NAMPA, Idaho — In the fall of 1994, Krystyn Dunlap-Bosse allegedly told her friends to take pictures of her bruises in case something bad ever happened to her. She vanished later that month. Krystyn has been declared missing for 27 years.
Marie, Krystyn’s friend from Bishop Kelly High School who asked not be named out of fear of safety for herself and her family, remembers standing outside of an apartment building in Boise in 1994, listening to Krystyn fight with her boyfriend after Marie allegedly watched him push Krystyn. He had told Marie to leave and wait outside, but when she came back in, she said, he was in the bathroom with Krystyn — and it felt eerily quiet.
“I can see the bathroom door in my mind,” Marie said. “It’s chilling.”
Krystyn went missing after telling her friends she had to get away from family issues and an allegedly abusive personal relationship at the time, the Idaho Press previously reported. Krystyn intended to return home but never did, according to a letter she left for her family.
The man she was dating at the time of her disappearance maintained to the Idaho Press that he and Krystyn never fought and he never physically assaulted her. He has never been charged in relation to the alleged abuse, and there have been no police reports filed by Krystyn accusing him of the abuse.
“I have not seen these pictures, nor do I need to, because I know that I didn’t physically assault her,” the former boyfriend said to the Idaho Press.
Friends and family of Krystyn say that doesn’t mean she wasn’t abused. And Marie says her pictures prove she was.
The Boise Police Department has told the Idaho Press that it believes foul play is involved with Krystyn’s 1994 disappearance. The unsolved case remains open and no charges or arrests have been made in connection with the disappearance.
Marie shared with the Idaho Press photo negatives which shows Krystyn with bruises on her neck and below her right eye. Marie said she tried giving the photos to police years later during Krystyn’s missing persons investigation, but she was told they cannot prove who committed the abuse. Boise Police Department said it cannot elaborate further on the matter.
Krystyn’s experience according to Marie is not an isolated incident — 33% of Idaho women and 38.2% of Idaho men will experience domestic violence at some point in their lives, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Additionally, 45.1% of Black women and 40.1% of Black men nationwide have experienced domestic violence. Over 84% of Native women experience violence during their lifetimes across the nation, according to the NCADV.
The most extreme cases result in homicides.
Forty-nine percent of Idaho kidnapping incidents are committed by the victim’s intimate partner, and one in four homicides in Idaho are intimate partner homicides, according to the Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“She had us take them in case he ever did something to her,” Marie said about the photos. Originally, Marie really liked Krystyn’s boyfriend at the time. The three would spend time together, and Marie described what a great personality he had.
But Marie said Krystyn’s boyfriend would just “snap” fairly often, and that Krystyn’s personality changed when she was with him.
“We’d see Krystyn less and less,” she said.
Marie said looking back on that time, all she can feel is guilt. She said they were all young teenagers, and none of them took Krystyn’s alleged abuse seriously enough.
Marie said the reason she never said anything about the alleged abuse at the time was because she “wanted Krystyn to have an outlet.”
“It’s probably the reason she trusted me so much. Such a horrible mindset to have. But, I think that is why I did it. I will regret that forever,” Marie said.
Jennifer Coffindaffer, a retired FBI agent who works on the special News Nation series “Missing in America” that was spearheaded by the case of Gabby Petito, shed light on why some domestic violence victims tend to stay in abusive relationships.
Coffindaffer told the Idaho Press in an interview the abuse can start with complete narcissism, where abusers use their personality to charm others and end up taking control over those they are in an intimate relationship with. She said in some instances, it can be easy to spot if the person needs to have complete control over the relationship.
“(Victims) are in co-dependent relationships, where their abuser needs to abuse them and treat them poorly,” Coffindaffer said. “Treating them very nicely afterwards, sucking them back into the cycle. These women are committed psychologically to the cycle of abuse.”
According to the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, an abuser may be pleasant and charming between periods of anger and violence. They are often seen as a “nice” person to others outside the relationship. They may blame their violence on outside factors and will often minimize seriousness of the violence itself.
“There are periods of time where things may be calmer, but those times are followed by a buildup of tension and abuse, which usually results in the abuser peaking with intensified abuse. The cycle then often starts to repeat, commonly becoming more and more intense as time goes on,” the Coalition Against Domestic Violence states on its website.
“He’d get more and more violent,” Marie said. “Toward the end, I saw it differently.”
Marie maintains Krystyn’s boyfriend love-bombed her, flooding Krystyn with compliments and attention after a fight, keeping Krystyn hopeful things would get better.
Krystyn tossed around the idea of reporting the alleged abuse to law enforcement, her friends said, but nothing ever came of it.
“I just think Krystyn tried to convince herself he would change,” Marie said. “But, she knew he wouldn’t.”
Watch more crime news:
See the latest Treasure Valley crime news in our YouTube playlist:
