>> the forensics in this case was very important. we had dna, we had ballistics, we had blood spatter. >> it's all of those forensic answers that led to us believe without question that jason had been the one to pull the trigger and that matt had, in fact, been involved. up next, a state politician mysteriously dies after her impeachment trial. experts don't know why. >> i personally have not known a woman 50 years old drop dead of a heart attack. >> a microscopic clue points towards foul play. >> no one could account for this puncture wound in her left hip. >> were her political enemies to blame, or was it someone closer to home? >> if you're asking me my opinion, he hated her. >> the clean get cleaner and the dirty get dirtier. >> kathy augustine was one of

the most colorful politicians in nevada state politics. she was the state's first female comptroller, and she was on president bush's short list to become the secretary of the treasury. >> whether you agreed with her politics or not, you could not doubt that this woman was a force of nature. >> but augustine's star fell as quickly as it rose. >> not guilty, madam president. >> in 2004, her political enemies accused her of violating election laws, and her case was brought before the state legislature. >> i think that we can finally get a fair and nonpartisan trial in the state senate. >> but the trial didn't go her way. kathy augustine was convicted of using state personnel and equipment for her campaign and was fined $15,000. >> i think kathy considered leaving politics after the impeachment, but she really

wanted to clear her name. >> she was one of the top five elected officials in the state. some people thought she was not very nice and some people thought she was the greatest thing since cupcakes. >> two years later, kathy augustine ran again for state treasurer, but in the middle of that campaign, kathy fell ill. >> something is wrong with my wife. she's not breathing. >> she's not breathing at all? >> not breathing at all. i need some help. >> when paramedics arrived, kathy was barely alive. >> they gave her two drugs to assist her, kind of jolted her back into business, and then they loaded her into the ambulance and took her to the hospital. >> doctors suspected a heart attack and performed an angiogram, but it showed no blockages. and her condition continued to deteriorate. >> she was in a coma and completely unresponsive. she was completely motionless and on a respirator.

there really was no chance of her recovering and living. >> after three days, the family had to make a difficult choice. >> we made the decision to withdraw life support. it was a tough decision, but it was a decision that was made a little easier by the fact that kathy had clearly expressed that in her will. >> after kathy's death, her husband, chaz, was able to provide some important details. he said he awoke early that morning, got up, did some chores, and when he returned to the bedroom, realized kathy was unresponsive. >> i just checked her out. she wasn't breathing. she had no pulse, so i started cpr. >> chaz and other family members said that in the days before her death, kathy seemed her usual self. >> i saw kathy about two weeks before her death, and she appeared to be in very good spirits. in fact, my wife and i commented

that we had never seen her so happy. >> unfortunately, kathy's autopsy provided few answers. >> there was no significant hardening of the arteries, nor was there any evidence that a blood clot had clogged or occluded the arteries. >> nothing was found. the medical examiners couldn't say cause of death, couldn't say manner of death, because she had no reason for her to die. >> could she have had a brain aneurism? the thing is, the autopsy showed nothing that showed any conclusive evidence of a cause of death right off the top. >> so, what caused kathy augustine's death? the family wanted answers. q.

several days after kathy augustine died, emergency workers were called to her house yet again. >> this is fire dispatch. what are we going out there for? >> kathleen augustine's husband's attempted suicide. >> okay. do you know what method? >> slit his wrist. he's unconscious. >> we got a call from a neighbor that an ambulance was outside kathy's home and they were

wheeling chaz away. >> chaz higgs left a suicide note, saying he couldn't live without his wife, kathy. he blamed her political enemies for her death. >> thank you for taking my wife away from me. she was fighting for her life, a life that was taken away by non-caring politicians. my wife's career was ruined by you. i want to be buried beside my wife so we can hold hands in the sunshine. >> fortunately, chaz received meddle attention in time, and he survived. the next day, kathy's funeral went ahead as planned. friends and foes alike were there. >> it was a heartbreaking ceremony. but hanging over that whole funeral were so many questions about why she had died. >> kathy augustine and chaz higgs had been married for only three years. and for kathy, it was her fourth marriage. her previous husband, charles

augustine, was an airline pilot. he'd suffered a stroke and was hospitalized, and chaz higgs was his nurse. that's when kathy and chaz met. >> they were seen together in the hospital, having meals together in the hospital cafeteria. a relative of charles augustine was quoted as saying he thought it was odd, that kathy and the nurse were spending so much time together. >> charles augustine died in the hospital. kathy married chaz just three weeks later. >> it was a relationship that developed very quickly and certainly took all of kathy's friends and family members off guard. >> it just seemed very naive, and of course, we didn't express that to her. i mean, we wished her well and hoped for the best. >> kathy was the beneficiary of charles augustine's $1 million life insurance policy.

investigators learned that kathy and charles were talking about a divorce before he suffered the stroke. it's unclear whether kathy would have remained the beneficiary, had the two divorced. investigators now wondered if charles augustine had been a victim of foul play, but their immediate concern was the investigation of kathy's death. >> very early in my career, a very seasoned homicide detective shared with me something that's always kind of stayed with me. and he said that during the course of a good investigation, the clean get cleaner and the dirty get dirtier. >> the medical examiner told police she saw something suspicious during kathy augustine's autopsy, two small bruises on kathy's left buttock. >> there was at least one injection, if not two probable injection or needle puncture

sites identified in an unusual location for therapy, and the puncture sites were not ever accounted for with the record of medical therapy. >> investigators now wondered if someone had murdered kathy augustine. i reckon a storm's a brewin'. reckon so. reckon you gotta hotel? reckon, no. reckon priceline express deals will get you a great deal. wherever you...mosey. you reckon? we reckon. vamonos the spring hotel sale is on at priceline.com. save up to 60% on any express deal hotel, when you use code: spring '14. i reckon this is one deal you won't want to miss.

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as police investigated the death of kathy augustine, they had to consider the possibility that her husband, chaz higgs, a registered nurse, was somehow involved. chaz told everyone who would listen that their three-year marriage was a happy one. co-workers, however, disputed that. >> he used to say some nasty things about his wife. a nurse would see that he's busy doing something, walk over and say, is there anything i can do to help? and his response usually was, yeah, get rid of my wife. >> a search of chaz's computer revealed some surprising e-mails, which proved chaz was having affairs. >> chaz higgs wrote to a woman, a co-worker, and said, i'm doing everything i can to make this

blank crazy, and it's working. >> investigators were also suspicious when they listened to his entire 911 call. >> something's wrong with my wife. she's not breathing. i don't know what happened to her. it's not trauma or anything. she said she's been really stressed, you know, over the last six months or so. hey, i'm going to do some more cpr, okay? >> yeah, go ahead. >> he does not sound like the panic-stricken, grieving husband who is surprised to find his otherwise healthy wife unconscious, unresponsive and near death. >> and ambulance workers said chaz didn't look very concerned either. >> one of the things that the paramedics reported was mr. higgs's being seated in the passenger seat of the ambulance reading the newspaper as his wife was being rushed to the hospital. >> one of kathy augustine's friends told police kathy called her the night before she died. she said her three-year marriage to chaz higgs was over.

>> chaz higgs asked for a divorce the night before he found his wife dead in their bed in reno. >> kathy's estate was worth over $1 million. investigators also learned that chaz higgs made an incriminating statement to a co-worker the night kathy was planning to end their marriage. >> she was a nurse who worked with chaz higgs, and she said that on the night before kathy augustine fell ill, that chaz had said, if you really want to kill someone, give them a shot of succs. they can't trace it postmortem. to this nurse, succs was a substance called succinylcholine. >> succinylcholine is a drug that is used to paralyze people. it's a paralytic drug. it's typically used when an individual is under anesthesia for an operation in order to paralyze their muscles. >> succinylcholine is usually

given in very small doses. it's fast acting and leaves the body quickly. >> it has a half life, which means the time it takes for about half of the drug to disappear of about one minute. >> in large doses, it's fatal. and as a critical care nurse, it's a drug chaz higgs would have had access to, but investigators were worried. if chaz higgs used succinylcholine, there was no way to prove it, since the drug leaves the body so quickly. >> i was concerned that he might actually get away with murder. >> but investigators remained hopeful that if higgs did commit murder, that he left some trace. >> persons who break the law, fortunately for me, are not always, you know, the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. crooks make mistakes. if they were smarter, they

wouldn't get caught nearly as often. >> then a week after kathy's death, police got a break. a nurse who worked in the hospital's emergency room called police with some important information. she said when kathy was first admitted to the hospital, she and a co-worker didn't believe kathy was having a heart attack. instead, they suspected she had been poisoned. so they immediately took samples of kathy's blood and urine and had them frozen. if kathy had been poisoned with succinylcholine, freezing these samples might give investigators the evidence they needed. >> the succinylcholine survives longer in the urine because there are not enzymes in the urine that break it down like there are in the blood sample. >> investigators acted quickly. >> there's only two labs that i'm aware of in the country that can test for succinylcholine. >> one of them is the fbi lab in

virginia. it was there that kathy's urine tested positive for trace amounts of succinylcholine. had the samples not been frozen immediately, it would have been useless. chaz higgs was arrested and charged with his wife's murder. >> in searching his car, they found a stack of 3 by 5 cards. the very top card told all of the uses and dosages for succinylcholine. >> investigators now wondered if kathy's previous husband, charles augustine, had been murdered, too. honestly? i wanted a smartphone that shoots great video. so i got the new nokia lumia icon. it's got 1080p video, three times zoom, and a twenty-megapixel sensor. it's got the brightest display, so i can see what i'm shooting -- even outdoors, and 4 mics that capture incredible sound. plus, it has apps like vine -- and free cloud storage.

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♪ that's my phone. hey. [ female announcer ] the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. tv and internet together like never before. kathy augustine's death was now ruled a homicide. her husband, chaz higgs, was arrested and charged with her murder. he denied taking succinylcholine from work, but his access to the drug and his public statements about his wife made him the likely suspect. >> everything pointed to succinylcholine. chaz higgs had access to it, that chaz higgs was angry with his wife, that chaz higgs had mentioned using that particular drug on someone in order to kill them 12 hours before her body was found.

>> prosecutors believe chaz woke up before kathy on the morning of the murder. he filled a syringe with the succinylcholine he had probably stolen from work and injected her as she slept. he called 911 to report finding his wife unconscious. to his surprise, emergency technicians revived her and took her to the hospital. there two nurses immediately suspected some sort of poisoning. they took blood and urine samples and froze them for later analysis. had that not been done, the outcome may have been very different. >> we're very fortunate in our community that those medical professionals had the foresight to guard that sample, to preserve it properly. it was quickly frozen and made available for forensic testing, and those things all played to our favor.

>> and the motive? >> if you're asking me my opinion as to what the motive was, he hated her. >> for a spouse to kill another spouse, it doesn't have to be a good motive, but i think clearly the evidence showed that chaz did not want to be with kathy. >> a year after kathy's murder, chaz went on trial. the day before he was to take the stand, he attempted suicide yet again. >> i think it was another selfish attempt for him to misdirect attention away from what he had done and to try to garner sympathy from the jury. >> when he recovered, he testified in his own defense. >> because i didn't do it. i wouldn't do that. >> he was just as cold on the stand as he had been sitting in his chair. bandages on his wrists didn't make him any more likable to the jury. >> another prosecution witness used chaz's own words against him. >> he said to me -- i actually

remember it because it was so vivid, that, "if i didn't have a daughter in las vegas, i would kill my wife and throw her down a mine shaft." >> after a ten-day trial, chaz higgs faced the jury. >> we, the jury, in the above-entitled matter, find the defendant, chaz higgs, guilty of first-degree murder. >> chaz higgs was sentenced to life in prison. he will be eligible for parole after 20 years. investigators have questioned whether higgs had anything to do with the death of kathy's previous husband, charles augustine. chaz higgs first met the augustines when charles augustine suffered a stroke. higgs was one of his nurses at the hospital. that's how he first met kathy. according to investigators, kathy and charles had been talking about a divorce before

his stroke, so, perhaps it wasn't inappropriate for her to strike up a friendship with chaz higgs. when charles augustine died in the hospital, as his wife, kathy, was the beneficiary of his $1 million life insurance policy. three weeks later, she married chaz higgs. in 2007, charles augustine's body was exhumed and tested for succinylcholine. >> they did find the metabolite of succinylcholine. succinylmonocholine. >> a metabolite means it's a by-product of succinylcholine. >> if you don't look for it, you don't find it. that's not a condescending answer. it's the truth. >> there has never been a document the case of succinylmonocholine being produced as a result of embalming fluid.

however, in charles augustine's case, there were no records of which embalming fluids were used. so, this possibility, however remote, would not be eliminated. therefore, the medical examiner did not change the manner of his death to homicide. >> i'm sure that there will always be some well-placed suspicions surrounding mr. augustine's death. >> for now, chaz higgs is in prison because two emergency room nurses made a split-second decision that foiled his well-laid plans. >> but for the high-tech testing methods and the forensic technology available, i think this case would have been a mystery forever. >> this whole case was based on forensic evidence, and had it not been for the hard work of the fbi and for the diligence of the detectives involved and for the sharp eyes and ears of the

medical professionals, he may have gotten away with it. >> all i know is what the evidence showed that jury, and the evidence showed that jury the evidence showed that jury that this guy was a murderer. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >r > tensionp ov. president obama . p >> president obama wit >> hour-lohour-long phon hour-lon vladimir putin. >> a vote in crimea draws closer. this could make it a russian territory. we are live in ukraine and on the black sea, where an american warship is about to arrive. left in tears. oscar pistorius breaks down in court as a doctor describes his dying girlfriend's final moments, and there could be more fireworks at his murder trial, day four, today. a top army official now under investigatio