Faith plays central role in Collingswood family

Like the other seniors in Woodrow Wilson’s class of ‘71, Raymond Jackson wrote beneath his yearbook picture a short description of himself and his dreams for the future.

The Delphonics are number one, he wrote. He wanted to be a social worker. He also knew what kind of women he liked: “Loathes loud women,” he wrote.

Jackson already had his girl picked out. He and a quiet girl named Vanessa Woodridge were high school sweethearts. In her senior class yearbook, she wrote “Someone special left me in ‘71.”

The yearbook entries by two people about to embark on adulthood hardly hint at the terrible accusations brought against Raymond and Vanessa Jackson more than 30 years later.

The allegations by the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office have been endlessly repeated nationwide: The Jacksons fed their four adopted sons, ages 9 to 19, nothing but pancake batter, oatmeal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and denied them medical care for at least four years.

When taken from their home last month, the boys weighed a combined 136 pounds, and each stood less than 4 feet tall.

The defenses offered by family and friends of the Jacksons are equally familiar. They took in children no one else wanted and gave them a loving home. The boys suffer from myriad conditions, from fetal alcohol syndrome to rumination, that account for their frail bodies.

Authorities say the oldest, Bruce, has an eating disorder and two other boys have fetal alcohol syndrome. But they also point out the four boys have gained weight under the care of doctors and say that no medical problems account for their severe malnutrition.

Whatever a jury ultimately decides, a look at the Jacksons’ past reveals they were a couple who struggled financially and were committed to their faith and helping others. But good intentions may have gone awry for the couple, and, if the prosecutor’s accusations are true, they may have been more generous than their circumstances allowed.

Raymond’s younger brother, William Jackson, defended the couple’s care of Bruce.

“They lacked the resources to handle the situation,” he said. “That doesn’t make them criminals.”

Many who know the Jacksons note above all the family’s faith. For Raymond, it’s something he was raised with, his brother said. Their parents were religious, but Raymond took to the Christian faith more intensely than his brother and two sisters. William Jackson referred to his brother’s life as an example to him.

Raymond walked the streets of Camden offering food to the homeless once a week after work, remembered Josselyne Jackson, a friend not related to the couple. He and Josselyne Jackson, now a Willingboro resident, volunteered with Teen Challenge in Philadelphia, she said. The program for runaways and teenagers in trouble with the law gave Raymond a chance to pray for and help wayward youth, she said.

Raymond and five friends formed a gospel singing group, The Emblems of Christ, in 1977 and even cut an album at a Cherry Hill studio in 1985. They sang gospel and a cappella, Josselyne Jackson said. The group broke up in the late 1980s when members pursued different interests.

It was through Emblems of Christ that Raymond and Vanessa Jackson found Come Alive! New Testament Church, which they attended for about 15 years and which has been the couple’s staunchest supporter.

Jackson’s group performed there, and Jackson was impressed with the church’s atmosphere and appreciation for music, his brother said. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Harry Thomas, is a promoter for Christian-themed concerts.

Though Raymond Jackson said in his yearbook he wanted to be a social worker, he ultimately decided to serve the public in a different capacity. In 1974, three years after graduating from high school, he became a Camden County sheriff’s officer, Sheriff Michael McLaughlin confirmed. He spent five years there. His brother said he was forced to leave law enforcement after noise on the firing range damaged his hearing.

Jackson, who grew up in East Camden, worked for Radio Shack for a time before settling into the job he continues to hold, a financial planner contracted by Primerica. He is currently on suspension from the company.

Vanessa Jackson grew up in North Camden, and her yearbook says she wanted to become an accountant. She went by the nickname “Vesse” and was a student council member.

Friends of the Jacksons describe her as a somewhat silent partner in the family, quiet but loving.

“She spent a lot of time (with her children),” Josselyne Jackson said. “She was not one to go out and get herself all dolled up.”

The Jacksons started their own family shortly after graduating high school and getting married. They have five biological children, now all adults. It was their daughter Jere, born about 20 years ago, that family and friends said prompted the Jacksons to begin adopting. Jere had severe epilepsy that left her mentally disabled. The challenge of raising her inspired the Jacksons to help other needy children, friends have said.

By 2003, the Jacksons had six adopted children, Bruce, Keith, Keziah, Tyrone, Jacee and Michael, and one foster daughter, Breanna.

“They wanted to get the kids out of the environment they were born into,” Josselyne Jackson said. “It was like total ecstasy to them.”

The Jacksons home-schooled their children, biological and adopted, because they feared the influences of the public school system, Josselyne Jackson said.

“They didn’t want the children exposed to the negativity of the public schools,” she said. “They wanted to shield the children from any hurt or any bad influences.”

Documents show the family lived in Willingboro in the 1980s and in Pennsauken before settling into their home in Collingswood in 1996. Allen Turner, the Jacksons’ next-door neighbor on Pitman Avenue in Pennsauken, said he remembered the family well.

“I never spoke with the wife. I would speak with the kids sometimes,” said Turner, 70, who regularly talked with Raymond Jackson outside their homes.

Turner often wondered how a family of 12 could fit into the three-bedroom home.

A financial adviser himself, Turner said he was sure by their appearance the family was going through hard times even as his own business flourished.

In 1998, the Jacksons were sued by a debt collection agency. The case ended this year in Superior Court in Camden County. The Jacksons were ordered to pay more than $4,000 to New Century Financial Services this year.

Also in 1998 and 1999, the family was named in a Public Service Electric & Gas suit over $1,460 in unpaid electric bills at the former address of Vanessa Jackson’s mother.

William Jackson said his brother consistently worked even up to this year, but work wasn’t going well. Pastor Thomas has said several mortgage deals fell through this year and that Raymond Jackson was $9,000 in debt on home rent payments already heavily subsidized by the state.

The Jacksons have used Section 8 housing certificates since their time in Pennsauken. Records from their Pennsauken years were not immediately available.

But since 1997, when the Jacksons’ moved to Collingswood, their landlord received more than $50,000 in housing assistance payments, according to the Department of Community Affairs. The Jacksons’ share of the rent during this period fluctuated between $200 and $600 per month.

Under the Section 8 program - which uses federal funds - units are inspected to ensure compliance with federal standards for decent, safe and sanitary housing.

The Jacksons’ last inspection was sometime in June, and the home was found to be in compliance, according to state officials.

Housing payments weren’t the only governmental assistance. The Jacksons received about $30,000 in the last fiscal year for their adopted and foster children, but William Jackson dismissed the suggestion his brother and sister-in-law adopted children for handouts.

“He’s a little more optimistic than life allows us to be sometimes,” William Jackson said about his brother’s financial difficulties.

Josselyne Jackson agreed. She couldn’t imagine Raymond or Vanessa intentionally being cruel to children but said Raymond might be unwilling to seek help, even if his family needed it.

“The only thing I can say Raymond would be guilty of was too much manly pride,” she said.

Both said Raymond Jackson’s deep faith in God’s ability to make things right might have kept him from seeing the severity of his adopted sons’ conditions.

In a profile he created on Classmates.com, Raymond Jackson said he would attend a 30th anniversary/50th birthday party for the Woodrow Wilson class of 71′ on Oct. 18 in Wildwood Crest. Raymond said he would ask his twin sister Jackie to go as well.

Neither attended the reunion, classmates said.

On Oct. 18, Raymond Jackson’s four adopted sons were in the hospital and authorities were determining whether to charge the couple.

Raymond Jackson checked himself into a mental health facility because of the depression he suffered over losing his children, but neither parent anticipated what would happen next - their arrests six days later.

“They didn’t think they had done anything wrong,” William Jackson said.

The Jacksons have unwaveringly asserted their innocence, and William Jackson doesn’t doubt them. With charges of aggravated assault and child endangerment pending and the public vilifying them, William Jackson says he still sees his brother and sister-in-law relying on each other and being the best parents they can be, as they always have.

“They were committed to one another,” William Jackson said. “You don’t get abusive people out of that.”

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