A Montgomery County judge sentenced a 44-year-old woman to life in prison without possibility of parole for killing two of her adopted daughters and stuffing their small bodies into a freezer for more than a year.
Renee Bowman, 44, was convicted last month of two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree child abuse.
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“You sentenced these two young innocent children in the dawn of their lives to a death chamber, and for you that option is not available,” Montgomery County Circuit Judge Michael J. Algeo told Bowman. Algeo sentenced Bowman to the maxi
mum — two consecutive life sentences, plus 75 years for the abuse.
Bowman apologized but showed no emotion.
“I am very sorry for the abuse of the girls,” Bowman told the judge in a monotone voice. “It haunts me. It haunts me every day.”
Public defender Alan Drew said the defense would appeal the convictions. Her attorneys argued that Bowman didn’t kill the girls.
John J. McCarthy, the state’s attorney for Montgomery County, prosecuted the case himself.
“Renee Bowman’s crime was brutal almost beyond human comprehension,” McCarthy said. “Given the opportunity as an adoptive parent to change the lives of three children, she violated that trust in unimaginable ways.”
The case began September 2008 when Bowman’s 7-year-old daughter escaped the home through a window and was found wandering a Calvert County neighborhood. On Sept. 26, the Calvert County Sheriff’s Department arrested Bowman and opened an investigation into allegations of child abuse. The following day, they discovered two bodies in a chest freezer. Bowman later admitted that the bodies were those of Minnet Cecilia Bowman, 9, and Jasmine Nicole Bowman, 7.
The girls had been duct-taped in the fetal position and entombed in a block of ice.
The investigation revealed that Bowman had killed the girls in Montgomery County and moved the bodies to Calvert County. It also showed that she adopted all three of the girls and collected more than $152,000 from the District of Columbia to care for the girls, even after two of the girls were dead.
D.C. officials allowed Bowman to adopt the girls despite a bumpy personal history, including a 1999 conviction for threatening physical violence against a 72-year-old man.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
