A Clark County man received a sentence of close to 20 years after being found guilty of the 2019 murder of 17-year-old transgender teen Nikki Kuhnhausen.
On Sept. 9, Clark County Superior Court Judge David Gregerson gave Bogdanov a sentence of 234 months for a count of second-degree murder and 12 months for a count of malicious harassment, a hate crime offense, with both running concurrently. Both sentences are at the upper range for their respective convictions.
A jury found Bogdanov guilty of the charges Aug. 27 following a nearly two-week trial.
Bogdanov’s convictions stem from the disappearance of Kuhnhausen, who was 17 at the time, in June 2019. Her remains were found near Larch Mountain in December that year, 10 days before Bogdanov was arrested.
According to court records, Bogdanov met Kuhnhausen in Vancouver on June 5, 2019, and Bogdanov was going to help her get a cell phone. After arriving at a residence in Clark County, Bogdanov discovered Kuhnhausen was transgender, after which Bogdanov strangled her to death. Bogdanov claimed he acted in self-defense after Kuhnhausen attacked him.
At the sentencing, Gregerson said he hoped Bogdanov’s convictions would be “a monument to Nikki Kuhnhausen, a child of our Clark County community,” and something to be “seen as a step in the greater overall movement from darkness toward light.”
At Bogdanov’s sentencing, Lisa Woods, Kuhnhausen’s mother, asked for Bogdanov to receive the maximum sentence.
“I’m so thankful and God’s will was done today,” Woods told Fox 12 following the sentencing. “She was just a baby. She was just a teenager, and (Bogdanov) took her life.”
“He got the maximum (sentence) and that’s what he deserves,” Woods said.
Bogdanov declined to address the court and the victim’s family at the sentencing. He will be appealing the convictions.
In 2020, Kuhnhausen’s death was memorialized in the “Nikki Kuhnhausen Act” passed by the Washington State Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee on March 5 of that year. The legislation prohibits the discovery of a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation as justification for physical assault.
