ALLEGAN COUNTY, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — A man extradited for the murder of a woman in Virginia is now being charged for the death of his teenage daughter.
71-year-old Dennis Lee Bowman has been charged by Allegan County prosecutors with open murder, felony murder, first-degree child abuse, and the mutilation of a body for the death of his adopted daughter.
He was arrested in November after detectives linked him to a decades-long cold case out of state, prompting police to investigate a possible connection to the 1989 disappearance of his 14-year-old daughter Aundria Bowman.
The Hamilton-area native was arrested in November for the 1980 murder of Kathleen Doyle in Norfolk, Virginia.
The victim was from a military family, with her father being a naval officer and her husband a U.S. Navy pilot. Her spouse was deployed at the time of the homicide.
Newly emerged evidence tied the elder Bowman to her murder, and he was arrested following a joint investigation by the Norfolk Police Department and several Michigan police forces.
Police began investigating his connection to Aundria Bowman’s disappearance following the arrest, and additional information led them to discover a shallow grave at Bowman’s property near the 3200 block of 136th Avenue in Allegan County’s Monterey Township.
Aundria’s mother Cathy Terkanian had publicly stated that she believed the man was her daughter’s killer, expressing her suspicions to authorities.
At the property, investigators found the remains of a teenage girl identified as Aundria Bowman. The Allegan County Sheriff’s Department says that forensic biologists at Michigan State University and forensic pathologists at Western Michigan University helped police positively identify the remains.
The Allegan County Prosecutor’s Office is thanking the long-running work by law enforcement in their efforts to settle the cold case.
