A shot in the dark

As Nevada's casinos were doing record business in late 2003, State Controller Kathy Augustine was bouncing back from the death of her third husband, Charles, and taking a gamble on a new man named Chaz Higgs.

Phil Alfano: She just kept describing him as this -- just this wonderful person … very compassionate and caring. And had swept her off her feet.

The way they met was anything but ordinary. It was here at a Las Vegas hospital where Chaz, a registered nurse eight years Kathy's junior, was helping to care for her husband Charles. Like Kathy, he'd been married before, and had one daughter.

To many people, the pairing seemed a bit odd.

Heidi Smith: I mean, Chaz, with his spiked hair, wouldn't do well at a political cocktail party to raise money … I don't think in the whole time I knew Chaz I heard him say more than four or five sentences.
Hoda Kotb: Did you guys used to scratch your heads, thinking "What are those two...
Heidi Smith: Never asked...
Hoda Kotb: … doing together?"
Heidi Smith: But yeah, well, girls will be girls. We used to talk a lot, yes.

Chaz Higgs and Kathy Augustine in June, 2006

Especially when Chaz and Kathy said "I do" in a Hawaiian ceremony. The date? Just three weeks after Charles died.

Phil Alfano: My wife and I were shaking our heads, saying "This shouldn't have happened this quickly."

But as 2004 rolled around, whispers about Kathy Augustine's private life were drowned out by the roar of a public scandal.

(KRNV-TV interview)
Kathy Augustine: I think that both sides of the story have to be told and resigning was not an answer.

Kathy Augustine's hard-charging style had transformed some state employees into bitter enemies. That spring they lashed out at their boss, accusing Augustine of forcing them to work on her 2002 campaign on state time -- a violation of the state's ethics rules. She denied the allegations.

Kathy Augustine became the first official in Nevada history to be impeached.

She was convicted on one charge, but acquitted of two others. She paid a $15,000 fine. The governor asked her to resign from office, but she refused and even insisted she would have no trouble working again with the very employees who wanted to bring her down.

(KRNV-TV interview)
Kathy Augustine: After everything I've been through. I certainly, certainly can handle a little animosity.

Heidi Smith: I always gave her credit for continuing forward, even though she'd made some bitter enemies.

And enemies or not, in 2006, Kathy Augustine felt confident enough to run for still another important statewide office: Nevada treasurer.

But all of her hard-charging ambition was about to be stopped in its tracks.

On Saturday, July 8, Kathy was scheduled to attend a fundraiser, but she never showed up.

Heidi Smith: I went out there. She wasn't there. I came home to give her a call and chew her out.

She wasn't home because in the early morning hours, Kathy had stopped breathing. Her husband Chaz Higgs says he found her on the bed and called 911.

(911 call)
Higgs: Something's wrong with my wife … She's not breathing … I don't know what happened to her.
911: She's not breathing at all?
Higgs: Not breathing at all.

Web extra video The morning his wife died Chaz Higgs remembers discovering his wife’s dead body. NBC News Web Extra

Higgs said he thought she may have had a heart attack and that he administered CPR but the efforts may have come too late. Later, he spoke to reporters.

(Chaz Higgs press conference)
Higgs: I went in to try and wake her up, I couldn't get her to wake up and I checked her out, it was like an instinct, because as I said I'm a critical care nurse, so it's something I've dealt with before, I just checked her out, she wasn't breathing, she had no pulse, so I started CPR.

By the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital, Kathy Augustine was in a deep coma. Chaz called Kathy's mother in California.

Phil Alfano: He told my mother that Kathy had had a heart attack and my mom said, "Well, you know, we'll be up there right away." And he said, "Well, no, there's no need for you to come up."
Hoda Kotb: No need for you to come up?
Phil Alfano: No need for her mother to come up and see her in the hospital
Hoda Kotb: That was weird.

Chaz told reporters he thought his wife Kathy may have fallen victim to the stress of hard work and long days.

(Chaz Higgs press conference)
Higgs: She came to work every day ... Did her job as she would here, and then after work she would go to one or two events in the evening, so getting in late at night...

Could it have been stress? Doctors didn't know for sure, but Kathy's brother found that theory hard to believe.

Phil Alfano: The last couple of times I saw Kathy, I had never seen her happier.

When it became clear that Kathy would not recover, her family made the decision to terminate life support. Three days after that 911 call, Kathy Augustine, the tough, determined public servant, lost the fight of her life. She died without ever regaining consciousness.

Phil Alfano: We lost somebody who was a big part of our lives that we'll never have back.

Speculation was rampant even before Kathy Augustine was buried. When her autopsy was complete, the results raised as many questions as they answered.

Victoria Campbell: No evidence of a heart attack, no evidence of heart damage, no blockage, no evidence the heart muscle had died.

If a heart attack didn't kill Kathy Augustine -- then what did?

There was even more troubling information from the autopsy. Evidence, perhaps, that when it came to Augustine's death there was nothing natural about it at all.