Bun Chee Nyhuis was a Thai-American woman who was killed by her husband in late 1983. She was discovered in November of 1987, and remained unidentified until a friend recognized a facial reconstruction. Nyhuis was later conclusively identified with the assistance of superimposition.
Case[]
It is known that the Nyhuis couple were having marital problems at the time of the murder, and friends of Bun Chee recall that she had a desire to return to Thailand and visit her friends and family there. Defense attorneys contended that on the night of the murder, Bun Chee got into an argument with her husband, Richard Nyhuis, over wanting to move into a larger house that they could not afford, and Richard claimed that she allegedly "came at him with hands and fingernails raised" and bit him, and he shoved her in self-defense. When first interviewed by police, Richard claimed she had fallen on a sharp rock at the ranch where her skeleton was found and he suffocated her out of mercy.
However, it was determined by forensic science and the prosecution, that an object, most likely a claw hammer or tack hammer, had been used, and it is believed that Richard suffocated Bun Chee by putting his hand over her nose and mouth until she died after the hammer blow. Authorities believe Bun Chee was killed at their residence, that Richard placed a Service Merchandise plastic shopping bag over her head to contain blood from the head wound, and that Richard placed her in a chest freezer in his basement to store until the ground thawed.
He took the body to the S Bar F Boy Scout Ranch in Farmington, Missouri, where he worked as a scoutmaster, and buried the body in a 2-foot-deep grave, which only hastened decomposition and scavenger activity. He also poured corrosive lime on the body to further hasten decomposition.
Bun Chee's skull and a few other weathered bones were found at the S Bar F Scout Ranch near Farmington, Missouri in November 1987 by Finnish orienteering mapmaker Raimo Pitkanen, who initially mistook it for a turtle shell, but soon recognized it as a skull. Frightened and concerned, he left the country and returned home to Finland, but some time later, he contacted Teena Orling of the St. Louis Orienteering Club, and indicated where on the map where he had found the skeleton. The skeleton was soon found, along with some decayed clothing, some weathered head hair, some corrosive lime, and the remains of a Service Merchandise catalog showroom plastic shopping bag.
Examination of the victim's remains and clothing initially pointed toward the victim being Caucasian, but upon discovery of a corroded brass button reading "Texwood", and great difficulty in tracing where the button came from, the US Customs Department found that they were from the blue jeans found with the skeleton. These jeans were produced by a company in Hong Kong that sold its products exclusively in Asia, and that along with further examination of the victim's skull and head hair identified the victim as being of Asian ancestry and wearing clothes purchased in Asia.
Once the skeleton's race was determined, a reconstruction was done by forensic anthropologists, and Wilaiporn Cox, who was a member of the area Thai-American community, called in to police after seeing the reconstruction on the evening news and realizing it looked similar to her friend Bun Chee Nyhuis, who had been missing since early December 1983, and had supposedly returned to Thailand but never been heard from again.
Another missing woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, plus another not shown in the Forensic Files episode, were submitted as a potential match to the body, while it remained unidentified. Both women were ruled out after their photographs proved inconsistent with the skull through the superimposition test that conclusively identified it as Bun Chee.
