[Dennis Bowman] But before I ever went into the service,
I had told Brenda,
I'd met her about a year before I went in,
I told her, I said, "Look, when I get out of boot camp,"
I said, "And I come home for leave," I said, "Will you accept my ring?"
And I knew she was the one just as soon as I met her.
[Brenda Bowman] We got married in '71.
And he got stationed in San Diego.
We lived there for six months.
And I had my choice of duty station.
We came to Norfolk, Virginia.
[Brenda] And at that time,
they told me there was a double uterus.
"Chances of you getting pregnant are probably very slim."
And that's when we were applying for adoption.
And it took us, like…
I can't think how many years.
The social worker called one morning,
and she goes, "We have a baby for you."
"Six months old."
She called the next day,
and she goes, "Brenda, I made a mistake."
I says, "We can't have her?"
And she goes, "She's ten months old."
And I go, "Okay."
We adopted Aundria.
I was never supposed to have any, and we got the miracle of adopting.
She had always been Daddy's girl.
She was the sweetest kid that ever walked.
[Brenda] And then years later,
I was constantly sick.
And Denny just come home from work one day and threw a pregnancy test down.
And I go, "Yeah, right."
"We got a 13-year-old adopted daughter."
And I got up in the middle of the night and I says, "Well, may as well take it."
And then I just go…
In fact, it was Father's Day weekend
because I come back to bed, and I go, "Wake up, Daddy."
And Aundria was ecstatic when Vanessa was born.
[Dennis] But when she turned 12, 13,
it was like somebody just flipped a switch.
And all of a sudden, she's running away from home.
She's taking drugs from kids at school.
She's shoplifting.
She's lying.
One day she got mad at my wife
and stuck her fist through the front window of the door.
I mean, we were taking her to counselors and this and that.
[officer] The day Aundria went missing,
what do you remember happening?
[Brenda] Denny had taken her to school that morning.
There was a band thing.
He went and picked her up.
And Aundria was just very quiet with us.
And then I had to go to work. I worked second shift at Lincolnshire.
We bundled up the baby and take the baby,
so Aundria could do homework and not use the excuse,
"Well, I was watching the baby."
And Denny dropped me off.
[Dennis] When I came home,
I walked through the front door.
The house was unlocked.
I took the baby in, and I laid her on the couch.
I went upstairs.
I called for her.
The door to our bedroom, which was locked, was busted open.
We had little carry bags for overnight.
We had a set of 'em, and one was gone.
We had gotten our income tax money.
Some of it was in the bank, but there was cash in an envelope.
And he kept it hidden in his dresser.
She took that.
She took all the change whatsoever she could get out of the baby's bank.
And her purple coat.
So I called the police right away,
and I said, "Look, my kid's missing."
They came down. They came in. Took the report.
She was gone.
[Dennis] We hunted and hunted.
We borrowed people's cars
and went down through Holland at night so she didn't recognize our car.
[Brenda] I would get off of work at 11:30 or whatever, and I would,
I would go around the streets looking for her.
Until it got to a point that Denny says, "You gotta stop."
"You have a baby at home. You have got to stop."
We were two grieving parents, and our daughter was missing.
Aundria disappeared. She was gone.
She was just gone.
[Det. Workman] Well, good morning. My name is Todd.
[Dennis] Dennis.
Dennis? Nice to meet you, sir.
So we're out of the State Police post in Wayland.
Obviously, this is an old, old case,
but we've been brought in to try and bring some closure.
[Brenda] Some closure.
There's never any closure.
Let's get down to business.
-Let's find my daughter. -Yeah, that's where we're at too.
[Dennis] So I called the police right away,
and I said, "Look, my kid's missing."
I don't know how to say this in a nice way,
Dennis was different.
He made me feel
uncomfortable at times.
He's not someone I wanted to be around.
She told me that her parents didn't like her.
Something tells me it was a house of horrors.
[Dennis] Aundria disappeared.
She was gone.
[Brenda] One day, there was an argument,
and she turned around and said that "Daddy had molested me."
And I told her, I said, "That's a lie."
At the time, we had her in counseling.
And the three of us went in to talk to the minister.
And he took her in and talked to her first.
And then he had Denny and I come in.
He says, "Do you have something to say?"
And she just says, "Yeah. I lied."
You know, he told her, with all of us there, he says,
"Do you realize what kind of allegation like that could do to your dad?"
[Dennis] She admitted that nobody touched her.
It was a lie but she was trying to get her way.
[Brenda] I moved to Kinross when he was transferred there.
And she always had this chip on her shoulder.
"Well, all the kids know I'm a prisoner's daughter."
And I said, "You're not the only one."
Heaven forbid I took that child into a prison visiting room.
[Brenda] I had taken this notebook.
'Cause I had the suspicion Cathy was gonna be there
and I was going to meet her.
I was going to share pictures.
And I said, "Today, she has two mothers here."
"I want to thank you for coming, Cathy."
And that's all I said.
She acted like such a…
witch.
She screamed and hollered that
because my husband was in prison one time, he was a monster.
He killed her, and I stood and watched.
We're not that kind of people.
She just started in, screaming and ranting and raving.
And I says, "Carl, I was willing to talk to her today,
but not if she's gonna be like this!"
I walked up. I got my candle.
Lit it.
And I thought, "Well, who's the better mother here?"
"She won't even walk across stage for her daughter?"
[Dennis] We had nothing to do with Aundria's disappearance.
I will swear that on a stack of Bibles.
[Det. Haverdink] Aundria hasn't been seen or heard from in a very long time.
My assumption is that she is dead.
I've had that assumption for a long time.
-But you can't prove it. -I can't prove it.
Do you ever worry about posting stuff like that?
[Det. Fuller] Have you ever been accused of that, before that?
[Dennis] No.
It was shit,
and she was feeding it to everybody.
And she's still feeding it.
The only reason the posters was put up, just was to hassle us.
Did you take any of 'em down?
No. I want to find her.
[Dennis] She gave up her kid, and she comes off like,
"Oh, my poor child. And we gave her to these monsters."
[Dennis, to himself] Six cops come at me out of nowhere.
Slam me against the window and said I'm under arrest.
They won't tell me what for.
I didn't kill my daughter.
There's no goddamn way.
Thirty-one years ago she walked out of our life.
We have no idea where she is.
I didn't murder my daughter.
[Lt. Squyres] Good morning, Mr. Bowman.
I'm Lieutenant Squyres, and this is Detective Smith.
Do you know why we're here?
[Dennis] I have no freakin' idea.
-None? -None.
You've been waiting for me.
You gonna tell me why I was arrested?
Absolutely I'm gonna tell you why you were arrested.
I'm the guy that you have been looking over your shoulder
waiting for to show up for most of your life.
And now it's here.
Your eyes okay?
Kinda, yeah.
Goody-goody, so you're a Norfolk cop.
That's correct.
You're under arrest for the homicide in 1980
that you did when you killed that fighter pilot's wife in Virginia.
You're out of your freakin' mind.
That's why we're here.