Broken Arrow Resident Sentenced For Desecrating A Human Corpse

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Lauren Ann Jackson, age 35, of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 23 months in prison for burning the body of a murder victim.

The charges arose from investigations by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On June 8, 2023, Jackson pleaded guilty in federal district court to one count of Desecration of a Human Corpse in Indian Country.  According to investigators, between November 15 and 16 of 2021, Jackson assisted in burning the body of a victim murdered by Dayan Banks hours before.  On January 29, 2024, Banks was convicted by a jury in state district court of one count of Murder in the First Degree—Deliberate Intent, and one count of Desecration of a Human Corpse.  Jackson was prosecuted in federal court because she is a member of federally recognized Indian tribe and the crime occurred in Okmulgee County, within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable Ronald A. White, Chief Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing.  Jackson will remain in custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin D. Traster represented the United States.