Harrowing true story behind 'tragic' new Netflix true crime documentary which left viewers divided

I know we’re only halfway through but what a month of bangers on Netflix September has been.

From everyone getting obsessed with The Perfect Couple to the addition of 2023’s ‘creepiest film', we’ve had plenty of things to watch.

Others might be scratching their true crime itch with one of the latest documentaries.

And a ‘tragic’ new one in particular has a harrowing story behind it, leaving some viewers divided.

Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter landed on Netflix on Thursday (12 September) and is co-produced by star Charlize Theron.

The documentary follows Cathy Terkanian who, 35 years after giving her daughter up for adoption, receives the devastating news that she is ‘missing and feared dead’.

“With the support of an amateur detective and local authorities, Cathy begins an exhaustive ten-year mission to uncover the truth about her daughter's fate, delving deep into the shadowy realm of missing persons,” the synopsis explains.

In 2010, the woman was told that her daughter had disappeared from her adoptive home back in 1989 and she goes onto a 10-year search to find out what happened.

She spent 10 years searching for answers (Netflix)

During the documentary, Terkanian learns her daughter was renamed Aundria Michelle Bowman and was adopted by Dennis and Brenda Bowman.

She connects with a woman who believes the man looked like the same person who kidnapped her as a child (which can never be proven) and also with people who were friends with Aundria growing up. One claimed that her adoptive father would hit her.

In 2019, Dennis was arrested and confessed to the murder of a local woman in 1980 and footage from his meeting with his wife is included in the doc.

He tells her: “Aundria’s dead. She’s been dead from the start.”

The man reveals he got into an argument with the daughter and when she tried to run away, he hit her and she fell backwards down the stairs.

The daughter had been tragically murdered (Netflix)

Dennis says he cut her legs off and stuffed the remains in a barrel which he put out with his neighbour’s rubbish. But he changes this story in letters while in prison and it is revealed the barrel with the remains was buried in their back garden.

In February 2022, Dennis was sentenced to second degree murder.

With all of this playing out in the documentary, viewers called Terkanian a ‘incredible titan of a human’ and say: “A mother’s intuition is like no other.”

Many said it’s the ‘most riveting documentaries’ and is ‘guaranteed to make you want to throw bricks through a few windows’.

However, there has been the odd complaint that Terkanian ‘repeats herself’ a lot.

One user on Reddit wrote: “The facts of the case are sad, the story quite riveting. I did have a couple of moments where I realised why editors say ‘less is more. U said that already. U don’t have to keep hitting the readers over the head w a hammer again and again’ when the bio mom kept repeating how mad she was… I get that her tenacity is what 1. Probably solved the case and 2. Was the arc for the movie but had they trimmed about 20-30 min of her talking, I think it would have been stronger.”

You can watch Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter on Netflix.