She Won $500 At Bingo One Night In Downtown Grand Forks, And Then This Teen Disappeared
Kristi Lynn Nikle was known as a vivacious young woman who loved making memories with friends.
Kristi was born with developmental disabilities, but she never let them stop her. She placed third in Division III of the 12-15 age group in Special Olympics bowling in November of 1990, and her family described her as independent and street-smart.
But tragically, in 1996, Kristi went out for a fun night of bingo with a friend and never made it home. She’s been missing ever since.
Kristi was 19-years-old when she decided to attend a bingo night in downtown Grand Forks, North Dakota, on October 3rd, 1996. Kristi did a great job at bingo and allegedly won $500 that night.
However, no one knows what happened to her after bingo, and her father, Mike, panicked when Kristi did not call or arrive back home that night.
While Kristi may have been independent, her family claimed she had a very trusting personality due to her mental abilities, similar to a 10-year-old. Her brother Lonnie has said that if a stranger offered Kristi some candy from their car, she would have taken it.
Today, the police fear that the night Kristi vanished, she may have been too trusting of someone with dangerous intentions.
The day after Kristi went missing, her family tried to file a missing person’s report with the Grand Forks Police Department, but they were told to wait at least 72 hours since she was an adult.
In the meantime, her family searched the local spots where Kristi would frequently hang out, hoping to find her or someone who knew where she had gone. However, they had no luck, and she was officially reported as missing on October 10th.
As time passed, the Grand Forks Police Department received several tips from people who claimed to have spotted Kristi, but investigators believe they were false sightings.
Jacob – stock.adobe.com- illustrative purposes only
Then, in 1998, the detective who used to be on Kristi’s case, Detective Mike Sholes, received an anonymous tip from someone who asked if the police department had looked into Floyd Tapson as a possible suspect in Kristi’s disappearance.
Floyd Tapson was a man from North Dakota who had been sentenced to life in prison after kidnapping and attempting to murder a young disabled woman in Montana in 2003. He was also a suspect in a very similar case involving a disabled woman that occurred in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Floyd became an especially interesting suspect in Kristi’s case, as he also worked in a Grand Forks group home that Kristi would frequent before she went missing.
Detective Mike Sholes conducted several interviews and a polygraph test with Floyd in prison, who kept denying he had anything to do with Kristi’s disappearance. While Mike has no hard evidence that points to Floyd as having done something to Kristi, he hasn’t ruled him out as a suspect.
Since the interviews with Floyd, the Grand Forks Police Department has received tips from people who had found human remains and claimed they may have been Kristi’s. But after investigating, none of them proved to be hers.
Kristi’s father has a theory that her disappearance could be related to an incident that occurred shortly before she vanished. He alleges that Kristi had called the police on two neighbors who were involved in a drug deal and wonders if they retaliated against her. However, this has not been confirmed.
Kristi’s case is still open, and her family is still searching for an answer as to what happened to her today.
At the time of Kristi’s disappearance, she was five foot three, weighed 110 pounds, and had brown hair and blue-green eyes. She would be 46 years old today.
If you have any information regarding her case, you are urged to contact the Grand Forks Police Department at (701)-787-8000.
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