ALLEGAN, Mich. (AP) — Investigators in western Michigan might have discovered the remains of a missing teenager whose adoptive father was recently charged in a 1980 homicide in Virginia.
Aundria Bowman was 14 when she disappeared in 1989 in Allegan County. Skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave under cement Wednesday in the county’s Monterey Township, Undersheriff Mike Larsen said.
It could take weeks to get an identification.
Larsen said the search for Aundria gained momentum after the November arrest of Dennis Bowman. He’s charged with killing Kathleen Doyle, the wife of a U.S. Navy pilot, in 1980 in Norfolk, Virginia.
Larsen didn’t disclose what led investigators to the burial site. News organizations, citing property records, said the land where the remains were found is owned by Dennis Bowman. Aundria was reported as a runaway in 1989.
“During the course of (the Doyle) investigation, investigators continued to search for answers as to the whereabouts of Aundria,” Larsen said.
Bowman has not been transferred to Virginia to face charges in Doyle’s death and remains in the Allegan County jail, 175 miles (281 kilometers) west of Detroit. It’s not known if he has a lawyer. No one is listed in court records.
Aundria’s birth mother, Cathy Terkanian, said she didn’t learn about the teen’s disappearance until 2010 when police contacted her for DNA. She said she urged investigators to focus on Bowman, who has a criminal record.
“They searched that property, because it was obvious he put her there, to me,” Terkanian told MLive.com
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