Do we know Aundria Bowman’s cause of death?

Content Advisory: The following article contains references to child abuse and the murder of a young girl. Please proceed with care.

Born Alexis Miranda Badger on June 23, 1974, in New Orleans, Louisiana, Aundria Bowman was placed for adoption by her then 17-year-old biological mother, Cathy Terkanian, when she was just nine months old. She was renamed Aundria by her adoptive parents, Dennis and Brenda Bowman, and took their surname.

On March 11, 1989, when Aundria was 14 years old, she went missing. Immediately following her disappearance, Dennis Bowman claimed she had run away, telling police that one of her jackets and some money were missing from their house in Hamilton, Michigan.

Terkanian, Aundria’s biological mother, learned of her disappearance in 2010 and, discovering the case had gone cold, began her own search for the girl she’d given up for adoption 21 years earlier. Having learned of other girls going missing in the same area as Aundria, she strongly suspected adoptive father Dennis Bowman of being responsible.

Aundria’s remains weren’t discovered until over 30 years later, on Feb. 4, 2020, in Allegan County, Michigan. Her disappearance went unsolved until 2019, when Dennis Bowman finally admitted to being the culprit (while incarcerated pending trial for the murder of another girl, Kathleen Doyle). But what happened to Aundria, and what was her cause of death?

How did Aundria Bowman die?

According to People, when Dennis Bowman confessed to the murder of Aundria, he revealed that he discovered her packing a bag on March 11, 1989. It’s alleged she intended to run away and tell the police about the abuse she’d endured at his hands.

When Aundria informed him of her plans to escape and report him, Dennis said, “No, you are not,” and hit her, causing her to fall down the stairs, breaking her neck, and killing her instantly. At that point, Dennis took Aundria’s body out to a barn on the family’s property, covered it with a tarpaulin sheet, and set fire to the clothes she was wearing and the bag she was packing. 

A few days later, Dennis cut Aundria’s legs off using an axe, so her body would fit into a barrel, which he buried. When Dennis moved to another home in Hamilton with his family, he took the barrel containing Aundrua’s body and reburied it near the property. 

In his February 2019 confession letter, Dennis wrote, “I have confessed to the death of Aundria. I have kept it to myself these many years so I could live with Brenda and watch Vanessa (Dennis and Brenda’s biological daughter, who was one year old when Aundria went missing) grow into a successful young lady. Please with all love I ask you to support Brenda because I have caused her hurt and left her desolate.” He is now in jail, having been sentenced to two life sentences for killing Doyle, and an additional 35-50 years for killing Aundria.

May Aundria Bowman now rest in eternal peace.

Terkanian’s tireless efforts to discover what happened to Aundria are chronicled in Ryan White’s 2024 documentary Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, which you can watch on Netflix.