She told the adults holding her down that she couldn't breathe, that she was going to throw up, that she was dying. They told her to keep fighting. She wasn't lying.
A Childhood That Started in Crisis
Candace Newmaker was born Candace Tiara Elmore on November 19, 1989, in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Her birth parents were neglectful and abusive, and by the time she was five, the state had removed her and her siblings from the home. She spent the next year cycling through foster placements before being adopted at age 7 by Jeane Newmaker, a single pediatric nurse practitioner from Durham who wanted a child to love.
What Jeane found, by her own account, was a girl struggling far more than she'd anticipated — angry, destructive, unable to show affection, allegedly showing aggressive behavior toward other children and animals, though notably, none of Candace's teachers or neighbors ever reported witnessing the same behavior themselves. In 1996, a psychiatrist diagnosed Candace with reactive attachment disorder, a real but rare condition that can develop in children whose early needs for stable care and affection weren't met — exactly the kind of background Candace had.
A Search for Help That Led Somewhere Dangerous
Jeane pursued conventional treatment for years — therapy, medication — without, in her view, seeing real improvement. In late 1999, she attended a conference for an organization focused on attachment and trauma in children, where she connected with a psychologist who evaluated Candace's symptoms from a checklist and recommended a specific practitioner: Connell Watkins, who ran an intensive, two-week residential treatment program in Evergreen, Colorado.
Watkins was unlicensed. Her associate, Julie Ponder, was a licensed marriage and family therapist, but not licensed in Colorado, where they were practicing. None of this stopped Jeane from paying $7,000 and traveling more than a thousand miles with Candace for the program, built around a method that mainstream psychology does not recognize as legitimate: "rebirthing."
What "Rebirthing" Actually Meant
The idea behind the technique was that a person could be made to mentally relive their own birth, struggle their way out of a simulated womb, and emerge with a fresh emotional bond to their caregiver. In practice, on April 18, 2000, that meant wrapping Candace tightly in a flannel sheet, surrounding her with pillows, and having multiple adults lean their body weight onto her while telling her to fight her way out.
It was videotaped — the idea being that Jeane and Candace could watch it together afterward.
Candace became distressed almost immediately. She cried that she couldn't breathe, that she felt like she was going to throw up, that she was dying. The adults holding her down — Watkins, Ponder, and two assistants, Clair and Jack McDaniel — told her she needed to fight harder, that she wasn't a quitter, that she had to find her own way out. Jeane watched from nearby and did not intervene.
This continued for seventy minutes. Candace vomited and lost control of her bladder and bowels while restrained inside the sheet. Near the end, she grew quiet, then silent entirely for roughly twenty minutes before anyone noticed something was wrong. When Julie Ponder finally unwrapped her, Candace had no pulse.
A Death Captured on Tape
CPR was attempted. Candace was airlifted to Children's Hospital in Denver, where she died the following day, April 19, 2000. The cause of death was asphyxiation — slow suffocation, recorded in real time on a videotape that would later be played for a jury.
What the Courts Decided
Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder were convicted in April 2001 of reckless child abuse resulting in death and each sentenced to 16 years in prison. At sentencing, Watkins offered a statement of remorse: "I feel sorrow, regret and remorse that torments me every waking hour. I failed Candace and I failed her mother. I accept full responsibility." The judge noted there was no evidence either therapist intended to kill Candace — but found their conduct reckless beyond question, given that the video itself was the prosecution's core piece of evidence.
The two assistants who'd held the blankets, Clair and Jack McDaniel, pleaded guilty to lesser charges of criminally negligent child abuse and received probation, avoiding prison time despite prosecutors pushing for a harsher outcome. Both of Candace's adoptive parents — Jeane and her then-husband, Neil — were also charged with criminally negligent child abuse resulting in death. Both pleaded guilty in August 2001 and received deferred four-year sentences, community service, and court-ordered therapy, with the judge noting their desperation over Candace's behavioral struggles rather than direct involvement in the fatal session itself. Jeane Newmaker was permitted to keep working as a nurse practitioner; her charges were later expunged.
Out Within Years, Not Decades
Despite their 16-year sentences, neither Watkins nor Ponder served anywhere close to the full term. Watkins was released from prison in 2008, after serving roughly seven years, placed into a supervised community corrections program with an ankle monitor and barred permanently from working with children. Ponder's request for the same early release program was denied at that time; she remained eligible for parole consideration separately in the years that followed.
A Law Named for Candace, and a Practice That Didn't Disappear
Candace's death led directly to "Candace's Law" in Colorado, banning forceful reenactments of the birth process that carry meaningful risk of injury or death, with similar legislation following in other states, including North Carolina. It was, by most measures, a real and lasting legislative response.
What it didn't do was end the broader practice of so-called attachment therapy nationwide. Variations of these techniques — physical restraint, forced compliance exercises, isolation — have continued to be used by some practitioners in the years since, including, troublingly, by people who trained directly under Watkins and Ponder before Candace's death and continued operating their own practices afterward.
Candace was ten years old. She had survived genuine neglect and abuse as a small child, been moved through multiple foster placements, and finally landed with a mother who, whatever her failures, was trying — in the worst possible way — to give her a better life. Nearly everyone connected to that room failed her in some fashion: the system that bounced her between homes, the therapists who ignored her literal pleas for air, and the adult in the room who loved her and still didn't step in.
Sources
Candace Newmaker — Grokipedia
https://grokipedia.com/page/Candace_Newmaker
'Rebirthing' Therapists Get Prison Terms — ABC News
https://abcnews.com/US/story?id=93074&page=1
Therapist in 'rebirthing' death leaves prison — Religion News Blog
https://www.religionnewsblog.com/21935/rebirthing-candace-newmaker
No prison for Candace's adoptive mom — Cult Education Institute
https://culteducation.com/group/1115-rebirthing/17881-no-prison-for-candaces-adoptive-mom-.html