Honor, Integrity, Murder: The Cop Who Hid His Stepson in the Bedroom Wall

MILLERSVILLE, MARYLAND — On paper, Eric Banks Jr. was a protector. A veteran of the United States Marine Corps and an active-duty officer for the Baltimore Police Department, he had sworn oaths to defend the constitution and his community. He knew the law. He knew the procedures. And, most chillingly, he knew how to hide evidence.

On July 6, 2021, the facade of the hero cop crumbled in a suburban hallway, revealing a monster who had turned his own home into a tomb for his 15-year-old stepson, Dasan “DJ” Jones. What began as a routine custody exchange unraveled into a chaotic scene of discovery, violence, and a desperate, calculated cover-up that would shock the nation.

The Welfare Check

The afternoon sun was beating down on the quiet streets of Millersville when officers from the Anne Arundel County Police Department arrived at the Banks residence. They were there to serve a protective order and facilitate a custody exchange. Latrice Banks, Eric’s estranged wife, was waiting down the street. She was terrified. She had come to collect her teenage son, DJ, but Eric was refusing to answer the door.

Officers stood on the porch, listening. From the upstairs window, they heard loud bangs—sounds that would later be identified not as construction, but as the frantic efforts of a man trying to conceal a body.

After several tense minutes, the door opened. Eric Banks stood there, shirtless, sweating profusely, and breathing hard.

“Hey, how you doing? I’m doing good. Bossing yourself?” Eric greeted the officers with a forced casualness that immediately raised red flags.

When asked about DJ, Eric’s story was ready. He claimed the boy had packed his bags and run out the back door, leaving without his phone. “You can check the ADT. It shows where he ran out the door,” Eric lied, using his knowledge of surveillance systems to try and throw the officers off the scent. He played the part of the frustrated father perfectly, claiming he told DJ to wait for his mother, but the “stubborn teenager” had just walked away.

But the officers weren’t buying it. A 15-year-old boy doesn’t just vanish without his phone or belongings minutes before his mother arrives. Sitting on the couch nearby were Eric’s two biological children, 5-year-old Evan and 3-year-old Tristan. They sat in silence, harboring a secret too heavy for their young minds to comprehend.

.

.

.

The Hole in the Wall

With DJ nowhere to be found outside, officers asked for consent to search the home. Eric, perhaps arrogant in his belief that he had concealed the crime well enough, agreed. “I just want to make sure he’s not in the house,” the officer said.

“That’s fine. I’ll do it with you then since we’re here,” Eric replied.

The body camera footage captures the tension as they moved through the house. They checked the basement. They checked the kids’ rooms. Finally, they ascended to the third-floor loft—Eric’s bedroom.

The room felt wrong. The energy shifted. Eric began to hover, his confidence waning. In the corner of the room, there was a hole in the drywall, a specialized access panel for the home’s plumbing and crawlspace. It wasn’t fully closed.

An officer shined his flashlight into the dark void. inside, stuffed callously into the insulation and darkness, was the lifeless body of Dasan Jones.

“What’s up? All right. What’s up, bro?” The officer’s voice dropped. He had seen enough. He signaled his partner. The search was over. They weren’t looking for a runaway anymore; they were standing next to a murderer.

The Fight for the Gun

As officers escorted Eric to the patrol car, the reality of his situation set in. The Marine, the cop, the father—it was all over. As they tried to buckle him in, Eric’s demeanor shifted from cooperative to suicidal.

“I just threw my life away… Just choke me. Just choke me,” he begged the officers.

Then, the training kicked in—not to de-escalate, but to fight. Eric Banks, handcuffed but desperate, lunged for Officer Sutton’s service weapon. A violent struggle ensued in the driveway. Eric managed to manipulate the retention holster, nearly disarming the officer.

“He’s trying to grab my cutter! Grab my cutter!” the officer screamed.

It took multiple officers to subdue him. Eric knew exactly what he was doing. He knew about “double-locking” handcuffs to prevent them from tightening, a tactic he tried to use to his advantage. He wasn’t just resisting arrest; he was trying to force a “suicide by cop” scenario, or worse, escape to kill again.

Inside the house, paramedics worked on DJ, but it was too late. The 15-year-old, a quiet boy who loved Roblox and was an honor roll student, had been dead for some time. His clothes were soaked, and his body was cold.

The Innocence Lost

While Eric was being transported to the station—banging his head against the cage in a rage—detectives turned their attention to the surviving victims: the children.

At the station, a forensic interviewer sat down with 7-year-old Evan in a “soft room,” designed to make children feel safe. The contrast between the horrific crime and the child’s innocence was heartbreaking. Evan drew a picture with crayons. He drew the stairs.

“That was DJ… Dad was up here… They were waiting at the steps,” Evan explained.

Then, the heartbreaking truth came out. Evan told his mother, Latrice, what he really saw. “Daddy made him and Tristan go in the bathroom and cover their eyes.”

While the younger boys hid, Eric had strangled their older brother. The “loud bangs” officers heard upon arrival were likely Eric shoving DJ’s body into the crawlspace and attempting to patch the drywall before answering the door.

The Interrogation: A Battle of Wits

Eric Banks was placed in Interview Room 2B, a room reserved for high-profile cases. He was handcuffed to the table. Enter Detective Lewis Adrien, a fellow military veteran chosen specifically to build a rapport with Banks.

For the first hour, it was a masterclass in manipulation. The two men swapped war stories about the Marine Corps. They laughed about boot camp. Detective Adrien appealed to Eric’s sense of identity as a Marine—a man of honor, courage, and commitment.

“What’s their whole thing in the Marines? What do they always teach?” Adrien asked. “Honor, integrity,” Eric replied. “To be honest with you, I don’t see that from you right now.”

The trap was sprung. The friendly banter evaporated. Detective Adrien laid out the facts: DJ was dead, found in Eric’s wall, and the autopsy proved it wasn’t an accident.

Eric’s defense was a labyrinth of lies. He pivoted to a new story: Suicide. He claimed he found DJ in the bathtub, drowned.

“DJ was in the tub… That’s when I seen him. I was like, ‘What the [expletive]?’” Eric told the detective, looking everywhere but at him. He claimed he panicked, pulled DJ out, and hid the body because he feared no one would believe him.

“I already moved him… My state of mind was killer,” Eric admitted, a Freudian slip that he quickly tried to walk back.

But the science didn’t match the story. Detective Adrien dropped the hammer: The autopsy revealed strangulation, not just drowning. There were bruises on DJ’s face, a busted lip, and hemorrhaging in the eyes—classic signs of a violent struggle for life.

Shutterstock

“Hell no. DJ was not no strangle,” Eric shouted, his voice rising in defensive anger. “I don’t even have no ammo to want to strangle this boy.”

The detective didn’t back down. “You going to think about what you did to him… It’s going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Eric never confessed to the murder in that room. He stuck to his impossible story—that a teenage boy drowned himself and then magically ended up inside a bolted-shut crawlspace in the master bedroom. But his behavior, his lack of genuine grief, and his obsession with how the “story” looked rather than the loss of his son, told investigators everything they needed to know.

The Verdict

The evidence against Eric Banks was overwhelming. The “suicide” theory was physically impossible. The body in the wall, the wet clothes, the witness statements from his own children, and the attempt to steal a police officer’s gun all pointed to a man who had snapped.

Latrice Banks revealed that Eric had been spiraling. He had been suspended from the police force that very day due to a protective order she had filed. He was losing control of his family, his job, and his reputation. In a final act of narcissistic rage, he took the life of the stepson he had raised for years, perhaps to punish Latrice for leaving him.

Charged with first-degree murder, Eric Banks eventually accepted a plea deal. On October 4, 2022, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and attempting to disarm a law enforcement officer.

He was sentenced to 42 years in prison.

The judge had no leniency for the former officer. Banks had used his knowledge of the law to terrorize his family and his training to attempt a cover-up. He had betrayed every oath he ever took.

For Latrice and her surviving children, the nightmare is over, but the scars remain. They live with the memory of a brother and son who was “always willing to help,” a boy who loved video games and school, whose life was stolen by the man who was supposed to protect him. Eric Banks will sit in a cell until at least 2064, leaving him plenty of time to think about the honor and integrity he claimed to possess, and the monster he actually was.