NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — A 72-year-old man serving two life sentences for murdering a Norfolk woman has pleaded no contest to killing his 14-year-old adopted daughter, Aundria Bowman, in 1989.
Dennis Bowman pleaded no contest to second-degree murder on Wednesday, months after his wife testified that he admitted to killing Aundria. Aundria was reported as a runaway from the family’s Michigan home on March 11, 1989.
The no contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt, but still allows for similar sentencing to a guilty plea. His case was set to go to a jury trial in January, but instead he’ll face sentencing on February 7. He could get a maximum sentence of life in prison in addition to his two other life sentences.
For years, Dennis Bowman was suspected of killing his daughter, but the case sat cold until 2019, when forensic evidence tied him to the 1980 murder 25-year-old Kathleen O’Brien Doyle. Doyle was living in Norfolk while her husband was deployed as a Navy pilot. He pleaded guilty to Doyle’s murder in June 2020 and was given two life sentences.
Investigators renewed their efforts to find Aundria Bowman after the arrest in the Doyle case, and on the same week that Dennis Bowman was being extradited to Norfolk investigators in Michigan found her body in a shallow grave at Bowman’s property in Monterey Township.
“Because of their hard work & dedication, the women & men of law enforcement have taken a #killer out of the community,” Norfolk police tweeted on Thursday. “Dennis Bowman will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the murder of Kathleen Doyle and Aundria Bowman.”
You can read more about the case here.
