Via the Post, Banita Jacks pleaded not guilty this morning to first-degree murder charges in the deaths of her four daughters. A trial date has been set for Dec. 1, and her attorneys have 15 days to inform Judge Frederick Weisberg if they intend to go forward with an insanity defense. Jacks has also been charged with failing to provide the girls with adequate nutrition and medical attention. The decomposed bodies of the four girls, who had been variously beaten, strangled and stabbed, were discovered in a Southeast rowhouse in January. Authorities now believe they had been dead for six months before they were found.