[indistinct rustling]
[Brenda sighing]
All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna step out for a minute.
[Lt. Squyres] Hi, Mrs. Bowman. I'm Lieutenant Squyres
from the Norfolk, VA Police Department in Homicide.
This is Detective Smith.
I'm sorry we have to meet you under these circumstances.
I know it's very tragic, and it's very hard for you.
I can tell you about the crime that he's charged with at this point?
[Brenda Bowman] It's so very long ago.
[Lt. Squyres] I think I can take you back to the place where this happened.
1980.
We'd been married nine years.
Now we've been married 47.
[Lt. Squyres] And for 47 years, you've been being a very dedicated wife,
giving him the benefit of the doubt.
But it appears to me that he betrayed that trust,
that loyalty that you extended to him.
And you being a good person
would never imagine…
that he could do something this horrific.
He's gonna be indicted for murder and rape.
[pensive music playing]
[Cathy] When I found out that there might be somebody else that he murdered,
it was a total curveball.
But not surprised.
It wasn't my time yet. It wasn't my daughter's time yet.
But I'm going to find out what happened in Virginia to Kathleen Doyle.
[music fades]
[woman] This is Kathleen on our sailboat.
She loved to sail.
She was a good sailor because her father was a sailor,
and he had built a sailboat when she was a little girl.
She was independent.
And she was brave.
She definitely wanted to travel a lot.
She just decided she wanted to see and experience as much as she could.
Thank God she did all that.
She had a very, very full life.
[somber music playing]
[woman] She was 25. She had turned 25 in April.
Kathleen's mother, Bert, is my older sister,
but there's only seven years between Kathleen and I.
So we were very, very close.
And we were somewhat brought up as sisters.
Kathleen was physically very beautiful.
Long, shiny, auburn hair and sparkly green eyes
and that beautiful Irish complexion.
She was 4 foot 11,
and she always added, "And three quarters."
[chuckles]
She did have a great giggle.
[chuckling] We would giggle very often together.
But she had a lot of charisma.
And that was part of her, but then also was the quiet, cerebral side
that allowed her to be so good at academics.
She went to college in Woodstock, Connecticut
because she wanted to be a writer.
And she graduated magna cum laude.
There was a page left on her desk when she died.
"I have often wondered what prompts writers to write."
"Somewhere along the line, I developed the urge too."
"I know I'm not ready for the written word."
"I feel I must have many more years of living yet
before I write something worthwhile."
[music fades]
[inhaling]
[Christine] That's what she wrote the week before she died.
[somber music playing]
[Christine] I actually didn't know how she died for 20 years
because I wouldn't let anybody tell me because if I didn't know
then I couldn't imagine anything.
[man] Kathleen Doyle lived in a small Cape Cod house in Norfolk, Virginia.
It was a quaint little house, it was in a quiet area of the city.
To the immediate left of the house was a Methodist church.
So it was like the perfect dream home for a young newly-married couple
within the military community.
[Christine] Kathleen was married in December of 1979.
Her husband, who was in the Navy, was deployed the following summer.
And she, at that time, was on her own in the house with her kitten.
The evening of September 9th, 1980,
one of her good friends, Vivian, came over that night.
They had a couple glasses of wine.
Vivian said she stayed a couple of hours and left somewhere around 9:30.
The next day, Vivian started to get concerned
because she couldn't get in touch with Kathleen.
[tense music playing]
[man] Vivian asked her husband Jim
if he would take a ride over to Kathleen's house.
So as Vivian slightly pushes on the front door,
she realizes that it's essentially open.
When Vivian comes in the house,
she notices the two wine glasses that are on the coffee table
that were still there from the night before.
So she found that odd.
So as she walks around the corner,
she opens the door to Kathleen's bedroom
and finds her on the floor deceased in her bedroom.
And a murder investigation is initiated from that point onward.
[music fades]
[Christine] Her father Tim… Tim had phoned.
And he just said, "Kathleen was killed."
I remember leaning against the wall and thinking,
"Who's screaming? Why is this person screaming?"
[screaming echoing softly]
Then realizing it was me.
And I just couldn't stop.
[somber music playing]
[Christine sniffling]
[Phil] Here we have a woman who was killed in her own home.
And she was assaulted in the most brutal way.
This was overkill.
The room was torn up.
The mattress had been pushed off the box spring
as if there had been some sort of a struggle there.
Kathleen was laying on top of the bedspread on the floor.
She didn't have any clothes on.
[Det. Smith] They found she had been sexually assaulted.
And the cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation,
essentially a strangulation.
And she had a circular burn mark on her right cheek.
Would have been the diameter equivalent to, like, the end of a cigar.
Or a Lincoln Log.
[Phil] Lincoln Logs were a childhood toy
that a child could build what looked to be a log cabin,
but even stranger was the fact that Kathleen had no children.
So these items were found in Kathleen's bathroom in her trash can.
The interesting part, this Lincoln Log is charred on the end.
And it's consistent with the burn mark that Kathleen had on her cheek.
So obviously that paints a picture of an offender that was very, very violent.
[unsettling music playing]
[Phil] There were too many factors
that the killer was comfortable doing by way of violence to Kathleen
to suggest that this was the first time he had committed such an offense.
[Det. Smith] When Vivian and her husband Jim found Kathleen
and tried to call the police department,
they could hear the dispatcher, but the dispatcher could not hear them.
When the police forensically processed the phone,
they realized that the mouthpiece had been removed.
It essentially disables that function of the phone,
keeping someone from calling for help.
[Phil] But the scene immediately started to give the police some frustrations
because they didn't have anything that would allow them to start
to look for the person that had so viciously attacked Kathleen.
We were looking to see if there were any fingerprints that could be identified,
and there were none.
The only fingerprints we found were from Vivian and Kathleen Doyle,
consistent with them having been together on Tuesday night.
There were a couple of latent fingerprints that were from Kathleen's husband.
He was deployed in the middle of the Indian Ocean on an aircraft carrier,
so the police knew where he was.
[Det. Smith] The police had to focus on the men
that did not go out on deployment with Kathleen's husband.
And they focused on the neighbors.
So once they were able to rule those people out,
there was nothing more to follow up on
that they had access to or knew about at that time.
The case was essentially cold for 40 years.
My life's upside down right now.
What my impression is, what my experience tells me,
is that your husband has been doing a lot of bad things for a very long time.
He's out here hurting people,
raping people,
and killing people.
[Brenda crying]
And it's terrible, and I wish I was not here having to talk to you about this.
But he did a very brutal thing.
And I want you to think about how he betrayed you and your family.
[Brenda] I can't take anymore.
[Lt. Squyres] Okay. I understand.
[Brenda sobbing]
I heard her down there. You arrested my wife?
She's here.
Now, you brought all this to your family.
I didn't bring anything to my family.
-Yeah you did. -I did not.
A monster.
An absolute monster.
[tense music playing]
But it was like Bowman to the slaughter.
Now the truth is going to come out.
Cathy called. She said, "They got him! They got him!"
"They're arresting him now," and I'm like, "Hold on. What's going on?"
So that's when I called Brenda.
She was all upset and she said,
"We're getting a lawyer."
"He didn't do anything. They've got the wrong guy."
"Yeah, they're arresting him for something that happened in Virginia."
"He didn't-- He wasn't even there."
She told me they lived in Michigan at the time when Kathleen was murdered.
So it would have not been Dennis.
[music fades]
[Phil] Kathleen's family becomes incredibly involved in the case.
Her father, Captain O'Brien, was a member of the United States Navy.
[somber music playing]
[Phil] Captain O'Brien, very much like Aundria's birth mother,
doubled down on his efforts to get the police department to investigate.
Really do something. Don't just pay me lip service.
Tim felt like you have to do something. There has to be action.
He was looking into who this person could be that hurt her.
Where, with my sister, Kathleen's mother, and me,
it was hard to even get out of bed each day.
The world no longer felt safe.
My sister took Kathleen's kitten.
He was with her when she died.
She often said, "If he could just talk…"
She kept him until he was so ill.
And so we took him to the vet, and he died in our arms on the way.
And she was inconsolable.
Tim said to me, "Your sister feels like she's losing her daughter all over again."
Though I know he has the same trauma and sadness,
for Tim, it may be more difficult to voice these things.
So it was Tim who decided to act.
He needed answers.
He needed justice.
[Phil] He continued to push the investigation until he passed in 2016.
Police unfortunately didn't get any answers.
-I feel so sorry for him. -[tapping hands on counter]
Poor baby. I hope they're together.
He and I would have been connected like just kindred souls.
[Christine] After Tim died, I had reached out to the police in Norfolk.
The family wanted to make sure that they knew that,
though he wasn't here anymore,
we wanted to carry on and make sure that the case was resolved.
But we're left without answers.
[music fades]
[Phil] That was a point of great frustration for me
because we need advances in science
as a way to try to advance finding his daughter's killer.
[cars passing]
[Det. Smith] I transitioned to the Cold Case unit in August of 2018.
I started reviewing Kathleen's case file.
And I found out there were two specimens of DNA left behind by the offender.
[sinister music playing]
[Det. Smith] Seminal fluid on the bedspread
and seminal fluid from the rape kit.
And that DNA on the bedspread, it was preserved over the years.
[Phil] Genetic genealogy is the next great advance that occurred.
Ancestry DNA became a very fun tool to see your family tree,
but that science was also able to be useful in forensic DNA work.
[Det. Smith] So, with those new advances,
the bedspread was submitted to the state lab for DNA testing,
and the lab developed a male DNA profile to the offender.
Question was, "All right. Who is this guy?"
Using genetic genealogy, the lab ultimately yielded 31 names.
[Phil] These are individuals who could either be the potential suspect,
or they may be a family member of the suspect.
[Det. Smith] So what I had to do was go on and try to track down all these 31 people.
And go to different states.
And if the person is willing to do it,
give a sample of their DNA with a mouth swab,
so that we can find the offender.
I'm like… [sighing]
"Okay, yeah." I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.
Right? How am I going to do this?
[music fades]
[Phil] That same first week in November 2019,
the Norfolk area was the site
for a regional homicide investigators association meeting.
And so Detective Smith went from the Norfolk police to this conference.
[Det. Smith] So, at the conference,
I continued to go through this list of 31 names.
All the way at the bottom is Dennis Bowman.
When I searched Dennis Bowman, a number of red flags popped up.
I was like, this dude's a… a suspect
in the disappearance of his adopted daughter from '89.
And there was another article about an offense in Michigan in 1980.
I think he was charged with attempted murder.
I was like, "That's a pretty serious offense."
And then at the cold case conference in Virginia,
I met someone from Michigan.
[pensive music playing]
[Det. Smith] And coincidentally, it was Bryan Fuller.
I was like, "Look, man, this is who I am. This is what I'm doing."
I said, "I did some searches. This guy pops up."
"An offender in Michigan."
He's like, "Yeah. What's the guy's name?" I said, "Dennis Lee Bowman."
He said, "I know Dennis."
"I know his family, and that's probably your guy."
[Det. Fuller] I was shocked.
Not only was it ironic that that's the name that he brought to me,
but that I was there attending this conference
and that I was involved in the investigation of Aundria Bowman.
And look. I don't have good luck. All right? [chuckling]
If there's a dark thunderstorm and cloud, I'm gonna be right in the middle of it,
but it was absolute luck that I met Bryan Fuller at that conference.
[Det. Fuller] And from that point on, the rest of the conference,
it was Detective Smith and I
discussing case strategy and how we were gonna move forward.
[printer whirring]
The first thing I had to do is I had to either prove or disprove
that this man was in Norfolk, Virginia in 1980.
Reading more about the other case that he had been arrested for,
I learned that Dennis had attempted to take her into a secluded area
and fired two rounds at her.
The judge in the court records said that Dennis Bowman is a danger to women.
And this offense was in May of 1980 in Michigan.
Kathleen's murder was in September of 1980 in Norfolk.
And it was 596 miles away from Michigan.
So I'm sure they're not gonna let this guy out of jail for a serious offense.
There's no way this same offender would be responsible for Kathleen.
But then I was able to get a court transcript
from the 1980 arrest of Dennis Lee Bowman.
"Your honor, my client is not here."
"He is a member of the US Navy
and is away on his two-week summer camp requirement
in Norfolk, Virginia."
It's dated September 16th, 1980.
Dennis was in Norfolk, Virginia when Kathleen was killed.
[pensive music swelling]
At that point, I knew it was him.
[music fades]
[Det. Smith] I just had to get a known sample from him to do that DNA comparison.
[Det. Fuller] Dennis and Brenda would get frustrated
with the things that were being said about them by Cathy.
[Dennis Bowman] She's calling us four times a night, you know,
like 12, one in the morning, saying,
"Oh, we're gonna get ya. You murdered her."
But that would allow us to have that line of communication open
to facilitate getting the Bowmans to come in to discuss their concerns about Cathy.
It's just like the Wild West.
[chuckling]
And I just herded them in.
[ominous music playing]
[Det. Haverdink] Dennis and Brenda came to the Sheriff's Department.
We offered everybody something to drink during our meeting with them.
Mr. Bowman drank the whole time.
[Dennis] A year and a half of hassles by some crazy lady
calling us murderers and spreading rumors all over Allegan County.
[Brenda] Cathy hears something that's been misconstrued,
and then she misconstrues it more.
And then it goes back to Aundria's lies about,
"My dad did this. My mom did this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
To this day, through all of this,
I can't stand a liar.
[Cathy] I had harassed them so badly that they were so desperate
that I chased them into the arms of the police.
And criminally savvy Dennis Bowman took that cup and drank out of it.
And set it back down, then Haverdink went, "Thank you very much."
[Det. Smith] We test his DNA and get the results.
The report says that DNA on the bedspread,
that is 100% Dennis Bowman's DNA.
[unsettling music playing]
[music fades]
[Det. Smith] We're heading out to the prison.
I'm going to go up to attempt to talk to Dennis Bowman.
Dennis is a weird character at times,
and it… it all depends on what mood he's in today
if he's going to talk to me or not.
[door opening]
[Det. Smith] Hey, Dennis.
What's your name?
[Det. Smith] Jon.
I wanted to remove "Detective" from my title. I didn't wear a badge.
I wanted him to know I'm Jon Smith.
I'm not Detective Smith. I'm Jon Smith.
I was gonna come and ask you if you want anything anything else to eat.
No.
[Det. Smith] I was there when he didn't want to eat their food to say,
"Is there anything I can get you?"
And he was very specific with his request.
Black coffee, almonds, non-salted.
He wanted to be the one to control the tone and the tenor of the interview
through the tactics and the games he would play.
So there was a bit of a cat and mouse game.
[tense music playing]
[Det. Smith] Hey, Dennis, you want to be in control?
You're the captain of your ship.
[Dennis] Oh, he's not even in here.
No, he took my cuffs off and shut the door and walked out.
[Dennis chuckling]
He got me a Starbucks, deep roast.
Right now I'm drinking it.
He said we could talk while I was drinking my coffee.
He's been real good, honey.
[Det. Smith] The ultimate goal was a confession.
I want to know what you did in Norfolk, Virginia in September 1980.
But the goal to get to that point was
let's focus on, "I'm here to help you as much as I can help you."
"I'm here to be a listening ear."
"And it doesn't have to be about the case."
I said, "We can talk about anything."
And I just let the man talk.
I mean, for… for hours and hours and hours.
[Det. Smith] How's your knees doing? I remember--
My knees are all right. My back's killing me.
[Det. Smith] Back's killing you?
I've been collecting bladed weapons since I was 12.
I've got 115, all right?
Not one time in my life have I ever heard my mother say, "I love you."
And the last thing my dad told me was, he said,
"Your mom's got a heart of gold. Hard and cold."
I was able to build that rapport with him such that he would ultimately say,
"Hey, this guy understands me."
"This guy understands why I did the things I did."
And that was when Dennis finally talked to me about the case.
[tense music playing]
I go to the… the two weeks reserve.
And I'm there for about a week and a half.
I'm 600 miles away from anybody I know.
I'm wound up like an eight-day clock.
So after about a week and a half, I said, "Fuck it."
"I gotta get off this ship."
And I went out, and I wandered around.
[unsettling music playing]
[Dennis] And I walked into a little bar.
And I sat down, and I ordered a double bourbon and Coke.
Well, I got stupid drunk. I mean, just crazy, stupid drunk.
It's dark.
Didn't know where I was.
And I'm walking down the street.
And I walk past this house.
All the lights are out.
There's no car in the drive.
And I said, "I wonder if they got some loose money laying around."
So I went around the back of the house.
And I went up to a window.
And the window had a hook and latch on it to lock it.
So I got out a pocket knife.
Opened up the window.
I almost fell in the house. I was drunk.
I mean, I was just drunk.
[Dennis sighing]
[Dennis] I went into the house, and it's the living room.
I'm looking for money. All right?
I went in the kitchen.
And I looked in the cookie jar.
Nothing there.
There was another door.
But when I opened the door,
she…
sat up and started to scream,
and I covered her mouth with my left hand.
I went to push her back down with my right.
I still had that little pen knife in my hand.
Right.
And when I went to push her back down,
she grabbed that hand.
And it went in right there.
So as he's telling me this and describing this,
he's also doing that motion
to make it seem like, well, this is her fault.
She's the one that drove him to hurt her.
[Dennis] When I started to calm down,
she was still lying on the bed, and she was moving.
And I said, "Lady, I'm leaving."
And I walked out the front door.
And he just completely ignores all the other key details
but remembers when he left and that she was sitting up
and he said, "Lady, I'm leaving."
And I knew from that point on that he was setting the stage
to minimize everything that he did that night.
[Det. Smith] Let me ask you this, Dennis.
Would you be able to put into words and describe
what you felt at that moment?
This will…
humanize your feelings.
It was the demon.
[Dennis exhaling]
[Det. Smith] Tell me about that demon.
That's when he completely changed his voice, his demeanor.
He became really soft-spoken, almost possessed-like.
And then he starts drawing the demon on the paper.
[Dennis] Here's Dennis.
And the demon used to be right out here in front.
[Det. Smith] So as he's talking, the circle gets bigger, bigger, bigger.
[Dennis] And had a little pointy beard
and horns,
and claws.
The demon's in here.
[unsettling music playing]
[Dennis] And it still tries to get out.
But I won't let it.
I mean, he was completely different when he's talking about that demon.
So it was a good time to confront him with the glaring issues.
Do you remember having sex with her?
No.
-That's the thing, Dennis. We have to-- -I don't see it. I…
I'm looking. All right? I'm looking.
Or are you denying that you had sex with her?
No, I'm not denying, I'm just looking. And…
-You can see her sat up in the bed. -I can see her stomach.
Okay.
When I put the knife--
So she obviously didn't have any clothes on.
No, she had clothes on.
Well, she must not have had clothes on here if you can see her stomach.
You beat the hell out of that girl.
No!
You beat the hell out of that girl.
And you stabbed the hell out of that girl.
I did not.
I only stabbed her one time.
How do you know?
-One time! -If you were so…
drunk, how do you know?
Because I can still see that in my mind.
-But you can't see anything else-- -No, I can't.
So you don't know.
Kathleen had been stabbed in the chest.
Also in the back.
Her hands were tied behind her back with a cord.
She had an electrical cord tied around her neck.
She had been gagged.
There were a number of bruises throughout her body
from pretty much head all the way down through the abdominal area.
After hearing that, he completely changed.
He wouldn't look at me. He didn't want to talk to me anymore.
He wouldn't face me.
And that was completely unlike him.
Very childlike in a way.
[Dennis] I didn't do that.
Well, you think about it, and I'm gonna get you back downtown, okay?
I didn't do that.
Give me a couple minutes, Dennis.
[Dennis] I didn't…
I didn't do that.
[door closing]
I didn't do that.
I've done it again.
At that point into it, I was satisfied with what I got from him
because I knew it was going to be hard
for him to overcome that confession in court.
[Dennis crying] I didn't do that.
[Dennis sobbing]
You ready to go back?
-Yeah. -All right.
You okay?
[Dennis] No.
[Det. Ernstes] Now that you know that
Denny committed a murder
in Virginia, do you have any concerns about Aundria?
I don't know what to believe right now. I really don't.
[Det. Ernstes] Do you believe us that we tell you that he did this?
Or do you still hope in your heart that he didn't?
There's always that hope.
There's always that hope that Aundria's not dead.
[Det. Ernstes] I know.
[Det. Workman] Dennis Bowman's known criminal history
and the fact his daughter's missing and he is the one to report her missing.
He definitely is top of the list as far as a person of interest.
Also in our mind then,
the woman who's lived with him
for those 30 years that Aundria has been missing.
The question is, if there is anything to know,
does she know it?
[tense music playing]
[Det. Smith] There is a significant portion of this story,
which is really about Brenda.
[machine] Hello, this is a prepaid call from…
[Dennis] Dennis Bowman.
[machine] To accept this call, press zero.
[somber music playing]
Hey, did you get something today?
[Dennis chuckling]
You shouldn't have.
You made me cry.
Made me cry when I ordered it.
[Det. Workman] His only lifeline to anybody in the world was Brenda.
He has nobody else.
[Brenda] We should have done something when you got out the first time.
We should've gone to counseling.
We should've gotten to the bottom of everything.
[Det. Fuller] She was a devoted wife and stuck by him and believed in him
that he could be better and would be better.
[Brenda] I love you.
[Dennis] I love you too.
[Brenda] Even though I damn you at times.
[Brenda chuckling]
[Dennis] And I don't blame you a bit, sweetie. I should be home. I'm not.
[Det. Workman] We were kind of monitoring the phone calls they would have.
It became clear that he was still seeking her favor.
He still loved her. He hoped that Brenda still loved him.
[Dennis] I love you.
[Brenda] Forty years ago, you should've thought of that. [chuckling]
[Dennis] Forty years ago, I was going nuts though.
[Brenda] Forty years ago, I wish to hell you never would have went to Virginia.
[Dennis] Yeah, me too.
That just blows my mind. Blows my mind.
What kind of person… What kind of woman stays with that?
Thinking about Brenda just lights me on fire more than Dennis.
You know, I blame her just as much. I really do.
She had plenty of time to think it through,
and she didn't care about anybody but herself and Dennis.
So she deserves my wrath.
You don't want to believe that of the person you married and you loved
and you want to spend the rest of your life with.
But when you have this proof that he's done these things,
how can you just not hear it?
[Det. Workman] Even though Dennis is arrested for a brutal homicide
that took place in Virginia,
still our goal in Michigan is to find Aundria.
[Myrene] We did know that Dennis wanted to be able to stay in Michigan.
[Det. Workman] We knew that he was gonna be extradited to Virginia.
[Det. Haverdink] That's when we came up with the plan, with the ruse.
Virginia's gonna be impossible for an actual visit.
I know.
Sue asked me if I was gonna pack up and go live in Virginia for a while.
I said, "No, I can't do that."
[Det. Workman] Brenda is here in Michigan.
So if, in his mind, he knows he's gonna spend the rest of his life in prison,
then where would he rather spend that time?
And we theorized that he'd rather spend that time in Michigan,
so that Brenda could drive to visit him.
[Myrene] We decided to make a tentative offer to Dennis Bowman
if he agreed to be honest about Aundria,
that we would consider allowing him to stay in Michigan.
Here's what
I could do and I've already got permission to do.
Is if that, if I know where Aundria is
and I can find Aundria,
and I can have closure for Brenda,
and for you,
I can keep you here in Michigan.
I can keep you closer to Brenda and Vanessa.
There's nothing I can do about that though.
[Det. Haverdink] He was difficult. He was stubborn
because he had a support group in his corner.
Brenda Bowman was supporting of him. His daughter was supporting of him.
Well, it'd be nice to keep you in state,
but you're not gonna admit to something you didn't do.
I keep telling 'em. I keep telling 'em.
And he said, "Well, you know… there's been accidents."
[Vanessa Bowman] No!
I said, I told him yesterday, I said,
"You don't kill family. You don't."
I said, "You get mad at 'em. You scream at 'em."
"Sometimes you fight with 'em." I said, "But you don't kill 'em."
And they said, "Well, you don't kill anybody."
Jesus.
They have no idea what real family is, I think.
[Vanessa] Oh! They've completely dug huge holes all through Shadow's area.
Yeah… so all right.
So they dug up the backyard?
All throughout the backyard.
[Dennis] Oh, geez.
I don't know what they're looking for. I really don't.
[Det. Fuller] When the Norfolk Police Department came to arrest Mr. Bowman
on the Kathleen Doyle homicide,
we assisted them with a search of the property
with ground-penetrating radar and the cadaver dogs.
Not only were we looking for evidence in the Kathleen Doyle case,
but we were also looking for any remnants or remains of Aundria on his property.
[pensive music playing]
[Cathy] This is this really strange feeling I can't hardly describe,
like sad and sick to my stomach and you know,
"You mean you haven't gotten her out of the ground yet?"
I was sure of myself.
I was sure that they were gonna find what I told them they were gonna find.
But that was not successful. We found nothing.
[Det. Workman] We had been putting pressure on Dennis about Aundria.
I do not know where my daughter is.
I keep telling you this, and you keep coming back to,
"Well, you know, maybe there was an accident,
or maybe you lost your temper or…"
You don't lose your temper with your kid to kill 'em.
You don't!
[Cathy] He was having to spin his own tale.
So I knew that at some point,
he was going to start bargaining about Alexis.
[Det. Workman] And all of a sudden, Dennis had expressed
that he wanted to meet with Brenda.
And that's a very unique ask,
so we got approval from the sheriff's department
to have a meeting between Dennis and Brenda
that was supervised by myself and Detective Haverdink.
When Dennis was brought out back into the interview room,
I met him in the hallway.
And the first thing he said is, "I hope you have your cameras rolling."
[door opening]
[Dennis] Hi, baby.
This is special. They don't do this.
[voice breaking] And the only reason they did…
Honey,
I've done some stuff that I'm really ashamed of.
Honest to God.
Aundria's dead.
She's been dead from the start.
[ominous music playing]
[Dennis] I came home that day with the baby, and the baby was sleeping.
And I took the baby in the living room and laid her on the couch.
And I went up to the top of the stairs.
Aundria was coming out of our bedroom.
And I said, "What are you doing?" And she said she was leaving.
We got into an argument.
And I said, "No, you're not leaving. You're not going anywhere."
And she said, "Well, I'll just…
tell the counselors again that you molested me."
[sniffling]
And I said, "No, you won't." And I hit her.
[Dennis breathing deeply, sighing]
[Brenda and Dennis crying]
[Dennis] She fell backwards down the stairwell.
[Brenda] No! No!
Don't admit to something you didn't do!
[Brenda sobbing]
[Dennis] I ran down the stairs.
[Brenda's breath shuddering]
[Dennis] And I checked, and she didn't have a pulse.
And she wasn't breathing.
[sinister music playing]
[Dennis] And she had a big…
It just didn't feel right, her neck. Her neck was just bad.
And her head rolled over,
and she just stared, like doll eyes going into nowhere.
[Brenda sobbing]
She was gone.
I couldn't lose you.
And Vanessa. She was only 14 months old.
[sniffling] And I didn't know what to do.
'Cause I knew if I called and told them anything…
that they'd put me back in prison.
I wrapped her in a blanket
and then took her out and hid her body in the barn.
And I called the police and said she was missing.
She laid out there for a couple of days.
And I found a cardboard barrel.
And I tried to stick her body in the barrel.
It wouldn't fit.
Honey, in order to make it fit, I had to cut her legs off.
And then, maybe a day or two,
when the neighbors set their garbage cans out,
I rolled the barrel down and set it next to them.
And the next morning she was gone.
[Brenda] Thirty-somethin' years.
Yes.
Thirty-one years.
[Brenda sobbing]
As long as I didn't tell you…
you had hope.
And I'm sorry for deceiving you.
[Dennis crying]
[Brenda crying]
[Brenda] And I know what your fear was.
But it was our daughter. You should've got her help.
[pensive music playing]
I've defended you so much against Cathy.
I know.
[Brenda sobbing]
Oh my God.
I can't even get close to thinking about what he did to my daughter.
I mean, the reality of it is just pretty harsh, pretty harsh.
But his story, it's all bullshit. Everything he said is bullshit.
I don't believe that that 14-year-old girl fell down the stairs.
It became more and more her fault.
I didn't hear any of this was his fault.
If anything, he threw my daughter down the stairs.
He chopped her up. Chopping.
I'm gonna tell you he's a fucking coward.
That's what a coward would do.
[Det. Haverdink] All this time searching for her,
putting up flyers, you knew that was…
[Dennis] I knew that was BS.
And you said the money…
Was missing.
I burned the bag and her coat that was laying there.
And I believe what happened was I never checked in the bag.
The money might've been there. I might've burned it.
I don't know. But it was gone.
[Det. Haverdink] When did you wind up burning the bag?
[Dennis] After I picked her up and carried her outside.
[Det. Haverdink] Before you called the police?
[Dennis] Yes.
It was probably still burning in the barrel when he got there.
[Cathy] They had a warrant out for her.
She was the suspect, and Dennis was the victim
because he claimed she stole money from him.
[seething] I'm just…
You know. You can't imagine the anger that brings up in me.
[Dennis] And then when somebody said they saw her in Holland,
I didn't tell them that.
And somebody else said, "Oh we saw her down in Indiana."
"She was at a bar."
[Det. Haverdink] What did you think of that?
Good.
'Cause it took the heat off me.
[music fades]
[Det. Fuller] We knew that in order for Dennis to have
a higher likelihood of being charged and convicted,
it would be very beneficial to have Aundria's remains.
And we knew our window of time was shrinking
because he was gonna be heading off to Virginia to answer to those charges.
Just because she broke her neck didn't,
that doesn't mean I didn't love her. all right?
[Cathy] Oh, he didn't have me fooled.
I don't think he had anybody fooled.
Brenda. He had Brenda fooled.
[Det. Workman] I do believe that she still loves Dennis,
and that's somewhat hard to understand because of what he's admitted to doing.
[Brenda] No one knows the truth but you.
-[Dennis] Mm-hmm. -[Brenda] And God.
[Dennis] And God.
[Sue] Brenda is a staunch supporter of her husband.
On the phone, she said,
"The only thing that matters is our love for each other."
[Brenda] I got a big song and dance from Sue.
"We just can't wrap our minds around how hurt and--"
[Dennis] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Brenda] She worded it like you chopped Aundria up when she was alive.
-[Dennis] Yeah, I'm sure she did. -[Brenda] That's the way she worded it.
And I started writing back a couple of times,
"You don't know half the truth of what you think you know."
[Sue] That's what gets Craig and I.
You can't even think about Aundria and what she went through?
Or Kathleen?
Are you not appalled?
[Cathy] Like, how did she miss it?
You know, it's like right in your face.
How'd you miss it?
You're not innocent in this. Don't try to play it.
You're not a victim.
[Kim] You can't tell me that woman didn't know what the hell was going on.
After seeing him come across that table at her like that,
he-- that's not the first time that happened.
And for her to sit there and not do a damn thing about it.
-Nah, she… she needs to go too. -[tense music playing]
She needs to be sitting right in prison as an accomplice.
I don't understand how she's not as culpable as he is.
[Brenda] I can only tell you what I was told that day
and have believed in for all these years.
I got my Philippians 4:13 in one corner.
And I got Isaiah 41:10 at the bottom.
[Dennis] Yep.
[Brenda] You're not gonna take my love away from me or anything or my God.
And this is the way I am.
If you don't like it, oh well!
[Myrene] I think Dennis was a master manipulator.
The best lie is one that's mostly true, all right?
And I think he spun every story,
and for whatever reason, Brenda believed it.
Oh, she was just a pawn in the marriage.
Just look at some of the things he did.
He covered it up well.
And he worked hard at doing it, evidently.
I mean, he was…
smarter than we gave him credit for.
[music fades]
[Det. Workman] The whole story about him putting her out with the neighbor's trash…
It's possible, but it just seemed too risky.
And so now we're intercepting letters he's writing out to Brenda
that are contradicting some of the things Dennis told us in his confession.
[pensive music playing]
[narrator] "December 12th, 2019."
"Dearest Love."
"I want you to know something between you and me, just us."
"Aundria did fall."
"She did break her neck, and I did hide her body,
but I did not throw her body in the trash."
"I placed her body in a proper grave next to a private graveyard."
"She was wearing jeans and her favorite sweater."
"She has a gold necklace with a heart and a cross on it."
"I wrapped her in a clean white sheet."
"Neat and tight like a mummy."
"I also wrapped her hands and feet with a red ribbon."
"She liked that color."
"Then I placed her in a new six-foot by eight-foot silver tarp,
sprinkled cedar chips, cloves, and pieces of cinnamon
between her and the tarp,
and then filled in the grave, watered down the dirt."
"Two weeks later, you could almost see where she was."
"Two months later, you couldn't."
"In 30 years, I have passed her more than 100 times."
"I'm sure she's with God."
"Now, you say you don't know the truth."
"The truth is I love you. I love Vanessa."
"And I loved Aundria."
"You've known me for 50 years, and you say you don't know me anymore?"
"Well, then, you'll have to make up your own mind."
"I will never forget you."
"I have you forever carved on my heart."
"Denny."
[Det. Workman] And we took these letters seriously too.
I mean, we… we went and searched the perimeters of graveyards in the area
with ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs,
and we've treated every single letter like maybe he's telling the truth now.
[Det. Workman] You know that we've listened to calls and letters.
Yep, and letters.
[Det. Workman] How many stories are we up to?
Probably three or four.
[Det. Workman] Yeah, so which one's true? Which one's the truth?
That's the one you gotta figure out.
[Det. Workman] You're the one person that knows where she's at.
That's right.
And I'm the one person that's gonna keep that for the rest of my life.
[Cathy] I think for him, it was a game. What's he going to lose?
[tense music playing]
Tell them a little this, tell them a little that.
Gets him out of the cell.
He's not going to spill his guts right away.
He's criminally savvy enough to know
that he can let this out in dribbles and just play them.
Just play them.
But the cops didn't swallow it.
Thank goodness, huh?
And so the police used Brenda to get to Bowman.
We're aware that you told your wife another story.
The problem that's created now, Dennis,
because of that is it's kind of wrapped her up into this,
and she doesn't need to be. Okay?
That's a problem for Brenda.
And I know you don't wanna have a problem for your wife.
You say you care about Brenda, but look who you're protecting.
I'm not gonna tell you where my daughter's buried.
[Phil] So part of the psychological investigation
now becomes to try to talk to
and to use his wife Brenda against Dennis Bowman.
[Det. Workman] And so we met with her at her house.
We told her, "You got to let Dennis know that he owes you this."
"He's taken her for this long. He owes you this."
[machine] This is a call from…
[Dennis] Dennis.
[machine] …an inmate at Allegan County Correction Center.
This call is subject to recording and monitoring.
[Brenda] You may not want to listen to what I have to say, but--
[Dennis] Go ahead. Say it.
[Brenda] The prosecutor here still will not charge without her body.
[Dennis] All right.
[Brenda] If it came to the time that you decide to tell me what I need to know,
you would stay in Michigan for life,
which would enable us visits.
That's not guaranteed,
but I have to hang on to any thread I can have.
[tense music playing]
[Phil] She still does not have a resolution of Aundria.
She, from our standpoint,
has to be questioning her own thoughts in her mind.
[phone line ringing]
[machine] This is a call from…
[Dennis] Dennis.
[machine] This call is subject to recording and monitoring.
[Brenda crying]
[Brenda] I can't pull myself together.
I have dreams of it.
[Dennis] Dreams of what?
[Brenda] Aundria!
You! Everything!
[phone line ringing]
[Brenda] I still want closure with knowing where she is.
I want our baby girl home with me in a very pretty urn.
Then I can finally realize that she's home where she belongs
after all the years she's been gone.
[Brenda sobbing]
[Phil] It's clear that he's trying to give Brenda a story
that is marginally acceptable to her.
[Dennis] I buried her in a real grave--
[Brenda] So I live like this the rest of my life?
[Dennis] You don't have to live like nothing the rest of your life.
If we can't get past this…
[Brenda] I can't! I can't get it totally past!
I tried to explain that to you!
[Dennis sighing]
[Dennis] The only help we'll get from now on is from God.
The whole thing is illogical and psychotic.
But in his mind, he was still trying to control her.
And so we wanted Brenda to fight Dennis back.
[phone line ringing]
[Brenda] I don't care anymore, Denny, one way or another,
whatever happened,
I will still love you no matter what.
There's a possibility we could have somewhat of a life here in Michigan.
I wanna hear you say you believe there's hope.
It's all we got.
[Dennis] I believe you, honey.
[pensive music playing]
[Cathy] I'm beginning to believe Dennis is never gonna admit where her body is.
You know, I was kind of at my wit's end.
After a long day, Bryan and I, we go to the brewery there in Grand Rapids
and have a couple of beers,
and Todd Workman calls Bryan and says, "Hey."
"Brenda just had a jail call with Dennis. You guys need to listen to it."
[phone line ringing]
[Dennis] I will tell you exactly where Aundria is.
She's very close.
[Brenda] I hope so.
[Dennis] Oh, she is.
Brenda,
Aundria is buried in our backyard.
[dramatic music playing]
[Brenda] We didn't live here! We weren't even-- We didn't even know this place.
[Dennis] Brenda, she's there.
[somber vocalizing with music]
[Dennis] Where we were at the old house, I had the barrel buried.
When we found out we were moving, I took the barrel over to our house.
I dug the hole, and I put the barrel in it, all right?
Then, I covered it all up.
[Brenda sobbing]
[Dennis] She's been right there
the whole time.
Now you know.
[Det. Fuller] It was bitterly cold.
Our anthropology unit came to the scene.
And then we just slowly started scaling back earth away from the area.
But we still don't know if this is the right information
or just another fairy tale of Dennis's.
[Cathy] Metta told me.
"They're back out there."
"And now they got the bulldozer and the tent."
Finally, they're exactly where she's at.
[machinery whirring]
[rocks crumbling]
At some point, the claw of the bucket pulled up
the ring of a barrel.
And we stopped.
[Det. Haverdink] Time seemed to have slowed down so much.
The anthropologists went into the hole
with their toothbrushes and small, little picks and shovels
just so that they didn't miss anything.
[Det. Fuller] And sure enough,
the next scoop, the anthropologists had stopped.
There's a bone right there.
Oh God.
[Det. Fuller] It was sad we took a child
out of the ground that had been there for 30 years.
It was sad that Brenda,
who's inside the home at the time that we're doing this,
is about to learn that it was true, what Dennis had just said,
and that her daughter was buried in the backyard.
[Brenda] They weren't saying exactly that it was Aundria.
They just said, "We found remains."
[Brenda sniffling]
[Brenda] And after I stood over for a few minutes.
I turned and Todd walked me back to the house.
And all I could say to him is, "He didn't lie to me this time."
"He didn't lie, Todd."
[somber music playing]
[Myrene] Her remains were found within four different bags
inside the remnants of that barrel.
[Det. Haverdink] And when we found her, she was found in a trash bag of diapers.
Probably to mask the smell.
[Cathy scoffing]
That's who Dennis Bowman is.
[Det. Haverdink] There was a Peppermint Pattie candy wrapper
in the trash with her,
and it had the date 1989 on it.
[Myrene] So I think that really became clear to us
when you… when you saw that date of 1989, that she hadn't been missing.
She hadn't run away.
She'd been in that barrel since that day in March.
[Brenda] How was the letter that you wrote so convincing about the cemetery and--
[Dennis] That was more bullshit for them, and I thought it'd make you feel better.
But you haven't felt better.
You've only been bitching about how you wanted her right there with ya
in a can, sittin' on a shelf.
I thought maybe if you thought she was buried decently,
properly, with respect,
then maybe you'd say, "Okay, that was enough."
But no.
[Brenda crying]
[Brenda] I don't want you mad.
[Dennis] At least you'll have her in a tin jar on a shelf.
[Brenda sobbing]
[Dennis] So now here I am.
Now you know I'm a rotten, stinkin' son of a bitch.
[Brenda sobbing]
[Brenda] Nothing's changed. I still love you.
[machine] You have one minute remaining for this call.
Denny! Did you hear me?
[Dennis] Yes, I heard you.
It's gonna be over, baby.
Bye-bye.
[Brenda sobbing]
Now this is the autopsy report, huh?
[Myrene] We needed confirmation that it was truly Aundria.
The only way to do that was through DNA.
So we had that DNA sample from Cathy.
"Examination conducted."
"The complete coordinates between the samples
confirms a maternal daughter-mother relationship," Jesus…
"between the skeletal remains and Catherine Terkanian."
[Cathy crying]
[somber music playing]
[Cathy] I got her out of the ground. I got her bones.
It's like she's been screaming from that backyard for years.
[Det. Workman] For Cathy to have this suspicion
all along that Dennis is responsible and that Aundria is buried in the backyard
and that both those turned out to be true is almost unexplainable.
That was her mother's instinct.
[Carl] She's been saying that exact spot for years.
You know, I was flabbergasted that that's where she turned out to be.
Now, did it sound crazy at the time?
Yeah, it surely did. But she was right.
Apparently it's not impossible, but very improbable I would say.
Brenda, there are some other things that Denny has admitted to us
that he'd done in the past.
Would you like to hear about those?
[Brenda] Evidently, he didn't want me to hear about 'em otherwise.
I'm gonna tell you 'cause I think you deserve to know.
He said that when he was stationed out in San Diego
before you guys were married,
that he sexually assaulted a woman.
[sinister music playing]
[Det. Haverdink] And then he said that very shortly after you two were married
that he had sexually assaulted two women out in San Diego.
And then, in the early '80s,
that he had sexually assaulted a woman up in a trailer park.
[Brenda] I don't know that man. I don't know that man.
When I sat there and told them that morning
that the man they were talking about, I had no idea who he was,
I didn't realize I'd actually be saying how true that was.
I'm sorry.
[Det. Haverdink] We had briefly talked before about the Metta girl
that was abducted from the Windmill gas station
and was brought down to Silver Creek Campground.
No, I don't know anything about that.
[Metta] He's the one that did it,
but they didn't have the evidence or proof to show that he did,
but… he did.
He did a lot of damage in our sweet little town.
And I know there's other potential victims of Dennis Bowman
that might be out there.
So that's all the dark stuff in your closet?
[overlapping conversation]
That's all the dark stuff in my closet.
He is a serial violent sexual offender.
So you're left with that nagging, disturbing thing that sticks in your craw.
It is hard to imagine
that all those actions against Kathleen Doyle
were taken by someone who had never taken a life before.
We know it didn't start with Kathleen in 1980.
If he's admitting numerous acts of violence upon women
to include at least two homicides,
what are the ones we don't know?
Who knows the things that he's done? He's a monster.
The word needs to get out because there's more victims out there.
[Cathy] I want to help solve other crimes.
That's… that's what my heart's telling me.
Maybe I'm filled with the spirit of every woman he raped,
every woman he killed, every child he abused.
Maybe I'm full of the spirit of all those people,
and that makes me his worst nightmare.
[music fades]
[Cathy] Dennis will be sentenced today, second-degree murder.
It's really first-degree murder, but, you know,
I'm gonna be all right with it.
Second-degree murder of my child.
And that he did this to her enrages me.
But I… you know, it's a different kind of rage.
And maybe it's some peacefulness I'm feeling for Alexis, you know?
Maybe it's that.
Metta, let's do this.
[Myrene] The People are ready, your honor.
Aundria was in that burial site for 30 years,
unable to tell anyone what truly had happened to her.
The defendant took her life and hid her body to save his own.
In this case, Aundria lost not only her voice, but her life.
She would never enjoy growing up and growing old,
surrounded by family and friends who did indeed love her.
[woman] I've been in this business for 40 years almost.
And I've prosecuted cold case murders.
I don't think I've ever read anything this disturbing.
I believe a sentence guideline that keeps you away from our community
of a minimum of 35 years to 50 years is more appropriate in this case.
And that is this Court's order.
[Cathy breathing deeply, exhaling]
[Myrene] The last thing our team wanted to do
was to allow him to have that last measure of control
by staying in the prison he wanted to stay in
because it was convenient for him.
And I will do everything in my power
to make sure Dennis Bowman doesn't control one damn thing.
[man coughing]
[Myrene] Today marks the sentence of Dennis Lee Bowman
for the 1989 murder and dismemberment
of his 14-year-old adopted daughter Aundria Michelle Bowman.
Mr. Bowman will be returned to Virginia to complete his life sentences.
[somber music playing]
[Myrene] So we made the decision as a team
that we would not allow him to have that control,
and we would send him back to Virginia for the murder of Kathleen Doyle.
He fell for it like a… the fool he is.
[Christine] Except for the fact that he took her from us,
he's superfluous to her story.
Kathleen's story is about her life.
[Christine inhaling, smacking lips] She was our girl.
She belonged to us.
[sobbing] And that's what I feel.
Every single day of my life,
I touch her photo and say, "I love you."
We would buy each other lilacs as presents.
It was our flower.
And every time the lilacs bloom in spring,
I tell her, "Kathleen, the lilacs are out."
And I smell the blooms, and I tell her how much I miss her.
And do you know something very odd happened?
After they had found this person who'd murdered Kathleen,
which was in the autumn,
my lilac bush bloomed, which is very unusual.
It usually only blooms in the spring.
Don't let the person who did this awful thing
be the person everybody remembers.
Let them remember the young women who have died.
[Cathy] Todd, thank you for everything.
[Det. Workman] It was a team effort. Thank you.
-[Det. Haverdink] Can we have a word? -[Cathy] Yes.
[Det. Haverdink] Brenda has the remains.
She had the remains cremated.
And she wants to give you half of Aundria's body.
[Cathy sobbing]
[Cathy] I can't deal with this.
[Cathy wailing] I can't deal with this right now.
What'd she give me, the top half or the bottom half?
How dare her!
[Det. Haverdink] We have those here today to give to you,
if you want to accept them.
[Cathy sobbing] Of course I do.
My little girl is right here, you guys. Right here.
She knows the monster is gone.
Give you half a guess what this is.
-[Metta] No. -Yeah.
[music fades]
-[Metta] Really? -Half of her.
[Cathy sobbing]
[Cathy] "I am sharing equally with you
because you were her mother first."
"I pray God can help you find some peace with all this. Brenda."
[Cathy sighing]
All that is is just chopping her up more. I'm just…
I'm just beyond pissed off about that.
[pensive music playing]
[Cathy] I just can't believe Brenda would take her body and split it up again.
And I want all of her ashes back.
And then maybe that maternal piece of me will be at peace.
[Brenda] How's she gonna fight it?
Any judge in the world would turn around and say,
"You're lucky you're getting what you're getting,
cause she's sharing with you."
[Dennis] Yeah, well, remember, she threw her away.
[Cathy] I'm so angry. I'm so freaking angry.
I mean, I'm relieved, but I'm still angry.
I thought the angry would go away.
Brenda has the audacity to call herself my daughter's mother.
I don't know if Alexis was left-handed or right-handed.
I don't know what her voice sounded like.
I never heard her voice. She never said, "I love you, Mommy."
She never called me Mommy,
but I am her mommy all the way to the bone.
I feel a little haunted by Alexis.
She's not completely gone.
You know. I mean, I'm as close as you're gonna get to her spirit.
I almost became her. A more mature, more angry her.
It's like walking into a fire, and that transformed me.
It's a very intense, hot, burning-the-flesh-off-of-me fire
that nobody can see, that only I can feel.
But I think I need to go through this.
I need to find the other side of the fire. I need to find the other side of the fire.
[music fades]
[unsettling music playing]
[music fades]
[ending theme music playing]
[music fades]