Tag: S Bar F Scout Ranch

Bunchee Nyhuis Is Murdered In America
(“The Talking Skull,” Forensic Files)

Last week’s post recapped a Forensic Files episode that was rich in biographical details, about an elegant social climber named Noreen Boyle and the arrogant mid-life crisis victim of a husband who murdered her.

This week is dedicated to “The Talking Skull,” a Forensic Files story whose heart lies in the evidence-gathering process.

As a YouTube commenter summarized the authorities’ work:

Anupam Sircar2 “From just a skull in the ground to a convicted killer in prison!!! Wow!!! Well done!!!”

The story offers up everything viewers ever wanted to know about ID’ing a skull.

Cartographer’s catch. But the episode gives relatively little in the way of personal details about Bunchee Nyhuis or her husband, Richard, who turned homicidal one night in 1983. By the time the closing Forensic Files theme music plays, viewers haven’t really gotten to know the couple.

So, for this week, I looked around for intelligence about their personal histories (only a few tidbits about Bunchee available, but a fair amount on Richard) and also checked into the whereabouts of Richard today. So, let’s get started on the recap:

In November 1987, a freelance mapmaker named Raimo Pitkanen was on a job for an orienteering club when he spotted a skull at the S Bar F Scout Ranch near Farmington, Missouri.

Frightened by what he’d seen, Pitkanen left the skull in the woods and didn’t report until he was safely back in his home in Finland.

Written in bone. At the scene, the Missouri Highway Patrol found some other bones, strands of hair, and a button that said “Texwood.” Some of the remains had been gnawed by animals who probably dug them up from a shallow grave.

The victim’s pelvic bone had the type of markings that indicate it belonged to a woman who had given birth to two or more children. (That would have been a nice fun fact in a case that wasn’t quite as grim as this one).

Investigators discovered that Texwood was a Hong Kong manufacturer that made jeans specifically for “Asian builds,” according to The Bone Detectives, a children’s book of all things, published by Little Brown in 1996.

Facing the challenge. Forensic Files asserted that the button proved the victim was either from Asia or had visited Asia.

It turned out that was correct, but it bothers me when the show leaps to conclusions — the jeans could have been worn by an Armenian-American woman who bought them in a thrift store in Vermont.

Anyhow, after a forensic artist used the skull to re-create the face of the victim, a woman named Wilaiporn Cox saw it on TV and identified it as belonging to her missing friend Bunchee Nyhuis. No one had seen Bunchee since December 1983. At the time, Richard claimed that she had returned to Thailand. He said he had dropped her off at the St. Louis airport and never heard from her again.

Thai love story. It seemed plausible at the time. Her friends recalled her saying that she wanted to go back and visit her relatives in Thailand.

Bunchee (also “Bun Chee” or “Buncheerapon,” depending on the source) was born in the city of Chonburi in Thailand circa 1950 and left her homeland after meeting the dark-haired, blue-eyed Richard Nyhuis. He was serving in the Air Force in Thailand in the early 1970s.

Seemed perfectly respectable. Richard Nyhuis came from a normal family background (on paper, anyway). He was born on February 18, 1946, to Harold Clayton Nyhuis and Virginia Buckler Nyhuis, who lived in Kankakee, Illinois. Harold spent 30 years working for an office supply business called Amberg File and Index, and Virgina was a secretary who worked on a newsletter published by the family’s church, Asbury United Methodist.

When Virginia died at the age of 94 in 2016, an obituary mentioned Richard had two sisters, Kathryn Siegel and Ann Johnson.

Richard became an electrician for McDonnell Douglas. Neighbors described him as an ideal husband and father and a well-respected Boy Scout leader, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story from July 20, 1989.

“She’s a tigress.” But investigators didn’t believe Richard was entirely wonderful. They confronted him while he was camping with his sons, Steven and Michael, at the same Boy Scout ranch where Bunchee’s remains had been discovered. He gave a videotaped confession, albeit a shifting one, and went on trial for murder in 1992.

The proceedings took place in St. Charles County Court with a jury of seven men and five women.

The prosecution contended that, during an argument in November 1983, Richard struck the 33-year-old Bunchee with a sharp object, then suffocated her as she lay on the floor pleading for medical help.

The defense countered that Richard Nyhuis was a peaceful man who fell prey to his wife’s volatile nature. His lawyer alleged that he pushed his 5-foot-tall wife in self-defense after she demanded that they build a bigger house, which they couldn’t afford, threatened to leave him and take their two little sons to Thailand — and then came at him “with hands and fingernails raised,” The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported on November 24, 1992. He also alleged she bit him.

Fifty long years. She hit her head when she fell, then began screaming and Richard accidentally suffocated her, the defense contended during the trial.

But St. Charles County medical examiner Mary Case testified she believed the skull injury came from an implement such as a clawhammer or tackhammer. According to court papers, “Dr. Case further stated that if the wound was left untreated, it could only have caused the wife’s death if medical attention was not properly sought.”

A jury convicted Richard of first-degree murder, and he got life in jail without the possibility of parole for 50 years.

Appeal fizzles. On appeal, Richard complained that the “state flaunted his wife’s remains in front of the jury throughout the trial.” He also contended that the court had precluded him from presenting evidence of “his wife’s specific acts of violence against defendant’s and wife’s children,” according to court papers.

In October 1995, a Missouri Court of Appeals upheld his conviction. The judges noted that “people normally become unconscious after being deprived of oxygen for one minute. This gave defendant sufficient time to coolly reflect on what he was doing after his wife was unconscious.”

Today, Richard Nyhuis resides in Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point. The prison houses death-row inmates and has accommodations ranging from minimum to maximum security.

The Missouri Department of Corrections website describes Nyhuis as 5-feet-8-inches tall and 180 pounds.

He’ll be 96 when he comes up for parole.

What about the children?

Offspring Okay. Again, not a whole lot of information, but it sounds as though Richard did a decent job of raising them alone in the years between Bunchee’s death and his arrest for murder.

The name Steve Nyhuis popped up on the St. Charles High honor roll in 1990. Steve appears to have followed his father into the military and had a successful career. It looks as though his brother, Michael, became a woodworker and is married.

In 1991, 48 Hours produced an episode about the case, but I wasn’t able to find it on CBS.com, Youtube, Amazon Prime, or Netflix. If anyone has a clue, about where to see it, please write in.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, cheers. — RR