30-year-old Alix Tichelman, the high-end call girl who pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter in 2015 in connection with the fatal heroin overdose of Google X executive Forrest Timothy Hayes in 2013, was released from prison in Santa Cruz County last week into the hands of immigration authorities. As the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports, Tichelman holds dual Canadian and American citizenship, and ICE had requested a hold on her shortly after her sentencing in 2015.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Sgt. Chris Clark tells the Sentinel that the department refused an ICE request to hold Tichelman an extra 24 hours past the end of her six-year sentence, which was completed in half that time on March 29 with credit for time served prior to sentencing. And "ICE agents were on hand at 5 a.m. March 29 when Ms. Tichelman was released," Clark says.
It's unclear how this works given the dual citizenship, but Clark tells the Associated Press that this is the fifth time so far this year that Santa Cruz has released an inmate into ICE custody.
Tichelman was nicknamed the "Harbor Hooker" following the high-profile case which made national news in part because of the surveillance cameras on the victim's yacht in Santa Cruz Harbor, installed by the victim, that captured her administering the lethal dose of heroin, and then calmly stepping over the body and drinking wine before she fled the scene.
51-year-old Forrest Hayes was married with five children and had apparently had multiple encounters with Tichelman before that fateful night on November 26, 2013. Tichelman was later arrested in July 2014 after an undercover agent posed as a potential client to lure her back to Santa Cruz for a trick. The story would later be turned into an episode of 48 Hours, and the yacht was put up for sale.
At the time of Hayes's death, Tichelman was living with a boyfriend in Folsom, California, construction worker Chad Cornell, who told 48 Hours he had no idea that his girlfriend was a prostitute. She said she was making money from modeling gigs, and that night in 2013 she told him she was heading to Santa Cruz to see some friends.
Tichelman also had an older ex-boyfriend just a few months prior in 2013, Atlanta nightclub owner Dean Riopelle, who suspiciously died at home alone from a mixture of heroin, oxycodone, and alcohol, and Tichelman was the person who called 911. Also, suspiciously, Tichelman had another ex who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for administering a lethal dose of heroin to a young woman and then leaving her to die without calling for help.
Previously: Prostitute Pleads Guilty In Google Exec's Death, Sentenced To Six Years