The unbelievable true story behind Netflix's crime documentary Into the Fire.

Charlize Theron has produced a two-part documentary that (mark my words) will be one of the most thrilling and heartbreaking docos you've ever seen.

It's called Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter and it's now streaming on Netflix. The documentary follows the story of Cathy Terkanian, a retired nurse who embarked on an investigative search for a missing woman.

Cathy's story starts in 2010. She received a letter in the mail asking if she could provide a DNA sample, to see if the body of a woman found all the way back in 1999 was her daughter.

Alexis was her biological daughter who she'd given up for adoption when she fell pregnant at 16, in 1975.

Alexis (then named Aundria) had reportedly run away from home when she was 14, in 1989.

It wasn't until 2010 that Cathy even knew her daughter had been missing. Three long years later, Cathy heard back that the body had not been Alexis/Aundria. In the meantime, it had become her mission to find out what did happen to her daughter.

She learned her daughter had run away from her adopted parents when she was 14 and hadn't been seen since. Cathy decided to carry out the search herself as she was unconvinced the police were doing enough.

This was driven by her own experience of running away from her mother at a young age. Cathy said the police were little to no help in her situation, so she wasn't taking any chances with her daughter's case.

Cathy embarked on an incredible investigative journey to find out what had happened to her daughter.

Watch: Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter trailer. Post continues below.

Through contacting the friends and people connected to her daughter at the time, Cathy found that Aundria had alleged that her adoptive father, Dennis Bowman, was abusive.

This was further confirmed by some of her former classmates who had witnessed Dennis hitting her. The allegations were ignored by the authoritative figures in Aundria's life, including the police.

It was assumed that she decided to run away shortly after.

As the documentary uncovers, Cathy became convinced that Dennis had killed her daughter.

She started calling the Bowmans multiple times a day. She had a billboard put up along the main road to their house offering an $11,000 reward for an arrest in the unsolved missing-person case.

The entire documentary, although incredibly heart-wrenching, is also extremely powerful and has you gasping at every turn.

Footage of Cathy's story has gone absolutely viral across social platforms with people agreeing that it's one of the best true crime stories that's ever been made.

Speaking to People, Charlize Theron said that she was drawn to Cathy's story because of how 'badass' she was.

"Her determination, resilience and honestly how badass she was! She never let anyone tell her no, she trusted her instincts, and she is a true personification of the power of motherhood," she said.

If you don't want any spoilers, we recommend you stop reading now and head to Netflix to watch the doco yourself. If you want to know what happened next, keep reading.

Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter on Netflix is the best documentary I’ve ever seen. watching intuition and sheer determination cultivate into justice is so powerful, I had to sit in silence afterward to absorb what I just had seen. please watch if you enjoy true crime!!!

— t (@peachtourmaline) October 1, 2024

As the documentary reveals, Cathy managed to help the police discover the truth: that her daughter had been killed by her adoptive father, Dennis Bowman.

But, the reveal came about because he was connected to a second horrific crime.

Dennis was arrested for the rape and murder of a local woman named Kathleen Doyle, by a detective who was tasked with reexamining a cold case from 1980.

He was arrested for her brutal murder in 2019 and confessed. Dennis then confessed to the murder of his adopted daughter, Alexis/Aundria.

His confessions were drawn out, with repeated inaccuracies and lies told throughout the process — as documented in the Netflix true crime series.

He admitted that he had a fight with Aundria when she tried to run away from home. In one of his confessions, he said she threatened to 'tell people he was molesting her' if he didn't let her leave.

He hit her, causing her to fall down the stairs and die.

He told multiple different stories about what he'd done with her body, before eventually admitting he had buried her in their own backyard, unbeknownst to her adoptive mother.

On December 22, 2021, Dennis pleaded no contest to second-degree murder, and on February 7, 2022, he was sentenced to a minimum of 35 to 50 years in prison.

Into The Fire is now streaming on Netflix.

Feature image: Netflix via IMDb.