When nurse Kim Ramey heard that Kathy Augustine had been taken to a Reno hospital, she thought back to a conversation at work the day before. She told police what she remembered and told another nurse, who passed the warning to Augustine’s doctor. The name of a drug had come up. Ramey wanted the doctor to know which one. [1]
Augustine died on July 11, 2006. A urine sample the hospital had collected during her care went on to become evidence in the murder trial of her husband, Chaz Higgs. The FBI’s finding in that sample was positive. Its finding in tissue taken after her death was negative. A jury heard both results and convicted Higgs of first-degree murder. [1] [2]
The conversations on July 7
Augustine was a Nevada politician. She and Higgs, an experienced nurse, had married in 2003. On July 7, Ramey recalled, Higgs told her the marriage was in trouble and that he planned to seek a divorce. Later that day, the two nurses talked about a widely reported killing. Ramey testified that Higgs brought up succinylcholine, a drug used to temporarily paralyze muscles in medical care, and said he thought it would be hard to find after someone died. [1]
Early the next morning, Higgs called emergency services to their home. Paramedics restored Augustine’s heartbeat, but she couldn’t breathe on her own. They took her to the hospital. The responders and hospital staff hadn’t given her succinylcholine. They did take a urine sample as part of her treatment. It was a sample they already had when they began looking for a different explanation for her collapse. [1]
Augustine died on July 11 after life support was withdrawn. The doctors who later testified had looked for signs of a stroke or a heart attack and found no evidence that either explained what happened. [1]
Two samples, two results
The coroner’s lab sent specimens to the FBI. Toxicologist Madeline Montgomery reported that the urine collected while Augustine was alive contained succinylcholine and a substance it breaks down into. The tissue collected after death did not yield that finding. [1]
At trial, the pathologist who performed the autopsy gave her opinion that Augustine had died of poisoning. She couldn’t establish that a mark on the skin was where the drug had been given. A defense pathologist gave a different assessment of the mark and its age. That left the prosecution with a result it could point to in the urine and an open question about the tissue investigators had sampled. [1]
The state argued that Higgs had administered the drug before help arrived. Ramey’s testimony gave jurors a reason to pay attention to that particular drug. Hospital employees described how Higgs could have had access to it through his work. Access could explain how he might have obtained it; nobody testified to seeing him give it to Augustine. [1]
What the defense asked to see
The court appointed toxicology expert Chip Walls for the defense in December 2006. Both sides agreed in January to move the trial up from July to June. By May, the defense wanted more information about the FBI procedures and asked the judge to put the trial off. Walls had questions about the laboratory’s work, including a malfunction in one of its instruments. The judge declined to delay the trial. [1]
Walls questioned aspects of the method but agreed with the FBI finding at a hearing before the testimony went to the jury. He didn’t testify at the trial itself. The defense could cross-examine Montgomery, and the jury heard the medical evidence and Ramey’s account before returning its verdict. Higgs received life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years. That was the point at which he could become eligible, rather than a date set for his release. [1] [2]
The judges divide over time
In 2010, the Nevada Supreme Court majority found that the trial judge had acted within his discretion in admitting the testimony and that the defense had enough information to cross-examine Montgomery. The dissenting judges would have ordered a new trial. In their view, the defense needed more time with the laboratory material before it could test the finding on which so much of the case depended. A federal judge later denied Higgs’s petition challenging the conviction. [1] [2]
Ramey couldn’t tell the doctor what had happened before the ambulance came. She could tell him what she’d heard at work. Augustine’s hospital sample gave him a place to start looking. It had been collected for a woman the staff were still trying to save. [1]
Case brief
Reno, Nevada · 2006
- Recorded outcome
- Chaz Higgs convicted of first-degree murder in 2007; published Nevada Supreme Court affirmance in 2010.
Key moments
People in this case
- Kathy Augustine
Murder victim and Nevada state controller
Photo at source · Nevada Legislature · official profile
Look closer · 3 visuals
Inside the evidence.
Open a visual to explore what it contributed to the case—and the limits of what it shows. These original illustrations explain the record; they are not photographs of the actual evidence.
Two kinds of sample
Original editorial illustration — not an actual evidence photograph or exhibit.
Read the evidence notes
The FBI urine tests were positive while postmortem tissue tests were negative. Timing, methods and interpretation were contested.
Generic sample diagram. Not the real laboratory report, specimen or a dosing illustration.
The warning reaches a physician
Original editorial illustration — not an actual evidence photograph or exhibit.
Read the evidence notes
Ramey’s report reached the physician through a colleague; her testimony connected an earlier remark with the subsequent emergency.
Illustrated communication chain, not an authentic recording or telephone.
Time to challenge the science
Original editorial illustration — not an actual evidence photograph or exhibit.
Read the evidence notes
The defense’s request for more preparation time became an appellate issue, with a dissent favoring a new trial.
Procedural context, not a scientific finding that a sample was invalid.
★ Key evidence used in a conviction · ✓ Exclusion or reversal · ◇ Disputed evidence · ⊘ Excluded at retrial · ◆ Identity / investigative finding, not a conviction. A symbol does not mean one item proved the whole case.
Follow the locations
Put the story on the map.
Follow the dated entries, then select an event to find its regional setting. Shared-location pins open a group of events. Evidence symbols identify important findings and their limitations.
Open the map in its own window ↗Sources & further reading
- Higgs v. State, Nevada Supreme CourtMarriage, collapse, death, coworker's account, laboratory controversy and appellate analysis.
- Higgs v. Neven, federal habeas order, document 26Procedural history, June 2007 verdict and life sentence with parole possibility after 20 years.
Editorial review: 2026-11-12 · 760 words