Chaz Higgs' first wife says it "gives me the chills" that the man she was married to 20 years ago stands accused today of killing his fourth wife, State Controller Kathy Augustine.
"It just makes my heart sink," Dawn Marie Workman said Friday. "I hate to think that I was once married to someone who would be charged with something like this. I count my blessings that I am not married to him anymore."
Higgs, 42, was arrested Friday in Hampton, Va., on a charge of killing Augustine with an injection of succinylcholine, a powerful paralytic drug. Augustine died July 11, but toxicology tests conducted at the FBI's national laboratory, which found the presence of the drug in her system, didn't come back until Wednesday. A first-degree murder warrant was issued for Higgs in Reno that afternoon.
"This whole thing just gives me the chills," Workman said. "I'm flabbergasted, speechless. I've got to sit down and have a smoke."
She isn't the only person who got the chills from Higgs. Augustine's brother, Phil Alfano, told the press that family members had been suspicious of Higgs from the start. While family members have kept their suspicions somewhat guarded since Augustine's death, her neighbor at a home she maintained in Las Vegas, John Tsitouras, quickly made it known that he thought Higgs had something to do with it.
"I always thought he was a phony," Tsitouras said Saturday, standing on the porch where he says he used to spend time talking with Augustine's previous husband, Charles. "I think Chaz was a complete con artist, and I think that is going to show up in his dealings with previous ladies."
Workman met and married Higgs in 1984, when both were in the Navy. "We were young and immature," she said. She tried to work things out with him even after she caught him in bed with another woman.
"You just never know," she said. "At that time he just wanted to run around with other women. I never thought he was capable of doing something like this."
Workman, who lives in New England, said it was "too close for comfort" that her ex-husband was captured on the East Coast.
Attempts to reach Higgs' two other ex-wives, both of Las Vegas, were unsuccessful this weekend. Through their husbands, one declined to be interviewed and the other wanted to talk first to investigators.
Augustine died at Washoe Medical Center on July 11, three days after Higgs told paramedics and later the news media that he'd found his wife unconscious from a heart attack in their Reno home. She remained in a coma until her death in the intensive care unit.
A police affidavit filed Friday said Higgs, had access to the paralytic drug and syringes at his job as a critical care nurse at Carson-Tahoe Regional Medical Center.
The affidavit also states:
The drug paralyzes muscles - including those used for breathing - within minutes. A lack of oxygen to the heart and brain results in brain damage, or death. In a hospital, succinylcholine is used relax and ready the throat for breathing tubes. The drug has been used maliciously in the past by other medical professionals convicted of murder. Coroners don't routinely test for succinylcholine during an autopsy.
The co-worker approached police while Augustine was still alive, according to the affidavit. After her death, blood, tissue and other evidence were sent to the FBI for extensive toxicology tests.
Three days after Augustine's death, Higgs reportedly attempted to kill himself in Augustine's Las Vegas home. Augustine's daughter, Dallas, kicked in a bedroom door and found Higgs with his wrists slit and a suicide note, Metro Police said. Higgs was treated and released from University Medical Center the same day. He left Nevada shortly thereafter.
At the time, Reno police said they were not concerned about Higgs' disappearance as he was not then a wanted man.
Dallas Augustine, who initially defended Higgs' against accusations the husband had something to do with Augustine's death, told news media Friday the she hoped Higgs would "rot."
Attempts to contact Dallas Augustine were unsuccessful Saturday.
Across the street, neighbor Tsitouras said the controller's daughter stopped speaking with him after he publicly pointed the finger at Higgs several months ago. The neighbor was with the family in Las Vegas when Kathy Augustine died and has kept in contact with family members since .
About a year before she died, Augustine told Tsitouras' wife, Dorothy, that she was preparing to divorce Higgs, partly because he had "cleaned out one of her bank accounts," Tsitouras said.
"It certainly puzzles us to this day that (Augustine) was taken in by Chaz," he said. "He always seemed to strut and pose. He seemed pretty apolitical. He was a body builder. He had diamonds in both ears."
State Sen. Sandra Tiffany, a friend of Augustine, had a similar impression of Higgs. "He was buff," she told the Sun in July. "This guy is self-centered and self-absorbed."
Friends, family and others speculated early on that Augustine did not die of natural causes.
Augustine married Higgs just three weeks after the August 2003 death of previous husband, Charles Augustine. Higgs had been a critical care nurse in the Sunrise Medical Center hospital unit where Charles Augustine died at age 63. No autopsy was conducted.
Charles Augustine's family members have said that if Kathy's toxicology tests came back positive they would seek to have Charles' remains exhumed and examined to determine if his death was the result of foul play.
After Charles' death, Kathy Augustine invited Higgs to vacation in Hawaii, where she popped the question. They married on Sept. 19, 2003.
Before marrying Augustine, Higgs spent 20 years traveling the country. He joined the Navy when he was 19. He twice filed for bankruptcy.
Augustine, a Republican, had been a player in Nevada state politics since 1992. She served in the Nevada Assembly and State Senate. As state controller, she became the first Nevada constitutional officer to be impeached but remained in office. Because of term limits, she couldn't run again and sought the state treasurer's job this year. She was campaigning in the primary when she died.
Two days after Augustine's death, Higgs told reporters he had nothing to gain financially from his wife's death as her estate was left to her daughter, Dallas Augustine.
Higgs did not attend Augustine's funeral in Las Vegas the day after his suicide attempt. He also did not attend a memorial service for her in Carson City.
There is some vindication in Higgs' arrest, Tsitouras said, but there are still too many unanswered questions, about Augustine's death , and her marriage.
"I couldn't figure out what Kathy could have possibly had to do with him," he said. "I suppose none of us are quite what we seem, on the surface."
Sun reporter Mary Manning and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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