The so-called “Call Girl Killer” is heading back to court.
Alix Tichelman, a former prostitute who served three years in jail after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the overdose death of a Silicon Valley executive, faces new charges for the heroin overdose of an ex-boyfriend, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
In September, the 30-year-old Tichelman was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of felony murder for allegedly giving 53-year-old Dean Riopelle heroin and Oxycodone while he was intoxicated, according to court documents. Canadian authorities and Fulton County officials are working together to “arrest and extradite Tichelman back to the United States,” the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement released Monday.
In an interview that aired just last week, Tichelman said she’d turned her life around since serving time for the death of Forrest Timothy Hayes, a Google executive who overdosed on a yacht in California in 2013. She told KBSW she’s been volunteering at a nonprofit in Canada, where she helps the homeless and works in hospitality.
“I'm so happy I found a workplace where I feel accepted,” she said.
Tichelman denied any involvement with Riopelle’s September 2013 death, which was initially ruled an accidental overdose, as The Daily Beast previously reported. He died two months before Hayes, who had hired Tichelman to party with him on his yacht in the Santa Cruz Harbor.
Tichelman said she was just doing her job when Hayes overdosed, and that he fully consented to being injected with heroin.
“This was consensual. He hired me to be there. I was supposed to be there to do what he wanted me to do,” she told KBSW.
Santa Cruz police said that after Hayes became unconscious, Tichelman sipped from a wine glass and fled the scene without bothering to call the cops, according to KSBW.
Tichelman pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of the 51-year-old father-of-five and was sentenced to six years in jail. She ultimately got out after serving half of her sentence for good behavior, according to KBSW.
In her recent interview, Tichelman claimed the police “hated” her—and disputed authorties’ version of events.
“I tried to revive him,” she insisted. “I was very upset and crying trying to wake him up. The police said I ‘calmly and coldly’ walked around the boat, packed up my stuff, and left. I was in a complete panic. I knew he was a married man. I had injected myself first, I was not thinking correctly. I didn't know he was in immediate distress, it looked like he was still breathing and had just passed out.”
As she drove to her parents’ home in Northern California, she was “agonizing” over calling the authorities, she said. “Ultimately I didn’t, and that’s something I regret every single day, that I didn't call for help,” Tichelman said.
At trial, surveillance video from the yacht—which was obtained by a subpoena after the boat captain seized it—showed Tichelman “crying, panicking, and hugging” her client’s lifeless body, according to KSBW.
Tichelman did call police when Riopelle, whom she’d once falsely accused of domestic violence, died in 2013, according to a Daily Beast report.
“I don’t know, I think my boyfriend overdosed or something,” she told the operator. “Like he won’t respond and he’s just laying on the ground.”
Later, the operator asked, “Why do you think it’s an overdose?”
“Umm, because there’s nothing else it could be,” Tichelman said. “I think definitely accidental. Accidental.”