00:00:08
reporters gather in reno to hear the
00:00:10
fate of a high-profile local politician
00:00:13
her worried husband tells them she's
00:00:15
gravely ill
00:00:16
there was a television report on kathy
00:00:19
augustine being in the hospital
00:00:22
chaz higgs said she'd had a heart attack
00:00:24
kathy augustine the state controller the
00:00:27
woman who manages nevada's money is in a
00:00:30
coma something's wrong with my wife
00:00:32
she's not breathing she's not breathing
00:00:34
at all not breathing at all
00:00:37
friends find it hard to believe that a
00:00:39
woman so full of life and vigor could
00:00:41
have been struck down so suddenly by
00:00:44
illness
00:00:45
it was jarring to think of her
00:00:47
going down like that they couldn't
00:00:49
really find any reason why kathy 50
00:00:52
years old never drank didn't smoke and
00:00:54
worked out regularly
00:00:56
would have had a heart attack
00:00:58
as kathy augustine fights for her life
00:01:01
medical staff begin to wonder if she's
00:01:03
been the victim of foul play
00:01:05
there was
00:01:07
an undercurrent of suspicion
00:01:09
surrounding kathy augustine's death
00:01:11
nothing was found
00:01:13
in the sense of a cause of death
00:01:16
kathy was married to chas higgs a nurse
00:01:18
a man who knew how to kill someone and
00:01:21
leave little or no trace
00:01:23
had state controller kathy augustine
00:01:25
been killed by her husband
00:01:31
[Music]
00:01:44
kathy augustine had husband charles to
00:01:46
thank for bringing nurse chaz higgs into
00:01:48
her life
00:01:49
chas and kathy's eyes met over charles
00:01:52
augustine's death bed
00:01:55
charles augustine was kathy's third
00:01:57
husband they've been married for 17
00:01:59
years but by 2003 the relationship was
00:02:02
in serious trouble charles and kathy
00:02:04
augustine were estranged and heading
00:02:07
toward divorce
00:02:08
when he fell ill
00:02:11
friends suspected that cathy's soaring
00:02:14
political ambitions had begun to take
00:02:15
their toll on the marriage
00:02:18
kathy had been drawn to politics since
00:02:20
she was in her teens long before she met
00:02:23
charles augustine
00:02:24
chuck augustine's wife kathy was born
00:02:26
cathy alfano in california when she was
00:02:29
growing up her passion had always been
00:02:31
politics and she was growing up in the
00:02:33
60s and 70s at a time when women were
00:02:35
leaving the house attaining more they
00:02:37
were more involved in politics and they
00:02:39
were out in the social sphere she was
00:02:41
very highly educated she had a
00:02:43
bachelor's degree she had a master's
00:02:44
degree and she had served an internship
00:02:46
in washington dc around the time that
00:02:48
she was in college
00:02:49
but before kathy could pursue a career
00:02:51
in public service love marriage and
00:02:54
children got in the way she got married
00:02:57
twice
00:02:58
divorced twice had a young daughter
00:03:00
and went to work for an airline and she
00:03:02
put her political ambitions aside for
00:03:04
about 12 years
00:03:06
she began working for an airline
00:03:08
sometimes as a flight attendant
00:03:10
traveling around the world and around
00:03:11
the country and then later and in
00:03:14
scheduling
00:03:15
kathy would often tell friends how she
00:03:17
never seemed to fall for the right men
00:03:19
but then she met chuck
00:03:21
and her luck seemed to change charles
00:03:24
augustine was 15 years her senior he was
00:03:27
a strong looking man he'd been a
00:03:29
football player earlier in life he was
00:03:31
also a vietnam vet and a devout catholic
00:03:34
they fell in love and got married and
00:03:36
moved to the las vegas area
00:03:44
charles adopted cathy's daughter dallas
00:03:46
and she in turn hit it off with charles
00:03:48
sons larry and greg
00:03:50
the family moved into a large luxurious
00:03:52
home in downtown las vegas
00:03:55
but kathy wasn't content to stay at home
00:03:57
playing happy families her passion for
00:03:59
politics rekindled she joined the
00:04:01
republican party and launched her first
00:04:04
campaign kathy augustine was very well
00:04:06
known in the state of nevada she was
00:04:09
known as a hard charging very strong
00:04:11
very dynamic
00:04:13
state politician
00:04:15
she reveled in politics she loved the
00:04:17
rough and tumble of politics
00:04:21
kathy took on the old boy's network of
00:04:23
nevada politics with huge success she
00:04:25
campaigned to become a member of the
00:04:27
state assembly she won she served a term
00:04:30
then ran for state senate again her
00:04:33
charisma and her ruthlessness helped her
00:04:35
crush the opposition she had run for and
00:04:38
won election to the office of state
00:04:40
controller of nevada she was actually
00:04:42
the first female state controller in in
00:04:44
nevada's history she was the state's
00:04:47
bill collector more or less you can't be
00:04:50
a shrinking violet and have that job and
00:04:52
be any good at it and kathy augustine
00:04:54
was very good at her job as state
00:04:56
controller
00:04:57
kathy became a champion for republican
00:05:00
women she joined all 18 of the state's
00:05:02
republican women's clubs and would drive
00:05:05
miles to attend their functions dressed
00:05:07
in her trademark bright blazers and
00:05:09
polished broaches
00:05:10
but kathy's husband chuck resented
00:05:12
politics and resented his wife's soaring
00:05:15
ambition a quiet conservative man he
00:05:18
wanted to be at home
00:05:19
and he wanted his wife at home with him
00:05:22
local journalist victoria campbell knew
00:05:24
kathy as a woman who intended to succeed
00:05:26
no matter the cost
00:05:28
i interviewed kathy augustine on
00:05:30
numerous occasions she struck me as
00:05:32
tenacious
00:05:34
very tough she was a very tough
00:05:37
woman
00:05:38
she just had her eyes on what she wanted
00:05:40
she was ambitious the pressure
00:05:42
that that put on her relationship was
00:05:45
starting to show and
00:05:47
by 1998 they were separated charles and
00:05:51
kathy augustine were estranged and
00:05:53
heading toward divorce
00:05:56
when he fell ill
00:05:57
he suffered a minor stroke at their home
00:05:59
in las vegas was taken to the hospital
00:06:02
then suffered a major stroke in the
00:06:04
hospital it was 2003 and at the time
00:06:08
chuck and his wife still jointly owned
00:06:10
their vegas home but charles had been
00:06:12
living there alone cathy was living over
00:06:14
400 miles away in reno closer to her
00:06:17
work at the state capital she was buying
00:06:19
herself a smaller home they planned to
00:06:22
divorce
00:06:23
charles's illness put the plan on hold
00:06:26
for the next six weeks kathy traveled
00:06:28
back and forth to be at her husband's
00:06:29
bedside
00:06:31
while he was being treated and was
00:06:33
seriously ill
00:06:35
one of his nurses was chas higgs
00:06:38
the critical care nurse chas higgs saw
00:06:41
dollar signs
00:06:42
she was an easy route to success she was
00:06:44
she was she had glamour she had status
00:06:46
potentially he he thought that she was
00:06:48
an easy route to the fairytale ending
00:06:51
that
00:06:53
he believes uh is his destiny
00:06:59
william charles hicks was also someone
00:07:01
with a complicated relationship history
00:07:04
not a lot is known about chaz higgs's
00:07:06
early life but between 1984 and 2002 he
00:07:09
had three failed marriages he changed
00:07:12
state and job quite a lot and drifted
00:07:16
chas and his twin brother mike were
00:07:18
raised in north carolina by their father
00:07:20
who was in the marines
00:07:22
forensic psychologist donna youngs
00:07:26
my sense is that he came out of quite a
00:07:28
hard background a background where he
00:07:31
didn't learn uh how to care about other
00:07:34
people because it was a tough background
00:07:36
where other people weren't particularly
00:07:38
caring about him it fits with the idea
00:07:41
of an upbringing led by a military man
00:07:46
chaz followed his father into the armed
00:07:48
forces he joined the navy and spent 16
00:07:51
years as a medical courseman looking
00:07:53
after sailors in naval clinics and at
00:07:55
sea chaz was a wanderer moving from
00:07:58
state to state leaving three failed
00:08:00
marriages numerous accusations of
00:08:02
infidelity and a string of bankruptcies
00:08:04
in his wake
00:08:06
we've got somebody who has an inability
00:08:08
to self-regulate somebody who's who's
00:08:11
always looking for excitement somebody
00:08:12
who who's who's immature
00:08:15
and and somebody who um is very
00:08:18
emotionally fluent is very is very warm
00:08:22
and charming and open put all those
00:08:25
things together and you get somebody who
00:08:26
is going to move from woman to woman
00:08:29
very readily and is going to appeal to a
00:08:32
lot of women as well so it's easy for
00:08:34
him to do that
00:08:36
but as higgs hit his late 30s he began
00:08:38
to show signs of settling down
00:08:41
by 2002 after the breakdown of his last
00:08:44
marriage jazz was living in nevada he
00:08:46
had seemed to
00:08:49
be a bit more stable
00:08:51
he took a number of medical
00:08:52
qualifications and in 2002 received a
00:08:55
state nursing license he got a job as a
00:08:58
critical care nurse at the sunrise
00:09:00
medical center in las vegas
00:09:03
he was living in a recreational vehicle
00:09:06
he was living in an rv but he seemed to
00:09:09
be
00:09:10
moving towards an actual career by now
00:09:13
had chas higgs finally found his calling
00:09:16
he seemed to thrive in a hospital
00:09:18
environment but not perhaps because he
00:09:20
was a natural-born caregiver he would
00:09:23
have been comfortable going into nursing
00:09:26
of holding other people's lives in his
00:09:28
hands
00:09:29
because not because he cared so much but
00:09:32
because actually other people's lives
00:09:34
were so unimportant to him certainly
00:09:37
much less important than chas higgs's
00:09:39
life
00:09:43
in fact just a few years later his
00:09:46
nursing colleagues would discover just
00:09:47
how disposable our human life was to
00:09:50
chas higgs
00:09:51
anytime he was busy and they'd
00:09:54
one of them would say and all of them
00:09:55
testified to this and there were several
00:09:58
one of them would say there's anything i
00:09:59
can help you with and he said yeah get
00:10:00
rid of my wife
00:10:09
[Music]
00:10:13
the step change in the relationship
00:10:15
between critical care nurse chas higgs
00:10:17
and state finance controller kathy
00:10:19
augustine came when kathy watched her
00:10:21
husband of 17 years chuck
00:10:23
take his last breath
00:10:25
after six weeks he unfortunately passed
00:10:27
away but kathy's relationship to the
00:10:30
intensive care team at the hospital
00:10:32
didn't end there chas would later say
00:10:34
that they had chemistry
00:10:36
they had instant chemistry and when they
00:10:38
met in the hospital it was just
00:10:41
it was one of those things
00:10:43
it seemed that kathy found chaz as
00:10:45
captivating as he found her and a few
00:10:48
days after her husband's death she found
00:10:50
the perfect excuse to see his nurse once
00:10:53
again kathy wrote thank you notes to all
00:10:55
of the staff but she forgot to write one
00:10:58
to chaz
00:10:59
in order to make up for that she decided
00:11:01
to invite him out for coffee and that
00:11:02
was when their romance began
00:11:05
chas took no time to accept the offer
00:11:08
he'd been around this kind of
00:11:09
relationship roundabout before
00:11:12
his romance romances mirror his his
00:11:14
whole his whole approach to life it it's
00:11:18
one passionate encounter followed by
00:11:20
another for kathy who was perhaps used
00:11:23
to more intellectual reserved men who
00:11:26
was part of a calculating political
00:11:29
world
00:11:30
chaz actually would have been a breath
00:11:32
of fresh air in his warmth his openness
00:11:36
pretty soon
00:11:37
marriage was suggested i would venture
00:11:39
to say that kathy augustine probably
00:11:42
hoped for what most people hope for a
00:11:44
meaningful happy relationship
00:11:47
and this being her fourth marriage
00:11:50
it was not something that she had been
00:11:52
able to
00:11:53
have before she told her family
00:11:56
he's an angel to me
00:11:59
he swept me off my feet
00:12:02
kathy's close friends and family were
00:12:03
skeptical
00:12:05
to them they hardly seemed like a match
00:12:07
made in heaven i think there were
00:12:08
probably some questions and you know
00:12:11
people kind of looking askance at
00:12:13
that relationship and wondering what she
00:12:15
saw in him and
00:12:16
what he saw in in her they were both
00:12:19
very dynamic attractive people but
00:12:22
whether they belong together i think i
00:12:24
think there were a lot of questions
00:12:25
asked about that the relationship
00:12:27
between chaz and kathy was not something
00:12:29
that their friends could have predicted
00:12:31
she was eight years his senior
00:12:33
and they didn't really seem to have a
00:12:35
ton in common
00:12:36
he was a nurse she was a politician he
00:12:39
hated politics
00:12:40
um
00:12:41
i think it just shocked people and and
00:12:44
he clearly had no interest in her career
00:12:46
which was very very important to her
00:12:49
but kathy seemed happy so her friends
00:12:51
swallowed their fears and wished the new
00:12:53
couple well
00:12:56
at the start of their relationship
00:12:58
things seemed to be going very well
00:12:59
kathy gushed her friends that she'd
00:13:00
never been happier
00:13:04
straight out of the gate it appeared
00:13:05
that she was happy chas was athletic had
00:13:08
always been interested in keeping up his
00:13:11
appearance and looking good um over the
00:13:13
course of their relationship however he
00:13:15
got kathy into shape he got her
00:13:17
interested in working out and they seem
00:13:20
to be ticking along fairly well
00:13:23
chaz enjoyed something he'd never known
00:13:24
before a luxurious lifestyle as a nurse
00:13:28
he was never going to be rich by
00:13:30
marrying kathy his life had become
00:13:32
comfortable overnight he had always been
00:13:34
terrible with money and friends
00:13:36
suspected that part of kathy's appeal in
00:13:37
the first place was that she was fairly
00:13:39
wealthy
00:13:40
she had received the payout from chuck's
00:13:42
life insurance which amounted to about a
00:13:45
million
00:13:46
dollars cathy's status as a formidable
00:13:49
political figure almost a local
00:13:51
celebrity may also have been very
00:13:53
attractive to chas
00:13:55
but the reality of being married to a
00:13:57
hard-working highly ambitious woman was
00:13:59
perhaps not as glamorous as chas
00:14:01
expected he was soon out of his depth
00:14:04
and growing more resentful by the day
00:14:06
he wanted her to quit politics when she
00:14:09
didn't quit politics it aggravated him
00:14:16
in 2004 what some described as cathy's
00:14:19
ruthless style of politics came home to
00:14:22
roost when she was accused of misconduct
00:14:24
in office
00:14:26
in september of that year kathy was
00:14:28
impeached for a campaign ethics
00:14:30
violation and was forced to pay a fine
00:14:32
of fifteen thousand dollars
00:14:34
that seemed to derail her political
00:14:37
career somewhat and she had to work to
00:14:40
recover her good name
00:14:42
kathy became the first nevada state
00:14:44
constitutional officer to be impeached
00:14:46
by the assembly she was found guilty and
00:14:49
censored but she kept her job the
00:14:52
episode damaged her reputation and her
00:14:54
wallet it took her 14 months to pay off
00:14:57
the record fifteen thousand dollar fine
00:14:59
and she was forced to refinance her
00:15:01
grand las vegas home
00:15:03
[Music]
00:15:08
the marriage wasn't turning out to be
00:15:10
quite the dream that chaz higgs had
00:15:11
envisaged
00:15:13
money was tighter his wife was no longer
00:15:15
the respected celebrity that he had wed
00:15:17
just two years before she was busier
00:15:19
than ever rebuilding her damaged career
00:15:22
not what chas higgs wanted
00:15:25
he was frustrated
00:15:27
the stress of that situation may have
00:15:29
caused
00:15:30
more problems in their relationship by
00:15:32
autumn of 2005 chaz was really bad
00:15:35
mouthing kathy quite a lot to colleagues
00:15:37
at work he wanted her to
00:15:40
lose weight he called her a fat [Â __Â ]
00:15:43
and that sort of thing
00:15:44
clearly they were not getting along
00:15:47
they just didn't mesh
00:15:49
he didn't like the scene she was in
00:15:52
she wanted him to to like it and to go
00:15:54
with her to these events and things and
00:15:57
he just didn't want any part of that
00:16:01
chas always vain was now obsessive about
00:16:03
his appearance kathy's friends had often
00:16:05
joked about how much chas fussed over
00:16:07
his perfect hair now it seemed that
00:16:10
looking good was the only thing that
00:16:11
mattered to him chaz had gotten into
00:16:13
bodybuilding and was spending most of
00:16:15
his nights at the gym he had also gotten
00:16:17
into steroids and was stockpiling
00:16:20
medicine at home these peter pan figures
00:16:23
emotional peter pan figures are also
00:16:26
incredibly immature and we see evidence
00:16:28
of that in the unrealistic approach that
00:16:31
they take to life they're they're
00:16:32
forever getting into problems with their
00:16:34
money becoming bankrupt they're forever
00:16:36
taking on some new project
00:16:39
with with a ridiculous intense ardency
00:16:42
for for for a while
00:16:45
by early summer 2006 chas higgs had a
00:16:48
new project he had one clear goal
00:16:50
to get out of his marriage and he made
00:16:53
no secret of this to his fellow nurses
00:16:55
anytime he was busy and they
00:16:57
one of them would say and all of them
00:16:59
testified to this and there were several
00:17:01
one of them would say did anything i can
00:17:03
help you with and he said yeah get rid
00:17:04
of my wife he was
00:17:07
saying terrible things about his wife to
00:17:08
his co-workers
00:17:11
if i didn't have a daughter in las vegas
00:17:13
i would kill my wife and throw her down
00:17:15
a mine shaft
00:17:18
he started a flirtatious relationship
00:17:20
with a colleague called linda ramirez
00:17:22
their email back and forth for months he
00:17:24
suggested she booked a hotel room so
00:17:26
they could meet and do dirty things
00:17:32
[Applause]
00:17:34
three years after they got married
00:17:35
chas was cautioned by superiors for
00:17:37
using his email his work email to send
00:17:40
flirtatious messages to a colleague he
00:17:43
had joined a website called passion.com
00:17:46
and was sending emails to other women
00:17:49
chief deputy district attorney tom bob
00:17:52
would later discover how disturbing some
00:17:53
of these emails could be we had
00:17:57
witnesses as far as he was flirting with
00:17:59
one of the people that worked at the
00:18:00
hospital he would you know say he sent
00:18:03
her an email said i'm gonna make
00:18:06
kathy he said that [Â __Â ]
00:18:08
kathy's life miserable
00:18:11
another message read i hate this woman
00:18:13
and i'll make her break
00:18:15
higgs loved to vent blurting out his
00:18:17
darkest thoughts and feelings again and
00:18:19
again
00:18:20
he was soon summoned before his boss to
00:18:22
explain why he'd been misusing his
00:18:24
hospital email account
00:18:26
he uh said he was reaching out to these
00:18:29
other women because he was sad he was
00:18:31
angry he was venting he confided to his
00:18:34
supervisor tina that
00:18:36
things with kathy were problematic he
00:18:39
described her as abusive and controlling
00:18:41
and tina started to get concerned that
00:18:44
chaz might be the victim of abuse so she
00:18:46
offered him a place to stay if he needed
00:18:48
it
00:18:48
somehow word of this got back to kathy
00:18:51
convinced that this other woman was
00:18:53
making a move on her husband the
00:18:54
powerful politician lost her composure
00:18:57
kathy somehow found out and began
00:18:59
harassing tina at her place of work
00:19:01
cathy wrote threatening letters to tina
00:19:03
and tina eventually took the matter to
00:19:05
the hospital board and after that
00:19:08
kathy's harassment seemed to stop
00:19:11
to have friends and family it seemed
00:19:13
that kathy's relationship with chaz
00:19:15
higgs had driven the once dignified
00:19:17
intimidating politician to new lows
00:19:21
at times she seemed scared of him while
00:19:24
chaz was making it seem to tina that he
00:19:26
was being abused the evidence seems to
00:19:28
suggest that maybe something else was
00:19:29
going on for example kathy called her
00:19:31
brother one day from the car
00:19:33
crying sobbing and saying he's going to
00:19:36
kill us both because chaz was driving
00:19:38
erratically crazy
00:19:41
chas and kathy's marriage was in a mess
00:19:44
chaz could have chosen divorce he could
00:19:45
have accepted another failed
00:19:47
relationship and returned to square one
00:19:49
but he had a better plan one he was sure
00:19:52
he could get away with
00:19:56
higgs is on
00:19:58
the telephone 911 my wife
00:20:01
is not breathing something's wrong with
00:20:03
my wife she's not breathing she's not
00:20:05
breathing at all not breathing at all
00:20:07
you can help
00:20:22
at 6 45 a.m on saturday the 8th of july
00:20:25
2006
00:20:27
chas higgs made an emergency call from
00:20:29
the house that he and his wife kathy
00:20:30
augustine shared in reno northwest
00:20:33
nevada
00:20:34
something's wrong with my wife higgs is
00:20:36
on
00:20:37
the telephone 911 my wife
00:20:40
is not breathing
00:20:43
i need help
00:20:44
he told the operator that he had found
00:20:46
his wife in her bed and she wasn't
00:20:48
responding she didn't seem to be
00:20:50
breathing the 911 dispatcher would later
00:20:53
tell a court that he'd never heard a
00:20:54
caller so calm
00:20:56
in a lengthy conversation chas gave
00:20:58
detailed directions to the home
00:21:04
he was real
00:21:05
kind of nonchalant about the whole thing
00:21:07
everybody commented about his
00:21:09
his demeanor his tone of voice that sort
00:21:12
of thing
00:21:13
something is wrong with my wife he said
00:21:15
in a calm monotone she's not moving i'm
00:21:18
a critical care nurse i've already
00:21:20
started cpr on the 911 call he didn't
00:21:23
seem to be too affected by the fact that
00:21:26
his wife wasn't breathing or anything
00:21:28
like that something's wrong with my wife
00:21:29
she's not breathing
00:21:31
hicks said he didn't think cathy had any
00:21:33
medical issues but in that 9-1-1 call
00:21:36
and later when speaking to reporters he
00:21:38
was quick to point out how much stress
00:21:40
kathy had been under in recent months
00:21:43
it's not trauma or anything said she's
00:21:45
been really stressed i don't know over
00:21:47
the last six months or so hey i'm gonna
00:21:49
do some more cpr okay
00:21:52
when the ambulance folks arrived
00:21:55
she was still on the bed
00:21:59
and
00:22:00
i
00:22:01
i think they found a faint heartbeat
00:22:03
chas told paramedics that he had
00:22:04
attempted resuscitation but when they
00:22:06
arrived they found her still in the bed
00:22:09
this was suspicious because as a trained
00:22:10
medical professional he should know that
00:22:13
in order to resuscitate someone they
00:22:14
have to be on a hard surface not a soft
00:22:16
bed
00:22:18
to emergency responders the situation
00:22:20
seemed odd even a little disturbing but
00:22:22
in that moment their main concern was
00:22:24
saving kathy's life
00:22:26
they did resuscitate her enough to get a
00:22:28
heartbeat blood pressure that sort of
00:22:31
thing going and then they put her in the
00:22:33
ambulance and took her to the
00:22:36
renowned mid south
00:22:39
in the ambulance chaz sat up front
00:22:41
alongside the driver who couldn't help
00:22:43
but notice his cool demeanor even as
00:22:45
they sped along sirens blaring on the
00:22:48
way to the hospital he was even reading
00:22:50
a newspaper
00:22:51
if the emt had suspicions about kathy's
00:22:54
condition and higgs behavior nurses at
00:22:56
the local hospital were even more
00:22:58
skeptical how had this fit feisty
00:23:00
politician ended up so seriously ill
00:23:03
some very alert nurses thought this just
00:23:06
didn't look right she's not
00:23:09
you know 50 years old no history of
00:23:11
anything
00:23:12
doesn't look like heart attack to me or
00:23:15
at least the normal heart attack
00:23:17
protocol she was a very vivacious
00:23:20
apparently healthy 50 year old woman and
00:23:22
that's not
00:23:23
that's not normal for her to just come
00:23:26
in in
00:23:28
a comatose state for her heart to stop
00:23:30
and she stops breathing and paramedics
00:23:32
have to revive her
00:23:35
later the same day chaz made another
00:23:37
move that was seen as distinctly odd he
00:23:40
stood before assembled reporters to
00:23:42
update them about his wife's condition
00:23:44
her family was in grief they lined up
00:23:47
behind him during his news conference
00:23:50
and they looked grim and they were
00:23:51
wearing sunglasses they were obviously
00:23:53
distraught and they were losing someone
00:23:56
very special to them chas appeared to be
00:23:58
very cool very calm very collected while
00:24:01
he recounted what he had done to save
00:24:04
his wife higgs told the press that kathy
00:24:06
had suffered from heartburn and stomach
00:24:08
pains in the day before and that he
00:24:10
believed that it was a cardiac arrest as
00:24:12
a result of campaign stress he said
00:24:14
she'd had a heart attack
00:24:16
i don't know where he got that
00:24:17
information or what what made him say
00:24:19
that
00:24:20
was kathy suffering under extreme stress
00:24:23
she was embroiled in a tough race to
00:24:24
become the nevada state treasurer with
00:24:26
the primary election in just a month's
00:24:28
time
00:24:29
but for kathy's family and friends the
00:24:31
stress theory didn't drink true
00:24:37
they knew her as a person who thrived on
00:24:40
stress and something like that wasn't
00:24:42
enough to do it you know at first the uh
00:24:46
the scuttlebutt was that it may have
00:24:48
been a heart problem and of course
00:24:49
that's not always obvious and and people
00:24:52
get sick and and die every day from
00:24:54
heart problems
00:24:56
kathy's doctors were baffled they could
00:24:58
find nothing to explain her condition
00:25:01
doctors meanwhile couldn't find any
00:25:02
evidence of heart disease and they
00:25:04
couldn't really find any reason why
00:25:06
kathy 50 years old never drank didn't
00:25:09
smoke and worked out regularly
00:25:12
would have had a heart attack if there
00:25:13
had been a heart attack
00:25:16
except for the i guess there there are
00:25:18
exceptions to every rule but if there
00:25:20
had been a heart attack there there
00:25:21
would have been evidence in the heart
00:25:22
muscle
00:25:24
or in the arteries uh around the heart
00:25:26
that sort of thing and there was none of
00:25:28
that
00:25:32
kathy's extended family flew in to be by
00:25:34
her bedside but as her condition
00:25:36
deteriorated her estranged husband chas
00:25:39
was taking care of business
00:25:43
the news just became progressively worse
00:25:46
she was in a coma she was
00:25:49
had irreversible brain damage
00:25:52
knowing this chas higgs moved fast to
00:25:54
make sure he'd benefit from kathy's
00:25:56
death
00:25:57
he had gone on i believe july the 10th
00:26:01
to
00:26:02
the retirement system office in carson
00:26:04
city to sign up for the for the
00:26:08
the retirement that kathy had available
00:26:11
to her kathy was in a coma for three
00:26:13
days during that time chaz made sure
00:26:15
that her 1 100 a month state pension was
00:26:18
signed over to him it would be his 1100
00:26:21
a month for the rest of his life now
00:26:23
nobody thought that was extremely large
00:26:26
amount of money but i'm thinking i could
00:26:28
live you know pretty
00:26:30
pretty well with eleven hundred dollars
00:26:32
a month more
00:26:34
than i was working for
00:26:36
when higgs's colleagues at the hospital
00:26:38
saw him they were struck by his demeanor
00:26:40
he didn't seem like a man whose wife was
00:26:42
battling for survival
00:26:44
the day after she was admitted he went
00:26:47
to go pick up a paycheck from a
00:26:48
colleague and even brought that
00:26:50
colleague a box of donuts as a thank you
00:26:53
he was checking on her pension
00:26:55
he was bringing donuts to the nurses
00:26:57
he
00:26:58
was not always as nurses would later
00:27:01
testify behaving as a husband who was
00:27:04
deeply concerned about his wife who was
00:27:07
lying there in a comatose state
00:27:09
[Music]
00:27:10
friends family workmates everyone who
00:27:13
came across chas during these difficult
00:27:14
days were confused by his calmness his
00:27:17
joviality
00:27:19
after three days it became clear she
00:27:21
wasn't going to regain consciousness
00:27:23
on july 11 2006
00:27:25
kathy's family made the decision to take
00:27:27
her off of life support and she died
00:27:35
when news came that kathy augustine had
00:27:37
died in the hospital that life support
00:27:39
had been terminated
00:27:41
three days in i think the public felt
00:27:43
terrible for her and for her family we
00:27:46
had lost someone who held a very high
00:27:48
office in this state who had blazed a
00:27:49
trail for female politicians for all
00:27:52
politicians
00:27:54
and she was gone
00:27:56
[Music]
00:27:57
with a star of nevada politics dead at
00:27:59
the age of 50 it was time for detectives
00:28:02
to start asking some serious questions
00:28:04
to put it all together that was the
00:28:06
challenge how do you how do you go from
00:28:09
a healthy
00:28:10
50 year old
00:28:12
female
00:28:13
to a dead 50 year old female
00:28:16
the investigation would begin by
00:28:18
questioning those closest to kathy but
00:28:20
as her family prepared to bury her
00:28:22
knowing he was a suspect in her death
00:28:24
her husband did something quite shocking
00:28:28
on july 14th chaz higgs attempted
00:28:30
suicide
00:28:33
he was found by kathy's daughter dallas
00:28:35
having slit his wrists and was briefly
00:28:38
hospitalized he missed kathy's funeral
00:28:40
he
00:28:42
slits the wrists but not very well
00:28:45
and lays down in the bathtub in the
00:28:47
house that he and kathy had in las vegas
00:28:50
uh wrote a big long note
00:28:54
blaming other people in this world
00:28:58
talking to people talking to his
00:29:00
daughter
00:29:01
talking to
00:29:03
kathy's brother
00:29:04
[Music]
00:29:05
signs it sincerely chaz higgs
00:29:09
it says i'm going to see my wife
00:29:14
did chaz higgs really intend to kill
00:29:16
himself and if he did what was he
00:29:18
feeling grief remorse or something else
00:29:22
the suicide attempt following the murder
00:29:24
is one of the most psychologically
00:29:26
revealing of all factors here
00:29:30
it the fact that even this
00:29:33
has to become about chaz uh
00:29:37
is terribly revealing
00:29:40
and i don't think for a minute that he
00:29:42
wasn't suffering the pain
00:29:45
but the fact that it was the pain
00:29:47
produced by him himself
00:29:50
is again just a classic symptom of the
00:29:52
immaturity
00:29:54
of the the lack of self-regulation of
00:29:57
self-analysis of self-awareness of of
00:30:00
these type of peter pan psychological
00:30:02
characters
00:30:05
meanwhile an autopsy on kathy augustine
00:30:07
failed to establish a cause of death
00:30:09
doctors and police were mystified
00:30:12
nothing was found
00:30:14
in the sense of a cause of death
00:30:18
found that her heart was in good shape
00:30:20
that her lungs were in good shape
00:30:23
there was no
00:30:24
evidence of a brain bleed or anything
00:30:27
like that
00:30:28
there was something though the
00:30:30
postmortem picked up a tiny injury to
00:30:31
kathy's body that no one could explain
00:30:34
there was a a puncture wound on her hip
00:30:36
uh that had turned
00:30:38
it turned black and blue a little bit
00:30:41
uh as if whoever did it was in a rush or
00:30:44
didn't know quite
00:30:45
you know how to get it done without
00:30:46
hurting somebody neither the hospital
00:30:48
nor the paramedics had administered a
00:30:50
drug to kathy via an injection in her
00:30:52
hip
00:30:53
when the hospital toxicologist examined
00:30:55
samples of kathy's tissues and blood
00:30:57
after her death the only traces that
00:30:59
were found were of drugs legitimately
00:31:01
given to kathy by the doctors nurses and
00:31:04
paramedics who've been caring for her
00:31:06
the blood and tissue samples came up
00:31:08
with nothing when the autopsy was
00:31:11
finished and there was no
00:31:12
apparent cause of death
00:31:15
that resulted from that those tests i
00:31:18
think all of us knew something was up so
00:31:20
it was just
00:31:21
i have no case there's nothing to
00:31:23
prosecute
00:31:25
she just died
00:31:27
if chance had done something to cause
00:31:29
kathy's death it seemed he might get
00:31:31
away with it
00:31:37
the wounds on his wrists were healing
00:31:39
chas had his job back and kathy's
00:31:41
pension too
00:31:43
he was ready to get on with his life i
00:31:46
didn't have enough information
00:31:48
to question
00:31:49
the death and i didn't have enough
00:31:51
information to say oh she just died
00:31:54
charles higgs may have thought he was
00:31:56
sitting pretty but unbeknownst to him
00:31:58
the local sheriff's department was far
00:32:00
from done with the mysterious death of
00:32:02
kathy augustine
00:32:04
and neither were his nursing colleagues
00:32:07
these very alert nurses took blood
00:32:09
samples and urine samples and put them
00:32:11
in a refrigerator
00:32:13
under an assumed name
00:32:16
[Music]
00:32:26
critical can nurse chas higgs appeared
00:32:28
to have got over the death of kathy
00:32:29
augustine he seemed to write it off as
00:32:32
an unfortunate tragedy
00:32:33
not everybody was quite so willing to
00:32:36
move on
00:32:37
there was
00:32:39
an undercurrent of suspicion
00:32:41
surrounding kathy augustine's death
00:32:44
some of the police officers
00:32:46
implied that there was an investigation
00:32:49
going on behind the scenes that
00:32:51
really was pointing away from a natural
00:32:55
medical
00:32:56
problem or cause of death
00:33:00
in fact as cathy had lain in a hospital
00:33:02
bed fighting for survival two very
00:33:04
important things happened
00:33:06
the first was that deeply suspicious
00:33:08
nurses trusted their gut instincts when
00:33:11
kathy was rushed into hospital they knew
00:33:13
that something about her condition
00:33:15
didn't make sense
00:33:16
she
00:33:17
she or they the two of them decided to
00:33:19
take the body fluids
00:33:21
from kathy
00:33:23
right upon her entry in the into that
00:33:25
hospital
00:33:26
these very alert nurses took blood
00:33:28
samples and urine samples and put them
00:33:31
in a refrigerator
00:33:33
under an assumed name this doesn't look
00:33:35
right we're taking the fluids thank you
00:33:38
the second thing that happened a day or
00:33:39
two later was that higgs's colleague kim
00:33:42
raimi contacted the police she reported
00:33:45
a troubling conversation that she'd had
00:33:46
with higgs on july the 7th
00:33:49
the day before his wife was taken ill
00:33:52
chas confided in a co-worker that he was
00:33:54
considering divorce
00:33:56
later that same day with the same
00:33:58
co-worker kim raimi he happened to
00:34:00
mention a news story in which a husband
00:34:03
had killed his wife chaz higgs said he
00:34:05
did it all wrong
00:34:07
if i'm going to kill someone i'm just
00:34:09
going to hit him with a shot of sucks or
00:34:11
succino choline and he made the
00:34:13
injection kind of movement with his hand
00:34:18
and she she said that scared her
00:34:21
a good deal said the hair on her arms
00:34:24
stood up he said that it would have been
00:34:26
much better if the husband had used
00:34:30
zucchino choline
00:34:31
because that particular drug a paralytic
00:34:34
that's very frequently found on crash
00:34:35
carts in intensive care units and
00:34:37
emergency rooms isn't traceable after
00:34:40
death
00:34:41
the drug is quick acting as far as
00:34:43
paralyzes quickly
00:34:46
it's also quick acting as far as it
00:34:48
moves out of the system quickly and it
00:34:50
was because of kim raymie that
00:34:54
you know the case really took off and
00:34:55
they knew what to test for and they knew
00:34:57
what to look for because of a comment
00:34:59
that he had made
00:35:01
if this really was what chaz higgs had
00:35:03
used to kill his wife it was a
00:35:05
remarkably cruel weapon of choice
00:35:08
sectional choline is used by
00:35:09
anesthesiologists to paralyze the
00:35:12
the
00:35:14
throat muscles the lungs
00:35:18
so that they can intubate a person
00:35:21
uh without causing too much harm and
00:35:23
without much fight back it's a general
00:35:25
paralytic
00:35:26
but when too much is given it can be
00:35:28
fatal and
00:35:30
even more horrifically
00:35:32
the person
00:35:33
is often aware of what's happening and
00:35:36
it takes about six to ten minutes to die
00:35:38
they can feel it the entire time i think
00:35:41
what struck me most about this case was
00:35:42
how cold and how calculated
00:35:45
this death was
00:35:47
imagine
00:35:49
giving someone a drug that stops them
00:35:51
from breathing
00:35:52
and stops them from crying out or
00:35:55
calling for help or moving a drug that's
00:35:58
going to make someone suffocate
00:36:01
to death in front of you for six or
00:36:03
eight minutes they know they're going to
00:36:04
die and there's nothing they can do
00:36:06
about it it's an agonizing death it's
00:36:09
part and parcel of somebody this
00:36:10
self-centered that
00:36:12
the drug he chose was one that
00:36:15
caused a lot of suffering to the victim
00:36:19
he just wouldn't have thought that
00:36:21
through properly
00:36:23
it now seems certain that chas higgs had
00:36:26
chosen to inject caffeine augustine with
00:36:28
succinylcholine because the drug
00:36:30
wouldn't be detected postmortem
00:36:35
would the actions of the nurses who had
00:36:36
taken samples from kathy while she was
00:36:38
still alive
00:36:39
now help bring chaz higgs to justice
00:36:42
after kim rainey's phone call to
00:36:44
detectives investigators knew what to
00:36:46
test for
00:36:47
those nurses had not gone in and gotten
00:36:49
those fluids
00:36:50
it would have been a whole lot harder if
00:36:52
not impossible to make a case against
00:36:54
chas higgs
00:36:57
we sent the bodies the tissue samples
00:37:00
and the fluids
00:37:02
to the fbi lab in quantico where they
00:37:05
began testing and this was in july
00:37:10
a waiting game began chas higgs had told
00:37:12
fellow nurses that he wanted his wife
00:37:14
dead he had boasted about knowing the
00:37:16
best way to kill someone
00:37:18
yet if the toxicology report had come
00:37:20
back clean
00:37:24
you're waiting two months two and a half
00:37:25
months
00:37:26
to get
00:37:28
evidence that there even was a crime we
00:37:30
didn't know what was happening behind
00:37:32
the scenes as far as
00:37:34
you know body fluids and tissue samples
00:37:37
being sent to the fbi
00:37:38
laboratory in virginia we didn't get the
00:37:41
results back till september 26th i think
00:37:46
finally is the hot nevada summer due to
00:37:48
a close a breakthrough the samples sent
00:37:51
to the fbi had contained traces of the
00:37:53
anaesthetic drug suctional colin
00:37:56
police put out a warrant for chas's
00:37:58
arrest and on september 29 2006 he was
00:38:01
found and arrested in hampton virginia
00:38:04
there was enough to arrest him enough
00:38:06
for a warrant to search his belongings
00:38:09
and it was at this point that detectives
00:38:12
were able to seize the evidence that
00:38:13
would prove beyond a doubt that chaz
00:38:15
higgs had poisoned his wife
00:38:19
when they combed through his car they
00:38:21
couldn't believe their luck
00:38:22
at the time of his arrest he was
00:38:24
carrying a backpack that contained a
00:38:26
nursing manual there was a bookmark on
00:38:28
the page about administering sequin
00:38:31
choline there was
00:38:32
a packet of three by five cards for lack
00:38:35
of a better description
00:38:37
and the very top one
00:38:39
was
00:38:41
a card that dealt with sectional choline
00:38:45
administration use that sort of thing
00:38:49
higgs had boasted about committing the
00:38:50
perfect murder so how had he come to
00:38:52
leave such an incriminating trail of
00:38:54
evidence people like this do often get
00:38:57
caught by the carelessness the uh which
00:39:01
is typical of such egocentric people um
00:39:05
they're so unconcerned with other people
00:39:08
that the the flip side is that they're
00:39:10
very unaware of the clues that they're
00:39:12
leaving
00:39:14
the prosecution's case was all but water
00:39:17
tight yet in court higgs insisted he was
00:39:19
innocent of kathy augustine's murder
00:39:22
he just was saying what he needed to say
00:39:25
and we led him because i wasn't about to
00:39:27
stop him from saying anything because i
00:39:29
wanted to talk to him
00:39:30
he said i love my wife
00:39:33
i wouldn't do that
00:39:35
well what were you doing with ramirez
00:39:37
telling her you wanted to drive that
00:39:39
[Â __Â ] crazy
00:39:40
and it was working and it was your goal
00:39:43
to be rid of her
00:39:44
what i wanted to do
00:39:46
or what the purpose of my
00:39:47
cross-examination was
00:39:50
was to point out to everybody within
00:39:54
hearing distance
00:39:55
that what he said was complete and utter
00:39:59
junk
00:40:00
out on bail during the trial chas higgs
00:40:02
ends his first day on the stand heads
00:40:05
back to where he is staying with former
00:40:07
hospital colleagues
00:40:08
and repeats a dramatic action
00:40:10
one that he'd carried out a few months
00:40:12
earlier
00:40:14
mr higgs is in the hospital
00:40:18
because he had done his second suicide
00:40:21
attempt
00:40:23
as successful as the first one
00:40:26
where he cuts himself and lays down the
00:40:28
bathroom floor
00:40:30
in a house where he knows people are
00:40:31
going to be around and check and they
00:40:33
find him and get him to the hospital
00:40:35
before anything bad happens
00:40:37
his second suicide attempt leaves him
00:40:39
far from close to death in fact he is
00:40:42
returned to court the next day
00:40:45
we talked to the gun and said well we'll
00:40:46
just
00:40:47
cancel the day and let the jury know
00:40:49
we'll call them
00:40:51
as soon as he's available to testify
00:40:54
and oh by the way judge i want you to
00:40:56
revoke his bail
00:40:57
because we can't have him out on the
00:40:59
street or he's going to try to kill
00:41:00
himself that's just not good we don't
00:41:02
want him dead
00:41:03
we want him on trial
00:41:06
of course when i ask that his bill be
00:41:08
revoked for that reason his attorney
00:41:10
said i was a barbarian and
00:41:12
or that was barbaric
00:41:15
the judge did not feel the request
00:41:17
barbaric higgs was kept in jail and
00:41:19
julie returned to the stand where he
00:41:21
faced an old-school attorney move from
00:41:24
tom barb who was trying to show the jury
00:41:26
how little damage higgs had done to
00:41:28
himself with his suicide attempt
00:41:31
when he first took the stand i walk up
00:41:33
to him with a blank sheet of paper and a
00:41:35
pen
00:41:36
and tell him to draw me a diagram of
00:41:39
your house
00:41:40
just you know whatever it is just to
00:41:42
draw me a diagram of your house
00:41:45
and so he starts drawing and the only
00:41:48
purpose in that
00:41:49
was to let everybody know that his
00:41:51
wrists weren't immobile or they weren't
00:41:54
broken or anything like that he could
00:41:56
draw and he could write
00:41:58
and and he did it chas higgs told lie
00:42:01
after lie
00:42:04
he just wasn't believable in anything he
00:42:07
said he was just a liar chaz higgs's
00:42:10
trial continued through 2007 and on june
00:42:12
29 2007 he was convicted
00:42:17
he was sentenced to life in prison and
00:42:19
he almost immediately went on suicide
00:42:21
watch
00:42:22
higgs's defense team attempted an appeal
00:42:24
but in may of 2009 the supreme court of
00:42:27
nevada upheld the conviction you got
00:42:31
life with the possibility of parole
00:42:32
after 20 years
00:42:34
to donna young's chas higgs personality
00:42:36
was fatally flawed and it was his flaws
00:42:38
and his mistakes that would eventually
00:42:41
sign his arrest warrant
00:42:43
the absolute self-centeredness which
00:42:45
which made it possible made it easy for
00:42:47
chas to discard of kathy um also in the
00:42:50
end uh trips him up uh produces the
00:42:54
carelessness in his behavior which trips
00:42:56
him up chas higgs was found guilty of
00:42:59
the murder of kathy augustine he was
00:43:01
sentenced to life in prison and will not
00:43:03
be eligible for parole until the year
00:43:05
2027
00:43:25
[Music]
00:43:55
you
