Kriti Mehrotra
When 14-year-old Aundria Bowman suddenly disappeared from her Hamilton, Michigan, home on March 11, 1989, she was considered a runaway due to her apparent recent rebelliousness. However, as chronicled in Netflix’s ‘Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter,’ the young teen had actually died at the hands of her adoptive father before he himself went on to report her missing. Dennis Lee Bowman even claimed some money was missing from his room to indicate she had stolen prior to leaving. Sadly, it wasn’t until three decades later that the truth came to light.
Dennis Bowman Seemed Like a Complete Family Man From Afar
Although not much regarding Dennis Bowman’s early years is publicly available, we do know he grew up in Muskegon, Michigan, and met his future wife, Brenda Engweiler, while they were in high school. Little did they know they would soon fall head over heels in love, ultimately driving them to follow through with their conversations about building a happy life together after she graduated. He was actually enrolled in the Navy by the time she completed her studies, yet they still managed to make things work and tied the knot upon his return from boot camp training in California.
It was in 1971 that Dennis and Brenda promised one another forever, shortly following which he changed his duty station from San Diego, California, to Norfolk, Virginia, to be closer to their families. That’s where they learned the chances of them naturally conceiving to expand their own brood were very slim owing to the latter having a double uterus, leading them to apply for adoption. Yet, it wasn’t until 1975 that the couple got a call from their social worker about a 10-month-old named Alexis Miranda Badger being available, so they took her in without hesitation before renaming her.
There was a time when Aundria Bowman appeared to be the apple of her adoptive parents’ eyes, but their family wasn’t complete until Brenda gave birth to their miracle baby nearly 13 years later in Michigan. “Aundria was ecstatic when Vanessa was born,” the matriarch once said, per the two-part documentary, only for Dennis to add that the joyful atmosphere in their household didn’t last long. “When [Aundria] turned 12, 13, it was like somebody just flipped a switch,” he stated. “All of a sudden, she’s running away from home, she’s taking drugs from kids at school, she’s shoplifting, she’s lying.”
Dennis Bowman Has a Dark, Dangerous Past
Although Dennis long painted his older daughter as a rebel in possibly the worst of ways, several of her friends, as well as relatives, have since come forward to allege she was just a typical teenager. According to the aforementioned original, she did sometimes talk back, but the biggest issue was actually her home life because her father was ostensibly physically and sexually abusive toward her. She had made this allegation not only to some of her closest friends but also to her school counselors, just for the adults to then contact the Bowmans in order to get to the heart of the matter.
It wasn’t long after this that Aundria disappeared from the family home, with Dennis dialing 911 to officially report her missing while also ensuring they knew she had previously run away too. Therefore, there wasn’t any extensive search for her until the Michigan State Police re-opened this cold case two decades later, only to realize there could be foul play with her father being involved. That’s because his record already had two cases — one for the sexually motivated alleged attempted murder of a teen in 1980 and the other for breaking & entering plus stalking a co-worker in 1998.
As per Dennis’ records, he forced a 19-year-old girl off her bike near Kirk Park with the help of his vehicle on a fateful 1980 morning before aggressively ordering her to get deep inside the woods. When she refused, he fired two shots in brief intervals — one past her and the other right near her foot — prior to threatening her life, but she was thankfully saved by a passerby in a truck. He was actually arrested for the same a few days later, just to plead guilty to the lesser charge of assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct, for which he was given 5-10 years in prison.
During Dennis’ proceedings, psychologists found him to be a danger to women owing to the thoughts of rape he has been harboring for a long time, so his separation from society was necessary. However, he was able to return upon the completion of his term, only for his daughter to go missing in 1989, Metta McLeod to claim he raped her that same year when she was 6, and him being accused of stalking a female co-worker before stealing from her home in 1998. The then-wood machinist eventually pled guilty to one count of breaking and entering, with his wife standing by his side every step of the way and him proclaiming he was a devoted father of two.
Having Been Convicted of Two Murders, Dennis is Currently Incarcerated
Despite all the speculation on Dennis for Aundria’s case, he was actually arrested in November 2019 for the September 11, 1980, homicide of 25-year-old Kathleen Doyle in Norfolk, Virginia. She had been brutally stabbed multiple times, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death in her own home, just for DNA evidence from the semen left behind to link Dennis to her 39 years later. It was even confirmed that he had been in Norfolk at the time since he had missed a court hearing for the previously mentioned assault case, and his attorneys had told the judge he was attending a two-week drill in Virginia as a member of the United States Navy Reserve.
With the help of this, while Dennis was awaiting extradition, Michigan officials were able to lure him into revealing the truth about what really happened to Aundria to his wife around early 2020. They told him they could ensure that he be allowed to serve his sentence in his home state — close to Brenda, their daughter, and all loved ones — if he confessed, so that’s what he did after a lot of back and forth. Therefore, in February 2020, Aundria’s remains were recovered from the backyard of the 3200 block of 136th Avenue in Monterey Township home. He had cut her up, placed her in a barrel, filled it with dirty diapers to mask the smell, and buried her.
“In an argument with her, I struck her, which made her stagger backward and fall headfirst down a steep staircase in the house we rented between Holland and Hamilton,” Dennis wrote in his confession. “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.” Then, on February 9, 2020, he was extradited to Virginia to face the murder charge against him in Kathleen’s case, for which he was ultimately sentenced to two life terms.
More than a year later, on December 22, 2021, Dennis also pleaded no contest to the second-degree murder in the death of 14-year-old Aundria, for which he received an additional 35-50 years in February 2022. Therefore, today, at the age of 75, he is incarcerated at the medium-security River North Correctional Center in Independence, Grayson County, Virginia — Virginia, not Michigan, because the authorities did not want to give him that comforting feeling of being close to home, considering his offenses. After all, even though he has since also confessed to three sexual assaults in California, one prior to his marriage with Brenda and two after, officials believe it’s highly likely he has committed many more crimes.
