Calvert Authorities Find Children's Frozen Corpses

Calvert Authorities Find Children's Frozen Corpses 

LUSBY, Md. – Investigators in Southern Maryland say a 7-year-old girl apparently escaped her adoptive mother's home after she had been brutally abused, and when authorities searched the house they found the bodies of two other children inside a freezer. 

Police sources tell FOX 5 that the 7-year-old girl was starved and beaten over every inch of her body with a hard-heeled wooden shoe.  The Calvert County Sheriff says the girl's adoptive mother is 43-year-old Renee Bowman, and that she has confessed to the beating. 

Sources tell FOX 5 that Bowman also confessed to killing her two other adoptive daughters, ages 9 and 11, more than a year ago and putting them in a freezer in her house.

According to investigators, the 7-year-old girl had been living as a prisoner in a home on Buckskin Trail Lane since February, but few in the neighborhood even knew there was a child living there. 

One resident, Phillip Garrett, told FOX 5 he remembers a brief encounter a few months ago with Bowman.

"Coco had run into the garage and I was talking to her for at least 45 minutes, and then I noticed something move in the back seat," explained Garrett.  "And she said, 'Oh, well that's my baby.'"

According to Calvert County authorities, the girl was deeply abused, neglected, and starved while locked inside the home.  They say sometime on Friday afternoon, she found the strength to escape, jumping from a second-story window.  That's when Garrett and a friend found her wandering the streets, barely clothed and covered in mud and bruises.

"She looked sad, sad and abused and mentally exhausted," Garrett told FOX 5.  "She told her that her mother had literally beaten her to death."

Garrett says the girl remembered him and his dog, and she ate a pizza while waiting for police.  He says she told the men she hadn't eaten in days. 

Authorities tell FOX 5 that Bowman soon showed up to claim the young girl, and she was arrested on abuse charges.  When sheriff's deputies searched her home, they found a freezer in the basement with the remains of two other children inside—both of them girls.

Sources tell FOX 5 that Bowman confessed to starving one of the girls to death, and that the other one died after falling and hitting her head. 

Police believe the other two children were not murdered at the Lusby home, but instead at Bowman's former home in Rockville.  The family had just moved to Lusby in February, where the entire community is overwhelmed by the news.

"Never did I see a child over there," said Nancy Sears, adding that she might just not have been observant enough. 

According to sources, Bowman received over $2,600 a month for the three children she adopted from the District of Columbia.  According to D.C. officials, Bowman adopted the oldest girl in 2001 and the other two three years later.

Bowman is being held without bond in Calvert County.  Police say they're still investigating, and the bodies found in Bowman's freezer are currently at the medical examiners office in Baltimore where autopsies will be performed.