October 1, 2025 • 18 mins
Ten year old Candace Elizabeth Newmaker died during a controversial therapy session.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Your mom likes us. I'm Linda Zimmerman.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this is.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio dot Com.
And good evening. It is literally a dark and stormy
nights where I am right now when while we are recording.
So if you hear a clap of thunder, it isn't
special effects. It's a mother nature.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah. Oh, and that means it's heading in my direction.
So we'll see how this plays out.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
You may yeahunderstorms. Yeah, we don't lose power. So let's
jump right.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
In, all right. Yeah, tonight, tonight's disturbing. They're all disturbing.
But this one, this is a new one. Great, we're
calling it dangerous therapy. Okay, all right, So you might
want a clean sheet of paper for this one. I
have one, all right, excellent. Our case today focuses on
a psychiatric condition known as reactive detachment disorder, which is
(01:06):
thought to be caused by a lack of normal bonding
with parents or caregivers in early years of development. It's
not common, but it's seen most often in adopted children
or those who have been institutionalized as an infant for
one reason or another, medical family reasons, whatever. Some of
the signs and symptoms you'll see are avoiding physical contact,
(01:31):
lack of eye contact. These kids, as they get older
start lying and stealing. You'll see cruelty to animals, which
we've discussed many times is always a giant red flag,
and a lack of impulse control, so they'll just whatever,
you know, break something, throw something, lack of consideration of
safety for other people. And the onset is usually before
(01:53):
age five. Oh so this is an early this is young. Yeah.
Treatment includes psychotherapy and what they call holding therapy, where
the patient gets held by a parent or a therapist
to just get used to being touched and used to,
you know, accepting being held by somebody else and all that.
(02:14):
And I should also say we're not psychologists, we're not psychiatrists,
so if we get something a little wrong in the details,
by all me and reach out. But today we're talking
specifically about Candace Tiara Elmore, who was born on November nineteenth,
nineteen eighty nine, in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Her mom, Angela,
was herself still a teenager. Her father, Todd, was abusive
(02:38):
to the point where Candace and her younger siblings, Chelsea
and Michael were removed from the home and they wound
up being separated by Social service just out of need.
When Candace was five, her parents actually lost all their
rights to their kids. They weren't allowed to have any
contact with their kids anymore at this point, both of them,
both of them, So we can see the stage being
(02:59):
set problems here. When Candas was seven, she was fortunate
enough to be adopted by Jean Elizabeth Newmaker, who was
a pediatric nurse practitioner in Durham, North Carolina. She was
a single woman, single mom. At this point, Candace was
now named Candace Elizabeth Newmaker. That would be the name
(03:19):
that she's known by. Candace was already exhibiting bad behavior,
which really is no surprise given what she had been
through at such a young age, So Jean started taking
her to a psychiatrist, which was the right thing to do.
Candace was given medication, but Jean noticed that her behavior
behavior just kept getting worse and worse over the next
(03:42):
two years. Candace started playing with matches, which is dangerous.
Remember the impulse control we talked about, and she started
killing goldfish for fun which the animal cruelty. Again big
red flags. So in April of two thousand, a licensed
psych cologist in North Carolina referred Gene and Candae to
(04:04):
an unlicensed psychologist named Connall Watkins. Connell's a female in Evergreen, Colorado.
Maybe another red flag. They were going to do a
seven thousand dollars intensive, two week session of attachment therapy.
I remember what I said earlier. The kind of therapy
(04:25):
that they will use sometimes is called holding therapy, not
attachment therapy, So don't confused. The two Attachment therapy has
also been known as compression therapy, rage reduction, and coercive
restraint therapy.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Coercive restraint therapy.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, that might imply that maybe this isn't such a
great decision to make. But you have somebody who in
a position of authority and who's supposed to know better,
suggesting that you do this, and you take their suggestions.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well it's a thousand dollars Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
It's also known as the Evergreen model because it originated
at clinics in Evergreen, Colorado, which is where Candace would
be headache. And with that, we're going to take our
first break, leave you hang.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
All right, we have a disturbed child and it sounds
like things are going to get worse.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, we have a mom who was clearly trying to
do the right thing. She's trapping the advice, so we'll
give her credit for now. The therapists quote unquote air
quote that who would be working with Candace in Evergreen,
Colorado where Conna Watkins, like I mentioned, a female and
(06:00):
an unlicensed therapist Julie Ponder, p O and d Er.
Also present were air quotes therapeutic foster parents Brittas Saint
Clair and Jack McDaniel. Jean, the adopted mom, was also there.
Everything they did was videotaped and was later shown a trial,
(06:21):
which was good. It worked out, you know, it was.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
A trial, a little foreshadowing there.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
For therapeutic purposes. It wound up being evidence. On April
eighteenth of two thousand, they were in the second week
of this seven thousand dollars treatment and the plan for
the day was known as a rebirthing session. Candice was
wrapped in a flannel sheet. She was covered up with
pillows and you know, wrapped up tightly to simulate being
(06:50):
in the womb, oh boy, and she was told to
fight her way out of it. The idea was that
this would somehow help her attach to her adoptive mother,
being reborn rebirthed, which right off the pat just sounds
a little you.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Know, I think the term would be kookie.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I would agree. I believe that is an official medical term.
And yes, I agree that that's that. Yeah. So Candace
at this point weighed seventy pounds thirty two kilograms. For
our overseas listeners, all four adults use their hands and
feet to keep Candace trapped in the sheet while she
was on the floor. Candace could not get out because
they would not let her out. Whenever she tried to
(07:34):
get out, they would just start wrapping her up. She
started complaining, she started pleading, and then she started screaming
for help, saying that she couldn't breathe. She said eleven times,
I'm dying. I'm dying, I'm dying, to which the therapist
air quote Ponder said, go ahead, die right now, for real,
(07:56):
for real. This is what she said back to Candace
in the middle.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Of Oh, what kind of therapy is that?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yep, Wow, I can't imagine even doing this to a person. Wow,
after twenty minutes of this, twenty minutes of making her
fight her way out, how long is it boxing round?
Three minutes? Yeah, a few minutes, all right, So this
is twenty minutes of making Kandas try to fight her
way out of this. She had vomited, trouble breathing, Yeah,
(08:26):
she had vomited. She was complaining she couldn't breathe, she
lost control of her bowels, and they still kept her
wrapped up in the sheet, trying to make her fight
her way out. After forty minutes, we're now at forty minutes.
They asked Candas if she wanted to be reborn, and
she said no, all right, excuse me, so Ponder began
(08:51):
yelling at her, quitter, quitter, quit, quit, She's a quitter.
Just taunting this little girl who's wrapped up in a sheet,
couldn't get her way out.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
This is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
The one who vomited, had soiled herself, had screamed she
couldn't breathe, still not letting her out. Watkins then asked
Jean to leave the room so Candace wouldn't pick up
on Jean's disappointment of her not being reborn at the moment.
In other words, get mom out of the room so
(09:21):
the kid wouldn't notice that the mom was disappointed that
it didn't work right, right, excuse me. So he also
asked that the two foster parents, the fake foster parents,
to leave the room, which only left him and Ponder,
the other unlicensed therapist, in the room with Candace, so
Jean would actually be watching this whole thing on a
(09:41):
TV monitor from a room nearby. Watkins and Ponder had
a conversation between themselves, paying no attention to Candace for
about five minutes. Then they unwrapped Candace from this flannel
sheet that she had been wrapped up in. She was
covered in vomit. She was covered in excrement, Her lips
and fingers were blue, and she wasn't breathing at this point.
(10:05):
So Watkins said out loud on tape, Oh there she is.
She's sleeping in her vomit. Jean saw this was a
good thing. Yeah, this was therapy, right. So Jean, the
mom saw this. Remember she was a pediatric nurse practitioner,
so she had a medical background. Jean ran into the
(10:26):
room and started doing CPR on her daughter. Canvas there,
Watkins called nine to one one. It took about ten
minutes for EMS to arrive, and the paramedics believed that
Candace had not been breathing for some time, so they
think she was down for a good amount of time. Wow,
CPR and you know adults and CPR. I taught CPR
(10:50):
forever back in my paramedic days, EMS days and all
that kind of stuff. And one thing that's taught is
how the human body compensates. So if you have an
adult who's having trouble breathe, they're having some sort of
medical difficulty, they can compensate for a long time and
then they'll start to decompensate and then hopefully they don't,
but then they could go into cardiac arrest. But it
(11:11):
takes time, you know, the respiratory failure sets in, and
kids are different. Kids will compensate at one hundred percent
and then just go off a cliff and that's it.
There's no slow respiratory failure. You don't see what you
see in adults. They just decompensate and go right into
cardiac arrest. And it's very difficult, if not impossible, to
(11:31):
bring them back at that point. In this case. The
MS was able to get a pulse back on Candae
and she was flown to a hospital in Denver, but
she was brain dead from the lack of oxygen for
all those minutes in between, and she wound up dying
the next day, April nineteenth, two thousand. She was ten
years old when this happened. So we're gonna let that settle.
(11:55):
We're gonna take another break, and we'll see how everything
plays out afterwards. Right, So we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
All right, there's all kinds of words I'd like to
say about how blank up this is wow what people
consider to be therapy.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, it's mind boggling. I just can't wrap my head
around it. So this was in two thousand and one.
Candice died from the quote unquote therapy that you got
at ten years old. In two thousand and one, Watkins
and Ponder. Watkins was fifty four at the time. Ponder,
the two therapists, if you want to call him that, Ponder,
(12:48):
was forty. They were both tried and convicted of reckless
child abuse resulting in death. They were given sixteen year
prison sentences, which does not sound like enough to me. Now,
the two foster parents, the fake foster parents Saint Claire McDaniels,
each took a plea bargain. They pled to criminally negligent
(13:09):
child abuse and were given ten years probation and a
thousand hours of community service. It seems a little lenient,
it does, but they were also not the therapist. They
were the assistants doing what they were told.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, but you see a little child suffocating, right, and
you're taunting it.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
But presumably this isn't the first time they did it,
because there was a whole institute. And remember they were
asked to leave the room, walking the room. Okay, so
maybe I can understand the argument in both directions. But
they got what they got that ten years probation in
thousand hours of community service. Geane the mom pled guilty
(13:48):
to negligent and abuse charges and was given a four
year suspended sentence. The charges were later expunged, so they
were clear from her record. But I can kind of understand.
You see what's happening, and you were watching on a
video screen, and you're letting this happen without intervening. It's
your job it's your responsibility as a parent to intervene
(14:09):
for your child's safety.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And she's a pediatric nurse, yes, she practition really should
know when a child is in genuine distress.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. Watkins and Ponder
both lost their appeals and they remained in prison. Watkins
was paroled under intense supervision their language in two thousand
and eight after serving seven years. She was sixty two
when she was released in two thousand and eight. She surprisingly,
(14:38):
unsurprisingly has restrictions on contact with children, and she can't
do anything related to counseling or psychological work, one would hope.
So she would be around seventy eight now, and I
could not find any updates on her. So I don't
know if she's still under supervision or not, or if she's.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Been changed her name.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I don't know. Ponder remained in prison when Watkins was released.
In twenty ten, she filed suit against the High Planes
Correctional Facility in Brush, Colorado as an inmate. But I
don't know where she is now. So I know as
of twenty ten she was still in prison.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
What was the basis of her laws?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Prison conditions of a comic? Wow? You know, inhumane condition
kind of stuff that happens a lot. So what'd they do?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Wrap her in a blanket and not let her out?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Maybe they should have, you know, So I don't I
saw that. I found the lawsuit that was filed. I
didn't find the outcome. It was actually kicked back to
her for an improper lawsuit, you know, for to be fixed.
And I don't know what happened after that. I don't
know where she is now. She would be around sixty
five years old. If anything good came out of this,
(15:49):
it would be the passing of Candace's Law in both
Colorado and North Carolina, which prohibits this type of ridiculous treatment,
and other states have also followed suit. And I don't
know if there's a federal statute that followed, but it
wasn't the works, so hopefully there is.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So yeah, this is like the type of nonsense that
go on in cults or.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
You know, this is why you don't take metal advice
from medical advice from TikTok. This is the whole thing
with vaccines and with medical treatment and all that. And
you know, anybody can can make a professional looking YouTube
video and sound convincing. Yeah, you know, there's always been
snake oil, there's always been dubious treatments. There's always been
(16:35):
that kind of stuff, and you really have to pay attention.
But this is so far over the line.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
And the amount of money paid back, you know back then,
that's an enormous amount of money that should also have
been a red flag. Yep, Wow, what a shame. Wow
that poor kid. Uh. I know she had some problems,
but I mean, can I get it?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And yeah, my ms time and in law enforcement, I've
dealt with people of all ages who have those types
of problems, and to say it's difficult as an understatement, oh,
I can't imagine. So I get the level of frustration
that a parent would have trying to sure to do that,
especially if you don't have insurance, so you don't have
(17:20):
you have inadequate insurance that won't cover psychiatric treatments. And so,
you know, my heart goes out to people in that
position who are really trying, really trying and taking the
advice of going to this institute, which all right, you
know you're taking the advice, You're trying to do the
right thing for your child, and it turned out to
(17:41):
be the complete opposite. Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Wow, that is quite disturbing. That's boy kid. Never got
a break, never got a chance.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Never had a chance. Yeah, it's unfortunate, all.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Right, Okay, well yeah I'd like to run screaming out
of this one. So thank you everyone for joining us,
and join us again in Murder in the Hudson Valley.
If someone doesn't wrap you tightly in a blanket.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Hudson River Radio dot com
Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Your mom likes us. I'm Linda Zimmerman.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
I'm Brian Harrowitz, and this is.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Murder in the Hudson Valley on Hudson River Radio dot Com.
And good evening. It is literally a dark and stormy
nights where I am right now when while we are recording.
So if you hear a clap of thunder, it isn't
special effects. It's a mother nature.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah. Oh, and that means it's heading in my direction.
So we'll see how this plays out.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
You may yeahunderstorms. Yeah, we don't lose power. So let's
jump right.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
In, all right. Yeah, tonight, tonight's disturbing. They're all disturbing.
But this one, this is a new one. Great, we're
calling it dangerous therapy. Okay, all right, So you might
want a clean sheet of paper for this one. I
have one, all right, excellent. Our case today focuses on
a psychiatric condition known as reactive detachment disorder, which is
(01:06):
thought to be caused by a lack of normal bonding
with parents or caregivers in early years of development. It's
not common, but it's seen most often in adopted children
or those who have been institutionalized as an infant for
one reason or another, medical family reasons, whatever. Some of
the signs and symptoms you'll see are avoiding physical contact,
(01:31):
lack of eye contact. These kids, as they get older
start lying and stealing. You'll see cruelty to animals, which
we've discussed many times is always a giant red flag,
and a lack of impulse control, so they'll just whatever,
you know, break something, throw something, lack of consideration of
safety for other people. And the onset is usually before
(01:53):
age five. Oh so this is an early this is young. Yeah.
Treatment includes psychotherapy and what they call holding therapy, where
the patient gets held by a parent or a therapist
to just get used to being touched and used to,
you know, accepting being held by somebody else and all that.
(02:14):
And I should also say we're not psychologists, we're not psychiatrists,
so if we get something a little wrong in the details,
by all me and reach out. But today we're talking
specifically about Candace Tiara Elmore, who was born on November nineteenth,
nineteen eighty nine, in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Her mom, Angela,
was herself still a teenager. Her father, Todd, was abusive
(02:38):
to the point where Candace and her younger siblings, Chelsea
and Michael were removed from the home and they wound
up being separated by Social service just out of need.
When Candace was five, her parents actually lost all their
rights to their kids. They weren't allowed to have any
contact with their kids anymore at this point, both of them,
both of them, So we can see the stage being
(02:59):
set problems here. When Candas was seven, she was fortunate
enough to be adopted by Jean Elizabeth Newmaker, who was
a pediatric nurse practitioner in Durham, North Carolina. She was
a single woman, single mom. At this point, Candace was
now named Candace Elizabeth Newmaker. That would be the name
(03:19):
that she's known by. Candace was already exhibiting bad behavior,
which really is no surprise given what she had been
through at such a young age, So Jean started taking
her to a psychiatrist, which was the right thing to do.
Candace was given medication, but Jean noticed that her behavior
behavior just kept getting worse and worse over the next
(03:42):
two years. Candace started playing with matches, which is dangerous.
Remember the impulse control we talked about, and she started
killing goldfish for fun which the animal cruelty. Again big
red flags. So in April of two thousand, a licensed
psych cologist in North Carolina referred Gene and Candae to
(04:04):
an unlicensed psychologist named Connall Watkins. Connell's a female in Evergreen, Colorado.
Maybe another red flag. They were going to do a
seven thousand dollars intensive, two week session of attachment therapy.
I remember what I said earlier. The kind of therapy
(04:25):
that they will use sometimes is called holding therapy, not
attachment therapy, So don't confused. The two Attachment therapy has
also been known as compression therapy, rage reduction, and coercive
restraint therapy.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Coercive restraint therapy.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, that might imply that maybe this isn't such a
great decision to make. But you have somebody who in
a position of authority and who's supposed to know better,
suggesting that you do this, and you take their suggestions.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well it's a thousand dollars Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
It's also known as the Evergreen model because it originated
at clinics in Evergreen, Colorado, which is where Candace would
be headache. And with that, we're going to take our
first break, leave you hang.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
All right, we have a disturbed child and it sounds
like things are going to get worse.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, we have a mom who was clearly trying to
do the right thing. She's trapping the advice, so we'll
give her credit for now. The therapists quote unquote air
quote that who would be working with Candace in Evergreen,
Colorado where Conna Watkins, like I mentioned, a female and
(06:00):
an unlicensed therapist Julie Ponder, p O and d Er.
Also present were air quotes therapeutic foster parents Brittas Saint
Clair and Jack McDaniel. Jean, the adopted mom, was also there.
Everything they did was videotaped and was later shown a trial,
(06:21):
which was good. It worked out, you know, it was.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
A trial, a little foreshadowing there.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
For therapeutic purposes. It wound up being evidence. On April
eighteenth of two thousand, they were in the second week
of this seven thousand dollars treatment and the plan for
the day was known as a rebirthing session. Candice was
wrapped in a flannel sheet. She was covered up with
pillows and you know, wrapped up tightly to simulate being
(06:50):
in the womb, oh boy, and she was told to
fight her way out of it. The idea was that
this would somehow help her attach to her adoptive mother,
being reborn rebirthed, which right off the pat just sounds
a little you.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Know, I think the term would be kookie.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I would agree. I believe that is an official medical term.
And yes, I agree that that's that. Yeah. So Candace
at this point weighed seventy pounds thirty two kilograms. For
our overseas listeners, all four adults use their hands and
feet to keep Candace trapped in the sheet while she
was on the floor. Candace could not get out because
they would not let her out. Whenever she tried to
(07:34):
get out, they would just start wrapping her up. She
started complaining, she started pleading, and then she started screaming
for help, saying that she couldn't breathe. She said eleven times,
I'm dying. I'm dying, I'm dying, to which the therapist
air quote Ponder said, go ahead, die right now, for real,
(07:56):
for real. This is what she said back to Candace
in the middle.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Of Oh, what kind of therapy is that?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yep, Wow, I can't imagine even doing this to a person. Wow,
after twenty minutes of this, twenty minutes of making her
fight her way out, how long is it boxing round?
Three minutes? Yeah, a few minutes, all right, So this
is twenty minutes of making Kandas try to fight her
way out of this. She had vomited, trouble breathing, Yeah,
(08:26):
she had vomited. She was complaining she couldn't breathe, she
lost control of her bowels, and they still kept her
wrapped up in the sheet, trying to make her fight
her way out. After forty minutes, we're now at forty minutes.
They asked Candas if she wanted to be reborn, and
she said no, all right, excuse me, so Ponder began
(08:51):
yelling at her, quitter, quitter, quit, quit, She's a quitter.
Just taunting this little girl who's wrapped up in a sheet,
couldn't get her way out.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
This is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
The one who vomited, had soiled herself, had screamed she
couldn't breathe, still not letting her out. Watkins then asked
Jean to leave the room so Candace wouldn't pick up
on Jean's disappointment of her not being reborn at the moment.
In other words, get mom out of the room so
(09:21):
the kid wouldn't notice that the mom was disappointed that
it didn't work right, right, excuse me. So he also
asked that the two foster parents, the fake foster parents,
to leave the room, which only left him and Ponder,
the other unlicensed therapist, in the room with Candace, so
Jean would actually be watching this whole thing on a
(09:41):
TV monitor from a room nearby. Watkins and Ponder had
a conversation between themselves, paying no attention to Candace for
about five minutes. Then they unwrapped Candace from this flannel
sheet that she had been wrapped up in. She was
covered in vomit. She was covered in excrement, Her lips
and fingers were blue, and she wasn't breathing at this point.
(10:05):
So Watkins said out loud on tape, Oh there she is.
She's sleeping in her vomit. Jean saw this was a
good thing. Yeah, this was therapy, right. So Jean, the
mom saw this. Remember she was a pediatric nurse practitioner,
so she had a medical background. Jean ran into the
(10:26):
room and started doing CPR on her daughter. Canvas there,
Watkins called nine to one one. It took about ten
minutes for EMS to arrive, and the paramedics believed that
Candace had not been breathing for some time, so they
think she was down for a good amount of time. Wow,
CPR and you know adults and CPR. I taught CPR
(10:50):
forever back in my paramedic days, EMS days and all
that kind of stuff. And one thing that's taught is
how the human body compensates. So if you have an
adult who's having trouble breathe, they're having some sort of
medical difficulty, they can compensate for a long time and
then they'll start to decompensate and then hopefully they don't,
but then they could go into cardiac arrest. But it
(11:11):
takes time, you know, the respiratory failure sets in, and
kids are different. Kids will compensate at one hundred percent
and then just go off a cliff and that's it.
There's no slow respiratory failure. You don't see what you
see in adults. They just decompensate and go right into
cardiac arrest. And it's very difficult, if not impossible, to
(11:31):
bring them back at that point. In this case. The
MS was able to get a pulse back on Candae
and she was flown to a hospital in Denver, but
she was brain dead from the lack of oxygen for
all those minutes in between, and she wound up dying
the next day, April nineteenth, two thousand. She was ten
years old when this happened. So we're gonna let that settle.
(11:55):
We're gonna take another break, and we'll see how everything
plays out afterwards. Right, So we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
All right, there's all kinds of words I'd like to
say about how blank up this is wow what people
consider to be therapy.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, it's mind boggling. I just can't wrap my head
around it. So this was in two thousand and one.
Candice died from the quote unquote therapy that you got
at ten years old. In two thousand and one, Watkins
and Ponder. Watkins was fifty four at the time. Ponder,
the two therapists, if you want to call him that, Ponder,
(12:48):
was forty. They were both tried and convicted of reckless
child abuse resulting in death. They were given sixteen year
prison sentences, which does not sound like enough to me. Now,
the two foster parents, the fake foster parents Saint Claire McDaniels,
each took a plea bargain. They pled to criminally negligent
(13:09):
child abuse and were given ten years probation and a
thousand hours of community service. It seems a little lenient,
it does, but they were also not the therapist. They
were the assistants doing what they were told.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, but you see a little child suffocating, right, and
you're taunting it.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
But presumably this isn't the first time they did it,
because there was a whole institute. And remember they were
asked to leave the room, walking the room. Okay, so
maybe I can understand the argument in both directions. But
they got what they got that ten years probation in
thousand hours of community service. Geane the mom pled guilty
(13:48):
to negligent and abuse charges and was given a four
year suspended sentence. The charges were later expunged, so they
were clear from her record. But I can kind of understand.
You see what's happening, and you were watching on a
video screen, and you're letting this happen without intervening. It's
your job it's your responsibility as a parent to intervene
(14:09):
for your child's safety.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
And she's a pediatric nurse, yes, she practition really should
know when a child is in genuine distress.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. Watkins and Ponder
both lost their appeals and they remained in prison. Watkins
was paroled under intense supervision their language in two thousand
and eight after serving seven years. She was sixty two
when she was released in two thousand and eight. She surprisingly,
(14:38):
unsurprisingly has restrictions on contact with children, and she can't
do anything related to counseling or psychological work, one would hope.
So she would be around seventy eight now, and I
could not find any updates on her. So I don't
know if she's still under supervision or not, or if she's.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Been changed her name.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I don't know. Ponder remained in prison when Watkins was released.
In twenty ten, she filed suit against the High Planes
Correctional Facility in Brush, Colorado as an inmate. But I
don't know where she is now. So I know as
of twenty ten she was still in prison.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
What was the basis of her laws?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Prison conditions of a comic? Wow? You know, inhumane condition
kind of stuff that happens a lot. So what'd they do?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Wrap her in a blanket and not let her out?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Maybe they should have, you know, So I don't I
saw that. I found the lawsuit that was filed. I
didn't find the outcome. It was actually kicked back to
her for an improper lawsuit, you know, for to be fixed.
And I don't know what happened after that. I don't
know where she is now. She would be around sixty
five years old. If anything good came out of this,
(15:49):
it would be the passing of Candace's Law in both
Colorado and North Carolina, which prohibits this type of ridiculous treatment,
and other states have also followed suit. And I don't
know if there's a federal statute that followed, but it
wasn't the works, so hopefully there is.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So yeah, this is like the type of nonsense that
go on in cults or.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
You know, this is why you don't take metal advice
from medical advice from TikTok. This is the whole thing
with vaccines and with medical treatment and all that. And
you know, anybody can can make a professional looking YouTube
video and sound convincing. Yeah, you know, there's always been
snake oil, there's always been dubious treatments. There's always been
(16:35):
that kind of stuff, and you really have to pay attention.
But this is so far over the line.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
And the amount of money paid back, you know back then,
that's an enormous amount of money that should also have
been a red flag. Yep, Wow, what a shame. Wow
that poor kid. Uh. I know she had some problems,
but I mean, can I get it?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And yeah, my ms time and in law enforcement, I've
dealt with people of all ages who have those types
of problems, and to say it's difficult as an understatement, oh,
I can't imagine. So I get the level of frustration
that a parent would have trying to sure to do that,
especially if you don't have insurance, so you don't have
(17:20):
you have inadequate insurance that won't cover psychiatric treatments. And so,
you know, my heart goes out to people in that
position who are really trying, really trying and taking the
advice of going to this institute, which all right, you
know you're taking the advice, You're trying to do the
right thing for your child, and it turned out to
(17:41):
be the complete opposite. Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Wow, that is quite disturbing. That's boy kid. Never got
a break, never got a chance.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Never had a chance. Yeah, it's unfortunate, all.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Right, Okay, well yeah I'd like to run screaming out
of this one. So thank you everyone for joining us,
and join us again in Murder in the Hudson Valley.
If someone doesn't wrap you tightly in a blanket.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Hudson River Radio dot com
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