A Salem Township man, arrested last November at the Burnips gas station, has been charged in the deaths of two women, one in 1980 and another in 1989.
Dennis Lee Bowman, 71, is being charged by Allegan County Prosecutor Myreme Koch with open murder, felony murder, first-degree child abuse and mutilation of a body.
One victim was Kathleen O’Brien Doyle, 25, found dead in her Norfolk, Va., the daughter of a naval officer and wife of a U.S. Navy pilot who was deployed at the time. Authorities then developed new leads that led them to a shallow grave on Bowman’s property on 136th Avenue in Monterey Township, where they found skeletal remains that now have been identified as those of 14-year-old Aundria Michelle Bowman, his adopted daughter, who went missing in 1989.
Allegan Sheriff’s deputies said medical and DNA testing by forensic pathologists with the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine and forensic biologists with Michigan State University led to a positive identification of the remains. The arrest followed cooperation among the Norfolk Police Homicide/Cold Case Section, NCIS, the Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office and Michigan State Police, Wayland post.
Kathleen O’Brien Doyle, daughter of a naval officer and wife of a U.S. Navy pilot who was deployed at the time, was found murdered 39 years ago and since then Norfolk Police detectives and NCIS agents have combined cold case efforts to bring Mrs. Doyle’s killer to justice.
Aundria’s biological mother, Cathy Terkanian, who gave her up when she was 5 months old, learned about her daughter’s disappearance about a decade ago and indicated she suspected Dennis Bowman, who has a criminal record dating back to 1980 that includes charges for assault, burglary and sexual assault.
Bowman also was convicted of sexual assault os a 19-year-old woman in 1981 and he was convicted of felony breaking and entering in 1999.
