The resolution of the Stacy Lynn Chahorski disappearance and the Kathleen O’Brien Doyle homicide is a profound narrative of technological triumph, decades-long maternal intuition, and the devastating revelation that true evil can operate hidden behind a mask of normalcy and piety. For nearly forty years, Thomas Patrick Gulledge, a Michigan man known to his community as a quiet neighbor, devoted husband, and reliable church volunteer, lived a carefully constructed double life, responsible for acts of violence that spanned two states and three decades. The truth was finally unearthed not by a local tip, but by the relentless power of forensic genetic genealogy, which reached back into the silence of 1980 to unmask an aggressor who had long evaded justice.

The story truly begins in two separate, tragic timelines. The first belongs to Kathleen O’Brien Doyle, a 25-year-old Navy wife living in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1980. Kathleen and her husband, Steven Doyle, a Navy pilot, had been married for only five months when he was deployed aboard the USS Eisenhower. On a quiet September day, friends became concerned after not hearing from Kathleen. What they discovered when they checked on her was a scene of absolute horror. Kathleen was found bound, gagged, and succumbed to an act of unthinkable violence in her bedroom. The ensuing autopsy confirmed the sadistic nature of the attack: she had been brutally stabbed multiple times and suffered a heinous act of violation. With no witnesses and limited physical evidence that could be utilized by the technology of the 1980s, the investigation quickly stalled. It briefly flared in 1984 when Henry Lee Lucas, a notorious confessor of homicides, claimed responsibility, but his confession was later recanted, leading the case to fall into a prolonged, crushing silence that lasted nearly four decades.

The second timeline revolves around Stacy Lynn Chahorski (known as Andrea Bowman during her adoption), a 14-year-old girl in Holland, Michigan. Stacy’s early life was marked by instability, leading her birth mother, Kathy Turkanian, to make the agonizing choice to place her for adoption, hoping for a life of stability and security. The child, originally named Alexis, was adopted by Dennis and Brenda Bowman, a couple who presented themselves as pillars of their congregation: pious, stable, and eager to parent. Alexis was renamed Stacy Lynn Chahorski. For years, the household maintained its impeccable appearance, but behind closed doors, a darker reality unfolded. Whispers of the adoptive father’s temper and suffocating control circulated, rumors that were often dismissed as “private family business” in their close-knit, religious community.

By the time Stacy was 14, the tension was unbearable. Thomas Patrick Gulledge drove the girl to a band event but returned to an atmosphere heavy with unspoken conflict. On March 11, 1989, Stacy vanished. Gulledge, upon returning home with his second, biological daughter, found the farmhouse dark, a small travel suitcase gone, and cash missing. He immediately reported Stacy as a runaway, painting a picture of a troubled teenager who frequently fought with her mother and had chosen to leave. Police, finding no sign of struggle and hearing the narrative of a rebellious adolescent, labeled Stacy a runaway and closed the case. This lie of a runaway shielded a far more sinister truth for the next 30 years, a silence so profound that Stacy’s photo even appeared in the music video for Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” but to no avail.

The case remained quiet until 2010, when the digital age offered a new way to connect the disappeared and the unidentified. Carl Coppelman, a cold case enthusiast, began meticulously comparing profiles in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). He found a potential match between Stacy and a Jane Doe found in 1999 near a Wisconsin cornfield. Though the theory later proved incorrect, it spurred law enforcement to seek DNA from Stacy’s birth mother, Kathy Turkanian, who was located in Virginia. Kathy, now facing the possibility that her daughter was the Jane Doe, became fixated on the family she had entrusted her child to. A letter explaining the situation, along with an old school photo, connected Kathy to her daughter and spurred her relentless pursuit of the truth about the Bowmans.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Kathy uncovered the shocking secret life of Thomas Patrick Gulledge. The files revealed a history of predatory behavior that stretched back years before Stacy vanished. Records detailed a 1979 crime where a 27-year-old woman was bound, gagged, and assaulted by an intruder, an incident Gulledge had confessed to being present for. More terrifyingly, a 1980 report detailed an attempted heinous act on a young female cyclist in Holland, Michigan, who was forced off the road at gunpoint. Though the young woman courageously refused to cooperate, even after a shot was fired near her feet, she escaped when a passing car distracted her aggressor. She positively identified the assailant: Thomas Patrick Gulledge. He was subsequently convicted of assault with intent to commit criminal conduct, receiving a sentence of 5 to 10 years, though he only served the minimum, with a judge noting he would likely pose a danger to women if released.

Gulledge’s pattern of predatory actions continued after Stacy’s disappearance. In 1998, he was apprehended near a former coworker’s home after the woman’s security system was triggered. Hidden in the loft of an outbuilding on his property, police discovered the woman’s stolen intimate personal items, along with a weapon and a mask. Gulledge confessed to stalking the woman, breaking in to steal her personal items, and cutting a slit in her curtains for observation. He was sentenced to a year in jail and five years of probation. Even more heartbreakingly, a 1988 report, filed just months before Stacy vanished, revealed that the 14-year-old had confided in a teacher that she was afraid to go home because her adoptive father was abusing her. The social worker, however, accepted the parents’ denial, viewing the allegation as mere rebellion after Stacy learned she was adopted. Stacy was tragically allowed to remain in the home.

The sheer volume of Gulledge’s past acts, hidden by an immaculate public image, cemented Kathy’s terrifying suspicion that Stacy had never run away. But despite the mounting circumstantial evidence, Brenda, his wife, stood as a resolute barrier. Confronted with Gulledge’s criminal history, she chillingly responded with unwavering loyalty: “I haven’t forgotten what he did, but I do forgive him. I take my marriage vows very seriously.” Gulledge remained a free man, protected by his wife’s forgiveness and a lack of physical evidence linking him to his adopted daughter’s disappearance.

The true breakthrough came 700 miles away, in the cold case file of Kathleen Doyle. In 2018, the Norfolk Cold Case Unit, determined to use the preserved DNA from the 1980 crime scene, submitted the sample to a genetic genealogy company. After a year of intense analysis, a genetic family tree was constructed, pointing investigators to distant relatives in the mid-west, and eventually, to Thomas Patrick Gulledge. Detective Jonathan Smith immediately recognized the red flags: a Michigan man with a history of violence against women who had an adopted daughter vanish under mysterious circumstances. A court transcript confirmed the crucial link: Gulledge had been on a two-week Navy drill in Norfolk during the exact time frame of Kathleen Doyle’s loss of life.

Armed with this information, Virginia investigators worked with Michigan authorities to obtain a DNA sample covertly. The opportunity presented itself when Gulledge and his wife, Brenda, arrived at the sheriff’s office to file a complaint against Kathy Turkanian for online harassment. Investigators offered Gulledge a bottle of water, which he accepted and drank. After he left, the bottle was retained, packaged, and sent for forensic testing. The results returned weeks later: the DNA from the water bottle was an undeniable match to the biological material recovered from the Doyle crime scene 39 years prior.

In November 2019, the now 70-year-old Gulledge was apprehended in Michigan for the 1980 homicide of Kathleen Doyle. Brenda, still in a state of absolute denial, frantically tried to shield her husband, shouting at officers that they had the wrong person and insisting that her husband, a church volunteer, would never do such a thing. As he was escorted out, Brenda’s breaking voice trailed after him: “Dennis, I believe you! I’ll hire the best lawyer I can. We’re going to prove you’re innocent.”

During interrogation, Gulledge initially confessed a sanitized lie, claiming Kathleen’s passing was a result of a single, accidental stab wound during a struggle when he broke into her home. Confronted with the devastating forensic evidence—the strangulation, the binding, the heinous violation—Gulledge refused to take responsibility, retreating into a bizarre narrative that blamed a “demon” that had taken him over. He shut down, his demeanor regressing to an almost childlike state. However, when alone, his muttered words captured on camera changed from denial to a chilling admission: “I did it again. I did it again.”

With Gulledge in custody for the Doyle homicide, investigators had the leverage they needed to solve the 30-year-old disappearance of Stacy. They offered him a choice: reveal Stacy’s location and serve his time in a Michigan prison, closer to his family, or be immediately extradited to Virginia to face life imprisonment, cut off from them forever. Gulledge agreed, but only after a supervised meeting with Brenda, a performance he ensured was recorded. He confessed to her, spinning a narrative that cast himself as a panicked father rather than a perpetrator: he claimed Stacy had threatened to expose his abuse, they argued, and she fell backward down the stairs, perishing from the fall. He claimed he didn’t want to lose Brenda and their daughter, so he hid her remains.

Investigators found the disposal story improbable, but they monitored Gulledge’s jail correspondence. His letters to Brenda contradicted his confession; he revealed he had buried Stacy in a private cemetery and had walked past the site more than 100 times over the last 30 years. Confronted again, Gulledge finally broke. He admitted the trash story was a lie. He confessed that he had originally buried Stacy in the backyard of the old farmhouse on Lincoln Road. Later, when the family moved to their new home on 134th Avenue, he had done the unthinkable: he had exhumed the remains under the cover of darkness and re-buried them in the backyard of the new property. He had moved his victim with him, an ultimate act of perverse control.

In a final, chilling coincidence that validated years of maternal intuition, the exact spot Gulledge pointed to was the disturbed patch of earth Kathy Turkanian had identified on Google Earth years earlier. The excavation revealed a shallow grave containing remains, carefully concealed in trash bags, with used diapers likely placed to mask the scent from dogs. DNA analysis confirmed the identity: Stacy Lynn Chahorski.

Facing undeniable evidence, Thomas Patrick Gulledge pleaded no contest to second-degree homicide regarding Stacy. He was sentenced to a minimum of 35 years and a maximum of 50 in Michigan, and then immediately transferred to Virginia to formally receive two life sentences for Kathleen Doyle’s homicide, ensuring he would never walk free. The shocking resolution brought a bitter end to decades of silence, unmasking a quiet aggressor who had lived a lie until a water bottle and a scientific breakthrough finally exposed his two cold case secrets.