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Netflix has a knack for finding and telling true crime stories that have to be seen to be believed. Its latest offering, Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter, is no exception.
The harrowing tale follows Cathy Terkanian, who discovered that the daughter she put up for adoption had gone missing when she was 14 — 21 years ago. Although she didn't raise the baby or even know about the baby's adoptive parents, she set out on a mission to uncover the truth about what had happened to her.
Here's the true story about Terkanian's search and her devastating discovery.
Lyle and Erik's life 35 years on.
A missing daughter
Cathy Terkanian's journey began in 1974 when she gave birth to a daughter at the age of 16. Terkanian's mother convinced her to give her daughter up for adoption as she believed she was too young to raise her. She agreed to a closed adoption – and never learned who the adoptive parents were.
Terkanian was shocked when, in in April 2010, the adoption agency wrote her a letter informing her that her daughter had gone missing 21 years earlier in 1989. Why did they write to her so long after the disappearance? Police had discovered a body and wanted to test Terkanian's DNA to see if it was a match.
After the DNA was not a match, Terkanian decided to look into what had happened to her birth daughter. She discovered that her child had been named Aundria Michelle Bowman. She began to learn more about her daughter and the mystery surrounding her disappearance. She even joined forces with Carl Koppelman, an accountant and an amateur detective.
As Cathy's search for her daughter continued, she learned devastating details about her upbringing, learning that her parents allegedly abused her as a child.
‘At first, it can feel exciting when you’re having a baby, but then what happens when you have a seven-year-old who’s asking if the donor can come to their birthday?’
Did Cathy find her daughter?
Eventually, Cathy managed to help the police discover the truth — but it wasn't easy. In fact, the truth only came out after Dennis Bowman, Aundria's adopted father, was connected to a completely separate crime.
A detective tasked with cold cases began re-examining the 1980 case of Kathleen Doyle, a woman who was raped and killed in the local area. The detective paid a visit to Dennis and took a cup that he had drunk out of to test the DNA against a bedspread from the original crime scene. Dennis was arrested for the crime in 2019 and confessed.
Dennis then confessed to the murder of his adopted daughter, Aundria. “Aundria’s dead,” he told his wife, Brenda, who had no knowledge of the truth. “She’s been dead from the start.”
Dennis revealed that he got into a fight with Aundria, who had tried to run away from home. He hit her, and she fell down the stairs and died. Eventually, Dennis confessed that her body was buried in their own backyard. Her body was retrieved along with a garbage can that contained diapers and a Peppermint Pattie wrapper from 1989.
Terkanian was sent half of her daughter's cremated remains, while Brenda, Aundria's adoptive mother, was sent the other half.
When does the documentary come out?
Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter is a two-part series that traces Cathy's investigation into her daughter's disappearance in devastating detail – and is available to stream on Netflix now.
