[1] The case led to scrutiny of the Washington social service agencies that failed to prevent the deaths or discover them in the months afterward; four days after the bodies were found, the city's mayor Adrian Fenty fired six employees of Washington's Child and Family Services Agency, saying they "just didn't do their job.

[4] The family lived in a variety of places, including a homeless shelter, before a nonprofit organization helped them to move into the Washington, DC, rowhouse in August 2006.

[5] Neighbors and family members described Jacks as a caring and attentive mother until the period following Nathaniel Fogle's death in February 2007.

[6] Ragland also said that Jacks and Fogle often allowed their daughters Aja and N'Kiah, aged 3 and 4 years old at the time, to smoke marijuana while their parents laughed.

[8] Jacks told the neighbor that the family's food stamps had run out but she was reluctant to apply for more, due to the paperwork required.

[9][10] On May 10, Lopes wrote a letter to the youth social service division of D.C. Superior Court, expressing her fear that Brittany Jacks was "being held hostage."

Jacks came to the door wearing only a white T-shirt with brown smudge marks on it and refused to allow them inside.

Deputy US Marshals Kevin Ruark and Nicholas Garrett said they could immediately smell an odor of "rotting meat, like stink bait" which they thought was "rotten or spoiled food."

The body of Brittany Jacks was in another upstairs bedroom, nude and lying on the floor in a pool of blood, underneath a white T-shirt.

[12] The verdict, guilty on all charges except the first degree murder of Brittany Jacks, was decided by the presiding judge, Frederick H.

[14] In April 2009, the D.C. Office of the Inspector General released a report implicating not only the CFSA, but several other local government parties for failing to meet their obligations in the Jacks case and potentially prevent the four deaths.

The Washington Post reported: The family was supposed to receive monthly visits based on its housing placement; it never did.

And health-care providers did not follow up on things that should have been red flags, according to the report.The report also faulted an overall lack of coordination and communication between the various agencies involved with the family.

[17] This legislation amended the District of Columbia confidentiality rules to make them less rigid and more aligned with what is permitted under federal privacy laws such as HIPAA and FERPA.