NJ mother of malnourished children ends prison term; children ate uncooked batter, wallboard

NJ mother of starving children ends prison term

CLINTON, N.J. — The New Jersey woman accused of starving her four adopted sons has completed her prison sentence.

Vanessa Jackson served just over four years of a 7-year sentence at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton.

Jackson pleaded guilty to child endangerment in 2006.

Prosecutors claimed the Collingswood resident locked the refrigerator and sometimes forced her sons to eat uncooked pancake batter. The children said they sometimes gnawed on wallboard.

Authorities discovered the children in 2003 when one of her sons, Bruce, then 19, was found foraging for food in a neighbor’s trash can. Police mistook him for a 7-year-old because he weighed 45 pounds. The others were similarly undersized.

The boys’ adoptive father, Raymond Jackson, died in 2004.

Information from: The Star-Ledger, www.nj.com/starledger