by Gary C. King
Much of that e-mail, Linda believed, had been in reference to Kathy, and the part about him doing what he did “to protect you from her” had been, at least in Linda’s mind, a reference to the situation that had ended with Linda’s termination.
In another e-mail, dated December 8, 2005, Chaz wrote to Linda that there are prying eyes here as always, so I will write more soon. He ended it with, “Miss na miss kita,” Tagalog for “I miss you a lot.” A few hours later, Chaz followed up the December 8 e-mail with another, which, in part, thanked her for writing back to him. He also told Linda how much he missed her and that he had missed her and thought of her every day. He told her that he wanted to be with her. He explained that he had not given up hope that he could be with her again, and apologized for what had happened regarding Linda being fired. He told Linda that he truly cared for her.
The e-mail continued with Higgs telling Linda that he knew that he was giving her so much information because he had it bottled up inside for nearly a year. He explained that he had made a pact with himself that he would tell her just how he felt about her, that she had caused him to feel things that he had not felt before, and that such true feelings normally only occur once in one’s lifetime. He said that he wanted to give her the world.
Chaz also wrote that the other party in this is very vindictive and has a lot of power, an obvious reference to Kathy. He went on to write that Kathy wanted to control everything in her life, but that she had lost control of him when Linda appeared in his life. Higgs characterized Kathy as “crazy,” and had made his life a “living hell” through threats and manipulation. He said that he had seen such things depicted in the movies, but had never expected that he would be experiencing it in his own life. He explained that in Kathy’s position, she held the power to make a person’s life hell if she so desired.
A portion of the e-mail, as with some of the others, was reflective of Linda’s termination at Washoe Medical Center at South Meadows, and Higgs claimed that he only wanted to protect her from Kathy. He wrote that he was willing to sacrifice himself so that Kathy would not be able to hurt Linda anymore.
Chaz also said in the e-mail that he had made a pact with himself to spend each day with Kathy making her life hell, to pay her back for causing him to lose Linda. He indicated that he lived to manipulate Kathy and to cause her frustration: I hate this woman, and I will make her break. He wrote that he got to that point in his emotions after losing Linda. He wrote that it was his quest in life to drive this bitch crazy. And it is working. She is losing her mind.
He wrote that he no longer cared what Kathy might do to him, stating that he was no longer scared of his wife. Previously, he said, she had manipulated him, as well as his friends and employers, but that he could now leave her. He indicated that he had set into motion a plan to leave Kathy, and that he now had a place to go. I will be free, and I will be with you. That is what I want. You have my heart. He signed off with Chaz.
Chaz’s characterization of his wife in the e-mails, Jenkins reflected, seven months before her death, was markedly different from the manner in which he had characterized her immediately after she had died. And so were the emotions that he had expressed. After her death, he had exhibited emotions of the grieving husband, and had told the press and just about anyone else who would listen how much he loved her. But in the e-mail, written a little more than half a year before her demise, Chaz Higgs had clearly indicated that there was no love left in their marriage.
Another e-mail in Linda’s packet, this one dated February 15, 2006, read: Just wanted to say mahal na mahal kita, which means, “I love you very much.”
Linda responded three days later with: How was your Valentine’s Day? Kalbigan ko kinakanto ko, which is translated as, “I am your friend, and I want to sleep with you.” She also asked him how things were going with Kathy.
Chaz didn’t respond to Linda until March 10, 2006, when he wrote: The wife is the wife, but not my life. He said that his Valentine’s Day had not been pleasant, but added that he had gone to Mexico during the first week of March and had thought of Linda the entire time. He signed off by telling her that he missed her and to write to him soon.
Although the occasional e-mail exchanges between Linda and Chaz continued in May and June 2006, they had appeared infrequently, according to the hard copies that Linda had produced, and with which she had come forward. One e-mail from Chaz to Linda, dated May 26, 2006, said that he was working on getting out of his “present situation,” and that he had an apartment lined up: In June it is going to happen. Cannot wait. I miss you.
It wasn’t until July 30, three weeks after Kathy’s death, that Linda wrote to Chaz and explained that she had broken up with her boyfriend. Chaz responded that he was single as well, and had moved out of Nevada due to recent events. My wife had a sudden heart attack and passed away. He explained that he was working as a traveling nurse, but had plans to eventually relocate to San Diego. He asked Linda if she wanted to go with him, and told her that he had never forgotten about her. That e-mail had been written on August 3, 2006.
In the meantime, Linda explained, she had begun reading news reports, mostly on the Internet, about how Kathy had died, how Chaz was being looked at as a suspect, and how he had made a suicide attempt. She asked him, in a follow-up e-mail, if it was true that he had tried to kill himself.
Chaz wrote Linda that it was great to hear from you, and he told her that he missed her and assured her that he was not getting into any relationship unless it was with her. He reminded her how he had expressed his love for her previously: It does not go away. You only have one true love in your life, and you are it. So whatever it takes, that is what I will do.
Chaz also explained that he wanted to talk to her about what had happened, but he didn’t want to make any statements about the case in an e-mail, and because his lawyer did not want him speaking to anyone about the case just yet. He said that he had been contacted by several media sources, including People magazine, Fox News, 48 Hours, Geraldo, and the New York Times. He promised Linda that he would see her again sometime.
Chaz wrote that he missed Linda, and truly loved her. He explained how he could no longer hold back the feelings that were in his heart for her: I would give you the world if you let me because that is what is in my heart for you, the world.
He said that he might return to Nevada, and agreed with Linda in her opinion that the state is a little slow, a little redneck. He asked Linda to go to Mexico with him, and in the next sentence asked her to go to San Diego with him, instead, so that they could run to Mexico all the time. He also suggested Sedona and Santa Fe.
You tell me, he wrote. I’ll take you anywhere. I can make you the happiest woman on this earth.
He reiterated that he wasn’t trying to “freak” her out with the things that he was saying in the e-mail, and expressed the emotions that he claimed he felt for Linda.
I just love you . . . , he wrote. You are all I’ve wanted since I first saw you. He recalled the rose that he had given Linda for her birthday, and said that he had felt like giving her a million roses. He said that he had wanted to run away with her: I do not want anything else in my life, and it has been this way for two years. I want you with all my heart.
Knowing Chaz had four marriages, and only God knows how many relationships, Jenkins and everyone else associated with the case could only wonder just how sincere this guy was capable of being.
Chapter 16
In the meantime, as Detective Jenkins continued his investigation into Kathy’s suspicious death, Kathy’s stepson, Greg Augustine, along with assistance from attorney Dominic Gentile, began pushing for the exhumation of his father’s body after considering the circumstances of Kathy’s untimely death and the fact that Chaz Higgs had served as his father’s critical care nurse at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. Greg had previously said that he would ask that his father’s body be exhumed if it turned out that his stepmother’s body contained traces of succinylc
holine. Since that fact had indeed been determined, and in part because of Dr. Cyril Wecht’s statement that he would want the exhumation under those circumstances if he were a family member, Greg began consulting with authorities in Las Vegas, including Clark County district attorney (DA) David Roger and Las Vegas police lieutenant Lew Roberts. Before long, the general consensus among all of those involved was that it was something that needed to be done.
David Roger may have been moved so swiftly to action with the exhumation, at least in part, because he recalled that he had seen Chaz Higgs before. It had been in the fall of 2002 when Roger happened to attend the same Republican campaign event as Chaz Higgs and Kathy Augustine. In recounting the event to a Las Vegas Sun reporter that he didn’t remember the specifics of the gathering, but he absolutely recalled seeing Higgs and Augustine there—several months before either of them had claimed they met.
“It’s a blur, the whole campaign was a blur,” Roger said. “But I remember his face, and I immediately remembered him when I saw him on the news, and we’ll find other people who remember.... He wasn’t very talkative.”
Roger said that Higgs had been sitting by himself and had a scowl on his face much of the evening.
“He seemed somewhat standoff ish, and it appeared that he didn’t want to be at the function,” Roger said.
Although it now seemed that Chaz and Kathy appeared to have known each other in 2002, several months before they claimed to have met, this incident hadn’t meant anything to the district attorney at that time. Now, however, it somehow seemed significant. Thinking like a district attorney would, Roger determined that such an inconsistency about when they met could cause suspicion of criminal goings-on. Roger stopped short of being more specific, but it seemed clear what he intended to convey.
According to the Sun, Kathy Augustine had told a reporter for that newspaper in September 2003 that she and Chaz Higgs had met in July 2003 at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center where her then-husband, Charles, had been hospitalized and was recovering from a stroke. Six weeks after they claimed they had met, Charles died—presumably of complications from the stroke—and three weeks later, Kathy and Chaz were married in Hawaii. When all of the circumstances were put together in the same pot, it was enough to make any reasonable person suspicious, even more so when the discrepancy pointed out by Roger was factored in.
“We have a reason to open an investigation and exhume a body,” Roger said.
In early October 2006, both Lieutenant Roberts and DA Roger confirmed that plans were under way to exhume Charles Augustine’s body from his grave site at Paradise Memorial Gardens, in east Las Vegas. They also confirmed that toxicology tests on tissue samples were planned to determine whether he had died from an act of foul play instead of a stroke, as originally believed. Specifically, they were going to look for the presence of succinylcholine.
On Monday, October 2, 2006, the same day that Chaz Higgs appeared in a Hampton, Virginia, courtroom just prior to his return to Nevada with Detective Jenkins, David Roger consulted with renowned medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden regarding whether toxicology tests on tissue samples from Charles Augustine’s body could determine whether succinylcholine traces might still be present, even though three years had elapsed since his death.
“I was told that if the decedent was injected intravenously with the drug, it would be unlikely you would find any remnants of the drug,” Roger told reporters for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “However, if the decedent was injected in muscle tissue, there would be a decent chance of finding it.”
Dr. Brian Andresen, the scientist who developed the process of detecting succinylcholine in the body, said that succinylcholine might very well be the most difficult drug to detect in a corpse, according to the Review-Journal. Andresen was responsible for the creation of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Forensic Science Center.
“On an exhumation, I would say it is going to be very difficult,” Andresen said. “If you run the right controls and run the standards, if you do things in a very controlled, systematic, scientific manner, then you possibly can get a positive result, but it’s still very difficult.... It is one of the worst drugs to analyze confidently. You have to be so careful, and the testing has to be done at the toxicology labs with the most scientifically advanced equipment.”
If a body has been embalmed, as Charles Augustine’s was, it becomes an even bigger problem. Embalming, according to experts on exhumations, is a detriment in performing toxicology analysis because embalming fluid can interact with the poisons being looked for and sometimes changes the chemical structure of the toxic substances. Nonetheless, despite the difficulties that lay ahead, everyone concerned knew that the only way to find out was to perform the exhumation and the toxicology tests.
According to Andresen, it would be necessary for the Las Vegas authorities and scientists to collect soil samples from the grave site to be used for controls, and the type of embalming fluid would also need to be determined. He said that it would also be necessary to analyze the materials from which the coffin was constructed.
Neither a search warrant nor a court order is required to exhume a body in Clark County, Nevada. The county coroner’s office can make such a decision independently without regard to law enforcement’s input or desire to either get involved or not get involved, as the case may be. It just so happened that in the case of the Charles Augustine exhumation, the coroner’s office, headed by Michael Murphy, law enforcement, and the district attorney’s office were all in agreement that this was something that needed to be done.
A week later, on Tuesday, October 10, 2006, two men wearing black suits and smoking cigarettes supervised the television crews and other media types when they began arriving at Paradise Memorial Gardens, also known as Davis Funeral Home and Memorial Parks, before five o’clock for the morning broadcasts. The exhumation was planned for 7:00 A.M., and only news media personnel with valid credentials would be allowed to observe the process from an area specifically set up for the media so that others using the cemetery would not be disturbed or have to worry about being photographed or videotaped while they paid respects to their deceased loved ones. One of the black-suited mortuary workers drove a golf cart to the main entrance, where he used it to help block access to curious onlookers who happened along and wanted to know what the predawn fuss in the cemetery was all about. According to Coroner Michael Murphy, every effort to show respect to others and to maintain the dignity of the dead was being made by his office and everyone else involved.
“We don’t take this lightly, and I mean that with as much sincerity as I can possibly convey,” Murphy said. “We are in a unique situation. The family wants answers, the media wants to cover it, but there are other people who have loved ones in that cemetery, and they may be there, grieving.... This is probably one of the biggest things that’s going on in the state of Nevada right now. And everybody wants to know.”
Murphy told the reporters that were present that morning that his office hoped to answer the questions that centered on the cause of Charles Augustine’s death. Up until the decision was made to do the exhumation and the toxicology testing, particularly since an autopsy hadn’t been performed on his body, everyone—including Charles Augustine’s doctors—had believed that his demise was due to complications of the stroke that he had suffered.
Dr. Robert Middleberg, the director of NMS Labs, in Pennsylvania, agreed with experts that had been interviewed by local media that the only way to definitively show that succinylcholine is present in a body exhumed from a cemetery is to exhume several other bodies from the surrounding area that had been interred at about the same time so that levels could be compared from all of the bodies, since succinylmonocholine tends to appear naturally in dead bodies. Middleberg was quick to point out that sufficient data to show what a normal level might be does not exist, and stated that succinylcholine poisoning is a very bad way for a person to die.
“It’s really a very insidi
ous poison,” Middleberg said. “If you do manage to give it to somebody, that person knows they are becoming paralyzed, and they can’t do anything about it. It’s a terrible poison to have administered to you. Is it an insidious murder weapon? You better believe it.”
Middleberg said that investigators normally wouldn’t expect to find succinylcholine in an exhumed body. However, he added, if it was injected into tissue and an injection site was found, some of the drug would remain in that area.
Although Middleberg had suggested that a number of bodies needed to be dug up for purposes of comparing the levels of succinylcholine to rule out that which might have occurred naturally in the form of succinylmonocholine and to show a higher presence of that which might have been deliberately given to a victim as succinylcholine, Murphy indicated that his office didn’t have the wherewithal of going that route. Instead, he said, his office would be concerned with the overall picture and would not only look for the presence of succinylcholine, but he would attempt to determine any other manner of death that might have caused Charles Augustine’s demise.
Middleberg also pointed out that if traces of a drug, even succinylcholine, were found in the tissues of the exhumed body, it didn’t automatically make the probe a homicide case.
“If they find it in a needle site,” Middleberg said, “it’s a good inference. Keep in mind, though, toxicology is only a piece of information. There has to be more to a case than toxicology.”
Later at the Clark County Coroner’s Office, Murphy was pleased at the overall condition that Charles Augustine’s body was in, considering that it had been in the ground for more than three years. If succinylcholine had been injected into tissue, which was basically their only hope for detecting the drug’s presence, they had good samples from which to work. If it had been administered intravenously, there would be virtually no chance that it could now be detected. It was also possible that they wouldn’t find any at all because it hadn’t been administered by anyone during Augustine’s hospital stay.