California Police Say Prostitute Gave Fatal Heroin Overdose To Customer

Police in California have arrested a woman they described as a high-priced prostitute who is suspected of murdering a man by injecting him with heroin aboard his yacht in a Santa Cruz harbor, authorities said.

The Santa Cruz Police Department said security camera footage from the yacht showed Alix Catherine Tichleman, 26, failing to help the 51-year-old victim after he suffered an overdose and fell unconscious in November 2013.

'At one point, she steps over the body to finish a glass of wine. Finally, she leaves the boat and reaches back in to lower a blind and conceal the victim's body from outside view,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.

Authorities say Tichleman became a suspect after it was learned she had a sex-for-money relationship with the man.

Police did not identify the victim. The Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper, which first reported the arrest, said he was a Google executive.

The police department said Tichleman was a high-priced prostitute who met clients online and boasted in interviews of having more than 200 client relationships.

It said detectives were investigating another case with similar circumstances involving Tichleman in a different state but gave no details.

She was arrested in Santa Cruz on the July 4 holiday after being contacted by an officer posing as a potential client, it said. She agreed a price in excess of $1,000 and was detained when she arrived at 'an upscale location.”

Tichleman was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail for second-degree murder, destruction of evidence and transporting and providing narcotics.