Nikki Kuhnhausen

Case background and investigation

Nikki Kuhnhausen was a 17-year-old transgender girl from Vancouver, Washington, who went missing on June 6, 2019, according to CBS News. A petition later filed on behalf of the man convicted of her killing states that she had been with David Bogdanov and others from the evening of June 5 into the early hours of the following morning.

On December 7, 2019, her remains were found in woods near Larch Mountain in northeast Clark County, CBS News reported. Bogdanov was arrested on December 17, 2019. According to CBS News, investigators determined that she had been strangled with a phone charging cord. A bail of $750,000 set after his arrest drew criticism from her family and advocates, CBS News reported.

At trial in Clark County Superior Court, Bogdanov claimed that he acted in self-defense after learning during a sexual encounter that Kuhnhausen was transgender and that she then attacked him, according to KATU. Prosecutors argued that the evidence contradicted his account. On August 27, 2021 the jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and malicious harassment, the offense Washington uses to prosecute hate crimes, KATU reported.

On September 9, 2021, Judge David Gregerson sentenced Bogdanov to nearly 20 years in prison, the top of the range, KATU and CBS News reported. The judge noted the age difference between them, that Bogdanov had supplied alcohol to a minor, and the way her remains were disposed of, according to the reports.

Bogdanov appealed. Division II of the Washington Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in a published opinion issued on July 25, 2023, according to a petition for review later filed with the Washington Supreme Court on his behalf. The sources reviewed did not report the outcome of that petition.

CBS News reported that her death became a rallying point for advocates for transgender people, who noted how rarely killings of transgender victims lead to a prosecution.

The case prompted Washington to pass a law named for her, Nikki's Law, which bars defendants in violent crime cases from using a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity as a defense, the so-called panic defense, according to CBS News.