Archive: Around Town

Nevada Controller Kathy Augustine was found unconscious on July 8th, 2006 by her husband Chas Higgs.  She died three days later. The next Friday Higgs, a nurse at the Carson-Tahoe Regional Medical Center, attempted suicide, spurring suspicion that he may have had something to do with his wife's death.  On June 29, 2007 a jury found that he had murdered her with succinylcholine.  Journalist Glenn Puit covered the case, and last Tuesday his book, 'In Her Prime: The Murder of a Political Star' was released.

"Kathy Augustine was someone that most people would like to identify with, Puit says.  "She was a single mom at one point in her life, wondering how to make ends meet.  She decided to completely retool her life, and got a Masters Degree in Public Administration.  She was a tough fighter.  She knew how to win and was really a scrapper.  I really admire her for that."

'In Her Prime' is the Lansing native's fourth book.  After graduating from Lansing High School in 1988 Puit studied journalism at Indiana State University in Terre Haute.  After college he was assigned to the crime beat by a small newspaper in Gloversville/Johnstown, New York, but his big break came when he broke a major story while reporting for the Florence, South Carolina Morning News.


It turned out that Todd Bunting, a Florence man, matched the description of the infamous 'John Doe #2' in the Oklahoma City bombing case.  Puit researched the story after being tipped off by a local law enforcement official, and it was picked up in most major news outlets.  Bunting was cleared of involvement in the case.  The story landed Puit a job on the crime beat at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

"That was a very profound experience for me," he says.  It really drove home to me the power of journalism."

Soon Puit was assigned to cover a bizarre case.  Brookey Lee West had killed her mother in 1988, and the trial went to court in Las Vegas in 2001.  West had been a successful technical writer in Silicon Valley, but ended up going on a 20 year crime and killing spree that may have included the murders of her brother and husband.  With Satanic connections the case took some bizarre turns.

" I remember at one point I was looking at the evidence and the hair on the back of my neck stood up," Puit says.  "I said, 'Man, somebody ought to write a book about this case.'

He thought about it for a couple of months, and spent $5,000 of his own money researching the case, including interviewing West herself.  Once he had the research he got a literary agent, and soon had two offers from New York publishers.  'Witch' has sold almost 60,000 copies so far.

"I never actually thought I was going to be writing books," Puit says.  "I was a journalist and I always thought I would be working for newspapers in some form or another."

But once he started, Puit was hooked.  His second book, 'Fire In The Desert,' chronicled the case of fitness celebrities Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan, who had tied up their assistant Melissa James and stuffed her into a Jaguar before setting it on fire.  'Father of the Year' told of Bill Rundle, who had actually won the Las Vegas 'Father of the Year' award, but turned out to be a con man, thief, and killer.

Today Puit is an investigative reporter fora non-profit in Northern Michigan doing investigative journalism on environmental issues.  He lives there with his wife and three children, aged 9, 5, and 2.  He credits his wife for helping him to realize his dream by taking care of the children by herself, sometimes for weeks at a time, so Puit can pursue his research and writing.  He works hard to promote his books and his reputation as an investigative reporter.  In January he will be featured on CBS Murder Mysteries to talk about another case he covered in Las Vegas.


"I'm not just writing books to say I wrote a book," he says.  "I want to be the best.  I want to be a number one New York Times best seller.  That's my dream.  Anybody who knows me knows that once I get started on something I can't let it go.  So here I am.  I'm on my fourth book and it's starting to really come together.  I'm not sure whether it's ever going to happen, but I'm definitely in the game."

Puit says that game started for him in Lansing.  He credits Lansing Middle and High School teachers for sparking his interest in writing.  He singles out Letha Henry for having the most profound influence when he took her advanced placement English class that was split between Ernest Hemingway and William Shakespeare.

"I was completely and totally bored by Shakespeare, but Hemingway -- oh man!  It was the coolest class I ever had in my life!  She was really hard on me.  She was a real disciplinarian.  But five or ten years later I looked back and thought that's where it happened.  That's where someone lit the fire, and I haven't stopped since."

After 12 years on the  Las Vegas crime beat Puit says it is difficult to be exposed to real-life murder and mayhem without being affected by it.

"The only way you can survive and get through that and continue to do it on a regular basis is that you have to believe that what you're doing is right and that it makes the world a better place," he says.  "That's what's always driven me being in the media and being a newspaper reporter.  We have to be the ones who stand up and point out the injustices in the world.  That's what keeps me going."

Puit says two things fascinated him about the Augustine case.  First, Augustine was killed with succinylcholine, which Puit says is the 'perfect murder weapon' because it dissipates from the  body within a day's time.  That means it is impossible to detect unless you know to look for it immediately.  That it is only available to medical professionals helped lead authorities to suspect Higgs. 

Augustine had met Higgs while her third husband Chuck Augustine, a pilot, was hospitalized by a stroke.  He was recovering, then suddenly died.  A year and a half later his body was exhumed so forensic scientists could check for succinylcholine, which would have linked Higgs to that murder as well.  But it was impossible to detect.

Secondly Puit was fascinated with Augustine as a person.  She had been a single mom trying to make ends meet, then turned her life around.  She earned a Masters Degree in Public Administration, and was elected to several public offices.  Puit says she was someone that most people would like to identify with.  She earned a Masters Degree in Public Administration and rose quickly in politics, even becoming a finalist for U.S. Treasurer under George W. Bush.  Ethics charges threatened to take her down, but she was starting to rebuild her political career when she was murdered.

Her fatal flaw was bad taste in men.  Three of her four marriages were disasters.  The good marriage to Chuck Augustine was cut short by his death, and two weeks later she shocked everyone by marrying Higgs.

Puit was in Las Vegas again this week to promote the new book release.  He credits his success with a no-nonsense approach to writing about compelling people who have made some incredibly bad decisions.

"My books are straight journalism," he says.  "It's not sensationalism.  I'm not glorifying anything.  Who, what, why, where, and when and some colorful writing to introduce the chapters.  I think that's why the books have done so well.  So much of what you read in the True Crime genre is just awful.  I always model my writing style after Truman Capote.  That's kind of my dream, to write the 'In Cold Blood' of our generation."

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