Rebirthing team convicted

Two therapists face mandatory terms of 16 to 48 years in jail

Peggy Lowe, News Staff Writer

Published April 21, 2001 at midnight

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GOLDEN -- Two Evergreen therapists sobbed as they were led to jail in handcuffs Friday night after a jury found them guilty in the rebirthing death of 10-year-old Candace Newmaker.

An emotional Jefferson County District Court jury took about five hours to convict Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder of child abuse resulting in death.

One juror made the sign of the cross before the verdict was read at 5:40 p.m.

"Wait!" yelled Watkins, holding off a Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy so she could hug her daughter, Teka Cooil, who screamed, "No!" as her mother was taken away. Ponder removed her necklace and her purse and hugged her boyfriend while supporters cried.

On the other side of the courtroom, Candace's grandmother, Mary Davis, wept with joy. Friday was a year and a day after Candace died following the experimental therapy.

"Justice for Candace," Davis said.

Watkins, 54, and Ponder, 40, face a mandatory 16 to 48 years in prison when they are sentenced by Judge Jane Tidball on June 18.

The six men and six women on the jury said they were horrified at the rebirthing session caught on a videotape. On it, Candace's screams echoed through the courtroom many times during the three-week trial.

"You don't treat a child like a horse and try to break it," said Bruce Coffman, a 47-year-old juror and father of two.

Attorneys for Ponder and Watkins wouldn't comment but made plans to make bail for the clients over the weekend.

Jefferson County prosecutors and sheriff's officials were overjoyed. They said Watkins and Ponder's therapy was nothing more than torture.

"I don't think Candace Newmaker died because of their ignorance," said sheriff's investigator Diane Obbema. "I believe she was killed because of their arrogance."

In closing arguments Friday morning, defense attorneys for Watkins and Ponder characterized them as caring therapists who are willing to take on the troubled children traditional practices can't reach.

Prosecutors painted them as "monsters" who replied with callousness to the cries of a little girl who was slowly suffocating.

"This was done as therapy," said Joan Heller, Ponder's lawyer. "This was done with all the best intentions. Something went wrong, and we don't know what went wrong."

Not so, said prosecutor Laura Dunbar, pointing directly at the two women seated at the defense table.

"Candace Newmaker died a slow, agonizing and torturous death, and these two defendants caused it," Dunbar said.

The jury also had two other conviction choices: criminally negligent child abuse resulting in death, punishable by a possible four to 16 years, and child abuse resulting in bodily injury, which is a misdemeanor.

Jeane Newmaker, Candace's adoptive mother, has also been charged in her daughter's death. One year ago, she brought her daughter to Evergreen from Durham, N.C., for the controversial two-week "intensive" therapy provided by Watkins. Newmaker believed Candace suffered from attachment disorder, described as an inability to bond with a caretaker because of past abuse and trauma.

For the rebirthing, Candace was made to lie in the fetal position and was wrapped tightly in a navy blue flannel sheet. Eight large pillows were then placed around her, while Ponder, Watkins and two others pushed against her to simulate the birth process.

Jurors saw the procedure on videotape twice, watching and weeping as they heard Candace begging for air and shrieking for fear that she would die. They also saw the therapists' response, ridiculing her as a "quitter" and telling the child to "go ahead and die," and "being reborn is hard work."

There was no playing of the videotape Friday. Instead, the defense offered up the navy blue flannel sheet that Candace was wrapped in. It's possible, Heller said, to breathe through the fabric.

"Take it out of its bag and hold it up to the light," Heller said to the jury. "You will see that you can see through it just as you can breathe through it."

Go ahead, get that sheet out, Jensen said to the jurors. Lie underneath it, he said, as he grabbed a large couch pillow from a pile of evidence. Place this large heavy pillow on top of the sheet, then on top of your face and see if you can breathe through it -- "it goes from some (breathability), to virtually none."

Jensen scoffed at the therapists' "witchcraft" and the use of "psychodrama," essentially play-acting an abuser's role so the child may bring up repressed feelings.

"They tell you it's psychodrama," Jensen said, rolling his eyes. "If that is drama, it has to be a Greek tragedy."

Candace died from mechanical asphyxiation, prosecutors say, which caused her heart to stop beating and damaged her brain.

But Watkins' lawyer, Craig Truman, again laid out the medical evidence he said only clouds just how Candace died. There was no vomit found in her lungs and her airway was clear, he said. There were no abrasions or bruises found on her stomach. So how could her diaphram be damaged enough for mechanical asphyxiation?

"What we have here is a question as to how did this child die," Truman said.

Truman, coming off as a country doctor with his folksy wit and quick use of medical terms, and Jensen, with his fire-and-brimstone preacher-prosecutor role, traded lyrics to pop songs during the closing arguments.

Jensen used a Bob Dylan lyric to describe the videotape, saying the thing speaks for itself.

"Does it take a weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blowing?" Jensen asked. "No."

Contact Peggy Lowe at (303) 892-5482, or lowep@RockyMountainNews.com.

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