Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)

Summary

Anatomy of Murder

Episode: Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
Host/Author: audiochuck
Release Date: January 21, 2025

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled Free To Be Me, hosts Anna Sega Nicolasi and Scott Weinberger delve into the heartbreaking and complex murder case of 17-year-old Nikki Kuhnhausen. This case not only highlights the tragic loss of a young transgender woman but also underscores significant changes in Washington state's legal landscape concerning hate crimes and the so-called "panic defense."

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Background of the Case

Nikki Kuhnhausen was a vibrant 17-year-old high school student from Vancouver, Washington, with a passion for makeup, hairstyling, and aspirations of becoming a makeup artist. Despite her confident and outgoing persona, Nikki faced significant personal challenges, including her parents' struggles with addiction and periods of incarceration. Her resilience shone through as she confidently embraced her identity as a transgender woman during high school, a testament to her strength and perseverance.

Colin Hayes (04:28): "Clark County is interesting in that it's a suburban county that's connected to the Portland metro area... We don't get a whole lot of murders, let alone murders that grab national headlines."

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Disappearance and Initial Investigation

On June 5, 2019, Nikki was last seen leaving a friend's house late at night. Over the next few weeks, her mother, Lisa, grew increasingly concerned as Nikki's usually active social media presence went silent. Despite extensive searches and the involvement of the Digital Evidence Crimes Unit (DECU), initial efforts yielded no concrete leads, partly due to Nikki losing her phone days before her disappearance.

Anna Sega Nicolasi (07:12): "Nikki had made a habit of staying with friends more than either of her parents... The evening of June 5th was the last day that she was seen by anyone."

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Breakthrough and Person of Interest

Three weeks after Nikki went missing, Lisa discovered that Nikki had borrowed a friend's phone the night she disappeared. This revelation was pivotal, allowing investigators to access Nikki's Snapchat account and trace her last known communications. Through this, they identified David Bogdanov as a crucial person of interest.

Anna Sega Nicolasi (09:47): "Nikki's Case was pretty big. There was a lot of advocacy bringing a lot of attention to her disappearance."

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Bogdanov's Interrogation and Inconsistencies

David Bogdanov, the last known person to communicate with Nikki, eventually agreed to meet with the police. His initial account painted a picture of an innocent interaction where he offered Nikki his jacket after noticing she was upset.

David Bogdanov (18:27): "I asked her why is she walking alone in the middle of the night?... I offered her my jacket because it was really cold outside."

However, inconsistencies soon surfaced. Bogdanov's account conflicted with cell phone data, revealing that he had traveled to remote areas not mentioned in his statements. His evasiveness and contradictory stories heightened suspicions about his involvement.

Anna Sega Nicolasi (23:35): "Larch Mountain is about 15 miles east of Brush Prairie and in the opposite direction of Portland... we had pretty good proof that he was lying."

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Discovery of Nikki's Remains

The case took a grim turn on December 7, 2019, when a civilian discovered what appeared to be human remains and personal belongings in the woods of Larch Mountain. Dental records confirmed the remains as Nikki's, and a phone charging cable knotted around her neck indicated she had been murdered.

Anna Sega Nicolasi (28:30): "Dental records would later confirm the grim truth. And the phone charging cable knotted around the victim's neck likely meant one thing. Nikki had been murdered."

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Arrest and Charges

With the physical evidence aligning with Bogdanov's presence in remote areas, authorities arrested him on charges of second-degree murder and malicious harassment—a hate crime under Washington state law. His transphobic remarks and failure to disclose his location discrepancies further solidified the case against him.

Anna Sega Nicolasi (30:31): "The prosecutor's contention was that Nikki's murder was at least partly motivated by her identity as a trans woman."

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Trial and Self-Defense Claim

Bogdanov's trial in September 2021 was a high-profile event, further amplified by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which mandated a largely empty courtroom with proceedings broadcast online. Bogdanov entered a plea of self-defense, invoking the "trans panic defense," which he had believed was outlawed in Washington state shortly before the trial began.

During his testimony, Bogdanov dramatically shifted his narrative, claiming that Nikki had attacked him and that he acted out of fear for his life. His inconsistent and implausible explanations, such as the accidental tightening of a phone cord, undermined his credibility. Medical examiner reports contradicted his claims, indicating purposeful strangulation rather than an accidental slip.

David Bogdanov (20:27): "It's even disturbing when I'm around gay person or somebody bi or transsexual or something... I just got disgusted and I asked her to just get out."

Prosecutors meticulously dismantled his self-defense argument, highlighting his premeditated flight and the strategic discovery of Nikki's remains aligning with his unauthorized trips.

Colin Hayes (32:38): "Using digital forensics... his cell phone data provided a disturbing timeline... it did not match his story."

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Legal Implications and Legislative Changes

The trial's outcome was a significant victory, not only securing justice for Nikki but also influencing legislative reforms. Shortly before the trial, Washington state enacted Nikki's Law, which effectively banned the "panic defense" by removing the legal loophole that allowed defendants to claim diminished capacity based on discovering a partner's LGBTQIA+ identity.

As of 2024, twenty-one states had adopted similar legislation, and efforts continued at the federal level with a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to nationwide ban the defense.

Anna Sega Nicolasi (45:18): "The Nikki Kunhausen act, or Nicky's Law, went into effect in Washington state just a month before Bogdanov's murder trial began."

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Conclusion and Impact

Bogdanov was ultimately convicted of second-degree homicide and malicious harassment, receiving a 20-year prison sentence. The case resonated deeply within the LGBTQIA+ community, serving as a catalyst for change and reinforcing the importance of combating bias and hate crimes.

Scott Weinberger (46:51): "Violence against any LGBTQIA individual is never justified. No exceptions."

The murder of Nikki Kuhnhausen stands as a somber reminder of the ongoing struggles faced by transgender individuals and the critical need for societal and legal support to ensure their safety and equality.

Anna Sega Nicolasi (47:59): "Nikki was strong and proud. She should have had many, many more years to be exactly whoever she wanted to be."

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Notable Quotes

• Colin Hayes (07:34): "The Digital Evidence Crimes Unit is equipped to use a person's digital footprint... to track a person's location."
• Anna Sega Nicolasi (32:02): "We could prove this case. But it was going to take a big leap from the jury to accept that he did this and nobody else did it."
• Kristen Arno (34:08): "It became a completely different case."

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Final Thoughts

Free To Be Me is a poignant exploration of Nikki Kuhnhausen's tragic story, meticulously unraveling the layers of her murder case. Through detailed investigation, legal battles, and the pursuit of justice, the episode highlights both the personal and societal dimensions of this heartbreaking event. It serves as a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the relentless quest for equality and justice.

Transcript

[Ashley Flowers]

There are some cases so infamous that we have all heard about them. But some of the coldest cases, the most mysterious, are the ones that you've never heard of before. I'm Ashley Flowers, and every Wednesday on my show the Deck, I dive into the coldest of cold cases. Many of these victims didn't get the press coverage they deserved during the initial investigations, but I'm sharing what our reporting team has found on these stories in hopes that some someone listening may have the information needed to bring answers to light. And that listener could be you. Listen to the Deck now. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Scott Weinberger]

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[Scott Weinberger]

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[Colin Hayes]

Concerned about how do we prove that he is the one who did this and so when they said self defense, it became a completely different case.

[Kristen Arno]

We did not know how things were going to go until we got that verdict.

[Scott Weinberger]

I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I'm Anna Sega Nicolasi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

[Scott Weinberger]

And this is Anatomy of Murder.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

There were over 19,000 homicides reported in the United States in the last year alone. But it doesn't take a true crime fan to tell you that some crimes or their sensational trials capture the public's attention more than others.

[Scott Weinberger]

Now, whether it's due to blanket media coverage or celebrity obsession or public outcry, some homicide investigations can take on a life of their own, which creates a barrage of distractions for families, law enforcement, and prosecutors who are just trying to catch a killer and solve a case.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But even when a case sometimes starts to feel like a runaway freight train, with everyone from cable news to Internet sleuths chiming in with an opinion, it is critical that those members of law enforcement and prosecutors stay focused on the facts, the evidence, and ultimately, hopefully, the truth.

[Scott Weinberger]

Vancouver, Washington, not to be confused with Vancouver, Canada, is a suburb of Portland just north of the Columbia River.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

It's also the seat of Clark county, where in 2021, a rookie prosecutor named Kristen Arno teamed up with veteran Colin Hayes to handle a case that not only captured worldwide attention, but that has had a lasting impact on their state's legal system.

[Colin Hayes]

Clark county is interesting in that it's a suburban county that's connected to the Portland metro area. And so we have a lot of the big city environment of Portland. So we're kind of like an intersection of a suburban county and also an urban area. There's definitely crime that occurs here, but I think murder is not the most common for sure. We don't get a whole lot of.

[Scott Weinberger]

Murders, let alone murders that grab national headlines, inspire a call to action, and galvanize an entire movement.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

In 2020, Nikki Kunhausen was a 17 year old high school student who had a passion for makeup and hairstyling and dreamed of one day becoming a makeup artist.

[Colin Hayes]

She kind of became like an expert in makeup. She was really interested in social media and she kind of wanted to pursue being an influencer on social media online.

[Scott Weinberger]

Nikki was confident, genuine, and incredibly talented. But off camera, Nikki's life wasn't always the picture of stability and acceptance.

[Colin Hayes]

She had had a pretty difficult life. Unfortunately, both of her parents had gone through periods of severe addiction and sometimes even incarceration. So Nikki had moved around a lot.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

In her youth and with all that change, one thing Nikki could always rely on was herself. So when she transitioned in high school and began living as a transgender woman, she did so with confidence.

[Colin Hayes]

And fl, even though she had a very difficult childhood, she persevered. And she was really very confident in who she was. And she was very bubbly and outgoing and friendly when faced with, like, adversaries or with difficulties, she would stand up for herself and would hold her ground when she needed to.

[Scott Weinberger]

Nikki's parents were divorced, and so most of the time she lived with her father while her mother dealt with some of her own issues. However, Nikki's mom was also her biggest fan, and the two of them stayed in touch daily.

[Colin Hayes]

Nikki's mom, Lisa, was in constant contact with Nikki over social media apps or texting. And Nikki was really prolific in posting on social media.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So naturally, when Nikki's social media feeds went quiet on June of 2019, her mom had a feeling that something was not quite right.

[Scott Weinberger]

Recently, Nikki had been going through her own struggles with narcotics, a battle her mom knew all too well. So when her phone calls and texts went unanswered, it was a cause for serious alarm. Here's prosecutor Colin Hayes.

[Kristen Arno]

Nikki's mom knew something was up right away.

[Colin Hayes]

It would be incredibly unusual for her to not talk to her for any amount of time. Lisa was fearing the worst from the beginning.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

By that time, Nikki had made a habit of staying with friends more than either of her parents. But now Lisa couldn't find any friends who knew where Nikki was.

[Colin Hayes]

She had been kind of couch surfing at these two friends houses, and she had gone for a walk in the middle of the night sometime on the 5th, late at night. The evening of June 5th was the last day that she was seen by anyone.

[Scott Weinberger]

Four long, anxious days of searching passed before her mother decided that it was time to contact the police.

[Colin Hayes]

She calls and an officer responds to take the missing person's report, and then it gets referred to the decu, the Digital Evidence Crimes Unit, who handles missing person cases.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The Digital Evidence Crimes Unit is equipped to use a person's digital footprint, whether it's their phone, computer, or even social media, to track a person's location. Unfortunately, according to friends, Nikki had lost her phone somewhere in Portland a couple of days before she went missing. So unfortunately, the unit couldn't access the wealth of information that a cell phone can provide.

[Scott Weinberger]

Investigators did what they could, but interviews with Nikki's friends and searches of places that she frequented, they all turned up with no leads to her whereabouts. Additionally, there was no reason yet to Believe that a crime had occurred.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But Nikki was still a month shy of her 18th birthday, which meant she was a minor. And her mom was convinced that Nikki had not intentionally cut off communication or run away.

[Scott Weinberger]

Behind her self confidence and street smarts, Nikki was still vulnerable. And the reality was that transgender people are four times more likely to be victims of violent crime than cisgendered. Which meant that the longer Nikki was missing, the more her life could actually be in danger.

[Colin Hayes]

The family got really involved with some advocacy groups and they helped put a lot of flyers out and a lot of messaging. So there were, there were news reports about Nikki's disappearance. Nikki going missing was a news story that was pretty big. And so I was aware of it that way. But Colin was involved with the investigation before we charged it. There were flyers. I remember them at like the grocery store or just kind of around town, you would see flyers about Nikki's disappearance asking for any information. And so there was a lot of advocacy bringing a lot of attention to her disappearance.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Three weeks later, Nikki's mom turned up what would prove to be some very useful information. Nikki had borrowed a friend's phone the night she disappeared.

[Scott Weinberger]

With that phone now in the hands of the digital evidence crimes unit, investigators now had a better chance of creating a timeline for the night she went missing. And as it turned out, Nikki had indeed left a digital breadcrumb.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Using that friend's phone, Nikki had logged into her own Snapchat account.

[Kristen Arno]

Snapchat is where the investigation first went to because the last very early morning that Nikki was seen, she had been talking to someone on snap, I believe, using one of her friends devices to do that because Nikki didn't have her phone. So they knew that whoever she'd been talking to should be doing it with snap. These are messages that didn't just evaporate after they were sent.

[Scott Weinberger]

Thankfully, according to friends, the time of the message exchanged coincided with what they said. The time was that she left the.

[Colin Hayes]

House alone and then she leaves again. And she mentioned something about meeting a Russian guy.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And so Scott here, you know, some of the obvious questions for investigators and maybe her own family and friends is like, who was this person that she may have gone to meet? Was it a date, was it? We know that unfortunately she had some narcotics going on in her background. So did it have something to do with that? All things investigators would need to look at and see if they could rule out.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, this is the first and most significant lead to build on so far. The forensics team will capture the telephone number tied to that SNAP account and that she was communicating with. By analyzing Nikki's account, they will be able to go back in time, uncovering potentially other conversations that could help them Anasega develop some potential theories. As you said, was it a date? Or knowing her past history, was it potentially a narcotics deal? And this of course, is where victimology comes into play. You have to also consider Anasega, the critical detail. This was 3:00 in the morning.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So for whatever the reason for meeting up with this at least supposed stranger, it did give investigators an important next step in the search for Nikki.

[Colin Hayes]

A name in the initial emergency release that they got, they just got a username that she had been communicating with, which was BogdonDavid. So they did end up getting warrants to get the full account information for that username and it did lead back to David McDonough.

[Kristen Arno]

So they got his account information, able to get things like his IP address and use their investigative tools to figure out where he was.

[Scott Weinberger]

But when investigators tried to contact David Bogdanov, he turned out to be harder to reach than anyone anticipated. His phone numbers were disconnected and his family members, they were even less help.

[Colin Hayes]

They talked to his brothers, but they were not consistent with each other. Neither of them could tell them where David was.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Investigators even pursued Warrens for his cell phone data. But like Nikki, the 25 year old seemed to have vanished.

[Scott Weinberger]

Weeks turned into months without any new leads into Nikki's whereabouts or those of the man she made plans to meet on the night she disappeared. Investigators continued to send messages to Bogdanov over Snapchat in hopes of a response, but they got no answer.

[Colin Hayes]

There was definitely some radio silence for a very long time.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Then in late September, nearly four months after Nikki went missing, a detective finally got a response from Bogdanov on Snapchat. And Bogdanov said he was willing to meet with police just as the detective had requested.

[Kristen Arno]

They set up a time for him to talk. So at that time, David was just a person of interest. They didn't know exactly what had happened to Nikki, and so they talked to.

[Scott Weinberger]

Him as potentially the last person to see Nikki. He could be a valuable witness in the search for a missing teenager or a possible suspect.

[Kristen Arno]

By his account, at that point, he was the last person to see her at all. No one had seen her thereafter. So that was obviously going to bring up a lot of flags right there.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But according to Bogdanov, the reason he had been unreachable for months was simply because he had failed to pay his bills.

[Scott Weinberger]

As for his encounter with Nikki. He claimed it was totally innocent, but a detective's instinct told him that Bogdanov might not be telling the whole truth.

[Colin Hayes]

But I don't believe that they for a second believed his story.

[Scott Weinberger]

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[Scott Weinberger]

A man named David Bogdanov voluntarily walked into a Vancouver, Washington police interview room to be questioned about Nikki's disappearance.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Detectives believed that he was the last person to be in contact with the missing teenager, so they had been trying to find Bogdanov for weeks what he said and more importantly, how he said it would provide investigators with their first big lead.

[Scott Weinberger]

First, Bogdanov claimed that he knew nothing about Nikki's disappearance, a fact they found odd since the victim' advocacy group had plastered Vancouver with notices about the missing teen. And her case was also widely covered on local and even the national news.

[Colin Hayes]

There's a lot of crimes that occur against trans people. They tend to go underreported or under investigated. And so there was. There was a lot of advocacy bringing a lot of attention to her disappearance.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Bogdanov also claimed that his cell phone had been shut off because he couldn't pay the bill, which would explain why the police had trouble contacting him for weeks.

[Scott Weinberger]

But detectives were more interested in hearing about his version of what happened between him and Nikki the night that she went missing.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

According to Bogdanov, he'd been out bar hopping in Vancouver with his two brothers when he spotted Nikki walking down the street alone. Here is part of the recording of Bogdanov speaking with the detectives in the interview room.

[Scott Weinberger]

Word of God.

[David Bogdanov]

I was walking out, I was getting in my bed, and I saw her walking by herself. And I'm like, that's really weird because it was already late at night. You know, I asked her why is she walking alone in the middle of the night? And she said that she had some big fight with her boyfriend, and she's really upset and offered her my jacket because it was really cold outside. And then I introduced myself and I invited her. She wanted to come join us, and. And she didn't. So I just gave her my jacket and we parted ways there.

[Scott Weinberger]

But before they parted ways, Bogdanov admitted he and Nikki exchanged information.

[David Bogdanov]

I did give her my Snapchat name. And then shortly after, maybe a couple hours later, she added me over on Snapchat.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And then he claimed that after leaving Nikki, he and his brothers went to his sister's house in downtown Vancouver, and that's where he and Nikki exchanged their first messages over Snapchat.

[Scott Weinberger]

They arranged to meet Nikki later that night to get his jacket back. Only this time, when he went back to pick her up, she got into his van.

[David Bogdanov]

I think it was just like, barely sunrise. She said her phone was. I can't remember if she said if it was at a friend's or at work or something like that. And she was asking me if I can maybe give her a ride there to go get her phone or something.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But instead, the adult and the minor teenager headed in the direction of his family's home just outside Vancouver. Whether he had expectations of a sexual encounter. He didn't say, but he did admit that it was here that their night took a dramatic turn.

[David Bogdanov]

We got in my van, kind of just parked there in the driveway, chit chatting a little bit. And then she told me that she's not a she. I was shocked to find that out and just uncomfortable and really, really disturbed. She's a guy.

[Scott Weinberger]

But clearly the most disturbing part of Bogdanov's story was his blatant transphobia and bigotry.

[David Bogdanov]

It's even disturbing when I'm around gay person or somebody bi or transsexual or something. You know, I don't know how I didn't catch on sooner. It must have been because I was so drunk. I just got disgusted and I asked her to just get out. So for me, it's just very disturbing and disgusting when we're like this. I don't know. I don't want you guys to think.

[Kristen Arno]

And then she's never heard of a camp.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Mm.

[David Bogdanov]

I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Last I saw her was when I asked her to get out of the car. And that's it.

[Kristen Arno]

See, that's not how people disappear. Getting out of a car and walking.

[David Bogdanov]

Away is not how people disappear. People disappear by getting picked up by.

[Kristen Arno]

Somebody that they've never met before.

[David Bogdanov]

So what do you think happened to her? I have no idea.

[Scott Weinberger]

Is she alive?

[David Bogdanov]

I don't know.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Bogdanov repeated his version of that night for 20 more minutes until the detectives decided to end the interview and send him home.

[Colin Hayes]

He was a person of interest. He hadn't confessed to anything. But I don't believe that they for a second believed his story.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

You know, Scott, while everyone seems to already be tilting their head, you know, he happened to be the last person who actually saw Nikki, and then all of a sudden, he's gone for a while. His statements, they don't seem to make a lot of sense, but as we know, like, it is far from being in place that he could be charged or certainly prosecuted just because he is piquing their interest. The more and more they learn.

[Scott Weinberger]

I mean, you hear Kristen there. They don't believe his story. It's clear even in the interview room, they just do not believe what he's saying. While he admits to being in the vehicle with our missing person, there's no evidence at this moment pointing to anything beyond a missing persons case. Suspicious? Absolutely. But right now, the detectives don't have any other evidence to prove otherwise. And Annecy, as You know, as twisted as transphobia is, police can't do anything about that viewpoint on its own in a legal sense.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Here again, morally repugnant to be prejudiced against anyone for one reason or another. But his transphobia, what it does do at least maybe it might start to be providing a motive about whatever happened to Nikki. And even though they couldn't hold Bogdanov, the veil Vancouver police weren't about to let him out of their sight.

[Colin Hayes]

It was prepping warrants, sending warrants, waiting on returns, and unfortunately, those are just incredibly time consuming.

[Scott Weinberger]

But eventually, that work did pay off. And once again, the key was using digital forensics to see if Bogdanov's movements matched up with his story. Instead, those cell phone records provided a disturbing timeline of those really early hours the same night Nikki went missing in June of 2019.

[Kristen Arno]

And they were able to place together, using the cell tower data, timeline and location of where David had been. And it put him in some interesting places.

[Colin Hayes]

And it did not match his story.

[Kristen Arno]

It definitely told a very different story than what David had reported in his interview. Took things in a different direction.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

On the night he claimed to meet Nikki, Bogdanov's phone record showed him driving to brush prairie, a 20 minute drive north of downtown Vancouver, just as he told the detectives he had.

[Scott Weinberger]

And that's where he claimed he kicked Nikki out of his vehicle before supposedly driving directly to work in Portland. But that is not what his cell phone data showed.

[Colin Hayes]

What the cell site data showed was that he had gone to Large Mountain after going to his family's house, which is an incredibly remote area, and then went back and went to Portland.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Larch mountain is about 15 miles east of Brush Prairie and in the opposite direction of Portland. So if the Vancouver detectives were already suspicious about most of Bogdanov's story, now they had pretty good proof that he.

[Scott Weinberger]

Was lying and lying to police. That's a pretty big sign that a suspect or a person of interest is hiding something or otherwise attempting to conceal a crime or what that crime is. Police were determined to find out.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Bogdanov's trans and homophobic comments had more than raised eyebrows. They provided a plausible motive for a possible assault or worse. But while his lies about his location were extremely suspicious, a secret trip out into the wilderness still didn't give police enough cause to make an arrest. Without locating Nikki or other evidence that a crime had in fact occurred, the investigation was stuck at a standstill.

[Scott Weinberger]

As the weather turned from fall to winter in the Pacific Northwest, local support groups continued to canvass the area for any signs of the missing teen, but hopes of finding her were beginning to dim.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

That is, until a local man on a walk in the woods made a disturbing discovery, turning the search for Nikki Kunhausen into not just a homicide case, but a rallying cry for historic change in the state of Washington.

[Scott Weinberger]

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

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[Colin Hayes]

There's apparently this type of grass that grows on Larch Mountain that is used in floral arrangements, and there was a civilian who was collecting the floral grass to sell to florists.

[Scott Weinberger]

But on December 7, 2019, this person discovered much more than he bargained for. Scattered throughout the woods were pieces of clothing and what appeared to be human remains.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

When law enforcement responded to the scene, they discovered several items that suggested that the remains were likely those of 17 year old Nikki Kunhausen, including rings she was known to wear and that she had been seen wearing on some of her social media posts.

[Colin Hayes]

First, there was a set of extensions that were black with some white or kind of silver streaks in them. And that was the last hair color that Nikki had before she went missing. The second was this like high visual yellow, like construction yellow jacket that she was seen in social media posts wearing. And the last thing was there's padded underwear that is consistent for someone who is trans and wants to kind of modify their appearance to look a little bit more feminine. And so all of those three things really started to point in the direction of Nikki.

[Scott Weinberger]

Dental records would later confirm the grim truth. And the phone charging cable knotted around the victim's neck likely meant one thing. Nikki had been murdered.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

You might remember that large mountain where Nikki's remains were found was also the remote area where David Bogdanov's phone pinged on the night he admitted meeting Nikki Kunhausen. It was the connection that investigators needed to bring him back in for another round of questioning.

[Colin Hayes]

They asked him first to confirm that he had told them everything and everywhere that he had gone that day. And he did. And then they said, well, we have your cell records and we show that you went up to Larch Mountain and you didn't tell us about that or something to that effect. And then you can see the wheels process for, I think it's about a minute and a half to two minutes. And then he invokes his right to remain silent.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

At that point, the detectives arrested Bogdanov, and he was charged with was second degree murder and malicious harassment, a hate crime in Washington state.

[Scott Weinberger]

It was the prosecutor's contention that Nikki's murder was at least partly motivated by her identity as a trans woman. News that invoked pain and outrage from Nikki's family, her friends, and throughout the community.

[Kristen Arno]

It's a very serious case. You have a minor trans female being murdered. It's a, you know, it's. It's horrible. Nikki's family, also the LGBTQIA community was there and very vocal and wanting justice for Nikki, as did many people. But there's a lot riding on this.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The high profile case was also Kristen Arnold's first trial as a new prosecutor.

[Colin Hayes]

I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity. It was also a case that kind of hit the. The kinds of things that I am interested and care about. I was working in juvenile at the time. And there's a lot of issues relating to kids who are trans. It is unfortunately common that there's violence that results in situations like this where someone finds out that someone is trans. And that's why a lot of people who identify as trans are concerned about passing and being outed as trans.

[Scott Weinberger]

Despite Bogdanov's own admission of being with Nikki on the night she disappeared, as well as his own stated anger over learning that she was a trans female, the case against him was still based largely on circumstantial evidence.

[Colin Hayes]

We don't have him holding the knife. We didn't have a direct confession.

[Kristen Arno]

Given that her body had been left out in the wilderness for approximately six months, much of the evidence you would normally have in a homicide case was not there. You know, in terms of what happened to her body. We didn't know exactly where it had happened. We didn't know exactly what was done to her body.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But there were still ways to build a convincing case against him and undermine his claims that he had nothing to do with Nikki's murder.

[Scott Weinberger]

One way was to figure out where he had been during those several weeks immediately following her disappearance. A job once again tasked with the Digital Forensics Crimes Unit.

[Colin Hayes]

When they got the returns back from his emails, they found these tickets to the Ukraine that were on the same day. So, like, I think it was late in the evening, maybe 11pm Leaving Portland that day of June 6, it appeared.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

That Bogdanov had actually fled the country just hours after his meeting with Nikki, which. Which a jury was likely to see for what it was. A consciousness of guilt and attempt to avoid arrest.

[Scott Weinberger]

But again, there's still no physical evidence that ties him directly to the crime.

[Colin Hayes]

We were mostly concerned about how do we prove that he is the one who did this, not somebody else. We had proved that he saw her, that they communicated that he picked her up, and that he drove to Larch Mountain where her body was found. So we could prove this case. But it was going to take a big leap from the jury to accept that he did this and nobody else did it.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But as it turns out, convincing a jury that Bogdanov killed Nikki would not be as difficult as they thought. The real challenge would soon become what actually happened.

[Scott Weinberger]

About a month before the trial, the defendant's lawyers disclosed that Bogdanov would be claiming he indeed was responsible for for Nikki's death, but that he had merely acted in self defense.

[Kristen Arno]

So that was really game changing and surprising in a lot of senses to us.

[Colin Hayes]

When they said self defense, it became A completely different case.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

It may have come as a surprise, but it actually was something that Nikki's mother and victims advocacy groups had feared. It is what has become known as the gay or trans panic defense. And it is predicated on the idea that an individual is somehow justified in actions taken in response to what is a perceived threat to their lives, namely the revelation that a sexual partner is gay or trans. And these are real issues for prosecutors and at trial. And I've encountered this defense more than once in the courtroom. You know, one case that quickly comes to mind, a defendant claimed that their own abuse as a child led them to panic when their victim supposedly made advances. And in that case they were same sex. But I've also had defendants who say that when they realized that the partner that they found out that they were trans and actually born a different sex than what they believe them to be. And I'll close by saying in those cases that the jury convicted both. But it was definitely a defense that you had to be worried that it might impact the jury or sway someone on the jury. So it needs to be dealt with, you know, head on from as early as jury selection. If it's a defense that is viable, that is allowed to even come into court.

[Scott Weinberger]

The trials are unpredictable, especially when a panicked offense could be introduced. That may be some of the reasons why in iciga, these plea deals find themselves involved in the case. Because even if the sentence is less severe that what might result from a trial, for prosecutors, a lesser conviction may seem like a better certainty than the uncertainty of what this kind of defense could bring.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And you know, the National LGBTQIA plus Bar association, which is of course monitoring things around the country, says that this is a defense that they have seen work routinely because of bias against specifically trans people. Because that's what we're talking about here. So these are fears that people that decide to be or are trans, that they are predatory. And obviously we know that isn't true. But again, as we know, Scott, this really had a lot to do with actual change in Washington state and due.

[Scott Weinberger]

In part of the public outcry really just with Nikki's murder. Washington state actually banned this gay panic defense from being used shortly before beginning this trial.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Nevertheless, the defense was still preparing to prove that in his encounter with a 17 year old, Nikki, Bogdanov felt that his life was actually in danger.

[Kristen Arno]

Once he pled self defense. We knew he'd have to take the stand. If he took the stand, whatever he was going to say was going to be brand new to all of us. We did not know how things were going to go. It was a lot of surprises.

[Scott Weinberger]

Bogdanov's trial began in September of 2021, and it was clear from the beginning that pursuing justice for Nikki would not be a quiet event.

[Colin Hayes]

It hit at the right time, where there has been a history of cases with trans victims not being handled appropriately or ending in what people view as a just result. And so we definitely felt that kind of pressure, but I don't think either of us anticipated that it would become like we were seeing, like People magazine articles.

[Kristen Arno]

None of this is normal. Like most prosecutors go through their whole career and never have any case that makes national news.

[Colin Hayes]

It was definitely more, more pressure than one would want for their first murder trial.

[Scott Weinberger]

The COVID pandemic meant the courtroom would be mostly empty, but cameras guaranteed that the trial would be broadcast around the country.

[Kristen Arno]

What happens in the courtroom can't be kept private. The public has a right to know. And so given the COVID concerns at the time, that was the answer that was come up with is just to put it on zoom so that everyone could have access to it.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

In addition to public pressure, the prosecutors were in a tough spot with their case against Bogdanov. He had pled self defense, which they did not expect, at least not initially. So Kristen and Colin faced a lot of unknowns right off the bat. And most mysterious of all, what would Bogdanov say on the stand?

[Scott Weinberger]

Bogdanov's self defense claim meant he needed to convince the jury that Nikki posed such a grave threat to him that killing her was justified. The entire trial and his freedom were riding on it.

[Kristen Arno]

We had no idea what he was going to say under what circumstances. I have never had a trial, I think, outside of this, where there was so many question marks and unknowns as to what the defense could possibly say had happened.

[Colin Hayes]

There was no way they were going to prove self defense without him taking the stand. I think we felt good, but we had no idea what was coming, so.

[Scott Weinberger]

It was really hard on the witness stand. The first part of Bogdanov's story remained unchanged from what he told police that previous October. That he and Nikki met outside a bar and made plans over Snapchat to meet up later that night.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But then Bogdanov's testimony veered from what he had originally told police. He had originally claimed that after Nikki told him she was a trans female, he had pushed her away in anger and asked her to leave his van.

[Scott Weinberger]

But on the stand, he claimed that it was Nikki that had attacked him.

[Colin Hayes]

Because he reacted physically. She then threatened him or was fighting with him physically. He perceived that she was reaching for his gun, which was in grabbing range. And the only alternative for him to make sure that she didn't reach the gun was to try and restrain her with this phone cord, and that the phone cord just slipped up and strangled her.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

You know, Scott, so much of what he is saying just makes absolutely no sense. I mean, just the phone cord alone, right? He has it. It's around her neck, and that it had already been in this loop, so that when he happened to put it around her neck, that it tightened and she died. I mean, that just. It makes no sense. And it, of course, defies physics.

[Scott Weinberger]

Let's be real. Cords don't just slip around someone's neck. For a looped cord to end up accidentally tightening it would require specific movements, tension and friction. And unless Nicky's head was perfectly positioned and forcefully pulled through the loop, something that defies everyday physics, the explanation just doesn't hold water. It's a convenient claim, but not a believable one. They've also likely examined signs for ligature marks, bruising, and tissue damage, which would have indicated a sustained and purposeful application of pressure. The amount of effort involved rules out any slip of the loop scenario.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And it was a fact that was supported by conclusions made by the medical examiner.

[Colin Hayes]

The way that the hyoid bone was located in the extensions that were attached to the phone cord, that indicated that that phone cord had been tied around her hair and her neck at the time that the body was disposed of. And it was knotted in a circle. And I think it was about 10 centimeters, which is an incredibly small circle to fit around someone's neck.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Let's also not gloss over another fact, that Bogdanov admitted he was armed and that he kept his gun in the car within reach. Another fact that makes it hard to believe that he would have felt that he was ever in imminent danger.

[Scott Weinberger]

But if he was able to convince a jury that Nikki had at any time made him fear for his life, they could potentially find that he was guilty of negligent homicide. Meaning he could still potentially go free.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The prosecution's strategy to disprove the defense's version of events that tried to cast Bogdanov as the victim and prove that Nikki's death was anything but accidental.

[Colin Hayes]

My goal in going in was to shut that down. He didn't try to call the cops. He didn't try to call a medical. He didn't. He didn't try to do anything. He just kind of throws her in the back of the car. So he showed extreme disregard for her as a human, even in his own testimony. I saw that the jurors were tracking along with me at that point, so I think they saw that as well.

[Kristen Arno]

The medical examiner was saying it would take minutes to actually end someone's life strangling them. I think they got her down to maybe a couple minutes. His version of events just wasn't jiving with strangling someone for two minutes. You didn't need to continue to strangle someone for at least two minutes, likely much longer, and tie this cord around her neck. So he tried to say he didn't tie the cord, and nothing he was saying made sense with the version that we had. So we were going to paint this as the picture of him finding out Nikki was transgender after having been sexually intimate with her, and then basically just losing it.

[Scott Weinberger]

Much of the trial would hinge on whether the prosecution could demonstrate to the jury that Bogdanov was neither sympathetic or believable. But in the end, the defendant himself, he did all the heavy lifting.

[Colin Hayes]

What we both noticed automatically is that the only time he got emotional was when he was talking about his, like, reputation and how he would be personally affected if people found out that he had been with someone who was trans. It wasn't when he was talking about the actual event of killing Nikki. It wasn't when he was talking about when he felt threatened. He didn't show any remorse even in his telling of the event.

[Kristen Arno]

The whole thing was kind of from a very self centered, like, how this is affecting me, how I'm gonna have to deal with it, like, why this is bad for me, not realizing, obviously, the whole other side of it. And so it's. It was pretty striking.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

As for Bogdanov's explanation for why he fled the country just hours after strangling Nikki to death.

[Colin Hayes]

He claimed that he realized he had an alcohol problem and he needed to go get treatment. And he claimed that he had gone to a treatment facility in the Ukraine, although he provided no information to support that.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The prosecution gave their closing arguments after two weeks at trial.

[Colin Hayes]

He couldn't explain really how Nikki was a threat to him. He couldn't explain why he thought she was reaching for the gun. He didn't attempt to do anything other than just dump her body and run. And all of the evidence showed there was a very guilty conscience. That's why he's not giving this version of events to law enforcement officers when he does talk to them in October. And so it just My goal was to prove that it happens the way the state said it happened and not that it was self defense or justifiable homicide.

[Scott Weinberger]

The jury deliberated for two days, and in the end, Bogdanov was found guilty of second degree homicide. And the hate crime, malicious harassment.

[Kristen Arno]

Guilty on everything, which was a huge relief, and the family was overjoyed at that outcome.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Bogdanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which in Collins estimation was not nearly enough.

[Kristen Arno]

Not what he deserves. But given the evidence, we ended up getting the most amount of time we could have possibly gotten.

[Scott Weinberger]

The trial did more than establish guilt and put Bogdanov behind bars. It highlighted the legislative efforts Nikki's mother Lisa had pushed hard for since Bogdanov was arrested.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The Nikki Kunhausen act, or Nicky's Law, went into effect in Washington state just a month before Bogdanov's murder trial began. The law closed the loophole that might have allowed Bogdanov to plead he had a diminished capacity to control himself when he learned of Nikki's identity.

[Kristen Arno]

Nikki's Law, which officially took the panic defense off the table for people to officially get that off the table was very cool. It's first and foremost justice for Nikki, because I hope that that this gave some small piece of solace to the local LGBTQIA community that gave them some hope in the system and let people know that we care about these cases. It feels like there was some silver linings to it.

[Colin Hayes]

Nikki's case is really heartbreaking. Nikki was killed because of her identity and how she identified. For it to be the reason that she was killed is just absolutely gut wrenching. But Nikki was a confident and credible person from what we learned. And I actually ultimately appreciate all of the coverage on Nikki's case because I'm happy that it's an example of a situation where everyone came together and was able to get justice for Nikki, because these things do happen to teens and trans victims.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

As of 2024, 21 states have enacted legislation like Nikki's Law law that bans the LGBTQIA panic defense. A bill to ban the defense has been introduced in the U. S. House of Representatives.

[Scott Weinberger]

While plea deals may seem pragmatic from a legal standpoint, they can undermine justice and perpetuate prejudice. Prosecutors must balance securing convictions with sending a clear message. Violence against any LGBTQIA individual is never justified. No exceptions. A commitment to challenging the panic defense head on rather than compromising is essential to achieving true justice. At its heart, Nikki's case is a call to action, a reminder that we all have a role in building more inclusive, compassionate and just society where no one has to live in fear for simply being who they are. It challenges us to examine not only the overt acts of violence that claim lives like Nikki's, but also the underlying biases and systematic inequalities that allow such acts to persist. A testament to the resilience and courage of those who refuse to let her memory fade without leaving an indelible impact on the fight for equality and justice.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Justice Nikki Kunhausen, a 17 year old, was murdered. In some ways, that is where the case ends in all its horror. Right there. But of course, it makes it that much worse that it appears clear that Nikki was killed because of who she chose to be. I think it's obvious that Nikki didn't have an easy life as a young child, and additionally that her choice of identity, though it made her happy be would also likely have presented some unique challenges of its own, especially for someone as young as Nikki. Whether a person supports, doesn't know how to feel, or even if they disapprove about how a person chooses to identify, I hope that we all agree that violence is always wrong. Nikki lost her life at 17. By all accounts, Nikki was strong and proud. She should have had many, many more years to be exactly whoever she wanted to be. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder.

[Scott Weinberger]

Anatomy of Murder is an audio Chuck.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

[Scott Weinberger]

Ashley Flowers is Executive producer.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

This episode was written and produced by Morgan Beatty, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa and Phil Jean Grande.

[Ashley Flowers]

So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

[Chuck]

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[Scott Weinberger]

This woman is so adept at being a criminal it's not funny.

[Colin Hayes]

I've never seen a show quite like.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The story of Sara King.

[Scott Weinberger]

She conned people out of $10 million.

[Colin Hayes]

But infamy comes with a price.

[Scott Weinberger]

If we don't have our money by.

[Kristen Arno]

Tomorrow morning, you will be gutted like.

[Scott Weinberger]

A fish in Newport.

[Colin Hayes]

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