I gave my baby up for adoption hoping she'd have a better life... but she was placed with a SERIAL KILLER
Cathy Terkanian was happily married and living in Massachusetts but would often think about the smiley, blue-eyed baby girl she had given up for adoption when she was a teenager - hoping she was having a good life.
Then, after years of wondering, she made the shocking discovery that her daughter, Alexis Miranda Badger, had in fact been murdered by her adopted father, Dennis Bowman, who dismembered her body and buried her in a shallow grave in the backyard of his Michigan home.
Now Terkanian, who is featured in Netflix's Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, tells the Daily Mail the true horror of discovering that her daughter, re-named Aundria Bowman, had been placed with a serial killer.
'There were a few people my daughter grew up with who told me quite a few graphic details... terrible things,' she said.
'I think he (Dennis) was molesting my little daughter at a very young age,' she added.
It was in 2010 that Terkanian's true nightmare began. The retired nurse was living a quiet life in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with her husband when she received a letter from the adoption agency.
At first, she thought that Alexis might be trying to find her. The idea made her giddy but, when she opened the letter, she was left stunned.
The agency had asked for a sample of her DNA after a missing girl turned up dead in a cornfield. The incident would take her down a dark and disturbing path.
Cathy Terkanian's relentless pursuit of answers regarding the disappearance and murder of her biological daughter is chronicled in the 2024 Netflix series Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter
Cathy Terkanian gave up her daughter Alexis, who was later named Aundria Bowman, for adoption
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Although that body turned out not to belong to her daughter, Terkanian discovered that Alexis had gone missing and embarked on a one-woman-crusade to find out what happened.
Terkanian was a teenager when she gave birth on June 23, 1974, in New Orleans. After getting pressure from her family, she put her baby girl up for adoption.
Brenda and Dennis Bowman became the baby's adoptive parents but her childhood was far from the happy one Terkanian had hoped for.
In 1980, when Aundria was only six years old, Dennis was arrested for attempted assault of a teenage girl he lured into the woods and threatened with a knife. He pleaded guilty to the crime and went to prison.
In the midst of his court proceedings for the assault case, he murdered 25-year-old Kathleen Doyle on September 11, 1980.
Doyle was alone in her Norfolk, Virginia apartment as her husband, who was in the Navy, was away on deployment. Dennis broke into their home and raped, strangled and stabbed the aspiring journalist to death.
But for decades the case remained cold as police were unable to find a suspect.
As Aundria got older, she began to confide in some friends about the abuse she was suffering at home at the hands of her adopted father.
In 1988, when she was in high school, the young woman went to school officials to tell them that her adoptive father was molesting her.
But when police and the school's social worker went to speak with her adoptive parents, the couple denied the allegations. They claimed that Aundria was acting out because she had learned that she had been adopted as an infant.
Things grew more dangerous for the young girl when, shortly after this incident, her adopted family relocated to a rural area in Michigan, leaving Aundria's friends and her high school, one of the only places she felt safe, behind.
Then, on March 11, 1989, the 14-year-old teenager mysteriously disappeared. The family filed a missing person's report but Dennis painted his adopted daughter as a rebellious teen who had stolen money from them before running away.
Police at the time classified Aundria as an 'endangered runaway'.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) defines an 'endangered runaway' as a child under the age of 18 who is missing on their own accord and whose whereabouts are unknown to their parent or legal guardian.
But in 2019 there was a breakthrough in the case of Kathleen Doyle thanks to the advances in genetic genealogy. DNA evidence from the crime scene linked Dennis to the murder. He was taken in to custody and pleaded guilty.
In a haunting confession, he also admitted to killing Aundria.
Dennis admitted that, when his adopted daughter confronted him about the abuse, he hit her and pushed her down a set of stairs.
He then dismembered her, placing her remains in a barrel that was buried in the family's Michigan backyard.
In June 2020, he pleaded guilty to both murders and was sentenced to two life sentences for killing Doyle and an additional 35 to 50 years for Aundria.
Investigators believe Dennis Bowman may be linked to other unsolved cases.
Terkanian's daughter Alexis Miranda Badger, whose name was changed to Aundria, was a baby when she was adopted by Dennis and Brenda Bowman in 1974. The photo collage shows the different stages of her life from baby to child to teenager
The adoption
Terkanian shared that she and her own mother did not have a loving relationship. She was only 16, a vulnerable young girl, when she became pregnant. Her mother, who was suffering from stage-3 breast cancer at the time, convinced her to give the baby up for adoption.
'You need to give her up for adoption. You can't take care of this baby,' she recalled her mother saying.
Terkanian expressed outrage at the way it was handled by the adoption agency.
'Nobody ever came to me and said you have a perfectly healthy beautiful five- month-old baby why don't you keep her,' she said.
'Nobody ever did that, they just railroaded me and used my sick, cancer-stricken mother and then they got my daughter murdered.'
She added that these adoption agencies should be preserving biological families.
She shares how vulnerable she was when her mother convinced her to give up her baby
Terkanian was only 17 when she gave up her little baby girl for adoption
On March 11, 1989, Aundria went missing, she was just 14 years old at the time. Her adopted parents, Brenda and Dennis, told police she had run away from home
An adorable photo of Alexis smiling when she was a little girl. She would have been middle aged if she were alive today
An early photo of Terkanian
A mother's instinct
Terkanian said that she just 'felt it in her bones' that her daughter's body was in the backyard of Brenda and Dennis' Hamilton County home.
But it wasn't until after Dennis' conviction that she discovered the truth.
In 2020, on her way home from a missing person's conference in Michigan, Terkanian was driving past Dennis and Brenda's house when she got a call from a neighbor who told her there was a shed with no windows in the Bowman's backyard that she didn't know about.
She had to wait a grueling two weeks for the police to look but Terkanian's instinct was right: her daughter's body was found under a slab of concrete beneath the shed.
'I knew she would be in his backyard,' she said. 'I still get a lot of peace out of that.'
Terkanian shares her gut-wrenching story in the hit true-crime documentary Into the Fire and reveals the gut-instinct she relied on
Dennis in 'Hillbilly Hell' in jail
Dennis is in jail in Virginia and his wife Brenda still stands by her man. The high school sweethearts continue to correspond through letter writing.
Dennis, who served in the Navy, wrote in one of his letters that he cannot get any respect in prison and wants to be transferred to a veteran's prison.
Terkanian, amused by his remarks, quipped, 'he refers to the prison he is in as Hillbilly Hell, so he can't get any respect in Hillbilly Hell - that is just like gold to me.
'He thinks he is somebody special with his Navy hat on. He wants to go to a federal penitentiary - those places are nightmares - where he is at is like an old folks retirement prison.
'He just has to sit there and rot.'
Dennis Bowman is pictured during police interview
Bowman served in the military for a short time
The adoptive mom
Though Brenda has not been charged with any crime, Terkanian believes she should be held responsible too.
'She could have redeemed herself in that (Netflix) documentary and told Dennis, "I want nothing more to do with you."
'There is nothing the police can do short of me going to kick her a** and for me getting arrested for that.'
In a recent Facebook post, Terkanian expressed her affection for the daughter she lost.
'I no longer refer to myself as Alexis' birth/bio mother. I am her REAL mother! She has no other mother!'
She described Dennis and Brenda Bowman as 'disgusting people' who are 'beneath the human species.'
Terkanian said she is waiting for the day she gets to confront Brenda.
When asked what she would say, she paused to collect her thoughts.
'I think I would say to her, "Do you not have any self worth at all that you would just let that monster blow your life up over and over. Go off and rape and pillage woman and you just cuddle up to him like he is your little lover boy."'
Brenda Bowman, pictured, has not been charged with any crimes
Terkanian spent more than a decade searching for the truth and seeking justice
Civil case
Terkanian, 67, continues to fight for justice for her daughter.
She is preparing a civil suit against Brenda Bowman to get her daughter's remaining ashes back. Brenda has only given her half and, Terkanian claims, refuses to her the rest.
'She told me they were sprinkled over her grandparents' grave sites,' she said. 'I don't believe a word she says.'
She created a petition on change.org that has already garnered nearly 6,000 signatures. She told the Daily Mail that she is also trying to get her daughter's killer and his wife's names removed from her birth certificate.
Her Facebook page 'Justice For Aundria M. Bowman' is a place where Terkanian provides updates and gets support from her followers.
Terkanian recently highlighted a compelling post that listed the alleged 'gross negligence' and 'critical failure' that happened in her daughter's case.
'Sometimes important posts are hidden within the page . This is one that needs to be front and center. From a follower of the page.. Thank you Sal Li,' Terkanian wrote.
'The system let her vanish into the shadows,' Li wrote. 'Alexis was failed by everyone.
'Child protection services that didn’t remove her after her adoptive father was convicted of a sexual offense. Gross negligence!
'The police who didn’t act on her abuse disclosure. Gross negligence! The schools that let her disappear without a trace. Gross negligence! The justice system that labeled her a runaway instead of a victim. Gross negligence!'
'Her story is not just a tragedy. It is an indictment,' the post read. 'I hope your daughter gets the full justice she deserves and I hope this helps you! @cathy terkanian.'
In another post, Terkanian shared an intimate and emotional message.
'Alexis you will never be silenced again. I am your voice and speak your truth!,' she said. 'I love you, mom.'