writer作者：Nile Cappello

cast演播：underage未成年吖

translater译者：underage

THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE

相中女郎

“HE DIDN’T LIE THIS TIME. HE DIDN’T LIE.”

"这次他没有撒谎。他没有撒谎。"

“Man sought in assault” reads a front-page headline in the Holland Sentinel, published October 18, 1979. The article details a violent attack on a 27-year-old woman who early on a Sunday morning was bound, gagged, and sexually assaulted by an intruder in her home. The perpetrator took cash before fleeing the scene, and was described as a white man between 25 and 30 years old, with sandy hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He was estimated at five-foot-six and 150 pounds. According to the young woman, her assailant was wearing a leather jacket and dark pants. The newspaper published a police sketch of the suspect, his ink-blotted pupils staring blankly from the front page.
1979年10月18日出版的《荷兰哨兵报》头版头条写道："在攻击事件中寻找男子"。这篇文章详细介绍了对一名27岁妇女的暴力袭击，她在一个周日清晨被一名入侵者捆绑、堵住嘴，并在家中遭到性/侵。肇事者在逃离现场前拿走了现金，据描述是一名25至30岁的白人男子，沙色头发，戴着线框眼镜。据估计，他身高5英尺6英寸，体重150磅。据这位年轻女子说，袭击者身穿皮夹克和深色裤子。报纸刊登了警方对嫌疑人的素描，头条上他墨迹斑斑的瞳孔茫然地凝视着。

More than 40 years after the assault, Dennis Bowman confessed to the crime. There was little risk in doing so—he was already behind bars for murder, and the statute of limitations in the case had long since expired.
袭击事件发生40多年后，Dennis Bowman承认了这一罪行，这样做没有风险，他已经因谋杀罪而身陷囹圄，且该案的诉讼时效早已过期。

When they read the article about the 1979 crime, Terkanian and Koppelman couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance between Bowman and the police sketch. But it was the last line of the article that really caught their attention: According to the lead detective in the case, there had been a recent uptick in reports of prowlers in the neighborhood where the crime had occurred. Police suspected the attacker might have committed other crimes.
当他们读到关于1979年犯罪的文章时，Terkanian和Koppelman不禁注意到Bowman和警方的素描惊人地相似。但真正引起他们注意的是文章的最后一行。据该案的首席侦探说，最近在案发地附近发生的逗留者的报告有所增加。警方怀疑袭击者可能还犯有其他罪行。

Could there be other cold cases connected to Bowman? For years, Melissa had insisted hers was. She was frustrated that Bowman would confess to the 1979 assault, but not to what she believed he’d done to her. Now, at least, the police seemed to be listening to her. In February 2021, Michigan’s News 8 reported that police had confirmed Bowman was their prime suspect in Melissa’s abduction. Rope recovered from the scene and kept on file since 1989, when the crime occurred, had come back negative for Bowman’s DNA, but authorities said they were hopeful that technological advancements would allow it to be retested in the future.
是否还有其他与Bowman有关的悬案？多年来，Melissa一直坚持认为她的案件与此有关。她感到沮丧的是，Bowman承认1979年的袭击，但不承认他对她所做的事情。现在，至少，警察还在追踪她的案件。2021年2月，密歇根州的新闻8台报道说，警方已经确认Bowman是Melissa绑架案的主要嫌疑人。现场找到的绳子，自1989年犯罪发生以来一直保存在档案中，Bowman的DNA检测结果为阴性，但当局表示，他们希望技术的进步能让他们在未来重新测试。

Terkanian and Koppelman have identified other unsolved crimes they believe Bowman, who is now 72, should be investigated for. In 1977, Deborah Polinsky, a 20-year-old Holland woman, was killed in what one newspaper called a “sex slaying.” After Polinsky failed to show up for work, a colleague found her stripped, sexually assaulted, and stabbed to death in her home, with her German shepherd standing guard over the body. In 1970, Shelley Speet Mills, a 19-year-old newlywed, was stabbed to death in her apartment in Grand Rapids, 30 miles northeast of Holland. Mills’s mother, who’d driven to the city to take her daughter to lunch, found her body.
Terkanian和Koppelman已经确定了其他未解决的罪行，他们认为现年72岁的Bowman应该被调查。1977年，20岁的荷兰女子Deborah Polinsky被杀害，一家报纸称之为 "性/杀戮"。在Polinsky没有上班后，一位同事发现她被剥光衣服，遭到性/侵犯，并在家中被刺死，她的德国牧羊犬在尸体旁站着。1970年，19岁的新婚妻子Shelley Speet Mills在她位于荷兰东北30英里的大溪城的公寓里被刺死。Mills的母亲开车到该市带女儿去吃午饭，发现了她的尸体。

Around the time of Melissa’s abduction, there were a series of similar incidents. A 13-year-old girl was nearly pulled off a Holland street by a stranger. A nine-year-old girl on a bike was stopped by a man who opened his car door and asked repeatedly if she wanted to get ice cream. And several weeks after Melissa was taken, two siblings, aged nine and seven, were walking near Van Raalte Elementary School when they encountered a man they later estimated to be in his thirties. The suspect, who was driving a truck and wearing blue jeans and a blue winter jacket, offered the children money, then chased them on foot when they refused to get in his vehicle.
在Melissa被绑架前后，发生了一系列类似的事件。一个13岁的女孩差点被一个陌生人拉出荷兰的街道。一个骑自行车的9岁女孩被一个男人拦住，他打开车门，反复问她是否想吃冰淇淋。而在Melissa被带走几周后，两个九岁和七岁的兄妹在范拉尔特小学附近散步时，遇到了一个男子，他们后来估计三十多岁，嫌疑人驾驶一辆卡车，身穿蓝色牛仔裤和蓝色冬季夹克，给孩子们钱，然后在他们拒绝上车的情况下步行追赶他们。

The siblings later described the truck as shiny and red. Melissa had described her abductor’s vehicle similarly—red truck, white cab. A photo of a truck Bowman once drove, provided to Terkanian and Koppelman by Bowman’s sister-in-law, matches that description.
这对兄妹后来描述说，这辆卡车闪闪发光，呈红色。Melissa对绑架者的车辆也有类似的描述——红色卡车，白色驾驶室。Bowman的嫂子向Terkanian和Koppelman提供了一张Bowman曾经驾驶卡车的照片，与这一描述相符。

Bowman’s lawyer didn’t reply to requests for comment. His client is expected to stand trial again in January 2022. Whether in person or online, Koppelman and Terkanian will be watching the proceedings closely. The friends speak often on the phone and social media. They’re vocal evangelists of armchair detective work. “The internet is an investigative tool, and used consistently in a certain way, it will get you somewhere,” Terkanian said.
Bowman的律师没有回复评论，他的当事人预计将在2022年1月再次受审。无论是当面还是在网上，Koppelman和Terkanian都会密切关注诉讼程序。这对朋友经常在电话和社交媒体上交谈。他们是安乐椅神探工作的大声疾呼者。"互联网是一种调查工具，只要正确使用它，它会让你有所收获，"Terkanian说。

After Peggy Johnson was identified as the Racine County Jane Doe, police announced that she would be reburied next to her mother under her real name. Terkanian wants the same thing for her daughter: She’s planning to go to court to obtain Aundria’s remains, so that she can bury her as Alexis Badger. It’s a long shot, but then the chances that Dennis Bowman would ever be arrested were slim, and that happened. No one expected that Terkanian and Koppelman’s persistence would help resolve numerous cold cases, but it did.
在Peggy Johnson被确认为拉辛县的无名氏后，警方宣布她将以真名重新埋葬在她母亲身边。Terkanian希望她的女儿也能得到同样的待遇。她正计划向法院申请获得昂德里亚Aundria的遗体，以便她能以 Alexis Badger的身份埋葬她。这是一个很好的机会，但那时Dennis Bowman被逮捕的机会很渺茫，但却实现了。没有人想到Terkanian和Koppelman的坚持能够破解悬案，但它的确实现了。

Terkanian doesn’t believe in closure. It’s too pat a concept to apply to tragedy, too neat a way to describe what it means to find answers decades after a young woman vanishes or a body is found without a name. But nothing is impossible, and it’s never too late—if Terkanian believes in anything, it’s that.
Terkanian不相信案子了结了。了结这个词太简单，既不是悲剧，也不能用来描述一名年轻女子失踪或一具无名尸体被发现几十年后找到答案的意义。但没有什么是不可能的，而且永远不会太晚——如果Terkanian相信，那就一定会实现。