Nikki Kuhnhausen

Nikki Kuhnhausen was a bright, energetic, and caring 17-year-old girl from Vancouver, Washington, who loved makeup, social media, and her idol, Nicki Minaj. Her friends remembered her as the “lively friend,” always cheerful and full of energy. She dreamed of one day becoming Nicki Minaj’s personal hair and makeup artist. Born Nikolas, Nikki had a strong sense of self from a very young age, and her mother, Lisa Woods, said the family always knew her as Nikki. She publicly embraced her identity as a young woman in the sixth grade and was widely accepted by her peers. She and her mother were very close, often getting their nails done or taking walks by the water together. Her friends and family hope she will be remembered for her bright personality and confidence, as someone who was “loving, caring, sweet, happy, funny.”

As a teenager, Nikki faced significant challenges. She began struggling with a methamphetamine addiction, and despite her mother’s efforts to get her into rehab, the struggle continued. In 2018, her life took a perilous turn when she was shot six times during what she described as a dispute over drugs. Miraculously, none of the injuries were life-threatening, and she survived. The person responsible was never caught. Her mother hoped that surviving such a violent encounter would be the turning point Nikki needed to change her path. A year later, however, her family’s hopes for her future would be tragically cut short.

In the early morning hours of June 6, 2019, Nikki was staying with friends when she left their apartment to meet a man she had been communicating with on Snapchat, 25-year-old David Bogdanov. It was the last time anyone saw her alive. Her mother grew deeply concerned when Nikki, who called her every day before work, suddenly stopped answering her phone. “I knew something had happened,” Lisa Woods later recalled. She filed a missing person’s report, and for the next six months, family, friends, and community volunteers posted flyers around Vancouver and Portland, Oregon, desperate for any news of her whereabouts. All of her social media accounts, once a vibrant part of her life, went silent.

The search came to a devastating end on December 7, 2019. A person gathering evergreen boughs on a remote logging road on Larch Mountain discovered a human skull. Investigators from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene and found more remains, along with several personal items, including a jacket and rings that matched photos from Nikki’s social media profiles. They also found a cellphone charger cord with hair extensions tangled in a knot. The medical examiner later confirmed the remains belonged to Nikki Kuhnhausen and determined her cause of death was strangulation.

Detectives had already identified David Bogdanov as the last person known to have seen Nikki. During an interview with police in October 2019, before her body was found, Bogdanov admitted to meeting her. He claimed that when he discovered she was transgender, he became “uncomfortable” and “really, really disturbed,” and told her to get out of his van. He insisted she simply walked away. However, investigators uncovered cell tower data that placed Bogdanov’s phone on Larch Mountain on the same morning Nikki disappeared. After her remains were discovered, Bogdanov was arrested on December 17, 2019, and charged with second-degree murder and malicious harassment, a hate crime in Washington.

At his trial in August 2021, David Bogdanov took the stand and claimed he had acted in self-defense. He testified that after he rejected Nikki for being transgender, she reached for his loaded gun, and he wrapped the phone charger around her shoulders to pull her away, but it slipped up around her neck. Prosecutors pointed to his actions immediately following her death as evidence of his guilt. Bogdanov admitted he panicked, dumped Nikki’s body down a hillside, booked a one-way flight to Ukraine, and asked a friend to “get rid” of his car. He returned to the United States about six weeks later.

On August 27, 2021, a jury found David Bogdanov guilty of both second-degree murder and malicious harassment. As the hate-crime verdict was read, Nikki’s mother and supporters in the courtroom quietly exclaimed “yes!” through tears. Bogdanov was later sentenced to the maximum term of 19 and a half years in prison.

Nikki’s murder brought a painful awareness to the violence faced by transgender people and inspired a powerful movement for change. Her mother and supporters worked with Washington state legislators to pass House Bill 1687, known as the “Nikki Kuhnhausen Act” or “Nikki’s Law.” Signed into law in March 2020, it prevents defendants in violent crime cases from using a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity to justify their actions, effectively banning the so-called “gay or trans panic defense.” Her mother said she wanted her daughter’s death “to mean something to someone who may contemplate hurting another transgender person.” The case is now considered solved.