Prostitute pleads guilty in Google exec’s death

A California prostitute charged with killing a Google executive with an overdose of heroin aboard his yacht pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and administering drugs.

A Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge sentenced defendant Alix Tichelman to six years in prison, bringing a sudden and unexpected conclusion to a tawdry case that garnered international attention.

Tichelman injected Forrest Timothy Hayes with heroin in November 2013, then left without seeking help when he passed out on the yacht, authorities say. Hayes had hired Tichelman several times before, and they were doing drugs and having sex the night he died, authorities said.

Defence attorney Larry Biggam said Tichelman, 28, was relieved to have the court proceedings behind her, and she is expected to serve three years. She will be credited the year already served in jail.

“It was an accidental overdose between two consenting adults,” Biggam said.

Santa Cruz police said a surveillance video at the Santa Cruz harbour showed the woman gather her belongings, casually step over Hayes’s body, finish a glass of wine and lower a blind before leaving the yacht the night before the body was discovered.

The video also showed Tichelman panicking and attempting to revive Hayes, as he became unconscious, before she left the yacht, Santa Cruz Deputy District Attorney Rafael Vazquez said, adding:“There was an obvious reaction that showed she didn’t intend to kill.”

Vazquez began by submitting a revised complaint specifying that Tichleman’s manslaughter charge was to be involuntary rather than the more severe voluntary. Then Tichelman’s attorney told the court she intended to plead guilty to all counts.

Vazquez said the charges were filed over the objections of Hayes’s family, who feared a public trial would further embarrass a wife and children traumatised by exposure of the Google executive’s double life. Hayes was the father of five, and two of his children are in elementary school.

“They just wanted this to go away,” the prosecutor said. “But we had a duty to pursue the case.”

Tichelman had been preparing to move out of California when she was arrested, She has wealthy parents and dual citizenship in the US and Canada.

After Tichelman was charged in California, police in Milton, Georgia, took another look at the 2013 overdose death of her former boyfriend Dean Riopelle, 53, the owner of a popular Atlanta music venue. She has not been charged in that death.