i'm ann curry. thanks for joining us. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> has the jury reached a verdict? we, the jury, find the defendant -- this is a story about power and passion. >> girls will be girls. we talk a lot, yes. >> she played the game of politics and another dangerous game. the game of love. then she dropped dead. >> the question is was she killed by an enemy or by a lover? >> we had rumors of every kind. this is more than a story about murder. it's about a marriage.

>> i loved her. >> he hates her. >> a wife with enemies and a husband maybe with a secret. >> a nurse calls, ands you know, i think you need to know something. thanks for joining us i'm ann curry now the latest on a story we have been following for more than a year. it is no secret that politics can be a dangerous game, when, she rumors flew in the halls of power. politics may make strange, even treacherous bedfellows, but then so do some marriages. here's hoda kotb with the latest. >> there are mountains and valley, deep lakes and high desert. there are the darkest of nights and the brightest of lights.

one of the fastest growing areas in the country, the carson city area of nevada is free of contrasts. it is beautiful and brash, in your face, on the move, looking ahead, self-confident and this woman who wielded power at the highest levels of government personified the place. >> yes, i am a tough boss. i pride myself in the work that we've been able to accomplish. >> she made her mark here and attracted right until the end. >> reno likes to call itself the biggest little city in the world. this used to come when hollywood celebrities would come for a quickie divorce, now it was a bizarre saga that could have been you will. ed from a hollywood screen play. it is the story of power, ambition and enemies. investigators say it's also a story of murder that they believe would have been the

perfect crime if not for one slip of a tongue. the photos say it all. she was a prominent politician poised for an even brighter future. she posed with president bush, with the first lady, with the president's father and vice president cheney. nevada state controller kathy augustine put herself front and center any tieam. >> that was evident just upon meeting her. firm handshake and looked you straight in the eye. >> knrtv reporter covered her career for years. >> what were your impressions of her as a politician? >> kathy augustine was ambitious and tenacious and driven. she knew exactly what she wanted. she knew exactly how she was going to do it. she put her whole heart and her efforts into it. she never gave in, she never gape up. not ever, not once.

kathy wasn't nearly as much in control and the sorrow sometimes showed. >> we can't all be perfect and she knew her judgment in men was flawed. >> heidi smith was her friend for two decades. >> kathy was lousy on relationships. she was great in some ways. >> when she spoke it was she would smile and a smile that would reach her eyes. she started as a california girl, born kathy alfano and grew up in the '60s and '70s. phil admired his big sister. >> she certainly pushed herself. she was sal tore and participated in associated student bodies. >> that taste in student body developed into a passion for politics. in college, she majored in political science and one a coveted internship on capitol

hill. but after graduation she took a more traditional route for a time. she went to work for an airline in crew scheduling and briefly as a flight attendant. she traveled across the country. but the high flying may have come with a price. one marriage failed, then another. always a bit naive when it came to relationships. >> i think she could be too trusting of people. some of the guys that she went out with were not what i'd describe as the best. >> what do you think drew her to the guys who didn't seem suited for her? >> you know, i think it was just an impulsivity i guess would be the best way to describe it. i think she would regret it quickly. >> and as she approached her 30th birthday, she was a single mother raising a daughter on her own. then in 1988 a new man entered her life, a delta airlines pilot named charles augustine, 15 years her senior. when kathy and charles said "i do," it was his second marriage and her third. they lived in the las vegas

area. and for a time this marriage seemed built to last. by the late '80s, though, her enthusiasm for politics came to the forefront once again, and before long kathy augustine was consumed by a newfound passion for the republican party. >> kathy soon became addicted. and she loved it. she loved the fight. she loved the pushing to get ahead. and she just went for it. >> in 1992 she was elected to her first public office. the nevada assembly. the state senate followed. then in 1998 the most powerful job yet, nevada state controller. >> kathy was a bill collector for the state. that requires somebody with a steel spine. she collected a lot of bad debt. you don't do that by being a sweet little thing. >> indeed, while some state

workers say you could hear the sound of her laughter booming through the hallways -- >> i think some of her employees and people who also worked in the state capitol building remember too that you could hear her shouting at her employees all around that building. >> there was turmoil away from the capitol, too. charles augustine hardly relished the role of political spouse, and over time the marriage faltered. charles' son, greg. >> i think at the end, when she was the controller, i think that's what -- that was it. >> kathy and charles augustine eventually decided on a divorce. but he was certainly not pushing for it. and neither was kathy's family. >> chuck was a great guy. and our family, we all got along very well with him. >> did you try to convince her not to break it off? >> i did, yeah. >> and then later in 2003 fate intervened. charles augustine suffered a stroke. kathy spent long hours by his bedside. and for a time he seemed to improve. but after weeks in the hospital charles augustine took a sudden turn for the worse. he suffered massive organ failure and died.

>> and this was a total shock. because just days before we were talking about rehabilitation and we were talking about who's going to take care of this person. >> it turns out charles augustine would not rest in peace. and for kathy augustine charles's death would be just the beginning of a bizarre chain of events. she would marry again, but when settling into her new life, storm clouds would gather. enemies and a murder investigation loomed on the horizon. coming up -- just three years after her former husband's sudden death, kathy augustine's health also takes a mysterious turn for the worse. >> something's wrong with my wife. she's not breathing.

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♪ ♪ ♪ as nevada's casinos were doing record business in late 2003, state controller kathy augustine was bouncing back from the death of her third husband, charles, and taking a gamble on a new man, named chaz higgs. >> she kept describing him as this -- just this wonderful person, very compassionate and caring, and had swept her off her feet. >> the way they met was anything but ordinary. it was here at this las vegas hospital, where chaz, a registered nurse, eight years kathy's junior, was helping to care for her husband, charles. like kathy, he'd been married before and had one daughter. to many people the pairing seemed a bit odd. >> i mean, chaz with his spiked hair wouldn't do well at a political cocktail party to raise money. >> i don't think in the whole

time i knew chaz i heard him say more than four or five sentences. >> did you guys used to scratch your heads, thinking what are those two doing together? >> never asked but -- girls will be girls, we used to talk a lot, yes. >> especially when chaz and kathy said "i do" in a hawaiian ceremony. the date? just three weeks after charles died. >> and my wife and i were shaking our heads saying, this shouldn't have happened this quickly. >> but as 2004 rolled around, whispers about kathy augustine's private life were drowned out by the roar of a public scandal. >> i think that both sides of the story have to be told. and resigning was not an answer. >> kathy augustine's hard-charging style had transformed some state employees into bitter enemies. that spring they lashed out at their boss, accusing augustine of forcing them to work on her 2002 campaign on state time, a violation of the state's ethics rules. she denied the allegations.

kathy augustine became the first official in nevada history to be impeached. she was convicted on one charge but acquitted of two others. she paid a $15,000 fine. the governor asked her to resign from office but she refused and even insisted she would have no trouble working again with the very employees who wanted to bring her down. >> after everything i've been through i certainly -- i certainly can handle a little animosity. >> i always gave her credit for continuing forward, even though she'd made some bitter enemies. >> and enemies or not, in 2006 kathy augustine felt confident enough to run for still another important statewide office -- nevada treasurer. but all of her hard-charging ambition was about to be stopped in its tracks. on saturday, july 8th, kathy was scheduled to attend a fund-raiser. but she never showed up. >> i went out there.

she wasn't there. i came home to give her a call. to chew her out. >> she wasn't home because in the early morning hours kathy had stopped breathing. her husband, chaz higgs, says he found her on the bed and called 911. >> something's wrong with my wife. she's not breathing. i didn't know what happened to her. >> she's not breathing at all? >> not breathing at all. >> higgs thought she might have had a heart attack and that he admipsterred cpr, but the e for thes may have come too late. later he spoke to reporters. >> i went in to try to wake her up. and i couldn't get her to wake up. and i checked her out. it was -- it was like an instinct. because like i said, i'm a critical care nurse. so it's something i've dealt with before. i just checked her out. she wasn't breathing. she had no pulse. so i started cpr. >> by the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital, kathy augustine was in a deep coma. chaz called kathy's mother in california.

>> he told my mother that kathy had had a heart attack. my mom said, well, we'll be up there right away. he said, well, there's no need for you to come up. >> no need to come up? >> no need for her mother to come up and see her in the hospital. which was -- >> that was weird. >> chaz told reporters he thought his wife, kathy, may have fallen victim to the stress of hard work and long days. >> she came to work every day, did her job as she would here, and then after work she would go to one or two events in the evening. so getting in late at night. >> could it have been stress? doctors didn't know for sure. but kathy's brother found that theory hard to relieve. >> the last couple times i saw kathy i'd never seen her happier. >> when it became clear that kathy would not recover her family made the decision to terminate life support. three days after that 911 call kathy augustine, the tough, determined public servant, lost the fight of her life. she died without ever regaining

consciousness. >> we lost somebody who was a big part of our lives that we'll never have back. >> speculation was rampant even before kathy augustine was buried. when her autopsy was complete, the results raised as many questions as they answered. >> no evidence of a heart attack. no evidence of heart damage. no blockage. no evidence the heart muscle had died. >> if a heart attack didn't kill kathy augustine, then what did? there was even more troubling information from the autopsy. evidence perhaps that when it came to augustine's death there was nothing natural about it at all. coming up -- an unnatural death pointing to a natural suspect. >> a nurse calls and says, you know, i think you need to know something. [ male announcer ] the more you lose, the more you lose,

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on july 15th, 2006, nevada state controller kathy augustine was laid to rest. a pall of grief hung over the mourners. but so did a pall of suspicion. questions were swirling across the state. had a heart attack killed her? or was it something more sinister? word had spread about an unsettling discovery during her autopsy. a mysterious mark on kathy's left hip. a possible injection site that had no medical explanation. could that be the cause of kathy's mysterious collapse? and if so, who could have done it, and how? certainly, kathy had made her share of political enemies. her friend, heidi smith, says

the rumors were rampant. >> like what? what were some of the ones kicked around by people? >> that she had stepped on too many toes and had to be eliminated. we had rumors of every kind. >> and some rumors hit much closer to home. at those funeral services someone was noticeably absent. kathy's husband, chaz. he had slit his wrists the day before the funeral. was this the action of a distraught, grieving husband, or could it have been a sign of something more? higgs recovered after a few days, but by then people were beginning to believe there was more to the story about the morning he called 911 than he was letting on. >> and i sat down with my mother and just told her, i've got a gut feeling that he did something to her. and my mom said, "i've been thinking the same thing." >> and police were becoming more suspicious than sympathetic.

>> because of the suspicious circumstances surrounding ms. augustine's death, we started taking a look at her husband. >> as the police delved deeper into the marriage of one of the state's top officials, a more complicated portrait of chaz higgs began to emerge. before his life collided with kathy augustine's political rising star, chaz higgs had spent much of his career in the navy. he trained as a navy s.e.a.l. and spent 15 years as a medical corpsman. and along the way there were three previous marriages and divorces and a string of bankruptcies. kathy's brother says he knew there were problems in the marriage. >> i know that at some point he had overdrawn their checking accounts pretty significantly. and i also learned that at some point kathy asked him to leave and then took him back in. >> and there was another incident phil now says he wished he'd paid more attention to. just months before kathy died kathy called her brother, sobbing, while on a drive with chaz. >> she said chaz is trying to kill us, not me or himself but

both of us, and that he was driving very erratically. >> she sounded terrified? >> she was hysterical. yeah. yeah. i had never heard her that upset before. you know, you look back at it and you say, was there more i could have done? >> suspicion hung in the air. turns out the very day kathy augustine died police here in reno received an intriguing phone call, a phone call that would change everything. >> a nurse calls, a fellow nurse of chaz higgs, and says you know, i think you need to know something. >> that nurse met chaz higgs for the first time at this hospital the day before kathy augustine was stricken. the nurse said chaz made an offhand comment about a murder case in the news involving a husband accused of stabbing his estranged wife. police detective david jenkins. >> he described the suspect as stupid for having committed the murder in the manner in which he had.

>> the tipster, nurse kim ramey, told police higgs said there was a much better way to commit murder. >> and then made specific reference to succinylcholine was a drug that was wiser to use because it was virtually undetectable. >> if used correctly it paralyzes respiratory muscles to allow the insertion of breathing tubes. but it is a powerful drug that if misused can cause organ failure and even death. it quickly dissipates from the bloodstream, leaving few traces. police launched a full-blown investigation. they quietly requested an arrest warrant and sent augustine's urine and blood samples to the fbi crime lab in virginia. two months later the fbi lab confirmed that kathy augustine had succinylcholine in her urine. in september 2006 chaz was

arrested and charged with first-degree murder. higgs pleaded not guilty. >> your first reaction when the cops busted him? >> relief. >> but if kathy augustine did die by an injection of succinylcholine, it's even more disturbing to everyone who knew her because the effects on the victim are so terrifying. kathy augustine's stepson, greg. >> but it saddened me a lot, to think that she was possibly given a drug that paralyzed her internal organs, so she suffocated, and starved her brain and heart of oxygen. i can't think of a worse way to go. >> but kathy's suspicious death got greg augustine thinking about another sudden death, that of his own father, kathy's third husband, charles. when charles died from complications of a stroke in 2003, greg assumed his father had simply taken a turn for the worse. but now he wondered, was there a chance his father's death was not due to natural causes?

in light of kathy augustine's death and the murder charges against chaz higgs, greg augustine set out demanding answers in his father's death. what really happened to his dad, charles? could he have been killed the same way kathy augustine allegedly was? >> any prudent person would have to go through the decision to exhume their father because chaz was his nurse in the hospital. >> three months after kathy died greg had his request honored. police in las vegas exhumed charles augustine's body to see if he also had succinylcholine in his system. greg and the police waited for answers as chaz higgs prepared to stand trial for his wife's murder. coming up -- prosecutors present a possible motive. >> this is a guy that does not care whatsoever about his wife. he hates her. >> but was that enough to commit murder? this is an rc robotic claw.

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>> hello. i'm milissa rehberger. new hampshire is gearing up for two gop debates before tuesday's primary. they'll go head to head twice in the next 24 hours including tomorrow morning's "meet the press" debate which can be seen right here on msnbc. >> mt. rainier park has been reopened. a park ranger was shot and killed. an iraq veteran went on a shooting rampage before drowning in a creek. now back to "a shot in the dark." chaz higgs is a calculated murderer. who used his trade to accomplish his goal getting rid of his wife.

>> chaz higgs's trial began in june in this reno courtroom. it would be the first murder case for prosecutor christopher hicks who along with veteran d.a. tom barb hoped to convince the jury that chaz higgs had deliberately killed his wife, nevada state controller kathy augustine, by injecting her with a lethal drug. >> he took the time to load up a syringe full of a devastating drug. he took the time to plan that and inject his wife with it. and then to stand there while she basically suffocated. >> to prove their case prosecutors first had to show that succinylcholine killed kathy augustine. the fbi toxicologist who tested kathy's urine said she had no doubt that succinylcholine was in her system at the time of her death. >> i ran this urine sample three times. i found the drug there all three times. >> based on the fbi's findings, this pathologist determined the cause of death. >> it is my opinion that kathy augustine died from

succinylcholine toxicity. >> but if the drug was in her body, how and when did it get there? the pathologist pointed to this mark on kathy's left hip as a possible injection site and said there was no evidence that it had occurred in the course of kathy's hospital treatment. >> does that particular wound show up anywhere in the medical records as a therapeutic injury? >> no. >> therefore, the prosecutors argued, the mark must have happened before kathy went to the hospital. >> raise your right hand to be sworn. >> as for the early theory that kathy had suffered a heart attack, the prosecutors attempted to knock that down by putting this cardiologist on the stand. >> you can say that the arteries are perfectly normal. >> okay. >> this is not what you'd expect if someone were having a heart attack. >> the prosecutors may have established succinylcholine as the cause of death, but they still needed to connect chaz higgs to the murder weapon. the big hurdle? there was no smoking gun, no hard evidence linking higgs to

the drug. >> we wish we had the syringe, and we wished we had the bottle of succinylcholine, but we didn't. so you go with what you have. >> what prosecutors did have, they argued, was proof that chaz knew what succinylcholine was and how to use it. detective david jenkins told the jury about a startling discovery, a stack of index cards, and on top some instructions for using succinylcholine. >> do you know where it was found? >> in the motor vehicle mr. higgs was operating. >> and several nurses testified that chaz higgs had ample access to succinylcholine as a critical care nurse. >> was that drug readily available to the nurses in the emergency room? >> yes, it was. >> chaz may have had access to the drug, but why would he want to kill his wife anyway? friends always thought the two were kind of an odd couple, but prosecutors set out to show that

the cracks in the marriage ran far deeper than they ever imagined and that chaz higgs was a long way from a loving husband. >> this is a guy who does not care whatsoever about his wife. he hates her. and it's evident by his actions. >> a series of chaz's co-workers took the stand all with the same story, chaz could not stop talking about how much he hated his wife. >> and what did he say? you can say it. >> bitch. >> the only word that i've ever heard chaz say is that she was a bitch. >> 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." >> and prosecutors said that chaz demonstrated that same contempt for kathy on the morning of her collapse. >> something's wrong with my wife. she's not breathing. >> they argued he was too calm.

>> if you come in the housing development, immediately turn right, and then the road will veer around to the left. >> and that his actions in the ambulance were a far cry from the way a truly concerned husband would react. >> we had a newspaper sitting on the dashboard, and during the ride back he grabbed one of the sections of the newspaper and started flipping through the pages. >> and if he truly cared for and wanted to help his wife, prosecutors argued, he would have acted differently when he found kathy that morning. when emergency responders arrived at the scene, they were surprised to find chaz standing on the sidewalk, not frantically administering cpr. even more alarming, kathy was still on the bed. strange, said prosecutors, because standard procedure says you always put a victim on a hard surface to perform cpr, something a registered nurse like chaz higgs should have known. >> you can't get a good compression on a bed. you need a hard surface. >> we believe he sat there and waited until she was dead and then called 911 so he could come off as the grieving husband.

which he did horribly at. >> but some of the most dramatic testimony was yet to come. as prosecutors neared the end of their case, some startling new evidence came to light. these e-mails from a woman named linda ramirez. she used to work with chaz, and it turns out while chaz and kathy were still married he began a flirtatious relationship with ramirez. >> there's so much i want to tell you. >> prosecutor christopher hicks read some of those e-mails to the court. >> you touched my heart, and i want to be with you. >> and in those e-mails some disturbing comments about kathy. >> i hate this woman, and i will make her break. so it is my quest in life to drive this bitch crazy, and it is working. i will be free, and i will be with you. that is what i want. you have my heart. chaz. >> those e-mails showed that he could care less about her. >> he didn't love anybody but himself. >> in the end prosecutors say he

acted on that hate. as proof they offered up the conversation he had with this woman, kim ramey, the nurse who worked with chaz the day before kathy went into the hospital. she said she and chaz were discussing that case in the news in which a husband had stabbed his wife to death. ramey said chaz told her the guy did it all wrong. >> if you want to get rid of someone you just hit them with a little succ because you can't trace it postmortem. >> what was your response to him? i said chaz, wow, that's too much anger to carry around. >> the prosecutors felt confident about their case, but now it was the defense's turn, and chaz higgs would have the chance to tell the jury his side of the story. coming up -- chaz higgs tries to convince the jury he wouldn't kill his wife. >> why should they believe you did not kill your wife? >> because i didn't do it. i wouldn't do that. >> and with a dramatic courtroom demonstration his lawyer tries to prove higgs couldn't kill his wife.

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in late june a devastating wildfire raged through south lake tahoe, while just 60 miles away in reno chaz higgs's defense team was preparing to put out another fire. prosecutors had already presented their case against higgs, saying he had deliberately killed his wife by

injecting her with a drug called succinylcholine. now it was the defense's turn, and they would argue that chaz higgs had no reason to kill his wife and that the prosecution hadn't presented any credible evidence that proved otherwise. higgs's attorney, david houston. >> chaz was not a calculating murderer. he was not a murderer of any sort. >> i'm placing before you three photographs. >> the defense began by picking apart the prosecution's scientific testimony, beginning with that mark on kathy's left hip. they called their own pathologist to the stand, who said the wound looked too fresh to have happened before kathy was rushed to the hospital. >> and in your opinion, how many hours that call it a puncture wound was? >> up to 48 hours. >> kathy was in the hospital for nearly four days. so if the mark was only 48 hours old, the defense argued, it could not be the cause of kathy

augustine's mysterious collapse. >> that could not have been received by that person on july 8th? >> highly unlikely that it could have been. >> the defense also poked holes in the fbi's urine test, portraying them as too sloppy to truly indicate whether succinylcholine was in kathy's system when she died. >> the fbi never created a proper control sample to test against kathy augustine's urine. >> doctor, if i were to put this in somebody and then start squeezing -- >> but the most persuasive bit of testimony may have come here, when cross-examining the prosecution's anesthesiologist, defense attorney houston demonstrated how long it would take to inject a syringe filled with succinylcholine into the body of an unwilling victim. >> doctor, if i'm doing that to a live, conscious patient, what do you think they're going to be doing while i'm doing that? >> i imagine the patient would be moving around. >> would it be fair to say it's going to burn or sting? >> yeah.

>> so the entire concept was to demonstrate to the jury how ridiculous it would be to believe that kathy augustine would lay there and burns her while it goes in. >> so then what did kill kathy augustine? the defense revealed that kathy suffered from a condition called mitral valve prolapse, or a leaky heart valve. though the prosecution had argued the condition could not lead to a heart attack, on cross-examination the prosecution's cardiologist could not say it was impossible. >> doctor, can you rule out sudden cardiac death as the cause of death in this case? >> no. >> now that the defense had taken on the science of the case, it was time to take a track at those allegations that chaz higgs was little more than a scheming playboy, a man who hated his wife so much that he planned and carried out her murder. it was time for chaz higgs to tell his side of the story. all eyes were on him as he took

the stand. chaz began by telling the court about the early, happy days of his relationship with kathy. >> i guess the best way to describe it is you know when you meet somebody you just feel -- you feel chemistry. and that's what we had. >> but he said that over time the stress of political life and especially that impeachment scandal took a toll on the marriage. >> and after that started it was like she just closed off. she became very defensive. for obvious reasons. very angry. >> he said he tried to leave kathy several times but that over and over she begged him to stay. >> just stay. just stay. just stay. i'll make it better. and you know, what kept me there was i kept remembering what we had in the beginning. >> and when it came to those flirtatious and occasionally angry e-mails chaz wrote to a co-worker before kathy died, he said they show not malice but sadness about the breakdown of his marriage. >> i was so frustrated. i had all these feelings for

kathy. and she had closed me off. it wasn't the right thing to do to reach out to someone else, but i did. >> you said some pretty mad things in some of those e-mails about kathy, right? >> i did. i was hurt. i was mad. you know? i was venting. >> chaz says he encouraged kathy to get out of politics, that he was convinced it was the only way their marriage could be saved. >> i loved her. i loved what we had. and that's what i wanted back. >> but when she threw her hat into the ring for the state treasurer's race, he'd had enough. >> i was going to divorce her. >> he said he broke the news to her on the evening of july 7th and that hours later he found her alone in her room, not breathing. >> did you wait any time to administer help, or did you try to administer help immediately? >> i did it immediately. >> he said he did all he could to save her and that contrary to

what the prosecution alleged there was nothing suspicious about his failure to place her on the floor before performing cpr. >> why didn't you think to throw her on the floor? >> i didn't think about it. and i started doing it. >> chaz attributed the calm demeanor that the prosecution found so suspicious to his years of military and medical training. >> i mean, i was trained to focus because you're ineffective, you can't function if you have all this chaos going on. >> why should they believe you did not kill your wife? >> because i didn't do it. i wouldn't do that. >> chaz said that if he bore any responsibility for his wife's death it was because his request for divorce was simply too much for the already stressed out politician to take. >> so i tried to kill myself. because i blamed myself. >> why? >> because she had enough stress in her life, and what did i do but add the stress of wanting to

divorce her? >> as for the prosecution's star witness, the nurse who said that chaz told her succinylcholine was the perfect way to commit murder? >> she claims you said something to the effect of he did it all wrong, he should have just hit her with succ. do you remember saying that? >> no. >> the fifth day of trial came to a close. prosecutors tom barb and christopher hicks prepared to cross-examine the defendant the following morning. >> chris and i almost had a fistfight over it, over who was going to get to do it. >> but in the middle of the night an unexpected emergency. >> 911. >> yes. what's the emergency? >> i have an emergency. >> what's going on? >> someone's attempted to kill himself. >> chaz higgs had slit his wrists. why try to kill himself? his attorney says the reason was simple. >> he told his story and he wanted to die. >> the prosecutor, however, had a different theory. >> this was his last shot at controlling the whole process.

and i'd like to think he didn't want to talk to me. >> two days later chaz was back in court, his wrist bandages on display. and the prosecutor didn't waste any time trying to depict those very injuries as further evidence of chaz's guilt. >> could you understand that some people might think that this was just a ploy for sympathy? >> yes, sir. i completely understand that. >> could you also understand why some people might think it was your consciousness of guilt? >> yes, i can understand that. >> the prosecutor also attacked chaz's claim that he didn't remember talking to nurse kim ramey about succinylcholine. >> you don't remember saying "hit him with a little succ because it can't be detected postmortem"? >> no, sir. >> all right. tell me, then, how miss ramey could pick succinylcholine and then it happens to be found in your wife's urine.

how'd she do that? >> i don't know, sir. >> the prosecutor also picked apart chaz's so-called love for his wife. >> she kept saying, please stay, please stay, is that right? >> yes. >> why did she have to beg you if you loved her? >> well, sir, in my mind i had left. >> that's where the love for kathy is, too, isn't it? in your mind. >> now as the trial came to an end chaz's attorney made one final attempt to knock down the prosecution's case. he insisted his client was no murderer and that he could not be convicted based upon merely circumstantial evidence. >> they're going to ask you to make that significant leap based upon speculation, based upon conjecture, based upon inadequate testing, based upon opinion that is not backed by either scientific or medical certainty. >> as chaz prepared for the case to go to the jury, he could be confident about one thing. the tests performed on kathy's deceased husband, charles augustine, had already come in, and there was no succinylcholine in his system. chaz higgs would not be charged in that death.

but now chaz's future rested in the hands of 12 jurors. when it came to the death of kathy augustine, would they find him guilty of murder? coming up, considering how they started -- >> it was five guilty, five undecided, two not guilty. >> -- would jurors be able to agree on any verdict? i didn't do it. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if you took the top down on a crossover? if there were buttons for this? wouldn't it be cool if your car could handle the kids... ♪ ...and the nurburgring? or what if you built a car in tennessee that could change the world? yeah, that would be cool. nissan. innovation for today. innovation for tomorrow. innovation for all. ♪

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i didn't do it. i wouldn't do that. >> after two weeks of testimony chaz higgs's future was now in the hands of 12 jurors. it was up to them to decide whether or not chaz had murdered his wife, nevada state controller kathy augustine, with

an injection of a paralytic drug called succinylcholine. we met with eight jurors. they all found the trial difficult to sit through. >> it was hard. >> it was extremely stressful. extremely stressful. >> many of us had sleepless nights. the evidence was hard to take. chaz, his, you know, life was in my hands, more or less, and i had to do a good job. >> from the very first vote it was clear that reaching a verdict would not be easy. >> it was five guilty, five undecided, and two not guilty. >> all of the jurors said they discounted the defense's argument that stress from her political life led to her death. >> she was doing something she loved. there was no stress there. >> or that a minor heart condition was to blame. >> i don't think the heart was an issue for any of us. >> but they still struggled to find the answer to the question what killed kathy augustine. >> i sincerely believe that the biggest issue was what killed

her, what was the cause of death? >> and if it was succinylcholine, how did it get into her body? >> i think that was preying on all of our minds, how did this succinylcholine get in her? >> at least one juror was influenced by the defense's demonstration with the syringe. >> i don't know if you've ever had a tetanus shot and they give it to you in your hip right here, and as soon as they do, your leg tenses up and the doctor says, you have to relax, i can't get anything in. and that played on me, you know, how could he get that in her? >> but others called the defense's demonstration merely courtroom theatrics. >> we never were told how much succinylcholine it takes to poison a person. i think if you have any succinylcholinen in you, you're in bad shape.

>> he just hit him with a little succ. >> and chaz's offhand remark to nurse kim ramey played big for the jury. >> if it hadn't been for kim ramey's testimony, they would have never tested the urine. >> why would she make up a story like this? >> and all of the jurors were disturbed by chaz's indifference toward his wife. >> chaz did not show any emotion during the whole process of his wife being found dead. in the ambulance it was the same thing. everyone described him as being totally unemotional. he was the same way with us. he didn't look at the jury. >> i loved her. >> and he didn't make much of an impression on the stand either. >> he was totally unbelievable. he lacked such emotion that i couldn't believe him as a witness. >> but the defense scored points by arguing chazz had no motive to kill kathy. >> we present -- weren't presented with a motive. maybe this or maybe that. >> what was the motive to kill her? why not leave? leave the relationship. it goes back to the personality of chaz higgs. you don't have to have a smoking gun. you have to connect the dots. >> after eight hours of

connecting those dots, the jurors announced they had reached a verdict. chaz higgs was about to learn his fate. >> we the jury in the above-entitled matter find the defendant, chaz higgs, guilty of first degree murder. >> chaz will now spend his life in prison within the possibility of parole in 20 years, a lifetime to think about the life he was convicted of taking away, that of kathy augustine, the resilient, confident, driven leader. for kathy's family, after a year of anguish, some degree of peace. >> who did you talk to in your head right after? >> kathy. >> what did you say? >> we got him. he didn't get away with this.