As a seasoned investigator with decades of experience under my belt, I must say that the story of Dennis Bowman is one that leaves me both horrified and saddened. The lengths to which this man went to hide the truth about his daughter’s death are unfathomable, and the fact that he continued to live with the knowledge of her burial for over three decades is beyond comprehension.
Dennis Bowman called police to report his 14-year-old daughter missing on March 11, 1989.
At around 12 years old, Aundria Bowman seemed to undergo a significant change, according to Dennis’ statements to investigators, as depicted in the Netflix docuseries Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter. This shift was marked by her frequent absences and trouble at school.
Upon coming back to their house in Hamilton, Michigan, the day Aundria went missing, Dennis noticed something unusual: not only had Aundria disappeared, but also the money he kept in the dresser (which was her tax refund) and the coins from his younger daughter’s piggy bank were both gone.
At first, I heard reports of Aundria being spotted in Holland, not far from where I am, in places like grocery stores and skating rinks, even as far away as Indiana. The authorities mentioned this in the series. However, these sightings gradually diminished until the case turned completely cold, leaving no trace.
In the series, Cathy Terkanian – who gave birth to and named Aundria (originally Alexis) when she put her up for adoption in 1975 – expressed that she had no inkling of any problems until she received a letter from the adoption agency in 2010.
She remembered musing that maybe her daughter was searching for her. However, what turned out to be the case was a demand for a DNA sample to determine if the corpse discovered in a Wisconsin cornfield back in 1999 could potentially be Aundria.
Three years down the line, I discovered that the unknown woman’s DNA wasn’t a familial connection to mine. However, this revelation only fueled my determination to unravel the mystery behind Aundria’s fate.
Initially, Aundria Bowman’s page on Facebook wasn’t expected to elicit the reaction it did when she set it up. However, as it turned out, it led her to reconnect with old friends of Aundria who had harrowing tales about Aundria’s past home environment before she disappeared.
Cathy recalled being “devastated” and wondering, “Who the hell adopted my daughter?”
Who are Dennis Bowman and Brenda Bowman?
Dennis and Brenda Bowman (née Engweiler) married in 1971 and adopted Aundria in 1975.
As a lifestyle advisor, I’d like to share an unfortunate event from my past. Back in 1981, following an assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct charge, I was sentenced to serve between five and ten years in prison. This incident took place in 1980, when I attacked a young girl, as court documents revealed in a series. I served my time and was released on New Year’s Day, 1986, when she was just eleven years old.
Dennis and Brenda’s younger daughter Vanessa Bowman was born in 1988.
In the captivating account of Into the Fire, where Cathy likened her pursuit of truth to diving headfirst into a raging house fire, I found myself utterly consumed and convinced that Dennis didn’t just take Aundria’s life, but he buried her secrets right in his own backyard.
Instead of constantly phoning the Bowmans daily and erecting a billboard on the primary road leading to their residence with a $11,000 reward for any arrest related to an unresolved missing person’s case, she chose alternatives like making frequent phone calls and setting up a billboard. The aim was to secure an arrest in this open case.
Nevertheless, various researchers emphasized in their study that Cathy’s intuition didn’t provide the concrete proof or compelling reason to start excavating the Bowman family’s garden. Over time, Dennis adamantly claimed innocence regarding his daughter’s vanishing.
But in November 2019, Dennis was arrested on suspicion of murder.
As a lifestyle expert, I must clarify that while I wasn’t directly implicated, I found myself under scrutiny due to my proximity to the scene of Kathleen Doyle’s tragic murder in Norfolk, Virginia, as suggested by the forensic evidence uncovered by authorities back in 1980.
Who was murder victim Kathleen Doyle?
In December 1979, Kathleen, aged 25, got married to her Navy pilot spouse, and they lived in a modest home in Norfolk during his deployment.
On the evening of September 9th, 1980, as stated by Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Phil Evans, Kathleen entertained a friend with a couple of glasses of wine. The friend departed around 9:30 PM. Tragically, Kathleen was discovered lifeless on her bedroom floor two days afterward.
Detective Jon Smith from the Norfolk Police Department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit stated in “Into the Fire” that Kathleen died due to mechanical suffocation, which is similar to strangulation. He also mentioned that she had been sexually assaulted and there was a circular burn mark on her right cheek, this mark matched a Lincoln Log toy with one burnt end, which was found in her bathroom wastebasket.
However, as there were no identifiable fingerprints or viable suspects within the Doyles’ neighborhood, the investigation stagnated for nearly four decades. Yet, with advancements in DNA technology – particularly the emergence of genealogy and genetic testing services – a solution was eventually found.
Researchers successfully created a Y-chromosome DNA profile using samples taken from the bedspread belonging to Kathleen. By employing genetic genealogy matching techniques, they generated a list of 31 potential candidates who could be DNA matches.
In the series, it was mentioned that Dennis ranked thirty-first on the list, and later on, Smith disclosed that Dennis had become entangled in Aundria’s strange vanishing and his own questionable past involving crime.
However, in an unexpected turn of events, Smith encountered Detective Sergeant Bryan Fuller of the Michigan State Police by sheer happenstance at a Regional Conference for Homicide Investigators based in Norfolk.
In the Netflix series, it was mentioned by both men that Fuller was well-acquainted with Aundria’s case and suggested to Smith that Dennis might be the person they were searching for.
According to court documents, it was later verified that Dennis was in Norfolk during Kathleen’s murder, as he attended a two-week military training camp while serving in the Navy.
Later on, Dennis was apprehended in Allegan County, Michigan, following the retrieval of DNA from a mug he had utilized at the police station. This DNA sample corresponded to the one obtained from Kathleen’s bedspread, as stated by Smith.
What did Dennis Bowman say about Kathleen Doyle’s murder?
During the broadcast of Into the Fire, Dennis admitted that on the night in question, he broke into a house in Norfolk while under the influence of alcohol. He explained that he used a pen knife to force open a window. Inside the living room, a woman entered and became alarmed. According to Dennis, she grabbed his hand with the knife, causing it to pierce her stomach.
Based on Smith’s account, Kathleen had suffered stab wounds to her chest and back. Additionally, her hands were bound from behind, and she was covered in bruises across her body.
In the gruesome accounts of “Into the Fire”, when faced with the grim details, Dennis noticeably altered his behavior and seemed to avoid eye contact. He appeared somewhat like a child in this instance, as the detective explained further.
In the video of his interrogation, Dennis asserted that he neither sexually assaulted Kathleen nor stabbed her on more than one occasion, which he had previously admitted to. When left alone in the room, he repeatedly said, “I didn’t do that,” and whispered twice, “I’ve done it again.
In June 2020, Dennis admitted his guilt in three separate charges: first-degree murder, rape, and burglary. As a result, he received two sentences of life imprisonment, along with an additional 20-year term for the burglary offense.
By then, however, the case of Aundria’s disappearance had cracked wide open as well.
What happened to Aundria Bowman?
Following Dennis being indicted for Kathleen’s homicide, officials in Virginia and Michigan sought out his spouse Brenda with the aim of persuading him to confess to the murder of Aundria.
In the context I was given, “They proposed an opportunity for me, Dennis, to serve my sentence in Michigan rather than Virginia, making it easier for me to be near my wife. However, this option was contingent on my full disclosure.
Simultaneously, investigators began excavating the Bowmans’ backyard, just as Cathy had been wishing they would. However, their search yielded no results.
In the recorded prison phone conversations with Brenda, as depicted in “Into the Fire”, Dennis consistently maintained his ignorance about their daughter’s fate. However, things changed towards the end of 2019 when he asked for permission to meet his wife privately in jail so they could discuss the matter confidentially.
In the recorded discussion, he shared with Brenda that on the day he claimed Aundria went missing, he had instead gone home and noticed the teenager exiting their shared bedroom. When he inquired about her presence there, she mentioned she was leaving the house, and threatened to expose him if he tried to prevent her by claiming he’d been abusing her.
He hit her, Dennis said, and Aundria fell down the stairs.
Given that she was deceased, Dennis described the scene to Brenda as follows: “Her head turned over,” he stated. “Her eyes looked blank, like those of a doll.” Afraid of being sent back to prison, he moved the 14-year-old’s body to their barn. He claimed that she stayed there for several days during which he burned her overnight bag (and it is possible that the money he reported stolen was inside the bag, as he couldn’t locate it afterwards, according to the police).
Dennis explained that he attempted to place the body within a large cardboard drum, but found it too big. So, he stated, he ended up cutting off the legs of the body. He then positioned the barrel near his neighbor’s trash on collection day, as he added, and it was subsequently removed.
“As long as I didn’t tell you,” Dennis told Brenda, “you had hope.”
Where was Aundria Bowman’s body?
However, authorities persistently kept tabs on their correspondence, even reading letters Dennis penned to his spouse. In one such letter, dated December 12, 2019 (shown in the series), Dennis altered some aspects of his account.
In his letter, Dennis mentioned that Aundria had unfortunately fallen. Subsequently, he placed her to rest in a respectable burial spot near the town’s cemetery. As per Dennis’ account, at the time of burial, Aundria was adorned with jeans, a sweater, and a gold necklace featuring a heart and a cross. He carefully wrapped her in a clean white cloth, resembling a mummy, then enclosed her within a tarp filled with cedar chips, cloves, and cinnamon. Over the course of three decades, he drove past that site more than 100 times.
During “Into the Fire”, investigators stated they explored areas close to cemeteries as a possible burial spot, yet expressed their doubts and urged Brenda to persistently question Dennis for the facts.
Eventually, during another telephone conversation, Dennis confessed that Aundria was actually buried in their backyard, which was also recorded. However, Brenda objected, stating they didn’t reside at that location when their daughter vanished. In response, Dennis explained that he had placed her in a barrel and buried it at their former residence. Later, when they relocated, he claimed to have dug up the barrel along with Aundria and moved it to their new home.
“I dug the hole, and I put the barrel in,” he said. “She’s been right there the whole time.”
In the winter of 2020, I assisted in an excavation of the Bowman family’s backyard, utilizing robust machinery to crack through layers of cement. This endeavor led to the discovery of skeletal remains, shedding light on a past event.
The bones were definitively recognized as Aundria’s via a familial DNA correlation with Cathy. In the novel “Into the Fire“, she expressed that it seemed like her daughter had been crying out in that backyard for many years.
After hearing from Aundria’s tape conversation with Dennis that she wished for “our baby girl to be with me in a beautiful urn,” Brenda decided to have Aundria’s remains cremated. Later, she proposed to share half of the ashes with Cathy.
In the novel “Into the Fire“, Cathy reluctantly agreed yet made clear that she was resolute in reclaiming every piece of her child. She regrettably noted, “It’s just making it worse by taking bits and pieces of her.
The documentary mentions that Brenda declined to provide an interview or any comments. At the time, TopMob News was unable to find her contact details and attempted to reach out to Netflix, however, they received no response.
Where is Dennis Bowman now?
On December 22, 2021, Dennis admitted his guilt for the charge of second-degree murder, and on February 7, 2022, he received a sentence to serve a minimum term of 35 to 50 years behind bars.
At the sentencing hearing, Judge Margaret Zuzich Bakker of Allegan County Circuit Court stated that Mr. Bowman’s repeated offenses, his actions in this specific case, and his prior convictions demonstrate that he is a grave, menacing individual who has caused harm to multiple communities and families. She found it difficult to find the right words to express what he had done, and reading about his actions left her feeling nauseous.
Catherine, present at the courtroom, described the event as “unbelievable” to journalists following it, expressing, “For a decade, I’ve been eagerly waiting for this exact moment to unfold.
A few weeks had passed, and Dennis was relocated to Virginia to begin serving out his life imprisonment terms. As confirmed by the state’s Department of Corrections, Dennis, aged 75, is currently incarcerated at River North Correctional Center in Independence.
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2024-09-28 15:19