The 'Re-birthing' Death of Candace Newmaker

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I'm gonna go ahead & say that this is a very, VERY looong read, but it covers all the details of the case and than some. Truly heartbreaking. I've also included the complete transcript of what was said during the video tape recording of Candace's fatal therapy session in post with her pictures.

Her Name was Candace

Promises broken, a killing in therapy, a life erased
By: Carla Crowder & Peggy Lowe
(Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writers)

Her name was Candace, a 10-year-old girl with long brown hair, a shy smile and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose.

She began life in a North Carolina backwater with a teen mom, a violent dad, and a birth certificate that said Candace Tiara Elmore. But no one is supposed to know about that.

When she was 5, she was plucked away by social services and given to a well-to-do nurse who wanted a child to love.

A new birth certificate, a new name: Candace Elizabeth Newmaker, born in the city of Durham, N.C., to a mother named Jeane.

Candace embraced the good times her new life brought. But there was trouble behind the doors of Jeane Newmaker's home.

Jeane tried everything for Candace — doctors, counselors, drugs. Finally, in April, she brought Candace west to Evergreen for two weeks of a controversial psychotherapy called rebirthing.

Therapists curled Candace into the fetal position inside a flannel sheet and pushed against her from all sides.

She gasped for air. She begged them to stop. She cried out that she was dying. They said go ahead.

And then she did.

Now her mother, two unlicensed therapists and their two assistants face criminal charges, the evidence a videotape they made of Candace's final, tortured hour.

"She didn't have a chance from the moment she was born until the moment she died," said Sheriff Barbara Pickens of Lincoln County, N.C.

Candace was promised by her mama she wouldn't be taken from her. She was promised a better life with her adoptive mother. She was promised she'd be able to breathe. She was promised she'd be safe and happy after she was reborn.

All promises broken.

A life erased.

This is the story of that life, Candace's story.

DURHAM, N.C. — Candace Tiara Elmore became Candace Elizabeth Newmaker in North Carolina's record books on June 14, 1996. The state issued her a fresh birth certificate with Jeane as her mother, Durham as her birthplace. Jeane rechristened her daughter with her own middle name, establishing a new family tie.

All of a sudden, there was a little brown-haired girl at Jeane Newmaker's big home on Georgia Avenue.

The records of Candace's adoption, which took more than a year to be finalized, are tightly sealed. North Carolina has one of the nation's strictest adoption secrecy laws, and no one from social services will talk about Candace's life.

The adoption was filed in Orange County, adjacent to Jeane's home county of Durham, three hours northeast of Candace's birthplace in Lincolnton.

Jeane took two months off work when Candace came to live with her. By all accounts, she became a supermom. Her tireless devotion to Candace impressed the parents of children in Candace's new circle of friends.

"There was nothing that child did not have," said neighbor Margaret Addison. "There was nothing that child did not do."

Candace's new teachers at Easley Elementary found this quirky, bright little girl easy to love.

Jeane drove Candace past neighborhood schools to Easley, one of the top public schools in the county. She paid extra for the privilege.

Candace was wary and withdrawn in her first days there. She'd snap at children in before-and after-school care. Don't look at me. Don't talk to me. Leave me alone, she told them.

Ray Alban taught Candace in first grade, not long after the adoption.

On the first day of school, he heard a scared voice outside. It was Candace. She didn't want to come inside his classroom.

"There's a boy in there, and I don't like boys," Candace was saying.

Then he heard Jeane: "That's not a boy. That's a man, and he's your teacher."

Candace wasn't his most gifted student, but Alban quickly became fond of her. "She wasn't a behavior problem at all," he said. He credits Jeane for her progress, citing her involvement with Candace, and with the school.

Smaller children, special education students and disabled kids in wheelchairs drew Candace's attention. "Candace would want to wheel them around," Alban said.

Candace also liked horses. She drew them, read books about them. Jeane enrolled her in equestrian classes in second grade. Family snapshots show her comfortably in the saddle, holding braided reins, her ponytail dangling from beneath her riding helmet.

Candace loved animals, and Jeane welcomed any stray dogs or cats.

To neighbors and school acquaintances, Candace was growing more secure. She had a base of best girlfriends, and they went skating together and giggled at slumber parties.

Second-grade teacher Janet Pinkerton remembers Candace's book bag. It was loaded with kid paraphernalia. Candace was handy at crafts, stringing together little beaded pins.

Pinkerton still has one.

Once, when Candace was student of the week, she designed a poster about her life. In the spot for family she wrote about Chelsea and Michael, the little sister and brother left behind.

Her classmates taunted her. She was adopted. She had no sister and brother. Candace insisted that she did, and she brought in their pictures to prove it.

After Candace moved on to third grade, she'd drift by Pinkerton's room for hugs.

"It made me feel special," she said. "I really loved her."

Jeane enrolled Candace in gymnastics, swimming and ballet, and took her on vacations.

They attended the local Catholic church, Immaculate Conception. Candace was baptized and made her First Holy Communion last year. She was part of "faith formations," kids who take catechism classes every Sunday morning.

Candace could sometimes be mischievous, like most kids, said her catechism teacher, Wade Marlett. She wasn't real affectionate, he thought, but most kids her age aren't.

The little girl seemed resilient.

"She was not frightened, squashed," Marlett said. "She was a real person."

The child whose early years had been so disrupted had seemingly found her place in Jeane's stable Durham neighborhood. She was always zipping around on her pink bicycle, or walking her dogs. Neighbors remarked on how responsible and well-mannered she seemed.

Candace watched each morning as Bill Skubish, who lived across the street, drove his motorized wheelchair to the bottom of his driveway to retrieve his newspaper.

When Skubish fell and was hospitalized, Candace made him a get-well card on her computer: "For Mr. Bill Skubish from Candace Newmaker."

Candace loved playing dress-up with Victoria, a little girl who often visited her great-grandmother, another across-the-street neighbor.

Victoria was three years younger than Candace, who tutored her in reading and math. Margaret Addison, another neighbor and Victoria's grandmother, credits Candace for Victoria's advanced reading skills.

But pink bikes, cool toys and new friends couldn't erase memories of a painful past, of her young mother long gone, of a brother and sister. Candace confided all this one day to Victoria.

"She said, 'You're lucky, you're with your family,"' Addison said, recalling the conversation between the two girls. "She said, 'Your mama loves you."'

Victoria didn't understand, so Candace explained that she was adopted. What's that, Victoria asked.

"That means Jeane is my mom now because she wanted me, I came from my new mama's heart," Candace said.

See, Candace explained, "Sometimes, mamas don't want their children."

Inside the home on Georgia Avenue, Jeane was having a difficult time with the little girl who so charmed neighbors.

She confided in friends about her struggles.

"Jeane adopted Candace when others might not have," said the Rev. David McBriar, pastor of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Durham, where Jeane and Candace were parishioners.

"She thought she could help the child," McBriar said. "She thought she could provide a stable home for Candace."

McBriar knew Candace was troubled. He associated her problems with a bruised family background, with her experiences with social services.

Jeane was in her early 40s when she got Candace, and McBriar said she found her new daughter "a handful."

"There evidently was something behind closed doors that we didn't know about," Margaret Addison said. "She seemed like a normal child."

Jeane turned to professional help.

She enrolled Candace with a Duke pediatrician who was studying children with attention-deficit disorder.

"This kid had been through a lot," Dr. Ave Lachiewicz said. "I don't think she was a normal, happy kid. She could smile and be real cute, then she could be mean.

"It was like having the average 18-year-old adolescent in your house."

Lachiewicz met with Candace's teacher, either second or third grade as best she remembers. She learned that Candace tried hard in class, was truly "invested" in herself.

Yes, she was stingy with affection. There was a frostiness about her. But Lachiewicz saw that as "her defense mechanism for being through so many placements."

Jeane investigated other therapeutic options and treatments. She took Candace to traditional therapists, and consulted with experts in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Candace saw two other Duke doctors and at least one other mental health professional.

She was given an assortment of mood-altering drugs — an anti-depressant, an anti-psychotic to calm her, an amphetamine to combat attention deficit disorder. But the regimens of medication and therapies weren't working.

Finally, Jeane came upon a new buzz word being bandied about in adoption and foster family circles — attachment disorder.

The term describes a child's inability to bond with his or her new parents.

While the concept has been around for some time, defining it as a condition unto itself has grown dramatically since the boom in international adoptions in the late 1980s.

Well-meaning adoptive parents have found themselves living with volatile, even vicious, children. These parents have described their mounting guilt as they grow to fear and hate their adopted children. They say it was naive to believe that love could cure any problem.

At an attachment disorder workshop in North Carolina, Jeane heard symptoms discussed that sounded identical to Candace's. Her research led her to the Internet, where she found a Web site for a group called ATTACh, the Association for the Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children.

Jeane attended an ATTACh national conference in Alexandria, Va., in 1999. There, she met therapist Bill Goble, who had her fill out an inventory sheet of Candace's behaviors.

Goble would say later that Jeane had already concluded that Candace suffered from attachment disorder. Although he never met Candace, Goble determined her case "fairly severe."

He suggested Connell Watkins in Colorado.

Watkins, an unlicensed psychotherapist in Evergreen, and her mentor, Dr. Foster Cline, are Colorado's pioneers in attachment disorder.

According to Cline's theories — the gospel for attachment therapists — the disorder can be traced to infancy. Everything is a crisis. Hunger, pain, a wet diaper. If your parents did not respond to those needs, the chunk of your brain that tells you to trust people close to you never develops.

These infants grow into cunning, dangerous children, Cline says. Some lie about everything and seem to have no conscience, he says.

Cline believes the best therapy involves turning back the clock and recreating what the child missed as an infant. Therapies that restrict movement and force the child to surrender control come into play.

During this "holding" therapy, a child lies across the laps of parents or therapists or both. Often, the youngster's arms and legs are restrained. If he or she flies into a rage, the parent or therapist tightens the grip.

The goal is to show the child that someone can control them, and that they can feel safe at the same time. The techniques are not pretty to watch, "just like heart surgery isn't," Cline says.

There are parents who swear by the holding therapies and Cline's work, describing it as the miracle they had prayed for.

But some mainstream child psychologists and pediatricians are alarmed by the escalating use of the attachment diagnosis. They say it gives false hope to parents, and holding therapies may further damage already troubled children.

"I don't think it's been extensively researched and I think a lot of the date for this disorder comes largely from anecdotes rather than from systematic studies," said Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

In any case, teachers, neighbors and other adults who knew Candace insist her public behavior was nowhere near the extremes associated with attachment disorder.

"I did not have any idea she was a disturbed child," said Wade Marlett, the catechism teacher. "I never witnessed anything vaguely like that or even a tendency like that in Candace."

The one person who can say with any certainty, Jeane Newmaker, isn't talking.

But Jeane believed she had found her answer.

On Jan. 20, she signed a contract with Connell Watkins, agreeing to pay $7,000 for a two-week rebirthing therapy.

Watkins' practice appealed to Jeane, in part, because they would stay in a private home with one of Watkins' assistants. She didn't want to stay alone in a Colorado hotel with her daughter for two weeks.

"She felt that Candace Newmaker would become more enraged during the therapy than what she had been at home with her," Jefferson County sheriff's investigator Diane Obbema wrote in an affidavit.

Jeane described Candace's behavior at home to the investigator as "assaultive," but did not offer specifics.

The years of dealing with a troubled child were wearing on Jeane, who told Obbema that the entire process was "so frustrating and emotionally laden." Still, she was "trying to hold it together," and was relieved to arrive in Colorado. She was finally going to get help.

The therapy began on April 10 when Candace met with Dr. John Alston, a psychiatrist in private practice, who also works with The Attachment Center at Evergreen, one of the best known attachment treatment clinics in the country.

Alston declined comment.

Prosecutors said the powerful drugs Candace took to control her moods and behavior were changed repeatedly in the two weeks before her death.

Just before arriving in Evergreen, Jeane took her off Dexadrine, the amphetamine being used to combat attention deficit disorder.

Alston stopped Candace's use of Effexor, an anti-depressant, investigators said.

Candace's dosage of Risperdal, a calming medication, was doubled on April 11. Jeane told investigators the anti-psychotic drug was to counteract Candace's history of assaultive behavior — again without providing specifics.

Although Alston had stopped the Effexor, Candace began taking it again the day before she died because her therapy hadn't progressed as they'd hoped, Jeane told investigators.

The drugs were dispensed to Candace each day by Brita St. Clair, Watkins' office manager, who hosted the Newmakers during their stay in Evergreen. St. Clair was engaged to Jack McDaniel, whom Candace was told to call "Daddy Jack."

McDaniel, a high school graduate with no medical or therapy training, was to be paid $700 to write a report about Candace's two weeks with Watkins and Julie Ponder, a California therapist.

Watkins later told investigators that the drugged Candace had "a look in her eye like nobody's home."

Prosecutor Steve Jensen charged that the therapists modified Candace's drug intake in order to manipulate her.

"They went so far as to control even the mental state of the child," Jensen said during a hearing in August.

A week into the program, Jeane and Candace were led through "compression" therapy — a breakthrough. Candace, wrapped in a sheet but with her head exposed, was directed to lie down on the floor.

Two cushions from a nearby couch were placed on either side of her. Then, Jeane lay across the cushions and Candace, making a cross with their bodies.

The goal was control, for Candace to become compliant and for Jeane to be in charge. If all went well, Candace would connect visually or in some other way with Jeane, the therapists said.

As Candace was unwrapped after the three-hour session, Jeane moved to a chair. The therapists told Candace to crawl to the chair, to lie in her mother's arms like an infant, and to let her mother feed her from a plate.

Candace did as she was told. She looked into Jeane's eyes and let her mother hold her. Jeane was so happy she began to sob uncontrollably.

"The child actually connected," said David Savitz, one of the defense lawyers who has viewed the videotaped session. "How thrilled Jeane Newmaker was."

EVERGREEN, C.O. —
It is 9:35 a.m. on Tuesday, April 18, Candace is in a first-floor room at Watkins' home in Evergreen with therapist Julie Ponder.

The videotape is rolling asPonder tells Candace what is about to take place.

This account is drawn from preliminary hearing testimony by Jefferson County investigators and prosecutors, as well as the criminal affidavit used to bring charges in the case.

Ponder notices that Candace is yawning repeatedly.

Candace says she had the nightmare again last night, the one in which she was being murdered. She has a vague memory about her birth mother. Maybe when she was a very little girl, Candace says, her mama dropped her from a two-story window.

Ponder reassures her, telling Candace that her new mom loves her. Do you want to be reborn to your new mom, Ponder asks.

Candace says she does. That she wants to be safe, and not fall out the window.

Ponder tells her about being reborn. Being a baby is hard, being born is hard, she says, you must scream and cry because that's how a baby does it. Then, you must look for your mother, reach for her out of the womb.

"You will have lots of air to breathe," she says.

Ponder tells her to take off her shoes. Candace is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, sitting on a pad on the floor.

Ponder tells Candace that the sheet will be wrapped around her to represent the womb, that it will be tight around her, that she will have to work hard to wriggle out and be born to her mother.

"You're going to go through the birth canal. While you're in the womb, you'll have plenty of air to breathe," she says again.

It's 9:44 a.m. Candace is told to stand up. Ponder puts a queen-size blue flannel sheet on the floor. Candace lies down on her left side and folds herself into the fetal position. Ponder wraps her tightly, gathering the four corners of the sheet at the top of Candace's head and twisting them together.

Watkins enters the room and props four pillows tent-like over Candace's body.

Jeane Newmaker and Jack McDaniel enter the room. Brita St. Clair pushes Tammy, her wheelchair-bound adult foster daughter, into the room. Tammy, who is mentally and physically handicapped, is placed in the corner. No one says why.

Watkins sits at Candace's feet. St. Clair leans her back against Candace's knees. McDaniel lies next to St. Clair, along Candace's chest. Ponder is at Candace's head, holding the sheet tightly closed in her left hand.

Jeane is told to stay near Candace's head, where she is supposed to emerge, and to aim her words to Candace through the top of the sheet.

The four adults, with a cumulative weight of 673 pounds, begin pushing against the 70-pound girl.

Candace is uncomfortable and confused.

"Whoever is pushing on my head, it's not helping," she says, exasperated.

Ten minutes in, Candace is ready to give up.

"I can't do it, I can't do it," she says. "I can't breathe. I can't breathe."

A minute later, Candace says she is going to die. She begs for air.

Watkins and Ponder keep pushing, telling Candace that being reborn is "the hardest thing that you do."

The adults reposition themselves, Watkins bracing her feet against a couch, Ponder pushing from a brick hearth. "Please," Candace says, "please stop pushing, I can't breathe.

"OK, I'm dying. I'm sorry," Candace says.

Watkins and Ponder yell back at Candace. "You want to die? OK, then die. Go ahead, die right now."

It goes on. All four are pushing, sometimes sitting up against Candace, sometimes reclining, placing more weight on top of her.

Jeane begins to feel rejected. Candace isn't trying to be reborn to her.

Watkins had warned Jeane it would be like this. The kids try to get out of it by saying they can't breathe, that they have to go to the bathroom. The unattached child is manipulative. You must show who's in control.

"Please, you said you would give me some oxygen," Candace says after 20 minutes.

A minute later, Candace gags and vomits. "I'm throwing up. I just threw up. I gotta poop. I gotta poop."

"Go ahead," Ponder says.

"Uh, I'm going in my pants," Candace says.

"Stay there with the poop and vomit," Watkins says.

A half-hour into it, Candace becomes quiet. Ponder and Watkins order her to scream for her life. She's gagging, but says no. Ponder digs in, repositions herself, breathing hard and grunting while pushing on Candace with her hands and body. Candace gasps for air, then whimpers.

"She needs more pressure over here so she can't ... so she really needs to fight if she wants air," Ponder says.

McDaniel obeys, and repositions himself on the pillow over Candace's head. She whimpers again.

"Getting pretty tight in here," Watkins says.

"Yep, getting tighter and tighter and getting less and less air," Ponder says.

Ten minutes pass.

"Baby, do you want to be reborn?" Jeane asks.

A weak response. "No."

It is Candace's last word.

"She's stuck there in her own puke and poop," Ponder says.

Another 10 minutes go by. Ponder reaches inside the sheet.

"I got my hand right in front of her face," she says.

"No, she's breathing fine," Watkins says.

Candace stays quiet. Seven minutes pass, and Ponder places her hand inside again.

"She's pretty sweaty, which is good," Ponder says. "It is wet inside there."

Watkins gestures to Ponder, putting her hand to her face, as if to ask, is Candace breathing?

"Oh, I'm not sure. I touched her face and it's just sweaty," Ponder says. "She's not answered. We could do this forever, just stay here."

Another minute and Watkins decides Jeane must leave the room. Candace is able to pick up on your sorrow, Watkins says. Jeane goes to an upstairs room to watch on a TV monitor. She cries. Watkins joins Jeane, encouraging her not to give up, and then goes back to the rebirthing room.

Watkins asks McDaniel and St. Clair to leave six minutes later. They join Jeane to watch the session on the monitor, taking Tammy with them.

Watkins and Ponder are alone in the room with Candace, bundled in the sheet, still and quiet. They work for four more minutes, then decide to check on her. They unwrap her.

"Oh, there she is," Watkins says. "She's sleeping in her vomit."

Candace doesn't move. She's lying on the floor, still and quiet.

"Candace?" Watkins says. "Candace," she repeats, louder.

It's 10:53 a.m. and the videotape continues to roll. Jeane runs into the room. Candace is not breathing. Her face is blue. Jeane and Ponder start CPR. Watkins calls 911 at 10:56 a.m.

The paramedics arrive in 10 minutes. McDaniel meets Larry Ferree and Joe Yordt of the Evergreen Fire Protection District at the front door. He tells the medics that Candace was left alone for five minutes during a rebirthing session and she isn't breathing.

Ferree and Yordt find Candace on the floor. Two women are doing CPR. A sheet is at Candace's feet, there's vomit on her face and a smear of blood around her nose. She's blue and cool to the touch. Both paramedics think, she's been "down" — unconscious and possibly not breathing — for some time.

The two men cut off her T-shirt, do chest compressions, wipe the bile from around her lips and perform mouth-to-mouth.

"No heartbeat, no nothing," Ferree says.

Ferree finds her pupils fixed and dilated, with some redness in her eyes, often a sign of asphyxia.

By 11:20 a.m. they have a faint pulse, so they put Candace on a backboard to transfer her to the Flight for Life helicopter.

The little girl who dreamed of being murdered survives the night on life support at Children's Hospital.

But at 9 a.m. the following day, Dr. Kurt Stenmark pronounces her brain dead.

Candace dies from brainstem herniation and cerebral edema, brought on by mechanical asphyxiation.

She was smothered, the doctor wrote, when she "was restrained during therapy session."

Watkins, Ponder, St. Clair and McDaniel have pleaded not guilty in Candace's death. Only St. Clair's lawyer has commented.

H. Michael Steinberg said St. Clair was ordered to participate in the rebirthing by Watkins.

"She trusted Connell Watkins," he said. "Connell is someone she's known for 10 years, who's an icon in the attachment disorder community."

DURHAM, N.C. —
Candace was dead, and no one back in her hometown understood what had gone so wrong. Once again a shroud of secrecy covered her. Jeane tried to keep it that way.

Sorrow, mingled with confusion, set in among Candace's playmates and the people in Jeane's church. How did Candace die in Colorado? Was there some sort of accident on a horse? One rumor said she had been hurt while running at a camp.

"It was so sad. This little life was swept away and it was so hush hush," said Ave Lachiewicz, the pediatrician.

Candace's entire fourth-grade class at Easley Elementary attended her memorial service. There were balloons and songs and poems. Jeane hid her swollen eyes behind sunglasses and stayed away from the crowd.

A keepsake was handed out, a cream-colored card covered with black and white pictures of Candace, laughing, riding horses, blowing bubbles. The images showed such a playful, lively girl.

The Rev. David McBriar talked of Candace's life. There was no mention of how she died.

Jeane's friends and family surrounded her, guarded her inside the big house on Georgia Avenue. There was no talk of Candace's death, even as neighbors brought over cakes and casseroles.

It took a month before the truth hit Durham. When the therapists and two assistants were arrested on May 18 and May 19, it made big headlines. Candace's school picture — tentative smile, plaid blouse, hair a little messy — flashed across television screens.

Parents of Candace's classmates tried to shield their children from news accounts, bewildering and unbelievable to people in this self-proclaimed City of Medicine.

Candace's little protege, Victoria, saw her friend's picture on TV one night.

"There's Candace," Victoria said. "She's made the TV, Mama."

Victoria didn't know why her friend was on TV. She still doesn't understand it. Her family tells Victoria that Candace is God's special angel now.

The pediatricians and psychologists who had treated Candace — Jeane's colleagues at Duke — were equally stunned. "We all sat around and tried to think, 'Could it have been different?"' Lachiewicz said.

Dr. John March, the director of Duke's program in Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders, knew of Jeane's struggles. He declined comment because he's been called as a witness in the criminal case.

Duke University won't comment about Candace or Jeane.

The Jefferson County District Attorney's office witness list includes 11 North Carolina physicians and mental health therapists who may be called to testify.

Lachiewicz, one of the few professionals to speak out, now says she would have advised Jeane to get Candace into a more traditional therapy. Talk, play games.

"If I knew she was taking this kid to some wackos in Colorado, I'd say, 'Don't do it."'

Candace's problems were no different than you'd expect from a 10-year-old who'd been bounced around in foster care, she said. She thought Jeane had not allowed Candace enough time to overcome her problems.

"She wasn't the most damaged kid. I think this kid could've made it."

Candace Newmaker's death is the first attributed to psychotherapy practice in Colorado, state officials say.

Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder, the two therapists, and their assistants, Jack McDaniel and Brita St. Clair, have been charged with "knowingly or recklessly" committing child abuse resulting in death. They face prison sentences of 16 to 48 years.

The four have pleaded not guilty. Jefferson County District Judge Jane Tidball has ordered one trial for Watkins and Ponder, and a second for St. Clair and McDaniel. Both are set for next year.

Jeane Newmaker was charged with child abuse resulting in death, a lesser felony. If convicted, she faces four to 16 years in prison. She surrendered May 24 and was photographed for a mug shot, looking stoic in wire-rimmed glasses and a navy blouse. She is scheduled to enter her plea Nov. 13.

The centerpiece of the case — the videotape of the rebirthing session — has been placed under a gag order. Jefferson County Court Judge Charles Hoppen feared a public outcry if it was released.

Watkins and Ponder wanted the tape to demonstrate rebirthing within the attachment community. Watkins often taped her sessions to highlight moments of success — and value — to the parents who had paid for it.

Now, the Candace tape will be an indictment of rebirthing at the trials.

Some Jefferson County law enforcement officers agreed with charging Jeane, while others argued that she had been punished enough, that she had lost a daughter, every parent's nightmare.

And certainly, she faced a horrible task when she returned home to Durham without Candace.

Jeane's large brick home in her pretty neighborhood is quieter now, empty of Candace's laughter and her tantrums.

"Probably there's a haunting there," said neighbor Margaret Addison. "Every room in that house had some Candace in it."
---

Quick update as this was written before the sentencing:

Watkins & Ponder were convicted of reckless child abuse resulting in death and were sentenced to 16 years.

Brita St. Clair & Jack McDaniel pleaded guilty to criminally negligent child abuse and were given 10 years probation and 1000 hours of community service in a plea bargain.

Candace's adoptive Mother pleaded guilty too neglect & abuse charges and was sentenced to a 4 year suspended sentence, though afterwords the charges were removed from her record.

Watkin's appeal against her sentence failed, but she was released under heavy supervision in June 2008 after serving 7 years of her sentence with restrictions on her contact with children and therapy.

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Here's the transcript:

The abridged transcript of 10-year old Candace Newmaker’s last session with attachment therapists Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder (aided by Candace’s foster mother Jeane) is public record.

The two therapists, who operated out of Watkins’ Evergreen, Colorado, home, labeled their treatment of Candace as “rebirthing,” though it was in actuality merely a script to be used in a holding session typical of Attachment Therapy.

All of the following, unless a different name is given, was said by Candace.

THE ABRIDGED TRANSCRIPT

00:00 — Julie Ponder tells Candace to lie down on the navy blue flannel sheet and get into the fetal position.

Ponder: So imagine yourself as a teeny little baby inside your mother’s womb and what it felt like. Warm. It felt tight because her stomach was all around you.

[Candace is bound in the sheet, the ends twisted above her head and held by Ponder, who grasped them in both fists as one would grasp the top of a bag he’s trying to hold shut. She is covered by pillows and four adults, with a combined weight of 673 pounds, who begin pressing on the 10-year old, 70-pound girl.]

01:25 — Ponder: What do you think you thought about when you where in there?

I thought I was gonna die.

Ponder: You thought you were gonna die in there?

Yeah.

Jeane Newmaker: I’m so excited. I’m going to have a brand new baby. I hope it’s a girl. I’m going to love her, to hold her and tell her stories… I’m going to keep her very safe… Every day we’ll be together and she’ll be with me forever.

(Candace is asked if she believes what her mother is saying.)

Uh huh.

(Candace is asked how that makes her feel.)

Happy.

Watkins: If the baby doesn’t decide to be born, she will die. [This must be what the therapists had in mind when they later said that they took “cues” from what Candace said. She said that she felt like she was going to die, and they took that as a cue that overcoming this is the challenge they should give her.] When the baby decides to be born it’s a wonderful thing.

Ponder: So little baby, are you ready to be reborn?

Uh huh.

Ponder: Come out head first. You have to push really hard with your feet. If you stay in there you’re going to die and your mommy’s going to die.

08:42 — Who’s sitting on me? I can’t do it.

08:53 — I can’t do it! [Crying]. My hands come out first?

Watkins: Sometimes it takes 18 hours to be born.

09:36 — [Screaming] I can’t do it. I can’t do it! I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!

10:16 — Whoever is pushing on my head it’s not helping. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t breathe. It’s too dark under here. Please quit pushing on my head. I can’t do it. Somebody’s sitting on top of me.

10:50 — [Moaning] Somebody’s on top of me. Where am I supposed to come out? Right here? Where my finger is?

11:26 — I can’t do it. [Screams] I’m gonna die.

Ponder: Do you want to be reborn or do you want to stay in there and die?

11:40 — Quit pushing on me. Please. [Moaning] Quit squishing my legs. I’m gonna die now. [Screams]

Ponder: Do you want to die?

No, but I’m about to.

Therapist: That’s the way the baby feels. You want to die?

[Desperately] Yes

Therapist: For real?

Yes.

Therapist: Go ahead and die.

12:10 — Please, please I can’t breathe.

12:30 — I can’t do it anymore.

12:40 — Please quit pushing on me.

13:12 — I need some help. Help! Help me please.

Watkins: Are you feeling the contractions, mom?

Newmaker: I am.

(The NCAHF website says, “After instructing her to try to come out of her flannel ‘womb,’ the adults did everything they could to frustrate her efforts to comply: blocking her movements, retying the ends of the sheet, shifting their weight, and ignoring her cries for help. As Candace literally struggled and screamed for her life, they answered with taunts such as, ‘Go ahead and die.’”)

13:43 — Where am I to go? Right here? Right here? I’m supposed to go right here? Please. Please. [Screams] OK I’m dying. OK, I’m dying. I’m sorry.

14:31 — OK, I’m dying.

14:38 — I’m going to die.

15:30 — I want to die.

16:08 — Can you let me have some oxygen? You mean, like you want me to die for real?

Ponder: Uh huh.

Die right now and go to heaven?

Ponder: Go ahead and die right now. For real. For real.

OK, I’m dead.

Watkins: It’s not always easy to live. You have to be really strong to live a life, a human life.

17:07 — [Labored breathing] Get off. I’m sick. Get off. Where am I supposed to come out? Where? But how can I get there?

Watkins: Just go ahead and die. It’s easier… It takes a lot of courage to be born.

18:26 — You said you would give me oxygen.

Watkins: You gotta fight for it.

19:50 — [Candace vomits] OK, I’m throwing up. I just threw up. [Vomiting] I gotta poop. I gotta poop.

21:24 — Uh, I’m going in my pants.

Ponder: Go ahead.

Watkins: Stay in there with the poop and vomit.

23:22 — Help! I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. It’s hot. I can’t breathe.

Newmaker: I’m so excited to have this baby… I’m waiting for you, to love you and hold you…

Ponder: Scream, Candace.

No.

Newmaker: Baby, I love you already. I’ll hold you and love you and keep you safe forever… Don’t give up on your life before you have it…

32:25 – 33:44 — (Jack McDaniel repositions himself on a pillow over Candace’s head.)

Ponder: Candace? [No response] [Takes another pillow from Newmaker. Ponder repositions her body and pushes on Candace with her hands and body, grunting twice.] She needs more pressure over here so she can’t… so she really needs to fight. [McDaniel repositions himself on the pillow over Candace’s head, and she whimpers.]

Watkins: Getting pretty tight in here.

Ponder: Yep… less and less air all the time.

35:39 – 40:00 — (Ponder and McDaniel reposition themselves again.)

Ponder: She gets to be stuck in her own puke and poop.

Watkins: Uh huh. It’s her own life. Quitter.

40:01: Newmaker: Baby, do you want to be born?

[Weakly responds] No. [This is Candace’s last word.]

McDaniel: Mama got you this far, now it’s up to you.

Watkins: Candace is used to making her life everybody else’s problem. She’s not used to living her own life.

Ponder: Quitter, quitter, quitter, quitter, quit, quit, quit, quit. She’s a quitter.

(Watkins leaves, Newmaker leaves. McDaniel takes Watkins’ place. Watkins returns.)

McDaniel: This baby doesn’t want to live. She’s a quitter.

(Watkins tells McDaniel and St. Clair to take a break.)

(Ponder and Watkins discuss someone who is stressed, then chitchat about their dream homes and a million-dollar property nearby that is being remodeled.)

Watkins: Let’s talk to the twerp.

(They unwrap Candace.)

01:09:53 — Watkins: Oh, there she is sleeping in her vomit.

The photos of the people involved with the case are lined up as follow

1-Candace
2-Candace (w/ birth mother)
3-Candace
4-Candace (4th Grade)
5-Jeane Newmaker
6-Connell Watkins
7-Julie Ponder
8-Jack McDaniels & Brita St. Clair

[advancedcorpsetumor]

topics of interest and research

[smackem]

I have to say, that really got to me.
God bless little Candace.

[kelly]

very good work and good post

[Creepy]

just wow.

[skullsoup432]

Fucking idiots.

I have only contempt for these dumb ass alternate therapies.

Same as the idiots who let their children die because their religion doesn't allow modern medicine.

[mellymoo234]

wow!!! thank you for this post what a horrible story this is as i see it all because poor little Candace wasn't perfect enough? as far as i can make out there wasn't anything majorly wrong with her she needed security and unconditional love and to be told how much she was loved. I was adopted and i have to say i was a cow when i was growing up evil mare i was my sis is 4 years older than me and i would pin her to the ground and give her chinese burns looking back i was evil to my sis but after a lot of talking fomr my mum and dad i got better however i was told a few years ago that i had depression at the age of 4 and i went to playschool sat on a cushion there and wet myself :( so i suppose i can understand this poor little girl's mind and feelings i was lucky i knew i was adopted and very proud to be so i would tell anyone who wanted to know because i was "chosen" for my brown hair and white teeth lol my heart will be with Candace always sweet dreams little one (love)

[Operior]

This is just one story of the many

[NiGhTerRoRs]

They need to be made to suffer.