Netflix just dropped a new two-part documentary, Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, and it is garnering acclaim from critics as well as true-crime enthusiasts.
Per Netflix’s logline, the film focuses on a mother who “finds herself drawn into a labyrinth of unanswered questions when she discovers the daughter she gave up for adoption many years ago has disappeared.”
Directed by Ryan White, Charlize Theron is an executive producer on the film and has championed this story and it being given more attention.
What is Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter about?
Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter follows one woman’s journey to find out who killed the daughter that she gave up for adoption.
In 1974, Cathy Terkanian gave birth to a daughter, who she named Alexis Miranda Badger. Terkanian said she was encouraged by her mother, who she described in the documentary as abusive, to give the baby up for adoption and she had actually run away from home when she got pregnant. Her mother convinced her that she needed to give her baby away for her own good. The adoption was closed and she always hoped that she would be able to connect with her daughter one day, but was unable to.
Years later, Terkanian was reached out to by the agency that facilitated her daughter’s adoption. They let her know that the child she gave up went missing in 1989 when she was 14 years old, and now, years later, the think that an unidentified body that was found may be her. The agency requested her DNA to see if it is a match and is actually her daughter.
Cathy Terkanian’s investigation
Though this specific Jane Doe was not Terkanian’s daughter, this inspired her to solve her daughter’s disappearance and find out what happened to her. With the support of her husband, Edward, and an internet sleuth of sorts named Carl Koppelman, she kicks off what will be a 10-year journey to solve the disappearance and death of her daughter. Piecing together info inspired by the initial Jane Doe case and another one that Koppelman was working, she finds out her daughter’s adoptive name was Aundria Michelle Bowman, and she was adopted by Dennis and Brenda Bowman in Holland, Michigan.
Terkanian started off by using social media, namely Facebook, to begin the search to find her daughter. She created a Facebook group, and it started to take off with people who knew her, mostly school classmates. Once she got in touch with her friends, she learned that her daughter’s adoptive father, Dennis, abused her both physically and sexually. Brenda, her adoptive mother, turned a blind eye to most of this and refused to believe it. Many of Aundria’s friends attempted to help and they even told school administration once, but most adults and authorities ignored what was going on as well. One of Brenda’s cousins and their spouse are also featured in the documentary, and they tell details about what they perceived to be mistreatment of Aundria by Dennis and Brenda, and they even alerted authorities to say that Dennis should be looked at in his adopted daughter’s disappearance. At the time of her disappearance, Dennis and Brenda said that Aundria had been doing things such as acting out, and even stole money from them when she ran away– all of which was not true.
What was the key to the case in Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter
The biggest part of piecing things together was when a woman named Metta McLeod, also from Holland, was kidnapped and sexually assaulted around the same time that Aundria’s went missing, contacted Cathy. She ended up escaping, but after doing some research on Aundria’s case, believed that her attacker was Dennis Bowman. Then, Terkanian learns more and more about Dennis’ deep criminal record, which includes assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct in 1981 and breaking and entering into the home of a female coworker in 1998.
As shown in the documentary, he is arrested in 2019, not for Aundria’s disapperance and death, but for the murder of Kathleen Doyle. Police in Norfolk, Virginia (where the Bowman’s used to live) had reinvestigated the cold case of Doyle, who was the wife of a U.S. navy pilot. Dennis had a two-week stint in the Navy while in Norfolk. Now under arrest, he soon reveals to Brenda and that he killed Aundria, but this confession not without complications. He continued to lie about how she died (saying that he hit her after she said that she was going to tell police he molested her) and toyed with police about where she was buried. He initially said he cut her legs off and but the remains in a barrel out with the neighbor’s trash. However, he eventually reveals where she is actually buried– and it is a location Cathy initially alerted Carl to. Cathy long believed that Aundria was buried in the backyard of the Bowmans’ new house, despite the fact that they moved there after Aundria went missing.
What happens at the end of Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter?
With Aundria’s remains having been found, officially finally know what happened to her and who did it, though they believe they may never know the full truth. The documentary ends with Terkanian finding out that Brenda is letting her get half of Aundria’s body, and she is upset by this, wanting her daughter’s full remains and believing that what Brenda has done is cutting her apart again.
Where is Cathy Terkanian now?
Terkanian also wants to continue to pursue justice for Dennis’ other victims. She is still fighting for her daughter as well, and as People reported, she wants “Aundria’s adoption annulled and her name changed back to Alexis Badger.”
“I’ve got to get that monster’s name off of my daughter’s birth certificate,” she says in the documentary. “Imagine having to fight that system. But I’m going to do it, and I’m going to use this [documentary] as the teeth and take it right to the governor.”
“Cathy was resilient and followed her intuition all the way to the end to get answers about her daughter,” Theron told Netflix’s 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.”
“Cathy is just a remarkable woman in her strength, and then her conviction,” producer Jessica Hargrave also told Tudum. “Without her, none of this would have happened. Despite having only met her daughter as a baby, Cathy still felt this connection to her, and felt compelled to the point of borderline obsession to find out what happened to her.”
Where is Dennis Bowman now and what other crimes did he commit?
Dennis is currently serving two life sentences for the murders of Aundria and Doyle. Police are uncertain of the full extent of his crimes. Aside from Aundria and Doyle’s killings, and the 1981 and 1988 cases and the suspected case of McLeod, in 2021, he also confessed to a 1979 rape and assault of a Holland woman.
