Kiss of Death and the Google Exec

Summary

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48 Hours – “Kiss of Death and the Google Exec”

Original Release: April 22, 2026 | Podcast by CBS News

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode of 48 Hours explores the mysterious and tragic death of Google executive Forrest Hayes aboard his luxury yacht, “Escape,” in Santa Cruz, California. Correspondents piece together the events leading up to his passing, the investigation that ensued, and the subsequent criminal proceedings against Alex Tickleman, a young woman with a troubled past and ties to Hayes’ secret double life. The story weaves profiles of both victim and accused, examines the world of “sugar dating” websites, and unpacks the legal and emotional consequences for all involved.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: The Scene of the Crime

• Location: Santa Cruz, California—a paradisiacal town, drawing wealthy Silicon Valley residents ([02:34]).
• The Crime: On November 22, 2013, Forrest Hayes was found dead on his yacht by the boat’s captain after he didn’t return home. Hayes died of a heroin overdose; two wine glasses and a needle mark suggested company and foul play ([02:34]–[04:43]).
• “The question is who?” sets the investigative tone ([04:43]).

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2. Investigation and Discovery

• First Break: Detectives notice the yacht’s advanced security system with high-definition cameras ([06:44], [10:28]).
• The Video: After a court order, police recover security footage showing Hayes with a dark-haired, tattooed woman—Alex Tickleman ([10:28]–[11:02]).
• Notable Quote:
  • “The video is everything. The video is the case.” – Detective Steve Clark ([11:02])
• The Footage: The video allegedly shows both using heroin, Tickleman injecting Hayes, and him quickly going into distress. Instead of seeking help, she removes evidence and steps over him as he collapses ([11:44]–[13:20]).
• Crucial Moment:
  • “That’s seven minutes that emergency medical personnel could have been there...to save Mr. Hayes’s life. But instead she does nothing...” – Detective Steve Clark ([13:20])

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3. The Secret Life of Forrest Hayes and Alex Tickleman

• Seeking Arrangement: Hayes had a profile on seekingarrangement.com, a “sugar daddy” dating site ([09:48]–[16:51]).
• Website Insights:
  • “40% of the guys are married.” – Brandon Wade, Seeking Arrangement CEO ([18:27])
• Alex’s Recruitment: Police use the site to lure Tickleman back to Santa Cruz, posing as a potential client. She negotiates price confidently, indicating experience ([19:59]–[20:34]).
• Sting and Arrest: Police catch Tickleman; she is shocked, panics, and is charged with manslaughter and prostitution ([21:06]–[21:24]).

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4. Profiles: Alex Tickleman’s Troubled Past

• Family and Childhood: Raised in a privileged environment but plagued by emotional issues, self-harm, and drug addiction ([25:56]–[26:57]).
• Interviews: Friends recall her emotional struggles, her “devil worshiper” persona, and efforts at rehabilitation ([27:06], [27:47], [28:09]).
• Trauma and Acting Out:
  • “She had already made this image of herself as this, like, devil person...But was that really who Alex was?” – Reporter Michael Daly ([28:40])
  • “It was very much like a front...She was just a normal girl who was scared.” – Friend ([28:54], [29:01])

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5. A Pattern? The Death of Dean Rypel

• Dean Rypel: Alex’s older fiancé also died of a heroin overdose two months before Hayes ([30:49], [34:05]).
• Suspicion and Defense: People close to Dean are split—some believe Alex is culpable, others believe the men played a willing role ([34:42]–[36:29]).
• Addiction and Despair:
  • “She hated that she was compelled to do it, because she had this addiction.” – Todd, friend of Alex ([38:11])
  • Dean hoped heroin might bring him “connection with Alex on a deeper level” ([39:32]).

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6. Events Leading to Hayes’s Death

• New Start, Old Problems: Shortly after moving to California, Alex seeks new “arrangements” for money, meeting Hayes on the yacht ([40:35]–[41:19]).
• Compulsion: The consensus among some friends—Alex’s actions were driven by addiction, not malice or murder ([41:34]).

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7. Judicial Proceedings and Aftermath

• Legal Developments:
  • Alex Tickleman pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter and receives a six-year sentence, but due to time served, is expected to serve just over two years ([45:04]–[45:25]).
• Apology:
  • “This was in no form intentional, malicious, or anything of that sort. It was accident and panic, and she’s so, so sorry for it.” – Alex’s lawyer ([45:25])
• Prosecutor’s View:
  • “Alex was never a cold blooded killer as described by law enforcement.” – Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez ([46:35])
  • “She actually made some efforts to try to wake him up...that clearly shows somebody who appeared concerned.” ([46:53])
  • Fault lies in failing to seek help and cleaning up evidence ([47:23]).
• Aftermath: The Hayes family did not want the case to go to trial or for the video to become public ([46:07]); Alex is released in 2017 and deported to Canada ([48:35]–[48:38]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I think that some part of him really wanted to taste that...darker side of life.” – Narrator on Forrest Hayes ([02:34])
• “She is literally walking around the cabin of the boat, stepping over him, grabbing her glass of wine...” – Detective Steve Clark ([12:59])
• “Tell me one thing that happened on that yacht that was not absolutely consensual between two adults. Nothing.” – Todd, friend of Alex ([41:34])
• “Everything about this video indicates accident and panic.” – Defense attorney ([44:15])
• “The family did not want this case to be filed...They were terrified about the prospect of this case going to trial.” – Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez ([46:07])
• “There are things that don’t make sense unless you consider addiction.” – Resonant theme throughout the analysis

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:34] – Discovery of Forrest Hayes’ body and initial clues
• [09:48] – Seeking Arrangement and the online double life
• [10:28] – Security footage: what the video reveals
• [16:36] – Interview with Seeking Arrangement CEO, Brandon Wade
• [19:59] – Police lure and sting operation targeting Alex
• [30:49] – Dean Rypel’s death and “pattern” suspicions
• [34:05] – GA police reopen investigation into Dean’s death
• [43:24] – Trial prep: defense, prosecution, and plea deal
• [45:04] – Tickleman pleads guilty; sentencing details
• [46:35] – Prosecutor’s nuanced explanation of the video

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Conclusion

The tragic intersection of double lives, addiction, and high-profile secrecy shapes every chapter of this episode. CBS’s correspondents balance a rich narrative with forensic detail, challenging initial public impressions and acknowledging the humanity—and contradiction—within both victim and accused. The “Kiss of Death” is less a murder mystery than a cautionary tale about secrecy, trust, and the fatal cost of untreated pain.

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Transcript

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[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Santa Cruz is a small coastal town, California. It's at the northern end of Monterey Bay. It looks like paradise. Look at that beach. Look at these mountains. Breathe that air. It's a place where the blind could go sightseeing. And then in recent years, it's become a Place that's become more and more favored by the people over the hill in Silicon Valley, that being the people with money. Forrest Hayes started life in the Midwest in Dearborn, Michigan. And he went out to Silicon Valley where everything was happening. He was hired by Google. He had five kids. And then one day a friend of his emailed him a picture of a boat that was for sale. And a couple days later he bought it. The two things he loved were his family and being on his boat. He called it escape. I think that some part of him really wanted to like, taste that other side of life, that kind of darker side, wilder, more exotic side of life. On the night of November 22, 2013, Forrest Hayes was on his yacht and he didn't come home that night. And his wife became concerned and she called the captain they retained for this yacht. And he went and he got on the boat and there's Forrest Hayes lying there dead. The detectives arrive and they start looking at the scene and it turned out he had in fact died of a heroin overdose. There was a visible injection mark in his arm, but they don't see drugs. But you do see two wine glasses, detective. 101. Someone else has been there. And the question is who?

[Detective Steve Clark]

At that point we realized that's our person. That's who we're going after.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

157.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Time is 8 08.

[Detective Steve Clark]

What is the truth behind how Forrest Hayes died? How did he find himself in this situation, in this position that took his life? Who was on that boat?

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Then they're looking around and they see there's cameras. There was indeed somebody else there, very beautiful, dark haired woman. They note that she has these tattoos. And they also probably figured that Forrest didn't meet her like, you know, at parent teaching night. This is Alex Tickleman.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Do you think Alex Tickleman knew that Forrest Hayes was dying right there in front of her?

[Detective Steve Clark]

I don't see how she didn't know.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Detectives then discovered that this was not the first time Alex Tickleman had been with somebody who died of a drug overdose.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Is this woman a cold blooded killer?

[Detective Steve Clark]

She certainly was cold.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

When he's not. Not out looking for the big wave. There's a big story that has consumed Steven Baxter, a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and a 48 Hours consultant. The mysterious death of Google executive Forrest Hayes at the city's sprawling marina.

[Reporter Steven Baxter]

Forrest Hayes was 51 years old. He lived in a pretty upper crust neighborhood. He was a pretty high powered guy and obviously had a lot of assets. I mean, he lived in a $3 million in Santa Cruz in 2013, one

[Reporter Michael Daly]

of the boats docked in Santa Cruz harbor was this majestic 46 foot long yacht called the Escape. It belonged to Google executive Forrest Hayes. Not surprisingly, the tech exec outfitted his boat with some of the most expensive tech gear out there. About $200,000 worth, including a sophisticated security system complete with high def cameras inside. Hays spared no expense on creature comforts, including a leather ceiling and an $8,000 captain's chair.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

I think he was practical and imaginative at the same time.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

The Google executive's death caught the attention of Michael Daly. He's an investigative reporter for the Daily Beast in New York and also a 48 Hours Consultant.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Forrest Hays started in his native Michigan working at the Ford Motor Company. He went to California for Sun Microsystems and he went on to Apple and then he went on to Google for

[Reporter Michael Daly]

a high paying job at their top secret location where impossible dreams are transformed into reality.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

It was hard to work in Google X, which they called their moonshot factory. You know, the most extreme, wildest, imaginative, farthest reaching ideas they could have. You know, like Google Glasses self driving cars. He was the guy who was actually going to make some of these things happen.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

A place so secretive that colleagues from Google X refused to divulge exactly what Hayes did there. To get away from the pressures at work, Boris Hayes would head to the marina and on to his prized possession,

[Reporter Steven Baxter]

one of the larger boats in the harbor. I think that's fair to say.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

What police would eventually discover was Hays, the married father of five had a secret liaison. She was a young and exotic dark haired woman covered with very distinctive tattoos. And she would be the last person to see force Hayes alive. Hayes body was found lying here in the main cabin. The Captain immediately called 911, but surprisingly it would take months before the Google executive's death made headlines.

[Reporter Steven Baxter]

There was no really report of his death. Obviously the police in this case were trying to keep that under wraps as

[Reporter Michael Daly]

they investigated Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark. 12211 Clark has been on this case since day one.

[Detective Steve Clark]

The media is going to want to know right off the bat who is it, who's responsible? Is this a homicide? Is this a murder? We didn't have enough to really even put that out. We were busy building the case, which

[Reporter Michael Daly]

wasn't easy despite some initial crime scene clues.

[Detective Steve Clark]

There were two wine glasses there, both which appeared to have been used.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Investigators zeroed in on Hayes cell phone launching an exhaustive digital search. Then a stunning discovery. Hayes had a profile page on A dating website called seekingarangement.com. it would be a critical clue in learning the identity of that mystery tattooed woman. It was just a few days before Thanksgiving 2013. What happened that night was recorded by the boat's video cameras. This camera in particular caught the very last moments of Haigh's life in chilling detail.

[Detective Steve Clark]

Initially, we were told that the video wasn't available from that particular camera that actually showed the cabin of the boat. There was indeed video that was uploaded to a cloud server, and video from that camera was indeed available. That was one of those moments where you feel like it was fourth and one and you got a first down.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Actually, it took three months and a court order for detectives to get their hands on that video. And when they did, it was explosive.

[Detective Steve Clark]

That video was shocking to me.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

What do you see on this video?

[Detective Steve Clark]

Well, the video is everything. The video is the case.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Police have yet to release the video, but described in detail to 48 hours exactly what they say happened that night between the couple. Essentially, it was a party for two, drugs included.

[Detective Steve Clark]

They greet each other. A quick hug, just a quick embrace. You can see that they're engaged in conversation, but there's no audio. And then eventually, she gets to the point where she starts to prepare drugs for injection. She brought all of the equipment with her. She brought the drugs with her.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

As police would learn, the drug of choice that night was heroin.

[Detective Steve Clark]

We see her prepare the syringe. We see her. It looks like she's injecting herself at her back to the camera. He watches this happen, and then she eventually injects him.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Do you feel like at any point when you're watching the video that this is a guy who is afraid and doesn't want to do this?

[Detective Steve Clark]

I get the impression he's nervous, he's uncertain, but he's going along with it.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And what happens then?

[Detective Steve Clark]

Almost immediately, he starts to go into distress. At some point, she comes to him. It looks like she tries to revive him a bit by patting him on the face and talking to him, holding his head as he slumped forward on the chair. And you or I, if we found ourselves in that situation, would have been on the phone to 911 saying, oh, my gosh, something terrible has happened. We need help. And she does none of that.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Instead, Cluck says the video shows the woman trying to remove any evidence that she was ever there, wiping fingerprints and cleaning up her drug paraphernalia while he slumped over on the floor.

[Detective Steve Clark]

While he's on the floor, she's stepping over him. She is literally walking around the cabin of the boat, stepping over him, grabbing her glass of wine, carrying it around the boat cabin with her.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Clark says that portion of the video with Hayes on the floor of the cabin goes on for seven minutes and

[Detective Steve Clark]

that seven minutes that emergency medical personnel could have been there, could have done something and could have reacted to the situation to save Mr. Hayes life. But instead she does nothing, nothing to call for help or to fix this, you know, and that's, that's the crux of the case.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Armed with that video, police hit paydirt. They were able to match the woman with those distinctive tattoos to a profile on the dating website Hayes had used. She was a 26 year old aspiring model. Her name Alex Tickleman.

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[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

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[Reporter Michael Daly]

The wealthy Google executive found the exotic beauty in a somewhat secret world where real names are rarely used technically. Alex Tickleman and Forrest Hayes met here in Las Vegas, not at an upscale casino or a fancy hotel lobby bar, but rather through an online website which is headquartered just a stone's throw from the strip. And his 48 hours to discovered it's not your typical dating website. What year did you start Seeking Arrangement?

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

It was started in 2006 from a bedroom in San Francisco, actually.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

It may have the look and feel of a startup, but with nearly 4 million members worldwide, this is big business. What is seeking arrangement?

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

Seeking arrangement.com is a sugar daddy dating website. So we match wealthy guys and girls looking to pamper and spoil and of course, younger men and women looking to meet those wealthy people.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

CEO Brandon Wade, a boyish 43 year old, says he's become a multimillionaire from all the arranging he's been doing. Is Seeking Arrangement about arranging sexual relationships for money?

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

It is about finding romance and passion. I'm unapologetic about the fact that sex is involved in a romantic relationship and money is involved in a romantic relationship, but that doesn't make the romantic relationship prostitution.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark, the point man in the Hays death case, strongly disagrees.

[Detective Steve Clark]

It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to take a look at that website and figure out exactly what was going on there. The titles of the individuals are sugar babies and sugar daddies. There's no innocent connotation there behind any of that.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

What is budget? That's what he's willing to spend.

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

That's his sort of lifestyle. So it could be going out for dinners, paying for that, going on trips.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Okay. So does a woman think you're going to spend $3,000 on me? A sugar baby thinks you're going to spend?

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

Yeah. On the relationship.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Okay.

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

Yeah.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Wade is proud that his membership ranks include employees of leading Fortune 500 companies, including, he says, from Google. Was Forrest Hayes a typical client of yours?

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

I would say he is an average client of ours.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Married tech executive looking for some sort of arrangement.

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

Yep, 40% of the guys are married.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

It's unknown if Hayes was fulfilling the, quote, expectations unquote, of any sugar baby's lifestyle requests, which range from 1,000 to over $10,000 in monthly sugar daddy gifts. Can you tell us anything about Alex Tickleman's profile on Seeking Arrangement?

[Brandon Wade (Seeking Arrangement CEO)]

Well, the only thing I can say is that it looked like any other normal profile. So it was approved. And there was no indication that she was soliciting money for sex, at least not with that profile.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

After Hayes death, investigators began tracking Alex Tickleman on social media, fearing she might Leave town. They hatched a plan to catch her using seekingarangement.com reporter Steven Baxter.

[Reporter Steven Baxter]

When she posted on Facebook something to the effect of, I plan to go back to Georgia. That's when they decided to really go in and pursue her on the same website, just the way Forrest had, and pose as a john and lure her back to Santa Cruz.

[Detective Steve Clark]

We started seeing chatter from her that indicated she was either going to move out of the the country or out of the state.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Now there's a clock on this because she's about to head south. So they do kind of a classic sting.

[Detective Steve Clark]

We sold out our detective and made him set up a profile under a different identity and made up a whole story about him. We then posted that out there and we reached out to Alex Tickleman through

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Seeking Arrangement, code named Sebastian. That detective began emailing and texting with Tickleman, hoping for a rendezvous.

[Detective Steve Clark]

Eventually, we convinced her to come down and meet with us for an agreed upon arrangement for sex, for prostitution, and for a sum of money.

[Reporter Steven Baxter]

Police deposited some money, several hundred dollars, into her bank account with a promise of at least $1,000 upon arrival and everything else.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

This did not appear to you that this was the first time she had negotiated such a situation?

[Detective Steve Clark]

No, in fact, she kind of called us out, called us a cheapskate, told us that many of her clients pay twice that.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Eight months after the death of Forest Hayes, Alex Tickleman once again showed up in Santa Cruz county, this time at the secluded resort behind me. Once again, she came with heroin in her bag, expecting to hook up with the sugar daddy from Seeking Arrangement. And once again, it did not go as planned. When you said we're the cops and we're the ones you've been communicating with, what was her reaction?

[Detective Steve Clark]

Oh, she, she cried, she panicked. That's. That's when we saw panic.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

26 year old Alex Tickleman was stunned. Police arrested her for prostitution and charged her in the death of Forrest Hayes.

[Detective Steve Clark]

This was a crime. This wasn't just some accident gone awry. Mr. Hayes is a victim of the murder committed by Alex Tickleman.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Or was he? What happened that night, say Alex's defenders, is much more complicated.

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

For me. I mean, she was somebody completely different.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Perhaps no one was more surprised by the arrest of Alex Tickleman than struggling musician Chad Cornell. He was in love with her.

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

When I first saw her, you know, I couldn't help but to say something. She has a very darker style. Yeah, I just thought she was really beautiful, almost like the, you know, Angelina Jolie. Kind of look.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Chad had no idea how dark her life really was. Did you believe she was falling in love with you?

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

I did.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Chad thought his girlfriend was a model. There were countless images. A swimsuit commercial and a makeup tutorial she did online.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Just going to apply liberally. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Okay. And as far as Chad could tell, she was always answering modeling calls.

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

She'd get all dolled up and go to a photo shoot. She would usually make about a thousand or so when she'd go out to these modeling shoots.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

So imagine how he felt to learn more months later that his beloved girlfriend was now being accused of doing something altogether different for all that money.

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

I got the text with the news link on it and kind of just fell over on the couch, like, in shock.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

The woman he once thought he'd spend the rest of his life with was now not only charged with prostitution, but also in the death of Google executive Forrest Hayes. What are you thinking? This is a woman you were in love with?

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

Yeah. I mean, obviously, I was devastated. You know, I turned white as the news sank in.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

To his complete amazement, Chad realized that just hours before Alex met up with Forrest on that fateful night, she was with him.

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

We were hanging out that day, actually, and she told me that some of her longtime high school friends were in Santa Cruz and had a boat, and she had planned to go hang out with them. Later on that night, she actually woke me up out of bed with a phone call. She was really frantic on the phone. She sounded very upset.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

What was she talking about?

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

She talked about how her friends had started doing heroin and a bunch of hardcore drugs on the boat and made her uncomfortable and that she had to leave.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But do you believe on that call that she sounded genuinely upset?

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

Crying, Sniffling? I mean, upset upset because the truth

[Reporter Michael Daly]

he now knows was much worse. And it's left him wondering whether he ever really knew who Alex was.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Who is Alex Tickleman?

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Right.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Who is she?

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Reporter Michael Daly did what police investigators did, and using the tools of Forrest's employer, he Googled her.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

This, the police discovered, was Alex Tickerman's Twitter account.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Calling herself A.K. kennedy, double X one X, short of

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

triple X. Baddest bitch, model, stylist, hustler, exotic dancer. Those are her words. These are the pictures to go with the words. This has the charming inscription to death do us part. You might start believing less in coincidence

[Reporter Michael Daly]

on seeing that, but to daily, Alex's postings looked more like someone trying to create an image rather than someone obsessed with killing. That's because he came across this photo,

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

my beautiful mother and I, out to lunch. No makeup face. And this is a young woman who wants to be with Mom.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Alex posted it just months before her arrest for Forrest's death.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

It makes you think that there's a fuller story.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

So how did it come to this? Childhood pictures show a cute blonde tomboy who appeared to have all the advantages in life growing up with her sister Monica, who would become an investment counselor. Her mother, Leslie Ann, and her father, Bart, a CEO for a technology company and a pretty good poker player.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

And he at one point found himself playing with some of the best poker players in the world. And he won, like $400,000.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Alex spent her early teens in an Atlanta suburb where she played sports and won writing awards.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Her friends say that she's very smart,

[Reporter Michael Daly]

very deep, but also very trouble.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Her experiences with boys were not always happy ones. And she had eating disorders. She was taking drugs.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Desperate, her parents went looking for help and located a school that they thought would give her special attention.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

So they found this place called the Hyde School in Maine.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

We are in Maine, en route to Hyde.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Megan was a student at the Hyde School, where Alex spent a few months.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

I can feel, like pressure in my chest. It's nerve wracking.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

She asked us not to use her last name, but agreed to travel back to the Hyde School campus.

[Commercial Narrator]

I want people to see this very

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

pivotal part of her life that I feel probably affected her at a very huge point in her development and why she is who she is.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Do you remember when you first met Alex? Do you happen to remember the very first time you saw her?

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

100%. She was gorgeous and she was very awkward.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

The cute blonde girl next door was long gone.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

She barely ate. She was very skinny. She was real thin. She was emotionally kind of closed off.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

I think the big question then is why? What had happened to her?

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

I don't know the truth to that. She never really told me there was a specific catalyst.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But Megan says Alex did hint at some traumatic events.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

We talked about the fact that we had issues, trusting men. We had become numb to a lot of things.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Alex had started cutting herself. This is a photo of Alex, her then bunkmate, put in a scrapbook. It reads, Psycho Rumi. Look at the cuts on her arm.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Alex Tickleman was actually the first person that I met who did that.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Ashley Kent lived in Alex's dorm.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

She came to the school with the scars. She had already etched things into her arm. And she had already made this image of herself as this, like, devil person. Like she. That's how she dressed kind of like devil worshiper.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But was that really who Alex was?

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

She was actually a really nice girl. It was very much like a front that she was putting on an image.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Megan noticed it too.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Once you bypass those walls, she was just a normal girl who was scared.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And what was she scared of?

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

I think herself, honestly. I mean, we all. We didn't know who we were. We had resorted to things that, you know, not every person chooses. We had been in trouble.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And at Hyde, it seemed Alex was always in trouble. Megan says they punished her.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

You're forced to do manual labor, physical labor. They basically tell you what you can and can't do.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

This is the area, Megan says, where she and Alex were forced to build a road.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

We hoed it each person and we weeded it. And then they made us cart like wheelbarrows, like huge wheelbarrows full of rocks up and spread them. So we basically built a dirt road on campus.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Ashley remembers one night waking up to Alex screaming. What happened? Sounds like a scene out of a Stephen King movie.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

She kind of walked down the halls and was cutting herself really late at night. She began just to hurt herself because that's what she thought she deserved.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

When it didn't work out at Hyde, Alex's parents tried other schools, but the worst was still to come.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

She talked about taking heroin when she was in her teens.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And by her early 20s, Alex was living in San Francisco, working strip clubs like Larry Flint's Hustler and the Condor. Eventually, she found her way back home to Atlanta, where her life would take a dramatic turn.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

This kind of great thing happens. She meets a guy named Dean.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Dean was much older, but so in love with Alex, he wanted to marry her.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

So maybe there's going to be a happy ending here anyway.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Then in September 2013, I don't know. I think my boyfriend overdosed or something. Like two months before Forrest Hayes died, Alex's fiance, Dean, died with heroin in his system. He won't respond, and he's just like. I'm like, I don't know. Was it an unfortunate coincidence or something more sinister?

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[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

you have a dark curiosity?

[Reporter Michael Daly]

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[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

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[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

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[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Yeah, it's good.

[Chad Cornell (Alex’s Boyfriend)]

It's good to be back.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

It is one of the hottest concert venues in Atlanta, Georgia. The masquerade and it all belonged to this man, 53 year old Dean Rypel, a former cross dressing singer for the rock band the Impotent Sea Snakes. In September of 2013, Dean died of a heroin overdose. His girlfriend at the time, Alex Tickleman. I think my boyfriend overdosed or something like he won't respond. Alex made that 911 call after she says she discovered Dean unconscious in his north Atlanta home. That was just two months before Alex was with Google executive Forrest Hayes when He died at a 1:57-time-808, Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark.

[Detective Steve Clark]

We were surprised the similarities in their case to our case.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Based on Alex's arrest in Santa Cruz for the death of Forrest Hayes, police in Milton, Georgia are now taking a second look at Dean Riopel's death. What was first ruled an accidental overdose might very well become a criminal matter.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

I think she had something to do with his death. I really do.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

One person who believes Alex should be held responsible for Dean's death is his former employee, Christina Brooker.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

That's cute.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

An aspiring model for a few months in 2012 she lived in Dean's house taking care of his children from from a previous marriage and his pet hobby, raising dozens of monkeys.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

He said he had a dream about monkeys one day, and he just started collecting them. You know, he had the money to.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

So why not Samson, Delilah, Jezebel.

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

Some have names.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Dean told an Atlanta TV station that he had hopes of turning his property into a zoo. Anybody who would spend 20 minutes or

[Detective Steve Clark]

an hour with one would see they

[Narrator/Documentary Host]

have a little bit more personality than most other animals.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But Christina says his real passion was the woman also featured in that news story, Dean's live in girlfriend, Alex Tickleman.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Oh, he loved her. He absolutely loved her. He wanted to marry her, and she wanted to marry him, too.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Dean loved everything about Alex except the drugs. By the time Alex hooked up with Dean, she was a full blown heroin addiction. Dean, Christina says, did not share Alex's bad habits. Did you ever see him drink?

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Never smoke, Never do drugs? Not once.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Christina stopped working for Dean almost a year before he died. Still, she's sure Dean would never inject himself with heroin. But she wonders if Alex might have. Do you think that's what happened?

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

I think it's possible, Especially with the case in Santa Cruz where she actually did that.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

The idea that she's going around randomly sticking people with heroin needles is preposterous. These are grown men. They know exactly what they're doing. So this is the masquerade. This is Dean's club.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Todd is an Atlanta businessman. He has asked us not to use his last name, but says as a close friend of Alex, he could no longer keep quiet about what he knows about the couple.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

She was devastated after Dean passed away.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

He says not only did Dean drink, he drank a lot, but she loved

[Detective Steve Clark]

him and he loved her.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

If he were alive today, he would be the first one to bail her out of jail, and he would be absolutely mortified at how the people around him have treated her.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And Todd says Dean was determined to get Alex off heroin. He sent her to rehab and even bought her an engagement ring.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

He texted Todd, this is August 30th of 2013. He was getting Alex a wedding ring. They were going to get married.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

That's just three weeks before Dean would overdose.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

She gets her ring. She picked it out today. We drug test every week. If she can stay clean for 14 months, we will get married Halloween night, 2014.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

These are text messages that have never been made public. Todd showed them exclusively to 48 hours.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

Alex says this is the first time in 10 years she has gotten out of detox or rehab and lasted a whole week before shooting up again.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But Alex didn't stay clean for long. And on September 7, 2013, just 10 days before his fatal overdose, Dean made a shocking discovery. Alex was online advertising herself to men.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

She hated that she was compelled to do it because she had this addiction. There were guys who wanted to rent her penthouse apartments, men with a lot of power and a lot of status. But she wasn't interested in anything except getting the money to support her habit. She loved Dean. She wanted to be with Dean. But she had this deep, dark secret.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And Todd says when Dean found out, he flipped out.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

He said, can I move all of the prostitute into your place tomorrow? She is better over there and I would like to bring her stuff to you today so I don't have to see the whore again.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But Dean didn't kick Alex out. Instead, Todd says he hit the bottle hard.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

Once he discovered the ad, things began to fall apart.

[Detective Steve Clark]

Dean desperately loved her.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

Dean wanted to keep her, but he couldn't figure out how to reconcile all of this.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

So Todd believes Dean tried something new. Alex would later tell police she was in the bathroom when she heard what sounded like a crash. She went to the bedroom and found Dean on the floor. An autopsy would show Dean had a fatal mix of heroin, painkillers and alcohol in his system.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

I'm convinced that what happened was Dean was trying to reach a connection with Alex on a deeper level. And he thought that if they could share this thing, this thing that she was so attached to that she couldn't let go of no matter what, that they could actually be together. And that's what he wanted more than anything in life.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Following Dean's death, Alex text messages Todd. Why did Dean have to die? Her mother is coming and will move her to California, to the family's new home, two hours outside San Francisco. But Alex is trying to detox and tells Todd she's worried.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

I know that city well, like the Tenderloin where I used to live is the third biggest open drug market in the us. It takes two minutes to score and you don't have to know anyone. You can see why I'm worried.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Around October 30, 2013, Alex arrived in California. She immediately went back online and started advertising herself, texting Todd, guys out here got mad money. And within days she had a prospect. She was about to come into serious cash.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

This is on the 2nd of November, and she says an amazing guy found her. He's the real deal. Tomorrow she's going to go to his boat and for a few hours, he's giving her 4 to $500 cash, then a check for 2000. Now, I'm relatively certain that the guy on the boat she's referring to was Forrest.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Three weeks later, on November 22, Alex Tickleman was definitely with Forrest Hayes on his boat, where Todd believes she was simply making money to feed her addiction.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

Tell me one thing that happened on that yacht that was not absolutely consensual between two adults. Nothing.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Real.

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[Reporter Michael Daly]

Called the matter of people vs Alex Tickleman on May 19, 2015, Alex Tickleman is back in court to have a date set for her trial. She's been in jail for almost a year, her past modeling life a distant memory. She faces almost 20 years behind bars, charged in the killing of Forrest Hayes, along with drug possession and prostitution. So stipulating counsel stipulating her patience, public defenders Jerry Christensen and Larry Bigham have insisted she is not a cold blooded killer.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

Alex Tickleman did nothing that Mr. Hayes

[Detective Steve Clark]

did not want her to do.

[Todd (Alex’s Friend)]

Two adults engaged in mutual and cooperative drug usage and it went wrong. But it was an accident.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Defense attorneys say Hayes was an eager participant that night, even using his own cell phone light to show Alex where to inject him, and they are adamant. She then simply panicked Everything about this video indicates accident and panic. Everything about it. For months, they have investigated Forrest Hayes past, asking prosecutors to hand over video from the escape's cameras as far back as six months before he died. We have some indications from other material that there may have been previous encounters on the boat. It would be highly relevant in regard to whether or not there is drug usage along with sex. But at the hearing, there's a bombshell. With her parents watching, Alex Tickleman pleads guilty.

[Reporter Steven Baxter]

Was your plea to count one a

[Reporter Michael Daly]

violation of penal code section 192 as a felony? It's involuntary manslaughter. Guilty. Guilty to involuntary manslaughter. As well as the lesser charges. We understand that if you plead no contest or guilty, you're admitting two felonies and five misbehavings.

[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

Yes.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And through her lawyer, she apologizes to the Hayes family. This was in no form intentional, malicious or anything of that sort. It was accident and panic, and she's so, so sorry for it. Ms. Ticklebank. The total will be six years, depending on served pursuant to penal code. Tickleman was sentenced to six years in a local jail, but with credit for her time served and a reduction by the judge, she will likely serve just a little over two years. Good luck to you, Ms. Tickleman. After the hearing, another stunning development.

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

There are two charges that were.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez says the family of Forest Hayes told him they never wanted Alex to.

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

Tickleman charged the family did not want this case to be filed. They would have been very happy if this case simply would have been dismissed. They were terrified about the prospect of this case going to trial.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

The family, he said, did not want that video from Forrest's boat to ever be made public.

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

I can only imagine what further pain, what further humiliation they would endure if that video was released out into the public.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

And what's more, he says Alex was never a cold blooded killer as described by law enforcement.

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

That was never depicted in that surveillance video.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

In fact, the prosecutor agrees with defense attorneys that Alex was anything but callous when Forrest collapsed.

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

And the fact that she actually made some efforts to try to wake him up, hit him in the chest, smacking him in the face, holding him up, trying to lift him up, and then holding him, hugging him at one point. And then you can see her crying in one instance and yelling for him to wake up in another instance, that clearly shows somebody who appeared concerned at that time. And that certainly is inconsistent with somebody who acted with an obvious intent to kill.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But he says what she is guilty of is not doing enough.

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

She was the only one that can render help, and she neglected to do so. She failed to do so and instead took liberties to destroy evidence and to make her get away while leaving the man there to die.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

In the end, one of Tickleman's attorneys, Athena Reese, says Alex's time in jail has been helping her turn her life around.

[Detective Steve Clark]

You know, she's clean and sober. She's closer with her family than ever, and I think she's really used this time to reflect.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

But for the family of Fors Hayes, there is no turning around, and they will have to try to put the scars of his actions behind them.

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

From this point on, the family no longer has to worry about the concern associated with all the scrutiny, all the ridicule and all the scorn that's been generated by a lot of the media attention in this case. This family has been through a lot. In 2017, Alex Tickleman was released from

[Reporter Michael Daly]

prison after completing her sentence, and she

[Prosecutor Rafael Vasquez]

was deported to Canada.

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[Alex Tickleman’s Friend/Acquaintance]

This is the mantra.

[Reporter Michael Daly]

Mindset, mindset.

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[Detective Steve Clark]

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