Convicted of murder and sentenced to 66 years in prison, Demario Banks at age 17 ranked as the most violent juvenile offender in Vanderburgh County in the past year. His is one of the thicker files in Juvenile Court. It gives insight into how the system sometimes fails miserably — fails to protect the child or the community.

“DeMario was once a victim of society,” his aunt, Darsel Wiley, wrote to Circuit Judge Carl Heldt. “I feel just maybe he may not be in this situation if only I had, you had, she had, or somebody had just listened and worked with him,” she wrote, “giving him the proper things he needed — love, guidance, counseling, therapy and, yes, discipline.”

Like most youths who commit serious crimes, Banks was well-known to police and court officials long before his crimes became serious, records show. He first came to attention as a child in need of services. Twice in his childhood he was separated from his mother and placed in the care of his disabled grandmother. In school he was diagnosed as learning disabled and placed in special-education classes.

His criminal record started at age 10, for alleged theft. According to the court record, no formal action was taken. A year later, in 1994, he was arrested twice — once for alleged criminal mischief, once for alleged battery. The records show the prosecutor took no action. In the fall semester of the 1994-95 school year, Banks was expelled from his regular school and enrolled in the Christa McAuliffe Alternative Middle School.

The criminal charges grew more serious. In May and June of 1995 he was charged with possession of cocaine and criminal mischief. The court finally took action, finding him to be a delinquent youth.

Initially Banks was sentenced to house arrest. But after a month he was sent to Indiana Boys School, the state corrections facility for juveniles, because “he has not given information to the court about where he received drugs.” Juvenile Court Judge Robert Lensing has a strict policy that youths must tell him where they got their drugs, and if they don’t tell, he sends them to the Department of Correction.

The state ended up placing Banks at the Southwest Indiana Regional Youth Village in Vincennes, which is one of nine private institutions the Indiana DOC now contracts for services to young offenders. Banks stayed at Vincennes for about four months and was released to parole. Six months later he was arrested for criminal mischief, found to be delinquent and given a suspended sentence to Boys School. Three months later, in September 1996, records show Lensing tried a new approach — which led to almost bizarre consequences.

The judge placed Banks in the custody of his alleged father, Ronald Stott of Louisville, Ky. Stott had had no involvement in the youth’s life but agreed to Lensing’s urging that he take responsibility and try to help the child. When Banks had been in his home for a month, Stott informed Vanderburgh court officials that the youth had been suspended from school for having marijuana residue in his pocket, and also that he was a suspect in a theft. Less than two weeks later, Stott contacted the court again and said Banks’ stepmother had put him on a bus and returned him to Evansville.

“Stott refused to take him back into his home due to his behavior problems and his belief that DeMario might not be his child,” a probation officer wrote in the court files. Indeed, a DNA blood test later showed that Stott was not Banks’ father. “The mother has no other insight who the father might be,” the probation officer wrote.

Banks went back to living with his grandmother. Within the next four months he had been charged with five offenses — leaving the scene of an accident, resisting arrest, operating a motor vehicle without a license, possession of marijuana, and dealing in a look-a-like substance. Court records say he also discovered then that his girlfriend was pregnant with his child.

This time, Lensing placed Banks at the Evansville Rescue Mission’s Youth Care Center. Records show the staff there took a special interest in him and seemed to have an impact. He earned the center’s “Superstar of the Week” award. The center’s behavior technician, Chuck Harper, and his dad, Ray Harper, took Banks on a crappie fishing trip to Kentucky Lake. It meant so much to the 15-year-old special-education student that he wrote a note to Lensing to tell him about it.

He was participating in the YMCA’s Y-cap program for at-risk youth and was meeting regularly with an adult mentor. He and his mother were going to counseling. The Youth Care Center’s staff said he had a good attitude and was working on his reading skills.

But when he left the center the progress ended.

He attended Henry Reis Educational Center’s alternative high school, but court records show the school cut his attendance time from two half-days a week to just one hour on Fridays “because of his defiant behavior and being very disrespectful to the teachers and female students.” There were more arrests, including one for alleged carjacking. It ended on Dec. 21, 1999. when Banks, at age 16, was charged with the drug-related murder of 20-year-old Jakiya McKnight. Banks’ alleged accomplice, James E. Morris, 22, was his mother’s live-in boyfriend. Both defendants testified that the other shot and killed McKnight while robbing him of drugs and money at his home.

A jury in Vanderburgh Circuit Court on July 29 determined that Banks was the triggerman and found him guilty of felony murder, murder and robbery. Heldt sentenced him to 60 years in prison. Later another six years was added for the carjacking. Morris in August pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Cheryl McKnight-Whitfield, the victim’s mother, read a prepared statement after Banks’ trial.

“Nobody wins here,” she said. “This boy’s life is destroyed and so is mine.”