Montgomery County Police on Monday searched the former Aspen Hill home of a Calvert County woman to find clues on whether the human remains found in a freezer in her Lusby residence on Saturday are the bodies of two of her three young daughters.
Police said Renee Bowman, 43, had lived in the 13100 block of Vandalia Drive in Aspen Hill. Investigators are piecing together a timeline of when the girls, born in 1997 and 1999, were last seen alive, county police said.
Lt. Paul Starks, county police spokesman, said Tuesday that the house was vacant and that police also canvassed the neighborhood, asking residents for information on the family. He said he did not know what turned up in the investigation.
The remains were found after the Calvert County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant on the home of Bowman, of the 700 block of Buckskin Trail in Lusby, after her 7 year-old daughter was found suffering from "extreme abuse and neglect," according to a press release issued by the Calvert County Investigative Team, comprised of state police and the sheriff's office.
Bowman confessed to beating the girl with a "hard heeled shoe" and was held at the Calvert County Detention Center on first-degree child abuse charges, according to the press release.
Several attempts to reach the Calvert County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday were unsuccessful. The Maryland State Police Barrack in Prince Frederick said the investigation is in the hands of the sheriff's office.
The sheriff's office responded to a call on Friday at a residence on Pawnee Trail in Lusby regarding a child who had apparently run away from home. The girl had been left home alone and locked in her room in the Buckskin Trail residence, but escaped by jumping out a second-story window, the sheriff's office reported.
Calvert County investigators found the human remains as they searched the Buckskin Trail residence the next day.
Investigators learned that Bowman had adopted three girls from Washington, D.C., but the whereabouts of the two other children are unknown, the press release states.
Bowman told investigators that the remains in the freezer were those of her two other adopted daughters and that they had been in the freezer since she moved from Aspen Hill in February, the press release states.
Several calls placed to D.C. Child and Family Services on Tuesday were not answered.
Mafara Hobson, director of the communications office for D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, said that after adoptions are completed, the District government has no oversight on the children.
The bodies and the freezer were taken to the Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore, where autopsies were scheduled for Tuesday to determine the cause and manner of death of the remains, Starks said.
He said police hope to have some preliminary information today.
Although investigators have not released the names of any of the girls, Montgomery County Public Schools spokesman Steve Simon said there is "no record that they were ever enrolled" in the school system.
Anyone who believes they have information that would assist investigators is asked to call the county's Major Crimes Division at 240-773-5070. Callers may remain anonymous.
The Calvert Investigative Team is asking anyone with information to contact the Maryland State Police Prince Frederick Barrack at 410-535-1400 or the Calvert County Sheriff's Office at 410-535-2800, Ext. 2454. For a possible reward, call Crime Solvers at 410-535-2880 (anonymous calls).