Cops Find Missing Teen’s B0dy In Soldier’s Bedroom | HO”

On July 7 in Millersville, two officers arrived at Eric Banks Jr.’s home after his wife, Latrice, reported their 15-year-old son Dason—everyone called him “DJ”—might be missing. To the officers, it sounded like a familiar kind of chaos: family conflict, custody tension, a teenager walking off. But the timing was odd. DJ and Latrice were supposed to be moving out that day, and the disappearance landed right in the middle of that upheaval.

Eric and Latrice had both filed protective orders against each other, meaning they weren’t allowed to speak without police present. Eric wasn’t DJ’s biological father. Latrice had custody rights. DJ had been packing his things.

When the officers first knocked, no one came. The bangs upstairs continued. After several minutes, Eric finally opened the door, breathing hard, smiling too fast.

“What’s going on today, man?” one officer asked.

“You’re supposed to be serving a piece of protective order,” Eric said. “Supposed to be serving on you or on—both of us.”

“Okay,” the officer replied, already noting how Eric tried to steer the conversation into paperwork, procedure, anything that sounded official.

Eric gestured inside and sat down with his two younger kids nearby—Evan, five, and Tristan, three. Their small bodies were still, their eyes too observant. At the time, the officers didn’t know those two boys would become the center of what came next.

“Do y’all have some sort of court order agreement on custody?” the officer asked.

“My oldest,” Eric said, nodding as if he meant DJ. “I know he ran out the back door somewhere. All his stuff by the back door.”

“He ran out?” the officer repeated.

Eric nodded. “She called him and he went out the back door.”

“Not here?” the officer pressed.

“No,” Eric said quickly. “Do you want to come in? Just let you know you’re being—aud—yeah.”

“You have no idea where DJ is?” the officer asked.

“Honestly, bro, no,” Eric replied. “You can check the ADT. It shows where he ran out the door.”

The officer’s face tightened. “It’s a 15-year-old boy. Having a phone probably would have been a good idea if he’s walking out.”

Eric’s mouth worked like he wanted to argue but couldn’t find a clean angle. “This is getting messy, man,” he muttered.

“It’s already messy,” the officer said, voice even. “And you’re telling me you just let a teenager walk out with no phone?”

Eric leaned on procedure again. “I literally told him, ‘Wait for your mom to get here.’ She’s supposed to call you guys before she comes. I’m not trying to get in trouble.”

He said it like “getting in trouble” was the only thing that mattered.

And that was the hinge: Eric kept talking about rules, but the officers could feel the missing person had already become something else.

Officer Sutton went back to the patrol vehicle, ran the name, and the screen delivered an uncomfortable fact: Eric Banks Jr., 34, active Baltimore Police Department officer since 2018, and a ten-year U.S. Marine Corps veteran. It explained the tone. It explained the confidence. It explained the way Eric seemed to believe he could drive the call like an interview he was conducting, not an investigation he was facing.

The officers canvassed for about fifteen minutes. No DJ. They tried calling Latrice. No answer. The silence widened the gap between Eric’s story and what reality might be.

So the officers returned and confronted Eric more sternly.

“We found out about the whole situation,” one said. “But do you think he left here?”

Eric launched into a fresh alibi that sounded like it had been built minutes earlier. He talked about a “heart-to-heart” with DJ. About DJ crying. About being tired of the separation. About not wanting to “choose sides.” About court. About Arizona.

“He cried to me yesterday,” Eric said, voice softening as if grief could be used like a shield. “He said he’s tired of it. He’s a teenager. He don’t want to be in separate homes.”

“Okay,” the officer said, letting him talk.

Eric described calling DJ after court and telling him he had to pack because his mom said he wanted to go with her to Arizona.

“He’s like, ‘What? I don’t,’” Eric claimed. “I said, ‘Well, start packing.’”

The officer watched Eric’s eyes. Watched his hands. Watched the way he sprinkled in details—Gatorade, paperwork, the doorbell—as if a flood of specifics could make a story true.

“All right,” the officer said finally. “Hang tight.”

The officers still couldn’t locate DJ. The missing report was no longer “standard.” In a desperate attempt to find a lead, they asked Eric if he’d consent to a search inside the home—just to make sure DJ wasn’t hiding.

“I just want to make sure he’s not in the house,” the officer said.

“That’s fine,” Eric replied too quickly. “I’ll do it with you then.”

They entered. Eric tried to guide them room to room, narrating like a tour.

“This is the kids’ room,” he said near a bunk bed. “DJ—this is my room. He’s not hiding.”

In Officer Adams’ later report, he noted that Eric’s demeanor shifted as the search continued. Tightened. Less talkative. More controlling.

They made their way to the third floor.

“Got your little light on your face?” one officer asked, half-joking, using the body-cam light to see.

“Yeah,” the other answered. “It might dim on you.”

They stepped into Eric’s bedroom.

And there it was—a small opening Eric hadn’t fully closed, an access space behind the wall where something had been placed that did not belong there. Officers saw enough to stop. Enough to make their voices change.

“What’s up?” one officer said, because the brain reaches for ordinary words when it’s trying not to panic.

In that space lay DJ’s body—already cold, already beyond help. Eric had tried to hide him in the bedroom wall, and in the hurry to perform “normal” for the officers at the door, he forgot to seal the opening completely.

The officers didn’t scream. They didn’t explode. They did what trained people do when the world turns: they locked their faces into something neutral and moved fast.

“Let’s go to the car, right?” an officer said, voice controlled, guiding Eric away like it was routine.

Eric’s eyes darted. His jaw trembled. He knew the performance was over.

And that was the hinge: the search request Eric agreed to “voluntarily” became the moment his entire life snapped into evidence.

Outside, Eric was placed in a patrol vehicle. At first he complied, sitting, breathing hard. But within moments, the situation began to spiral.

“I need you to stay seated,” Officer Sutton said, calm but firm.

“All right,” Eric replied. “Can I—can I just kiss my boys real quick?”

“No,” Sutton said. “I need you in the car.”

“Bro, just let me kiss my boy,” Eric pleaded, voice turning desperate.

“Stay in the car,” Sutton repeated.

Eric shifted, testing the boundary, the way some cops do when they know exactly how cuffs work, how doors latch, how attention divides. Sutton tried to double-lock the cuffs to prevent manipulation. Eric exploited the moment anyway.

“Hey, bro, I’m not—” Sutton began as Eric moved again.

“I just threw my life away,” Eric said suddenly, voice cracking like he was trying to manufacture regret as a strategy.

“Stop,” Sutton ordered. “What are you doing?”

Eric escalated. “Just—just choke me,” he blurted, words tumbling out. “Choke me.”

“Stop,” Sutton snapped, grappling to keep him contained.

In the chaos, Eric made a final, violent attempt to break free—lunging, twisting, trying to use his training against the officer. He reached toward Sutton’s duty weapon, fumbling for the holster release. The gun loosened, nearly knocked. Sutton fought him off, using the cuffs as the only thing that kept the situation from turning even worse.

“Adam-4, can you come back out here, please?” Sutton shouted, voice sharp with urgency.

Additional help arrived. The scuffle ended. Eric’s wrists were sore. Sutton’s breathing was heavy. Everyone’s sweat mixed with the summer heat and the sudden reality that one officer had just fought another officer for control of a weapon in front of children.

EMS attempted life-saving measures on DJ, but it was too late. He was pronounced deceased shortly after.

And that was the hinge: Eric’s badge didn’t protect him—it just taught him exactly how to resist until the truth was already screaming through the cracks.

At the station, each person was separated. Reports later stated that during transport Eric struck his head against the cage window bar multiple times, leaving a welt and damaging the vehicle. He was left alone in Anne Arundel County Interview Room 2B, handcuffed to the table because of his earlier outburst.

Meanwhile, detectives spoke with Latrice. Their first theory—maybe a fight escalated—collapsed as soon as she described DJ.

“DJ was more of a quiet person,” Latrice said. “Until he got to know you. But he was always mannered. He talked to adults. He was never disrespectful.”

“Would you say he was a sweet boy?” the detective asked.

“He was very sweet,” Latrice answered, voice breaking, “and always willing to help.”

They asked about the loft access space—what was usually kept there.

“Nothing,” Latrice said. “It was always screwed shut. I don’t like it. It freaked me out.”

Then Latrice described seeing DJ at the funeral home and noticing bruising that hadn’t been there before.

“On his nose,” she said. “That circular dark mark. His lip looked busted. His eyes were puffy and purple. It looked like he was in a fight. And my son doesn’t fight.”

DJ’s autopsy ruled the cause of death as asphyxiation, consistent with being manually restrained. The marks Latrice described suddenly had a context no mother should ever have to learn.

“I knew it,” Latrice whispered. “He was my baby.”

Three doors down, in a child-friendly “safe room,” a forensic interviewer named Miwa spoke gently with Evan, now described as seven in the file narrative, using drawings and simple questions, reminding him he wasn’t in trouble.

“What’s your name?” Miwa asked.

“Evan,” he said.

“How old are you?”

“Seven.”

Miwa eased him through talk about movies and interests. Then she asked about the last time he saw DJ.

“My mom wasn’t at the house,” Evan said. “Dad. And then DJ.”

He drew the staircase leading to the loft area.

“And who is this person?” Miwa asked, pointing.

“That was DJ,” Evan said.

“Where was Dad?”

“Right here,” Evan answered, placing him on the steps.

Miwa stayed calm, but each word tightened the story.

Latrice later told detectives what Evan had said to her outside the station, raw and unfiltered.

“He told me he saw daddy bringing DJ upstairs,” Latrice said. “I asked, ‘Was DJ sleeping?’ He said, ‘No, he wasn’t snoring.’ I asked, ‘Was he moving?’ He said, ‘No.’ And then he told me daddy made him and Tristan go in the bathroom and cover their eyes.”

That detail—small kids told to cover their eyes—painted a picture more chilling than any adult timeline ever could.

And that was the hinge: the youngest witnesses didn’t describe motives or theories—they described actions, and those actions didn’t leave room for innocence.

Back in Interview Room 2B, detectives prepared. The lead, Detective Lewis Adrien, had military experience too. The department knew that mattered. Shared background can build rapport, and rapport can loosen a story.

Adrien read Eric his Miranda rights, then spent nearly an hour talking about the Marines, about moments in service, letting Eric feel like he still had an identity he could be proud of. Eric laughed in places where laughter felt inappropriate, like he was trying to climb back into “one of the guys.”

Then Adrien brought him back.

“So you’re suspended?” Adrien asked.

“Yes, sir,” Eric said. He explained the protective orders, the firearms safe, the duty belt, the courthouse. It all sounded plausible. It all sounded like a man trying to make his life look like paperwork instead of collapse.

When the detectives began discussing the day DJ disappeared, Eric’s voice changed. His eyes drifted up to the ceiling. The details got oddly specific.

“I made a big picture of Gatorade,” he said, describing a blue drink like it mattered. He mentioned crushed pills. Then he said DJ came downstairs, asked something, went back upstairs.

Then Eric’s story pivoted into the alibi he wanted: that he planned to harm himself, but DJ did something first.

“I go upstairs,” Eric said, and described finding DJ in the bathroom tub. “I pulled him out. I laid him flat on his back.”

Adrien listened, letting Eric talk himself into corners.

Eric admitted he panicked when officers arrived. He admitted he lied when they asked if DJ was in the house. He admitted he moved DJ’s body upstairs and hid it in the crawl space behind the bedroom wall because he “knew they’d search” and he wanted to “be cool.”

And even in his own explanation, the truth leaked: he wasn’t describing a father calling for help—he was describing a cop managing a scene.

Adrien’s demeanor shifted. The friendly tone drained away.

“I know you were a Marine,” Adrien said. “What do they teach? Honor. Integrity.”

Eric nodded, wary.

“I’m not seeing that from you,” Adrien continued. “I know you want to tell me the truth, but you’re giving me a story.”

Eric tried to hold the line—until Adrien introduced the autopsy finding.

“The autopsy said he was strangled,” Adrien stated.

Eric’s face exploded into defensive rage. “Hell no. Hell to the no. No, no. DJ wasn’t strangled.”

Adrien didn’t argue the science. He pressed the gap. “Then what happened?”

Eric doubled down. “He was in that tub,” he insisted. “There’s no way I would—why would I—”

Adrien tried a different approach: empathy.

“This is something you’re going to live with every night,” Adrien said, voice low. “You can carry it, or you can tell me what really happened and get at least a piece of it off your chest.”

Eric kept refusing a direct confession. He understood the system. He tried to avoid the one sentence that would seal him.

But he couldn’t un-say the lies. He couldn’t un-hide the body. He couldn’t un-fight an officer for a weapon outside his home. And he couldn’t un-place two little boys in a bathroom with their eyes covered.

When Adrien left the room for a moment, Eric finally noticed the camera hidden in Interview Room 2B—placed where he hadn’t been looking. He stared at it like it had betrayed him personally.

But the betrayal had happened long before the camera.

Soon after, Eric Banks Jr. was booked into the Anne Arundel County Detention Center on charges including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and child abuse resulting in death. He also faced charges related to attempting to disarm a police officer.

At trial, Eric accepted a plea deal to second-degree murder and attempting to disarm an officer. On October 4, 2022, he was sentenced to 42 years in prison. If he serves the full term, he won’t be released until 2064.

The number 42 landed like a blunt object—big enough to sound like accountability, small enough to remind everyone that time doesn’t restore what was taken.

Back in the Millersville home, after the evidence teams cleared and the rooms went quiet, that little U.S. flag magnet was still on the refrigerator, holding the protective order to the grocery list like nothing had happened. It kept pinning paper in place, stubbornly domestic, stubbornly normal, even after the house stopped being a home and became a file.

And that was the hinge that stayed: the scariest part wasn’t that officers found a missing teen in a soldier’s bedroom wall—it was that the person who thought he could control the outcome was the same person sworn to protect others from exactly this.