Believing his wife might have overdosed on illicit drugs last year, the off-duty North Las Vegas firefighter chose not to seek medical aid at a hospital.
Instead, he drove more than 20 miles from their apartment to his fire station to grab medical supplies, including the opioid-overdose antidote naloxone, also known as Narcan, Henderson Police records show.
When Christopher Candito, 33, injected Narcan into Tiffany Slatsky's arm late on Feb. 22, 2020, “she appeared normal after that,” he told investigators, according to his arrest report.
The next morning, when he awoke, Slatsky was “unconscious and not breathing,” police said.
Medics were summoned about 9 a.m., Feb. 23, 2020, to their apartment in the 800 block of Coronado Center Drive, near Eastern Avenue, police said.
Slatsky, 25, was declared dead at St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Siena Campus. An autopsy determined she died from a multiple-drug intoxication, including phentermine, etizolam, cocaine, zolpidem, MDMA, commonly known as the party drug “ecstasy,” and morphine, which mostly contributed to her accidental death, officials said.
Following an investigation by Henderson Police and the Drug Enforcement Administration, a warrant for Candito’s arrest on counts of second-degree murder and burglary was issued on June 30.
Candito was booked without bail into the Henderson Detention Center Wednesday afternoon, Henderson Justice Court logs show. He is due for an arraignment hearing Tuesday, records show.
It wasn't immediately clear if Candito has a lawyer.
Candito, who quit his job in May 2020, was hired in 2008, the city said in an email statement.
“These off-duty events are contrary to the values of the city and its employees. In addition to fully cooperating with law enforcement officials, the city immediately initiated its own investigations into this tragic incident and placed the former firefighter on administrative leave,” North Las Vegas spokesman Patrick Walker wrote. “He later resigned.”
A second firefighter mentioned in the arrest report as having illegally provided myriad drugs to Candito in exchange for steroids was placed on administrative leave, Walker said.
It wasn’t clear if that firefighter is facing any criminal charges. A search of his name through courts in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson came up empty.
Two nights before Slatsky died, police said, the couple had gone to a party at a downtown Las Vegas hotel. Candito told the Clark County Coroner’s Office that they had drunk all night and that his wife had snorted cocaine and taken ecstasy pills, according to the report.
A friend picked them up the following morning, and they went back to the couple’s apartment, where they kept drinking, police said.
The trio took a nap until a babysitter came over to return Slatsky’s young child back to the couple, police said.
Around that time, Candito told investigators, Slatsky began complaining about chest pain, police said. That’s when he told her to take morphine, which she would allegedly take when she had acid reflux, he said.
But then she began slurring her words, Candito and the friend told investigators, according to the report.
That’s when they headed to the firehouse, about 23 miles from their apartment, police said.
A police warrant search yielded various drugs not prescribed to either of them, and paraphernalia in their apartment and Candito’s pickup truck, according to the report.