Judge orders dad to trial in death of daughter in '89

ALLEGAN (AP) - A woman testified Monday that her husband revealed the burial site of their adopted daughter last year, decades after the 14-year-old disappeared in western Michigan.

Brenda Bowman said she immediately informed police, telling an officer, "He didn't lie to me this time."

An Allegan County judge found "ample evidence" to send Dennis Bowman to trial on a murder charge in the death of Aundria Bowman, who was reported as a runaway in 1989.

Brenda Bowman said her husband revealed the burial site in a phone call in February 2020, before he was extradited to Norfolk, Virginia, to face a murder charge in the 1980 death of a woman there.
Aundria's dismembered remains were discovered under a concrete slab outside the couple's home in Monterey Township.

Brenda Bowman said she was initially confused about the location because the Bowmans didn't live at that home when Aundria disappeared.

"He said, 'I moved her from the other house.' ... He told me she was out under the cement slab, left hand corner, front," Brenda Bowman testified.

The conversation occurred weeks after Dennis Bowman told police that he had a role in Aundria's death but didn't reveal the location of the remains. He directed police to a machete under his bed.

Bowman, 71, said he pushed the teen down stairs in 1989 after she threatened to report that he had molested her, Det. Sgt. Todd Workman of the state police testified.

Bowman said he hid the body in a barn, reported Aundria as a runaway to police and dismembered the remains, according to Workman.

"He said it was a terrible thing to cut up a human," Workman said.

In Virginia, Dennis Bowman pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of Kathleen Doyle, who was the wife of a U.S. Navy pilot.