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Johnson: 'Rebirthing' a scene of profound horror

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 6, 2001 at midnight

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"I can't do it! I can't do it!

"You're pushing on my head. I can't breathe!

"Somebody's on top of me. I'm going to die!

"I'm going to die. Now!"

It was the worst thing I have witnessed in 24 years in this business. My heart is breaking, and I am having trouble keeping it together. Ten-year-old Candace Newmaker has no business being dead today.

I watched the video of her "rebirthing" death Thursday, along with a judge, jury and a packed courtroom of others. It has scarred me.

It was played by the prosecution in the trial of two so-called "rebirthing therapists" from Evergeen.They are charged with child abuse resulting in the April 18 death of little Candace Newmaker.

"Please, stop pushing down on me. Please, help me! Please, quit!

"Please! Please! Please!"

"She dying." This is what I wrote in my notebook as I watched the video. "Get off of her," I softly muttered, my eyes glued to the screen. I listened to that little girl wail, the way only little girls can scream. It chilled me. And I thought of my youngest daughter.

Damn it, how could they not know? How could her own mother, seated at her covered head, not know? The girl is pleading with her heart.

Yet they think it's another trick so she can get her way. Which is why her mother, Jeane Newmaker of Durham, N.C., hired Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder to perform the "therapy" they billed as a recreation of the birthing experience.

It was supposed to cure Candace's "attachment disorder," her defiant and sometimes violent behavior. "I want this baby to come to me," her mother says over and over as the "therapists" lay on large pillows and the blue sheet that bury the girl.

"I'm going to die!

"I want to die!"

"You want to die?" one of the women asks the girl.

"Yes," she replies desperately.

"For real?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead and die."

The videotape lasts about 70 minutes. As I watched, I remembered the bright-eyed, beautiful girl who'd jumped willingly to the floor to be wrapped in the blue blanket, covered with pillows.

And killed.

"I want to live!"

The adults in the room, those lying on her and those not, are oblivious. They joke and laugh. The little girl, after long, long minutes of gurgling and moaning, is still. She has vomited and messed herself.

"Let's talk to this twerp in here," one finally says near the end, lifting herself off the child and peeling back the pillows and blankets.

"Candace, Candace," they wail when they see the still, blue-faced girl.

They begin CPR. Her mother rushes to the girl's side. "God, she's dead! Look at her color! Call 911! She's dead!"

The videotape rolls, capturing the long-overdue panic. "C'mon, Candace, stay with us!" they shout over and over. Moments before the tape ends, the therapist pumping the girl's chest, Ponder, looks up.

"There's no pulse," she says.

Fade to static.

So damned unnecessary. Stupid. Unthinking. Heartbreaking. There wasn't a dry eye in the courtroom.

I will not sleep well tonight.



Bill Johnson's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Rockybj@aol.com or (303) 892-2763.