© submittedLouann Bowers
Louann Emma Bowers, the mother who hid her five children from the world, apologized to them in York County Court Wednesday before she was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months in county prison.
She said she kept her children from public life, choosing to live with them "underground" in sometimes squalid conditions because she was "selfish."
She said she ran away at 16 because she had been sexually abused.
She watched her father beat her mother "night after night after night."
She said her father's nickname for her was "My failure."
"No, I'm not a failure," she said. "I have to show my children I'm not a bad mother. I also have to show the world I'm not a bad mother."
Bowers, 34, and her husband, Sinhue Johnson, 46, an uncle by marriage, both were charged with five counts of endangering the welfare of a child in September 2010. Bowers pleaded no contest in May. Johnson's case is still pending.
Since she's been in prison since September 2010, Bowers is up for release soon, and could be released in the coming weeks once a parole plan is completed.
Wednesday, senior prosecutor Amy Eyster argued for consecutive sentences of two to four years plus five years probation. She informed Judge Richard K. Renn that Bowers "violated her duty to care for her children" and still denied living with the children in a condemned South Duke Street home with no heat, electricity or running water.
Eyster said, that as each child was born, Bowers and Johnson "had the opportunity to come forward..."
Bowers' court-appointed attorney, Ron Gross, told Renn, "She could have walked into court and said, 'Look at me. I'm absolutely crazy.'"
Instead, Gross said, "She said, 'I'm selfish.'"
Gross conceded she caused the children harm both education and socially.
But, he said, the children in their victim impact statements did not mention living in uncomfortable, potentially hazardous conditions.
"The said they missed gardening, they missed the things their mom did with them, they missed their parents," he said.
Gross argued the most difficult part of Bowers' future will be returning to society.
"Jail is easy for her," he said. "She lived underground. It was what her and her husband agreed how they would raise their kids."
At the time of their arrests, Bowers and Johnson reportedly told police their religion, one which investigators could find no information on, dictated their lifestyle and how they raised the children, ages 2 through 13. The children are now in foster care under the auspices of York County Children, Youth and Families. "If this was about an accepted religion, we wouldn't be having this discussion," Gross said.
"Yeah, we probably would under these conditions," Renn replied.
Bowers said she was proud of her children and missed them.
"It's been the hardest two years of my life," she said. "I missed being with them, I missed picking them up when they fell down. I missed Mother's Day, I missed Father's Day. I enjoyed working in the garden with them."
She said she was proud her children know how to pollinate tomato plants and that they were able to keep one plant alive for five years.
"I want to apologize to them," she said. "I want to apologize for everything I was selfish about."
Before sentencing, Renn said that while Bowers "was living quite a number of years outside of society, she apparently did it crime free."
Renn said he needed to balance a number of "interests" in fashioning a sentence. He said society has an interest to make sure the crimes do not go unpunished.
"She does not pose a danger to society," he said. "Unfortunately, we can't say the same for her own children."
He said while he predicted there was little likelihood of her repeating this type of offense, "we believe there is a need for incarceration."
After sentencing Bowers to four concurrent terms of 11 1/2 to 23 months in county prison and a consecutive 23 months probation on the fifth endangerment count, Renn noted that with time served she is close to her parole date.
He ordered Bowers to remain prison until a parole plan is outlines by the probation department and affirmed by him. It will be up to York County Children, Youth and Families if she regains custody or gets to see her children.
Outside the courtroom, York City Police Detective Dana Ward, the arresting officer, said he was disappointed with the sentence.
"I think what she did to her own children deserves a state sentence," he said. "I think this sentence is more concerned with Louann Bowers than the victims in the case."
Eyster also said she thought both the incarceration and the probation terms are "too short."
Gross said he believes the probation department can fashion a parole plan quickly and that Bowers should be out of prison in a matter of weeks.
"Now she needs to face the world," he said. "That's going to be the challenge. That's going to be the challenge."
At a glance
The crime: Louann E. Bowers, 34, and Sinhue Johnson, 46, were charged with five counts of endangering the welfare of a child for keeping their children, all born without birth certificates, in sometime squalid conditions and failing to see they got health care and education. Bowers pleaded no contest in May. Johnson's case is pending.
The sentence: Wednesday, York County Judge Richard K. Renn sentenced Bowers to 11 ½ to 23 months in county prison and 23 months probation. The prosecution argued for a state prison sentence of 10 to 20 years and five years probation. The defense asked for time served.
What's next: Bowers, who should reach her minimum sentence date on June 30, is to remain in prison until a parole plan - her place of residence, contact numbers and any other matters required by the probation department -- is affirmed by Renn.
The following on incest is from Authur Janov's blog at this [Link] Do note that there is a lot of theory one need cover before a real appreciation of what he's actually taking about sets in . . .
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On Incest
You asked me to write on incest [ . . . ]. I have treated a number of prostitutes, including one in France who was the daughter of a Nazi officer. Nearly all of them suffered incest as a child. Of all the women psychotics I have treated a good ninety percent of them suffered incest very young. There is nothing more devastating than incest for a woman. Also for boys but that is very, very rare. I have seen one case; he was in great pain but not psychotic.
In incest the person who is supposed to be your protector becomes the danger, and since the mother is nearly always complicit in this crime -- and it is a serious crime -- the child has no place to turn. She keeps it all in to horrendous effects. It is not less a crime when person of the church, those [allegedly] holy beings, commit it. The result a lifelong misery. No amount of money or apology will help. It can mean, "I am helpless and hopeless not worth anything, not worthy of proper love---worthless."
There are many reasons they turn to prostitution but they learn soon that their only key role in life is to serve and to be abused. They come to expect it and lead lives of great danger as a result. And worse, the mothers, glad to be relieved of sexual importuning, blame the child for seducing the father; as if a young child could ever think of that or calculate such behavior. So the pain is doubled: they are abused and then blamed for it. How can anyone survive it? And of course, several of my patients were warned that if they told anyone they would be killed.
The amount of pain this all leads to is beyond imaginating; it takes months and months of reliving before they can even get to it. It is most often deeply buried. Do not think that any other therapy that avoids feeling the pain can even touch the problem. We have films of some of these women reliving incest. You cannot begin to imagine what happens to these girls. The fury they feel, pounding the walls for months on end. And of course they are usually into drinks and alcohol because of their pain. My German girl did not crack up until her father abandoned her for her younger sister. She was a severe alcoholic, coming to sessions dead drunk. I had to discharge her because she was too drunk to benefit from sessions. She needed in-house therapy, something we cannot do.
Churches that allow abusive behavior are nothing more than a criminal enterprise. If any other groups, not religious, did the same thing there would be an outcry for prison for them. Religion covers a multitude of sins.
The abused girls are forced to keep the terrible secret inside until they literally explode, their thinking crashes; they are often ADD as that pain keeps bubbling up interrupting thinking. One girl who I wrote about, starting hallucinating on the street. She was a former patient who now realized something bad was happening. She came back and opened up to her incest which was [to that point] totally unconscious. The amount of pain she was carrying around was enormous; no wonder she was barely functional. Of course many of girls become lesbians; men are dangerous and to be avoided. They avoid pain by avoiding anything that reminds them of men.
Will medication help? Of course. But it helps repress. Is that what we want? The pain needs to be expressed, in small titrated doses.
We do not want these women to be overwhelmed. So we go slowly and never enter that area until the patient is ready for it. When they finally get there they cannot wait to relive it; they know that they are finally going to eliminate their suffering. To be rid of the pain you have to feel it; there is nothing else we can do.