'Mom' kills her two daughters (9 and 11), keeps bodies in freezer

[A Midnight Dreary]

A mother told police that child-sized human remains uncovered in her basement freezer were those of her two adopted daughters, and police believe that she is responsible for their deaths.

Police were investigating an abuse complaint Saturday when they discovered the remains encased in ice.

The mother told investigators that they had been in her southern Maryland home for at least seven months, and police said they are considering the case a homicide.

"We have reason to believe that's the two children in the freezer," Lt. Bobby Jones of Calvert County Sheriff's Office said Monday. "We believe that the mother, who adopted the two children, is responsible for it."

Autopsies would need to be completed before they know for sure that the remains are of the girls, who would be 9 and 11.

Deputies made the gruesome discovery in the home in Lusby, about 50 miles southeast of Washington. They were there with a search warrant to investigate the treatment of a girl who had run away and "showed signs of extreme abuse and neglect," the sheriff's department said.

The girl's mother, 43-year-old Renee Bowman, has been arrested, and a judge has ordered her held without bail.

She is charged with first-degree child abuse in the beating of the runaway 7-year-old, who was found wandering in the neighborhood wearing only a blood- and feces-soaked T-shirt.

The girl escaped from a locked bedroom by jumping out a second-story window, and Bowman admitted beating her with a "hard-heeled shoe," officials said.

Bowman told detectives that she brought the remains in the freezer with her to Lusby when she moved from Rockville, about 60 miles away, in February. Montgomery County Police are investigating whether the deaths took place in Rockville. Bowman has not been charged in the older girls' deaths.

It is not clear how the children might have died. The medical examiner's office in Baltimore was to examine the freezer and its contents. It was unclear how long it would take for autopsies to be completed.

Authorities said Bowman adopted three children from the District of Columbia. Officials said the older girls' whereabouts are unknown. Montgomery County Police said detectives are trying to pin down when the older girls were last seen alive, as well as where the family was living and when.

According to charging documents drawn up before the remains were discovered, the 7-year-old went door-to-door looking for help after jumping from the window Friday night. A neighbor gave her clothes and called 911.

The girl had open sores and lesions on her buttocks and lower thighs, marks on her neck made by a cord, rope or other item and bruises on her hands and lips. She told investigators her mother caused the injuries and that she jumped out the window to "free herself from her mother's relentless beatings," according to the documents. She is being cared for by child protective services.

No one was home when authorities arrived at the modest single-story house in the secluded, heavily wooded subdivision with narrow gravel roads. Bowman showed up later at the sheriff's office and said she had locked her daughter in the girl's bedroom while she went to D.C.

Bowman told the deputy who interviewed her about the 7-year-old's abuse "that she knew what she did was wrong," according to the charging documents. "She advised [Bowman] was out of control and needed help."

Sheriff Mike Evans said the surviving girl was never enrolled in Calvert County Schools. He said that neighbors had seen her and that no trouble had ever been reported at the house. Bowman's only contact with the sheriff's department since she arrived was a traffic stop.

No attorney had entered an appearance on Bowman's behalf Monday afternoon. Dorothy Hodge, deputy district public defender for Calvert County, said an attorney from the office would interview Bowman to determine whether she wanted to be represented.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/29/kids.bodies.freezer.ap/index.html

RIP little girls

Burn in Hell, Bowman  

[wannabe07]

what a disgusting piece of shit. i swear there has to be a special hell for child abusers/killers. its friggin hard where i live to adopt, but this fucked up chick got 3??

RIP BABIES, DIE "mommy"

[Ash_Lee]

What a piece of shit.

Brave little girl.  I hope she finds a loving home.

[Angelus Mortis]

The bitch adopted???? :2angry: I think some women get blinded by the fact they can't have kids & go crazy trying to adopt, only when they get them it isn't what they had imagined in their minds it would be. I have a family member like this. She was really crazy wanting a kid but now they are older she has total lack of interest & the responsibility falls on other family members & her husband for their care.  She just wants to do what she wants to do & the kids don't allow you to do this.

It's that or she was one of those that wanted the checks.

Fuck you Renee Bowman....& RIP little ones, thank God one got away, hopefully she will be placed in a good home.

[Nomad]

The girl that survived is gonna be emotionally messed up for awhile.  Hopefully a good family will take her and she'll be able to get through this.

[rmbd0903]

http://www.nbc4.com/news/17670068/detail.html

Police ID Girls Found in MD Freezer

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The bodies of two girls found in a freezer in Calvert County on Sept. 27 have been identified as Renee Bowman's two unaccounted for adopted daughters, according to Montgomery County investigators.

The girls are tentatively identified as 9-year-old Jasmine Nicole Bowman and 11-year-old Minnet C. Bowman.

Bowman, 43, is facing child abuse charges after her adopted daughter ran away from home, which led to the discovery of two children's remains in a freezer during a search of Bowman's rented Lusby home.


The identification was made by a family friend who was shown a picture of Minnet and Jasmine. Because a family friend made the identifications, police said it is not official. However, there is no expectation that the identifications will change after the Medical Examiner’s Office completes its testing, police said.

Detectives are asking anyone who had contact with either or both of the girls in Montgomery County to call them at 240-773-5070.

Last Tuesday, investigators searched the Montgomery County home where they believe the two children may have died. Cadaver dogs were taken to the home on Vandalia Court in Aspen Hill. Investigators examined a section of the back yard where someone appeared to have been digging, but did not find anything.

"(The dogs) gave us kind of a mixed signal, so quite frankly, we thought, well, better safe than sorry," Capt. Patty Walker said. "Let's make sure that we close all the loops, and so that's why we dug into the ground, but we didn't find anything, and that's good news."

A neighbor helped a 7-year-old girl after she escaped her home on Buckskin Trail, according to the Calvert County Sheriff's Office. The girl had open and infected sores and lesions, wounds on her feet and knees, and ligature marks and scarring on her neck.

During Bowman's interview with police, she said she beat her daughter on several occasions with a white flip-flop with a hard heel, according to the police report. She told police that she beat her daughter because she was angry about her daughter's mental capacity and because she was stressed out, according to the report.

Police said they believe the remains in the freezer are those of the two girls, ages 9 and 11, who, like the 7-year-old girl, were adopted by Bowman.

Bowman adopted three girls from the District of Columbia. She adopted the oldest girl in July 2001. Three years later, she adopted a girl who would now be 9 and her 7-year-old sister, D.C. officials said at a news conference Monday in Washington.

Montgomery County police joined the investigation because the children may have died in that jurisdiction. Bowman told police the remains had been in the freezer since before she moved to Lusby from Rockville in February 2008. Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans said Bowman indicated that the girls had been dead for more than a year.

Neighbors in Aspen Hill said Bowman lived there for just more than a year. They said they never saw any children at the home.

Bowman has not been charged in connection with the deaths of the children.

[neenerneener]

wow.  what a completely disgusting woman.  i hope she burns in hell.

[browneyes106]

This is a horrible story. I hope that woman gets what's coming to her.

[yellowCake1]

What a fucking sick ass Bitch. You deserve every last thing coming to you. I hope a real Butch Dike uses a red hot Iron to brand your disgusting twat, while you and Said twat rot in prison.

Why 7 months? How could a 9 and 11 years old go unnoticed for so long?

I must be a weirdo cos all I kept seeing was this....

Ages 9 and 11
She Dialed 911

R.I.P little Girls. I hope that 7 year old knows just how brave she really is

[Ash_Lee]

[quote author=yellowCake1 link=topic=16486.msg1036524#msg1036524 date=1223721536]
What a fucking sick ass Bitch. You deserve every last thing coming to you. I hope a real Butch Dike uses a red hot Iron to brand your disgusting twat, while you and Said twat rot in prison.

Why 7 months? How could a 9 and 11 years old go unnoticed for so long?

I must be a weirdo cos all I kept seeing was this....

Ages 9 and 11
She Dialed 911

R.I.P little Girls. I hope that 7 year old knows just how brave she really is
[/quote]
Maybe I'm wrong, but on the local news they said the girls would now be 9 and 11.  This woman said they have been in the freezer since she moved in.  The news also said it could have been anywhere from months to years that the girls have been dead. 

[yellowCake1]

[quote author=Ash_Lee link=topic=16486.msg1036695#msg1036695 date=1223747629]
Maybe I'm wrong, but on the local news they said the girls would now be 9 and 11.  This woman said they have been in the freezer since she moved in.  The news also said it could have been anywhere from months to years that the girls have been dead. 
[/quote]

Any updates on when the examiners office can perform the autopsy?

[Ash_Lee]

[quote author=yellowCake1 link=topic=16486.msg1037436#msg1037436 date=1223829341]
Any updates on when the examiners office can perform the autopsy?
[/quote]
Oh no. I haven't been paying too much attention.  The whole thing makes me really sad.  I'll see if I can find anything in the Post about it.

[yellowCake1]

[quote author=Ash_Lee link=topic=16486.msg1037438#msg1037438 date=1223829421]
Oh no. I haven't been paying too much attention.  The whole thing makes me really sad.  I'll see if I can find anything in the Post about it.
[/quote]

Oops. I meant to hit reply not quote. I'm asking everybody.

I really want to know how long  they were in the freezer and how she did it. They said it could be longer than 7 months. It just sucks that no one noticed 2 missing girls for that long
[quote author=shansen1984 link=topic=16486.msg1037443#msg1037443 date=1223830086]
That would be horrible to see this if you were the biological parents (and found/figured out what happened)...
[/quote]
OMG could you imagine how horrible. Or if a mother somewhere far away suddenly had this gut wrenching feeling that something horrible had happened to the children she gave away :-(

[yellowCake1]

[quote author=shansen1984 link=topic=16486.msg1037445#msg1037445 date=1223830372]
She probably isolated them...seems like that as the 7 year old has to escape through a window.

She couldn't let her children with black and blue bruising all over them out in public....she was thinking of her own protection I'm sure.

Plus, to adopt 3 girls (no boys) and abuse them all seems strange. She must have some twisted and deep rooted problem.
[/quote]

No shit. I bet if you did some research you probably find out that her parents (More likely her mother since she adopted all girls) did some fucked up things to her as a child.

Still no fucking excuse though

[Ash_Lee]

[quote author=yellowCake1 link=topic=16486.msg1037444#msg1037444 date=1223830109]
Oops. I meant to hit reply not quote. I'm asking everybody.

I really want to know how long  they were in the freezer and how she did it. They said it could be longer than 7 months. It just sucks that no one noticed 2 missing girls for that long OMG could you imagine how horrible. Or if a mother somewhere far away suddenly had this gut wrenching feeling that something horrible had happened to the children she gave away :-(
[/quote]

The problem there is that she moved.  And when she moved, the girls were already dead by her own admission.  So none of her neighbors knew of the two girls.

[Cherrypie]

Disgusting!!! What a monster. How people could hurt a child is beyond me. 

RIP beautiful babies

[Mswickidkittie]

:2angry: Sorry excuse for a human..I hope she burns in hell sick bitch!!!!

I hope that little girl is able to find a good loving home..

RIP Sweet babies

[dogday]

Md. mom convicted of killing kids found in freezer

By SARAH KARUSH
The Associated Press
Monday, February 22, 2010; 7:42 PM

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- A Maryland woman who adopted three children despite a troubled past was convicted Monday of murdering two of the girls, whose bodies were stored in a freezer as the woman continued collecting payments meant to help with their care.

Renee Bowman, 44, kept the bodies of the two young girls on ice for months while she continued to collect subsidies paid to parents who adopt special-needs children in the District of Columbia, receiving a total of about $150,000 since adopting the girls.

The bodies were found after the third daughter escaped by jumping out a window. The girl, now 9 and living with new foster parents, testified in the murder trial last week about the abuse she and her sisters endured - being beaten with a baseball bat and shoes and choked until they lost consciousness.

The girl's older sisters, Minnet and Jasmine Bowman, were both younger than 10 when they died, though authorities were never able to determine exactly when the murders occurred. Nobody knew they were missing, and there are no records the children were ever enrolled in school. Prosecutors said Bowman killed them while the family was living in Rockville and took the freezer with her when the family moved first to Charles County and later to Lusby, in Calvert County.

Bowman showed no emotion as she listened to the verdict - guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree child abuse. Jurors deliberated for about two hours.

Prosecutors said they would ask for life in prison without the possibility of parole when Bowman is sentenced March 22. Bowman's attorneys did not immediately return a call seeking comment. She has already been sentenced to 25 years in prison in Calvert County for abusing the surviving girl.

Afterward, jurors said the main issue was whether to convict her of first- or second-degree murder. Bowman's lawyer had argued the killings weren't premeditated.

"I am not going to insult your intelligence and say to you that she did not hurt those children, that she did not abuse those children," public defender Alan Drew told the jury. "Renee Bowman is not guilty of first-degree premeditated murder."

However, prosecutors argued the killings were deliberate, and Bowman's former cellmate testified that Bowman confided to her that she smothered them.

"She made a decision to go down, take a pillow, and smother these children," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy said in his closing arguments.

During her testimony, the surviving girl clutched a Valentine's Day teddy bear as she told the jury about the abuse she suffered at the hands of the woman she called her "ex-mother"

She said she and her sisters were kept in a locked room in their Rockville home.

"There was a bucket where we went to the bathroom because we weren't allowed out of the room," she said.

McCarthy asked the girl where she had been beaten the worst. Asked to demonstrate on the bear, she pointed to its backside and its crotch.

The girl often waved happily at her foster mother during the testimony and talked about the books she likes to read. That contrasted sharply to a photo McCarthy showed that was taken in the hospital after she was found. In the photo, she stares with frightened eyes and part of her lip is missing - a result of the abuse, authorities say.

Bowman was able to adopt the children despite being convicted of threatening a 72-year-old man over damage to her car. She also had filed for bankruptcy, even though D.C. officials said financial stability is a requirement for adoption.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/22/AR2010022202466.html

RIP Minnet and Jasmine

[InTheNightWonderer]

I hope that she is tortured in prison. I find this all to be so sad. I can't believe they don't check up atleast every 6 month on these special needs children that people are payed to adopt. It makes me wonder what all these poor girls went through. I hope they are at peace now,

[lulupop]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Renee-Bowman-Murdered-Two-Adopted-Daughters-And-Stored-Bodies-In-Freezer-In-Maryland-USA/Article/201003415580367?lpos=World_News_News_Your_Way_Regi on_2&lid=NewsYourWay_ARTICLE_15580367_Renee_Bo wman_Murdered_Two_Adopted_Daughters_And_Stored_Bod ies_In_Freezer_In_Maryland%2C_USA

A woman who tortured and killed two of her adopted daughters and stored their bodies in the family freezer has been jailed for life by a judge in the United States.


Renee Bowman beat her daughters with a baseball bat and choked them repeatedly


Renee Bowman told the court in Maryland: "I am very sorry for the abuse of those girls. It haunts me. It haunts me every day."

Handing her the maximum punishment possible, judge Michael Algeo said: "You sentenced these two young innocent children in the dawn of their lives to a death chamber, and for you that option is not available."

The bodies of Minnet, who would now be 12, and Jasmine, who would now be 11, were discovered in a locked freezer in the family's home in Maryland in September 2008.

Authorities searched the house after a third sister escaped and was found wandering the neighbourhood.

Prosecutors said Bowman was a sadist who derived pleasure from her children's misery as she kept them in a locked room with a bucket for a toilet.

All three girls had suffered severe injuries from repeated beatings and none ever went to school.

The surviving girl, now aged nine, dazzled court as she testified with a teddy bear in her arms.

She said Bowman beat them with a shoe and a baseball bat and repeatedly choked them until they lost consciousness.


You sentenced these two young innocent children in the dawn of their lives to a death chamber, and for you that option is not available.

Judge Michael Algeo, speaking at sentencing
The court was read an email Bowman sent to a friend in which she gleefully compared herself to the death row warden in the movie The Green Mile.

She said she shouted "Dead man walking," when any of the girls was about to be punished. "They hate it. Hahaha," Bowman wrote.

Investigators believe Bowman killed the girls months before they were found, while the family was living 60 miles away, and took the freezer with her when she moved home.

Bowman's lawyers say she suffered a difficult childhood, having been given up by her schizophrenic mother.

She was sentenced to the maximum penalty under Maryland law - two consecutive life sentences for the killings plus 75 years in prison for three counts of first-degree child abuse.

The judge told her: "You come across as such a nice, soft-spoken person. I can only conclude that the Renee Bowman I see before me is a different Renee Bowman from the one who lived in that house."

State attorney John McCarthy said the surviving daughter faces an uncertain future at the centre of a complex adoption case.

"God knows she's going to have lifelong difficulties dealing with the emotional, as well as the physical, scars from these crimes."