April 5, 2001

Jurors Sob During Rebirthing Video:
Videotape Is Key Prosecution Evidence In Jeffco Case

Jurors in Golden wiped away tears Thursday as they watched a videotape showing the therapy session that led to the death of a 10-year-old girl.

The videotape was played at the trial of two therapists charged in the death of Candace Newmaker (pictured, right).

On the video, Candace cried, "I'm dying! It feels like I'm dying!" as the two therapists and their assistants pushed against large pillows on either side of the girl.

One juror put her hands over her mouth, took her glasses off and wiped her eyes.

Seventy minutes after the session began, the therapists unwrapped the blanket and found that Candace had stopped breathing. She was pronounced dead a day later after all efforts to revive her failed. An autopsy listed her cause of death as asphyxiation.

Connell Watkins, 54, and Julie Ponder, 40, are charged with reckless child abuse resulting in death and could get up to 48 years in prison.

The therapists were treating Candace for reactive attachment disorder, in which a child resists forming loving relationships and can become unmanageable and violent.

The idea of the rebirthing therapy was to get Candace to force her way out of the blanket and emerge "reborn," to form a bond with her adoptive mother.

Wednesday, the adoptive mother Candace said that she thought that the treatment was standard practice and did not know that the two therapists had limited experience with the technique.

Jeane Newmaker (pictured, left) , of Durham, N.C., described the rebirthing session at an Evergreen clinic where Candace died.

"They said it would be a chance for Candace to be reborn to a new family, to me," a weeping Newmaker testified.

Prosecutor Laura Dunbar asked Newmaker if she knew that both Ponder and Watkins had performed only about five "rebirthing" therapy sessions, and the longest such session lasted about six minutes.

"No," Newmaker replied.

Candace was found not breathing 70 minutes after the session began.

Newmaker wept as she described how Candace was wrapped in a blanket on April 18 and the therapist and two employees pushed against her with pillows, urging her to fight her way out to become reborn. Candace cried that she could not breathe and begged for her life.

Newmaker, who was watching the videotaped session on a television upstairs, described how Ponder and Watkins unwrapped Candace and said that the unconscious child was sleeping.

"I heard alarm in their voice," Newmaker said, describing how she ran downstairs and began performing CPR on Candace.

"I thought she was dead. She was blue, and she wasn't moving," Newmaker said.

Newmaker testified that Candace sometimes refused to eat and sleep, flew into rages and once tried to burn a mattress. Newmaker told jurors that she felt that several doctors and counselors could not help Candace.

She said that Candace had become dangerous to other children, once forcing two girls to undress under threat of violence.

Newmaker, who is not married, brought Candace home in June 1996. She faces trial in November on a lesser charge of criminally negligent child abuse resulting in death.

Brita St. Clair, Watkins' business manager, and intern Jack McDaniel, who were present for the session, face trial in September on charges of reckless child abuse resulting in death.

A state bill that would make the rebirthing therapy practice illegal has passed the House and is on the way to Gov. Owens for his signature.