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Jacksons’ friend: Videos portray a loving family
The camera zeroes in on the boy with a skinny face and tiny features, sharply concave neck, jutting bones, and eyes darting from place to place.
Perched on a carpeted step in his family’s Collingswood home, Bruce Jackson, who could pass for 7 but who is really 19, listens to his brother, M.J., read in a high, childish voice: “And God said: ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’ “
The image is one of dozens culled from home videos belonging to Raymond and Vanessa Jackson, the Camden County couple accused of starving their four sons. A family friend, who believes the videos show that the sons grew up in a loving family and were not abused, allowed The Inquirer to view them.
The friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he planned to make the four or five tapes available to 60 Minutes II, which is scheduled to air an hour-long program on the family on Wednesday.
The videos present a complex picture. They show a clearly large, close family opening presents, throwing surprise parties, hugging each other. But it is a family with four adopted sons so small they are sometimes painful to watch.
In the video of M.J. reading Bible verses, Bruce Jackson, on whom the camera focuses steadily for several minutes, first is not chewing, and then suddenly appears to have something in his mouth. His cheeks puff out and he chomps steadily.
The family friend suggested this was “rumination,” a practice described by the Rev. Harry Thomas of Come Alive! New Testament Church, the staunch Jacksons defender who testified before a congressional committee examining the family’s plight last week. The committee is looking into nationwide changes in child-welfare services.
Rumination disorder is the repeated regurgitation and re-chewing of food. Its complications include malnutrition, lowered resistance to disease, and failure to thrive.
When the four Jackson sons were removed from their home Oct. 10 after Bruce Jackson was found sifting through a neighbor’s trash for food, they weighed a combined 136 pounds. They ranged in age from 9 to 19. Speaking for the family, Thomas has said that Raymond and Vanessa Jackson did nothing wrong, and that the sons came to them with serious medical problems.
Since removal, the sons have gained more than 55 pounds collectively simply by being fed a proper diet. Authorities say that some of them do have medical disorders, but that those disorders do not explain their earlier emaciated state.
Three of the sons are in foster care; Bruce Jackson still is in the hospital. The Jacksons’ two adopted daughters and female foster child also are in foster care.
Raymond and Vanessa Jackson face child-endangerment and aggravated-assault charges. Both are free on $100,000 bail.
In one video clip, each member of the family discusses his or her plans for the future.
“I want to be a policeman when I grow up,” K.J., 14, says confidently. “The reason is the police get respect and I want respect.”
Bruce Jackson, who stands 4 feet tall and who authorities say was so hungry he ate pieces of wallboard and furniture, announces in a soft voice his intention to be a basketball player.
T.J., 10, but who could easily pass for a preschooler, has two dreams – to be a baker and to be a firefighter. He wants to help put out fires and, “the reason why I want to be a baker is I want to give away desserts.”
M.J., 9, wants “to preach God’s word.”
Later on one tape, there are still shots – the children as babies; Raymond and Vanessa on their wedding day, he in a white tuxedo with black lapels and she in a lacy white gown.
The video clips, most of which were shot inside the Jackson home in the last year, the family friend said, show an often-cluttered but apparently clean home.
When the videos were shot, the family’s electricity was on; power was shut off for months this year when the family fell on hard times financially. Inside the living room, there is a fluffy, royal-blue sectional sofa and a large television set under walls of framed family photographs.
It was in this room that the family opened Christmas presents last year, the family friend said.
In the videotape shot that morning, each child takes turns opening presents while the family shouts “Rip, rip, rip, rip, open, open!” over and over.
M.J. gets dinosaur pajamas and toys, and whoops when he unwraps “a fight guy” from blue Thomas the Tank Engine paper. Bruce Jackson, wearing a plaid shirt that hangs off his tiny frame and a pair of reindeer antlers, opens his presents and finds a blanket and a toothbrush. K.J. gets Buzz Lightyear slippers.
Then, the shots shift to various Jackson children doing skits based on Disney movies. Bruce Jackson, with a paper bag over his head and makeup on his face, presents a childish Lion King vignette.
Finally, the family is shown rehearsing for a church banquet at which they performed a dance routine. Eyes fixed to the screen, the family friend said the family often did shows at various facilities. “They would play at places, mental retardation facilities,” the friend said. “There were doctors and nurses staring right at them.”
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