Dayan Banks murdered his estranged wife, Tamera Lynn Ellison Banks, and burned the body with the help of his mistress, Lauren Ann Jackson, authorities said. (Mug shot: Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation)
Jurors in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, convicted a husband on Monday of murdering his estranged wife, and with the help of his mistress, burning the body, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation announced on Wednesday.
They recommended that the defendant, Dayan Banks, 47, serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus seven years for a desecration charge.
Authorities said that Banks murdered his wife Tamera Lynn Ellison Banks, 43, on Nov. 15, 2021, the day before a scheduled hearing regarding the protective order she placed against him. The mistress, Lauren Ann Jackson, 35, is charged in federal court with desecration of a human corpse in Indian country.
In a plea agreement viewed by Law&Crime, she admitted to helping burn Tamera’s body at a home at. N. 253rd Road in the city of Okmulgee.
“Once there, the defendant assisted in and oversaw the burning of the body of T.B., a non-Indian whom D.B. had murdered earlier in the day on November 15, 2021,” authorities wrote. “The body of T.B. was burned in a metal horse trough, and the defendant used a shovel to stoke the fire and assist in the disposal of the remains of T.B.”
She has yet to be sentenced in the matter.
According to state documents, Tamera Banks had called authorities on her husband on Oct. 23, 2021. A deputy responded, meeting her at her neighbor’s home.
“I could see that Tamera Banks was very upset and scared,” the affiant wrote.
She said that she had run to the neighbor’s home after her husband threatened her with a gun and physical violence, according to documents. Tamera said Dayan pointed a loaded gun at her.
She soon got a protective order against him, moved in with her aunt in Texas, and put her home up for sale, but returned to Haskell, Oklahoma, to pick up more possessions, her horses, and to attend the Nov. 16, 2021, protective order hearing.
