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Washington Man Convicted of Strangling Transgender Teen on Date

David Bogdanov killed Nikki Kuhnhausen in the back seat of his car after finding out she was transgender.

A jury in Washington state found David Bogdanov, 27, guilty on Friday of killing transgender 17-year-old Nikki Kuhnhausen in 2019. The pair had connected on Snapchat before meeting up but Bogdanov flew into a rage after discovering she was transgender during a sexual encounter in the back of his car. He strangled her with the cord of a cellphone charger; her body was discovered six months later in forestland. Bogdanov claimed he acted in self-defense because Kuhnhausen reached for his gun during a struggle, but the jury didn’t buy his version of events. Kuhnhausen’s death led to the passage of the Nikki Kuhnhausen Act in Washington, which outlaws use of the so-called “panic defense” in LGBTQ+ homicides. Bogdanov was convicted of second-degree murder and malicious harassment, which is a hate crime in Washington.