Christopher J. Hicks
District Attorney
One South Sierra Street
Reno, Nevada 89501
775.328.3200
washoecounty.us/da
Justice First, People Always
October 14, 2026
Board of Parole Commissioners
1677 Old Hot Springs Road, Ste. A
Carson City, NV 89706-0677
RE: Chaz Higgs (NDOC 1003552)
Dear Chairman and Commissioners:
I write in my capacity as the Washoe County District Attorney and as one of the prosecutors who personally tried Chaz Higgs for the murder of his wife, Nevada State Controller Kathy Augustine, nearly twenty years ago. The State of Nevada strongly opposes his release on parole.
The circumstances of Kathy Augustine’s murder remain among the most disturbing I have encountered during my 24-year career as a prosecutor. This was not an impulsive act of violence. It was a calculated, deliberate killing committed by a medically trained professional who understood the effects of the poison he selected, the suffering it would inflict, and the way he believed he could conceal his crime.
Several of the considerations identified in NRS 213.10885 weigh heavily against parole in this case. Most significant are: (I) the extraordinary severity of the crime; (II) the potential threat Higgs poses to society; and (III) the fact that he has served only the minimum period necessary to become eligible for parole.
On July 7, 2006, Chaz Higgs murdered his wife, Kathy Augustine, by poisoning her with succinylcholine. Higgs, a critical care nurse, used his medical training, experience, and access to dangerous drugs to carry out his plan. The evidence at trial demonstrated not only that the murder was deliberate, but that Higgs had contemplated how such a killing could be accomplished while avoiding detection. The day before Kathy’s murder, he told a coworker:
“If you ever want to get rid of somebody, you just hit them with a little succs because it can’t be traced postmortem.”
After injecting the drug into his wife, he waited until she passed the point where medical intervention could reasonably save her life before he called 911. He represented that he had attempted CPR, despite substantial evidence contradicting that assertion. The evidence revealed not simply a deliberate murder, but an accompanying effort to disguise that murder as a natural death. To fully appreciate the severity of this crime, it is important to understand the drug Higgs purposefully selected.
Succinylcholine
During the penalty phase of Higgs’ trial, Dr. Pamela K. Russell, an anesthesiologist with twenty-one years of experience, testified regarding succinylcholine and its devastating effects.
Succinylcholine is a depolarizing muscle relaxant. When properly administered in a medical setting, patients are appropriately sedated and respiratory support is provided. Without those protections, its effects can be horrific.
Dr. Russell explained that administration of the drug initially causes the muscles throughout the body to contract violently, creating the appearance of “the worst seizure that you would ever see.” The full-body muscular contraction lasts approximately thirty to sixty seconds, is immensely painful, and is followed by complete paralysis.
Dr. Russell explained what happens next:
“So what happens is all those muscles are paralyzed. Your eye muscles are paralyzed, so you can’t see. But you can hear and you can smell. And you can’t breathe. Your diaphragm won’t work, so you can’t get any air into your lungs. And your abdominal muscles are also paralyzed, so you can’t get any air into your lungs.”
She further described the experiences of patients who had suffered paralysis without adequate sedation:
“They said, ‘I could hear everything and I could smell everything in the room, but – and I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t open my mouth, and I wanted to breathe, but I couldn’t breathe.’”
Dr. Russell explained that a person subjected to these circumstances could remain conscious and aware of the suffocation until oxygen deprivation caused the brain to begin dying:
“So that if Succinycholine is just given alone, you will sit and be suffocating, unable to move, knowing what’s going on around you, your surroundings, and you will continue to feel that until your brain starts to die at six to ten minutes.”
She summarized what surviving patients had reported to her:
“The Patients who have told me about that say it’s pure terror; worse than any Stephen King novel you could imagine.”
That testimony is important because Higgs was a trained critical care nurse who understood the drug he selected and the disturbing consequences its administration without sedation and respiratory support could produce. Simply put, he knew what he was doing.
I. The Extraordinary Severity of the Crime
Higgs had extensive medical training before murdering Kathy. Prior to becoming a nurse in Nevada, he held a medical position involving the treatment of seriously injured patients. In Nevada, he worked as a critical care nurse in multiple hospitals. Through that training and experience, Higgs was familiar with succinylcholine and its effects. He knew the
importance of sedation and respiratory support when the drug was legitimately administered. He understood that administering it outside a controlled medical setting would leave a person completely paralyzed, unable to breathe, unable to call for help, and conscious of what was happening. Nevertheless, he deliberately administered that drug to his wife.
The method of killing alone makes this an extraordinarily aggravated murder, but the reasons Higgs killed Kathy are nearly as troubling as the manner in which he did so. The evidence established that Higgs harbored intense resentment toward his wife and repeatedly sought relationships with other women, both before and soon after her death. His own written communications revealed both his hostility toward Kathy and his desire to escape their marriage.
In emails introduced at trial that were sent by Higgs before Kathy’s murder to a woman he was courting, Higgs referred to Kathy as a “manipulative, controlling, bitch.” His statements went considerably further. He wrote that he had “made a pact with myself that I was going to live everyday making her life a living hell.” He described manipulating Kathy and attempting to make her believe she was losing her mind. He wrote, “I hate her and want to make her break,” and described his “quest in life to drive that bitch crazy.”
These were not isolated expressions of marital frustration. They demonstrated sustained hostility toward Kathy and a deliberate desire to cause her emotional suffering. Ultimately, Higgs escalated that cruelty to murder.
Higgs wanted out of their marriage and wanted the freedom to pursue relationships with other women. He had every lawful option available to him. He could separate. He could move out. He could obtain a divorce. He was educated, professionally trained, gainfully employed, and fully capable of supporting himself.
Instead, he chose to kill his wife.
The combination of premeditation, the exploitation of specialized medical knowledge, the extreme suffering inherent in his chosen method of killing, his hostility toward his victim, and his subsequent attempt to conceal the crime makes the severity of this offense extraordinary. This factor weighs overwhelmingly against parole.
II. Higgs’ Potential Threat to Society
Higgs did not have a significant prior criminal history that can be relied upon to predict future criminal conduct. I recognize that fact, but the absence of prior convictions must be considered alongside what this crime itself tells us about the person who committed it.
Higgs did not kill during a confrontation that unexpectedly escalated. He did not act during a momentary loss of control. He identified an obstacle to the life he wanted, developed a means of eliminating that obstacle, and deliberately carried out his plan. He used his medical training to identify a substance capable of causing a torturous death while making detection difficult. He obtained that drug, administered it to his wife, waited until she was beyond meaningful medical intervention, and then attempted to conceal his actions by presenting her death as the consequence of a medical condition.
The fact that Kathy was Nevada’s elected State Controller makes his willingness to undertake this plan even more revealing. Higgs knew that her sudden and unexpected death would receive substantial public attention and scrutiny. It did. Nevertheless, he
apparently believed his medical knowledge and planning would allow him to outsmart those who investigated her death and escape responsibility. That degree of calculation is deeply concerning.
Perhaps even more troubling is the nature of the problem Higgs chose murder to solve. Marriages fail every day. Spouses become unhappy. Relationships deteriorate. People separate and divorce. Higgs had the financial means, education, employment, and freedom to pursue those ordinary lawful alternatives.
Again, he chose murder instead.
That choice is directly relevant to the Board’s assessment of potential danger. When confronted with a personal circumstance he found intolerable, Higgs demonstrated that he was capable of planning remarkable violence, carrying it out without apparent regard for his victim’s suffering, and then attempting to conceal his responsibility.
The Board may hear evidence that Higgs has been a compliant or even exemplary inmate during his incarceration. If so, such evidence should be considered and he should receive whatever credit it warrants. However, successful behavior within the highly structured environment of a correctional institution does not, by itself, answer the more difficult question presented here: whether the characteristics demonstrated by this extraordinarily brutal and calculated crime have meaningfully changed.
To my knowledge, Higgs has continued to deny responsibility for Kathy’s death, just as he did at trial. If Higgs does not acknowledge the conduct for which he was convicted, the Board should carefully examine what other evidence demonstrates that he has developed meaningful insight into, or addressed, the extraordinarily troubling behavior that resulted in Kathy’s murder.
Institutional compliance and rehabilitation are not necessarily the same thing. The question before the Board is ultimately whether Higgs can safely return to society. In answering that question, the degree of planning, deception, cruelty, and willingness to use lethal violence to resolve an ordinary personal problem should weigh heavily.
III. Length of Incarceration
Higgs is seeking parole after serving approximately twenty years in prison. This is his first opportunity for parole consideration, and he has served only the minimum period necessary to become eligible. The minimum period of incarceration establishes when the Board may begin considering whether an offender should return to society. It does not establish that the purposes of the sentence have been fulfilled or that continued confinement is unwarranted. That distinction is particularly important here.
This was not a spontaneous act of violence. Higgs formulated a method of killing that exploited his specialized medical knowledge. He selected a drug whose devastating effects he understood. The evidence demonstrated that he had contemplated its potential difficulty of detection. He obtained the drug, administered it to his wife, and then attempted to construct a false medical explanation for her death.
His entire course of conduct – from conception, to execution, to attempted concealment – demonstrated deliberation, and the reason for it was disturbingly ordinary. Higgs hated his wife and wanted a different life.
Twenty years is unquestionably a substantial period of incarceration, but the proper question is not whether twenty years is a long time. The question is whether, considering the astonishing severity of this crime and the other factors before the Board, serving the minimum period required for parole eligibility is sufficient. I respectfully submit that it is not. Granting parole at Higgs’ first opportunity would fail to give sufficient weight to the exceptional gravity of this crime and the legitimate purposes served by continued incarceration.
IV. Conclusion
Twenty years have passed since Chaz Higgs murdered Kathy Augustine. The passage of time has not diminished the gravity of her death, the cruelty inherent in the method he selected, or the deliberate choices that brought about her murder. Kathy was a mother, a wife, a public servant, and Nevada’s elected State Controller. Her public position is not what made her life valuable, nor is it what makes this crime so serious. She was a human being entitled to live her life, love her family, and make her own choices. Instead, the person who had promised to love her took those things from her.
I prosecuted this case nearly twenty years ago. In the years since, I have prosecuted, reviewed, and overseen thousands of criminal cases, including some of the most serious murders and violent crimes committed in Northern Nevada. I do not lightly characterize one murder as more disturbing than another. But after all these years, the calculated cruelty of this crime remains extraordinary to me.
This is Higgs’ first opportunity for parole. He has served the minimum period necessary to become eligible for consideration. Eligibility for parole does not mean that twenty years adequately accounts for the circumstances of this murder. In my judgment, it most certainly does not.
Kathy’s family will speak for themselves about the loss they have endured and the impact her murder continues to have upon them. I will not attempt to speak for them. My perspective is that of the prosecutor who lived with this evidence, presented it to a jury, and has spent the ensuing twenty years prosecuting and overseeing serious criminal cases. From that perspective, I remain firmly convinced that the planning, cruelty, deception, and complete disregard for human life demonstrated by this crime warrant continued incarceration.
For these reasons, on behalf of the State of Nevada and the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, I respectfully urge the Board to deny Chaz Higgs’ request for parole.
Sincerely,
Christopher Hicks
Washoe County District Attorney
