Details of rebirthing death emerge

Girls was taking medication; she told therapists of dream in which she was murdered

Peggy Lowe, News Staff Writer

Published August 17, 2000 at midnight

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Ten-year-old Candace Newmaker was on an anti-depressant and a psychotropic drug to calm her when she underwent a fatal ''rebirthing'' therapy in Evergreen, a Jefferson County sheriff's detective said Tuesday.

And in another detail to emerge from the preliminary hearing, Candace said on videotape - minutes before the therapy began - that she'd had a dream the night before that she was ''being murdered and thought she would die,'' said Diane Obbema, the sheriff's investigator.

A hearing for the four people charged in Candace's smothering death was continued until Thursday by Jefferson County Judge Charles Hoppin.

Julie Ponder, 39, Connell Watkins, 53, Brita St. Clair, 41, and Jack McDaniel, 47, are charged with child abuse resulting in death. Candace's adoptive mother, Jeane Newmaker of Durham, N.C., was present during the April 18 therapy and has been charged with a lesser felony.

Obbema and other investigators have dissected the videotape that contains the 70-minute therapy in which Candace pleads to be released because she can't breathe and has to go to the bathroom.

Candace, lying in the fetal position, was wrapped in a blue flannel sheet from head to toe, the ends held tight at the top of her head by Ponder, Obbema said.

Four pillows were placed around her and on top of her. Ponder and Watkins, who are therapists, and St. Clair and McDaniel, their assistants, pushed against the girl in an attempt to simulate birth contractions.

The combined weight of the four on the 70-pound Candace was 673 pounds, said Sgt. Chris Tomford of the sheriff's department.

Rebirthing is a last-ditch effort to try to get a troubled child to heal birth trauma and bond with parents, its proponents say. The therapy's critics say it's voodoo science that creates even more trauma for the child.

Obbema testified that Candace's prescriptions dramatically fluctuated in the days before her death. She was on Dexadrine, an amphetamine, just before arriving in Colorado, which her mother said was to combat attention deficit disorder, Obbema said.

Evergreen psychiatrist John Alston took Candace off an anti-depressant, Effexor, seven days before her death, Obbema said. But the girl was placed back on the drug the day before she died because her therapy hadn't progressed as they'd hoped, Obbema said.

The psychotropic drug, Risperdal, an anti-psychotic drug which is used to calm, was doubled on April 11 to 1 1/2 milligrams twice a day, Obbema was told by Jeane Newmaker, to counteract ''a long history of assaultive behavior.''

Ponder described Candace to Obbema as ''not emotionally present.''

''She described it as a look in her eye like nobody's home,'' Obbema said.

Candace, who was adopted by Newmaker in 1996, told Ponder that her birth mother was ''abusive and neglectful,'' according to Obemma's retelling.

Candace remembered being dropped by her birth mother from a two-story window before she was placed in several foster homes and then was adopted by Newmaker, Obbema said.

Candace told Ponder she wanted to be rebirthed ''since it would commit her to be safe and not fall out the window.'' But she also recounts the nightmare, just 10 minutes before the therapy begins, Obbema said.

''Candace told Julie that she had a nightmare, a nightmare she had had previously about being murdered,'' Obbema said.

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