Kids' bodies kept in freezer, mom tells police

[CptSternn]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/29/...ins/index.html

(CNN) -- A Maryland woman told investigators that human remains found inside a freezer in the basement of her home are the bodies of two of her three adopted daughters, police said Monday.

Renee Bowman, 43, said the bodies of her daughters, born in 1997 and 1999, had been in the freezer since February, said Lt. Bobby Jones of the Calvert County Sheriff's Office.

In February, she moved to Lusby, in Calvert County, from Rockville, in Montgomery County, Jones added.

An autopsy is slated for Tuesday. Any decisions on charges would be made by the Montgomery County state's attorney's office, Jones said.

Bowman adopted the children in 2004, police said.

The bodies were found Saturday, when the sheriff's office searched Bowman's home after receiving a report that her third adopted daughter, age 7, had been found alone outside and showed signs of abuse and neglect.

The girl had jumped from a second-story window after being left unattended in the house, locked in her bedroom, police said in a news release. She was taken to Children's Hospital in Calvert County.

After learning that her daughter was in police custody, Bowman admitted having beaten the girl with a "hard-heeled shoe," police said. Bowman was charged with first-degree child abuse and held without bond at the Calvert County Detention Center.

As sheriff's deputies searched for evidence of abuse, they found the the human remains inside a freezer in the basement, police said.

The state medical examiner's office ordered the freezer taken to Baltimore so the evidence could be removed. "At this time investigators are unsure whose remains or how many remains are contained in the freezer," police said.

[xParadigmx]

Holy shit dude. Brave little girl though - to jump from the second story like that.

[Opteron_Man]

I hope the bitch never sees the light of day.

[Tam Li Hua]

Holy crap! x_x;;;

Sometimes, I just have to wonder what drives people to doing such insane, horrible things..

[Minyaliel]

Unfortunetely, this isn´t the first time I´ve heard of such a thing. What a terrible tragedy.

[NightmareInShiningArmour]

I hate child abuse.

[PortraitOfSanity]

I'm sure there's an innocent explanation. Maybe she just gets hungry for the flesh of children at 2 AM after a long night of drinking and beating her brat daughter with high heeled shoes. It's not easy being an alcoholic child beating mother, have some sympathy!

[drewsilla]

Holy shit. Poor kids, to think what they had to go through before ending up next to the popsicles. Why was not anyone looking for these kids before now?!?

[onyxprop]

My faith in God diminishes more each day when i read that sick shit.

God?

free will?

yeah right.

[noveleigh]

I don't want to believe I just read that. The fact that anyone could do something as demented as what this woman did to these children is unimaginable. I'm glad at least one of the children was able to escape this situation, though the poor thing is going to be plagued by the memories of what happened to her for the rest of her life.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Originally Posted by drewsilla

Holy shit. Poor kids, to think what they had to go through before ending up next to the popsicles. Why was not anyone looking for these kids before now?!?

Maybe she felt bad and put them in the freezer so they could have ice cream in the afterlife. >.<
I fail to understand.

[noveleigh]

I had at first suspected intended cannibalism in this woman's part, why else would you stick human remains in a freezer. I found an update of the story, however, that made me retract that thought and admit to myself that there's no cannibalism involved (at least it doesn't seem like it), and that the woman is just completely insane.

http://www.wbaltv.com/cnn-news/17597539/detail.html

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Two children were likely dead since at least last fall and their bodies moved several times to different homes before their remains were found in a basement freezer in their mother's house in southern Maryland, authorities said Wednesday.

Renee Bowman is jailed and suspected of killing and freezing her two adopted daughters - who would be 9 and 11 - and abusing a third. Based on information she has given, investigators are working on the premise that the girls were killed when the family lived in Rockville, said Lt. Paul Starks of the Montgomery County police. Bowman's former Rockville landlord has told police the family moved in November, Starks said.

Detectives are trying to figure out where the family lived and when "and, more importantly, when and who last saw these girls alive," Starks said.

Calvert County deputies on Saturday found the remains of the girls encased in freezer ice at Bowman's home in Lusby, about 60 miles southeast of Rockville. They searched the house after arresting Bowman, 43, on a child abuse charge in the beating of her youngest daughter, who is 7.

Dr. David Fowler, Maryland's chief medical examiner, said preliminary autopsies had been conducted on the remains but that laboratory results were not back yet. He said he was prohibited by law from discussing the results because the case remains under investigation. He did not release a cause of death.

Bowman has told investigators that the remains were those of her daughters, but authorities were awaiting autopsy results to confirm their identities.

Bowman had a brush with the law at least once before.

Nine years ago, attorney Deidra McEachern defended Bowman in a case in which she was convicted of threatening a 72-year-old man over damage to her car. She recalled that Bowman stable with a professional demeanor.

She was shocked to learn her former client was accused of killing her children.

"I didn't even recognize her," McEachern said. "The person on TV, she looks deranged."

Bowman, who at the time was working as an appointment scheduler at a surgery center in the District of Columbia, was accused of threatening the man and demanding $900 for repairs to her car. She told the man she was going to "get the drug boys around the corner, break into his house and assault him," according to a police officer's affidavit.

McEachern said she thought Bowman's denials were believable and that Bowman's boss testified she had been at work at the time it happened. However, a judge in 1999 found Bowman guilty of a misdemeanor and gave her a 180-day suspended sentence and one year probation.

Bowman was in the process of adopting a child and was worried a conviction would be an obstacle, McEachern said.

In fact, the conviction did not stand in the way, nor did bankruptcy. Bowman adopted her oldest daughter in 2001 and the younger sisters in 2004 from the District of Columbia, after serving as their foster mother.

Financial stability is a requirement for becoming a foster parent and for adopting, said Roque Gerald, interim director of the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency. The case has prompted advocates to question how D.C. officials evaluate potential parents.

Lt. Bobby Jones of the Calvert County Sheriff's Office said investigators are still trying to determine when Bowman's boyfriend, Joe Dickerson lived at the Lusby home, for how long and what he might know about the children. They say he is cooperating.

School officials in Montgomery and Calvert counties and other districts in the area said they have no record of the girls ever being enrolled for classes.

[Alain]

There are surprisingly heaps of mistreatments of children like this. I remembered instantly that a while ago there was a young girl from a large family of fostered children, quite young, who was punished for various acts by being beaten and denied food. She died on the median strip outside her home, of starvation. Her foster mother told neighbours that she was simply having a tantrum.

I couldn't find any reports of it in a basic google, but I did stumble across two more accounts of three similar acts of neglect and abuse, in about three minutes:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...98-601,00.html

Links to a story about a child who starved to death in their bed, and mentions another boy who died of cruelty.

http://news.theage.com.au/national/f...0814-3vgy.html

About a 12 year old girl, injured, in agony, who died in her own backyard

*

There are countless other acts of cruelty towards children in Australia, and a lot of them are less visible. I know personally someone who has been legally blind for some time. Her mother refuses to help her pick out clothing, or perform basic tasks.

Another family I know of had two daughters. Their father rarely fed them properly, and at the ages of 16 and 14 respectively the girls left home to live on the streets and seek government assistance. It's ludicrous to think that they were the lucky ones, but all these girls have now found housing and are getting on with their lives.

Many more don't, or can't get out. Feck, this world is a mess!

[Opteron_Man]

I would hate to be the cop who opened
the door on that freezer. It is allmost beyond belief.
At least one kid survived. Thats the one good thing.

[Albert Mond]

Originally Posted by Minyaliel

Unfortunetely, this isn´t the first time I´ve heard of such a thing. What a terrible tragedy.

*Cough*Holocaust*Cough*

[~~Auriel~~]

OK...So who let this woman adopt children in the first place?!?!?

[Fae-wolf]

oh my gosh....

That is sick and terrible. I hope the seven year old is okay...but wow...I'm very speechless right now.

I hope the woman gets punished severely

[Opteron_Man]

Originally Posted by Fae-wolf

oh my gosh....

That is sick and terrible. I hope the seven year old is okay...but wow...I'm very speechless right now.

I hope the woman gets punished severely

I can never understand what does though these peoples minds.
What makes them snap and do such things?
I hope she spends the rest of her life in a chilly prison cell.

[Albert Mond]

Originally Posted by ~~Auriel~~

OK...So who let this woman adopt children in the first place?!?!?

Originally Posted by Opteron_Man

Other women.

Badoom tish!