Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Oh, what fun.
Nordstrom has gifts for all your favorite people, all in one place, like beauty sets, sweaters, jewelry, and toys, with tons under 100.

Speaker 1 Neat ideas? Check out gifts from Uggs, Skims, Dipteak, Free People, Stambling, and more. Plus, explore their amazing gift shop in stores and online.

Speaker 1 Free styling, free shipping, and order pickup make it all easy at Nordstrom.

Speaker 2 20th Century Studios presents the upcoming comedy, Ella McKay, from Academy Award-winning writer-director James L. Brooks.

Speaker 2 Emma Mackey plays Ella McKay, an idealistic young woman who juggles her family and work life in a story about the people you love and how to survive them.

Speaker 2 Featuring an all-star cast, including Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Loudon, Kumale Ninjani, Iowa Deborey, Julie Kavner, with Albert Brooks and Woody Harrelson.

Speaker 2 Ella McKay in theaters December 12th.

Speaker 4 Are you ready to get spicy?

Speaker 3 These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.

Speaker 4 Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me.

Speaker 3 Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet.

Speaker 4 Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.

Speaker 3 Or turn it down.

Speaker 3 It's time for something that's not too spicy. Try Dorito's Golden Sriracha.

Speaker 4 Spicy.

Speaker 3 But not too spicy.

Speaker 5 We were mostly 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.

Speaker 6 We did not know how things were going to go until we got that verdict.

Speaker 3 I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

Speaker 7 I'm Anasega Nicolazi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

Speaker 3 And this is Anatomy of Murder.

Speaker 7 There were over 19,000 homicides reported in the United States in the last year alone.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 Vancouver, Washington, not to be confused with Vancouver, Canada, is a suburb of Portland just north of the Columbia River.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 5 Clark County is interesting in that it's a

Speaker 5 suburban county that's connected to the Portland metro area. And so we have a lot of the big city environment of Portland.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 We don't get a whole lot of murders.

Speaker 3 Let alone murders that grab national headlines, inspire a call to action, and galvanize an entire movement.

Speaker 7 In 2020, Nikki Kuhnhausen 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 Online, Nikki was confident, genuine, and incredibly talented. But off camera, Nikki's life wasn't always the picture of stability and acceptance.

Speaker 5 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 in her youth.

Speaker 7 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 and flair.

Speaker 5 Even though she had a very difficult childhood,

Speaker 5 she persevered and she was really very confident in who she was. And she was very bubbly and outgoing and friendly.

Speaker 5 When faced with like adversaries or with difficulties, she would stand up for herself and would hold her ground when she needed to.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 However, Nikki's mom was also her biggest fan and the two of them stayed in touch daily.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Here's prosecutor Colin Hayes.

Speaker 6 Nikki's mom knew something was up right away.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 The evening of June 5th was the last day that she was seen by anyone.

Speaker 3 Four long, anxious days of searching passed before her mother decided that it was time to contact the police.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 Unfortunately, according to friends, Nikki had lost her phone somewhere in Portland a couple of days before she went missing.

Speaker 7 So unfortunately, the unit couldn't access the wealth of information that a cell phone can provide.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Additionally, there was no reason yet to believe that a crime had occurred.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 Behind her self-confidence and street smarts, Nikki was still vulnerable.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 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 news reports about Nikki's disappearance.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And so there was a lot of advocacy bringing a lot of attention to her disappearance.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And as it turned out, Nikki had indeed left a digital breadcrumb.

Speaker 7 Using that friend's phone, Nikki had logged into her own Snapchat account.

Speaker 6 Snapchat is where the investigation first went to because the last very early morning that Nikki was seen, she had been talking talking to someone on Snap, I believe using one of her friends' devices to do that because Nikki didn't have her phone.

Speaker 6 So they knew that whoever she'd been talking to, she'd been doing it with Snap. These were messages that didn't just evaporate after they were sent, thankfully.

Speaker 3 According to friends, the time of the message exchanged coincided with what they said the time was that she left the house alone.

Speaker 5 And then she leaves again, and she mentioned something about meeting a Russian guy.

Speaker 7 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? Like, was it a date?

Speaker 7 Was it, we know that unfortunately she had some narcotics going on in her background. So did it have something to do with that?

Speaker 7 All things investigators would need to look at and see if they could roll out.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 This was three o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 7 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, a name.

Speaker 5 In the initial emergency release that they got, they just got a username that she had been communicating with, which was Bogdan underscore David.

Speaker 5 So they did end up getting warrants to get the full account information for that username, and it did lead back to David McDonough.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 3 But when investigators tried to contact David Bogdanov, he turned out to be harder to reach than anyone anticipated.

Speaker 3 His phone numbers were disconnected, and his family members, they were even less help.

Speaker 5 They talked to his brothers, but they were not consistent with each other. Neither of them could tell them where David was.

Speaker 7 Investigators even pursued warrants for his cell phone data, but like Nikki, the 25-year-old seemed to have vanished.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Investigators continued to send messages to Bogdanov over Snapchat in hopes of a response, but they got no answer.

Speaker 5 There was definitely some radio silence for a very long time.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 6 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 him.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 6 By his account at that point, he was the last person to see her at all. No one had seen her thereafter.
So that's obviously going to bring up a lot of flags right there.

Speaker 7 But according to Bogdanov, the reason he had been unreachable for months was simply because he had failed to pay his bills.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 But I don't believe that they, for a second, believed his story.

Speaker 9 Whether you're getting back into a routine after summer or looking for a new challenge before the year ends, Rosetta Stone makes it easy to turn a few minutes a day into real language progress.

Speaker 9 For over 30 years, Rosetta Stone has been the trusted leader in language learning. Their immersive intuitive method helps you naturally absorb and retain your new language.

Speaker 9 And when it comes to finding time in my day to jump into a lesson, it has been so simple. And here's why.
True accent, bite-sized lessons. You'd be surprised how quickly you could learn.
Don't wait.

Speaker 9 Unlock your language learning potential now. Anatomy and Murdo listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off.
That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life.

Speaker 9 Visit Rosettastone.com slash anatomy to get started and and claim your 50%

Speaker 9 off today. Don't miss out.
Go to rosettastone.com slash anatomy and start learning today.

Speaker 9 Some wish they had spent time learning to code instead of skateboarding. Or instead of scraping through college, they had invested in cryptocurrency before the boom.

Speaker 9 We might be the FOMO generation, but don't miss out on protecting your future.

Speaker 9 For around the same price per month as one of your streaming services, you can break the generational cycle and secure you and your family's future by finding life insurance at selectquote.com.

Speaker 9 Selectquote has already helped more than 2 million Americans understand their options and get coverage they need.

Speaker 9 Their licensed agents compare your plans from trusted top-rated insurance companies to find a policy that fits your health, your lifestyle, and your budget, and they work for you for free.

Speaker 9 Life insurance is never cheaper than it is today. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50% at selectquote.com/slash AOM.
That's selectquote.com/slash AOM.

Speaker 3 On October 2nd, 2019, a man named David Bogdanov voluntarily walked into a Vancouver, Washington police interview room to be questioned about Nikki's disappearance.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 What he said, and more importantly, how he said it, would provide investigators with their first big lead.

Speaker 3 First, Bogdanov claimed that he knew nothing about Nikki's disappearance, a fact they found odd since the victim's advocacy group had plastered Vancouver with notices about the missing teen.

Speaker 3 And her case was also widely covered on local and even the national news.

Speaker 5 There's a lot of crimes that occur against trans people. They tend to go underreported or underinvestigated.
And so there was a lot of advocacy bringing a lot of attention to her disappearance.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 But detectives were more interested in hearing about his version of what happened between him and Nikki the night that she went missing.

Speaker 7 According to Bogdanov, he'd been out bar hopping in Vancouver with his two brothers when he spotted Nikki walking down the street alone.

Speaker 7 Here is part of the recording of Bogdanov speaking with the detectives in the interview room.

Speaker 8 Where to God,

Speaker 8 I was walking out, I was getting in my van, and I saw her walking by herself. And I'm like, that's really weird, because it was already late at night, you know.

Speaker 8 I asked her,

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And I offered her my jacket, because it was really cold outside, and then I...

Speaker 8 Well, I introduced myself, and I invited her if she wanted to come join us, and she didn't. So I just gave her my jacket, and we parted for weeks there.

Speaker 3 But before they parted ways, Bogdanov admitted he and Nikki exchanged information.

Speaker 8 I did give her my Snapchat name, and then shortly after,

Speaker 8 maybe a couple hours later, she added me over on Snapchat.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 8 I think it was just like barely sunrise. She said her phone was, I can't remember if she said it was at a friend's or at work or something like that.

Speaker 8 And she was asking me if I can maybe give her a ride there to go get her phone or something.

Speaker 7 But instead, the adult and the minor teenager headed in the direction of his family's home just outside Vancouver.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 8 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 sheep.

Speaker 8 I was shocked to find that out and just uncomfortable and really, really disturbed. She's a guy.

Speaker 3 But clearly the most disturbing part of Bogdanov's story was his blatant transphobia and bigotry.

Speaker 8 I don't want you guys to think.

Speaker 8 And then she's never heard of again?

Speaker 8 I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.
Last I saw of her was when I asked her to get out of the car and that's it. See, that's not how people disappear.

Speaker 8 Getting out of the car and walking away is not how people disappear. People disappear by getting picked up by somebody they've never met before.
So what do you think happened to her?

Speaker 8 I have no idea.

Speaker 9 Is she alive?

Speaker 8 I don't know.

Speaker 7 Bogdanov repeated his version of that night for 20 more minutes until the detectives decided to end the interview and send him home.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 But as we know, like it is far from being in a place that he

Speaker 7 could be charged or certainly prosecuted just because he is piquing their interest the more and more they learn.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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 person's case. Suspicious? Absolutely.

Speaker 3 But right now, the detectives don't have any other evidence to prove otherwise.

Speaker 3 And Annesie, as you know, as twisted as transphobia is, police can't do anything about that viewpoint on its own in a legal sense here.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 And even though they couldn't hold Bogdanov, the Vancouver police weren't about to let him out of their sight.

Speaker 5 It was prepping warrants, sending warrants, waiting on returns. And unfortunately, those are just incredibly time-consuming.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Instead, those cell phone records provided a disturbing timeline of those really early hours the same night Nikki went missing in June of 2019.

Speaker 6 And they were able to place together using the cell tower data,

Speaker 6 timeline and location of where David had been and it put him in some some interesting places.

Speaker 5 And it did not match his story.

Speaker 6 It definitely told a very different story than what David had reported in his interview. Took things in a different direction.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 What the cell site data showed was that he had gone to Larch Mountain after going to his family's house, which is an incredibly remote area, and then went back and went to Portland.

Speaker 7 Larch Mountain is about 15 miles east of Brush Prairie and in the opposite direction of Portland.

Speaker 7 So if the Vancouver detectives were already suspicious about most of Bogdanov's story, now they had pretty good proof that he was lying.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 What that crime is, police were determined to find out.

Speaker 7 Bogdanov's trans and homophobic comments had more than raised eyebrows. They provided a plausible motive for a possible assault or worse.

Speaker 7 But while his lies about his location were extremely suspicious, suspicious, a secret trip out into the wilderness still didn't give police enough cause to make an arrest.

Speaker 7 Without locating Nikki or other evidence that a crime had in fact occurred, the investigation was stuck at a standstill.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 That is, until a local man on a walk in the woods made a disturbing discovery, turning the search for Nikki Kuhnhausen into not just a homicide case, but a rallying cry for historic change in the state of Washington.

Speaker 7 If you could stop a home break-in before it starts, why wouldn't you? Traditional security systems only respond after a break-in. Simply Safe is different.

Speaker 7 With their Active Guard outdoor protection, you can prevent crimes before they happen. AI-powered cameras detect threats while they are still outside your home and alert real security agents.

Speaker 7 They confront the intruder, letting them know they're being watched on camera and that police are on their way, and even sounding a loud siren and triggering a spotlight if needed.

Speaker 7 I can tell you from my own experience that Simply Safe is easy to set up and use, and I am not that technologically advanced.

Speaker 7 And a home security system definitely gives me peace of mind when home and away. Don't miss out on Simply Safe's biggest sale of the year, 60% off.

Speaker 7 Right now, our listeners can save 60% off on a Simply Safe home security system at simplysafe.com/slash anatomy. That's simply safe.com/slash anatomy.
There's no safe like SimplySafe.

Speaker 9 Let's be honest, most holiday gifts land in a junk bin, the back of a closet, or forgotten at your cousin's place. Not this one.
Mint Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 9 That's their best deal of the year, aka the only holiday gift you'll use every single day. Don't get them socks.
Get them premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 9 Shop Mint Unlimited Plans at mintmobile.com slash anatomy. That's mintmobile.com slash anatomy.

Speaker 9 Limited time offer, upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months plan required. $15 per month equivalent.
Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only.

Speaker 9 Greater than 35 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies.
See mintmobile.com.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 But on December 7th, 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.

Speaker 7 When law enforcement responded to the scene, they discovered several items that suggested that the remains were likely those of 17-year-old Nikki Kuhnhausen, including rings she was known to wear and that she had been seen wearing on some of her social media posts.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 The second was this like high visual yellow, like construction yellow jacket that she was seen in social media posts wearing.

Speaker 5 And the last thing was theirs 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.

Speaker 5 And so all of those three things really started to point in the direction of Nikki.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 You might remember that large mountain where Nikki's remains were found was also the remote area where David Bogdanovs phone pinged on the night he admitted meeting Nikki Kunhausen.

Speaker 7 It was the connection that investigators needed to bring him back in for another round of questioning.

Speaker 5 They asked him first to confirm that he had told them everything and everywhere that he had gone that day. And he did.

Speaker 5 And then they said, well, we have your cell records and we show that you went up to Large Mountain and you didn't tell us about that or something to that effect.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 At that point, the detectives arrested Bogdanov and he was charged with second-degree murder and malicious harassment, a hate crime in Washington state.

Speaker 3 It was the prosecutor's contention that Nikki's murder was at least partly motivated by her identity as a trans woman.

Speaker 3 News that invoked pain and outrage from Nikki's family, her friends, and throughout the community.

Speaker 6 It was a very serious case. You have a minor trans female being murdered.

Speaker 3 It's a, you know, it's horrible.

Speaker 6 Nikki's family, also the LGBTQIA plus community was there and very vocal and wanting justice for Nikki, as did many people, but there's a lot writing on this.

Speaker 7 The high-profile case was also Kristen Arnold's first trial as a new prosecutor.

Speaker 5 I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity. It was also a case that kind of hit the kinds of things that I am interested and care about.

Speaker 5 I was working in juvenile at the time, and there's a lot of issues relating to kids who are trans.

Speaker 5 It is unfortunately common that there's violence that results in situations like this where someone finds out that someone is trans.

Speaker 5 And that's why a lot of people who identify as trans are concerned about passing and being outed as trans.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 We don't have him holding the knife. We didn't have a direct confession.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 We didn't know exactly where it had happened. We didn't know exactly what was done to her body.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 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 11 p.m.,

Speaker 5 leaving Portland that day of June 6th.

Speaker 7 It appeared that Bogdanov had actually fled the country just hours after his meeting with Nikki, Nikki, which a jury was likely to see for what it was: a consciousness of guilt and attempt to avoid arrest.

Speaker 3 But again, there's still no physical evidence that ties him directly to the crime.

Speaker 5 We were mostly concerned about how do we prove that he is the one who did this, not somebody else.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 About a month before the trial, the defendants' lawyers disclosed that Bogdanov would be claiming he indeed was responsible for Nikki's death, but that he had merely acted in self-defense.

Speaker 6 So, that was really game-changing and surprising in a lot of senses to us.

Speaker 5 When they said self-defense, it became a completely different case.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 And these are real issues for prosecutors and at trial. And I've encountered this defense more than once in the courtroom.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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 believed them to be.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 The trials are unpredictable, especially when a panic defense could be introduced.

Speaker 3 That may be some of the reasons why NACA these plebe deals find themselves involved in the case, because even if the sentence is less severe than what may 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 But again, as we know, Scott, this really had a lot to do with actual change in Washington state.

Speaker 3 And due 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.

Speaker 7 Nevertheless, the defense was still preparing to prove that in his encounter with a 17-year-old Nikki, Bogdana felt that his life was actually in danger.

Speaker 6 Once he pled self-defense, we knew he'd have to take the the stand. If he took the stand, whatever he was going to say was going to be brand new to all of us.

Speaker 6 We did not know how things were going to go. It was a lot of surprises.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 6 None of this is normal. Like most prosecutors go through their whole career and never have any case that makes national news.

Speaker 5 It was definitely more pressure than one would want for their first murder trial.

Speaker 3 The COVID pandemic meant the courtroom would be mostly empty, but cameras guaranteed that the trial would be broadcast around the country.

Speaker 6 What happens in the courtroom can't be kept private. The public has a right to know.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 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?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 6 We had no idea what he was going to say under what circumstances.

Speaker 6 I haven't 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.

Speaker 5 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 it was really hard.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 But then Bogdanov's testimony veered from what he had originally told police.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 But on the stand, he claimed that it was Nikki that had attacked him.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 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

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And unless Nikki's head was perfectly positioned and forcefully pulled through the loop, something that defies everyday physics, the explanation just doesn't hold water.

Speaker 3 It's a convenient claim, but not a believable one.

Speaker 3 They've also likely examined signs for licature marks, bruising, and tissue damage, which would have indicated a sustained and purposeful application of pressure.

Speaker 3 The amount of effort involved rules out any slip-of-the-loop scenario.

Speaker 7 And it was a fact that was supported by conclusions made by the medical examiner.

Speaker 5 The way that the hyoid bone was located in the extensions that were attached to the phone cord indicated that that phone cord had been tied around her hair and her neck at the time that the body was disposed of.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 7 Another fact that makes it hard to believe that he would have felt that he was ever in imminent danger.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 5 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 try to do anything.
Just kind of throws her in the back of the car.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 His version of events just wasn't jiving with strangling someone for two minutes.

Speaker 6 You didn't need to continue to strangle someone for at least two minutes, likely much longer, and tie this cord around her neck.

Speaker 6 So he tried to say he didn't tie the cord and nothing he was saying made sense with the version that we had.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 3 Much of the trial would hinge on whether the prosecution could demonstrate to the jury that Bogdanov was neither sympathetic or believable.

Speaker 3 But in the end, the defendant himself did all the heavy lifting.

Speaker 5 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 is trans.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 6 The whole thing was kind of from a very self-centered, like how this is affecting me, how I'm going to have to deal with it, like why this is bad for me, not realizing, obviously, the whole other side of it.

Speaker 6 And so it was pretty striking.

Speaker 7 As for Bogdanov's explanation for why he fled the country just hours after strangling Nikki to death.

Speaker 5 He claimed that he realized he had an alcohol problem and he needed to go get treatment.

Speaker 5 And he claimed that he had gone to a treatment facility in the Ukraine, although he provided no information to support that.

Speaker 7 The prosecution gave their closing arguments after two weeks at trial.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And so it just, my goal was to prove that it happened happened the way the state said it happened and not that it was self-defense or justifiable homicide.

Speaker 3 The jury deliberated for two days. And in the end, Bogdanov was found guilty of second-degree homicide and the hate crime, malicious harassment.

Speaker 6 Guilty on everything, which was a huge relief, and the family was overjoyed at that outcome.

Speaker 7 Bogdanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which in Collins' estimation was not nearly enough.

Speaker 6 Not what he deserves, but given the evidence, we ended up getting the most amount of time we could have possibly gotten.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 The Nikki-Kuhnhausen Act, or Nikki's Law, went into effect in Washington state just a month before Bogdanov's murder trial began.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 6 Nikki's law, which officially took the panic defense off the table for people, to officially get that off the table was very cool.

Speaker 6 It's first and foremost justice for Nikki because I hope 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.

Speaker 6 It feels like there was was some silver linings to it.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 But Nikki was a confident and credible person from what we learned.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 As of 2024, 21 states have enacted legislation like Nikki's Law that bans the LGBTQIA plus panic defense. A bill to ban the defense has been introduced in the U.S.
House of Representatives.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Violence against any LGBTQIA plus individual is never justified. No exceptions.
A commitment to challenging the panic defense head-on rather than compromising is essential to achieving true justice.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 7 Nikki Kuhnhausen, a 17-year-old, was murdered. In some ways, that is where the case ends in all its horror right there.

Speaker 7 But of course, it makes it that much worse that it appears clear that Nikki was killed because of her identity.

Speaker 7 I think it's obvious that Nikki didn't have an easy life as a young child, and additionally, that her gender identity would also likely have presented some unique challenges of its own, especially for someone as young as Nikki.

Speaker 7 Whether a person supports, doesn't know how to feel, or even if they disapprove about a person's lived gender identity, I hope that we all agree that violence is always wrong.

Speaker 7 Nikki lost her life at 17. By all accounts, she was strong and proud.
She should have had many, many more years to be exactly whoever she wanted to be.

Speaker 10 Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an audio Chuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

Speaker 3 Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

Speaker 7 This episode was written and produced by Morgan Beattie, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa and Phil Jean-Grande.

Speaker 3 So, what do you think, Chuck?

Speaker 11 Do you approve?

Speaker 11 Hey, neighbor, this holiday season, Birch Lane is here to help you celebrate with friends and family.

Speaker 11 From guest-ready dining tables to cozy sofas that fit the whole crew, our classic furniture and decor are crafted to last.

Speaker 11 And with fast-free delivery, you can be ready for holiday hosting in days, not weeks. So you can spend time on what matters most.
It's classic style for joyful living.

Speaker 11 Shop Birch Lane, a Wayfair specialty brand at BirchLane.com.

Speaker 12 Have you ever experienced something truly unexplainable?

Speaker 12 A moment that felt almost like a vivid dream, leaving you with a lingering sense of wonder, leaving you questioning everything you thought you knew?

Speaker 4 Perhaps it was a fleeting glimpse of something extraordinary, a chilling whisper in the dead of night, or an undeniable premonition that comes to life.

Speaker 4 I'm Yvette Gintile, and I'm her sister, Rasha Pecarrero.

Speaker 12 Each week on our podcast, So Supernatural, we partner with the one and only Ashley Flowers, host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie, to take you on a journey of the world's most mystical mysteries.

Speaker 4 Ready to explore the unknown? Join us every Friday for a new episode of So Supernatural, available wherever you listen to podcasts.