A shot in the dark?

Last July, a funeral was held in Las Vegas for Nevada State Controller Kathy Augustine.  She had died at age 50 of what originally seemed to be a heart attack.  She was mourned by hundreds of family members,  friends, and state officials.  But her own husband did not attend.  Chaz Higgs had attempted suicide.  And by then, questions were swirling across the state from the casinos of Las Vegas to the quiet streets of the state capital in Carson City...

Suspicion hung in the air.  Turns out the very day Kathy Augustine died police here in Reno received an intriguing phone call — a phone call that would change everything.

Victoria Campbell, local reporter: A nurse calls, a fellow nurse of Chaz Higgs, and says, ‘You know, I think you need to know something.’

That nurse had worked with Chaz Higgs at a hospital the day before Kathy Augustine was stricken.  According to police, Higgs allegedly told the nurse that his marriage was in trouble, but that wasn’t all.

In what police detective David Jenkins thinks may have been a crucial slip of the tongue, Higgs allegedly commented on a much publicized local murder case. 

Det. David Jenkins: In which he described the suspect as stupid for having committed the murder in the manner in which he had...

Allegedly, Chaz Higgs was referring to the high-profile case of wealthy Reno businessman Darren Mack.

Just before Kathy Augustine’s death, Mack had been accused of stabbing his estranged wife to death, shooting the judge who was handling their divorce proceeding, and then fleeing to Mexico.  Mack has pleaded not guilty to the charges in the case.

The tipster, Nurse Kim Ramey, told police Higgs said there was a much better way to commit murder.

Det. Jenkins: And then made specific reference to succinylcholine as a drug that would have been much wiser to have used because it was virtually undetectable.

Succinylcholine:  used correctly, it paralyzes respiratory muscles to allow the insertion of breathing tubes.  But it’s a powerful drug that if mis-used can cause organ failure and even death.  It quickly dissipates from the bloodstream, leaving few traces.

Det. Jenkins: I had never heard of succinylcholine before and so our first thought was to go to the medical community and to ask a professional ‘Hey, is this a plausible story? Is this something that would be a viable scenario?’

And when doctors did not discount the tipster’s scenario, Jenkins went into action:

Hoda Kotb, Dateline correspondent: At this point, what are you thinking?

Det. Jenkins: I’m thinking at that point that an investigation needs to be done, a full-blown investigation which would tend either way to discount the information or to corroborate that and prove it.

Sergeant Doug Evans, Reno PD: There’s an old saying that—in any investigation, the clean get cleaner and the dirty get dirtier.  And Chaz, certainly in our estimation, at this point, wasn’t getting cleaner.  Because things were coming in.  Information was coming in that just made you sit back and—and—think that it was getting very suspicious looking.

Chaz Higgs left Nevada and went to see family back east.

Police quietly requested an arrest warrant...  and sent Augustine’s blood and urine samples to the F.B.I. crime lab in Virginia, One of the few places in the world where succinylcholine traces can be detected and while they waited for results - they continued to build their case - and secretly tracked Chaz Higg’s every more.

Det.  Jenkins: We were in a position to use some electronic surveillance techniques that very quickly aided in us being able to place him in a specific area in the country.

Finally, two months later, the F.B.I. lab confirmed that Kathy augustine had succinylcholine in her urine.  It became a huge story across the state. In September, police arrested Chaz Higgs in Virginia and brought him back to Nevada, charging him with murder in the first degree. 

Kotb: And was he shocked when he saw the cops knocking?

Campbell: I understand that he was pretty forthcoming.  And he was getting out of the car in front of his brother’s house.  And I believe it was an FBI agent who found him and—said, “Are you Chaz Higgs?”  And he said, “Yes, I am.  Who are you?”  “We’re with the FBI.  Come with us.”

Higgs pleaded not guilty.

But if Kathy Augustine did die by an injection of succinylcholine, it’s even more disturbing to everyone who knew her, because the effects on the victim are so terrifying.

Campbell: That it paralyzes the breathing, but does not stop the brain.  You know something’s wrong.  But you can’t cry out.  You can’t change the expression on your face.  You’re dying by degrees very slowly.

Kathy Augustine’s stepson, Greg:    

Greg Augustine: It saddened me a lot to think that she was possibly given a drug that paralyzed her internal organs, so she suffocated.  And starved her brain and heart of oxygen.  I can’t think of a worse way to go. I can’t think of something more horrific than not being able to defend yourself.  Or not being able to make a phone call.

But as heartbroken as they were over Kathy Augustine’s alleged murder, Greg Augustine and his family were facing their own grief and horror and beginning to ask questions about their own father’s sudden death.   They’re afraid there’s a lot more to this story...  another twist...  buried deep in the past.

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