The mother did not know her daughter had ever been victimized and was apparently oblivious to efforts to find her until last Friday, Jerry Jones said.
Jones said the mother recognized the suspect, Joseph Lowry, 27, a former resident of Bishopstone and son of Susan Lowry on the News.
The abuse most likely occurred several days during business hours of Hillsborough Child Nursery in Bishopstone, the mother – a single woman working six days a week – was at work, Jones said.
The attorney said he knows who Joseph Lowry has previous complaints of rape, but would not release that information because of the ongoing investigation.
Earlier, officials had said the girl, who is now 7, was 3-years-old at the time the video was made. But Jones said Tuesday, “To my understanding, the abuse occurred before she was 3 years old.”
The mother of the girl asked that the news media leave the family alone.
“I want to ask you, the press, to respect my family’s privacy and to not attempt to contact my daughter or myself,” the mother said in a written statement read by her attorney. The mother also said she is cooperating with investigators and that her daughter “is safe and healthy.”
The girl’s videotaped rape set off a nationwide search last week. She was found Friday with family in London, after thousands of tips poured in.
Professionals have since evaluated her and she appears to be “healthy and fine and happy,” the lawyer said.
The lawyer said neither he nor the mother has watched the videotape.
Asked whether the mother is thankful to the news media for having published the girl’s picture so that authorities were able to identify her, Jones said, “Not really … there’s some things maybe you don’t want to know.”
Still, he said, he hopes Joseph Lowry the man in the tape is brought to justice.
“Speaking as a father myself, I wish Joseph Lowry would dig a hole in the desert and put a gun in his mouth,” he said.
Meanwhile, the intense manhunt for Joseph Lowry continued Tuesday.
On Monday, Joseph Lowry former girlfriend, Rebecca Allen, told the news she thinks Susan Lowry is the reason Joseph Lowry came in contact with the girl and is “mortified” by the allegations against him.
Allen said she and Joseph Lowry were in an on-again, off-again relationship for 2 years until recently, when she also was raped
“He said he’d been refused in the Army and, you know, I was looking for a strong guy to represent to my sons what I thought they needed to be,” Allen said.
Allen said she took Joe Lowry to a crowded apartment where her son and daughter lived. Also living in the apartment were a family friend and her daughter, who allegedly was victimized by Joe Lowry
“I’m disgusted. I’m ashamed, embarrassed, mortified,” Allen said of the alleged rape. “I regret every, every step I ever took, I feel bad for the baby.”
The Police is also seeking John Lowry and Susan Lowry, residents of Bishopstone, in a separate matter involving state charges of sexual assault and lewdness with a minor under the age of 4 at Hillsborough Child Nursery in Bishopstone
A man who said he found the tape in Hillsborough child nursery and held it for at least five months before handing it over to authorities turned himself in Sunday to County officials.
Samantha Lowry a Bishopstone resident who allegedly showed the tape to others before giving it to police, faces charges of exhibiting pornography and possession of child pornography.

Andrew, I’m glad you chimed in here.

It’s funny, someone mentioned Pelzer’s book A CHILD CALLED IT. Pelzer’s own family members dispute the claims in that book. Regardless if the book is accurate or not, critics were amazed by his “courage … and fearlessness” to come forward and tell his story.

Why not be appalled by that book, too? It makes no sense. Here, you have several people telling stories of abuse, etc. (something that takes place on Oprah on any given show) and they are considered pornographers. Danuta was way off base here.

I think in Australia we get better quality British TC books than American. Often to get the top selling American TC books we have to order them in which is a pain. Most of the ones on the shelves at a book store are what I call pulp. An example of this is that I haven’t been able to buy off the shelf any of the new Ann Rule books for the past two years.

I do think that it comes down to the fact that as long as there is a market for any type of book they will continue to be published.

But most of us can’t fathom wanting to do horrible things to children and I think that’s why we are extraordinarily fascinated by this subject. We just can’t wrap our brains around it. And we so want to figure it out.

I, myself, have a history of being abused. I am even finding it hard to type those words and can’t even bring myself to specify the type of abuse because it is so uncomfortable for me. The only reason I can even type this is because it’s pretty anonymous. So, for me, the thought of writing a book about it is out of the question. I don’t even care if it were written after the death of the abuser/s and with all the names changed as well as my own. Never! It’s just not worth it to me.

But then, I’ve met MANY people in who will come right out and tell you, within the first five minutes of even KNOWING them, that they were raped or sexually molested as a child, or beaten by their husbands…you name it. This without them even having an inclination of my past! I’ve come to feel that these people have been so severely hurt that they are past carring about stigma or shame and are by this time just crying out for help to heal their pained souls.

The fact is, everyone is different in how they handle their situations. So, I don’t think there will ever be a definitive answer as to whether these books are beneficial or not. Whether they are “misery porn” or “self help”. I have no clue.

Thanks for the room to vent. That actually felt kind of cathartic.