A SIMPLE WELFARE CHECK LEADS TO A HORRIFYING DISCOVERY INSIDE A MARYLAND HOME

On July 6, 2021, police officers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, were asked to resolve what initially appeared to be a family and custody problem.

A mother had come to the Curtis Bay area to pick up her 15-year-old son, Dasan James Edward “DJ” Jones, who had been staying with his stepfather, Eric Glen Banks Jr. But DJ was nowhere to be seen.

Banks told officers that the teenager had left the residence.

There was an immediate problem with that explanation: DJ had apparently left his belongings behind.

Instead of accepting the explanation and leaving, officers went to Banks’ residence in the 1400 block of Stoney Point Way to check on DJ’s welfare.

What they discovered inside transformed a welfare check into a homicide investigation.

DJ was found unresponsive in an upstairs attic crawlspace.

And Banks was not an ordinary civilian. At the time, he was a member of the Baltimore Police Department.

The case would ultimately involve a desperate search inside the house, concealed evidence, a violent confrontation with responding officers, a homicide ruling, murder charges and, more than a year later, a plea that resulted in Banks being sentenced to decades in prison.

This is what verified police records and subsequent court reporting establish about the case.

A MOTHER WHO KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG

The events that brought police to the house did not begin with officers investigating a homicide.

According to the Anne Arundel County Police Department's initial July 7, 2021 release, officers met with a complainant concerning a custody dispute at approximately 4:56 p.m. on July 6.

The mother was in the area because she wanted to pick up her son.

Banks told officers that DJ had left.

But the situation was unusual enough that police did not simply close the call. Officers went to the Stoney Point Way residence specifically to conduct a welfare check.

Contemporary reporting based on court documents provided additional context. DJ's mother reportedly had been unable to reach him by phone and believed something was wrong. WBAL reported that Banks said DJ was gone even though the teenager's packed bags remained at the residence.

Those details made the welfare check increasingly important.

Police needed to answer a simple question:

Where was DJ?

The answer was somewhere inside the house.

OFFICERS BEGIN SEARCHING THE HOME

Banks permitted officers to search the residence, according to reporting based on the charging documents.

The search eventually took them upstairs.

There, officers encountered an unusual space in the wall.

Reporting on the charging documents described a hole or crawlspace concealed behind a white covering. Banks reportedly characterized the area as a gun safe.

Officers checked anyway.

Inside, they discovered DJ.

The official police account later described the teenager as being “secreted in an upstairs attic crawlspace.”

This was the moment the nature of the call changed completely.

Minutes earlier, officers were looking for a teenager who supposedly had walked away.

Now they were dealing with an unresponsive person concealed inside the residence.

Officers immediately began trying to save him.

Anne Arundel County Police said officers rendered aid until fire department personnel took over.

But the discovery also put intense focus on Banks.

His account that DJ had simply left the residence could no longer explain what police had found.

And the situation was about to become even more chaotic.

THE STEPFATHER'S BEHAVIOR CHANGES

Police secured Banks at the scene.

According to the department, he then became combative.

The confrontation escalated to the point that police said Banks attempted to disarm an officer.

The officer called for assistance, and additional officers responded before Banks could be safely taken into custody.

Anne Arundel County Police reported that Banks made alarming statements during the confrontation, including:

“My life is over.”

Police also said he repeatedly told officers to choke him.

His actions during the arrest immediately created a separate criminal case, regardless of what investigators would eventually determine about DJ's death.

Authorities obtained an arrest warrant charging Banks with first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, attempting to disarm a law-enforcement officer, resisting or interfering with an arrest, and failure to obey a lawful order.

The importance of the attempted disarming allegation would become clearer much later.

It would ultimately be one of the charges included in Banks' final plea.

A POLICE OFFICER BECOMES THE FOCUS OF A POLICE INVESTIGATION

There was another extraordinary dimension to the case.

Banks himself worked in law enforcement.

Anne Arundel County Police publicly identified him as a member of the Baltimore Police Department.

That meant responding officers had discovered an unresponsive teenager concealed inside the home of another police officer and then found themselves physically struggling with that officer.

But investigators still had to determine exactly what had happened to DJ.

Finding his body in Banks' home did not by itself establish the medical cause of death or every element necessary to prove a homicide.

Detectives needed evidence.

The Anne Arundel County Homicide Unit and Evidence Collection Unit began processing the residence.

Search warrants were executed.

Witnesses were identified and interviewed.

Physical evidence was collected.

And one discovery inside the home became particularly significant.

INVESTIGATORS FIND APPARENTLY BLOODY CLOTHING

According to the department's updated July 14 statement, investigators discovered clothing that appeared to contain blood.

The clothing had been concealed inside a dresser drawer.

Investigators continued conducting interviews and forensic examinations during the following week.

At the same time, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was examining DJ's remains.

Until that work was completed, police initially characterized the matter as a suspicious death.

That distinction matters.

Police investigations develop over time. Facts known several days after an incident may be considerably different from what officers know during their first minutes at a scene.

The initial July 7 police release did not accuse Banks of killing DJ.

It reported the suspicious death and the charges stemming from Banks' confrontation with officers.

The homicide charges came later.

And they came after the medical examiner reached a crucial conclusion.

THE MEDICAL EXAMINER CHANGES THE CASE

On July 13, 2021, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that DJ's cause of death was asphyxiation.

His manner of death was ruled homicide.

That finding transformed the investigation.

Working with the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office, homicide detectives obtained an arrest warrant charging Banks with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse resulting in death.

Banks was already being held because of the confrontation with police.

The homicide warrant was served while he remained incarcerated.

The man who had initially told officers that DJ had left the residence was now formally accused of killing him.

It was an extraordinary progression for a case that had begun as a welfare check.

THE FAMILY DISPUTE BEFORE DJ'S DEATH

Court reporting subsequently revealed that the events did not occur in isolation.

There had been serious conflict between Banks and DJ's mother before July 6.

Reports based on court records described protective-order proceedings and allegations of controlling or stalking behavior.

Law&Crime reported that DJ's mother had sought a protective order in late June and filed another request on July 6, only hours before her son was discovered. According to that reporting, she alleged Banks had taken DJ's phone and was communicating with her through it.

A temporary protective order was reportedly granted on July 6. Other reporting similarly described the protective-order dispute occurring shortly before the welfare check.

These details would later become relevant when prosecutors presented their theory of the case.

But at the time officers entered the residence, they did not yet know the full story.

They were trying to locate DJ.

Their insistence on finding him became one of the most consequential decisions of the entire incident.

WHY THE WELFARE CHECK MATTERED

Welfare checks can be deceptively routine.

Police conduct them for many reasons: a relative stops answering calls, a neighbor notices something unusual, a person fails to appear somewhere expected, or a family member believes someone could be in danger.

Often, nothing criminal has occurred.

But the purpose of the check is to establish the person's safety rather than simply accept an explanation from someone else.

In this case, Banks' statement that DJ had left did not end the officers' inquiry.

Police went into the residence.

They searched.

And they found him.

Years later, when announcing Banks' sentence, Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess specifically expressed gratitude that the responding officers insisted DJ be located before leaving the property.

That observation captures one of the most important aspects of the entire case.

Had officers simply accepted the initial explanation, the investigation could have unfolded very differently.

WHAT THE BODYCAM COULD HAVE SHOWN

The case is often circulated online as body-camera content, but an important distinction needs to be made.

Anne Arundel County authorities acknowledged that body-camera footage existed. However, during the active 2021 investigation, police said that footage would not be publicly released.

Therefore, dramatized thumbnails or reconstructed images circulating online should not automatically be treated as authentic frames from the police recordings.

The image accompanying this article should likewise not be presented as documentary evidence unless its provenance can be independently established.

The verified facts come from police releases, charging and court information, prosecutors and credible contemporaneous reporting.

This distinction matters particularly in serious criminal cases.

A compelling thumbnail can communicate the general theme of a story.

It cannot establish what happened.

Evidence does that.

DJ WAS MORE THAN THE VICTIM IN A POLICE REPORT

The crime received national attention partly because of its disturbing circumstances.

But focusing entirely on the hidden crawlspace or Banks' confrontation with police risks reducing DJ to the circumstances of his death.

Accounts from those who knew him painted a very different picture.

Friends described him as bright, funny and energetic.

The State's Attorney's Office later described DJ as a rising sophomore at Glen Burnie High School who attended a challenging magnet program.

He was also a talented violinist and a member of the all-county orchestra.

A friend remembered him as someone who would help classmates and make jokes when he entered class.

These details provide necessary perspective.

The person officers were trying to locate was not merely a name attached to a homicide investigation.

He was a student with friends, academic ambitions and musical talent.

THE CASE MOVES TOWARD COURT

Banks faced extremely serious charges.

A first-degree murder conviction could have exposed him to the possibility of life imprisonment.

But criminal cases do not always proceed to a jury verdict on every original charge.

More than a year after DJ's death, the case reached a major turning point.

On October 4, 2022, Banks entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder and attempting to disarm a police officer.

An Alford plea is unusual enough that it deserves explanation.

It allows a defendant to maintain that he is not admitting guilt while acknowledging that prosecutors possess sufficient evidence that could result in a conviction.

In practical legal terms, the court can treat the plea as a conviction.

WBAL reported that Banks' plea covered the second-degree murder charge and the count of attempting to disarm an officer.

The plea meant the case would not proceed through a conventional murder trial.

But the court still had to determine Banks' sentence.

THE FINAL SENTENCE

On January 27, 2023, Banks received his sentence.

The Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office announced that the suspended Baltimore police officer had been sentenced to 42 years in prison for DJ's murder and for attempting to disarm law enforcement during his arrest.

WBAL independently reported the 42-year sentence.

That outcome is important when retelling the case because the story did not end with Banks merely being “accused.”

There is a substantial difference between the status of the case in July 2021 and its status after the October 2022 plea and January 2023 sentencing.

In July 2021, Banks faced allegations.

By 2023, he had entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder and attempted disarming and had been sentenced to decades in prison.

A DETAIL THAT MAKES THE CASE PARTICULARLY UNSETTLING

Many homicide investigations begin after a victim has already been discovered.

This case developed differently.

Police were actively searching for DJ while speaking to the person who would ultimately enter a plea to his murder.

Banks told officers DJ had gone away.

The officers kept looking.

They moved through the residence.

They reached the upstairs area.

And the search ended in the crawlspace.

That sequence creates an unsettling contrast between what officers were being told and what was physically present only a short distance away.

It also illustrates why officers responding to welfare calls must often evaluate circumstances rather than relying exclusively on verbal assurances.

Someone saying that a missing person is fine, has left or does not want contact may be telling the truth.

But sometimes the physical evidence tells a different story.

Here, it did.

THE ATTEMPT TO DISARM AN OFFICER WAS NOT A MINOR SIDE ISSUE

Because the discovery of DJ understandably dominates coverage, Banks' confrontation with responding police can seem secondary.

Legally, however, it became a major part of the case.

Police said Banks became combative after being secured and attempted to take an officer's weapon.

Several officers were ultimately needed to control the situation.

Contemporary reporting based on charging documents described a struggle over an officer's firearm and statements by Banks indicating that officers would have to end his life.

That allegation did not disappear when murder charges were filed.

It remained part of the prosecution and ultimately formed the second count included in Banks' Alford plea.

So there were effectively two interconnected episodes inside the house.

The first was the discovery and investigation of DJ.

The second was Banks' behavior once officers secured him.

Both contributed to the eventual criminal outcome.

WHY POLICE STATUS DID NOT PROTECT BANKS FROM THE INVESTIGATION

Banks' position as a Baltimore police officer inevitably drew additional attention.

The public expects police officers to enforce the law. When an officer becomes the subject of a homicide investigation, the case therefore carries an additional layer of institutional scrutiny.

The Baltimore Police Department said at the time that Banks' police powers had previously been suspended and that he would be suspended without pay while the Anne Arundel County investigation continued.

But the homicide itself was being investigated by Anne Arundel County authorities.

That separation is significant.

The responding officers were not investigating one of their own department's officers. They were dealing with a member of another police agency who happened to be inside their jurisdiction.

The official Anne Arundel County releases consistently identified Banks' law-enforcement employment while detailing the evidence and charges against him.

His badge did not prevent the search.

It did not prevent his arrest.

And it did not prevent prosecutors from pursuing a murder case.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

The discovery of DJ was only the beginning of the homicide investigation.

Police then had to reconstruct what happened.

That required far more than statements made at the scene.

Investigators executed multiple search warrants and collected physical evidence from the residence. Police publicly disclosed the discovery of apparently bloody clothing hidden inside a dresser drawer.

The medical examiner's findings were equally critical.

Without a medical determination, investigators could not simply assume how DJ had died.

The medical examiner ultimately concluded that the cause was asphyxiation and that the manner was homicide.

Those findings gave investigators a medical foundation for treating the death as an intentional criminal act rather than an unexplained death.

This illustrates an important principle when following breaking crime stories.

The first version of events is rarely the complete version.

On July 7, police were investigating a suspicious death.

By July 14, after forensic work and the medical examiner's findings, police were publicly describing a homicide and announcing murder charges.

The evidence changed what authorities could responsibly say.

WHY THE ORIGINAL STORY BECAME MUCH BIGGER

At first glance, the case can be summarized in a sentence:

Police conducted a welfare check and discovered a missing teenager inside a home.

But that summary misses almost everything that makes the case important.

It involved a mother who believed something was wrong.

It involved officers refusing to leave without determining where DJ was.

It involved an explanation that did not match what officers eventually discovered.

It involved an unusual concealed location inside the residence.

It involved immediate lifesaving efforts.

It involved a police officer becoming a homicide suspect.

It involved a struggle in which that officer allegedly tried to take another officer's weapon.

It involved forensic evidence and a medical examiner's homicide determination.

And ultimately, it involved an Alford plea and a 42-year prison sentence.

Each stage changed the meaning of the stage before it.

WHAT WE SHOULD NOT CLAIM

There is also information that should not be invented simply to make the story more dramatic.

The verified sources establish DJ's identity, the location, the discovery inside the attic crawlspace, the medical examiner's findings, Banks' confrontation with officers, the homicide charges, his later Alford plea and the sentence.

But a responsible account should distinguish between what investigators alleged, what prosecutors argued and what was formally established through the legal process.

Likewise, recreated images should not be described as authentic bodycam stills.

A dramatic image of a woman being handcuffed, for example, does not become part of this case simply because someone places “Welfare Check” text over it.

The actual story is already extraordinary.

It does not require invented scenes.

A CASE ABOUT PERSISTENCE AS MUCH AS DISCOVERY

Perhaps the most consequential action taken that afternoon was also one of the simplest:

The officers kept looking.

They had been given an explanation.

DJ supposedly left.

His belongings remained.

His mother was concerned.

The circumstances did not add up.

Police continued the welfare check until they could determine for themselves whether DJ was safe.

The State's Attorney's Office later explicitly recognized the importance of that decision when discussing Banks' sentence.

That makes this case an unusually powerful example of what a welfare check can become.

Most welfare checks will never resemble this one.

But the reason such checks exist is precisely because authorities sometimes have to verify someone's safety rather than assume it.

FROM A JULY AFTERNOON TO A 42-YEAR SENTENCE

The timeline ultimately stretched across roughly a year and a half.

On July 6, 2021, police went to the Curtis Bay residence and found DJ.

On July 13, the medical examiner ruled that he died from asphyxiation and classified his death as homicide.

Police then obtained the murder warrant against Banks.

On October 4, 2022, Banks entered his Alford plea to second-degree murder and attempting to disarm a police officer.

On January 27, 2023, he was sentenced to 42 years in prison.

Seen as a complete timeline, the case looks very different from the initial police call.

What began as an attempt to locate one teenager became a homicide prosecution that ended with a lengthy prison sentence.

THE PERSON AT THE CENTER OF THE STORY

Crime stories naturally focus on the extraordinary.

The hidden space.

The police officer accused of murder.

The struggle over a weapon.

The evidence.

The courtroom.

But none of those things should obscure the person whose absence prompted the welfare check in the first place.

Dasan “DJ” Jones was 15 years old.

He attended a magnet program.

He played violin.

He participated in the all-county orchestra.

Friends remembered his humor and willingness to help others.

The State's Attorney's Office described him as a promising student whose future was taken away.

Those facts belong in the story just as much as the criminal investigation does.

Without them, the case becomes another sensational headline.

With them, the consequences become much clearer.

THE LASTING LESSON OF THE WELFARE CHECK

“Simple Welfare Check Leads to Horrifying Discovery” is an attention-grabbing description.

But the documented story is more complicated and more consequential than the title suggests.

A worried mother could not locate her son.

A stepfather told officers the teenager had left.

The circumstances did not satisfy the responding officers.

They searched the residence.

They found DJ concealed upstairs.

They attempted to save him.

The man who had told them DJ was gone became combative and tried to disarm an officer.

Detectives searched the house and collected evidence.

The medical examiner ruled DJ's death a homicide caused by asphyxiation.

Banks was charged with murder.

More than a year later, he entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder and attempting to disarm an officer.

And in January 2023, he received a 42-year prison sentence.

The case therefore demonstrates something that can easily be lost when police footage is reduced to a short viral clip.

The most important moment is not always the arrest.

Sometimes it is the decision that comes before it.

In this case, that decision was to keep searching until DJ was found.

The officers had been given a story that could have ended the call.

They did not accept it without verification.

That persistence uncovered the truth inside the house and began a homicide investigation that would eventually reach a courtroom.

For DJ's family and friends, however, the legal conclusion could never restore what was lost.

Court proceedings could establish accountability. Investigators could reconstruct the evidence. A judge could impose a lengthy sentence.

But the promising student, violinist and friend at the center of the case was gone.

That is the reality behind the dramatic headline.

A routine request for police assistance became the first step in uncovering a homicide, and what officers found inside that Maryland home ensured that a seemingly ordinary welfare check would become a case remembered far beyond the afternoon on which it began.

Click here to watch the full incident and see how the welfare check unfolded.