Yahoo Lifestyle Netflix’s ‘Into the Fire’: Where Are Dennis and Brenda Bowman Now?
Viewers of Netflix’s two-part true crime documentary, Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter, will have watched in shock and horror as a woman named Cathy Terkanian embarked on a quest to find her missing daughter, Alexis Miranda Badger, whom she gave birth to at the age of 16 and signed up for adoption nine months later.
After being taken in by Dennis and Brenda Bowman, a church-going couple who appeared to be the ideal adoptive parents, Alexis then had her name changed to Aundria.
However, when Aundria suddenly disappeared at 14—she was initially presumed to have run away—the police missed the glaring signs indicating a problem closer to home. Then, ten years after Aundria’s disappearance, Cathy received a letter asking if she could provide a DNA sample given a young female’s body had been discovered—and investigators believed it could be Aundria’s.
While the DNA samples didn’t match, having now been alerted to her daughter’s disappearance, Cathy set out to uncover the truth about what happened and set up a social media page requesting information about Aundria. This, along with further police investigations, ultimately led to the unraveling of Dennis Bowman and his violent crimes against women and girls, of which there were several. Tragically, victims included his own daughter, and it would take almost 30 years for justice to be served.
This is where Dennis and Brenda Bowman are now and whether the couple is still together.
Who is Dennis Bowman?
Dennis Bowman is the name of a rapist and murderer, who married his high school sweetheart, Brenda, and went on to adopt a daughter named Aundria (the couple naturally conceived another daughter, Vanessa, over a decade later). The family lived in Michigan, but Dennis also occasionally worked in other parts of America through his role in the Navy.
In her teenage years, Aundria, accused Dennis of sexually assaulting her, which Dennis and his wife Brenda decided to deal with by involving the church, whose members, according to the documentary, pressured Aundria into retracting her statement and saying she had lied to act out against her parents.
However, it later emerged that Dennis had committed several crimes, including Aundria’s murder. According to his version of events, Aundria fell downstairs following a fight at home one night and broke her neck. He then staged the house to make it appear that the teen had run away, dismembered her body, and kept her hidden for more than 30 years in their family home’s back garden.
Who is Brenda Bowman?
Brenda Bowman is the wife of convicted murderer and rapist Dennis Bowman. The couple met in high school, and according to family members who appear in Into The Fire, Dennis was Brenda’s only partner.
In the documentary, Brenda is portrayed as a woman who is blindly devoted to her husband regardless of the awful acts he has carried out. At one point, she is even quoted as saying, “I haven’t forgotten what he did but I have forgiven...I take my marriage vows seriously.”
She was never convicted of or treated as being complicit in Dennis’s crimes, and it was due to police saying they’d consider moving Dennis into a prison closer to his wife if he confessed to his other crimes that he ultimately admitted to killing Aundria. Up until that point, Brenda believed her daughter had run away from home.
What are Dennis Bowman’s crimes?
Sadly, Dennis’s crimes against women are plentiful, with the known ones dating back to the 1979 rape and assault of an anonymized 27-year-old woman in Michigan, as per Wood TV News 8. However, it’s possible that there may be other victims out there who are not yet known about.
Dennis was already in jail and serving out two life sentences for the 1980 rape and murder of Kathleen Doyle, 25, a woman whose home Dennis broke into while he was working in Virginia (via Holland Sentinel) when he also plead no contest to a second-degree murder allegation relating to the killing of his adopted daughter, Aundria Bowman.
During the trial, Brenda was called as a witness and said, “[Aundria] told me one morning that dad molested her, and I told her ‘that’s a lie and you know it.’” Many of Aundria’s friends appear in the documentary and recall how they witnessed Dennis shouting or chasing his daughter, and another said she was forced to eat different food than the rest of the family (namely, a ketchup sandwich while Brenda and Dennis ate hamburgers).
For the murder of Aundria, Dennis was sentenced to an additional 35 to 50 years in prison in February 2022.
In the Netflix documentary Into The Fire, a young woman named Metta McLeod, who survived an attempted abduction as a child, claims she believes Dennis is the man who lured her into his red pick-up truck and told her they were going to visit puppies, before taking her to a secluded woodland area and attempting to harm her. This has never been proven though.
Where is Dennis Bowman now?
Currently, it seems as though (at least, according to an online inmate locator) Dennis Bowman is incarcerated in the River North Correctional Center, which is a men’s prison in Virginia.
It is highly likely he will die behind bars while serving out his multiple lengthy sentences.
Where is Brenda Bowman now?
It’s believed that Brenda Bowman is still living in Michigan by herself and that she remains dedicated to her marriage with Dennis, despite knowing the full extent of his many hideous crimes. At the end of the documentary, we learn that Brenda offered half of Aundria’s ashes to Cathy, which Cathy was unhappy about as she did not want them to be separated.
‘Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter’ is available to stream on Netflix.
Watch ‘Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter’ Now!
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