In Memoriam

February 26, 2008 in Candace Newmaker, fatalities

Andrea Swenson (??? 1977 – November 9, 1990)
Sent by her adoptive mother to the Attachment Center at Evergreen (ACE), Andrea was put through the usual “two-week intensive,” but then diagnosed as so “damaged” that she had to stay on for periodic treatments at ACE, and live with AT-trained therapeutic foster parents (TFPs), at a cost to the family’s insurance company of $3,500 a week. Supposedly, Andrea made slow progress in the arrangement, until the insurance payments ran out. Whereupon, Watkins and the TFPs began pressuring the adoptive family to allow the TFPs to adopt her — and thereby get new insurance coverage.
One day in November 1990, Andrea returned to her foster home from school and reported to the TFPs that she had been sexually molested at school, which they regarded as typical “Attachment Disorder” behavior — false, manipulative, and attention-getting.
The next day, Andrea overdosed on aspirin. She was in convulsions and delirious the next morning, but the TFPs did not attend her, and instead went bowling that afternoon. While they were gone, a relative visited the house and found Andrea dead in a hallway.

Lucas Ciambrone (??? 1988 – May 13, 1995)
Lucas was diagnosed as “RAD” by Foster Cline, a notable attachment disorder clinic whose practitioners vehemently defended the adoptive parents’ treatment of him. Lucas was starved, bitten, beaten, and forced to sleep in a bathroom that had been stripped of towels, soap, toilet paper and light bulbs. He weighed 27 pounds at time of his death.

Krystal Ann Tibbets (??? 1992 – July 7, 1995)
Krystal was beaten to death by her adoptive father, who was taught to lie across his daughter (who weighed a total of 35 pounds) in what is known in AT circles as “compression therapy,” and punch his fist into her abdomen, which is one technique of “visceral manipulation” (VM), encouraged by attachment therapists.

David Polreis (??? 1994 – February 11, 1996)
David was beaten to death by his adoptive mother. The Attachment Center she was working with testified that David had RAD, and the mother had acted in self defense, despite the fact that she had first claimed that the child had beaten himself.

Roberta Evers (??? 1991 – June 13, 1998)
Roberta was severely sexually abused by her biological family–she’d been raped by her mother with a broom handle and also by her father and his friends. She was diagnosed with RAD, and in attempt to “manage her,” her adoptive parents restrained her at night, tying her hands and feet to the bed and putting her inside a “net” (which the prosecution later determined as a cage) as “protection.” Roberta choked on her own vomit (she was known to vomit often) and, unable to clear her own windpipe due to the restraint, died in her bed.

Candace Elizabeth Newmaker (??? 1990 – April 18, 2000)
A ten year old adopted girl killed by asphyxiation during an attachment therapy ‘intensive’ involving a ‘rebirthing’ script in 2000, during which Candace was wrapped in blankets and required to struggle to be reborn, against the weight of several adults.

Viktor Alexander Matthey (??? 1993 – October 31, 2000)
Employing techniques recommended by AT parenting specialists, Viktor was force fed a mixture of beans and barley from a baby bottle, a common “reparenting” technique. Other punishments included dehydration and cat-o’-nine-tails whippings. Viktor was routinely locked and left overnight in an unheated basement, which had no lights and no toilet. If he screamed to get out, his adoptive parents put duct tape over his mouth. One day, after another night of being left in the unheated basement, Viktor stopped breathing. He arrived at the hospital in cardiac arrest, where workers discovered that he was covered with 40 cuts, bruises and abrasions. An autopsy found recent fractures and older fractures that had healed. The medical examiner’s office determined that he died from cardiac arrhythmia due to hypothermia. AT advocates stated during the case that Viktor was “not normal” and had “emotional and developmental issues that require[d] extraordinary interventions.”

Logan Lynn Marr (??? 1996 – January 31, 2001)
Using techniques they’d learned from attachment therapists, Logan’s adoptive parents wrapped her body and covered her mouth in duct tape, strapped her to a chair and left her in the basement where she suffocated to death.

Cassandra Killpack (??? 1998 – June 9, 2002)
Cassandra was restrained to a chair and forced to drink vast quantities of water by her adoptive parents as part of an “attachment-based” treatment. Died from complications of hyponatremia secondary to water intoxication.

Terrance Cottrell, Jr. (??? 1995 – August ??, 2003)
Terrance was killed by a church elder, who sat on his chest for 2 hours at a time during prayer services. Terrance endured numerous sessions before finally dying of mechanical asphyxia due to external chest compression.

Jessica Albina Hagmann (??? 2001 – August 11, 2003)
Jessica died of mechanical asphyxia due to compression from an adult: lack of blood and oxygen. She was killed by her adoptive mother, Patrice Lynn Hagmann, who used attachment therapy techniques she’d learned from Martha Welch’s Holding Time. Police also seized a copy of Ronald Federici’s Help for the Hopeless Child from the home. Patrice Hagmann’s defense claimed that she used holding therapy on Jessica in order to “calm” her, and that the death had been an accident. However, the autopsy revealed copious signs of physical abuse, including bruises that covered Jessica’s face, scalp, torso and back.

Dennis Merryman (??? 1997 – January ?? 2005)
Dennis was starved to death by his adoptive parents, Donna and Samuel Merryman. Two of Dennis’ adopted siblings testified to how Donna and Samuel carried out their “attachment parenting:” they tied Dennis down in a crib covered with bells and netting, they monitored him whenever he went to the bathroom, they didn’t allow him to wear clothes except for Sundays and holidays and they punished him forcing him to walk up and down stairs until the boy passed out and fell back down them. Medical records showed Dennis had not been taken to a doctor for three and a half years. Doctors who examined his body upon his death stated that his vital organs were so stunted that some could only be considered normal for a 2-year-old.

Nina Hilt (??? 2003 – July 2, 2005)
Nina was beaten to death by her adoptive mother, Peggy Hilt, who claimed that the 2-year old child had driven her to alcoholism–a “habit” that Peggy lied about and kept hidden from everyone, including her husband, up until her trial. On the morning of July 1, 2005, Peggy got drunk and grabbed Nina around the neck, shook her and then dropped her to the floor, where she kicked her repeatedly before dragging her up to her room, punching her as they went. Nina immediately came down with a fever, and started vomiting. The next day Nina stopped breathing. By the time the ambulance got the child to the hospital, she was dead. Joyce Sterkel, an AT practitioner who runs a Montana boarding school for “disturbed international adoptees,” spoke in Peggy’s defense that she “understand[s] how some people end up killing these kids.”

Sean Paddock (??? 2002 – February ??, 2006)
Sean was murdered by his adoptive mother, who also routinely beat her other adopted children as a means of “discipline” prescribed by Michael and Debi Pearl, a couple who publish books recommending the use plumbing supply lines and PVC pipes to “chasten” children. After Sean died in the tightly wrapped blankets his adoptive mother had suffocated him with as a form of punishment, his older sister and brother (whom police noted was beaten so badly that he limped) reported her to the authorities.

Angellika Arndt (March 3, 1999 – May 26, 2006)
As a foster child, Angellika was labeled as a RAD (reactive attachment disorder) kid. She was put into a “control hold” as punishment for blowing bubbles in her milk and laughing during lunchtime. Two staff members at a Wisconsin clinic held Angellika in a prone position face-down on the floor for over an hour and a half. One of them was a man nearly five times Angellika’s body weight; the weight of his body on her upper torso caused her death.

Andrew Burd (??? 2002 – October 3, 2006)
Andrew was murdered by his foster mother, Hannah Overton, who forced him to drink large quantities of salt water mixed with chili spices. Andrew choked and stopped breathing; police involved in the case testified that his foster parents waited nearly three hours before taking him to the hospital. Doctors who examined Andrew’s body noted bruises, sores, lesions and multiple scratches on his face, back and buttocks, along with head injury that appeared to be from blunt-force trauma.

Olivia (??? 2003 – December ??, 2007) and Magnus Bernsdorff (??? 2005 – December ?? 2007)
Olivia and Magnus were murdered by their father, who practiced attachment parenting and parroted AP’s beliefs that divorce and separation from one’s biological mother would turn his children into “psychopaths,” AKA Reactive Attachment Disordered kids (RAD is commonly referred to in AP circles as “Ted Bundy disease”). Despite the fact that the bogus RAD symptoms and diagnosis promoted by Attachment Parenting International wholly differ from the true, factual definition to be found in the DSM-IV, Bernsdorff took them the AP community at their word and shot Olivia and Magnus. Police found Olivia lying on her left side, shot in her chest. Magnus was lying on his back, shot in his chest and right thigh.

Alexis Glover (??? – January ??, 2009)
13-year old Alexis Glover’s body was found in a creek on January 9, 2009, two days after her adoptive mother, Alfreedia Gregg-Glover, reported her missing to the police. Investigation later revealed that this report was false and that Gregg-Glover herself had dumped Alexis into the creek. The death was ruled a homicide, the result of drowning and exposure to the elements. Further investigation revealed how Alexis endured constant abuse from Gregg-Glover, including being stripped naked, denied food and beaten with a stick. School bus drivers witnessed Alexis being forced to walk to the bus in her underwear while her mother videotaped her.
As an adopted foster child, Alexis had been diagnosed as “RAD,” so not only were the multiple reports of abuse disbelieved and ignored even made by third party adults, much of the abuse witnessed was in fact approved by Glover’s attachment therapist, who recommended withholding basic necessities such as food, clothing and use of the bathroom in order to get Alexis to “bond” with her mother. This regimen also approved coercive restraint methods that included tying the girl up with a dog leash.