GOLDEN (Reuters) - A nurse whose 10-year-old adopted daughter died after a psychotherapy session in which she was bound in a sheet until she suffocated will face felony child abuse charges, a judge ruled on Wednesday.
Jeane Newmaker, 46, of Durham, North Carolina will be arraigned Oct. 30 on one count of negligent child abuse resulting in death.
Candace Newmaker died April 18 at the home of therapist Connell Watkins, 53, in the mountain community of Evergreen, west of Denver.
Prosecutors allege Jeane Newmaker paid Watkins $7,000 to cure the girl's "reactive attachment disorder" and was present at the fatal session.
The girl had been in traditional therapy, because she could not bond with her mother. When that did not work the mother turned to Watkins for help on what experts say is a very difficult problem to treat. Prosecutors allege the girl stopped breathing after being wrapped in flannel sheet, surrounded by pillows and forced to work her way through the tightly wound covers to simulate birth.
During the 70-minute videotaped session of the procedure known as "rebirthing," Watkins and three of her employees can be seen and heard on the tape restraining the girl and ignoring her pleas that she could not breathe, according to prosecutors. The judge ordered the videotape sealed.
Jeane Newmaker did not appear at Wednesday's hearing before Jefferson County Judge Charles Hoppin, but through her attorney Pamela Mackey, waived her right to a preliminary hearing on the charges.
Watkins and her three employees -- Julie Ponder, 40, Brita St. Clair, 41, and Jack McDaniel, 47 -- have been charged with reckless child abuse resulting in death, a more serious offense than the charge Newmaker faces.