An Almost Perfect Murder

by Gary C. King

  “What she admitted to was that she did not know it was going on,” Gentile said. “But it happened on her watch and she should have known, and she accepted the responsibility for it. That does not rise to the level of malfeasance in office.”

  Gentile said that Kathy has denied that she had ever ordered any of her employees to work on her campaign, and suggested to television news reporters that if his client “goes down,” she won’t be going down by herself.

  As Kathy’s impeachment trial finally got under way on Wednesday, December 1, 2004, before the twenty-one members of the senate, her attorneys described her as a “mean boss” who was known to throw paper and to have loud outbursts in the office related to her temper. Her lead attorney, John Arrascada, used a PowerPoint presentation to accentuate his point. In one slide, he presented a photo of a painting that depicted an angry mob during the French Revolution congregating around a guillotine, and in another a portrait of Joan of Arc decked out in armor with a halo that encircled her head. Arrascada’s argument was that his client’s ethics violations really hadn’t harmed the citizens of Nevada and did not deserve what he termed the political “death penalty.” Such a penalty, he had said, might not only serve to remove her from office, but could serve as the death knell of her political career. He argued that she was a victim of a vengeful grudge being perpetrated by unhappy former employees who had been unable to cope with her often challenging and uncompromising management style. His argument was reminiscent of that presented by President Bill Clinton’s lawyers during the opening of his impeachment trial in 1999.

  “We know that Kathy Augustine is not a saint,” Arrascada said. “We also know that she has not committed offenses that rise up to the level that require removal from office.”

  It was clear that Arrascada’s legal tactics, which he admitted to in later interviews, was to lay strong emphasis on the unfortunate prospect of setting a precedent of removing an elected off icial from off ice, while at the same time playing down her unpleasant character traits. He realized from the trial’s outset that it would be difficult to conjure up sympathy among Kathy’s colleagues—from either party. Despite her often unpleasant personality, though, few could deny the efficiency with which Kathy ran her office.

  After taking the senate jury through the list of allegations, he emphasized the historic nature of the impeachment trial and cautioned that the senate would be setting a standard for any future similar actions. At one point, he implied that the ethics commission’s unforgiving findings and the $15,000 fine, which they had imposed on her, were sufficient punishment for the violations.

  “Impeachment and removal is only for the worst of the worst,” Arrascada argued. “What is the harm to the public of letting Kathy Augustine finish her term? Where do we set the bar for what constitutes an impeachable offense in this state?”

  On the other hand, Special Prosecutor Dan Greco argued that the “unique and historic constitutional exercise” taking place before the senate was the direct result of the defendant’s deliberate abuse of her elected position. Greco stated that she had no campaign staff, nor did she have an office in which to run her campaign, separate from her elected office. He said that she had made the decision to run her campaign out of her office at the state capitol, and had ordered her salaried employees to perform a wide variety of duties related to her political campaign, all on state time and expense in blatant violation of the constitution.

  In addition to the two witnesses who had initiated the complaints against Kathy, both of whom testified during the early days of the trial, there was a third witness, who had not been publicly identified previously. Susan Kennedy testified at one point that she had worked for Kathy Augustine for nineteen months, and during that time, she had been asked many times to perform campaign work. During cross-examination, Dominic Gentile was quick to point out that Kennedy’s story had changed since she first complained to investigators early in the case. Gentile also pointed out that despite the requests that Kathy had made for her to do campaign work, the investigation had shown that she only spent approximately five hours in those nineteen months working on Kathy’s campaign. He also emphasized that Kathy had asked her to do the campaign work after hours.

  At another point in the trial, Kathy’s chief accountant, James Wells, told the senators that Kathy had, on one occasion, asked him to work on a campaign finance report. He refused, he testified, and after being told by other employees that Kathy would likely fire him for his refusal, he began looking for work in other departments. However, he said that he had not been disciplined by Kathy for not agreeing to her request.

  Despite all of the preimpeachment hype and publicity, Kathy Augustine’s trial only lasted a week. On Saturday, December 4, 2004, when all was said and done, the Nevada Senate convicted her on only one count: using state equipment for her 2002 reelection campaign. They dismissed the other two counts: Kathy should have known that employees were doing political work for her on state time, and that a state-owned computer had been used for her campaign. The senators instead voted to censure her, which amounted to a reprimand, and allowed the $15,000 fine to stand. It was agreed that she could complete her term in office.

  “I’m very happy,” Kathy said to reporters, elated and in tears, after the decisions had been made. “I’ll be able to return to my official duties on Monday morning.”

  When asked if she thought there might be some animosity toward her at the capitol when she returned to work, Kathy replied, “After everything I’ve been through, I certainly, certainly can handle a little animosity.”

  Due to term limits, Kathy was unable to run for controller for a third term. But shortly after her impeachment proceedings had ended, she announced that, much to the chagrin of her party colleagues, she would likely run for the office of state treasurer, or that of lieutenant governor, in the 2006 election.

  Kathy’s censure, not to mention her apology, was apparently not enough for some people, particularly for Nevada Republican Party chairman Paul Adams who was quite vocal in his statements by saying that she was an embarrassment to the party. He urged her in a confidential letter not to embarrass the party further by running for another elective office. He wrote that he understood that she had high name recognition among Nevada voters, but added that your presence on the ballot as a Republican will be an embarrassment to the Nevada Republican Party. He stated that if she insisted on running, the Nevada GOP cannot embrace a candidate who has been censured, fined, and impeached for an ethics violation.

  “She admitted to ethics violations and was impeached and censured,” Adams said later, after news of his confidential letter to Kathy had been made public. “That would be, in my opinion, an embarrassment to the party and I stand by it. I don’t regret sending the letter because I still think that people are looking for ethical candidates.”

  A short time later, an article ran in a Republican newsletter that criticized Adams’s remarks, and took the position that while what Kathy had done as a public servant was unethical, her actions had been no more than what “other elected officials have been doing for years.” The article further described Kathy as a political “pit bull,” and Adams’s suggestion for her not to run again had “assured her candidacy for some race on the ballot next year.”

  Little did any of her colleagues know at the time, but they wouldn’t have to worry about Kathy holding another term in office in Nevada. She would be dead by then.

  Chapter 6

  Following the definitive autopsy on Kathy Augustine’s body, which had been performed by Dr. Ellen Clark on Wednesday, July 12, 2006, the Reno Police Department issued a press release announcing that they were investigating the circumstances surrounding Kathy’s death. The news that her death was being investigated by the police had quickly become an unusual story, in part because Kathy had been a significant political player in Nevada, who was well-known throughout the state. It had also quickly become a big story for much the same reason. If it turned out that s
he had in fact been murdered, everyone close to the case agreed that it wouldn’t be the typical murder case in which a spouse has killed his partner and has been caught holding the smoking gun. Although Kathy hadn’t been a regular feature of the high-society pages of any of the state’s newspapers, she was certainly making headlines now. Suspicious death investigations, especially those involving possible murder, made sensational headlines, and sensational headlines sold newspapers. Stories ran in papers throughout the state right after her body had been found and continued for several days afterward, and it hadn’t taken long for newspapers across the nation to begin running features about her life and her death.

  Investigations such as the one being conducted for Kathy are routine when people Kathy’s age suddenly die, with no readily apparent explanation. Although all of the results of the autopsy still wouldn’t be known for several weeks, particularly the results of toxicology tests that were being conducted by the FBI, it was clear that Kathy had been in reasonably good health at the time of her death. So far, there had been no evidence of a heart attack—there were no blockages in any of her major arteries, and there had been no evidence of heart muscle damage.

  At one point early in the investigation, Detective David Jenkins had learned that Kathy had been diagnosed in 1995 with a heart condition known as mitral valve prolapse, a somewhat common heart valve abnormality in which a valve does not close completely and allows small, but significant, amounts of blood to flow back out of the valve. It typically causes chest pain, fatigue, migraines, palpitations, and anxiety, and appears to be more common in women than in men.

  However, Jenkins also learned from Dr. Stanley Thompson, a cardiologist who treated Kathy prior to her death, that Kathy’s arteries were clear and that her blood flowed smoothly through her heart. He said that he considered her heart to be generally healthy.

  “You can say [her arteries] were one hundred percent normal,” Dr. Thompson said. “Everybody . . . would love to have those arteries.”

  Although Kathy’s family had indicated that they were not aware of any history or symptoms of heart problems that Kathy may have had, a well-known Las Vegas cardiologist, Dr. Keith Boman, said that symptoms like stomachache and heartburn, such as those reportedly suffered by Kathy, according to her husband, are often common symptoms of heart problems that are missed or misinterpreted by the patient, as well as the doctor.

  According to Dr. Boman, stomach distress, when it exhibits itself as a response to a heart attack, can possibly be attributed to the lack of nerves in the heart, thus causing the pain signals of the heart attack to be sent elsewhere in the body.

  “It’s very common,” Boman said. “And that can occur in men and women. It just appears to be more common in women, again making diagnosis a little more of a challenge.”

  Boman pointed out that men are more likely to experience the more classic symptoms of a heart attack, such as a dull ache in the arm or the overwhelming discomfort of pressure in the chest. In women, he said, the symptoms are not necessarily as straightforward as they are in men.

  “Instead of being pain,” he said, “say classically in the chest, substernal, crushing type discomfort, sometimes they will have it in the back, or maybe the arm. Or maybe it will be epigastric, in the stomach.”

  It was also announced that same day that Reno police had obtained and executed a search warrant at the Reno home Kathy shared with her husband, Chaz Higgs. Because of the information that had come out of Jenkins’s interview with Kim Ramey and her comments about succinylcholine, and the fact that the autopsy had found what appeared to be a needle mark on Kathy’s left buttock, investigators were, of course, looking for anything that might reveal the presence of the powerful anesthetic or the means to administer it, such as a needle and syringe, inside the house.

  Among the items collected from the Otter Way home during the execution of the search warrant were bedding items, including sheets and pillowcases, and the contents of trash containers. A yellow-and-black nylon backpack that Jenkins had found on the floor in the master bedroom, lying next to the bed in an area between the master bedroom and the master bathroom, was noted but not taken at that time. The backpack, along with virtually anything else that seemed pertinent to the investigation, was photographed in the location where it was found before being examined or moved. Later, when the backpack’s contents were examined, Jenkins discovered among the items inside it a vial of a controlled drug called etomidate. Etomidate, Jenkins learned, was a short-acting intravenous anesthetic. It is sometimes used for conscious sedation, commonly used in an ER setting. The vial’s seal hadn’t been broken, and the twenty milligrams inside appeared intact. Little else of significance was found during the search—there weren’t any syringes, needles, empty vials of drugs, and so forth.

  With the so-called massive heart attack theory that had been initiated by Chaz Higgs virtually ruled out, Jenkins and his colleagues had little choice but to await the FBI’s toxicology reports. In the meantime, Jenkins continued studying the facts of the case as he knew them at that time, and began backtracking through the events of the morning of Kathy’s death, beginning with the 911 call made by Higgs.

  Jenkins reviewed statements that Higgs had made to reporters during press conferences, and made it a point to speak to the paramedics who had responded to Higgs’s emergency telephone call. He researched that Higgs had said, “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 am 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.” Jenkins made note of how calm Higgs had sounded on the 911 tape recording of his call.

  When Jenkins spoke with Benjamin Pratt, the first paramedic to arrive at Kathy’s home, Pratt recalled how Higgs had been waiting outside for them, standing on the sidewalk, when they arrived. Pratt told the detective how Higgs had stated that he had found his wife in bed and unresponsive, and that was when he had begun cardiopulmonary resuscitation. However, Pratt and his colleagues told Jenkins that it is necessary to perform CPR on a solid surface, such as a floor, so that sufficient compression on the chest can be maintained to keep blood flowing through the heart. Pratt said that it was common knowledge among paramedics and medical professionals that the person being administered CPR be placed on a hard, flat surface, but when they arrived, Kathy was lying in her bed.

  Pratt also told the detective that Higgs did not appear excited or agitated, as most people are during such an emergency, and that he remained out of the bedroom while they worked on Kathy. Although Pratt’s information was similar to that which had been written in the report taken by Officers Steve Mussell and Joe Proffitt, the first officers at the scene, the detail that was now being related seemed to have more significance than it had initially.

  Manny Fuentes, the paramedic who drove the ambulance to the hospital, told Jenkins how Kathy had been relocated from the medical center’s suburban branch to the main hospital later that same morning. According to Fuentes, Higgs rode in the ambulance’s passenger seat and remained quiet during the trip. He hadn’t asked about his wife’s condition, but instead began reading a newspaper that Fuentes earlier had folded and placed on the dashboard. Such indifference toward a supposed loved one in grave condition had seemed strange.

  “He grabbed the newspaper and started flipping through the pages,” Fuentes said.

  With little to go on at this point, the Reno Police Department issued a request for anyone who thought they might have information that could help them find answers to the questions they had about Kathy’s death, no matter how insignificant the information might seem, to come forward. Phil Alfano, Kathy’s brother, also issued a similar request.

  “There have been many rumors and suspicions raised about the circumstances of Kathy’s death,” Alfano told reporters as he read from a prepared statement. “While our family hopes and prays that she died of natu
ral causes, we are extremely grateful that an investigation has been launched. Our family requests that anyone with information that could assist investigators with this task, please come forward.

  “In addition,” he continued, “the people of Nevada who did not know Kathy are also hearing and reading about the Kathy Augustine we all knew—the fun-loving, warm, and caring person we were fortunate to share our lives with.... Yes, Kathy could be demanding, tough, and outspoken. These are the characteristics of any great leader. But Kathy was not the false caricature created by a handful of disgruntled employees and opportunists during the impeachment trial and the weeks leading up to it.”

  He added that their family had been searching for “some measure of good in all of the senselessness,” and said that their family had become stronger and more thankful for one another since his sister’s death.

  At another point during the early stages of the investigation, Jenkins learned that Higgs had called Kathy’s mother in California and told her that Kathy had suffered a heart attack. When her mother told him that they would be there right away, Higgs told her that there was no need for her to come up to Reno.

  The next day, July 13, 2006, the case took on a new aura of mystery when the Reno Police Department formally asked the Nevada Department of Public Safety to assist them in their investigation. The request raised questions, particularly why the Reno Police Department felt they needed help from the state agency. Had there been a particular investigative reason behind the request? Or had the request been made because Kathy had been a state off icial and the local police had wanted the big boys from the state involved in case things got too sticky? Reno police wouldn’t say and chose to play it close to the vest. They also chose to characterize their investigation, as well as their request to their state counterpart, as routine.