Original subtitles

Loved ones describe Nikki as funny, charismatic,

outgoing, a positive person.

[Mikki] Nikki was really into makeup, really into fashion.

Nikki's 17, and I don't care how sophisticated

you think you are, you are 17 years old.

Nikki had gone out for a walk earlier in the evening

and met someone who they remembered her describing

as a Russian guy.

If a trans person is missing, that's kind of scary.

[Joni] And they tried to talk her out of it.

And it seemed like it might've been a hate crime,

and that just felt really new and scary.

[eerie music]

@[narrator] A warm June day inú Vancouver, Washington,

@ and Lisa Woods hasn't heardúfrom her 17-year-old daughter,

Nikki Kuhnhausen, in five days.

Nikki's mother, Lisa Woods,

starts to suspect that something's wrong

@ because she hasn't heard from Nikki,

@and Nikki would normally respondú to any messages or calls,

so that panicú really begins to set in,

and the family begins pleading for help.

@She and Nikki were in constantú contact with each other,

whether it was text messages or Snapchats

@ or posts on social media.

@ But they would have regularú contact every single day

with each other.

And she was really distraught.

Her mother said that was very unusual

for her contact with Nikki.

@ You know, I think this isúa testament to the police here,

@ because it would have beenú very easy to kind of go,

@ OK, yeah, this person's 17.

@ Maybe this is a runaway.

Maybe they're visiting friends,

and not to take it very seriously.

And it seems like they did the opposite.

[narrator] Police learn Nikki Kuhnhausen

is transgender.

@If a trans person is missing,úthat's kind of scary because

things like assaults, that happens higher

@than in the general population.

It was a fear.

[Joni] That there are people in our society

who have very strong feelings

against people who are different from them.

And so just the fact that she was trans

would have made her a potential target

through no fault of her own.

Investigators began trying to figure out

where she could have been,

who her last contact with was with,

and trying to locate her.

Lisa, she told Vancouver police

that Nikki was last seen by her friends

that Nikki had been staying with.

So Nikki was staying in a northern suburb of Vancouver,

which is known to be a pretty liberal and progressive place,

and often accepting of lifestyles like Nikki's.

This is in the Pacific Northwest region of the US.

Pacific Northwest,

this is an area that's usually considered

really safe for trans people.

We knew that she was somewhat transient

and that she was kind of couch surfing on people's houses.

[narrator] Nikki was born in 2001.

You know, Nikki had a pretty rough childhood.

There was a lot of periods where there was turmoil

and the family moving between parents,

but throughout that, Lisa described that she and Nikki

had a really close relationship.

What's interesting here is that in spite

of all of these challenges that this family had,

they all loved each other very, very much.

Her mom was the most important person in her life,

along with her dad.

She just had this real loyalty and bond with them.

[narrator] In sixth grade,

Nikki begins living openly as a transgender girl.

She had transitioned at a very young age

to identifying as female and dressing

and for all intents and purposes,

appearing as a female for society.

Nikki kind of just started becoming more like herself

around her family.

[Joni] Her mom said she knew who she was.

She was Nikki.

All of her friends said she was not somebody

who was going through a lot of identity problems

'or who am I or am I transgender or not?'

She knew who she was.

Loved ones described Nikki as funny, charismatic,

outgoing, a positive person.

[Mikki] Nikki was really into makeup, really into fashion.

And that, from what her mom said,

that kind of helped her get in

with the popular girls at high school.

Cheerleaders would come to her

because she was so good at makeup

and she had ambitions of being a makeup artist.

She idolized Nicki Minaj.

[upbeat music]

Yeah, Nikki had like a really active TikTok,

a lot of lip syncing to rap songs,

but I think it was also a place for her

to show off her different looks that she was working on.

It was just kind of big and fun.

And when they're in the room, you know it.

She was such a genuine person.

[narrator] Despite being confident,

Nikki struggles at school.

In high school, she was involved in drug use.

She talked about having a hard time concentrating

and sometimes she would tell her mom

that she felt like she needed to use something,

to use some kind of chemical

to be able to concentrate academically.

She doesn't have a criminal record.

I mean, there's nothing that kind of stands out.

But they find out that year before that,

she had been shot.

And this was obviously very concerning.

There was some element of risky behaviour

that Nikki maybe was involved in

based on some prior police records

indicating that she had been the victim of a robbery.

And so there was the concern that,

did she come across this person again?

Did this person kind of want to finish the job?

I think any time a teenager goes missing,

and especially without any sort of sign or trace

or any activity, it's really concerning,

especially someone who is

a daily social media user like Nikki

for all of their accounts to go completely silent.

That's obviously an indicator that something bad happened.

[narrator] Investigators glean a significant lead

from the friends that Nikki was staying with

when she was last seen on June 6th.

She had gone out for a walk earlier in the evening

and met someone who they remembered her describing

as a Russian guy,

and that she was really excited to hang out with this guy,

that he'd described a cool car that he had.

She came back, and I believe she was wearing his jacket,

and she had some alcohol with her,

and she was just very excited to go meet him again.

@ [narrator] They'd arranged a rendezvous

@ for early in the morning.

[Joni] Nikki's friends were concerned,

and they tried to talk her out of it.

And I think they were concerned

for a number of different reasons.

Number one, she doesn't know this person,

so he's obviously several years older than Nikki.

Nikki's 17,

and I don't care how sophisticated you think you are

or how quickly you feel like you've had to grow up,

you are 17 years old.

[Kristen] Friends were a little concerned.

[Joni] There was some drinking potentially involved.

I mean, there's just all kinds of red flags

in terms of what can happen.

You know, she's meeting somebody who's picking her up in a car

that she knows nothing about.

[Kristen] But Nikki told them that she was going to be fine.

[narrator] This is the last time Nikki's friends see her.

But her social media may prove more clues

for the investigators

to identify the mystery Russian man.

[Melissa] Digital evidence becomes central

to this investigation almost immediately.

The detectives are really looking at her phone records,

her Snapchat messages, all of her social media.

And they later described this investigation

as heavily dependent on digital evidence,

circumstantial evidence.

That night, briefly, Nikki had logged into

one of her friend's Snapchat pages on her phone

'cause Nikki's phone was missing at that moment.

And there was some messages exchanged

with Nikki's Snapchat account, but using her friend's phone.

She was very active on Snapchat.

We were able to get her Snapchat records.

[narrator] Detectives pore through

Nikki's last known messages

with the Russian guy she was planning to meet.

They identified his account information

through Snapchat records and his name,

and that was kind of the lead that led to us identifying

David Bogdanov.

[narrator] Investigators zero in on 25-year old David Bogdanov.

Messages show Nikki and David

@arranging to meet one another via Snapchat.

@ And it's with those messages

that detectivesú are really able to begin

@piecing together this timelineú of when Nikki disappeared

and where she wasú before she disappeared.

@ When they got the initial Snapchat records,

they had reached out to David

@ and were trying to make contact with him.

This is a person that you know

@ saw this person shortlyú before they disappeared.

@ They're obviously going toú be a person of interest

@ because at the very least,

you're to want to know what they know.

Did this person tell you where they were going to go?

[Kristen] They weren't able to locate him

at any of the known addresses.

They contacted his family members.

His brothers gave kind of two different versions

of where he was.

One said he was camping out of the area,

and his other brother said he was travelling.

[Joni] He's nowhere to be found.

They don't know where he is. He just kind of disappears.

And they later find out that he had gone to the Ukraine.

[narrator] D etectives message David over the messaging app,

but there's no response.

Meanwhile, they delve deeper into his background.

He owned his own flooring business with his brother.

We knew that he owned a gold Audi.

His family is of Russian descent.

His parents immigrated here, although he was born in the US.

They spoke Russian mostly in the home.

They were pretty involved in the Russian community.

And so all of their family contact points or friends

were other Russian-speaking community members.

He was a regular churchgoer

from a deeply conservative Christian background.

[narrator] Four months after Nikki goes missing

and after numerous messages left by the investigators,

David finally gets in touch.

[Kristen] At some point, he did reach back out

to the detective over Snapchat.

He did agree to come down to Vancouver West--

or Vancouver Precinct

to do an interview about what he remembered.

In that interview in October, he described

that he had met Nikki walking on the street that evening.

"She's walking around by herself, kind of downtown,

I was concerned about her,

I stopped and pulled over and just wanted to make sure

that she was OK."

[Kristen] They talked to each other.

He noticed that she was upset about something

and that she was cold,

so he let her borrow his jacket

and that she exchanged her Snapchat information with him

and that she left.

Hours later, Nikki Snapped him

and he decided that he was gonna help Nikki find her phone,

so he picked her up.

[Kristen] Dropped by her friend's house,

and then he drove her out

towards his family home in Brush Prairie,

which is sort of rural area in Clark County,

just outside of the main urban district of Vancouver.

And they're sitting in the car, and they're talking.

At some point, he found out that she was trans.

And he gets, in his words,

kind of disgusted by this and disturbed.

[Melissa] David just says that he found out

that Nikki was trans, but he did not kill her.

He still tells police that he believes

"It's disgusting for people to live this way

as transgender or gay."

He kicked her out of his car,

and the last place he had seen her

was walking on the side of the road

around his family's house,

so in, like, a pretty rural area of Brush Prairie.

And he was adamant he has no idea what happened to her.

And that's the end of it.

[narrator] David says he then went on to work.

With no further evidence against him,

he's allowed to leave.

In the meantime, the desperate hunt continues

for the missing teen.

Flyers have been put up around Nikki's neighbourhood

and social media continues to be blitzed

with a campaign to find her.

Sometimes when families are frustrated

with the process of finding their loved one

and not getting those answers,

the best thing they can do is go to the media

and be out there and be visible.

And that's exactly what Nikki's family did.

They did not just fade away into the distance.

You also had communities and the LGBT community

rallying for answers and really helping

with the search for Nikki.

[Mikki] Lisa really did not want to think the worst.

She wanted to believe that Nikki was out there.

And, erm,

I think people thoughtú like, oh, if we can keep

@ the pressure up on this,

we can help the police find Nikki.

There was a hope that she was out there somewhere.

@[narrator] But mom Lisa's hopesú are tragically in vain.

A sinister discovery is made

25 miles from where Nikki was last seen.

Larch Mountain, which is a remote area in Clark County,

it's about an hour, hour and a half

outside of central Vancouver.

On December the 7th,

there's a guy out who's collecting this bear grass.

[Kristen] Foraging the ravine

that's just off the side of the road.

He comes across a human skull.

[Kristen] Initially, he thought it was a Halloween decoration.

But he did see skeletal remains.

And he pretty quickly realised it was not fake.

[Joni] They start finding other bones.

And they also find things

that are starting to make them wonder if this is Nikki.

[Kristen] They did find several different items

that were identifiable as hers

from pictures from social media.

[Joni] There's some rings that they find,

and there's pictures on social media

of her wearing these rings.

[Kristen] There's also clothing items

that indicated it was probably hers.

And then there were these black and white mixed extensions

that she was known for wearing

that, again, we were able to show

through her social media photos belong to her.

So they're pretty convinced at this point

that this might be Nikki.

[Kristen] Then we confirmed it through dental records.

@[reporter] Tragic update just into our newsroom.

Police say a Vancouver teenager

@ missing since this summer has been found dead.

Family last heard from

17-year-old Nikki Kuhnhausen June 6.

[reporter 2] Somebody came across Nikki's remains

in the woods in the Larch Mountain area.

Investigators feel that based on the location

where Nikki was placed on this mountain,

it was a deliberate attempt to conceal her.

Analysis was doneú on those items along with

@ the forensic examination of the remains.

@ And with that information,

@ we were able to confirm theúremains to be Nikki Kuhnhausen.

They then have to go and tell her mom, Lisa,

which is just devastating to her.

But it was, you know, important for her

to know that they had found her, to get that final confirmation.

Absolutely devastating to her

that she wasn't going to see Nikki again alive.

Throughout that period of time, Lisa had been really struggling

with the idea of that Nikki would be found dead.

[Mikki] She was in a lot of grief.

[narrator] Nikki's autopsy confirms

her mother's worst fears.

When the medical examiner was looking at the extensions,

they were kind of knotted up in a ball,

and there was a phone cord that was knotted

into the extensions.

When the medical examiner was taking that mass apart,

they located Nikki's hyoid bone

inside of the extensions.

It's this very small bone that's inside your neck.

And it is usually indicative of a strangulation injury

when it is fractured.

And with that cord that was tied in a very small circle,

smaller than most people's necks,

indicated that Nikki's body had been dumped with this cord

tied around her neck.

We pretty quickly identified strangulation

as the method, the most likely method of death,

and the phone cord as the weapon.

This now turns from a missing persons investigation

into a homicide investigation.

@Detectives learned that Nikki

@left her residence on June 5th.

[narrator] With the discovery of Nikki Kuhnhausen's remains,

police sharpened their focus on the last person to see her,

David Bogdanov.

On the day of Nikki's disappearance,

largely based off of David's phone records,

he seemed to be making a lot of calls

@ to various family members inú a potentially panicked way.

Every time he made a call,

his phone was connecting

to one or two different cell towers,

which gives us the path that he was taking.

According to his phone records,

his phone travelled toward the mountain,

Larch Mountain whereú Nikki's body was found,

and not toward work.

@ The phone records were ableúto tie Bogdanov to that place.

@ [narrator] Detectives putú Bogdanov under surveillance.

As he set off for work,

they pounce and make a traffic stop.

The van he is driving is examined,

followed two weeks later byanother registered in his name.

Bogdanov is questioned again.

I asked him if they remembered or if he remembered

what he had told them

at the prior interview in October.

And he said he did remember.

Well, at this stage, detectives are really

challenging Bogdanov with their evidence

rather than just questioning him.

So the interview itself becomes a lot more accusatory.

And that would be the only change that he had.

And then there's a long pause as Bogdanov realizes

is the jig is up.

A Vancouver man is in jail tonight,

accused of strangling a transgender teen

@ and dumping her body in aú remote area in Clark County.

A trans teenager's body had been found

and that it seemed like she had been murdered.

That news was really spreading fast on social media

among the trans community.

I think people really wanted answers.

They wanted to know how this happened,

what was going on, because people wanted to be safe.

I was asked to do communications,

so reach out to the press, bring attention to the case.

I think there was a fear that this would be

like a one day news story.

The man accused ofú murdering a transgender teen

@ appeared in court today.

What stood out for me was,

obviously there was a lot of family members

and a lot of support for Nikki in the community

and I knew that it was gonna be a really important case,

both for them and for the community as a whole.

@[news] Over a hundred wearingú pink showed up in support

of Nikki Kuhnhausen.

So many that there wasn'tenough room to fit them all in.

Because of the condition that Nikki's body was found in,

we couldn't necessarily prove premeditation

based on the information that we had when we charged it.

So we charged it as murder in the second degree.

[reporter] Nikki's mom spoke to the judge,

hoping Bogdanov would stay in jail without bail.

The whole time her daughter's face going through her mind

what the man beside her had allegedly done.

The emotion inside the courtroom was very palpable.

You had family members and friends

speaking to Nikki's character

and the fact that she was vulnerable.

The court's going to set bail at $750,000.

[news] The group was shocked.

Supporters could be seen visibly upset

as they left the courtroom.

Some in tears that the man who's accused of murdering Nikki

could post bail and be free.

That $750,000 for a teenager's life.

He could have walked away.

[news] The case will move forward

with the trial starting in June.

[narrator] Leading up to the trial,

supporters call for a change in state law

to stop Bogdanov using a well-known defence

to excuse Nikki's killing.

@ One of the defences that hadú been tried in several states

and in some states was partially successful,

was this idea of this kind of, you know,

trans panic or gay panic defence.

The premise of the trans panic defence,

in broad strokes,

is that someone is having some sort of encounter,

generally speaking, sexual

with someone who is trans

and finds out that they are trans that they didn't know,

and they get aggressively upset to the point

that they are not legally culpable for their actions.

Well, studies suggest that this gay or trans panic defence

has been used about 600 times in the U.S.

In 2009, there was controversy

because a man used this as a defence

when he stabbed his neighbour over 50 times.

But defence attorneys started using this,

not necessarily to get their client off,

although they would try that, but most often to

either reduce sentencing or to reduce the charges.

So it wasn't second degree murder,

it wasn't first degree murder, it was involuntary manslaughter.

I don't think there was ever any psychological basis

for this defence.

@[news] Nikki's death inspiredú loved ones and advocates

to push for a change in state law.

It should not be a legal justification for violence.

Lisa's State Representative was really open to this

and she ended up sponsoring the bill.

I'm happy to sign this bill.

[news] The Washington Legislature agreed

overwhelmingly passing Nikki's law

and Governor Jay Inslee signed it into law.

[applause]

I think people thought this was something...

this was a way to create something positive

out of this tragic event.

[narrator] In the meantime,

prosecutors continue to buildmore evidence against Bogdanov.

[Kristen] He was in custody throughout the duration

of the case pending.

And when someone's in custody

and they're making phone calls to someone outside of jail,

those calls are recorded.

And so we had him on recorded calls,

making a homophobic slur to a family member.

[narrator] Four months before trial investigators

achieve another coup,

they talked to one of Bogdanov's ex-girlfriends.

She was also an anchor point to show

that there was some sort of bias that was existing.

[narrator] Detectives ask Bogdanov's former girlfriend

about a flight he took to Ukraine

on the day of Nikki's disappearance.

Our case was ultimately what you would describe

as a circumstantial case

to show that he is the person who did this.

We definitely did not have a slam dunk case.

But we're confident in going to trial.

We understood that trials has risk

and it wasn't a guarantee that we'd be able to win.

[narrator] In the weeks building to Bogdanov's trial,

the atmosphere is fever pitch.

The fact of Nikki being trans

@ and the fact that she was a young individual

and she's franklyú conventionally attractive.

So it was just a very compelling story

that got picked up by many different news outlets

across the country.

So going into trial, we did know

that there was gonna be a lot of attention on this case.

@[news] ... man who said he was surprised to learn

@ she was transgender during a sexual encounter.

There had been a number of hate crimes and deaths

that we've got to do something about this.

So this just cannot continue.

The trans community really rallied around

not only Nikki, but her family.

And I think it really became a symbol for them.

@[narrator] But the strain isúshowing on Nikki's mom, Lisa.

[Mikki] She was really struggling

to kind of find meaning in life.

And I think she blamed herself in some ways

for what had happened to Nikki,

which I tried to tell her she shouldn't.

[Kristen] She was also struggling with recovery.

And so she was having a really hard time leading up to trial.

It was always a lot of stress.

[Mikki] She said a few times that she was going to stay alive

as long as the trial happened, that she owed that to Nikki.

And that was sad to hear that

she wasn't kind of envisioning a life for herself after that.

She loved me unconditionally.

She never left my side.

Our lead detective had made a deal with her

that she needed to be there at trial

and that she wasn't allowed to commit suicide

while the case was pending.

And he was constantly talking with her,

keeping her in the loop and managing her stress

and her difficulties.

Sorry.

[narrator] On August 16th,

David Bogdanov finally faces justice.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

This is happening at the end of kind of the COVID period

where we had certain court restrictions.

At the time, the trial was broadcast over Zoom

unrestricted.

And so that actually made it a lot more accessible

for people to watch as it was happening.

There were very large number of people

that were streaming the trial every day.

[narrator] Bogdanov pleads not guilty to second degree murder

and malicious harassment, a hate crime.

@ David testified at his trial in a shocking move

and said this was all self-defence.

And his story is completely different

@ from the stories he's toldúpreviously to law enforcement.

@Yes, Your Honour, the defence calls David Bogdanov.

@[narrator] The defendant takes the stand himself

to explain all.

@We're just standing, sitting inúthe car, parked on the road,

@ and saw Nikki walking across the street by herself.

@ So it did seem like theú way he described the meeting

is probably actually how they met.

She seemed a littleúemotionally off, maybe upset.

@I gave her my Snapchat username.

He says that he did meet Nikki, they did get together.

[narrator] Bogdanov says he and Nikki

switch into a different vehicle

from the vans seized by police,

a car that investigators are later unable to locate.

She started touching me in my private area.

She engages in giving me oral sex.

@ What do you feel when youú put your hands in her pants?

I was in shock.

@ I had just been deceived.

@ We noticed, and we alsoú know that the jury noticed,

@ was that the only timeú that he got emotional--

Started-started yelling at her to--

@ said she's a disgusting-- disgusting piece

piece of crap.

@ [Joni] He tells her to get out of the car.

@ However, this is where theú story completely changes.

And he says, essentially, that Nikki then attacks him.

She lunges at me andú hits me across the face.

I shove her.

[lawyer]ú OK, then what does she do?

@ She just jumps up and goesú towards the centre console,

towards my gun.

@At this point, the overwhelming feeling I thought was

like a fight or flight mode just kicks in.

@ And there's a phone cord or phone charger

that's in the car.

And he grabs his phone charger.

And he says he wraps it around her shoulders

and is trying to restrain her.

[Bogdanov] Started around the chest area.

@And then when I pulled her back,úit just kind of slowly slipped

@ well, not slowly, quickly, slipped up

and up to her throat.

But she was just actively fighting me

@ and scratching my eyes.

She passed out.

I started--

I tried to checkúif she's breathing, you know.

[lawyer] Was she? - No.

And the only time that he got emotional

throughout that testimony was when he was describing

how it would affect his reputation in the community

if he had been in a sexual encounter

with someone who was gay or trans.

He got really upset, and he was crying.

But that when he wasú describing killing Nikki,

when he was describing realizing that she was dead,

all of those parts of it, he was very flat,

and there was very little emotion.

[Prosecution] So you put down, "I am six foot, two."

[Bogdanov] Yeah.

@[Prosecution] And at the time of the killing,

you were aboutú200 pounds, isn't that right?

[Bogdanov]ú Something like that, yeah.

@ [Prosecution] Did you agree that Nikki appeared

@about five foot, eight inches?

[Bogdanov] Yeah.

So there was a lot of incredulity

@around the idea that Bogdanovúneeded to act in self-defence.

I mean Nikki was a very scrappy person,

but she maybe weighed a hundred pounds,

and this was a pretty big guy.

@ [Prosecution] You knew youúwould be able to overpower Nikki

@ in a physical altercation.

@You could have bear hugged herú at any point in time, right?

[Bogdanov] It was--

That's kind of what I was trying to do.

It wasn't working out.

Nothing was working.

He wasn't able to give a lot of clear answers about things.

For one thing, the phone cord, it had been folded in half

and then knotted at the middle end

and then knotted at the USB end.

To strangle her, it seemed pretty clear

that he had somehow at some point

turned this cord into a garrotte of types,

like with handles basically,

that could give him the ability to have leverage.

[narrator] Bogdanov claims that is how

he kept his phone charger cord in the car.

@ Yeah, I just folded it,ú tied it loosely, loosely

so that it's bunched up together,

just to manage, cable management.

@[Prosecution] So you're saying that knot was tied up

@ before you used it on Nikki?

[Bogdanov] Yes.

Bogdanov said thatú he tried to restrain Nikki

by holding her back with the phone cord,

pressing down on her chest and arms,

but that doesn't really match the evidence

because Nikki's hair extensions is found just intertwined

and knotted in that phone cord.

[Kristen] We did not find it super credible at all.

It's really hard to have strangulation as self-defence

because there's a period in time

where someone's going to pass out

and you have to continue to strangle them

well past that point

in order for that strangulation to result in death.

At the point that she passes out,

@ he could grab his gun,ú which is in grabbing range.

@He could get out of that car,úand he could make himself safe.

But that's not what he chose to do.

It didn't meet the standard for justified homicide.

That's homicide.

[narrator] The defendant admits to

dumping Nikki's body in Larch Mountain

and fleeing on a flight to Ukraine.

@ I was an emotional wreck.

@ [ Prosecution] You were terrified@of the thought of someone else

@ thinking that you were gay if they found out

what happened between you and Nikki.

[Bogdanov]ú It would be humiliating.

@ I would probably be shunned.

@[ Prosecution] Yeah, you would be an outcast

@ in your community, right?

[Bogdanov] Yes.

[ Prosecution] You don't like gay

@ and transgender people, correct?

@ Not that I don't like them,

I don't agree with the lifestyle.

[ Prosecution] Gay and transgender people

disturb you, right?

I suppose.

[narrator] After a two-week trial

under the national spotlight,

the jury delivers its verdict.

Today, a jury found a Clark County man

guilty of murdering a transgender teen.

That was a huge relief for us,

but I know it was a massive relief

for Lisa and for Lisa's supporters.

[news]ú During today's sentencing,

@ Kuhnhausen's mom asked for theú toughest sentence possible.

[narrator] Bogdanov receives the maximum sentence,

19 and a half years.

I hope that as a monument to Nikki Kuhnhausen,

a child of our Clark County community,

the legal proceedings and the movement

towards something resembling justice

may be seen as a step in the greater overall movement

from darkness toward light.

It was very touching to see the judge,

in this case, expressing his own feelings,

how unnecessary it was that a 17-year-old

who was just starting her life would lose it

because she was trans.

The judge really went out of his way

to let it be known that trans people

belong in our community and that there's never a justification

for a crime like this.

[narrator] Tragically, just under a year later,

Nikki's mother, Lisa Woods, also dies.

Her cause of death has never been made public.

But Lisa leaves behind a lasting legacy,

a change in Washington state law

inspired by her daughter's memory.

Nikki being a teenager really intensified

the emotion surrounding this case.

She was a young girl, just 17 when this happened,

but advocacy groups also pointed to disproportionate violence

that transgender women and girls face.

And so that really helped to put a spotlight

on Nikki's case around the country.

Oh, people came together and fought back,

and they fought back in her name.

It's a difficult legacy,

but I think that the advocacy that her mom did

to kind of change that story

and create the good out of that bad

is really what I hope lasts.