Bowman gets 25 years

Still faces murder charges in Montgomery County

Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010

Renee Bowman of Lusby, who pleaded guilty to first-degree child abuse in September 2009, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last Friday in the Calvert County Circuit Court in Prince Frederick.

In passing the sentence, Judge Marjorie Clagett said, "In 14 years on the bench, this is the worst case I have seen … punishment is necessary, I don't know if rehabilitation is possible … I cannot find any reason not to impose the maximum sentence of 25 years."

Bowman, 44, was indicted in October 2008 after neighbors found her adopted daughter, then 7, wandering the streets near Bowman's home covered in bruises and wearing a blood-soaked shirt.

Bowman is also facing two counts of murder and first-degree child abuse in Montgomery County for the deaths of her other two adopted daughters, whose bodies were found in a basement freezer after authorities searched her house in Lusby. Police determined the girls died while the family was living in Montgomery County.

At Friday's sentencing hearing, public defender Dorothy Gardner Hodge presented the court with a plea for less than a maximum sentence, citing various health and background factors in Bowman's past that "may have been contributing factors."

However, Calvert County State's Attorney Laura Martin reviewed the gruesome details of the child's "severe physical injuries" after she was examined by a doctor and argued passionately for imposition of the maximum sentence.

During Martin's presentation, the child, in a nearly inaudible voice, read a brief statement to the court in which she said people "should never do things to a little girl" like the things that were done to her by Bowman. In Martin's concluding summary following the child's statement, the state's attorney was visibly moved and, several times, paused to wipe away her own tears.

In a low, mumbling voice, Bowman addressed Clagett on her own behalf before sentence was passed.

"I don't know what happened," she said. "I've told the truth from day one … I'm real proud of [my daughter] and have love for her in my heart."

On Sept. 26, 2008, before a neighbor found Bowman's then 7-year-old daughter, she had jumped from her home's second-floor window after being left home alone and locked in her room. The girl, who is now in the care of Calvert County Department of Social Services, was disheveled, covered with cuts and bruises and taken to the hospital for treatment, police stated in a report.

During the execution of a search warrant on Sept. 27, 2008, police discovered the frozen bodies of two young girls in a basement freezer, which later were identified as two adopted daughters of Bowman's, Jasmine and Minnet Bowman.

As detectives had determined that the two girls died while Bowman lived in Montgomery County, Bowman was indicted in Montgomery County in June on murder and child abuse charges on her two deceased daughters, the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office reported at the time. Her trial there on these charges is scheduled for next month.

Staff writers Carol Harvat and Jeff Newman contributed to this article.

rrenneisen@somdnews.com