Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / True Crime Documentary - Dark Side of Love： The Chaz Higgs and Kathy Augustine Story

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True Crime Documentary - Dark Side of Love： The Chaz Higgs and Kathy Augustine Story · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:38
Speaker 1: Nobody should die that way.
0:39
Speaker 2: I've never seen anything that herd of the duties of
0:42
Speaker 2: a pathologist is to determine the cause of death.
0:45
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1:01
Speaker 4: On Saturday, July eighth, two thousand and six, prominent Nevada
1:07
Speaker 4: state politician Kathy Augustine was supposed to attend a political fundraiser,
1:14
Speaker 4: but she never showed up. She lay dying in her bedroom.
1:24
Speaker 5: This was so, of course, this was so personal and
1:28
Speaker 5: so cruel and heartless.
1:31
Speaker 4: Husband Chaz Higgs may have thought he'd planned a perfect murder,
1:37
Speaker 4: but the former US Navy medic turned nurse came to
1:41
Speaker 4: learn that loose lips do indeed sink ships.
1:51
Speaker 6: Were it not for the concerns of a private citizen
1:55
Speaker 6: of miss Raimi, certainly this case would have been the
2:00
Speaker 6: perfect murder.
2:03
Speaker 4: Born in nineteen fifty six, Kathy Augustine went on to
2:07
Speaker 4: become Nevada's first female state controller. A trailblazing politician, her
2:16
Speaker 4: sometimes turbulent public life overshadowed an even rockier personal one.
2:24
Speaker 5: Kathy Augustine was a very smart, very dynamic woman. She
2:30
Speaker 5: was very well educated education played a huge part in
2:33
Speaker 5: her life. She had gone on to get a master's degree.
2:36
Speaker 5: She had done a lot of different jobs.
2:41
Speaker 4: Kathy Augustine met thirty nine year old Chaz Higgs while
2:45
Speaker 4: her estranged third husband, Charles Augustine, was being treated for
2:50
Speaker 4: a stroke.
2:52
Speaker 5: Kathy Augustine had been married three times before she met
2:56
Speaker 5: Chaz Higgs. He was a critical care nurse at Son
3:00
Speaker 5: Medical Center in Las Vegas. Her husband, her third husband,
3:05
Speaker 5: Charles Augustine, had been taken to Sunrise Medical Center as
3:09
Speaker 5: the result of a stroke. He had suffered a minor stroke,
3:12
Speaker 5: then suffered a major stroke and was in the hospital
3:15
Speaker 5: being cared for in the critical care unit.
3:18
Speaker 7: He was actually recovering.
3:19
Speaker 5: He was doing a lot better and in the course
3:22
Speaker 5: of his care there, Chas Higgs was his nurse.
3:27
Speaker 4: At the time, Kathy and Charles Augustine's marriage was in trouble.
3:34
Speaker 4: Kathy had moved out of their home in Las Vegas
3:38
Speaker 4: into a house she owned in Reno.
3:43
Speaker 5: Chaz Higgs was taking care of Charles Augustine, and Cathy
3:47
Speaker 5: was visiting routinely, of course, to visit her husband to
3:50
Speaker 5: see how he was doing.
3:52
Speaker 7: Their marriage was actually on the rocks at that time.
3:54
Speaker 7: They were making plans to divorce.
3:58
Speaker 4: Despite the plight of their marriage, Charles Augustine was making
4:02
Speaker 4: a steady recovery in hospital.
4:06
Speaker 5: His family was actually in the process of preparing to
4:09
Speaker 5: bring him home, and they were making arrangements to have
4:13
Speaker 5: resources brought into the home and continue his recovery there.
4:16
Speaker 5: Shortly before he was supposed to be brought home, he
4:19
Speaker 5: died in the hospital.
4:22
Speaker 4: Kathy and Chaz embarked on a whirlwind romance. Less than
4:28
Speaker 4: a month after Charles's death. Kathy stunned family and friends
4:33
Speaker 4: with an announcement.
4:36
Speaker 5: She described him to her family as an angel who
4:39
Speaker 5: has swept me off my feet. Chaz said, for his part,
4:44
Speaker 5: that they had chemistry. They had instant chemistry, and three
4:47
Speaker 5: weeks after Charles Augustine passed away, Chaz and Kathy were
4:52
Speaker 5: married in Hawaii.
4:55
Speaker 4: Chas Higgs had been a medic in the US Navy
4:59
Speaker 4: before becoming an nurse when he met Kathy. He had
5:04
Speaker 4: already been married and divorced three times and had a
5:08
Speaker 4: string of bankruptcies behind him. But despite his checkered past,
5:14
Speaker 4: Kathy thought she'd finally found the love of her life.
5:20
Speaker 5: She wanted consistent love in her life. She wanted someone
5:23
Speaker 5: who would love her and care for her, and I
5:27
Speaker 5: think truly she thought she had found that with Chaz.
5:31
Speaker 4: Moving into her Reno house. Chaz continued to work as
5:35
Speaker 4: a nurse while Kathy pursued her political career. She had
5:40
Speaker 4: successfully ridden out a political storm after being impeached in
5:45
Speaker 4: two thousand and four, but she couldn't weather her increasingly
5:50
Speaker 4: turbulent relationship with Chaz. Hopes for a happy marriage began
5:57
Speaker 4: to fade.
6:01
Speaker 7: When other nurses would say, hs, is there anything I
6:03
Speaker 7: need to help you?
6:03
Speaker 5: Yeah, kill my wife, get rid of my wife.
6:06
Speaker 7: For me, that's a lot to carry around, and he
6:10
Speaker 7: was very open about it.
6:12
Speaker 5: They had an extremely acrimonious relationship. Toward the end, they
6:16
Speaker 5: were fighting constantly. He was starting up relationships online.
6:22
Speaker 4: Reno has some of the most relaxed divorce laws in
6:26
Speaker 4: the country. The city is even popularly known as the
6:30
Speaker 4: divorce capital of the US, yet Chats avoided pursuing one.
6:38
Speaker 6: I'm certain that Cathy's family couldn't understand why Chaz had
6:42
Speaker 6: simply not divorced her, not moved on, not just ended
6:46
Speaker 6: the relationship. That seems to have been a much preferable option,
6:51
Speaker 6: but generally speaking, I think most murderers are on some
6:54
Speaker 6: level unbelievably selfish and perhaps a bit narcissistic. There are needs,
7:00
Speaker 6: Their wants are more important than anyone else's.
7:04
Speaker 4: Chaz wanted Kathy dead. Inflamed with resentment and fueled by arrogance,
7:14
Speaker 4: Chas Higgs was convinced he had picked the perfect poison
7:20
Speaker 4: to mask a murder. Succonal colin a muscle relaxant. The
7:26
Speaker 4: body's capacity to rapidly break it down, renders succonal colin
7:32
Speaker 4: virtually undetectable.
7:35
Speaker 6: SUCKS was short for succonal coaling. It is very short
7:39
Speaker 6: term and fast acting that it completely paralyzes or renders
7:46
Speaker 6: inoperable the muscles in your body, so you're able to
7:51
Speaker 6: insert the tube without the gag reflex and things interfering
7:55
Speaker 6: in that process in a medical emergency.
8:00
Speaker 4: Of Suxon or choline are designed to be for the
8:03
Speaker 4: very short term. An overdose, however, would be catastrophic.
8:11
Speaker 1: That's probably as cruel as you could be to a
8:14
Speaker 1: human being. I mean, just it suffocates you. The drug
8:19
Speaker 1: does you. No, that's not quick, it's not painless. It's awful.
8:25
Speaker 1: You can't breathe, you can't talk, you can't move and
8:28
Speaker 1: you can't get in the oxygen anywhere. Your heart's still beating,
8:32
Speaker 1: but there's no air oxygen in your bloodstream. You are
8:35
Speaker 1: dying and it hurts.
8:38
Speaker 4: Critical care Nurse Chas knew this, and police believe he
8:45
Speaker 4: went ahead and took some from the hospital where he
8:48
Speaker 4: was working. Overnight on that fateful weekend, Chas Higgs injected
8:56
Speaker 4: his wife Kathy with a lethal dose.
9:01
Speaker 6: The state's theory, my personal belief is that mister Higgs
9:05
Speaker 6: had injected her with sexingal calling while she lie in bed,
9:11
Speaker 6: either while she was asleep or when she was first waking.
9:15
Speaker 6: It wouldn't take very much to be able to plunge
9:18
Speaker 6: j asy ringe in someone's body and push the plunger.
9:22
Speaker 7: It's hard to see people suffer like that. I had
9:25
Speaker 7: nightmares about.
9:28
Speaker 5: Somebody giving me a shot like that, and you can't breathe,
9:32
Speaker 5: and you can't move, and you can't call for help,
9:34
Speaker 5: and you know you're dying.
9:36
Speaker 7: For minute upon minute.
9:38
Speaker 5: I mean, look at your watch for twenty minutes and
9:41
Speaker 5: know that that's how long it took her to die.
9:44
Speaker 5: I always wondered what he said to her when she
9:47
Speaker 5: was dying. Maybe he said nothing.
9:53
Speaker 4: Eventually, Higgs called nine one one.
9:59
Speaker 6: When Kathy Augustine was first hospitalized, the general belief was
10:05
Speaker 6: that it was an unexplained medical emergency. She was taken
10:10
Speaker 6: by ambulance from her home in the presence of her husband.
10:15
Speaker 6: To the exclusion of any other cause, they settled on
10:20
Speaker 6: it being a medical event for which there were no
10:23
Speaker 6: symptoms and certainly no prior incidents of losing consciousness or
10:28
Speaker 6: problems with their cardiovascular system. She was a healthy, middle
10:33
Speaker 6: aged woman with no significant medical history.
10:37
Speaker 4: News of Kathy Augustine's hospitalization made headlines.
10:43
Speaker 6: There was quite a bit of press coverage given in
10:46
Speaker 6: the first couple of days. And I had seen that
10:49
Speaker 6: press coverage and watched it thinking nothing significant, certainly not
10:52
Speaker 6: thinking or believing that it was a police matter at all.
10:55
Speaker 7: I saw it on the front page of the newspaper.
10:57
Speaker 5: Like most people in our community, and it says something like,
11:00
Speaker 5: you know, State Controller Kathy Augustine is in the hospital
11:04
Speaker 5: in a coma.
11:06
Speaker 4: Then one phone call changed everything.
11:12
Speaker 6: While Kathy was alive and still hospitalized but unconscious, I
11:17
Speaker 6: received a call from an individual who said they believed
11:21
Speaker 6: they might have information regarding what had happened to Miss Augustine.
11:27
Speaker 4: The caller was Kim Ramie, a nurse Chaz had recently
11:33
Speaker 4: met at the hospital when Raymie learnt Kathy had been
11:38
Speaker 4: admitted to hospital in a coma. She recalled a concerning
11:42
Speaker 4: conversation she'd had with Chaz just the day before.
11:48
Speaker 6: She related to me that she had had some unusual
11:51
Speaker 6: conversations with Chaz Higgs in which he had expressed a
11:58
Speaker 6: great deal of animus towards his wife had made comments
12:02
Speaker 6: that he wished he were dead.
12:04
Speaker 4: Higgs also made the passing remark if.
12:08
Speaker 1: You want to kill somebody, you just hit him with
12:11
Speaker 1: the little sucks and it's not traceable post mortem.
12:17
Speaker 4: The police appeared to have a case of aggravated assault
12:21
Speaker 4: on their hands. A few days after Ramy's phone call,
12:25
Speaker 4: the family, accompanied by Chads, held a press conference on
12:31
Speaker 4: the steps of Cathy's workplace. They had made the agonizing
12:36
Speaker 4: decision to turn off her life support.
12:41
Speaker 5: He introduced himself as her husband, and flanked by her family,
12:45
Speaker 5: her brother, her daughter, They held a news conference in
12:48
Speaker 5: front of the state Capitol building and talked about the
12:51
Speaker 5: circumstances surrounding her illness. He said that he simply had
12:55
Speaker 5: come in and she was not breathing and we tried
12:59
Speaker 5: CPR called nine point one.
13:01
Speaker 7: He introduced himself as.
13:02
Speaker 5: A critical care nurse, which he was, and so that
13:05
Speaker 5: he had tried every life saving measure he could and
13:08
Speaker 5: that she was seriously ill. He really didn't have any
13:10
Speaker 5: other information beyond that. It was obvious that her daughter,
13:14
Speaker 5: her brother, and more extended family were grieving deeply for her.
13:19
Speaker 4: When Kathy Augustine died, her death became a homicide, a
13:26
Speaker 4: police investigation was already underway.
13:31
Speaker 6: Well, the very first thing we did was contact the
13:34
Speaker 6: hospital laboratory to see if there had been urine and
13:38
Speaker 6: blood samples taking when she was initially admitted into the hospital.
13:43
Speaker 4: Luckily there were Finding a laboratory that tested for suxonal
13:49
Speaker 4: coline wasn't easy, only two existed in the country. The
13:56
Speaker 4: samples were sent to the FBI's laboratory in Quantum, Virginia. Meanwhile,
14:03
Speaker 4: police had to establish whether or not paramedics or medical
14:08
Speaker 4: staff had administered suxon or colin to Kathy.
14:13
Speaker 6: The process of identifying that substance in her system was
14:17
Speaker 6: going to take several weeks, and so immediately we interviewed
14:24
Speaker 6: the paramedics, we interviewed the medical staff, We tried to
14:28
Speaker 6: interview Chas Higgs, the husband. Mister Higgs chose not to
14:33
Speaker 6: speak with us. It seemed unusual to me that the
14:36
Speaker 6: spouse of someone who just died would not have any
14:41
Speaker 6: interest in finding out what had happened, but in this
14:45
Speaker 6: case exercised his right not to share any information with
14:49
Speaker 6: the police.
14:51
Speaker 4: Although Chas Higgs refused to cooperate with the police, he
14:56
Speaker 4: did make an attempt to play the grieving widow.
15:01
Speaker 6: Higgs learned that an investigation had been initiated, and on
15:05
Speaker 6: the night before Kathy's funeral, mister Higgs made an attempt
15:09
Speaker 6: to commit suicide. There are two schools of thought in
15:16
Speaker 6: this particular case. One was that he could possibly have
15:21
Speaker 6: been filled with remorse overkilling his wife. The second, and
15:24
Speaker 6: I think more likely, is that he was selfish and
15:28
Speaker 6: narcissistic and did not want to be held accountable for
15:30
Speaker 6: what he had done to his wife.
15:36
Speaker 4: Despite a suicide note proclaiming his love for Kathy and
15:41
Speaker 4: blaming state officials for her death, police remained unswayed by
15:48
Speaker 4: Chas's superficial grief. Instead, they were making disconcerting discoveries.
16:00
Speaker 6: Higgs had publicly stated to a number of people that
16:04
Speaker 6: they had a wonderful relationship. However, as we began to
16:10
Speaker 6: speak with co workers, people who knew and associated with
16:15
Speaker 6: mister Higgs, they painted a very different picture. They painted
16:19
Speaker 6: a picture of an individual who had disdain, if not
16:25
Speaker 6: right hatred for his wife, who often would make comments
16:30
Speaker 6: in passing that he wished she were dead. We also
16:35
Speaker 6: determined that he had been pursuing a number of romantic
16:40
Speaker 6: interests outside of their marriage, so it was in complete
16:45
Speaker 6: conflict with what he was saying publicly.
16:49
Speaker 4: Actions that had previously been considered strange were now increasingly incriminating.
16:58
Speaker 5: When the ambulance pulls up, he's standing on the sidewalk
17:01
Speaker 5: out in front.
17:03
Speaker 7: Kathy Augustine is lying on the bed.
17:05
Speaker 5: Anyone who knows how to do CPR, and a critical
17:07
Speaker 5: carecters would know how to do CPR, knows that she
17:10
Speaker 5: put a person who is in cardiac arrest on the
17:13
Speaker 5: floor or on a hard surface, because then you can
17:16
Speaker 5: actually do chest compressions that are effective. She's still lying
17:19
Speaker 5: on the bed and he's standing in front of the house.
17:22
Speaker 6: The paramedics described mister Higgs as they were driving with
17:28
Speaker 6: lights and siren to the hospital and he was accompanying
17:30
Speaker 6: them in the ambulance that he was detached, unemotional, and
17:34
Speaker 6: in fact so distanced that he read the newspaper as
17:38
Speaker 6: they were driving in the ambulance. So my way of thinking,
17:42
Speaker 6: if your wife is critically ill and perhaps dying, and
17:46
Speaker 6: you're rushing to the hospital in an ambulance, it's hard
17:49
Speaker 6: for me to picture most people reading a newspaper.
17:51
Speaker 8: During that time, we.
17:56
Speaker 1: Found out about him going to the retirement system in
17:59
Speaker 1: Nevada while she was still in the hospital but still
18:03
Speaker 1: in the coma, to sign up for her benefits if
18:07
Speaker 1: and when she died, and we thought that stream.
18:12
Speaker 4: The supposedly grieving widower didn't let the death of his
18:16
Speaker 4: wife stop his roving eye.
18:21
Speaker 5: Over the ensuing months after the funeral. During the investigation,
18:25
Speaker 5: Chas was carrying on online relationships. He was romancing different women,
18:32
Speaker 5: said in a very offhand manner.
18:33
Speaker 7: I'm single now? Did I mention I'm single now? I'm
18:36
Speaker 7: single now?
18:37
Speaker 4: By September two thousand and six, the toxicology report was back.
18:45
Speaker 1: Until we had a cause of death. We had an okay,
18:47
Speaker 1: so the sucks toxic cologem gave us a case and
18:54
Speaker 1: then it went forward from there.
18:56
Speaker 4: Within hours, a warrant was issued and Chaz was arrested
19:02
Speaker 4: a couple days later.
19:04
Speaker 1: When he was arrested, he had a packet of three
19:07
Speaker 1: by five cards and then you know it's a thick
19:11
Speaker 1: like this and a rubber band around the top. One
19:15
Speaker 1: gave instructions on how to use them when used, sucking
19:20
Speaker 1: on calling out of the whole stack of cards, why
19:24
Speaker 1: was that one on top?
19:26
Speaker 4: The evidence kept piling up in a backpack belonging to Chaz.
19:33
Speaker 4: Police had also found a file of another controlled drug,
19:38
Speaker 4: a short acting anesthetic attommodate, and a drug administration handbook
19:45
Speaker 4: bookmarked at the page on suxonal choline. In December two
19:52
Speaker 4: thousand and six, Chaz Higgs was charged with first degree murder.
20:00
Speaker 4: Six months later, the trial began. Although kim Raimie's testimony
20:07
Speaker 4: about her conversation with Chaz and the toxicology report were damning,
20:13
Speaker 4: the method of the murder was still in question.
20:17
Speaker 1: Then we had, well, how did he do it? Doctor Clark,
20:21
Speaker 1: the pathologist found a puncture wound on her buttocks and
20:29
Speaker 1: it wasn't explained by any of the therapeutic treatment she
20:34
Speaker 1: was receiving while she was in the hospital, and it
20:37
Speaker 1: looked like an injection site to her, to doctor Clark,
20:42
Speaker 1: and so we went with that's how I gave it
20:45
Speaker 1: to her.
20:47
Speaker 4: Other witnesses testified about Kathy and Chaz's relationship, Chaz's numerous affairs,
20:55
Speaker 4: and his open hostility towards Kathy. To the surprise of onlookers,
21:02
Speaker 4: the defense called Chaz to the stand.
21:07
Speaker 5: And I remember there was a thrill through the courtroom,
21:10
Speaker 5: was a ripple. We didn't know if they were going
21:12
Speaker 5: to call him or not. And when they said our
21:15
Speaker 5: next witness is Chaz Higgs, he stood up. He went
21:19
Speaker 5: up and he testified for a good hour about his
21:23
Speaker 5: relationship with Kathy, about his love for her, about how
21:28
Speaker 5: he would never ever ever do something to her, He
21:30
Speaker 5: would never kill her, he would never raise a hand
21:33
Speaker 5: to her.
21:36
Speaker 4: That evening, he followed up his testimony with another dramatic act.
21:44
Speaker 5: The next morning, we were all in the courtroom again
21:47
Speaker 5: ready for the prosecution to start their questioning. There's no
21:51
Speaker 5: Chess Higgs there. Chaz attempted suicide again that night. After
21:57
Speaker 5: telling his story. His attorney said, you're he had told
22:01
Speaker 5: his story and he felt.
22:04
Speaker 7: He wanted to end his life. He had cut his
22:07
Speaker 7: wrists again.
22:09
Speaker 4: But once again the superficial nature of his wounds became
22:14
Speaker 4: as conspicuous as his lies.
22:18
Speaker 1: I think he wanted sympathy. I think he wanted to
22:20
Speaker 1: control the situation. The bandages were visible out the sleeve
22:25
Speaker 1: of his coat, and other than that, there was no
22:28
Speaker 1: difference as far as I could tell in his appearance
22:31
Speaker 1: or his demeanor. I didn't yell at him or anything
22:36
Speaker 1: like that, but I said, you know, couldn't you cut
22:39
Speaker 1: your jugular vein? Wouldn't that have worked? Well? I don't know,
22:42
Speaker 1: I guess you know. And he'd been spouting all through
22:46
Speaker 1: the trial at critical care nurse and I rely on
22:49
Speaker 1: my training, and that's why I wasn't emotional. And well,
22:53
Speaker 1: you can't have it both ways. Either you trained and
22:55
Speaker 1: you know how stuff works, or you aren't.
22:59
Speaker 4: To prove his point, Bob asked Higgs to draw a
23:03
Speaker 4: diagram of his house.
23:07
Speaker 1: The purpose was to let the jury know that he
23:10
Speaker 1: wasn't hurt. That bad thinks still write and draw on
23:12
Speaker 1: all that. I didn't really give a damn what he drew. Sorry,
23:18
Speaker 1: that's just the way I just do something, make him
23:21
Speaker 1: do something.
23:22
Speaker 7: Was this a true attempt? A true second attempt? Likely not.
23:28
Speaker 5: It was very effective after probably an hour, hour and
23:31
Speaker 5: a half. He was done in more ways than one.
23:36
Speaker 4: On June twenty ninth, two thousand and seven, the jury
23:41
Speaker 4: took seven hours to find Chas Higgs guilty of the
23:45
Speaker 4: first degree murder of Kathy Augustine. He was sentenced to
23:52
Speaker 4: life in prison, with the possibility of parole after twenty years.
23:59
Speaker 5: You know, we lost a state leader, We lost a
24:01
Speaker 5: woman who had been inspiring to so many people, and
24:05
Speaker 5: she had made mistakes, of course she had, and hers
24:08
Speaker 5: were simply played out on a public stage.
24:11
Speaker 7: But what a tragedy. How sad to die that way.
24:19
Speaker 5: A murderer could have walked free but for luck, some
24:24
Speaker 5: benevolent force out there that assured that Kathy Augustine's death
24:28
Speaker 5: would not go unpunished.
24:45
Speaker 2: You've got sex, you got drugs, you got death, and
24:54
Speaker 2: they knew that there was a motive for murder.
24:58
Speaker 8: There's a lot of trust that's put into these people
25:01
Speaker 8: to make sure that they're truthful, they're honest, and that
25:04
Speaker 8: they're very thorough and in this particular case, we don't
25:07
Speaker 8: know who to trust.
25:10
Speaker 3: Well, it was just really horrifying, and she affected so
25:13
Speaker 3: many lives for nothing.
25:27
Speaker 4: At the start of the year two thousand, the future
25:30
Speaker 4: looked bright for twenty six year old Greg de Villa's
25:35
Speaker 4: the son of a prominent doctor. Greg had graduated from
25:39
Speaker 4: the University of California, San Diego.
25:44
Speaker 2: This was an educated guy. This was an honorable man
25:48
Speaker 2: who thought he was doing the right thing.
25:51
Speaker 9: We know from his mom and his dad and his
25:54
Speaker 9: brothers that he was a super sweet and giving guy.
25:58
Speaker 9: All as co workers liked him. You know, he was
26:00
Speaker 9: just a sweet kid.
26:04
Speaker 4: The eldest of three brothers. In February nineteen ninety five,
26:08
Speaker 4: Greg's life changed irrevocably when he met eighteen year old
26:14
Speaker 4: Kristin Russom.
26:16
Speaker 2: She had a privileged background. Her father was in the
26:19
Speaker 2: Reagan Justice Administration. He was a professor of constitutional law.
26:23
Speaker 2: Her mother was a college professor. Her mother was a
26:25
Speaker 2: former advertising executive.
26:28
Speaker 8: She was highly intelligent, very bright, engaging, and she was
26:31
Speaker 8: always regarded as lovely in physical appearance, very engaging personality.
26:38
Speaker 8: But as tom went by, she developed some problems, particularly
26:41
Speaker 8: as it applied to substance abease. One of the first
26:46
Speaker 8: substances she began to experiment with in college was actually marijuana,
26:50
Speaker 8: and then from that point she progressed to methamphetimin. Kristen's
26:58
Speaker 8: early involvement with methem fetimine had gotten so bad that
27:01
Speaker 8: she wound up having to drop out of college. Her
27:04
Speaker 8: end goal was to become a chemist or a toxicologists,
27:07
Speaker 8: and in her particular case, the wheels fell off in
27:11
Speaker 8: her life and she had to drop out of university.
27:17
Speaker 4: When Kristin met Greg, she had reached rock bottom.
27:23
Speaker 2: He was with these brothers. They were down at the
27:26
Speaker 2: US Mexico border. She was on the run from her
27:31
Speaker 2: parents from her meth habit, and she said, Hey.
27:36
Speaker 10: Do you mind if I hang out with you guys?
27:39
Speaker 10: And she did.
27:41
Speaker 2: They went home that night together, Kristin and Greg, and
27:44
Speaker 2: that's how their relationship started. Here's what kind of guy
27:49
Speaker 2: he was. He got her off meth, He got her
27:53
Speaker 2: talking to her parents again. He basically rescued this girl.
27:58
Speaker 4: In the summer of nineteen teen ninety nine, the couple married.
28:06
Speaker 8: Her life began to turn around. He helped her get
28:09
Speaker 8: off of drugs and she completed her degree and subsequently
28:13
Speaker 8: she became a toxicologist.
28:17
Speaker 4: Kristin graduated with flying colors with a degree in chemistry
28:23
Speaker 4: in two thousand. Newlyweds Greg and Christin were living in
28:27
Speaker 4: an apartment in San Diego affiliated with the university. While
28:33
Speaker 4: Greg was ensconced at the biotech startup, Kristin applied for
28:38
Speaker 4: a position at the Office of the Medical Examiner.
28:43
Speaker 2: The Medical Examiner's office is in charge of determining the
28:47
Speaker 2: cause of death when there is no physician to sign
28:51
Speaker 2: a death certificate. This is the curious part about the
28:54
Speaker 2: Medical Examiner's office. It has a number of drugs, illicit
28:59
Speaker 2: drug street drugs. Why because when tests performed to determine
29:06
Speaker 2: the contents of a person's bloodstream, you have to know
29:10
Speaker 2: what is in the person. You compare what's in the
29:15
Speaker 2: person to what you have in the lab.
29:19
Speaker 4: In March two thousand, Kristin secured a job as a
29:22
Speaker 4: toxicologist there.
29:25
Speaker 8: Kristen was actually hired by the Medical Examiner's office. It
29:29
Speaker 8: would seem that her background was not very well vetted
29:32
Speaker 8: because she had a history of addiction, specifically with methamphetamine,
29:38
Speaker 8: and this is not a good environment for her to
29:40
Speaker 8: be in. She's going to have access to all manner
29:43
Speaker 8: of drugs. They're going to pass through the doors there.
29:47
Speaker 4: Kristin Rossam confronted the temptation of her past addiction every
29:52
Speaker 4: day she went to work, but another temptation emerged in
29:58
Speaker 4: the form of her married Australian supervisor Dtor Michael Robertson.
30:08
Speaker 8: He was in charge of the entire section. He was
30:10
Speaker 8: the chief toxicologist.
30:14
Speaker 4: By June two thousand, twenty two year old Rossam and
30:18
Speaker 4: thirty year old Robertson had begun a sexual relationship.
30:24
Speaker 2: They had a love affair and they didn't try to
30:27
Speaker 2: hide it at all. There's testimony during the trial that
30:34
Speaker 2: the two of them would go off together for lunch
30:37
Speaker 2: in the middle of the day. They would take a
30:40
Speaker 2: long lunch. It would be an hour, hour and a half.
30:44
Speaker 2: There is an email that was introduced during the trial
30:48
Speaker 2: from Robertson to Rossam in which he says, scream for me, babe.
30:58
Speaker 4: By October, Rosson was not only conducting a blatant affair
31:03
Speaker 4: with her boss, she was using meth again. On Thursday
31:18
Speaker 4: November two, Greg confronted Kristin.
31:24
Speaker 2: Greg de Village found out that his wife was having
31:26
Speaker 2: an affair with Michael Robertson.
31:29
Speaker 10: He also found out that she was using meth again, and.
31:33
Speaker 2: He threatened to expose these truths to the authorities.
31:40
Speaker 4: The prospect of Kristen's relapse and affair with her boss
31:44
Speaker 4: becoming public would be disastrous for both Rossall and Robertson.
31:54
Speaker 2: Michael Robertson was here on a work visa. Rossam of course,
31:57
Speaker 2: knew this. If Greg de Villers would have been successful
32:03
Speaker 2: in alerting authorities that his wife was having an affair
32:07
Speaker 2: with her married co worker. Oh and by the way,
32:11
Speaker 2: using drugs that she got from the medical Examiner's office,
32:15
Speaker 2: she would have been fired.
32:16
Speaker 10: He would have been fired.
32:18
Speaker 2: That would have been the end of the love affair
32:20
Speaker 2: of Kristin Rossum and Michael Robertson. Kristin Rosson had to
32:24
Speaker 2: get Greg de Villers out of the way so she
32:27
Speaker 2: could keep using meth and keep seeing Michael Robertson.
32:34
Speaker 4: A few weeks earlier, Kristin Rossom and Michael Robertson embarked
32:41
Speaker 4: on a business trip.
32:43
Speaker 2: A month before Greg Devillers dies, Kristin Rossom, his wife,
32:47
Speaker 2: and Michael Robertson, her boss, are at a toxicological.
32:51
Speaker 10: Conference in Milwaukee, and they.
32:54
Speaker 2: Hear a presentation about fentanyl and how it's showing up
32:58
Speaker 2: in unintentional death and suicides. Basically, Christian and Michael are
33:05
Speaker 2: getting a blueprint about how to murder greg devillers.
33:10
Speaker 4: At the time. Fentanyl patches we're a relatively new method
33:15
Speaker 4: of delivering pain relief.
33:19
Speaker 8: If you had pain, for instance, it would be applied
33:22
Speaker 8: in a patch to your arm and subsequently absorbed into
33:25
Speaker 8: your body to knock down any kind of pain that
33:27
Speaker 8: you might have. Much like heroin and other opious fentyl
33:32
Speaker 8: acts as a as a suppressive a respiratory suppressant, so
33:37
Speaker 8: that means that it's going to make you very groggy.
33:40
Speaker 8: It is an analgesics, so it's going to knock down pain,
33:43
Speaker 8: but if given too much, it can actually send you
33:45
Speaker 8: into respiratory distress.
33:49
Speaker 4: Fentanyl is also extremely powerful.
33:54
Speaker 8: Morphine, which everyone is familiar with. We've had morphine around
33:57
Speaker 8: for years and years. It's also a pain present that's
34:00
Speaker 8: in the obiate family. Fentanyl is almost seventy times stronger
34:05
Speaker 8: and sometimes eighty percent stronger than morphine.
34:10
Speaker 4: In the year two thousand, fentanyl was scarcely on the
34:14
Speaker 4: radar in overdose cases and was rarely tested.
34:19
Speaker 10: Back then, Fentanahl wasn't very well known.
34:23
Speaker 2: In fact, fetanyhl was so obscure that the San Diego
34:28
Speaker 2: County Medical Examiner's office did not screen for fentanyl during
34:34
Speaker 2: toxicological tests. Christian Rossam and Michael Robertson knew this.
34:42
Speaker 4: On November sixth two thousand, Rossom put a plan into action.
34:48
Speaker 9: It appeared that Kristen took fentanyl patches off of the
34:54
Speaker 9: bodies of dead people, you know, and put the patches
34:57
Speaker 9: on her husband, and also had taken some of the
35:01
Speaker 9: standards they have standards at the Medical Examiner's office that
35:05
Speaker 9: she uses for testing, and had taken some of that
35:08
Speaker 9: as well and had put that all, you know, sort
35:11
Speaker 9: of applied it to Greg's body.
35:15
Speaker 4: How the fentanyl was administered to Greg's body remains unclear.
35:21
Speaker 4: Only Kristin Rossom knows for certain.
35:25
Speaker 2: What we do know is there was more than enough
35:28
Speaker 2: to kill him.
35:29
Speaker 9: The fentanyl basically will shut down your ability to breathe.
35:33
Speaker 9: You know, you're breathing, becomes slower and more labored, and
35:38
Speaker 9: slower and more labored. I think you can imagine sort
35:42
Speaker 9: of the fear that he had, perhaps or the confusion,
35:46
Speaker 9: you know, at some level about what his wife was
35:49
Speaker 9: doing or not doing.
35:52
Speaker 4: On the morning of Monday, November six, two thousand, Rossam
35:56
Speaker 4: left a voicemail at Gregg's work saying he be off
36:00
Speaker 4: sick that day.
36:02
Speaker 2: Her story is that he was feeling better in the afternoon.
36:09
Speaker 2: She went out, came back and took what she described
36:13
Speaker 2: as a long bath.
36:16
Speaker 10: She goes into the.
36:17
Speaker 2: Bedroom, according to her, and discovers that Greg is cold. Well,
36:23
Speaker 2: of course he was, She made sure of it.
36:34
Speaker 4: At nine two pm, Rossom dialed nine one one.
36:41
Speaker 2: In the nine one one call, Kristian Rossam says, my
36:44
Speaker 2: husband's not breathing. There was lividity, however, where the blood
36:49
Speaker 2: starts to pool in the body. So Greg had been
36:52
Speaker 2: dead for a long time. Greg had taken such shallow
36:56
Speaker 2: breaths for so long that he was starting to develop pneumonia.
37:02
Speaker 10: His bladder was.
37:03
Speaker 2: So full of urine that it would have been physically painful,
37:08
Speaker 2: not just the feeling we've all had, Hey, I really
37:10
Speaker 2: gotta go. This is pain, which means he was alive
37:16
Speaker 2: for a long time, hours and hours. He wouldn't die.
37:32
Speaker 4: When the paramedics arrived, they walked in on what appeared
37:36
Speaker 4: to be a suicide. On the bed lay rose petals,
37:45
Speaker 4: echoing a scene from the film American Beauty.
37:51
Speaker 2: Kristin Rawson's story for the rose petals that are sprinkled
37:55
Speaker 2: at the death scene the bedroom in the apartment they
37:58
Speaker 2: shared story is oh, those came from a bouquet that
38:03
Speaker 2: Greg gave me a couple weeks before.
38:10
Speaker 4: Greg was ambulance to hospital where he was pronounced dead
38:15
Speaker 4: at ten nineteen pm. Police soon arrived at the apartment
38:25
Speaker 4: based on the university campus.
38:27
Speaker 2: Because it was affiliated with the University of California, San Diego.
38:32
Speaker 2: Guess which police agency did the initial investigation. An experienced
38:38
Speaker 2: police department with a homicide division that handles countless.
38:43
Speaker 10: Number of killings every year. Now a little.
38:47
Speaker 2: University department that doesn't have much experience, if any, with homicides,
38:55
Speaker 2: and that's who showed up that night. The scene wasn't preserved,
39:00
Speaker 2: any evidence was lost.
39:03
Speaker 10: This thing started bad from the beginning.
39:06
Speaker 8: When Greg dies, just like everybody else in San Diego County,
39:10
Speaker 8: that fits the legal description of a coroner's case. His
39:15
Speaker 8: body falls under the jurisdiction of the medical examiners.
39:18
Speaker 2: The University of California San Diego police were going along
39:22
Speaker 2: with the theory that Greg committed suicide, so was the medical
39:26
Speaker 2: examiner's office.
39:28
Speaker 9: Initially, it was diagnosed as an overdose suicide. You know,
39:33
Speaker 9: but Greg's brothers in particular, Bertron and Jerome, you know,
39:39
Speaker 9: sort of knowing their brother, knew that that couldn't possibly
39:42
Speaker 9: be the case. He wasn't a drug user, he wasn't depressed,
39:47
Speaker 9: he wasn't the kind of person who would take his life,
39:50
Speaker 9: and so they immediately had concerns about that finding.
39:56
Speaker 4: Kristen curiously did not. Instead, she began making preparations for
40:03
Speaker 4: husband's cremation.
40:06
Speaker 2: The heroes in this story are Greg de Viller's brothers.
40:11
Speaker 2: They wouldn't accept the story that Greg committed suicide. They
40:17
Speaker 2: didn't believe it, and they certainly wouldn't accept the plan
40:21
Speaker 2: to cremate his remains. Immediately they got in court order
40:26
Speaker 2: to stop it. They insisted on independent toxicological tests. They
40:32
Speaker 2: knew that she was having an affair with Michael Robertson.
40:36
Speaker 3: And so they sought outside representation to get another test
40:40
Speaker 3: to test all the toxics to see if there was
40:42
Speaker 3: anything that was missed. Possibly there was definitely some stuff missed.
40:47
Speaker 3: The county did not test for fentanyl, and sure enough,
40:50
Speaker 3: that was what had ended up killing him.
40:53
Speaker 8: At the time that Greg died, his system actually had
40:58
Speaker 8: seven times the normal therapeutical level of finnol.
41:04
Speaker 4: The seemingly simple suicide case swiftly evolved into a suspicious death.
41:13
Speaker 4: San Diego Police Department were soon involved and received a
41:18
Speaker 4: call from a Medical Examiner Office veteran. He thought they
41:23
Speaker 4: should know Rossom and Robertson had been having an affair.
41:29
Speaker 4: The plans for a future together for these two lovers
41:34
Speaker 4: were beginning to fall apart. On November twenty fourth, two thousand,
41:42
Speaker 4: police interviewed Michael Robertson. Two weeks later, he and Christen
41:49
Speaker 4: were dismissed from the Office of the Medical Examiner.
41:58
Speaker 2: I was aware of the potential car conflict. If an
42:01
Speaker 2: employee of the Medical Examiner's office suffers a loss as
42:06
Speaker 2: a husband passing away, you're not going to get those
42:10
Speaker 2: tests performed in house.
42:12
Speaker 10: That's a massive conflict.
42:14
Speaker 2: So at the very least, we had this really unusual
42:17
Speaker 2: situation where somebody was going to have to do something
42:20
Speaker 2: outside the normal procedures.
42:23
Speaker 4: Gregg's autopsy showed he had three drugs in his system, klinazepam, oxycodone,
42:32
Speaker 4: and fentanyl.
42:35
Speaker 2: Isn't it a coincidence that the Medical Examiner's office is
42:38
Speaker 2: missing fentanyl, klinzapam, oxy codone, and meth amphetamine. San Diego
42:45
Speaker 2: police requested a drug audit at the Medical Examiner's office.
42:51
Speaker 10: Fifteen fentanyl patches were.
42:54
Speaker 4: Missing, now the prime suspect. On June the twenty fifth,
43:02
Speaker 4: two thousand and one, Kristin Rossam was arrested for murder.
43:09
Speaker 4: Michael Robertson, meanwhile, had returned to Australia the month before.
43:17
Speaker 4: Kristin's bail was set at over one million dollars, and
43:22
Speaker 4: after six months in custody, she was released when her
43:26
Speaker 4: parents paid the bond. She set to work on her defense.
43:33
Speaker 2: And I think the message was this couldn't possibly be
43:37
Speaker 2: the woman that murdered Greg de Villers. Why she's beautiful,
43:43
Speaker 2: She's just so much to live for. She gets a divorce,
43:47
Speaker 2: she gets a new apartment, she gets a new life.
43:52
Speaker 4: But a few days before the trial was due to start,
43:56
Speaker 4: police investigators found another piece of incriminating evidence.
44:03
Speaker 2: She's in the San Diego area staying at a hotel.
44:07
Speaker 2: There was a nine to one one call. She had
44:09
Speaker 2: a panic attack because the prosecution revealed the existence of
44:15
Speaker 2: the receipt that showed she purchased a single rose on
44:20
Speaker 2: the day that Greg de Villers died.
44:23
Speaker 10: That's the smoking rose.
44:26
Speaker 2: The single rose could have been the source of the
44:29
Speaker 2: petals that were sprinkled around Gregg's body on the night
44:33
Speaker 2: that he died.
44:40
Speaker 4: In October two thousand and two, the trial began transfixing
44:47
Speaker 4: San Diego.
44:50
Speaker 2: Every day Kristin Rossom would strut up to those doors,
44:55
Speaker 2: dressed impeccably, sunglasses, blonde hair like a movie star. It
45:02
Speaker 2: might as well have been a red carpet.
45:05
Speaker 4: During the trial, Rossom made a surprising decision.
45:11
Speaker 2: Christian Rossam chose to testify, which is highly unusual. Obviously,
45:17
Speaker 2: you open yourself up for the prosecution. I'll never forget
45:21
Speaker 2: the prosecutor. Are you on drugs? Did you take anything
45:26
Speaker 2: this morning? Just like the first words out of his mouth,
45:30
Speaker 2: To say it was adversarial would be an understatement.
45:36
Speaker 4: When the jury delivered their verdict on November twelve, two
45:40
Speaker 4: thousand and two, it was the same day as Greg
45:45
Speaker 4: de Villa's birthday. Kristin Rossom was sentenced to life in
45:51
Speaker 4: prison without the possibility of parole.
45:57
Speaker 2: That's the thing that we take away from this. The
46:00
Speaker 2: brothers Love solved this murder. The brothers insisted on justice
46:08
Speaker 2: for Greg de Villers.
46:11
Speaker 4: Four years later, Greg's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit
46:17
Speaker 4: against Rossam and San Diego County. Although they eventually won
46:24
Speaker 4: the case, more tragedy befell the family during the process.
46:31
Speaker 9: During the litigation, but before trial, Greg's mom died of cancer,
46:36
Speaker 9: and so at that point the brothers stepped into her case,
46:40
Speaker 9: so the actual plaintiffs in the case. For the brothers,
46:44
Speaker 9: his two brothers and his dad, it was just.
46:46
Speaker 3: Really hard for them because everything got brought back up
46:49
Speaker 3: and everything had to be talked about what happened to Greg,
46:52
Speaker 3: and they were just having a hard time. And then
46:54
Speaker 3: with the passing of their mother as well, you could
46:56
Speaker 3: tell it was very hard for them.
47:03
Speaker 4: The events of November sixth two thousand left one family
47:08
Speaker 4: without an adored son and brother and reduced another to
47:14
Speaker 4: visiting a daughter behind the walls of the Central California
47:18
Speaker 4: Women's Facility.
47:20
Speaker 2: Apparently, Christian Rossom wouldn't testify against Michael Robertson.
47:26
Speaker 4: Robertson has not returned to San Diego.
47:33
Speaker 2: You could tell that the Deviller's family had a certain bearing,
47:36
Speaker 2: a certain style.
47:38
Speaker 10: This was a good family
47:41
Speaker 2: And what happened to them should never happen to anybody.