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[Music] up next a state politician mysteriously dies after her impeachment trial
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experts don't know why i personally have not known a woman 50 years old dropped out of a heart
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attack a microscopic clue points towards foul play no one could account for this puncture wound in her left hip
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were her political enemies to blame or was it someone closer to home if you're asking me my opinion he hated
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her the clean get cleaner and the dirty get dirtier kathy augustine was one of the most
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colorful politicians in nevada state politics she was the state's first female
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controller and she was on president bush's shortlist to become the secretary of the
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treasury whether you agreed with her politics or not you could not doubt that this woman was a force of
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nature but augustine's star fell as quickly as it rose not guilty madam president in 2004
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her political enemies accused her of violating election laws and her case was brought before the
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state legislature i think that we can finally get a fair and nonpartisan trial in the state senate but the trial didn't
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go her way kathy augustine was convicted of using state personnel and equipment for her
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campaign and was fined fifteen thousand dollars i think she felt the impeachment was a
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joke i think kathy considered leaving politics after the impeachment um but she really wanted to clear her
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name she was one of the top five elected officials in the state some people thought she was not very
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nice and some people thought she was the greatest thing since cupcakes two years later
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kathy augustine ran again for state treasurer but in the middle of that campaign kathy
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fell ill something's wrong with my wife she's not breathing she's not breathing at all
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not breathing at all oh i need some help when paramedics arrived kathy was barely alive they gave her two drugs to
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assist her kind of jolt her back into into business and then they loaded her into the ambulance
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and took her to the hospital doctors suspected a heart attack and performed an angiogram
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but it showed no blockages and her condition continued to deteriorate she was in a coma and completely
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unresponsive she was completely motionless and on a respirator there really was no
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no chance of her recovering and living after three days the family had to make a difficult choice
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we made the decision to withdraw life support it was a tough decision but it was a decision that was made a
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little easier by the fact that kathy had clearly expressed that in her will after kathy's death
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her husband chaz was able to provide some important details he said he awoke early that morning got
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up did some chores and when he returned to the bedroom realized kathy was unresponsive
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just checked her out she wasn't breathing she had no pulse so i started cpr chaz and other family members said that
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in the days before her death kathy seemed her usual self i saw kathy about two weeks before her
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death and she appeared to be in very good spirits in fact my wife and i commented that
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we had never seen her so happy unfortunately kathy's autopsy provided few answers
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there was no significant hardening of the arteries nor was there any evidence that a blood clot
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had clogged or occluded the arteries nothing was found the medical examiner couldn't say cause of death couldn't say
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man her death because she had no reason for her to die could she have had a brain aneurysm the
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thing was the autopsy showed nothing that showed any evidence of a cause of death right off the top so
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what caused kathy augustine's death the family wanted answers several days after kathy augustine died
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emergency workers were called to her house yet again this is fire dispatch okay what are we going out
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there for kathleen's augustine's husband's attempted suicide okay do you know what
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message no he's at his wrist he's unconscious we've got a call from a neighbor that an ambulance was outside
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kathy's home and they were wheeling jazz away chaz higgs left a suicide note saying
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he couldn't live without his wife kathy he blamed her political enemies for her
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death thank you for taking my wife away from me she was fighting for her life a life
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that was taken away by non-caring politicians my wife's career was ruined by you i
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want to be buried beside my wife so we can hold hands in the sunshine fortunately chas received medical
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attention in time and he survived the next day kathy's funeral went ahead as planned
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friends and foes alike were there it was a heartbreaking ceremony these people loved her and they missed her and
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they mourned her but hanging over that whole funeral were so many questions about
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why she had died kathy augustine and chaz higgs had been married for only three years
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and for kathy it was her fourth marriage her previous husband charles augustine was an airline pilot
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he'd suffered a stroke and was hospitalized and chas higgs was his nurse that's when kathy and chaz met
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they were seen together in the hospital having meals together in the hospital cafeteria
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a relative of charles augustine was quoted as saying he thought that was odd that kathy and the nurse were spending
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so much time together charles augustine died in the hospital kathy married chaz just three weeks
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later it was a relationship that evolved very quickly and certainly took all of kathy's
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friends and family's family members off guard my wife and i were sort of gagging you know
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it just seemed very naive and of course we didn't express that to her i mean we
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wished her well and and hoped for the best but uh clearly and i think we've all learned
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a lesson from that kathy was the beneficiary of charles augustine's one million dollar life
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insurance policy investigators learned that kathy and charles were talking about a divorce before he
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suffered the stroke it's unclear whether cathy would have remained the beneficiary had the two divorced
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investigators now wondered if charles augustine had been a victim of foul play but their immediate concern was the
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investigation of kathy's death very early in my career a very seasoned homicide detective shared with me
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something that's always kind of stayed with me and he said that during the course of a
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good investigation the clean get cleaner and the dirty get dirtier the medical examiner told police she saw
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something suspicious during kathy augustine's autopsy two small bruises on kathy's left buttock there was
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at least one injection if not two uh probable injection or needle puncture sites
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identified in an unusual location for therapy and the puncture sites were not ever
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accounted for with the record of medical therapy investigators now wondered if someone
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had murdered kathy augustine as police investigated the death of kathy augustine
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they had to consider the possibility that her husband chas higgs a registered nurse
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was somehow involved jazz told everyone who would listen that their three-year marriage was a
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happy one co-workers however disputed that he used to say some nasty things about his
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wife a nurse would see that he's busy doing something walk over and say is there anything i can do to help and
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his response usually was yeah get rid of my wife a search of chasis computer revealed
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some surprising emails which proved chas was having affairs chaz higgs wrote to a woman a co-worker
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and said i'm doing everything i can to make this blank crazy and it's working i want to be with
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you i don't want to be with her you have my heart investigators were also suspicious when
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they listened to his entire 9-1-1 call something's wrong with my wife she's not
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breathing i don't know what happened to her it's not trauma or anything she's been
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really stressed you know over the last six months or so hey i'm gonna do some more cpr okay yeah
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he does not sound like the panic stricken grieving husband who is surprised to find his otherwise healthy wife
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unconscious unresponsive and near death an ambulance worker said chaz didn't look very concerned either
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one of the things that the paramedics reported was mr higgs's being seated in the
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passenger seat of the ambulance reading the newspaper as his wife was being rushed to the hospital
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i don't care how tough you are if your wife's in the back end of that ambulance and you don't know why and
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you're not certain she's going to survive i don't think you can read the macy's
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ads one of kathy augustine's friends told police kathy called her the night before
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she died she said her three-year marriage to chaz higgs was over chas higgs asked for a divorce
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the night before he found his wife dead in their bed in reno kathy's estate was worth over a million
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dollars investigators also learned that chas higgs made an incriminating statement to
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a co-worker the night kathy was planning to end their marriage she was a nurse who worked with chaz
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higgs and she said that on the night before kathy augustine fell ill that chas had said if you really
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want to kill someone give them a shot of sucks they can't trace it post-mortem
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to this nurse sucks was a substance called succinylcholine succinylcholine is a drug that is used
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to paralyze people it's a paralytic drug it's typically used when an individual
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is under anesthesia for an operation in order to paralyze their muscles succinylcholine is usually given in very
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small doses it's fast acting and leaves the body quickly it has a half-life which means the time
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it takes for half of the drug to disappear of about one minute in large doses it's fatal and as a critical care
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nurse it's a drug chas higgs would have had access to but investigators were worried
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if chas higgs used succinyl choline there would be no way to prove it since the drug leaves the body so quickly i
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was concerned that that he might actually get away with murder but investigators remained hopeful that
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if higgs did commit murder that he left some trace persons who break the law fortunately for me are not
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always you know the brightest bulbs in the chandelier crooks make mistakes if they were smarter they wouldn't get
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caught nearly as often then a week after kathy's death police got a break a nurse who worked in the hospital's
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emergency room called police with some important information she said when kathy was first admitted to the
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hospital she and a co-worker didn't believe kathy was having a heart attack instead they suspected she had been
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poisoned so they immediately took samples of kathy's blood and urine and had them frozen if kathy had been
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poisoned with succinyl choline freezing these samples might give investigators the evidence they needed the
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succincoline survives longer in the urine because there are not enzymes in the urine
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that break it down like there are in the blood sample investigators acted quickly there's only
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two labs that i'm aware of in the country that can test for success one of them is the fbi lab in virginia
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it was there that kathy's urine sample was subjected to liquid chromatography
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mass spectrometry the analysis was a targeted analysis the instruments were set up specifically to
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look for succinylcholine kathy's urine tested positive for trace amounts of succinylcholine
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had the samples not been frozen immediately it would have been useless chaz higgs was arrested
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and charged with his wife's murder in searching his car they found a stack of
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three by five cards very top card told all of the uses and dosages for success investigators now wondered if kathy's
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previous husband charles augustine had been murdered too kathy augustine's death was now ruled a
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homicide her husband chaz higgs was arrested and charged with her murder he denied taking succinal choline from
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work but his access to the drug and his public statements about his wife made him
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the likely suspect everything pointed to suctional choline chas higgs had access to it that chas
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higgs was angry with his wife the chas higgs had mentioned using that particular drug on someone in order to
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kill them 12 hours before her body was found prosecutors believe chaz woke up before kathy on the morning of the
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murder he filled a syringe with the succinal choline he had probably stolen from work and
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injected her as she slept [Music] he called 9-1-1 to report finding his wife unconscious
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to his surprise emergency technicians revived her and took her to the hospital there two nurses immediately suspected
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some sort of poisoning they took blood and urine samples and froze them for later analysis
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had that not been done the outcome may have been very different we're very fortunate in
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our community that those medical professionals had the foresight to guard that sample to preserve it properly it
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was quickly frozen and made available for forensic testing and those things all played our favor
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and the motive if you're asking me my opinion is what the motive was he hated
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her you know i've seen kids killed over tennis shoes over two or three dollars
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i've seen spouses kill each other over the most moronic of arguments for a spouse to kill another spouse
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it doesn't have to be a good motive but i think clearly the evidence showed that
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chaz did not want to be with kathy a year after kathy's murder chaz went on trial
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the day before he was to take the stand he attempted suicide yet again i think it was another selfish
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attempt for him to misdirect attention away from what he had done and to try and garner sympathy from the
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jury when he recovered he testified in his own defense because i didn't do it i wouldn't do
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that he was just as cold on the stand as he had been sitting in his chair bandages on his wrists didn't make him
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any more likeable to the jury another prosecution witness used chas's own words against him
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he said to me mary actually remember it because it was so vivid that if i didn't have a daughter in las
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vegas i would kill my wife and throw her down a mine shaft after a 10-day trial chas higgs
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faced the jury we the jury in the above entitled matter find the defendant chas higgs guilty
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of first degree murder chaz higgs was sentenced to life in prison he'll be eligible for
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parole after 20 years investigators have questioned whether higgs had anything to do
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with the death of kathy's previous husband charles augustine jazz higgs first met the augustines when
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charles augustine suffered a stroke higgs was one of his nurses at the hospital that's how he first met kathy
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according to investigators kathy and charles had been talking about a divorce before his stroke so perhaps
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it wasn't inappropriate for her to strike up a friendship with chaz higgs when charles augustine died in the
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hospital as his wife kathy was the beneficiary of his one million dollar life insurance
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policy three weeks later she married chaz higgs in 2007 charles augustine's body was
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exhumed and tested for succinylcholine they did find the metabolite of sectional choline
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succinyl monocholine a metabolite means it's a byproduct of succinylcholine if you don't look for it you don't find
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it and that's not a condescending answer that is the truth there has never been a documented case
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of succinal monocholine produced as a result of embalming fluid however in charles augustine's case there were
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no records of which embalming fluids were used so this possibility however remote could
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not be eliminated therefore the medical examiner did not change the manner of his death
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to homicide i'm sure that there will always be some well-placed suspicions surrounding
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mr augustine's death for now chas higgs is in prison because two emergency room nurses
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made a split-second decision that foiled his well-laid plans but for the high-tech testing methods and the
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forensics technology available i think this case would have been a mystery forever this whole case was based on
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forensic evidence and had it not been for the hard work of the fbi and for the diligence of the
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detectives involved and for the sharp eyes and ears of the medical professionals
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he may have gotten away with it all i know is what the evidence showed that jury
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and the evidence showed that jury that this guy was a murderer