In search of lost daughter: sad story of Andria Bowman (17 photos + 1 video)
A mother's heart is a prophet. This expression did not appear without reason: mothers can really sense the trouble that befalls their children. 
This woman did not raise her child: that's how circumstances worked out. But she sensed trouble and spent decades trying to figure out this dark story. 
Katie Terkanian in her youth
Katie Terkanian gave birth to a girl in 1974. The young mother was only 16 years old at the time. She did not want to give up the child, but her mother persuaded the girl to do so, convincing her that at such a young age she would not be able to handle such responsibility. It was a closed adoption, and Terkanian did not try to look for Alexis Badger (as the girl was named), believing that they would be able to improve their relationship when their daughter grew up.
A Meeting That Never Was 
Little Andria
But fate did not give the woman such a chance. In April 2010, Katie received a letter from the adoption agency. It said that the child had disappeared in 1989. She was only 14 years old at the time. The unidentified body was found near a cornfield, and the police needed DNA testing of the biological mother to determine the identity of the deceased. 
Andria Bowman
The results did not match. But Terkanyan was determined to figure it out and find her daughter. The woman knew her date of birth. This information was enough to open a case with the Michigan State Police Department's missing persons unit. Katie learned that her daughter had been given a new name - Andria Michelle Bowman, and that she lived in Hamilton, Michigan.
Katie started a page on a social network called "Find Andria Bowman." And she was inundated with messages of support. But they were not the only ones. The woman also received a lot of important and useful information that helped her figure out the case.
A Happy Family 
Dennis, Brenda and little Andria
The baby spent about a year in the orphanage. When she was a little over a year and a half old, the little one was adopted by a couple named Dennis and Brenda Bowman. The child was given a new name - Andria. Ten years later, Brenda gave birth to a daughter, Vanessa, and the family moved to Hamilton.
Katie contacted Carl Koppelman. The man works as an accountant, and in his free time he searches for missing people. Carl began to help in the investigation.
Unhappy Child 
The Bowman Family
During the trial, the biological mother personally communicated with many people whom she met online and who knew Andria as a child. The testimony of many witnesses destroyed the image of a respectable, happy family.
One of them said that one evening they came to the Bowmans for dinner. And they noticed that the parents were eating hamburgers, and the daughter and her friend were given sandwiches that contained only ketchup, mustard and lard. The friend recalled that when Andria whispered to her that this was the only food she could eat, Dennis came up and hit her. The blow was so strong that the girl almost fell off her chair.
During the investigation, it also turned out that in the fall of 1988, she confessed to her adoptive mother that her father tried to molest her, touched her, trying to persuade her to have sex. Brenda did not believe the teenager, saying that she was just trying to get attention. Then the schoolgirl turned to her teacher. She went to the police. The parents were called in for questioning. But they unanimously declared that this was all slander, everything was fine with the girl, and this was nothing more than the consequences of hormonal surges of puberty.
A New Life 
Andria Bowman
Literally a month later, the family changed their place of residence - they moved to the sparsely populated Allegan County. They did not explain the reasons for their strange behavior to anyone. And soon, in early March 1989, the couple came to the police station and reported their daughter missing. More precisely, about her escape. The girl took money with her, leaving almost all her things, and disappeared.
An inspection of the room yielded nothing, as did questioning the girl's friends. The escape was considered voluntary, and the sluggish investigation gradually came to naught.
Another Death and the End of the Search 
Kathy Terkanian did a tremendous job of keeping this case under investigation. But to find out what really happened to the girl, police had to solve another murder case first. 
Kaitlin Doyle was only 25 years old when she was murdered
Detective John Smith, who was assigned to investigate "cold" cases for the Norfolk, Virginia, police department, reexamined the 1980 rape and murder of local resident Kathleen Doyle, the wife of a U.S. Navy pilot. A blanket was found at the crime scene. And DNA analysis of biological traces gave a match. The suspect turned out to be Dennis Bowman, the respectable husband and head of the family who took in the abandoned baby.
The detective looked into Bowman's past, which resulted in some interesting details. Dennis was serving a two-week service in the Navy in Norfolk. He visited Dennis, had an informal conversation, and then took the cup from which he drank to do a DNA test. It matched the DNA on the bedspread. Dennis was arrested in 2019, did not deny it and confessed to the murder. 
They tried to look for the girl
At some point, Dennis asked to meet his wife Brenda. He demanded that the cameras be turned on. "Andria is dead," the man told his wife. "She was dead from the start."
Dennis then admitted that he had argued with Andria at home. The girl tried to run away, saying she would tell the police he had seduced her. He said he had hit her. The daughter fell backwards onto the landing of their home. The man realized that he had done something irreparable: Andria had died on the spot. Dennis acted calmly and cold-bloodedly: he cut off her legs, put the remains in a barrel, and then threw the barrel out with the neighbors' trash cans.
New confessions 
Dennis Bowman
But that wasn't all. Inspired by the attention, Dennis repeatedly changed his version in letters and phone conversations with Brenda. In one of the key phone conversations, he told the woman that Andria was actually buried in the backyard of their house. 
Bowman confessed to his wife that Andria's body had been "right under your nose" for the past three decades
Authorities sent a bulldozer to the site. The barrel Dennis had spoken of was soon discovered. The remains of the unfortunate girl were found in a trash can with diapers and a candy wrapper with the date 1989 - the year Andria disappeared. 
Dennis today
Dennis confessed to the murder only when he was told he could serve his life sentence in Michigan - closer to his wife and daughter - rather than Virginia.
Sentencing 
Dennis Bowman was arrested in 2019 for Doyle's murder after new DNA evidence linked him to the cold case
Dennis was convicted of second-degree murder on February 7, 2022. He is currently serving two life sentences for the murders of Andria and Kathleen Doyle in a Virginia prison.
A Belated Meeting 
A Convicted Murderer
It is difficult to judge or justify Katie Terkanian. She did not raise her child, she gave him away, but she did it in the hope of a better life for her daughter. In the woman's soul there lived the hope that she would be able to meet her grown-up daughter and explain to her the reasons for her decision and actions. The meeting took place. But it was terrible: Katie received half of her daughter's cremated remains... The other half went to her adoptive mother Brenda. 
Katie Terkanian Today
Katie didn't raise or mentor her daughter in life, but she did everything she could to find justice for her in death. 
Katie Terkanian
On September 12, 2024, Netflix released a two-part documentary, "On Fire: The Lost Daughter," about a mother's relentless fight and the fate of her daughter. A chilling, twisted tale based on true crimes that also became a story about the unbreakable bond between mother and child and the power of maternal instinct that transcends space and time.
Trailer for the series "On Fire: The Lost Daughter"
