Netflix has added another true crime documentary to its repertoire with Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter. Over the years, the streamer has garnered a reputation for putting forth some of the best true crime shows in recent memory, which includes documentaries like The Girl in the Picture, Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal and the COVID hit, Tiger King.
Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter is a two-part documentary that dives into the story of Cathy Terkanian, a woman who gave up her daughter for adoption when she was a teenager. Years later, Terkanian's hopes of reconnecting with her daughter were destroyed when Terkanian learned the young woman went missing. As Terkanian worked with her husband alongside a private investigator to find out what happened to the daughter who became known as Aundria Bowman, a shocking twist is revealed.
So happened to Aundria Bowman? Let's take a look.
What happened to Cathy Terkanian's daughter Aundria Bowman?
According to The Detroit News, Terkanian gave birth to a daughter in 1974 in New Orleans at the age of 17. At the time, her mother also was battling Stage 3 breast cancer and Terkanian noted there were "a lot of problems" in her family. As such was the case, she opted to do what she thought was in the best interest of her nine-month-old daughter and place her up for adoption.
Not wanting to disrupt her daughter's new life, Terkanian waited years before she attempted to find the daughter she gave up. Sadly, she hit a brick wall when the adoption agency informed her the baby was placed through a closed adoption. Then in 2010, Terkanian received a letter from a social worker in Norfolk, Va., requesting her DNA so authorities could match it against the body of a Jane Doe found dead in the Racine area of Wisconsin.
The social worker shared that a detective in Virginia stated Terkanian's then-teenager went missing in 1989. Unfortunately, the social worker didn't disclose where the girl went missing and what her adoptive name was.
Terkanian and her husband then became amateur sleuths, as they combed through missing persons websites using her daughter's birthday. That's when they came across a report of Aundria Bowman, who went missing from Allegan County, Mich. After more research and conversations with authorities, Terkanian learned her daughter was adopted by Dennis Bowman, a man who had a criminal record in Virginia prior to the adoption. The determined mother discovered that Bowman once pled guilty to assault and intent to commit criminal sexual conduct against a 19-year-old woman.
This and other worrying information prompted Terkanian to hire a private investigator and from there, she learned the sad truth.
In November 2019, Bowman was arrested and charged with the murder of Kathleen Doyle, a woman who was found stabbed, strangled and rapped in her home in Norfolk in 1980. He wound up pleading guilty to the charges.
In 2020, Aundria Bowman's skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave near his home in Allegan County. DNA tests proved it was Aundria.
As for what happened to Bowman, Oxygen notes he was already serving two life sentences for the murder and rape of Doyle. In 2022, he pleaded no contest to the second-degree murder of Aundria and was given an additional 35 to 50 years in prison. No contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated that way for sentencing.
Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter is streaming on Netflix.
