A High Point mother jailed for less than a year on child abuse charges now faces a first-degree murder count, after an autopsy formally ruled her 13-year-old daughter's death a homicide caused by starvation and neglect. Kymberli Bowden, 45, was charged with murder on Thursday while still held at the Guilford County Jail, where she had remained since her initial arrest in late October 2025.
The case traces back to October 13, 2025, when a family friend looked through a window of the home on East Farris Avenue and spotted an unresponsive child inside, according to WFMY-TV. Police and firefighters forced entry and found a deceased 13-year-old girl alongside her surviving twin brother, who police say showed signs of extreme trauma. According to the Charlotte Observer, the boy had been living in the home with the body of his twin sister, lacking access to proper nutrition, clothing, or sanitary living conditions, per investigators.
Detectives from High Point's Special Victims Unit took over the scene that day and led the weeks-long investigation that resulted in Bowden's first charges, the High Point Police Department said. She was arrested October 30, 2025, on two counts of felony child abuse and concealing a death, and held under a $1 million bond.
Welfare Checks Before the Body Was Found
Police call logs show officers fielded six calls regarding the East Farris Avenue home in October 2025 alone, four of them involving concerns for the children, per the same WFMY-TV account. Patrol officers had responded to a welfare check at the address the same day the body was ultimately found. The dossier does not resolve whether Guilford County social services had any open case or prior reports involving the family, and that question remains unanswered.
Neighbors told the station that Bowden had grown withdrawn and that her children stopped playing outside after her husband died several years before the tragedy, offering a glimpse into the household's decline. Those accounts, described as local context rather than official findings, paint a picture of a family that slipped from view even as officers kept returning to the same address.
Autopsy Points to Starvation and Neglect
The medical examiner attributed the girl's death to acute necrotizing pneumonia and inanition in the setting of caregiver neglect, ruling it a homicide, according to the Charlotte Observer. Necrotizing pneumonia is a rare lung infection that triggers severe inflammation and liquefaction of consolidated lung tissue, per the National Library of Medicine. The autopsy also cited inanition.
The arrest warrant accused Bowden of failing to provide adequate food and medical care for her daughter, resulting in bodily injury and ultimately the girl's death. It also alleges she tried to conceal the death by keeping her daughter's remains inside the home. Investigators say the prolonged neglect and exposure to extreme trauma caused serious psychological injury and mental harm to the surviving twin.
A Caregiver's Credentials, A Year-Long Case
Court records show Bowden worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant who was paid to provide in-home care for children, a credential prosecutors noted in court even as she exposed her own children to fatal neglect, per WFMY-TV. The contrast between her professional duty of care and the conditions inside her own home has become a striking element of the case as it has unfolded.
North Carolina's first-degree murder statute, codified at General Statute § 14-17(a), specifically includes killings perpetrated through starving or imprisonment, as well as homicides committed during certain underlying felonies, according to the North Carolina General Assembly. First-degree murder is a Class A felony carrying a mandatory sentence of life without parole or the death penalty upon conviction. North Carolina General Statute § 14-318.4 distinguishes among offenses and classifications: certain intentional serious physical injuries are Class D felonies, while willful acts or grossly negligent omissions resulting in serious bodily injury can be Class E felonies, according to Kurtz & Blum. Bowden also faces two felony child abuse charges under the statute.
High Point sits about 75 miles northeast of uptown Charlotte, per the Charlotte Observer's reporting on the case. The case involved a year-long investigation before Thursday's murder charge.
