Power, Passion And Poison

An Ambitious Politician Meets A Suspicious Death

(CBS)  Kathy may have had a lot of political enemies, but it’s her husband Chaz Higgs, the critical care nurse, who has been charged with her murder. At a preliminary hearing, Higgs will hear, for the first time, the state’s evidence against him.

Washoe County District Attorney Tom Barb will try to convince the judge he has enough evidence to take Higgs to trial. "We know that the drug that was in her urine was toxic and killed her," Barb says. "How it got there is what we're trying to prove."

The prosecution believes Higgs injected his wife with a lethal dose of succinylcholine, waited until she lost consciousness, then called the paramedics and tried to pass the incident off as a heart attack.

"Succinylcholine killed Miss Augustine," Barb tells the court. "He was the only one around at the time the drug would have had to have been administered … you've got a victim that died of poisoning and two people were present, the victim and the spouse."

But Higgs' attorney David Houston says that "absolutely" didn’t happen. "This case against Chaz is what we call a circumstantial case," he tells the court. "The question is number one, was a crime committed because that still hasn’t been established? And then, number two, if a crime was committed the question is the obvious - who did it?"

"There are people that think that it had something to do with Kathy's political controversial career. There are people who think that it was, she died of natural causes," defense attorney Alan Baum says. "If somebody did kill Kathy Augustine, it sure wasn't Chaz."

But at a pre-trial hearing, only evidence tying Higgs to the crime will be heard; he can only mount a defense if this case goes to trial.

No one is closer to Chaz Higgs than his twin brother Mike. Seeing his brother in handcuffs and a prison uniform saddens him. "I think there's a big injustice that's been done," Mike Higgs tells Roberts.

Mike has flown across country with his mother to support Chaz in court. "The hardest thing for me is just not being able to go up and talk to my brother and have a conversation with 'em," he says.

Their father was a Marine, and the twins grew up near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

After high school, Chaz joined the Navy, becoming a hospital corpsman. "I deployed with Marine Corps units, Navy ships, Seal teams, you name it," Chaz Higgs recalls. "I went wherever I was deployed, and I was their only medical person."

He left after 16 years, for a new career as a critical care nurse. Chaz says he loved his work, that he was very good at it, and that it was his passion.

It was in Las Vegas where Higgs met Kathy. He was one of Charles Augustine's critical care nurses.

Although it was only a couple of days, it was long enough to catch Kathy's eye. "As two people, we clicked. We just hit it off," he says. "We fell in love with each other."

His family embraced the couple, but Kathy's family wasn't so happy. "I didn't like him. And I told her so," says Kathy's mother Kay Alfano.

Asked if she grew to like him, she says, "No. …None of us liked him."

And when Kathy died, Kay didn’t suspect her daughter’s political enemies were involved - she immediately focused on her son-in-law. Asked how she can be so certain Higgs killed her daughter, Kay says, "By the way he acted."

She says Higgs didn't behave like someone whose wife was in an irreversible coma. "He showed no emotion. No tear. Nothing," Kay says.

"Did you go to police with your suspicions?" Roberts asks Phil Alfano.

"We didn't because we had nothing to go on. We didn't know, were we just overreacting? Was this just all in our head?" he says.

But Kathy's family and friends say she had long been confiding in them about her troubled relationship with her husband. "He became very verbally abusive towards her," says Phil.

And Phil says Higgs was unfaithful.

But Higgs says he never cheated on Kathy. "I'm not that kind of person, I wouldn’t do it to her."

[sn1955]

Oh, please. This guy was guilty from the get-go. There is no one else who could have put the drug in Augustine's system but Chaz Higgs. Besides, his body language is a dead giveaway of his guilt. He's not only sorry he got caught, but he's sorry he did it. Trying to kill himself twice, the second time right in the middle of his trial, proved he was guilty. An innocent man would not do that. I have lived in Reno for 25 years, and this was a huge story, perhaps the biggest murder case in Nevada history thanks to Augustine's prominence.

[avellinomm]

I am disturbed that this episode continues to air with an innocent man in prison. How can a test, done on urine collected at 735 am reveal the presence of Succinylcholine, if the patient was dead at or about 7am. But at about 715 am, undisputedly had no succs. administered to her between 715 & 735am? Did the FBI explain that? The test that Ms. Morgan of the FBI conducted was defective. There was a power outage at the FBI lab. The urine was not refridgerated for 5 day's prior to the test. Those factors make a difference in the reliability of the results. Succs. has an extremely short half life, less than a minute, yet she supposedly found both succinycholine & succinylmonocholine in the urine? The other tests that were conducted of the tissue, blood, & organs reveal neither. Those were refridgerated. Strange.

[carolcape]

I believe that her husband killed her. She was a very domineering woman in the professional world and
I would say she had some of that tenacity in the marriage. She was just not suited to this man. She was too intelligent for him. She certainly did not wait a very long time before marrying this man. I mean just looking at them as her mom said, they just didn''t fit at all. I feel that she was intelligent, but when she got a little bit of power it went to her head. She thought she could get away with anything, which usually sinks most politicians. But she may have gone unnoticed if she was a man, but they wanted to get rid of her in office and they were going to do anything. Yes, she was threatened from someone, but also her husband had knowledge of that and he took advantage of it. He wanted to get rid of her too quickly and that didn''t work in his favor. He might have gotten away with it, but the fact that he was the only one in the area she was in was just too obvious. He even looks guilty. The coworkers were also good witnesses. He is just where he should be, behind bars.

[thefan08-2009]

its sad she had to die, but politicians like her are the reason why people dont trust politicians any more. i would have setteled for her been impeached instead of dead. but sometimes when you dedicate everything in your power to one trade(politics) you sometimes forget how to handle other things, like finding a good man.

[roscoezzz]

You know what? I thought this guy was innocent until the end when he tried to commit suicide. He was winning in that courtroom I thought. But, the suicide attempt was a sign of guilt before he was to be questioned by the prosecution.
It is sad how this politician woman used and abused the people around her. Look at the way it all ended for her. The wrong men, the wrong political ambition and the wrong way to lead a public life. Sad.