Colin Hayes
Appearances
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
It was prepping warrants, sending warrants, waiting on returns. And unfortunately, those are just incredibly common things.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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 murders here.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
There's apparently this type of grass that grows on March Mountain that is used in floral arrangements. And there was a civilian who was collecting the floral grass to sell to florists.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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 black.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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 and
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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 Large 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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity. It was also a case that kind of hit the kinds of things that I am interested in 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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
We don't have him holding the knife. We didn't have a direct confession.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
When they got the returns back from his emails, they found these tickets to the Ukraine that were on the same day. So I think it was late in the evening, maybe 11 p.m., leaving Portland that day of June 6th.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
When they said self-defense, it became a completely different case.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
It hit at the right time where there has been a history of cases of 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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
It was definitely more pressure than one would want for their first murder trial.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
there was no way they were gonna prove self-defense without him taking the stand. I think we felt good, but we had no idea it was coming. So it was really hard.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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. 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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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. 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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
He didn't show any remorse, even in his telling of the event.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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 adversaries or with difficulties, she would stand up for herself and would hold her ground when she needed to.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
And so it just... My goal was to prove... that it happened the way the state said it happened and not that it was self-defense or justifiable homicide.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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, incredible person from what we learned.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
She calls in an officer response to take the missing persons report, and then it gets referred to the DECU, the Digital Evidence Crimes Unit, who handles missing person cases.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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. 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 also. Before we charged it, there were flyers.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
And then she leaves again. And she mentioned something about meeting a Russian guy.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
In the initial emergency release that they got, they just got a username that she had been communicating with, which was Bogdan underscore David. So they did end up getting warrants to get the full account information for that username. And it did lead back to David Bogdanov.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
They talked to his brothers, but they were not consistent with each other. Neither of them could tell them where David was.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
There was definitely some radio silence for a very long time.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
But I don't believe that they, for a second, believed his story.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.
Anatomy of Murder
Free To Be Me (Nikki Kuhnhausen)
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.