An Almost Perfect Murder

by Gary C. King

  Part I

  The Investigation

  Chapter 1

  The city of Reno, Nevada, the seat of Washoe County, is pleasantly situated along the banks of the Truckee River, smack-dab in the middle of where Interstate 80, which runs east and west, and U.S. Highway 395, which runs north and south, intersect. Known as “the Biggest Little City in the World” since 1928, when the two-lane highway that enabled travelers to get across Donner Summit to California was paved, Reno has long been the redheaded stepchild of legalized gambling in the Silver State. Located in the northwestern corner of the state and barely a stone’s throw from scenic Lake Tahoe, with all its splendor and idyllic beauty, Reno is less than an hour’s drive from the recently relocated and reopened world-famous Mustang Ranch. A longtime thorn in the side of at least one state legislator, the brothel is a business that nonetheless captures an attractive share of tourist money from men who enjoy cavorting with prostitutes, some of whom come to Reno for that purpose only. Reno is often viewed as being more peaceful and adorned with greater variations of scenic beauty than its glitzier asphalt jungle cousin, Las Vegas, a day’s drive to the south. Sometimes viewed as a miniature version of Las Vegas because it shares many of the same amenities as its cousin, such as resort hotels, casinos, buffets, and wedding chapels, Reno is also a major warehouse and distribution center for the region. Named in honor of Major General Jesse L. Reno, a Union officer who was killed during the Civil War, the city has grown steadily since the arrival of the railroad in 1868—the same year that it was founded—to become the state’s third-largest city, behind Las Vegas and Henderson, with a population greater than 210,000.

  Situated some 4,400 feet above sea level in a high desert valley, Reno is conveniently located twenty-six miles from the state capital, Carson City, which is also home to the U.S. Mint. Many of the state’s legislators and other elected officials, as well as state employees, make their home in Reno and commute to the state capital. Its growing economy in recent years has resulted in considerable new home construction throughout the metro area, and the so-called progress has brought with it a sizeable increase in its real estate prices. Year-round recreational activities, such as fishing, water and snow skiing, swimming, and parasailing, to name a few, abound, and over time, Reno has expanded upon its cultural base in an attempt to provide outlets besides gambling for its residents. There is an art museum there, a pops orchestra, a botanical garden and arboretum, and Reno is home to the Nevada Shakespeare Company. Unfortunately, Reno is also known as the setting for one of the most diabolical and cold-blooded, not to mention cruel, murders the state has ever seen.

  A light summer breeze blew gently through the Meadows subdivision, a few miles southeast of Reno, less than an hour after sunrise on Saturday, July 8, 2006. At a pleasant 64 degrees, it was partly cloudy that morning, but there was no chance of rain. With an average of only 4.5 inches of precipitation annually, it doesn’t rain much, ever. From the right vantage point, portions of the Sierra Nevada mountain range could be seen jutting above the horizon to the west. Birds had come to life and could be heard chirping their early-morning music throughout this relatively new, somewhat upscale community, where many young and middle-aged professionals and their families made their home. The houses were mostly of the cookie-cutter variety that developers seemed so keen on exporting in recent years from Southern California to their neighbors in nearby states. The original purchase price tag ran about $300,000. The price of the same house in another major West Coast city, such as San Francisco or Los Angeles, would easily cost twice that much. The location was close to the two major freeways that run through Reno, making it an ideal location for those who work in the city or commute to the state capital despite the bumper-to-bumper traffic during rush hour. The houses, typically close to one another, were separated by a mix of well-placed green grass and desert landscaping or, in some cases, an attractive mix of both. The close proximity of the dwellings also made it easier for neighbors to know each other’s business, but on the upside, it also made it easier for residents to look out for one another.

  Otter Way, located just off South Meadows Parkway and U.S. Highway 395, was a typically quiet street within the Meadows subdivision. Most of the single-family houses on Otter Way were built in 1999, and the community sold out before the houses were even completed, primarily because the location was ideal for those who wanted to enjoy suburban living. Most of the people who live in this community seem to fit into it well; they mesh comfortably with each other, for the most part. One couple who lived on Otter Way, however, didn’t quite fit the mold. One neighbor dispassionately characterized them as somewhat of an odd couple, while others chose to keep their thoughts and opinions about their neighbors to themselves. No matter what people thought of that couple, this day in early July would be one that the residents of the Meadows subdivision would not easily forget.

  George Reade, a communications supervisor for the Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority (REMSA), was on duty at 6:43 A.M. when the call about a person not breathing was received through Reno’s 911 emergency communications system. Reade’s job consisted of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the communications center, and one of his duties included taking some of the emergency telephone calls. Reade, who had been in the supervisory role for two years, had also worked as a communications specialist for that company for three years. On any given day, Reade might take a call involving an auto accident, a cardiac arrest, or even an occasional violent crime. It wasn’t unusual for him to work through thirty to fifty calls per day. Even though the phone lines had been busy most of the night, none of the morning or previous evening’s calls could top the one Reade took at 6:43 A.M.

  “Paramedics. Is this an emergency?” Reade asked.

  “Hello. Yes, this is an emergency,” the male resident of the house, forty-two-year-old Chaz Higgs, calmly replied.

  “What’s the address?” Reade asked.

  Higgs answered, “It’s in the Meadows housing development. Something’s wrong with my wife. She’s not breathing. I don’t know what happened to her.”

  “She’s not breathing at all?”

  “No. Not breathing at all. I’m a critical care nurse and I’ve already started doing CPR, but I need some help,” Higgs replied.

  “Okay. We’re on the way. What’s the phone number that you’re calling from?”

  Higgs gave him the phone number.

  “And you’re with her right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re currently doing CPR?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re over by Ripple Way?”

  “Yeah. There’s more than one of the same street name. So, if you come into the housing development, immediately turn right and the road will veer around to the left, and we’re on the third court on the right. There’s a dark blue Dodge Dakota pickup in the driveway. If I hear you coming, I’ll come outside.”

  Reade instructed Higgs to put the phone down without breaking the connection just in case he needed to provide additional information or to ask for more specific help during the interim before paramedics could get there. Higgs indicated that he would continue administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) until the paramedics arrived.

  Having dealt with thousands of emergency telephone calls in his five years in the business, Reade knew that characteristically there would be breaks or pauses in the telephone communication between the caller and the 911 operator when a caller was actually giving CPR to the stricken person who’s awaiting help. The caller typically wouldn’t be able to talk with the 911 operator between giving chest compressions and giving breaths, which would thus account for the characteristic breaks in the conversation, which appeared to be absent in this case. To Reade, it just hadn’t sounded like Higgs was administering CPR. Reade also noticed that there seemed to be a lack of urgency in Higgs’s voice. He had seemed a bit too calm to have a relative not breathing. Reade also noted that it had not been his experi
ence to have a loved one in an emergency situation taking the time to give specific directions to their house to the 911 operator. In fact, as best as he could recall, this was a first in that regard.

  Seven minutes later, at 6:50 A.M., the first shrieks of the REMSA vehicle’s siren broke the early-morning stillness on Otter Way. Benjamin Pratt, employed as a firefighter and paramedic for the Tahoe-Douglas Fire Protection District, also worked for REMSA on a part-time basis and was driving unit 310 that morning. His training as a paramedic consisted of nine months of course work at an accredited institution, 180 hours of clinical time in the ambulance, and 280 hours of clinical time in the hospital working with nurses and doctors. Accompanied by his partner, Manny Fuentes, the paramedics knew that they were responding to a lights-and-siren cardiac arrest call, a Code 3. When they arrived on Otter Way, Pratt radioed Reade with his “310 on scene” message. A man, whom they had seen from a distance of nearly two streets away, was out in front of the house, waving them onto the curb sidewalk area.

  The Reno Fire Department (RFD) responded as well and was right behind Pratt and Fuentes when they arrived. Units from the Reno Police Department (RPD) arrived moments later. The first police unit was on the scene at 6:52 A.M. They had by now determined that they were rushing to the home that Kathy Marie Augustine, fifty, Nevada state controller, an elected official, shared with her husband. Neighbors, some of whom were awakened by all of the noise and activity, came outside of their homes to try and see what all the fuss was about.

  When Pratt and Fuentes climbed out of their vehicle, they were followed into the house by four firefighters from the other vehicle. The fire department typically comes along on calls of this nature to assist breaking in the door if no one answers, to perform general “housekeeping,” like cleaning up after the paramedics, who don’t always have the time to clean up because of having to rush the injured or gravely ill person off to a hospital, or to simply help provide manpower in moving the patient when assistance is needed.

  Higgs calmly told them that his wife was in the back room. He ushered them through the living area, past the kitchen, and led them through the 1,100-square-foot house to its only bedroom, where Kathy lay motionless on the couple’s queen-size bed. The REMSA paramedics immediately initiated efforts to resuscitate the lifeless, middle-aged woman.

  Unable to find a pulse, the paramedics carefully removed her from the bed and placed her on the floor, where they continued CPR efforts. For CPR to be most effective, the person needs to be placed on a hard, stable surface; this way, when a paramedic is doing chest compressions, the blood circulates more effectively. The bed, they knew, would be much too soft to attain the results they desired. Next they inserted an oropharyngeal ring, a device that looks like a curved piece of plastic, into Kathy’s mouth and underneath her tongue. Its purpose is to pull the tongue out of the way to open up the airway as much as possible before inserting a piece of plastic tubing through the vocal cords, a process known as intubation, to provide a mechanism by which a patient can breathe. As they continued with the CPR, one of the paramedics started an IV and began administering a variety of medications that included epinephrine and atropine because Kathy was still a systole, a flatliner. Their effort, of course, was to get Kathy’s heart beating again. Eventually, following a second round of medications, they detected a weak pulse and each suddenly felt a glimmer of hope that she might survive. Forcing Kathy to breathe artificially, the paramedics loaded her into a waiting ambulance. By 7:09 A.M., Pratt and Fuentes, upbeat and excited because they had literally brought someone back from the dead, were rushing Kathy Augustine, who was still unconscious, to the South Meadows branch of the Washoe Medical Center, where she bypassed the hospital’s triage system and was admitted almost immediately through the emergency room (ER). They had managed to keep her heart beating while en route to the hospital.

  Upon their arrival at Kathy Augustine’s home minutes earlier, and amid all of the chaos of the paramedics working feverishly to try and save Kathy’s life, RPD officers Steve Mussell and Joe Proffitt had managed to speak to Higgs about the situation. Higgs had been standing outside the front door of the house while paramedics had been working to revive his wife inside the home, which many people who were involved in the case later admitted had been unusual. Normally, the spouse or other close family members remain inside, close to the scene of activity, out of concern for their loved one, where they can see what is going on, and to be available to answer any questions that the emergency workers might need to ask. That hadn’t been the case with Higgs, however, but his unusual behavior hadn’t been noted until later. Officers Mussell and Proffitt weren’t there to make any judgments at that point, but were there to collect information for later assessment as to its value. While it would be difficult to characterize their exchanges with Higgs as a formal interview, they did obtain a few details of the time period that led up to Higgs placing the 911 call. The information that they obtained at this point was sketchy at best.

  In response to their questions, Higgs explained to Mussell and Proffitt that he had been alone in the house with his wife since the prior evening. He claimed that he had awakened early that morning and had left Kathy sleeping in their bed. He explained that when he returned to their bedroom a short time later, he discovered that his wife had stopped breathing. He suggested to the two officers that his wife had a heart condition that might have caused her to stop breathing. He didn’t go into detail about her condition at that time, but later said that his wife had been complaining recently of a stomachache and heartburn.

  Almost immediately upon arrival at the South Meadows hospital, after Pratt and Fuentes removed Kathy’s near-lifeless body from the ambulance and wheeled her into the emergency room, Marlene Swanbeck, a nurse and former coworker of Chaz Higgs’s, and other medical personnel, including nurse Chris McCabe, obtained blood and urine samples from Kathy to assist in the diagnosis of her medical condition. Both of the samples were retained by the Washoe Medical Center’s laboratory—some were preserved just in case they were needed later.

  At one point that morning, Swanbeck encountered Higgs at the hospital. She noticed that his demeanor seemed calm. He did not appear excited, and he seemed to be disengaged from the crisis of the situation. She noted that he was not sobbing, that there were no tears, and that he hadn’t asked any questions about the condition of his wife. She briefly remembered her past encounters with Higgs, when he often spoke of his intention to leave Kathy. She also remembered how he had referred to her in some very derogatory terms. Her goal at this point, however, was to provide the best treatment possible to Kathy in an effort to save her life and to not sit in judgment of her former coworker.

  However, within an hour of their arrival at the medical center, the doctor in charge of the team of nurses and doctors attending to Kathy at South Meadows made the decision that Kathy would have to be moved to Washoe Medical Center’s main hospital because of a potential heart problem. As a result of the doctor’s decision, Pratt and Fuentes, still at the hospital with Kathy, loaded the patient back into their ambulance and rushed her to the main hospital. Chaz Higgs accompanied them in the ambulance to Washoe Main, riding in the front passenger seat.

  The official story released to news media outlets at this point was that Kathy had suffered a massive heart attack and had been admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) in critical condition. When asked by reporters what he thought might have brought on the heart attack, Higgs cited pressure over the campaign for state treasurer that she had filed for in May 2006 for the upcoming August 15 Republican primary election. Her final term as state controller was coming to an end, and she had set her sights on bigger and better things.

  “Stress,” Higgs said. “I think that is probably the factor. She has been complaining about it during the whole campaign.”

  Higgs stated that although Kathy knew that the campaign for state treasurer would be an “uphill battle to win,” she nonetheless had been very dete
rmined and had been using her evenings and weekends to win support after putting in full days at the office as state controller.

  Responding to questions about whether Kathy’s campaign would be able to continue, Higgs told reporters that his wife was in a coma and on life-support systems.

  “We won’t know the full prognosis until tomorrow,” Higgs said. “Right now, our primary concern is her health. We aren’t thinking about campaigning, or politics, or anything like that.”

  Her opponents for the late-summer election expressed similar concerns.

  “We wish her a full and speedy recovery,” said Ryan Erwin, campaign manager for Mark DeStefano, a Nevada businessman who also sought the powerful, coveted position of state treasurer. “However, we know very few specifics about her condition at this time. It would be premature to discuss any campaign-related decisions.”

  For the next three days, Kathy Augustine remained comatose and lay virtually lifeless in her hospital bed, kept alive by artificial means, as family members from Las Vegas and California traveled to Reno to be with her at her bedside. However, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, Kathy Augustine died at 4:40 P.M., on Tuesday, July 11, 2006, in Washoe Medical Center’s ICU without ever regaining consciousness. Her husband, parents, daughter, stepchildren, and other relatives were with her when she died. Her body, along with the blood and urine samples that were obtained upon her admission to the hospital, was promptly turned over to the Washoe County Coroner’s Office.