I It feels like a long time (ten minutes? maybe twenty?) since Netflix last added to the true-crime documentary genre (anthologies focused on men's violence against women and girls), but “Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter” is worth the wait, if only for the strange, perverse way in which such a voyeuristic endeavor takes place.
This is the story of Cathy Tarkanian's search for her adopted daughter Alexis (renamed Orndria by her new parents Brenda and Dennis Baughman). It began in 2010, when she received a letter asking if she would be willing to provide a DNA sample to police if an unidentified woman was found brutally dead. It turns out that the child she had persuaded a single mother of 16 to adopt had run away from home in 1989 at age 14 and been missing ever since. Cathy herself had run away from an abusive mother. She figured it was unlikely the police would investigate properly (“They didn't look for me. They won't look for her”), and so, when it turned out the dead woman was someone's daughter, she began the search herself.
The events that unfolded were almost unbelievable. Cathy, a mesmerizing presence so strong it seemed as if she could burn holes in the screen with her terrifying intensity, did a quick internet search and discovered her daughter's new name and details of her disappearance. Then, with the help of her devoted husband Edward and amateur online investigator Carl Koppelman (an accountant who, before meeting Cathy, had compiled the names and histories of 19,000 missing people into a searchable spreadsheet and solved several cases), she launched an all-out assault on the world until she got her daughter back.
It's a wonderful story of one woman's determination, but while it's clear that it's trying to lean into the story and become a paean to maternal instinct, the supernatural bond between mother and child, and all sorts of other semi-nonsense, the facts are so awful that the filmmakers manage to restrain themselves and portray the facts in a way that suits them.
Aundria's life wasn't as good as the adoption promised 16-year-old Cathy. Former school friends, who keep in touch with her through a website she set up, recall witnessing Dennis hitting her and once nearly knocking her off a chair at the dinner table for commenting on food (she and a friend were eating burgers, but the other two were given sandwiches). Aundria accused Dennis of sexual abuse, but the school, police and church largely ignored her. She ran away from home soon after.
Through websites and freedom of information requests, Denise's truth slowly emerged. Once again, we find ourselves in a world where brutal men who commit horrific acts are rarely caught, and when they are, they never receive the punishment their crimes deserve. You may watch one or two of these documentaries and scratch your head at the series of unfortunate failures that allow predators to go free. Taken together, they are a stern indictment of ingrained systemic injustice, a unique and undeniable testament to how little women's lives are valued and how little their suffering is valued.
As Cathy pieces together Andrea's story, she becomes increasingly convinced that not only did Dennis kill her, but that her body was buried in the backyard of the house where the Bowmans now live. Carl thinks this is nonsense; the woods across from where they lived at the time would be the logical place. “But I knew,” Cathy says. “He thought he had the right to kill her, that she was his, and that he was going to keep her.” Is this a maternal instinct? Or is it something we all come to understand as we navigate a world where the longer we live, the more unshakeable patterns of entitlement become apparent?
One of the cases for which Dennis was convicted was the murder of 25-year-old Kathleen Doyle in 1980, 40 years after the incident. The role played by her aunt Christine should be etched in the minds of all who make or watch these films. “He has no place in her story apart from the fact that he took her from us… Don't let the people who committed this horrible act be the ones everyone remembers. Remember the young women who died.”
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