign of abuse and would have soon approved the 10-year-old foster girl for
adoption. The caseworker is under investigation by the prosecutor's office and
could face charges of official misconduct.

The Jacksons lost electric power this year after not paying bills, but records
show the family's financial situation had been deteriorating for years.

Raymond Jackson was a financial planner contracted by Primerica, but business
had plummeted. The family defaulted on payments for time shares they owned in
Williamsburg, Va., and the Poconos.

In 1998 a debt-collection agency, New Century Financial Services in Cedar
Knoll, filed a lawsuit against the family in Camden County Superior Court's
small claims court. That case concluded in January of this year when a judge
ordered the Jacksons to pay $4,667.28 to the collection agency. New Century's
confidentiality policy prohibited them from disclosing the origin of the debt.

Collingswood charities brought boxes of food to the house during holidays
starting five years ago, said Joel Shannon of the Collingswood Inter Church
Food Pantry.

This year, things got worse for the family. Raymond Jackson earned almost no
income. Vanessa Jackson didn't work at all. They couldn't pay bills and their
home in the 300 block of the White Horse Pike lost electricity from June 18 to
Oct. 6, and gas service from Sept. 8 to Oct. 6. The family also owed $9,000 in
back rent on their home, where they received government housing subsidies.

"I told them, `You're behind in your rent. I know you must be getting money for
all these kids,' " said landlord John Andrews. "And Vanessa said, `It's not
much money at all.' Shame on me, I believed her."

Andrews called the pastor at Come Alive! about the rent he was owed by the
Jacksons. The church paid $1,900 to PSE&G to get power restored at the Jackson
home, and reached an agreement Oct. 6 with Andrews to pay him $500 a month for
the rent, the pastor said.

A few days later, on Oct. 10, Michael Byrd heard Bruce Jackson in the trash
behind his home on the White Horse Pike. At first he thought the clamor was
made by an animal. As he made out a human form in the dark, he thought it might
have been a homeless man. He was shocked to find what appeared to be a child.

"When he talked, you could see every bone in his face moving," Byrd remembered.


Jackson gave police his name, but couldn't form coherent sentences. He couldn't
even tell them where he lived.

When Raymond Jackson reported his son missing later that day, Collingswood
police searched the home and found a refrigerator filled with little more than
condiments, butter and empty ice trays.

While the Jacksons visited their 19-year-old son at the hospital that day,
state authorities removed all the adopted children from the Jackson home.

Raymond Jackson was so burdened with depression at the loss of his family he
checked himself into a mental health facility for a day.

On Oct. 24, the Jacksons were arrested as they visited the Collingswood police
department looking for a police report and they remain in the Camden County
Jail on $100,000 bail each. They are facing child endangerment charges and four
counts of aggravated assault each.

Meanwhile, all the children but Bruce, who is still being treated for heart
problems related to malnutrition, have been placed in foster homes. The four
boys have all put on weight.

If the Jacksons are guilty, Thomas said, he believes they must have somehow
become overwhelmed.

"If they're lost sheep in some way, we're going to find them," he said.

The pastor met with the Jacksons in jail. Through him, they reiterated their
claim that they have been wrongly accused and the children suffered from eating
disorders.

Others who knew the Jacksons to be loving, generous parents don't know what to
think.

"Maybe these people were not the good people we thought they were, but maybe
they were," Shannon said. "How could they fool so many people for so long?"


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