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The Calvert County woman accused of killing her two daughters and storing their bodies in a freezer for more than a year was indicted by a Montgomery County grand jury today on murder and child abuse charges, the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office reported.
Emily White, a spokeswoman for the State's Attorney's Office, said she could not comment on the case and did not know whether Renee D. Bowman, 43, of the 700 block of Buckskin Trail in Lusby, had a lawyer in Montgomery County. Tess Elmore, a Montgomery County Circuit Court clerk, said the case will not be entered into the system until early next week. A phone call to Bowman's public defender in Calvert County, Dorothy Gardiner-Hodge was not immediately returned.
The case began last year when the bodies of Jasmine Bowman, who was about 7, and Minnet Bowman, who was about 9, were found in a basement freezer Sept. 27 when the Calvert County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant on the home of their mother, Renee D. Bowman, after her then 7-year-old daughter was found wandering around the neighborhood.
The child had jumped from a second-floor window after being left home alone and locked in her room, police said. The girl, whose body police said was covered with cuts and bruises, is now 8 and is being cared for by the Calvert County Department of Social Services.
Bowman adopted all three children in Washington, D.C., and continued to collect remittances from an adoption agency, even after the two older girls were dead, the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office reported.
Montgomery and Calvert County police worked together to investigate the circumstances of the girls' deaths. Although Bowman lived in Prince George's and Charles counties and Washington, D.C., detectives determined that the girls died when the family lived in a rental home on Vandalia Court in Aspen Hill. Bowman lived in the house from 2005 to November 2007, Montgomery County police said.
After Bowman was arrested in Calvert County, Montgomery County police searched the house and yard of the Aspen Hill home where she had lived.
The state Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore determined in December that the two girls died of asphyxiation.
A Montgomery County grand jury indicted Bowman Thursday on two counts of murder, one count of theft and three counts of first-degree child abuse.
Bowman faces first-and second-degree attempted murder charges and child abuse charges resulting from an investigation into the condition of her surviving daughter. Her trial in Calvert County is scheduled for Sept. 28.
Bowman will be arraigned in Montgomery County within a few weeks, according to the Montgomery County State's Attorney's office. The case will be prosecuted by State's Attorney John J. McCarthy and Deputy State's Attorney John Maloney.