2 bodies found in freezer

Phillip Garrett, 21, spoke to the 7-year-old girl Friday, setting off the chain of events that led to finding bodies and the arrest of her mother. (Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum / September 29, 2008)

LUSBY - She walked barefoot along the gravel road, her pink nightshirt stained. The girl wore her hair in pigtails, each fastened with a pink barrette, her dark hair so matted it looked as if it were in dreadlocks.

Phillip Garrett, smoking a cigarette on his neighbor's front lawn in the Calvert County neighborhood, called out to the girl.

"My mother beats me. She just beats me to death," the 7-year-old, covered in bruises and cuts, responded, according to witnesses and police.

Those startling words Friday night set off an investigation by the Calvert County sheriff's office that resulted in a grim discovery Saturday at the girl's home - children's remains in a large freezer in the basement.

Renee D. Bowman, 43, a former Rockville resident and the adoptive mother of the girl and two others, was ordered held without bond yesterday on first- and second-degree child abuse charges.

Bowman admitted beating the girl found Friday night, saying she had "lost her temper" and hit the girl with a "hard-heeled shoe," according to Calvert County Detective Sgt. Michael Moore Jr.

Confronted later with the evidence of remains in the freezer, Bowman said she had stored the bodies of her two other adopted daughters in the freezer since she moved from Rockville in February to the rented, tan, single-story rambler in the 200 block of Buckskin Trail in Lusby, Calvert County sheriff's officials said. The case is being investigated as a homicide, Moore said.

"It's a tragedy," he said. "Children don't get to vote on where they come in this life. You would pray and hope the system would have helped them. All we can do is hope the system doesn't let down this little girl. She's a 7-year-old and has been brutally victimized.

"She has been put through hell."

The surviving girl has open sores and lesions on her buttocks and lower thighs, marks on her neck made by a cord, rope or other item and bruises on her hands and lips, police said.

Montgomery County police said they are awaiting a determination from the state medical examiner before any charges are filed. Because the remains were encased in a large block of ice, autopsies have not yet been performed. They are scheduled today at the state medical examiner's office in Baltimore.

Officials from the medical examiner's office did not return phone calls last night.

Calvert County authorities are also interviewing a man, whom they declined to identify. They said he had a relationship with Bowman and lived at the Lusby home "on and off." Moore described the man, whom he said was not the girl's father, as being "very cooperative." Moore declined to say whether the man was a suspect in the investigation.

Bowman, who adopted the three children in Washington, D.C., after serving as their foster mother, was receiving state benefits for the three girls, two of them biological sisters, according to Moore, who added that she did not have a job.

D.C. officials said at a news conference that Bowman adopted the oldest girl, who would be 11, in July 2001. Three years later, she adopted a girl who would now be 9 and her 7-year-old sister.

The surviving girl was being treated yesterday at a Washington hospital.

D.C. social services officials did not return several calls yesterday seeking comment.

Lt. Paul Starks, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Police Department, said that a preliminary investigation revealed Bowman may have lived in the Aspen Hill area before moving to Calvert County. Detectives are trying to put together a timeline of events and determine when the girls were last seen and whether they attended Montgomery County schools, authorities said.

Bowman's previous home on Vandalia Drive in Rockville was empty yesterday, its walls and floors bare. Like the other five houses on Vandalia Court, it's a one-story brick residence with a carport and shrubs in the small front yard.

Some of Bowman's former neighbors said they recall a man also living in the home and said the couple didn't socialize much.

Related topic galleries: Society, Law Enforcement, Prosecution, Electrical Appliance, Witnesses, Michael Moore

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