Mother who hid 5 kids for years gets prison time

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.

York woman who hid five children from authorities sentenced ...

A Pennsylvania woman who admitted hiding five of her children from the world was sentenced Wednesday to a prison term and probation after she apologized in court.
 
    Louann Bowers apologized for her “selfish” actions before York County Judge Richard Renn sentenced her to 11½ to 23 months in prison followed by 23 months of probation, according to The York Dispatch. She pleaded no contest to five counts of child endangerment in May.  

    Bowers, 34, said she ran away from home as a teenager because she was afraid of her abusive father, who she said called her a failure.
 
    “I know I’m not a failure,” she told the judge. “I have to prove to the world that ... I’m a good mother.”  

    Bowers’ lawyer, Ron Gross, said his client had already been locked up for nearly as long as the minimum sentence and that she will likely be released from prison soon. 
 
    Bowers’ oldest five children and a sixth born since she has been in prison are all in foster care, prosecutors said.  

    She and the children’s father, Sinhue Amea Johnson, raised them in a York home that lacked heat, electricity, water and a functioning toilet, police said. Bowers admitted that the children did not receive medical or dental care, did not attend school and did not have birth certificates because she wanted to remain in hiding.  

    In August 2009, police and a child caseworker took the children, then between the ages of 2 and 13, into protective custody after finding them in an East York hotel with their mother.  

    Gross told The Dispatch his client’s family had her declared dead in 2006. The family had reported her missing in 1993, and state police believe she ran away with Johnson, who is her uncle by marriage.  

    Johnson, 46, remains in a county prison awaiting trial for child endangerment.

Truly a sad story how she was manipulated by Johnson and bore 5 kids to live in squalor and for taxpayers to now support. So in '93 she was about 16 when he, at age 28 or so, pretty much kidnapped her. Maybe she is mentally challenged? I suspect so for her being able to accept living like that. Hopefully six kids is enough, and she and Johnson get sterilized. Will be interesting to see how these kids turn out, though foster care has to be much better than living like that.

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