Sep 29, 2008 5:42 pm US/Eastern
Calvert Authorities Find Children's Frozen Corpses
LUSBY, Md. (AP) ―
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Calvert County sheriff's deputies have discovered the bodies of two small children in a freezer in a Lusby home, and they say that another child was beaten.
CBS
A gruesome discovery inside a Southern Maryland home lands a foster mother behind bars.
Police say she placed the bodies of her two adopted daughters in the freezer inside her Lusby home over six months ago.
Alex DeMetrick reports what happened in the quiet neighborhood of southern Calvert County actually began a year ago in Montgomery County with the deaths of two young sisters whose bodies were brought to Calvert County in a freezer.
Friday evening, the 8-year-old daughter of Renee Bowman jumped from her second floor window and began wandering when a neighbor found her.
"She says, my mom beats me to death. She hits me all the time," said neighbor Philip Garrett.
Bowman, 43, had locked her daughter in a room while she visited in DC.
She went to the Sheriff's Office when she returned and found her daughter gone.
Bowman was arrested for child abuse and started talking about the two other daughters who had died.
"Her own statement sort of says over a year. She moved the freezer down to Calvert County with the bodies in it," said Mike Evans.
The freezer with the bodies of sisters, age 9 and 11, was taken to the medical examiner's office. They, and the 8-year-old, were adopted by Bowman.
Word that the sisters were dead first came from the 8-year-old girl.
"She had told me that both of her sisters had been beaten to death and that one day just didn't come back home," said Garrett. "And that their mother had did it. My mother beats me to death."
Court documents charge Bowman with child abuse and state the 8-year-old had wounds and sores on the buttocks, thighs, hands and lips. She also had ligature marks and scars on her neck.
She told investigators her mother beat her with the heel of a blood soaked shoe.
In the same document, when asked why she beat her daughter, Bowman said she was angry over her daughter's mental capacity and was stressed out and she was out of control and needed help.
Bowman is only charged with child abuse in Calvert County; meanwhile, police in Montgomery County are investigating the death of the two other sisters. Charges there could also be filed.
Bowmen is being held without bail.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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