'Call Girl Killer' who fatally injected a Google exec with heroin regrets her actions, wishes she could change what happened
A high-class call girl who killed a millionaire Google executive five years ago by injecting him with a fatal dose of heroin has said that she has thought about the man every day since the day he died. 31-year-old Alix Tichelman was with Forrest Hayes, a father-of-five, on his 50ft yacht in the Santa Cruz harbour, California. She left him for dead on the vessel after he had passed out from the dose of heroin.
Tichelman, who is now known as the "Call Girl Killer", was sentenced to six years in jail in 2015 after she pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. She was released on good behavior last year after she served two years.
The tattooed woman met Hayes through a sugar daddy website called Seeking Arrangement. She had used the site before to meet wealthy men who would give in to the heroin addiction that she developed after she moved to California in 2013. Initially, Hayes had given Tichelman £2,500 so that she could have dinner with him before she asked him that he meet her on the yacht. She then showed up at the vessel with a lot of drugs that she had just bought.
For the first time since the incident took place on Hayes' yacht, the Tichelman has spoken about the series of unfortunate events that led up to the Google exec's death. She had also spoken about how she is filled with guilt for the devastated family she ripped the man away from.
The woman is finally off the drug and is living a very normal life in Canada. She told The Sun in an exclusive interview: "I feel bad for his family and for all the attention which was brought on them. His kids have to live with our decision to use drugs that night. This man who I didn't even know died and I'd played a part in that. It's something that can never leave you. I think about him every day... I just wish I had done something different, then his kids would still have a father. I take responsibility for what I did. I should have stayed, I should have called 911."
She revealed to the publication that she had driven from Folsom, which is a suburb in Sacramento, to meet Hayes on his vessel one night in November 2013. She said that Hayes, who did not seem like he was interested in a sexual relationship, gave her Valium first before she got onto the yacht named Escape.
Tichelman said that she injected the heroin first before she helped Hayes inject the Class A drug into his system. She said: "He wasn't very experienced with heroin but he seemed very at ease and excited about it. He took out his cell phone and put the light on to help me see. I eventually gave him the heroin. Almost immediately he started to, what I thought was, nod off."
"I didn't know he was overdosing necessarily, because he hadn't stopped breathing, his skin wasn't changing color. I thought he had passed out. I have had that happen to me where I've passed out from drugs, once for a whole 24 hours. Then this feeling of horror and panic came over me. I was inebriated, I had injected first and also taken Valium, so I wasn't in my right mind."
"The police said I had 'calmly and coldly' packed up my stuff and left but I was freaking out and hitting him and trying to get him to wake up. I was upset because I knew he had a wife, I wasn't supposed to be there, he wasn’t supposed to be there. If I had been sober and more aware, I may have realized the danger... But I panicked."
"I didn't want to get him in trouble and I didn't want to be caught there, with him being a married man. It wasn't a rational thought but in that state of mind I thought it would be a good idea to make it look like no-one else had been there and to leave." An autopsy of Hayes' body showed that he had died almost immediately after he had been injected with the drug.
When she was on her way back to Sacramento from the harbor, Tichelman said that she had stopped her car a few times and kept deciding if she should call 911 but she didn't in the end because she was scared that Hayes would be angry. She was worried for days after that and didn't leave her house. Tichelman kept calling Hayes but the phone was switched off the whole time.
Hayes had told Tichelman that his name was Tim so when she tried to look for him online she could not find any information about a man with that name who matched Hayes' description. Tichelman did not see the obituary that had been published in the newspaper. The notice said that Hayes had died of a heart attack.
The ship's captain was the one who called the authorities that Hayes' body was on the vessel. He also told them that he had "cleaned up" the yacht before they arrived. This also included wiping the security camera footage from the vessel's records. When the police officers from the Santa Cruz PD started investigating the case, they found that Tichelman was a prime suspect and started figuring out how they could get the footage from that night.
For some unknown reason, the officers decided to use the same website Hayes had used, Seeking Arrangement, to contact Tichelman. One of the officers posed as a man called Sebastian and they used this profile as bait to try and nab the woman. Tichelman, who was none the wiser, agreed to meet "Sebastian" on July 3rd of that year.
She told The Sun: "I walked into the lobby and when I saw the guy I thought, 'oh he's actually pretty good looking'. Then I went to give him a hug and felt the bulletproof vest under his shirt... I knew then and there I was going to be arrested. We walked out the front of the hotel and were swarmed by a number of police officers. He pulled out his badge and told me he was a cop, then they put handcuffs on me. I was very shocked. Something wasn't right, why would they do all this for a charge like prostitution?"
Tichelman said that the investigators had interrogated her about her use of heroin and asked her if she had ever been to Santa Cruz at an earlier time. She had lied at that point and said she hadn't met the man they were talking about and that's when they brought out a laptop which had the security footage.
She said: "Right in that instant I felt like I was having a heart attack. They told me he died and they were charging me with first-degree murder. It felt a lot like I imagine a near-death experience would feel. I looked down at my hands in the handcuffs and just felt my life was over."
The detectives immediately rejoiced at finding their suspect and held a press conference where they announced that they have the killer in custody. Almost overnight, Tichelman became known as the "Harbour Hooker" and the "Call Girl Killer". Her family was shocked to see all the attention that was on one of their own because of the case.
She said: "Forrest Hayes' wife didn't even want me charged to begin with. She asked the police to let it go." Tichelman's defense team was able to say in court that how just a week before she was on board the yacht, Hayes had been with another woman having a similar drug-infused night but with methadone. The Google exec had then passed out but phone records from that time had shown that he had texted the woman in the morning and asked her about what happened.
Tichelman had a minor relapse after the incident but then she sobered up in prison and started taking classes. She was released on April 2017 to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after she got a recommendation for good behavior. She was then deported back to Canada where she is originally from. Her mother visited her in Georgia and Tichelman started living a life without drugs for the first time ever since she was a teen.
Her drug problem started when she had been bullied in school for being too "geeky". Tichelman first start using marijuana by then by the time she became 14-years old, she switched to cocaine. She got hooked onto heroin when she was 17-years-old.
She said: "I didn't think I was going to live past the age of 18 so I wanted to experience [heroin] for myself."
Now she says: "One of the reasons I am clean and sober today is I feel that's the most respectful thing I can do for [Forrest] and his family. To change my life and not put anyone in harm's way ever again."
She said: "I talk to my family almost every day. My relationship with them is stronger than it has ever been. I am lucky and blessed to have the family I do. They have never given up on me and have always been there. I go to Narcotics Anonymous, I never think about taking drugs anymore. After everything that’s happened – drugs equal misery and death."
"I wish I could go back to that one moment and change what happened, but I can't. I'd like to honor him and his family by trying to give back and being a productive member of society."
In the present day, Tichelman is more astute and more reflective of her life. She thinks positively about the future and is grateful that she has another shot. She hopes that she will be able to help other women suffering from addiction to try and get back into society.
Tichelman has moved to California to stay with her parents since October 2013 after her boyfriend, Deon Riopelle, died in Atlanta, Georgia, after a fatal dose of heroin in September of 2013. She has now listed herself as a "makeup artist, model, stylist and exotic dancer" on her Twitter profile.