Into The Fire - 603
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How you doing tonight, Aaron? I'm doing good. How are you, though, Justin? I'm doing okay.

So we got some people telling us they do listen to our first several minutes of the episode. You know, that's very true. I can't believe how much feedback we've gotten. And I've read stuff that I haven't been able to reply to. But no, it's amazing to get that kind of feedback. So y'all are listening. Thank you very much. We have our Patreon where we put out extra content. If you haven't joined, you should check it out.

If you don't like it, you can leave. We're not going to keep you there, I promise. Yeah, and you can join for as little as $2 per month. One of the driving reasons why we're telling you this is because we do extra content there and we want more of you to hear it. There's some great conversations and we also will bring up feedback we've gotten from you in our Beyond the Episodes where we talk about past episodes. And I think pretty soon we're going to be touching back on our Menendez Brothers episode.

So Aaron, tonight's case is a Netflix documentary that you recommended to me. I've been recommending it to everyone. I'd never heard of it, actually. It had never come up on my suggestions or anything. It's called Into the Fire, and it's an intriguing kind of complex story about a mother who gave up her daughter for adoption.

And then went down the rabbit hole to find out what happened to her daughter. And the story that unfolds is just maddening and crazy. So what are we talking about tonight? Tonight we're talking about Andrea Bowman, who went missing on March 11th, 1989.

Sadly, her case just went cold for about 20 years until her birth mother, Kathy Turkanian, learned of her disappearance. She was trying to figure out what had happened to her daughter, and when she was looking into it, she found out her daughter was actually missing.

So this all starts with Kathy, and she's a dominant voice in this documentary. And just in the beginning of the documentary, she's saying and doing things where I'm thinking, oh my God, you're kind of unhinged. But then by the end of it, I was like, okay, I get it now. So tell us a little bit about Kathy.

Well, I think Kathy will be kind of a divisive personality, but Kathy, she lived in New Orleans and worked as a nurse, and she met a man named Edward Ed Turkanian in a bar after work in 1991. So this is well after she had had a baby and given it up for adoption. So this is decades later.

And she said it was a chance encounter and they didn't even plan to see each other again necessarily, but they ended up seeing each other again three days later and they'd been together ever since. So because of this, Kathy quit her job and she rented a U-Haul trailer to move to Gloucester, Massachusetts. And during the road trip, the two made a pit stop at the University of Virginia Chapel and got married. This is just 10 weeks after their first meeting.

Now, this is a big deal. Before we go on, I really want to drive this home because they made a big deal about this in the documentary. But according to Kathy, she had a rough life when she grew up. And she never really felt like she would get love or security or all these things. And for whatever reason, when she met Ed, he's the one that helped her attain those things. He treated her like gold, like a princess. And so it changed her life.

Because now she could see the world from a different point of view. And that's why this story really takes off is because of her and Ed's relationship. I guess she didn't get a lot of support from her family growing up. Different things happened where she just had this kind of depressing look on life.

According to Ed, Kathy told him, and this is a month after they got married, that she had a child. And of course, he's thinking, where's your child? But she goes on to tell him that when she was 14 years old, she ran away from home because she had a rough home life. Her mom was abusive. And two years later, at age 16, Kathy gave birth to Alexis Miranda Badger. Now, in the story, she's referred to as Andrea Bowman, but we'll get to that. But at this point, it's Alexis.

And she gives her up for adoption after her mother pressures her and says, you can't take care of a baby. You have no idea what you're doing. It would be better for the child if you gave her up for adoption. So Kathy, she said, yes, you're right. I don't know that I can take care of a baby. She doesn't have a stable life to do so. And she doesn't have a supportive family that's going to help her raise a baby at 16. So this seems to be her only option.

Yes. And so Kathy gave Alexis up for adoption in Norfolk, Virginia. Kathy, she was convinced by her mother that, you know, her daughter would go to a loving, safe home. But this is the kind of adoption where the child goes off and you don't know anything. There's no information. But, you know, there's all these stories about, well, they vet the people that are wanting to adopt the kid, et cetera, et cetera. So there's some faith in the system happening at that point.

So she hasn't heard from Alexis, and that's just the norm. But in March of 2010, Kathy receives a letter from the Norfolk Department of Human Services. She thought, oh, this is my daughter Alexis. Maybe she's trying to find me. Maybe she's reaching out. I mean, it's been a long time, but it's kind of interesting because sometimes people reunite with their mom or their dad.

The hope Kathy felt kind of disappeared because Alexis had gone missing in 1989 at 14 years old. I caught on to this, but Kathy had run away at around 14, and then Alexis disappears at 14.

So Norfolk DHS contacted Kathy about a female body that was found in a cornfield in Racine, Wisconsin. The woman was badly beaten and sexually assaulted.

detectives thought this Jane Doe was Alexis and had asked Kathy for a DNA comparison. So Kathy is now shocked. She's like, oh my God, you're telling me my daughter that I never knew is now dead. So she obliged. She reached out to the detectives and the adoption agency about her daughter's disappearance. But this is...

kind of the norm. The authorities refused to give her any information, including Alexis's adopted name. So legally, Kathy doesn't have any rights. She gave them up when she gave her daughter up for adoption. So Kathy asked Ed to scour the internet for answers. Ed went through the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, which is called MAM, and they found Alexis, or known as Andrea.

Andrea Michelle Bowman disappeared from Hamilton, Michigan on March 11th, 1989. Kathy couldn't find her or her adopted family, so she turned to a resource used by modern-day sleuths, Facebook. That's a common thing. She created the Find Andrea M. Bowman page, and old classmates messaged Kathy about their time with her daughter.

Sue Engweiler, Andrea's adopted aunt, reached out to Kathy and provided information on Andrea's life in the Bowman household. Kathy found out that Andrea had been adopted by Dennis and Brenda Bowman. Sue had gone to school with Craig, her future husband, Dennis, and Brenda, Craig's cousin, in Muskegon, Michigan.

Craig described his cousin as quiet and reserved. Brenda and Dennis started dating in high school. Now, Dennis was older than Brenda, and he had enlisted in the Navy while Brenda finished school.

They were married in 1971 and moved to San Diego after Dennis received his assignment for the military. After about six months, they moved back to Norfolk, Virginia. Doctors told Brenda she had double uterus and it would be difficult for her to get pregnant. So as a result, the couple applied for adoption.

Years later, a social worker called Brenda and informed her that there was a chance to adopt a 10-month-old baby. So, Brenda and Dennis had now moved to Hamilton, Michigan. And Hamilton was a typical small town, like 3,600 people.

According to Michelle Timmer, Andrea's friend, most people attended church on Sundays and everyone knew everything about each other. Brenda and Dennis attended this church and were Sunday school teachers.

About 13 years after adopting Andrea, Brenda found out she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby girl named Vanessa. So whereas she thought she couldn't have kids, they adopted, and then she ends up getting pregnant with a girl. And of course, this small town, they know everything, right?

Well, and Kathy's also told about her daughter's personality. Michelle, Kim Payne, and Jennifer Jones, they were friends of Andrea's in school. They said Andrea was outgoing, very social, very funny, and a bit of a chameleon. Her family, though, described her very differently. According to Dennis Bowman...

Andrea, she changed as a teenager. He said she became combative, she used drugs, shoplifted, and ran away from home. And this could be typical teen behavior, or sometimes when there's something going on in the home, this is the way teenagers respond.

On March 11th, 1989, Dennis Bowman took Andrea to and from school. Brenda worked a second shift and left for work in the early evening. Dennis drove Brenda to work, and they took the baby with them. According to Brenda, Andrea used excuses like, well, I was watching the baby, to get out of doing homework. Dennis claimed he returned home around 6.30 p.m., and the house was unlocked. He said he laid the baby on the couch and looked for Andrea.

He noticed the lock to his and Brenda's room was broken and a small overnight bag was missing along with some cash hidden in Dennis's dresser drawer. He said that Andrea also must have taken her purple coat and money from the baby's piggy bank. Dennis realized that Andrea had run away again. He called the police and filed a missing persons report.

So all we have to go on is what Dennis is finding at the home. Their bedroom door has been broken. Obviously, they had a lock on the door because they're saying that she's been misbehaving and stealing. But this search for Andrea begins. We have witnesses, multiple witnesses, reporting seeing her in Holland, Michigan, which is about 10 miles away. Another sighting was reported in Indiana.

But police are unable to follow any of these leads. They can't find her. And so we have a missing teenage girl. And this case goes cold because without any more leads, without any sort of evidence that she's somewhere, they're not pursuing this.

So now that Kathy Tarkanian knows that her daughter is missing, she starts messaging back and forth with Carl Koppelman, who is an amateur web sleuth and sketch artist. Now, Carl works as an accountant by day, but he noticed a need for an easily searchable interface for missing persons' websites. And he created a spreadsheet with approximately 19,000 missing persons' names. So obviously, spreadsheets are powerful because

You could just do a search and say, give me all the people who are 19 years old and female, and you'll get all those names. So he used his spreadsheet to find a possible identity for the woman found in the Racine County cornfield. And Andrea Bowman was one of 13 cases that seemed to fit the search criteria. He went on to create a facial reconstruction drawing of Jane Doe, and many of the characteristics seemed very similar to Andrea's.

He contacted the Racine Police Department and informed a detective that he believed that Jane Doe could be Andrea. The information led to the DNA request sent to Kathy and, of course, the years-long hunt for Andrea. But, you know, this is how important this guy becomes in this story is it's his detective work that helps kind of kick things off in the beginning here.

It's crazy that he's the one that's creating this database. He's the one that's creating this site. I mean, this is 2010, 2011-ish. We all think that law enforcement has this hive mind and they're all connected and they're very, very siloed. This is 20 years after she goes missing. Detective Chris Haverdink teamed up with Michigan State Police Detective

Tom Workman, and Brian Fuller to form a cold case team. Detective Haverdink attended school with Andrea and recalled that her disappearance wasn't even discussed in school, even amongst students. And that's just not normal. So this detective, he reopens the case and starts interviewing everyone that knew her. And detectives started with friends and family,

Workman interviewed Dennis and Brenda in their home, and the team informed Kathy that they had reopened and were reinvestigating the case. So, 2013 is this ongoing search. They have three years after Kathy's DNA was collected. They received some results, and this Jane Doe was not Andrea's.

Kathy also receives a message from a woman named Metta McLeod in May of 2013. And Metta told Kathy she had been abducted in September of 1989 at six years old from a windmill gas station in South Holland, Michigan. And this is about the same time as the disappearance.

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That's ShipStation.com, code Gen Y. It was Friday, September 22nd, 1989, when Meta was walking home from school and begged her mom to go to a friend's house. This is something she would do often. So her mom, even though she didn't want her daughter going somewhere else, she finally conceded and just said, look, you call once you get there. So I know you made it. But Meta never made that call because she didn't reach her friend's house.

A white man in a green shirt approached her and claimed that her mother said she could go with him to see puppies. Now, Meta, she said she didn't even get a chance to respond because the man immediately grabbed her and threw her into his red pickup truck. And as the guy was driving out of town, there was a cop at a four-way stop. And the man told Meta to lie down so she would be out of view. And she did as she was told.

He was apparently nice to her until he pulled over on the side of the road. He got a rope from the back of his truck, grabbed Meta around the neck, and then led her into a wooded area. Now, Meta apparently screamed, but no one was around to hear. Now, there was a dog barking at a nearby campground, and that's what kind of made this guy panic. So that interrupts this sexual assault that Meta was suffering. The guy runs off.

and Meta managed to run to the road, albeit naked. An 18-year-old woman saw her crying and got a hold of her and drove her to a nearby home and called 911. So the authorities obviously get a chance to speak with Meta, and she gives them a description of the man and his truck, and a composite sketch was created. He had a hat, a mustache, and an unshaven face. And for years, Meta searched for her abductor, but could never find any answers.

She searched missing and abduction cases in the same area because she thought this guy has done this before or since. And it's then that she came across Andrea Bowman's case. And as she read more and more about the case, she discovered a Bowman family picture and instantly recognized Dennis Bowman as her assailant. And Dennis was known to drive an old red pickup that matched the description given by Metta.

So she's researching her own case and comes across this family photo. And she comes across this Facebook post that Kathy's made. And she reaches out to Kathy and says, I think I know what's going on here. So her and Kathy have been in communication. And it's 2013 that Kathy and Ed will go up to Michigan and visit with her and investigate this in person. They were joined by Carl and they

And they all set out to meet Andrea's family and friends. Everything they start to find out is where this story starts to unfold. Everyone close to Andrea had a story of abuse that they had witnessed at the hands of Dennis. And they said that Brenda, the mom, just seemed oblivious to it all.

Sue described a specific visit where Dennis degraded Andrea, who appeared withdrawn and shameful. Another person, Michelle, described a day when Andrea got off the school bus, entered her home, and was immediately chased by Dennis upstairs. He grabbed her foot and she fell, and Michelle couldn't see what happened, but she questioned Andrea about it, and Andrea stated Dennis chased her and hit her.

Another friend recalled an evening she ate dinner at the house. Only Brenda and Dennis had hamburgers, and the girls were forced to eat leftover sandwiches made of bread, ketchup, mustard, and relish. Andrea commented this was her meal and all she was allowed to eat. And according to Kim, Dennis walked over to Andrea and hit her so hard he almost knocked her out of the chair.

Jennifer claimed that on one occasion, Andrea got off the bus with her and hid in her house for several days. Jennifer snuck leftover food from meals up to her room for Andrea. During this time, Andrea confessed that Dennis physically and sexually abused her. Jennifer advised Andrea to tell somebody, and so the next day at school, Andrea and Jennifer reported the abuse.

Andrea is like, I'm going home with you because I don't want to go home. And for several days, Jennifer is feeding her secretly in her closet of her bedroom. Now they're going to go report it. However, according to Michelle, who also had a troubled home life and reported her abusive parents.

The police would interview children in front of their parents. They would have their parents sitting right there. And now this child has to say what's happening to them at home in front of their parents. Let's just say that's not how that's supposed to go. Anytime stuff like this would happen, the children would just shut down. They wouldn't want to tell law enforcement or school officials what's going on.

And then they were returned home to their parents, which of course, you know, they would probably be disciplined even more. Andrea's friends told her to leave, but Andrea didn't want to leave her little sister, Vanessa, who was still a baby in the home. Andrea feels this obligation to protect her sister.

Yeah, and one of the things behind that supposedly was that Andrea helped take care of Vanessa quite a bit. And if she wasn't doing that, she was afraid that she wouldn't get the care she needed. And this is what's so strange about Andrea running away. We'll put that in quotes. Sue talked to Brenda and questioned Andrea's sudden disappearance. After all, she was helping to take care of her sister. And no matter how bad the abuse got, you know, she hadn't run away.

And you might say, well, everyone's got a breaking point. But according to Sue, Brenda claimed she didn't talk to Dennis about Andrea running away because he got very upset. Sue was uneasy about how Dennis handled the situation and his unwillingness to talk about his missing daughter.

So she did report his behavior to the police. Police told her that an investigation into Dennis was happening in relation to Andrea's disappearance. But of course, Kathy, she's hearing about how Andrea was suffering horrible abuse at home. So she filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Dennis's criminal history. That request was granted and the file she received was damning.

She's doing this investigation. She's doing a background check on Dennis, which you would assume an adoption agency or anyone placing children in home would have done, but I guess not. She finds out that on May 23rd of 1980, a man on a motorcycle forced a 19-year-old woman on a bicycle off the road. This is in Holland, Michigan. He demanded that she get off the bike and

The woman remained still, so this man drew a gun and shot at her. He made the same demand, saying, you need to get off your bike and go into the woods. He fired another shot at her feet and threatened to shoot her next. But an oncoming car distracted him long enough that the woman escaped. She pedaled as fast as possible, and this man didn't pursue her.

She made it to safety and reported it to the authorities. She described the man on his motorcycle, and Dennis Bowman was arrested the same day, and this woman positively ID'd him as the assailant. Dennis was convicted and sentenced to five to ten years in jail, but he filed a motion for resentencing. He was denied bail.

In the court filing, this judge wrote, he presents the clinical picture of a rapist, and we conclude that he is a danger to women if he is not confined. But unfortunately, Dennis only served the minimum sentence and was released after only five years. So you find out that the father of your child is

is trying to abduct women and a judge says that he is a danger to women if he's not confined. And this man was allowed to adopt a child. Yeah. Okay.

In June of 1998, Vicki Vanden Brink, a former co-worker of Dennis's, reported multiple break-ins at her home. One evening, the security system installed by the sheriff's office alarmed. A state trooper responded and found Dennis near the mobile home's back door. Dennis claimed he was staying with Vicki, but when the trooper attempted to verify this information, Vicki stated Dennis lied. Confronted with his deception,

Dennis claimed he tried to enter the mobile home to use the restroom. Police requested to search the Bowman property, and Dennis agreed. Police found a short-barreled shotgun and lingerie in a duffel bag. A mask and black sweatshirt were also found. The lingerie was confirmed to belong to Vicki. Dennis was then charged with breaking and entering and possession of burglar's tools and weapons. He pled guilty and served approximately a year in county jail.

Kathy, Ed, and Carl, which was kind of their detective, attended the Missing in Michigan conference for a second time in 2013 after they learned about Dennis's horrible past. The conference provided a space for loved ones of missing persons to meet, support, and update the group on any progress. Now, Carl noticed Brenda Bowman and her daughter Vanessa at the conference and

and notified Kathy. Brenda stated that Andrea had two mothers present and thanked Kathy for attending. The direct address prompted Kathy to stand up and say, you tell these people who your husband is. Now you can imagine this is picking a fight, right? Because at first Brenda is like, oh, we're both moms of this girl who's missing. I'm glad we're here. And Kathy is right in her face saying, you tell these people who Dennis Bowman is, your husband.

And Kathy saw red and swung her hand in the air as if she slapped someone. Kathy yelled about Dennis and his criminal background while Brenda and Vanessa defended him. So they don't see the problem. They're like, how dare you talk about Dennis this way?

Somehow, the group managed to return to civil discussions. But after the session, Carl remembered he calmly spoke to Brenda and Vanessa. According to a piece in the Atavist magazine by Niall Capello, Brenda showed Carl photos of Andrea and notes she kept with possible sightings. Now, in Brenda's mind, Andrea ran away. Carl explained that they knew about Dennis's criminal background.

According to Carl, Brenda responded, I haven't forgotten what he did, but I forgive him and I take my marriage vows seriously. Now, obviously, Kathy, who hears about this, becomes really angry because she remembers hearing about the abuse described to her by Sue and Andrea's friends. And she yelled, tell us how you abused, starved and humiliated her, Brenda.

According to Carl and Kathy, another attendee prevented Vanessa from physically attacking Kathy, and she responded that Kathy belonged in an effing insane asylum. Their respective groups parted ways and kept their distance for the remainder of the day. But this is where I think people will either fall on one side or the other with Kathy, because as soon as she realizes, oh, here are the people who backed Dennis up, even after all of his criminal activities, she wasn't going to have it.

And that's why she got in Brenda's face and why Vanessa got so angry at Kathy, because this was going off the rails. And it's this next piece that is where I felt she might have been overstepping. Kathy hires a private detective. She's telling him, I want you to monitor their house. I want you to do a survey of their land. She's essentially wanting this private detective to spy on

on Brenda and Dennis's property. And this private detective will get a drone and fly it over their property and take pictures of it. And there's a small area in the backyard that's different from the rest. It changes over time and it's like this little indention. Kathy's looking at this and going, what's up with that? That looks like somebody got buried in their backyard.

And she's adamant about this. And she goes to the police and says, my daughter's in their backyard. And of course, the police are just saying, we can't go dig up somebody's backyard because you have a hunch. And the private detective, the police, they're all looking at her going, what you're saying is somewhat unbelievable. And it's because Dennis and Brenda had lived in another home and then moved across town. And at the time that...

their daughter had gone missing, it was like six or seven months at this other house. And then they moved. So they're all saying what? This guy murdered the daughter and then held onto her body for over six months and then buried her in the backyard? They're all looking at Kathy and saying, this is very unlikely. We can't go snooping around this person's house because of your gut reaction, right?

Well, yeah, but she launches into what you could call harassment against the Bowmans. She was accusing Dennis of abuse and of murdering Andrea on Facebook. She called their house so much that they ended up disconnecting their phone line. This would be harassment, right? But in Kathy's mind, she's just putting the pressure on because she fully believes that Dennis Bowman killed her daughter.

and that her daughter is in his backyard. This does come off very unhinged. This very much will turn some people against her. Even the private detective was like, I didn't press her or challenge her on her beliefs. He's just like, I just did what she hired me to do, which was get this drone footage and investigate this thing.

So the Bowmans, they're being harassed essentially with phone calls, with Kathy showing up and walking in front of their house. So they go to the sheriff's office and report her for harassment. The

Detectives offered the Bowman's drinks while they talked and just interviewed them. And Dennis accepted the drink from a cup. And the investigators, they're smart. When the couple leaves, they take the DNA off of that cup and they compare it to DNA found at the crime scene in Kathleen's home. And the results will come back. And on November 22nd of 2019, Dennis Bowman is arrested.

Investigators will carry out a search of the Bowman home and property. They search for evidence linking Dennis to Kathleen's murder and Andrea's disappearance. They use cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar across the property, but they don't find anything. So we have this other woman's death that they're investigating and they believe Dennis Bowman was in on it. And now they have DNA linking him to it.

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Meta called Kathy after she got a message on Facebook that the police were at the Bowman residence. Kathy, of course, picks up this call and heard three words. They got him. Now, initially, they were thinking, well, they arrested Dennis Bowman for Andrea's murder. But in fact, he was arrested for the 1980 rape and murder of another woman, Kathleen Doyle. So when you hear us talking about Kathleen Doyle, well, we're now going to get into who she was.

Because this was a surprise. You know, you get DNA and this man's linked to a case. Well, the DNA linked him to an additional case.

And so this is a whole other situation that he was being investigated for that Kathy had no idea. And now, of course, this is going to embolden her. She's like, oh, they suspect him of another murder? So now she's just doubling down on all of her beliefs about this man. So who was Kathleen Doyle?

Kathleen Doyle had a love for sailing that she got from her father. She was known to be very independent, brave, and well-traveled. They said her auburn hair complemented her angular face. She had green eyes. She graduated college with honors and wanted to be a writer. She married in December 1979 and lived in a small home in Norfolk, Virginia with her kitten Ike. Her husband of nine months was deployed. So,

So it was just her and the cat until he would return. On September 9th, 1980, Kathleen had a good friend Vivian over for a few hours. Vivian left around 9.30 p.m. On September 11th, 1980, when Vivian couldn't reach Kathleen, she asked her husband Jim to go over to her house to check on her. They went together. When they arrived, Vivian realized that the front door was unlocked and slightly ajar. She

She went in, and the two wine glasses from when she had visited with Kathleen were still on an end table near the couch. That's a red flag. Vivian continued into the home, and she ended up finding Kathleen deceased on the floor by her bed. They immediately called 911, but the dispatcher couldn't hear them. And that's because when the police did show up later, they found that the mouthpiece of the phone was removed.

That's scary. That shows somebody planned this out. Somebody had gone in and attacked her. They find that Kathleen was raped, gagged, stabbed, and strangled with an electrical cord. The medical examiner ruled strangulation as the cause of death.

She had a round, small burn mark on her cheek next to her right eye. The bedroom was in disarray and the mattress was off the bed frame. So it looks like a major struggle had gone on. Kathleen was on the floor, no clothes, on top of her green bedspread.

Though Kathleen didn't have children, investigators found a charred Lincoln log in the bathroom trash. So Lincoln logs are these little wooden pieces that I used to build little log cabins with as a kid. They find one and it's been burned and that's about the same size as the burn mark on her face. The only fingerprints recovered from the scene were Kathleen and Vivian's along with latent fingerprints from Kathleen's husband.

Two semen deposits were collected from the bedspread and they had performed a rape kit.

Police interviewed neighbors and other military men nearby, but they weren't able to identify Kathleen's murderer. Kathleen's father, U.S. Navy Captain Tim O'Brien, was pushing investigators to find his daughter's killer. And while he's going into overdrive, Kathleen's mother struggled to find the energy to leave her bed. Her mom did take in Ike the kitten, and when he passed years later, Tim told his sister-in-law, your sister feels like she's losing her daughter all over again.

In 2016, Captain Tim O'Brien sadly passed away before Kathleen received justice. In 2018, this green bedspread was processed for DNA. The lab found 31 males as potential suspects. The men could be the assailant or related to the assailant.

In the following year of 2019, detectives attended the Southeastern Homicide Investigators Association Conference. Investigators from around the country gathered to discuss new technologies and old unsolved cases. Norfolk detective John Smith attended the conference and he had information about Kathleen's case.

Also at the event in attendance was Detective Fuller. And he has this list of 31 names. And he just happens to run into Detective John Smith. And they start talking about this list of names. And this is just a chance encounter between these two men. And they're able to go through that list of 31 names. Fuller's like, I don't know where to start here. And Smith's saying, you should probably start with Dennis Bowman because I got information on that guy.

That's how they figure out how to whittle down this list to one name, and then they start working on Andrea's case together. So after Dennis was arrested for Kathleen's murder, Norfolk police questioned him. He said, I wasn't involved with this. But police brought Brenda in for questioning and told her that Dennis was charged with murder. Now, Brenda sticks up for Dennis and says, look, we weren't even in Virginia at that time. So Dennis couldn't have been the killer.

However, on September 16th, 1980, Dennis Bowman failed to appear at a court hearing because he was at Naval summer training for two weeks in Norfolk, Virginia. So even though the Bowmans lived in Michigan, Dennis was in Norfolk, Virginia at the time of Kathleen's murder. So Detective Smith goes and visits Dennis several times in jail. He just was like, hey, do you need anything? I'll bring you a drink. I'll bring you food. You know, I know it's pretty uncomfortable here. Yeah.

He's just kind of coordinating this conversation with Dennis and trying to get him to just say anything. And after hours of visitation, Dennis starts talking about an encounter he had with Kathleen. He confirmed that he was in Norfolk for training, and he says that he was wound up like an eight-day clock outside.

I have no idea what that means. He left the ship and ended up at a local bar where he claims he got crazy stupid drunk.

Dennis is drunk. He's walking down the street and he comes across a home where all the lights are out and he didn't see a car. So he figured no one's home. I can break in and take whatever money's there. So he gets in through a window using a pocket knife. He was going room to room. When he reached Kathleen's room, she was there. She awoke and screamed. So his reaction is to, in his words, cover her mouth. We

with his hand and he's shoving her back down into the bed. He said he still had the small knife in his hand, which he used to break into the house, and Kathleen grabbed that hand and he says ultimately the knife ended up in her chest. He claimed he left right after this and that Kathleen was alive and sitting up in bed.

Now, his confession, well, you know, it's a confession. So he's saying, hey, I was there. This is what happened. He's leaving out vital details because obviously they performed an autopsy. Kathleen had been strangulated. She had been raped. So now that Detective Smith is hearing this and saying, wait a minute, you're leaving out details. He's saying, wait a minute, you're leaving out details.

He's saying, you need to come clean. And then Dennis claims it was a demon that made him do it. Dennis claims that he couldn't remember the full attack on Kathleen, but he clearly remembered that she was clothed and only stabbed once. So Detective Smith questions how Dennis was so certain of some aspects, but can't recall the very critical details like Kathleen being raped and beaten.

Dennis talks about this demon, draws pictures of it on a piece of paper or napkin, and he goes into this weird childlike state. It's creepy as hell to watch on the documentary, to see this Sunday school teacher, this grown man, who seems to be so, I don't know, carefree and gentle, shift into a monster.

And at that point, any doubt I would say anyone might have had, especially his wife, Brenda, if they saw this video, they should know exactly what kind of person Dennis is. So Kathy tells Sue about Dennis being arrested and Sue calls Brenda.

Now, Brenda said, no, the police have it wrong because Dennis and I, we weren't living in Norfolk at the time. We were in Michigan. There's no way that he killed Kathleen. And after his arrest and confession, Brenda stood by her husband, Dennis, as she had throughout their entire marriage.

And she continued to communicate with him while he was in jail. And she was really concerned about him being transported from Michigan to Virginia because of this case. She didn't want to be apart from him. And the police are hammering Brenda pretty hard, just saying, hey, he's done some things in the past.

But they're playing this game where they're trying to get Brenda to continue talking to Dennis and hopefully get him to say things. So they're using Dennis and Brenda's relationship as leverage to get more information about Andrea's disappearance, which I think is a great tactic. They're definitely trying to do something here. And Allegan County Prosecutor Myrene Cope decided to offer Dennis a deal.

So if he would come clean about Andrea Bowman's case, the state would consider stopping the extradition to Virginia. But Dennis continued to deny involvement in Andrea's disappearance. And Brenda and Vanessa, they continued to stand by him, saying he was innocent. This prosecutor is saying, you want to be close to your family? We'll leave you close to your family. You just have to admit to this crime here. And he will not do it.

Dennis is requesting a meeting with Brenda and police grant this and they record the entire conversation.

Now, this is all in the documentary. You see Dennis facing the camera where Brenda is facing away. She's facing Dennis. And Dennis opens up this conversation with, I've done some shameful things. I have to be honest with you. Andrea's dead. She's been dead from the start. And then he describes how he returned home one night in March of 1989 with the baby and

He put the baby down and he climbed up the stairs and found Andrea in her bedroom. She was packing her stuff and saying that she was leaving. And according to Dennis, Andrea threatened to report him for a second time for molesting her. And Dennis claims that he hit her and that she fell down the stairs. And when he went to her body, her neck was in an abnormal position and she wasn't breathing.

So instead of calling the police and reporting this, he decided to wrap her body up in a blanket, hid her body in the barn. He burned her coat and bag before he called the police and reported her missing. And after a few days, he admits that he found a barrel and dismembered her so she would fit in this barrel. He alleged he rolled the barrel down to the neighbor's garbage cans

and her body was picked up with the trash. And this is what he tells his wife on camera in a police station.

When asked how he felt about the alleged sightings of Andrea after she disappeared, Dennis responded, good, because it took the heat off me. So like his story with Kathleen, Dennis placed the blame on Andrea instead of himself. Kathy and Andrea's friends believed Brenda was just as culpable as Dennis. She witnessed the abuse before Andrea died, and she did nothing about it. She sided with her husband and defended him against allegations, despite evidence and witnesses.

When he was convicted in 1980 and 1989, Brenda stood by him. I mean, he's saying there was an accident in the home. I hit her and she fell down the stairs. I know falling down the stairs can mess you up, but this is a teenage girl.

I doubt she would break her neck on the way down the stairs. So nobody believes this. Nobody. Detectives and Kathy do not believe this was an accident. Investigators listened to all the recorded calls from prison to Brenda, and they read all of the letters that Dennis wrote. And in these letters, Dennis claimed Andrea fell and broke her neck, and he hit her, but he didn't dispose of her remains. And another letter dated in

In December of 2019, Dennis claimed he buried her in a grave next to a private graveyard. And in another letter just weeks later, he elaborated on his actions. And he had done this because Brenda kept saying, I need to know where she is. Please tell me where my daughter's remains are.

And Dennis says, she was wearing jeans and her favorite sweater. She had a gold necklace with a heart and 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 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.

This is a very elaborate scene he's painting for Brenda, this carrying of the body and this proper burial, whereas he had just admitted to her prior that he had chopped up her body and put it in a barrel. So investigators, they have to take this seriously, and they search nearby graveyards, but they turn up nothing.

They interviewed Dennis again, and he admitted he told three to four different versions of events, but he refused to tell detectives which story was true. So detectives explained that this is putting his wife in jeopardy. You know, we don't know what's going to happen here because it seems like we might have to put more pressure on you. You're not giving up the story here, the real story. But Dennis is not complying. He's not working with them.

So, of course, detectives are going to look back at Brenda. Now, Brenda, she's feeling that pressure. She definitely wants Dennis to speak so that she can keep him nearby her. So she meets with Dennis multiple times. She talks with him. She begs him to give up Andrea's location. She wanted Andrea's remains and wanted Dennis to stay in Michigan so she could visit him.

Eventually, Dennis conceded and told Brenda where Andrea's remains were buried. But of course, this is Dennis saying that he's going to tell the truth. Yeah. I mean, how many versions of the truth have there been? Dennis confesses to Brenda that he buried Andrea in their backyard. Yeah.

Now, Brenda's obviously confused because she's saying, but Andrea went missing at the old house. We didn't live in the same house where Andrea died. And Dennis now says he buried the barrel in their old home. And then when they moved, he dug the barrel up and moved it to the new home and reburied it in their backyard.

And investigators are listening to this call. And in February 2020, they send out a forensics team and cadaver dogs to the Bowman property to dig up the area, the exact same area that Kathy claimed for years held her daughter's body. And Metta will now phone Kathy again, tell her that the police are at the Bowman's property with a bulldozer and they've set up a white tent. And this is probably feeling really good for

for Kathy. She'd been screaming at the investigators for years saying her body is here and pointing at a map. And they were like, no, no. Well, here it is February 4th, 2020 investigators digging up the backyard exactly where Kathy was pointing finally located the remains of Andrea Bowman underneath a concrete slab. She was found inside a barrel in four white plastic bags and

alongside a trash bag full of diapers to disguise the scent of remains. This is horrifying. Kathy provided DNA once again to compare to the skeletal remains, and in May of 2020, it was confirmed that she was a match to Andrea Bowman, the remains. Dennis was charged with murder, child abuse, and mutilation of a corpse on May 15, 2020.

Kathy was right all along. Now, I understand in the beginning, you can't just go digging up a backyard based on someone's hunch, but I kind of feel like when they went through with cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar the first time, they missed this. And I don't know how, but investigations aren't perfect. I don't really blame the police too much on that one, but she was there the whole time.

Yeah, when you watch the documentary, it almost feels like they didn't want to look in that specific area because she couldn't be right. That's just a feeling. I have no idea.

So obviously, Brenda is going to confront Dennis about this. And she confronts him about this letter where he claimed he had buried Andrea in this graveyard or by a graveyard, giving her this proper burial with the white sheet and cinnamon and all this stuff. And Dennis, once again, has got this moment of honesty and he just said, I made it all up to make you feel better.

He's been honest twice now. He was honest when he said that he chopped up her body and put it in a barrel. And now he's being honest once again when he says, I just told you that because you wanted to feel better about it.

Yeah, it's like he turns on her and says, you know, I did this to make you feel better making up this story, but you haven't felt better. You've only been bitching about how you wanted her right there with you in a can sitting on a shelf. I thought maybe if you thought she was very decently properly with respect, then maybe you'd say, okay, that was enough, but no. So he turns around on her and because Brenda is so, I guess, loyal to her husband, she just takes it, but it has to be very difficult for her.

She says, I still love you. I still love you. He seems annoyed by her that she got him to confess, got him to tell the truth.

Now it's on June 10th, 2020. Dennis pled guilty to burglary, first degree murder, and rape of Kathleen Doyle. He was sentenced to two life sentences for the violent offenses plus 20 years for burglary. This is finally justice and we're finally getting to see this man be taken out of society and away from people because he's obviously a serial rapist and serial killer.

According to Kalamazoo's WWMT, on February 22nd, 2021, Brenda testified that Andrea told her about Dennis' abuse of her. Brenda stated, she told me one morning that dad molested her and I told her, that's a lie and you know it.

So she knew, and we've seen this before, loyalty can go real far and the results are shocking. Imagine your daughter telling you, yeah, my dad has done these horrible things to me. And then your mom says, that's a lie. And if you've ever talked to someone who's talked about this stuff, it's got to be painful to have to live in that kind of a home where you have no defense, you have no safety, no security. And that's the life that Andrea Bowman had.

Dennis confesses to multiple sexual assaults, but he never confesses to the abduction of Meta, and he continues to deny any involvement in that. February 2021, police announced Dennis was the main suspect in the abduction of Meta in 1989.

DNA evidence from the rope used to bind her hands didn't match Dennis, but investigators hoped advancements in testing would permit them to test again in the future. As we know, it doesn't mean that it wasn't him or it was him. It's just they don't have the technology now to get a profile. So they're hoping, well, we're

We're pretty sure you're the guy because there's not that many serial killers running around and trying to abduct children. So they're hoping that in the future they can tie this back to him. On December 22nd, 2021, Dennis pled no contest to the second degree murder of Andrea Bowman and Kathy Tarkanian traveled to the sentencing hearing on February 7th, 2022.

Kathy held back tears as the judge ordered a sentence of 35 to 50 years for the murder of Andrea. Attorney Koch and investigators continued the fight and made sure Dennis did not remain in Michigan for imprisonment. Remember, Brenda wanted him to stay in Michigan, but it seemed like everyone else wanted him moved out. You know, talking about Kathy, the investigators, everything.

At a press conference held after the sentencing hearing, Attorney Koch announced Dennis would be extradited to Virginia to serve his life sentences for the murder of Kathleen Doyle. Now, he wouldn't serve his time in the prison he and Brenda wanted. He would not have any control over his imprisonment. Dennis is serving his time at the River North Correctional Center in Independence, Virginia, which is over 650 miles away from Brenda and

and their home in Michigan. I get the feeling, Justin, that this happened because he was such a difficult person that they thought, you know what, you get nothing.

And they're not going to reward Brenda either, because she's stood by his side. She has been denying all of these claims, or even in the face of evidence, she's okay with it. I can think of a few people in today's society that behave this way, and it's unreal that you are shown evidence, you are told this person is a serial killer and rapist, and

And Brenda just is like, oh, I don't, you got it wrong. And oh, I still love him. It's denial, acceptance, and I'm still standing behind him. It's just so weird.

Before we share our final thoughts on this, Justin, there's a big deal made over a moment where Brenda gives half of Andrea's remains. You know, they were cremated. So she has the ashes. She gives half of those ashes to Kathy. And Kathy is upset because she's looking at this and saying, why am I only getting half? I'm the person who should have all of her ashes because you did nothing for her. You didn't fight for her. You didn't protect her. And

And so Kathy's left saying, I'll take these, but I want all of them. Then she's going to continue to fight to get the other half of her daughter's remains. But what did you make of this situation? I mean, as much as I can agree with Kathy and her feelings about it, that's just not the way it works. She doesn't have the same rights as the adoptive mother and it sucks. You know, that's just the way the world works.

Yeah, it's really unfortunate. Obviously, even though Kathy wasn't there to raise her daughter, it's her passion for her daughter and for justice that shines through while Brenda just seems to be a person who doubled down on denials regarding her husband and would see abuse but do nothing about it. So it's a painful truth that, like you said, adoptive parents have all the rights here and Kathy has none, but I can appreciate where she's coming from.

One of the things about this is we had a conversation about what to name the episode, and you were correct. We should name it Into the Fire because that's how a lot of people will know this. There is more than one victim in this case. There are multiple. And so I do want to say, though, in the end, I don't think she should be known as Andrea Bowman. She should be known as Alexis Badger because I don't feel like, despite whatever laws there are,

that Brenda and Dennis should continue to be the parents of this murdered girl. They're responsible.

So I think, you know, in the end, we finish with Kathy Turkanian fought for and got justice for Alexis Badger, her daughter, with the help of many other people. So many people came together and helped with this. You know, people who were family members of the Bowmans or investigators, different people just all combined into a force that got justice in this case, finally, and for Kathleen Doyle.

Between the Kathleen Doyle case and Kathy, those are the two things that drove this. And it didn't seem that anyone was looking into Andrea's disappearance or anything about it. And no one even suspected Dennis being involved till Kathy came along.

So definitely let us know how you feel about this documentary if you've seen it. How do you feel about Kathy? Again, Kathy is the one who got this going. She had a lot of help from her husband, from the investigator, just on down the line, you know, between Carl and Meta.

and all these other people. I just am wowed by this because so often we'll finish a case and talk about how we hope for justice one day. Well, these people fought for it and got it. I love it. I love that idea that they willed this to happen. We'd mentioned our Patreon at the beginning of the episode. For anyone that doesn't listen to the beginning and only listens to the end, go check out our Patreon. Lots of extra content to

tons of episodes and off-the-cuff conversations. You can join for as little as $2 a month. And thank you so much for considering. You can join for free and see a little bit, or you can join for as little as $2 and see a lot. You can go to patreon.com slash generation Y to learn more. ♪♪♪

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