COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE
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April 6, 2001

Jurors Watch More Rebirthing Therapy Videotape:
10-Year-Old Died After Controversial Therapy Session

Prosecutors on Friday played more videotape of a 10-year-old girl's therapy sessions, a day after weeping jurors watched a tape of the struggling girl's last moments before she suffocated inside a blanket meant to simulate the womb.

"I'm dying! It feels like I'm dying!" Candace Newmaker (pictured, left) cried on the tape, shown Thursday in the trial of two therapists charged with reckless child abuse resulting in death.

Connell Watkins, 54, and Julie Ponder, 40, were using "rebirthing" therapy to treat Candace for reactive attachment disorder, in which a child resists forming loving relationships and can become unmanageable and violent.

The therapists and their assistants pushed against large pillows on either side of Candace. She was supposed to force her way out of the blanket and emerge "reborn" to form a bond with her adoptive mother, Jeane Newmaker, 47, of Durham, N.C.

When the therapists unwrapped the blanket after 70 minutes, Candace was not breathing. She died the next day of asphyxiation.

Some jurors cried as they watched the tape Thursday. One put her hands over her mouth, took her glasses off and wiped her eyes. Others sighed as the tape ended.

Prosecutors planned on Friday to show videotapes of other sessions in Candace's treatment.

In some, adults clasped her tightly in "holding therapy," but she was not in a blanket. In others, she was told to obey verbal commands or recite things she was taught.

District Judge Jane Tidball denied a motion by several media outlets requesting copies of the rebirthing videotape, saying reporters saw it in court. She said distributing the tape could make it difficult to find a jury for Newmaker's November trial.

Newmaker, who was present for part of the rebirthing session, faces a lesser charge of criminally negligent child abuse. She testified she sought out the treatment because Candace's behavior had become dangerous.

Defense attorneys claim that Candace died from a heart condition.

 
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