Shocking true story behind Netflix’s Into the Fire as mom seeks missing daughter Aundria Bowman 35 years after adoption

A MOTHER’S desperate search for her biological daughter who vanished from her adoptive home has been documented 35 years on.

Cathy Terkanian was told her daughter was missing in 2010 – 21 years after she vanished from the home of her adoptive parents in 1989.

Netflix

Allegan County Sheriff's Office

Desperate for answers, Terkanian teamed up with a detective and local police – only to embark on a decade-long hunt for the truth.

Netflix’s Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, documents the search for Aundria Bowman, who vanished when she was 14.

Aundria, born Alexis Badger was given up by her mother when she was nine months old.

She was adopted by the Bowman family from Hamilton , Michigan at 21 months old.

But on March 11, 1989 Aundria’s adoptive dad declared her missing, and for years it was believed she had run away.

In reality, her adoptive father Dennis Bowman was behind the horrific truth.

On the day she vanished, Aundria is said to have confronted Bowman about sexually abusing her and threatened to report him to the police .

The two then got into a heated argument and Bowman later admitted to punching the teen, knocking her down a flight of stairs.

Aundria broke her neck and Bowman took her body to a barn and burned her clothes before leaving her under a tarp.

Later that day, he reported Aundria missing, saying she stole $100 from the couple before running away.

Bowman dismembered her body, using an axe to cut her limbs so they would fit in a barrel.

He buried Aundria’s corpse and later reburied her at their new home after they moved.

DARK PAST

Terkanian had been convinced for years that Bowman was behind her daughter’s disappearance after learning that he had a history of violence against women.

Police say Bowman raped a 27-year-old woman in 1979 and assaulted a 19-year-old woman in 1980.

The year Aundria vanished, authorities said he was involved in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a six-year-old girl.

In 2019, he was arrested for the 1980 murder of a woman named Kathleen Doyle – a Virginia case that had remained unsolved for nearly 40 years.

While in custody for Doyle’s murder, deputies said Bowman confessed to killing his adopted daughter.

In a recorded phone call at the Allegan County Jail in Norfolk, Virginia, Bowman told his wife, Brenda, where Aundria’s body was buried.

Her skeletal remains were discovered near the Bowman’s home.

When and where to watch Into the Fire?

Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, will premiere on Netflix on September 12, 2024.

The two-part docuseries is directed by Ryan White, who was behind another Netflix documentary, Pamela, a Love Story.

Into the Fire was produced by Matt Maher, Jessica Hargrave, and Charlize Theron.

“Cathy was resilient and followed her intuition all the way to the end to get answers about her daughter,” Theron told Tudum .

“I think that sort of tenacity in the face of a bunch of people telling you you’re wrong is something that really resonates with audiences.

“We so often are taught to trust our gut, but rarely see it in action.”

“I have confessed to the death of Aundria,” he wrote in a confession letter.

“I myself and no one else. In an argument with her, I struck her, which made her stagger backwards and fall headfirst down a steep staircase in the house we rented between Holland and Hamilton .

“Fearing more prison time and losing my loved ones, I hid the body and then disposed of it days later. I have kept it to myself these many years so I could live with Brenda and watch Vanessa grow into a successful young lady.

“Please with all love I ask you to support Brenda because I have caused her hurt and left her desolate.”

Police later found Aundria’s skeletal remains near Bowman’s home.

He was charged in 2020 with Aundria’s murder and admitted to second-degree murder in June 2022.

and received a sentence of 35 to 50 years in prison, which is in addition to his life sentence for the murder of Doyle.

Bowman, who was already serving a life sentence for Doyle’s murder, was sentenced to an additional 35 to 50 years for Aundria’s murder.

Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter will be released as a two-part docuseries on September 12 on Netflix .

Netflix

Netflix