ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Police are charging a Calvert County woman with murder in the slayings of two of her adopted daughters who were found in her freezer, officials said Monday.
Renee Bowman, who has been in jail since the bodies were found in September, could be served with the warrant this week, Montgomery County police spokesman Lt. Paul Starks said.
Police in Rockville obtained the warrant late Friday, charging Bowman with two counts each of first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death for the killing of the two girls. She also faces a count of first-degree child abuse in Montgomery County, relating to her third, surviving daughter, and faces additional charges in Calvert County.
Calvert County sheriff's deputies found the bodies of Jasmine and Minnet Bowman in their mother's Lusby home while investigating an abuse complaint involving the third daughter. Police believe Minnet Bowman was 9 years old and Jasmine Bowman was 7 years old at the time of their deaths. The surviving girl is now 8 years old. All three girls were adopted.
Starks said investigators believe the murders occurred in May 2006 in a house that Bowman rented in Rockville. Both girls died of asphyxiation, he said.
Detectives spent the last six months developing a timeline of the girls' relationship with Bowman. They dug through D.C. adoption files and interviewed numerous people, including relatives, friends and neighbors who could help establish when the girls were last seen.
"I think you could see this was not a fresh scene," Starks said. "There were hurdles, because establishing the timeline came to our attention months and years after they had been determined to have been killed."
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Montgomery County police also gleaned information from a medical examiner's report and from Calvert County authorities.
Kimberlee Schultz, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, said Bowman had not yet been assigned an attorney for the Montgomery County case. Schultz said Bowman's attorney in Calvert County would not be representing her on the new charges.
Sheriff's deputies were investigating an abuse complaint regarding the surviving daughter in September when they discovered the other girls' remains encased in ice. Police say the surviving girl was found by neighbors after she jumped from a second-story window of the home in southern Maryland.
Bowman was indicted on attempted first- and second-degree murder, assault and child abuse in Calvert County. Her jury trial on those charges is scheduled to begin on Sept. 28.
