THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501220051
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
Janice Eastman first told her sister on the telephone. Then she told the two police officers who knocked on her door.
``It's true,'' she said to the police on the unusually warm morning of Dec. 23. ``I killed them. I'm not going to hurt you.''
She invited the officers inside to see the evidence of a triple homicide.
Sometime during the morning, or late the night before, Eastman would confess, she bludgeoned her husband to death with an 8-pound sledgehammer, and then stabbed him and her two young children with an 11-inch kitchen knife, breaking the blade.
Each died in a separate bedroom.
Then she sat down and wrote a rambling 10-page letter - addressed to no one in particular - explaining why she took the lives of her 36-year-old husband, Kenneth; her 11-year-old son, Kenny; and her 9-year-old daughter, Kelly.
Later, she was charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
This week, police for the first time spoke about the worst crime in the city's history, and neighbors spoke about the woman who often baby-sat for their children.
The accounts of the crime come from police interviews and court papers.
Janice Eastman, 32, was an obsessively organized homemaker, a doting mother and a restless underachiever who shouldered far more than her share of blame for family misfortunes, even her husband's unemployment.
She was having trouble living up to what she thought she should be. Her young family was struggling emotionally and financially. And it was almost Christmas.
When Eastman finished her handwritten catharsis, she put the letter on the kitchen table, along with two checkbooks, two folders, an address book and a security box filled with important family papers.
Although Detective R.W. Young declined to reveal details of the letter, he said Eastman apparently was depressed.
``She was down on herself,'' Young said. ``She didn't really say why.''
Residents of the middle-class neighborhood near Deep Creek High School have been wondering ``why'' since police stretched yellow crime-scene ribbon around Janice Eastman's Blanche Court house two days before Christmas.
The violence against her own children is the most disconcerting, those who knew her said, because Janice Eastman spent so much time watching other families' children.
For years, Eastman was a volunteer at the Deep Creek Recreation Center's Tot Spot program. There, she supervised children after school until their parents picked them up after work.
Later, she became the program director, acquaintances said.
She was a team mom for her children's soccer squad.
Her home's front window and mailbox displayed McGruff anti-crime stickers to let scared or lost children know that the house was a safe place.
She drew posters advertising her in-home baby-sitting services. She offered to watch neighborhood children while their mothers went Christmas shopping.
It was Christmas four years ago when Dawn Eskins, a mother whose child was in the Tot Spot Program, saw a disturbing side of Eastman.
Eskins dropped of her two children at the Eastman home so she could do some Christmas shopping.
When she returned, Janice Eastman was waiting impatiently.
``She was furious,'' Eskins remembered. ``She said my three-month-old was a brat and wouldn't stop crying. She met me at the door and said, `I'm so glad you're here, get your kids out now. I can't take it any longer.' ''
Eskins said she was stunned. She asked Eastman how she could watch children when she had such a low reserve of patience.
``All of a sudden, she switched personalities,'' Eskins said. ``She said she was sorry and she didn't know what came over her. She said, `I'm really sorry, Christmas must be getting to me.' ''
The pressures were heavy on Janice Eastman this past Christmas, too.
The Eastmans were unemployed. Kenneth Eastman lost his job a few months before Christmas. Young, the detective, said he wasn't sure how the family was paying bills.
Kenneth Eastman had difficulty controlling his temper, neighbors said. Janice Eastman once told Eskins that she and her children were in counseling because of her husband's temper.
Neighbors said Kenneth Eastman sometimes had difficulty controlling his drinking, too.
Outwardly, though, the Eastmans looked like they were coping.
The middle-class family was preparing for the holidays like everyone else. The Eastman home was lined with Christmas lights, and presents for young Kenny and Kelly ringed the trunk of the Christmas tree inside.
The evening before the slayings, the Eastmans invited neighbors for a visit.
Everything seemed normal.
But after the neighbors left, something went wrong.
According to court papers, Janice Eastman called sister Vivienne Massey in Grifton, N.C., the morning of Dec. 23.
She told her sister ``that she had beat her husband, Kenneth Eastman, in the head with a hammer and then stabbed him and her two children to death.''
Massey called Chesapeake police, who went to the Eastman house.
At police headquarters, Eastman was alternately stoic and remorseful.
``She blamed herself,'' Young said. ``For what, I don't know. I think she believed she failed as a mother, a wife, everything. She kept putting everything on herself. She felt like she wasn't living up to her own standards.''
Sheriff's Department spokesman John Downs said policy prohibits him from discussing specific inmates.
Under jail policy, inmates charged with such crimes are placed under special supervision for their safety and the staff's safety, Downs said.
Eastman has declined requests for an interview.
Her next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 14, Valentine's Day. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Kenny Eastman, top, was 11 and Kelly was 9 when they were stabbed to
death Dec. 23.
KEYWORDS: MURDER STABBING SHOOTING
ARREST by CNB