Rebirthing team convicted

GOLDEN -- Two Evergreen therapists sobbed as they were led to jail in handcuffs Friday night after a jury found them guilty in the rebirthing death of 10-year-old Candace Newmaker.

An emotional Jefferson County District Court jury took about five hours to convict Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder of child abuse resulting in death.

One juror made the sign of the cross before the verdict was read at 5:40 p.m.
"Wait!" yelled Watkins, holding off a Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy so she could hug her daughter, Teka Cooil, who screamed, "No!" as her mother was taken away. Ponder removed her necklace and her purse and hugged her boyfriend while supporters cried.

On the other side of the courtroom, Candace's grandmother, Mary Davis, wept with joy. Friday was a year and a day after Candace died following the experimental therapy.

"Justice for Candace," Davis said.
Watkins, 54, and Ponder, 40, face a mandatory 16 to 48 years in prison when they are sentenced by Judge Jane Tidball on June 18.

The six men and six women on the jury said they were horrified at the rebirthing session caught on a videotape. On it, Candace's screams echoed through the courtroom many times during the three-week trial.

"You don't treat a child like a horse and try to break it," said Bruce Coffman, a 47-year-old juror and father of two.
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Jefferson County prosecutors and sheriff's officials were overjoyed. They said Watkins and Ponder's therapy was nothing more than torture.

"I don't think Candace Newmaker died because of their ignorance," said sheriff's investigator Diane Obbema. "I believe she was killed because of their arrogance."

In closing arguments Friday morning, defense attorneys for Watkins and Ponder characterized them as caring therapists who are willing to take on the troubled children traditional practices can't reach.

Prosecutors painted them as "monsters" who replied with callousness to the cries of a little girl who was slowly suffocating.

"This was done as therapy," said Joan Heller, Ponder's lawyer. "This was done with all the best intentions. Something went wrong, and we don't know what went wrong."

Not so, said prosecutor Laura Dunbar, pointing directly at the two women seated at the defense table.

"Candace Newmaker died a slow, agonizing and torturous death, and these two defendants caused it," Dunbar said.

The jury also had two other conviction choices: criminally negligent child abuse resulting in death, punishable by a possible four to 16 years, and child abuse resulting in bodily injury, which is a misdemeanor.

Jeane Newmaker, Candace's adoptive mother, has also been charged in her daughter's death.
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Jurors saw the procedure on videotape twice, watching and weeping as they heard Candace begging for air and shrieking for fear that she would die. They also saw the therapists' response, ridiculing her as a "quitter" and telling the child to "go ahead and die," and "being reborn is hard work."
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Two therapists face mandatory terms of 16 to 48 years in jail