00:00:11
The life of Dallas Augustine, daughter of a connected Republican. She knew what she wanted. She had her
00:00:18
eyes on the prize. She wanted national office. Dallas's mother would be murdered by her
00:00:24
husband. Telephone 911. My wife is not breathing. The tragedies just kept on coming. Her
00:00:32
sister was to die in a traffic accident. Dallas Augustine found refuge in a same-sex marriage with someone whose
00:00:39
carefree nature was just what she needed. Jesse McKascal was a very different person from Dallas. She was really
00:00:46
upbeat, happy, smart. Would Jesse prove the perfect match? or were the lives of a couple whose love
00:00:53
was born out of despair heading for a double tragedy. There was infidelity allegations and
00:01:00
they had been involved in a couple of physical fights. It's a real life story that seems too
00:01:06
tragic to be true. The lives and loves of Jesse McKascal and Dallas Augustine. [Music]
00:01:34
[Music] August 27, 2012 Phoenix, Arizona, a lakeside condo shared by Dallas Augustine and her wife Jesse McKascal.
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Phoenix Police officers responded to a residence in the area of 11th Place in Greenway. Uh family members and friends
00:02:00
had called the Phoenix Police Department because they were concerned that they had not seen Dallas or Jesse for a few
00:02:05
days. Neighbors had noticed troubling signs the previous week, but things had been
00:02:10
quiet for days. What was going on? A kidnapping? Maybe there was an innocent explanation.
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When officers arrived, they approached the residents. They did see a couple of friends and neighbors that were outside.
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The door was open. It was unlocked. The officers went inside and that's when
00:02:30
they saw Dallas and Jesse. Police had arrived with questions. Some were answered on stepping into the
00:02:36
house. Both of them were inside the residence and they were deceased. And it loo it
00:02:42
appeared to them that it had been a couple of days that they had been in that uh state.
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There was blood just everywhere around them. Something extraordinary had taken place
00:02:51
in an ordinary home in Maricopa County, Arizona. It was a very impulsive thing that
00:02:57
happened, but at the same time, I think it was inevitable. Dallas and Jesse. Wedding day
00:03:02
photographs from 5 years earlier showed a seemingly blissful relationship. How had things ended in a suburban blood
00:03:09
bath? Dallas Augustine was born in 1979 in Orange County, California. By the time
00:03:17
she was a young adult, she'd seen more than her fair share of tragedy. Dallas really had a tough life. She'd
00:03:23
had a background um marked by tragedy. Dallas Augustine's life included seeing
00:03:28
her parents' divorce. She then grew up fond of her stepfather, Charles, known
00:03:33
as Chuck. He'd been an airline pilot and a Vietnam veteran. She was uh said to be
00:03:38
pretty close to her father, Charles. The same could not be said for Dallas's
00:03:43
relationship with her mother. Kathy Augustine had forged a career as a Republican lawmaker in Nevada where the
00:03:49
family lived. Her life was very much about attention seeking. I'm Victoria Campbell. I worked as a
00:03:55
television reporter in Reno, Nevada for almost 25 years, assigned primarily to the crime and courtbeat.
00:04:02
Reporter Campbell got to know Dallas's mom in 1992. She had been elected to a
00:04:08
two-year term in the state assembly. In 1994, she had been elected to the state senate. And in 1998, she became the
00:04:15
first female to become the Nevada state controller. Dallas Augustine would have been raised
00:04:20
in a lifestyle that was very much sort of put on for the public. She wasn't um terribly close to her
00:04:26
mother. They kind of had a rocky relationship, but then Dallas had a difficult relationship with her whole
00:04:32
family. Her mother being in politics must have really cared about appearances. It's just part of the job
00:04:37
of a politician. Kathy was known as a very uh tough boss to work for, she was very strong. She
00:04:43
took no prisoners. She took no guff from anybody in what she did. While some people said you could hear her laughing
00:04:51
all around the state capital building, uh you could also hear her shouting at her employees.
00:04:57
Did her mother's strong personality get in the way of Dallas's relationship with
00:05:01
her mother? A question considered by psychologist Judy Hoe. She probably just never felt accepted by
00:05:07
her mother and she probably felt because of her mother's life in the public eye
00:05:10
that the public was more important than she was. She was tough there. There was really no
00:05:15
other word for it. Um she she knew what she wanted. She had her eyes on the prize. She wanted national office. I
00:05:24
think she had great aspirations and ambitions uh in politics. Would it have helped Dallas's mom's political career
00:05:30
back in the '90s for her daughter to reveal something to the world that she was a lesbian?
00:05:35
I wonder how open she was able to be with her mother about her own interest, her sexual preference, all of those
00:05:42
self-doubts really played Dallas for much of her life. Indeed, the emotional side of her life
00:05:48
was never easy for Dallas Augustine. It was early in her 20s when her stepfather
00:05:52
Chuck suffered a massive stroke. They said it was natural causes. uh but he was only 63 years old so that was
00:05:59
really hard on her. Friends said Chuck's death left her bereft. Her confidence never high took a
00:06:04
knock. The woman who would become her partner, Jesse McKascal, appeared to have no confidence issues. She was 18
00:06:11
years older than Dallas and had come into her life not long after the death of Chuck.
00:06:15
Jesse McKascal was a very different person from Dallas. She was said to be just really upbeat, happy, smart. Um,
00:06:24
people loved being around her. She was fiercely loyal of her friends. Uh, she loved to travel and to write and and um
00:06:32
to entertain. She was one of those really optimistic, hopeful people. Jesse was someone who would share the
00:06:39
ups and downs of Dallas's life, which at times appeared almost like a soap opera.
00:06:44
3 weeks after Chuck died, Kathy Augustine married again to the very man who had nursed her husband, Chuck,
00:06:52
while he was being treated. and was seriously ill. One of his nurses was Chaz Higgs and he made Kathy Augustine's
00:07:00
acquaintance while she was there uh tending to her husband. They were estranged at that point. Uh Charles and
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Kathy Augustine were estranged and heading toward divorce um when he fell ill. Um Charles Augustine died in summer
00:07:17
of 2003. Three weeks later, Kathy Augustine and Chaz Higgs were married in Hawaii, three weeks after Charles
00:07:25
Augustine died. Kathy Augustine's family and friends, I think, were uh taken by surprise, would
00:07:31
probably be an understatement when she um married him so quickly after Charles Augustine had passed away.
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Dallas's life story just kept on getting complicated. Kathy, when just 50, also
00:07:44
died. A murder mystery begins. prosecuting attorney Tom Barb went to the autopsy, watched that from
00:07:52
beginning to end. Nothing was found in the sense of a cause of death. Found that her heart was in good shape, that
00:08:01
her lungs were in good shape. Uh there was no evidence of of a brain bleed or anything like that. Um so the cause of
00:08:10
death was hanging until the toxicology reports came back. Kathy Augustine's death just didn't add up.
00:08:18
She just died. It's kind of like sudden infant death syndrome where the the baby
00:08:23
just dies and there's really no explanation, but this would have been an adult case.
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Months later, the toxicology report suggested that Dallas's mom had died because she had been injected with a
00:08:35
drug called suinal coline. Dallas had more to cope with than just Chuck's death. Kathy Augustine, Dallas's mother,
00:08:43
is murdered by her husband, um, Chaz. And he killed Kathy by poisoning her with a an overdose of a powerful muscle
00:08:52
relaxant. Can't have people going around sticking people with needles full of suinal
00:08:57
choline. Just can't have it. Chaz Higgs was sentenced to life in prison in 2007.
00:09:04
After the death of both of her parents, Dallas Augustine struggled to build a new life for herself. Dallas must have
00:09:10
felt abandoned. They died and she was alone. She was effectively an orphan. And she had something else to handle.
00:09:19
Chuck was relatively young when he died. Were Chaz Higgs and his lover Dallas's
00:09:25
mom Kathy possibly involved in his death. After Cathy's death, people start speculating, wait a minute, could
00:09:32
Charles Austinine's death maybe have been caused by Chaz and Kathy. It became
00:09:38
clear that suinal choline was going to play a role in the prosecution into her death. Uh the adult children of Charles
00:09:46
Augustine asked to have his body exumed to see if there was any trace of suinal choline in his body because they were
00:09:53
not sure and they suspected but were not sure if Chaz Higgs may have paid played
00:09:58
a role in their father's death. Now Dallas is sort of trying to defend her her mother's name.
00:10:04
The body was exumed. uh tests were run, there was no evidence of suinal choline found in his body.
00:10:11
They turn up no evidence to indicate that there was any foul play there. So it seemed Dallas had lost one parent
00:10:16
to a suspicious but ultimately natural death and another to murder. That was the context of the life of Dallas
00:10:23
Augustine in 2007 as she tried married life with Jesse McCascal. Dallas is not somebody who hasn't suffered grief,
00:10:33
dealt with loss, and processed probably very little of it. I think she tried to strongarm her way through the sadness in
00:10:39
her life and just try to move on. But that grief can cut so deeply, especially when you lose both parents.
00:10:51
[Music] Kathy Augustine's murder in 2006, devastating though it was for Dallas,
00:11:07
removed any last obstacle to her developing relationship with Jesse McKascal. I think she saw Jesse as her saving
00:11:13
grace. She had lost both parents. She had nothing to tether to, and Jesse was going to be her new safe haven and her
00:11:20
stability and her rock. From the outside, they seemed to get along pretty well. So well, in fact, that the relationship
00:11:27
moved on quickly in the months that followed. About a year after Dallas's mother died,
00:11:33
she and her girlfriend decide to get married. The date is set for a small private
00:11:38
ceremony in California. September 22nd, 2007, Dallas Augustine marries her girlfriend, Jesse McKascal.
00:11:45
They'd been dating for 3 years. Dallas was 28 years old. Jesse McKascal was 45,
00:11:52
but the two of them were just very much in love. Just how much in love they were could be
00:11:57
seen from the sunny photos showing Dallas and Jesse in a wedding gown in front of a well-known tourist landmark.
00:12:03
They get married at this um sort of famous uh hotel, the hotel de Coronado on Coronado Island in Southern
00:12:10
California. And it's just beautiful there. We believe Dallas wore the tuxedo and
00:12:14
Jesse wore a white dress. You know, some might see this as sort of them taking roles in their relationship.
00:12:21
It was a brief moment of happiness in two lives that would seldom be far from tragedy.
00:12:26
To look at this picture of them on their wedding day, this happy couple, you know, her in the tuxedo, the other one
00:12:31
in in the white dress. Um, you know, they look like a very loving couple, but the reality of it was they they fought
00:12:38
like cats and dogs. It was a beautiful way to start the marriage, but as it turns out, the
00:12:43
relationship wasn't quite so picturesque. Wed bliss for Dallas Augustine and her
00:12:48
new wife Jesse McKascal was not to last long. Dallas and Jesse were married in 2007.
00:12:54
They had a big, beautiful, lavish wedding. By 2010, they started having problems.
00:13:00
In a poignant post on her Facebook page, Jesse wrote, "I have achieved one really huge
00:13:05
lifelong dream. Be careful with those. Once you're done with that, regular life
00:13:11
kind of pales for a while." was one of the reasons Jesse and Dallas were not hitting it off to do with a big
00:13:18
decision taken by Dallas just a year after the sunshine ceremony in California. In 2008, she decides to run for her
00:13:26
mother's old assembly seat. That was the first political job that Kathy Augustine
00:13:31
held. Dallas actually followed in her mother's legislative footsteps and she ran for
00:13:40
office. And I think it was a way for her to maybe honor her mother despite the relationship problems they had with one
00:13:45
another. Even though she wasn't close to her mother, she says, "You know, I really
00:13:49
had never intended to do this, but I I think my mom would be proud of me. This was a very, very important election to
00:13:56
Dallas." And Jesse, by all appearances, was very supportive of all of her career
00:14:01
pursuits. Dallas's conservative upbringing and her mother's political career meant there
00:14:05
was only one direction she could take. Dallas was going to try to go for office as a Republican.
00:14:10
She probably had many regrets about how she treated her mother, how certain arguments went down. And in some ways,
00:14:16
this was her making repairs on that relationship. And perhaps if she won this election, if she was able to take
00:14:23
office and she can do some good and she can finish the good work that her mother
00:14:26
started. For Dallas, the election didn't go according to plan. She winds up losing by over 6,000 votes.
00:14:34
So, there's another setback there. Jesse may have supported Dallas's political
00:14:38
ambitions in public, but behind closed doors, the couple's relationship was constantly volatile.
00:14:45
They were together for 8 years, and that entire 8-year relationship was very rocky for both of them.
00:14:51
Jesse's friends and family pointed the finger at Dallas, the much younger wife
00:14:55
with a troubled background. I can imagine that people thought twice about getting to know Dallas. You know,
00:15:01
she was sort of a poison pill, if you will. They said she seemed to be pretty unstable, mentally unstable, and she had
00:15:08
um uh substance abuse issues. She was uh appeared to be an alcoholic. Um she had
00:15:15
a lot of problems. Jesse's sister would eventually reveal that she believed Dallas to be an
00:15:22
alcoholic with mental issues and a lot of emotional instability going on. But police heard both women could be
00:15:30
difficult. There was one prior incident that involved both Jesse and Dallas, and
00:15:34
that incident is the one that was documented with the Phoenix Police Department.
00:15:38
Dallas was not the only one drinking heavily in this relationship. Based on some of the information that
00:15:43
was received from family and friends that were close to both Jesse and Dallas, there was allegations that there
00:15:49
was alcohol consumption and that there was recent uh problems within that relationship, which was causing a lot of
00:15:54
the drinking um from both Dallas and Jesse. had Dallas perhaps seen a a therapist or a counselor or gone gone to
00:16:04
someone and asked for help in dealing with sort of her her early life tragedies. You know, there might have
00:16:09
been hope for her. Instead of seeking professional help, Dallas took out her insecurities on her
00:16:15
wife, Jesse. Dallas and Jesse's relationship was very difficult, and most people that knew
00:16:20
them knew of the shouting, the fighting, and the difficulties that they had. For
00:16:26
a campaigner against domestic abuse, Karen Jarmach, violence between partners is not contained to heterosexual
00:16:32
relationships. Domestic violence between two individuals, we often also interchangeably refer to it as intimate
00:16:40
partner violence. And so when we say that, we mean it's between two individuals who are in an intimate
00:16:45
relationship. They're they're partners. And so, uh, one individual in that
00:16:50
relationship seeks to have control over the other. And in the case of Dallas and
00:16:55
Jesse, that battle for control escalated to ugly times. Both drank, Jesse in particular.
00:17:02
For victims of domestic violence, there's uh serious and ongoing trauma associated with being treated in this
00:17:10
way by your partner. Uh often on a daily basis, um on a yearly or over time, they
00:17:18
can become fearful to just exist in their world. They can uh develop substance use issues, uh mental health
00:17:26
challenges. All of those factors seem to exist inside the home of Dallas and Jesse.
00:17:32
We're talking some some loud arguments. The neighbors would would remark about
00:17:36
how loud the arguments were. You'd hear a lot of yelling. You'd hear the sound
00:17:40
of things smashing or breaking. It sounded like someone was throwing something. Did those arguments stem from Dallas's
00:17:46
turbulent life experiences? what she chose to do with her, you know, troubled emotions or her mental health was act
00:17:54
out in ways um that were very unhealthy. Even though Dallas and Jesse are married, uh Dallas, it appears, is
00:18:01
acting like a single woman. She's out there bar hopping, looking for some fresh catch.
00:18:07
Dallas had began to cheat on Jesse. She would go out to lesbian bars. She would meet and date and involve herself
00:18:18
with other people. Dr. Judy Hoe believes it was Dallas's unconventional way of holding things
00:18:23
together. Her trolling these bars and having an affair was her saying, "I still have
00:18:29
control. I don't need you." And it was a message she had to tell herself to just
00:18:33
survive. [Music] She really didn't pick a very healthy way of dealing with her her her issues.
00:18:43
[Music] [Applause] [Music] It appeared Dallas, the younger woman, was the married partner ready to stray,
00:18:58
hitting the bar scene. When they fought and when they argued, Dallas was the person who had her foot
00:19:04
out the door always. She was the one who would be trolling bars, flirting with other women, picking them up, basically
00:19:11
telling Jesse, "I don't need you." But then at the same time, never leaving
00:19:14
Jesse. And that must have been very, very confusing dynamic in their relationship.
00:19:18
By 2010, just 3 years after their fairy tale wedding, that relationship had taken a new disturbing turn.
00:19:24
They were all very pleasant outside, but once they got indoors, all hell broke loose. So, um, this this fighting was
00:19:31
pretty constant. And what many people didn't know is that sometimes the fights
00:19:36
would get physical. There was a documented incident where there was a history of domestic
00:19:41
violence. Dallas ended up beating Jesse in public. She physically beat Jesse outside of a
00:19:53
bowling alley in Henderson, Nevada. Their arguments had just risen to such a level that they couldn't keep it
00:19:58
contained in the home. They she was so upset and she was so overcome with fury that she couldn't control her impulses
00:20:04
to basically act out. The assault would have far-reaching consequences for both of them.
00:20:09
Dallas was charged with domestic violence and she was convicted. Domestic violence is something that our
00:20:15
department takes very seriously. Jesse did not want her family to know this. Like a lot of domestic abuse
00:20:21
victims, she wanted to keep it a secret, so she did. Dallas Augustine's life, a father figure
00:20:26
who had died in mysterious circumstances. a mother who had been murdered was coming apart at the seams.
00:20:32
The fact that Dallas was already experiencing mental health issues coupled with her substance misuse issues
00:20:39
and then all of this extra added sort of stress. Um I think it was just too much
00:20:43
for her to bear. That wasn't all. There was the question of the considerable amount of money
00:20:48
Father Chuck had left behind for Cathy. The money that she had um received as a result of Charles Augustine's death was
00:20:56
a significant amount of money. that money was going to go to her daughter, Dallas Augustine.
00:21:01
She had inherited a pretty large trust. Kathy had left her um some real estate that was worth uh about half a million
00:21:09
dollars along with about $150,000 in a money market account. Uh along with that, she had $4,600 in her father's
00:21:19
monthly annuity. And uh then there was about $100,000 worth of jewelry. She inherited quite a lot of wealth. She
00:21:27
had property. She had annuities. She had jewelry and large sums of money. Where did all that money go?
00:21:35
Nobody seemed to know, least of all the government who were pursuing Dallas for a hefty tax bill.
00:21:40
She was now uh having some pretty severe financial problems. She was $80,000 in debt. The IRS was coming after her. They
00:21:47
were going to seize her all of her assets. Dallas continued to spend a lot on drink
00:21:52
and drugs. When substances are involved, almost always impulsiveness is a factor.
00:21:58
And something that you might not have done when you were sober, you'll do when
00:22:02
you're intoxicated. We know that she had substance misuse issues um and other things going on in
00:22:08
her life. We're probably all ways of trying to cope with all of this tragedy.
00:22:13
It was the latest worrying sign to add to a dangerous cocktail of behavioral issues from Dallas.
00:22:18
There's a lot of arguing. There's substance misuse. um some violence. These are all red flags that something
00:22:27
is going wrong. Things came to a head in 2012 where Dallas went beyond trolling lesbian bars
00:22:32
for casual sex. Dallas has an affair with a woman she meets in a gay bar. Dallas trolled these bars and eventually
00:22:39
had an affair because she was trying to assert that she was still in control, that she still had power in this
00:22:45
relationship. When in fact, I bet she felt out of control all the time. Every single time that Dallas and Jesse
00:22:51
argued, I bet Dallas felt like she was going to lose Jesse. Even though Jesse had been very steadfast and very loyal
00:22:58
to Dallas this entire time, hers was a relationship web of complications. That woman at some point may have
00:23:06
threatened Dallas, that she was going to tell Jesse about the affair. Dallas was attracted to a certain type
00:23:12
of woman, someone who would stand up to her. Now she had two to deal with and one of them had to go. For the woman
00:23:18
Dallas was seeing on the side, the threat to expose their affair backfired badly.
00:23:24
This black melon actually caused Dallas to just confess it to Jesse. Dallas finally comes clean to Jesse and
00:23:31
tells her about this affair she's been having. It was crunch time for the couple's
00:23:35
already creaking marriage. They were definitely on the rocks. That caused some serious problems in her
00:23:41
relationship, resulting in Jesse asking her to leave. Jesse is just she's just
00:23:45
devastated and she's she she tells Dallas to just get out. For those who've researched the factors
00:23:52
in deteriorating relationships, a decision to end it can actually kickstart a tragic end game. Both Dallas
00:23:58
and Jesse were out of control. That's a really really critical dangerous time because things begin to
00:24:04
unravel. So, we always know uh and that's I think what's so tragic and sad
00:24:10
uh when a domestic violence homicide occurs because there are always these red flags that aren't always uh as
00:24:18
noticeable to the victim andor to those individuals around them. Um but when we look back, we we see them there.
00:24:26
After all the flings, fights, and confrontations, Dallas's confession was a step too far for Jesse. Dallas goes to
00:24:34
stay at a hotel and Jesse burns their wedding photos. If either or both of the women had
00:24:41
visited one of the domestic abuse advocates available in most states in America, they could have been
00:24:46
counseledled. Everyone's story is different. Uh, everyone's experience and their
00:24:51
relationship is different. And so that's why an advocate exists. um they are
00:24:58
certified and skilled around talking through everyone's unique circumstance and supporting them and also talking
00:25:08
about their safety. But rather than talk about what they were both feeling, Dallas and Jesse
00:25:14
asked no one for help. Still hiding the fact that she was the victim of domestic
00:25:18
abuse, Jesse now took to social media to embarrass her unfaithful wife. She posts
00:25:24
the confession that her wife had just given her that she's been having this affair with this other woman.
00:25:29
Could life get any more tortured for Dallas Augustine? Yes. In 2012, her sister Andrea Walsh was
00:25:37
killed in a car smash in Fresno County, California. She was 43. Within a decade,
00:25:43
Dallas Augustine had lost her stepfather, her mother, and her sister in tragic violent circumstances. The
00:25:50
Augustines seemed a family cursed. Here's Dallas with really no family other than Jesse,
00:25:59
a married couple at war, two women who had shared a series of traumas and the curse of the Augustine family.
00:26:05
I can imagine people probably avoided the Augustines. A tragic story was set to continue.
00:26:11
there had been recent uh issues and problems in that relationship that there was infidelity um allegations and that
00:26:19
they had been involved in a couple of physical fights amongst themselves. The neighbors used to say that they
00:26:26
heard um fighting about up to four times a month. Jesse McKascal had been shot multiple
00:26:34
times, including one shot that was fatal to the top of her head. [Music] Sometime in late 2011, Jesse and Dallas
00:26:59
Augustine separated. There had been an escalation of violence in their home. Despite her life falling apart, Dallas
00:27:06
made the decision to turn her life around. First on her priority list, finding a job. She sets her sights on
00:27:13
one with authority. She wanted a job as a prison officer. When Dallas Augustine applies for a job
00:27:20
with the Department of Public Services, she is rejected, at least at first. Dallas had originally been rejected by
00:27:29
the Arizona Department of Corrections for this domestic violence charge. She should not have been hired.
00:27:36
Dallas would not give up. After applying again and again, she was hired. She actually got the job despite her
00:27:43
conviction. And that wasn't the only red flag that she had on her record. I mean, uh there
00:27:49
was the substance abuse problems there. She'd had drunk driving issues. Uh, and
00:27:54
she also had uh financial instability. She was very financially unstable because probably because she's mentally
00:28:01
unstable. Even though Arizona state officials knew of her troubled background, Dallas was
00:28:06
duly trained as a prison officer. By August 2012, she was about to start her new job in the town of Florence, across
00:28:12
the desert, and about an hour outside Phoenix. It was kind of an exciting time in
00:28:17
Dallas's life professionally. She had just graduated and was able to move on
00:28:22
in her career. Dallas had graduated from Prison Guard Academy uh and was scheduled to be
00:28:28
assigned to uh to a prison in in Arizona. She was to report to the Florence Maximum Security Prison to begin her
00:28:36
career. As part of her preparation for her role, Dallas acquired some key new skills.
00:28:44
Dallas's training as a prison guard would have involved firearms training, weapons training.
00:28:49
How that happened when she has a domestic violence conviction? We'll never know.
00:28:54
With a state job under her belt and a newfound confidence from her training, Dallas worked on building bridges with
00:28:59
her wife, Jesse. They once again lived under the same roof. I think perhaps there was a a sense of a
00:29:05
will to still stay in this unhappy relationship and try their best to make it work. The couple talked about
00:29:11
reconciliation, maybe getting things back together. Certainly for both Jesse and Dallas,
00:29:16
there may have been this feeling of stronger commitment to try their best to make it work. Even if they were terribly
00:29:22
unhappy because they really wanted to show the world that they could make it. It seems that some things hadn't
00:29:30
changed. The neighbors still heard the disruptions and the the fights and the the violence behind the closed doors. It
00:29:38
almost seemed like their 8-year relationship was just stuck in the same place and they were repeating the same
00:29:42
pattern over and over again. Wasn't long before they started arguing constantly. The neighbors said up to
00:29:48
four times a month they could hear things breaking. It appeared both gave as good as they
00:29:53
got, but that's probably not a correct assessment. Domestic violence is really complicated.
00:29:59
Often victims have strategies of trying to stay safe or protect themselves or react uh and it might be on its face
00:30:11
looking like they're trying to perpetrate violence also or engage in it also but in fact uh they are simply
00:30:19
trying to survive dayto-day. As the fights with Jesse intensified, Dallas faced the prospect of losing her
00:30:26
wife for good. Jesse was the only real family Dallas believed she had. They try to work things out, but it's
00:30:33
it's pretty touchandgo. It it isn't going well. They're still fighting just
00:30:37
nonstop. Another split was on the cards. One way or another, Dallas wasn't going to let
00:30:44
that happen. She had a job. She was getting clean. Why would Jesse leave her now? But on August the 23rd, 2012, in
00:30:51
the dusty streets of southern Phoenix, Jesse McKascal was packing a bag in the house that she shared with Dallas
00:30:58
Augustine. Dallas saw that her life was finally coming together. She was finally
00:31:02
going to get some self-esteem, some meaning and purpose in her life. And during this time where she should have
00:31:07
been feeling as high as a kite, her partner, her lover, her wife says, "I don't love you."
00:31:15
Jesse had packed an overnight bag. And in that bag, she had her favorite jeans and some other personal items.
00:31:21
Was Jesse packing to leave Dallas for good, or was Jesse just going away for the weekend? Jesse had been loyal this
00:31:30
entire time, but Jesse finally had enough and threatened to leave. It felt like a very concrete declaration that
00:31:35
this relationship is over. Jesse may have just said, "Look, I've had it. This
00:31:39
isn't working. Um, it it's it's time to just admit that this marriage isn't
00:31:44
working. I'm I'm leaving you." The idea is that Jesse is hers. In some ways,
00:31:50
there may have been a very possessive side to Dallas. And when Jesse says she was leaving, in Dallas's mind, she's
00:31:59
thinking, "No, I'm the person who gets to step out of our marriage. I'm the
00:32:02
person who gets to troll the bars and have affairs, but you don't get to leave. You don't get to have that say."
00:32:08
Sergeant Mercedes Fortune was one of the Phoenix police officers involved in what
00:32:12
happened next. It's a quiet neighborhood. It's a residential area and the neighbors hear
00:32:18
screaming. They heard a bunch of arguing and screaming, but that was not out of the
00:32:22
ordinary. Shouting, screaming, the sound of things being broken. But after the 23rd, that's the last they
00:32:29
hear of either of them. For 4 days, suddenly, the home of the constantly arguing women in 11th place
00:32:36
Phoenix had strangely fallen silent. with Dallas's black Dodge Ram truck still parked outside.
00:32:43
It was odd, but the truck was in the driveway and the neighbors didn't really
00:32:47
think a whole lot about it. They do see that Dallas's truck is parked in the driveway and the days go
00:32:53
by and they don't see or hear from either of them. There was something else strange, too.
00:32:59
Over the next few days, Jesse made no contact with her family. Four days pass and the neighbors have been suspicious
00:33:08
and the family's gotten worried. They were concerned because they had not talked to or seen Jesse or Dallas in a
00:33:18
couple of days. The neighbors have for for days now have not heard or seen the couple, but their
00:33:26
dogs are barking, which is unusual. They're just constantly barking. So, they're thinking something is odd with
00:33:34
that. Finally, on August 27th, Jesse's worried family dialed 911. 911, what's your emergency?
00:33:43
Jesse's family hasn't heard from her, and she usually they usually do. And um
00:33:48
so they call police to do a welfare check. officers responded to a check welfare when neighbors and family were
00:33:57
concerned about the uh just the whereabouts of the two people um that were uh living at that residence.
00:34:03
A welfare check is is done probably on a case-byase basis, but typically um a family member may be concerned about
00:34:12
someone or loved one and police will go to the home. The police made their inquiries,
00:34:17
telephoned the home and cell phones of those missing. No replies. Time to pitch up at their shared home.
00:34:23
On August 27th, uh, 2012, at about 8:30 in the evening, Phoenix police officers were called to a house in the area of
00:34:31
11th Place in Greenway. Uh, they spoke to several people that met them out front of that residence and were
00:34:37
informed that they were concerned because they had not talked to or seen Jesse or Dallas in a couple of days.
00:34:43
They were concerned. um they hadn't heard from Jesse since the previous Thursday and this was a Monday.
00:34:50
The initial call was uh was received from both family and friends and neighbors of Jesse and Dallas.
00:34:56
Everyone wanted to know where were Jesse and Dallas missing? Could it be presumed
00:35:02
they were dead? And if so, how? After all, despite the fighting, they had stuck together.
00:35:09
They seemed tethered to each other no matter what. Once the officers went inside that
00:35:14
residence, that's when they located Jesse in Dallas. At 8:30 that Monday evening, officers
00:35:28
pulled up outside the condo. Typically, officers would have gone up to the to the residence, knocked to see
00:35:33
if anybody came to the door, and at some point, no one came to the door, and that's when they tried to see if the
00:35:39
door was unlocked. the door was unlocked and that's when a decision was made to
00:35:43
go inside that home to make sure that uh there was nobody e either inside or if there was someone inside if they needed
00:35:49
help. Not knowing what to expect, officers trod carefully. There were no signs of a struggle other
00:35:55
than a broken plate. There was no uh reports of uh any suspicious activity or any type of
00:36:01
gunfire that was heard from that night. The officers went from room to room and found a scene of carnage.
00:36:07
The crime scene was bloody. They go inside and in the living room they find the decomposing bodies of Dallas
00:36:16
Austinine and Jesse McKascal. Based on the status of uh the injuries and based on what they were seeing from
00:36:23
the bodies uh they they believe that that body the bodies had been uh deceased for a couple of days.
00:36:29
There there's blood just everywhere around them. Jesse in particular had suffered
00:36:34
horrific injuries. Jesse McKascal has been shot multiple times, including one shot directly to the head.
00:36:43
She was slumped over and all the blood by gravity was forced to her face, causing advanced decomposition.
00:36:51
That really disturbed the family. One of the bullets went straight through her head and exited her jaw. So, her
00:36:58
beautiful face was was just destroyed and unrecognizable. She had to be identified by dental records.
00:37:05
Nearby, Dallas Augustine's body was sitting upright. Dallas had been shot with just a single
00:37:11
gunshot wound to the temple. The gun used to kill them is lying between the two women.
00:37:18
What had gone on? Detectives had to build a picture of the turbulent world of Jesse McKascal and Dallas Augustine.
00:37:24
Had both women been killed by an intruder, or was this a case of a murder and then a suicide? Those living nearby
00:37:30
were about to recount what they had seen and heard from the home of Jesse and Dallas.
00:37:36
Our homicide unit responded to that location. More in-depth interviews need to be done with the witnesses and um
00:37:42
anybody that's actually going to be involved in the in the case itself. Careful about drawing conclusions,
00:37:48
officers took their findings to the medical examiner's office in Maricopa County.
00:37:52
Every homicide is complex. Every homicide has different elements to it. And so detectives must work through that
00:37:58
evidence and must work with the medical examiner's office to kind of gain uh
00:38:02
exact facts on what led to each incident. So each each investigation is is stands on its own merits and they are
00:38:10
complex. The telltale signs that this would be a murder suicide is that one person was
00:38:15
shot numerous times and the other shot once. They would look at the trajectory. They
00:38:19
look at the obviously evidence on that weapon. They look and to see if uh you know what the medical examiner found as
00:38:26
well and based on the statements um that's what that's that's what led them
00:38:31
to believe that this was a murder suicide. The fact that one person was shot in the
00:38:34
side of the head or the temple would show that that person is probably the the person who pulled the trigger.
00:38:42
The physical evidence appeared to suggest that Dallas Augustine had killed her wife firing from close range. The
00:38:48
way the projectile traversed through the top of her head into her face destroyed
00:38:53
most of her face. And then the woman who had lost a father figure when she was young, seen her
00:38:59
mother marry the nurse she had met when he worked at her stepfather's deathbed,
00:39:02
only to see that nurse murder her mother, and who had then lost a sister in a car accident, was facing the end of
00:39:09
her marriage and could take no more. Having killed, she turned the gun on herself.
00:39:18
I think Dallas was desperate. I think she was desperate for an end to whatever pain she was experiencing.
00:39:24
This is one of those cases, those classic cases where if I can't have you, no one will. And I think that in some
00:39:31
ways that murder suicide was her bringing to fruition what she had believed all along about herself and her
00:39:39
life, that she was just destined to have a tragic life and she didn't deserve
00:39:42
happiness. Dallas had had intended to commit suicide. We know that where um there's an abuse of power and control
00:39:50
relationship and the perpetrator threatens suicide, it usually means you're going to die first and then I'm
00:39:58
going to kill myself. In a chilling irony, the gun Dallas used for the killings was the same type that
00:40:04
she had been trained how to handle for her new job, due to start on the same day their bodies were discovered.
00:40:12
When she underwent training at the academy, she was trained in the use of firearms.
00:40:20
And yet, as a convicted felon, she never should have had a firearm. Not only did they hire her, they trained
00:40:28
her how to use the very weapon she went on to kill Jesse with. If the state had never hired her, if they had never
00:40:36
trained her in the use of firearms, would she and her wife Jesse still be alive today?
00:40:43
The killings didn't just rob Jesse's family of their loved one by taking her
00:40:47
own life. Dallas Augustine also denied them any chance of seeing justice done to Jesse's killer.
00:40:53
Dallas was the person that took the life of Jesse. Uh, obviously that's that's
00:40:58
ruled as a homicide and then she took her own life. Uh, so obviously that's where the suicide comes, but there is no
00:41:05
a judicial process since the suspect has deceased. Had Dallas Augustine, the troubled wife
00:41:10
with a tragic backstory, tried to exercise the family curse with her final act of violence.
00:41:17
This is a case where, you know, you might be forgiven for feeling some sympathy for um for Dallas. She did have
00:41:25
a really hard life. Um she just couldn't get a fair break. I think she always felt a little bit like
00:41:31
she was a tragic figure. The impulses, the worst parts of yourself that you might consider when you're sober but not
00:41:39
act on. Dallas did. She had had a very troubled life. She had finally found her perfect woman. She
00:41:47
had got a good job. But uh at the end of the day, it didn't save her from herself.
00:41:56
Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]