Candace Newmaker

The 2017 web series Petscop alludes to Newmaker, with references including the name of the "Newmaker Plane," the setting of the titular video game, and several mentions of a character named "Tiara" as well as exploration of the theme of "rebirthing," and also the "Quitter's Room" in Petscop which references how Candace Newmaker's therapists tormented her during the procedure calling her a quitter. The connection was initially mere speculation. The creator of Petscop later confirmed the reference to Newmaker.

A year later, Watkins and Ponder were tried and convicted of reckless child abuse resulting in death and received 16-year prison sentences. Brita St. Clair and Jack McDaniel, the therapeutic foster parents, pleaded guilty to criminally negligent child abuse and were given ten years' probation and 1,000 hours of community service in a plea bargain. The adoptive mother, Jeane Newmaker, a nurse practitioner, pleaded guilty to neglect and abuse charges and was given a four-year suspended sentence, after which the charges were expunged from her record. An appeal by Watkins against conviction and sentence failed. Watkins was paroled in June 2008, under "intense supervision" with restrictions on contact with children or counseling work, having served approximately seven years of her 16-year sentence.

Candace and Jeane Newmaker traveled to Evergreen, Colorado, in April 2000, for a $7,000 two-week "intensive" session of attachment therapy with Connell Watkins (who was without license) upon a referral from William Goble, a licensed psychologist in North Carolina.

Candace Elizabeth Newmaker (born Candace Tiara Elmore, November 19, 1989 – April 18, 2000) was a child who was killed during a 70-minute attachment therapy session purported to treat reactive attachment disorder. The treatment, during which Candace was suffocated, included a rebirthing script.