Murder On The Yacht

September 8, 2025

On this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the case of Forrest Hayes, a former Google executive who was living the dream, until one decision turned into his worst nightmare.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband.

I'm Payton Moreland.
And I'm Garrett Moreland.
And he's the husband.
And I'm the husband.

I'd like everyone to know I just accidentally did the Into the Dark intro, which is my solo show. Shameless plug.
Not shameless. Both are my podcasts.

I have a solo show that is basically Murder With My Husband—true crime mixed in with a little bit of spooky stories here and there. So, it's basically this without Garrett. If you're just needing more, you can subscribe to our Patreon, Apple Podcast, or head over to Into the Dark for free content.

All right, Gary, why don't you tell them your ten seconds?
I have a feeling I know what it's going to be, and I'm already ashamed.

Well, Payton stabbed me with tweezers, bro.
Okay, but that is what happened. Payton literally—
Okay, Payton stabbed me in the face with tweezers.

"Stabbed" is crazy.
Um, no. You stabbed me.
I scratched you.
It was a stab. Can you tell them I'm not being abusive and tell them the story?

I need to show you. You guys can't really see in the lighting very well on YouTube. I'll post a picture—actually, maybe I won't post a picture because the cops might show up to the house.

Oh.

In all seriousness, Payton did stab me in the face with tweezers. I was laying on her and she was tweezing her legs, and I don't really know how to explain it. I don't remember, but she decided to have like a full-on spasm. Her hand went straight up and straight into my cheek, and she had the tweezers in her hand.

Okay, she also punched my eye at the same time. I thought she stabbed my eye. I thought I lost an eye. Luckily, she stabbed my cheek instead. It's okay. It's not going to scar, so don't worry, guys.

I'm not going to lie—it hurt really bad. It hurt, but I'm okay. We talked it out, we worked it out, and everything's good. What is your side of the story?

Okay, therapist. Listen, thank you for sharing your story. Okay, but you have a time limit with this. I appreciate your perspective.

I was doing exactly the same thing Garrett was. Like he said, he was leaning on me and we were joking, teasing. I don't remember what you said, but I went to lean over on top of you. I don't really remember where I was going, but I almost very energetically swung my hand over to lean on top of him.

I had the tweezers in my hand. I think he was moving at the same time because we were kind of joking and teasing. The tweezers literally ran right up his cheek—probably three or four inches.

I don't know my inches. Garrett's never been very clear on that with me.

It hurt. It's two long scratches. His face was bleeding. But then after I did it, he immediately covered his eye, and I immediately yelled, "Where did I hit you? Where did I get you? Where did I get you?"

He's not talking to me, just, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh." I'm sitting there like, I just blinded him. I just took these tweezers and stabbed his eye out.

Luckily, the tweezers did not hit his eye. Honestly, not joking, I would have lost my eye.
I think so too.
I literally would have lost my eye—but I didn’t. And we're here. Everything's okay. Got some Neosporin on it to make sure it doesn’t scar.

Oh, we should’ve taken a picture with the band-aid on it. And then Garrett was trying to put the Neosporin on and he’s like, "Is this anti-scar?"

And I'm just a little stressed, so I'm not really—

Then he goes, "No, this is pain." He goes, "No, this one's the pain ointment queen."

Oh, queen. Instead of cream, he said queen. He's like, "Queen."

It wasn't a good night.
It was an awful night.
We were laughing our heads off. It was pretty funny, but it could have ended poorly.

I literally had a thought as soon as I saw you holding your eye that you were going to uncover it and your eye was going to be bleeding.
Yeah, probably one of my biggest fears. It was pretty scary.

That's my ten seconds. I'm a survivor.
Okay, what? You're crazy.
I don't mean it like that. I don't mean it in a true crime sense. Everyone relax—I don't mean it like that.

Yeah, that's all I got. It was kind of a long ten seconds, but it wasn’t just my fault being talked through.

So on that note, we will hop into today's case. Our sources for this episode are ksbw.com, abc7chicago.com, latimes.com, nypost.com, usatoday.com, abc30.com, abc7news.com, CNN, NBCNews.com, The Sacramento Bee, theguardian.com, abcnews.go.com, CBS News, huffpost.com, and oxygen.com.

Okay, so for a lot of people, having the perfect life looks something like this: happily married, maybe a couple kids—healthy kids. You've climbed the ranks at your dream job. You're making enough money to support your family, to live comfortably. Maybe you have a lavish vacation, a fancy sports car, maybe a boat. You have a beautiful home where you're comfortable, happy, and content.

So, most of us envision this and think, "What more could someone possibly want?" But it's only natural for us as humans to keep striving for more and to add some element of surprise, danger, or risk when we feel like life has fallen into a routine, no matter how perfect things may seem.

But then the question becomes: are we ever really satisfied with what we have? Or are we self-sabotaging creatures, always looking to achieve the next big goal, seeking the next big thrill?

It's actually a really good question, because I feel like I do that a lot.
I think it's very normal.
Yeah, I think it is. I do think it's like unhealed parts of us.
Do you think it's just innate, like within us, to go for the next thing?
I don't know. I have to think about that one, but we can keep going.

How this applies to today's case is: what happens when chasing that thrill costs you and your family everything? Which—probably not necessarily in this sense, but in some sense—has happened to multiple people.

So today we are headed to Santa Cruz, California, where in 2013 a 51-year-old dad named Forest Hayes is living with his family.

Now, Forest has the kind of life that I just painted for you. He has a loving wife, Denise, who he’s been married to for 17 years. The two have this beautiful home in an upper-crust neighborhood, one they paid $3 million for in 2013.

Oh my gosh. That’s like—
Yeah, that’d be like a seven or eight million dollar house now.

And they have five beautiful children, including toddler twins at the time of this story. But I want to be clear: Forest isn’t someone with generational wealth who was handed this lifestyle. It does seem he worked hard for it.

His résumé is super impressive. The guy held ranks at a lot of the top companies in Silicon Valley—I’m talking Apple, Ford, Google.
Dang.

He was working on some really top-secret projects at this time in 2013 as well. It turns out Forest was hired by Google to work in their Google X Moonshot Factory, which is apparently where they developed some of the wildest, most futuristic technology they could think of—things like Google Glass.

And Forest was actually hired to run their self-driving car program. Again, this was in 2013. Everyone who worked for Forest said he was the man of reason around the office, the one who applied practical logistics to these big ideas that would one day turn them into reality.

So basically, he kept everyone grounded in their designs and expectations. From everything I read, the people he worked with really respected him for his management style and the way he was as a person. They said he was calm, an effective leader, with a warm heart and a knack for problem-solving.

When things got hectic at work, Forest always kept a level head. He addressed situations with a sense of humor to keep things light around the workplace. Honestly, it seems like he was cut out for the job he ended up getting.

In fact, one colleague of his said the only time he would really see Forest upset was when something was taking time away from him and his family, because he always wanted to prioritize them over his work. And while he was at a high-stress, high-profile job, he really seemed to be putting in the hours for his wife and kids. I mean, he did have toddlers at home.

And if there’s one quality that stood out to me when people were describing Forest, it was that he had "reasonable judgment." They pointed to examples like how Forest bought an electric car just so he could take the carpool lanes and get to and from work faster, so he could spend more time with his family.

What year is this? He had an electric car?
2013.
But again, he’s high up at Google. They’re working on self-driving cars at this point.
That’s crazy, because there weren’t that many great electric cars at this point.

And this is kind of why I find what happened next in this case so incredibly strange—because the overall feeling about Forest was that he was very reasonable.

So as you can imagine, Forest was paid very well as a Google executive in one of their top-secret divisions. Let’s just say he had a lot of disposable income. He bought himself a few toys with that cash.

He had a modified Porsche. He had a 46-foot yacht, which he appropriately named Escape. He outfitted this boat with $200,000 worth of expensive tech, including advanced cameras and a security system, not to mention an $8,000 captain’s chair and a leather ceiling.

He had the boat docked in the Santa Cruz harbor, not far from his home. For him, it really was an escape—a place he would go to be out on the open waters, clear his mind, and forget about the stress of work.

Which was exactly where Forest was the night of November 22, 2013. That Friday, after a long week at the office, Forest went to spend some time on his yacht. He kept it docked, just enjoying the view of the other boats coming in and out of the harbor while he blew off some steam.

But the following morning, November 23rd, Forest’s wife Denise starts to worry because Forest hasn’t come home yet. Now, it is possible he’s done this before—maybe slept on his boat—because Denise doesn’t call 911 right away. After not being able to get a hold of her husband, she calls the captain of his boat and asks, "Hey, can you go down to the harbor just to check on him?"

So the captain of their yacht does. And when he gets there, he starts wandering around, checking the deck. There’s no sign of Forest until he goes into the main cabin. There he finds Forest lying motionless, so the captain immediately dials 911. But it is too late.

Forest Hayes—the father, husband, and high-powered Google executive—is already dead on his yacht.
Wow.

After the autopsy is performed, the Santa Cruz County Coroner rules the death accidental.
The second yacht death we’ve had recently.

The coroner says Forest died of an apparent heroin overdose.
Okay.

Now, this comes as a shock to everyone who knows Forest, because as far as anyone knows, Forest doesn’t have a heroin addiction. They’re like, "How is he this high-functioning executive? How is he so on top of his game right now, both as a father and an executive, if he’s indulging in heavy drugs?"

It’s interesting, because I do know—well, I don’t know how big it is anymore—but there was a big craze, and you still hear rumors about it. Cocaine, right? A lot of executives and high-profile people do cocaine to help them with business.
Mh.

But don’t quote me on this—I’m pretty sure heroin does not release the same effects that cocaine does when it comes to that.
Yeah, I didn’t even think about this when researching. It’s a different type of drug.

I could be totally wrong, so correct me if you want. I can look it up while Payton’s talking. But yeah, clearly neither Garrett nor I have ever used heroin or cocaine, because we don’t even really know.
Speak for yourself. Just kidding.

Yeah, I don’t really know what each does. Cocaine is a stimulant, so in the short term it can make someone feel more alert, confident, and energetic—which is why we mentioned it. Heroin, on the other hand, is a depressant opioid. It slows the body and brain, causing sedation, relaxation, blah blah blah, so on and so forth.

So they do different things, if you didn’t know that.
Okay, I actually didn’t know.
Yeah, now we know.

Interestingly enough, his death stays out of the media for quite some time. It’s actually not until months later that the general public catches wind of this story—a high-powered executive who overdosed on heroin alone on his boat. By that time, the police have learned a few things about what happened that night on Escape.

See, Forest’s death might have been ruled accidental, but the police don’t think he was actually alone that night. When they first stepped on board, they noticed something about the scene that stood out. There were two wine glasses out. Both appeared to have been used.

But his wife was at home worrying about him.
Correct.

So who was Forest with? And what’s strange is that’s really all they find. It’s the only thing police note, because they later learn that the boat captain Denise called to check on Forest actually did a little cleanup of his own before police arrived.

When police ask him if he can give them access to those high-tech security cameras Forest had installed on board, he doesn’t really cooperate. They have to get a subpoena to obtain the video footage. Now, the police don’t seem to think the captain is involved in any way. They just think he was trying to protect Forest and his family and their reputation—maybe keep whatever secrets Forest was trying to keep on board that night.

When investigators finally do get a hold of the footage, three months later, they see exactly what the secret was.

The video shows a woman with long black hair and tattoos approaching the boat and hugging Forest. They share some wine, chat, and hang out. Later, it shows her preparing injectable drugs for both of them.
Okay.

While her back is to the camera in one scene, it looks like she first injects herself while Forest watches, and then she offers some to him. She turns on the flashlight on her phone to help her find a vein and injects it into him.

Now, one of the investigators who saw this clip said it looked like Forest was maybe a little nervous and out of his element, like he wasn’t completely comfortable in the footage.
It was a new thing for him.
Yeah. But he was going along with it.

However, things go sideways pretty quickly after this. Forest starts clutching his chest near his heart. He starts to lose consciousness, and the mystery woman does go over to help him. It looks like she’s trying to revive him—patting him on the face, talking to him as he slumps over in a chair.

She doesn’t call 911, though. She doesn’t yell for help.

Instead, she gets up. She starts wiping off the boat.
Oh man.

Police later realize she’s wiping her fingerprints off the boat.
Yeah.

And as she’s doing this, Forest falls onto the floor. Then she literally steps over his body—his dying body—on the floor with a glass of wine still in her hand. She lowers a blind and collects her things, stepping over him a few more times over the next seven minutes.

Wow.

She calmly finishes her wine and then leaves the boat.

So, not how you would expect someone to react to a person possibly overdosing.
Not that it matters, but she’s also high, right? She herself is doing illegal drugs. So I mean, I guess in a sense it kind of is what you would expect.

Naturally, the next question is: who is this mystery woman, and what does she know about the death of Forest Hayes?

The next step is to look into Forest’s cell phone usage. After some digging, detectives find that Forest had a profile on a website called seekingarrangement.com. Apparently, the website strictly prohibits women from soliciting sex, but it’s the kind of place women go to look for a sugar daddy.
Okay.

Through that profile, investigators were able to see who Forest was communicating with prior to his death. They land on one woman who looks a heck of a lot like the person in the security footage on the boat—a woman with long black hair and tattoos. They soon learn she is a 26-year-old aspiring model named Alix Tichelman.

Okay, so let’s learn a little bit about Alix.

She was born in Canada in 1988 and later moved to Atlanta, Georgia, earning dual citizenship in both countries. She was from a pretty affluent family. Her father was a tech entrepreneur and a pro poker player—apparently a really good one, too, since some friends say he once won around $400,000 in a game. That win apparently allowed Alix’s mom to stay home and raise the family.

Growing up, Alix was said to be intelligent and creative, with a knack for writing. But after falling in with the wrong crowd, she began battling eating disorders, experimenting with drugs, and self-harm. Some of her friends said this started around the time Alix learned her father had been living a double life with another family in Oregon.

Real quick—it’s sad when this stuff happens, because the family now has to have everything come out publicly.
Mhm.
Like the wife, the kids—there’s just zero privacy. And the wife didn’t do anything, right?

So the parents are going through this, and I think it’s safe to say their top concern wasn’t getting their daughter help, because they sent Alix off to a special school in Maine. There she confided in new friends that she now had a lot of issues trusting men.

However, from the way some of her classmates described it, this school in Maine might have been one of those troubled teen facilities. Alix was actually forced to do a lot of manual labor and was said to be physically punished if she stepped out of line. When that school didn’t help, she was shipped off to another one in Utah, where a former roommate said they would actually get locked up against their will. Honestly, it seems like these schools probably did more damage than good.

Not feeling like she had the support she needed, Alix eventually moved to San Francisco, where she began working in strip clubs as an exotic dancer. Around 2010, she turned to sex work. But it was clear to many people who knew her that she was battling inner demons during this time.

By her early 20s, Alix’s drug habit went from pills to heroin. She even wrote a poem about it on her Facebook profile in November 2010, titling the piece Heroin. It reads:

"This private downward spiral, this suffocating black hole
Makes you feel so warm inside, yet makes your heart so cold.
Each day takes its toll, and your thoughts become emotionless.
Your soul feels too old.
The demons whisper to me ever so lightly.
He never lets go of his hold, taking everything from me.
I’ll end up dying alone.
Oh, so disappointing yet so sad at the same time."

But it wasn’t all darkness and despair for Alix. She also wrote about things she was looking forward to: modeling jobs, makeup tutorials, even working on a novel. Still, she seemed to carry a lot of trauma from her younger years and never really trusted her parents again. Even though they had the resources to help her, Alix refused to take their money.

One friend recalled her desperately trying to come up with $800 to fix her car when it broke down. That was ultimately what led her to a little site called seeking.com—a place where Alix could find her own sugar daddy without having to ask her real dad for money.

And while Forest and Alix seemed to have been chatting on the site for a while, they had only met up once before the night on the boat. It was for a lunch date, which Forest allegedly paid her $3,000 to attend.
Holy crap.

He didn’t use his real name, of course. Instead, he told Alix that his name was Tim.

$3,000?
Yeah—for lunch.
Go up.
Okay, we shouldn’t knock it unless we’ve tried it.
No, we shouldn’t try it or knock it.
Oh, okay.

And apparently, for their second meeting, “Tim” asked Alix if she would bring some heroin so they could have a little party on his yacht.
Okay.

At this point, police have footage of Alix injecting Forest with heroin and leaving the scene when he’s very clearly dying and in distress. Plus, they have physical proof of their connection and their correspondence leading up to that day. Which, just to make it clear, is illegal—not just the drugs, but also leaving someone overdosing and not calling police.

I would assume in a sense it’s manslaughter, because she injected heroin into his bloodstream.
Right.

So police feel pretty certain that Alix Tichelman has played some role in Forest’s death. For the next eight months or so, Santa Cruz police track Alix on social media. When she posts something about her plans to move back to Georgia, police realize they have to make their move before she actually leaves the state.

An undercover officer creates a profile on seekingarrangement.com with a fake name and backstory. He connects with Alix and the two start texting and emailing for a bit so he can build her trust. Finally, on July 4th, 2014, he asks Alix if she’d be willing to make a three-hour drive from her home in Sacramento to meet at a place called the Seascape Beach Resort. The police even deposit a couple hundred bucks into her account, and the undercover cop says he’ll give her the rest when they meet in person.

Now, what’s funny is Alix calls them out on this and says, "Hey, your rate is really low."
They were only paying her—
Yeah, she’d made $3,000 for a lunch. They were going to have to pay her more than that.
Well, they were only promising her another thousand for when she got there.
She’s like, "Most of my clients pay double."

But for one reason or another, Alix takes the bait. When she walks into the hotel and sees the undercover cop, she goes to give him a hug. Only he doesn’t really hug her back, because he has a bulletproof vest underneath his shirt. When she hugs him, she feels it. That’s when she immediately realizes what’s going on. Officers swarm her, and her first thought is, "Why are so many police here just to arrest me for sex work?"

Okay.
She’s like, "This feels like overkill."

Well, it’s that July day that she’s taken down to the station in handcuffs. It’s not until she gets there, under full interrogation, that she learns for the first time that Forest Hayes actually died that night on the boat.

Did she not think he died, or did she think no one saw because she didn’t know the cameras were there?

Police aren’t really buying it. She acts surprised—like, "What? I had no idea he died. I just left." And they’re like, "Okay."

So the following Wednesday, 26-year-old Alix Tichelman is charged with multiple drug-related felonies, three misdemeanors for prostitution, destroying evidence, and manslaughter.

And the person who is maybe the most shocked by the news of Alix’s arrest is actually her boyfriend, Chad Cornell.

Now, Chad is just an average guy—a construction worker who writes and plays music in his spare time.
Hey, I love those blue-collar workers.

He thought he was dating your average model—maybe a swimsuit campaign here and there. He believed the extent of her online work was makeup tutorials. So when she would get all dressed up and go off to meet a client, she told Chad she was just headed to a modeling shoot, which was how she made her money.

It wasn’t until someone sent him a link to a news article that he learned his girlfriend had been arrested—not just for prostitution, but in connection to the death of a high-powered Google executive.

Slowly, the pieces start to fall into place. He realizes, wait a second—I was with Alix right before Forest died that night.

He remembers that on the night it happened, he and Alix were hanging out when she said one of her old high school friends was in Santa Cruz, that they had rented a boat, and she was going to meet them. But later that night, Alix called Chad sounding really upset. She said some of her friends had started doing heroin and other hardcore drugs, and it made her so uncomfortable that she left.

Chad said on this call, Alix was crying, sniffling—like something was wrong.

So now police have an eyewitness that can almost confirm she probably did know that Forest died on the boat.

Alix is appointed a public defender by the state. Her bail is set at $1.5 million. But Alix has a very different take on what happened that day with Forest—and it’s a fairly convincing story.

She claims that Forest did pay her to come to the boat that day, and he was the one who asked her to bring the heroin. In fact, she said they never even had sex—Forest only seemed interested in partying with her.

She claimed she didn’t know Forest had been drinking and had taken Valium earlier that day. He seemed pretty sober when she got there. She said if she had known he was on all those other substances, she never would have offered him the drugs.

She also said she did try to revive him, which we do sort of see in the video—her slapping his face to try to get him to come to. And she said the reason she was spotted wandering around the boat, collecting her things and finishing her wine, was because she was in shock and panic.

This is interesting, because I don’t know how you go about this. I mean, they were both doing something illegal—drugs. I’ve always found it really interesting when two people are doing drugs and one person dies: is the other one really held responsible? You’re both doing something wrong, and he obviously was aware that he was doing heroin.

An accidental death, right?
Yeah.

Other than that—it’s just case to case. It’s hard. And I don’t know…this is where I really feel for victims’ families, because there are so many layers.
Yes.

Like, he was talking to someone online. He—like, there are just so many layers to the case that make it super complicated.

I mean, if someone accidentally hits someone with a car and that person dies, it’s manslaughter.
Yeah.

But sometimes people don’t go to prison.
Yeah, but that’s almost even a little different, right? Because there’s nothing illegal happening.
Yes.

It’s like if you both were driving a car—which isn’t possible, though. You both can’t be driving a car. They weren’t standing in the road being like, "Are you going to hit me? Are you—"
Yeah.

It’s just such a complicated case. It seems…we’ll see. I’m sure there’s more that’ll come out that’ll maybe clear things up a little bit.

Well, Alix also says, "I was under the influence of heroin at the time. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I knew that he had money. I knew he had a high-profile job. I knew he had a wife. I knew he had kids." She’s like, "How am I just supposed to call? How am I supposed to explain?"

She said she didn’t know what to do. And he wasn’t innocent either—he knew he had a wife at home, and yet he met up with her.

According to her, when she got in her car she was debating whether or not to call 911. Once she kind of came to, she thought, "Do I call and leave? Do I just let it be?" But ultimately, she didn’t. She said it was something she thought about and regretted every single day since.

Still, she claimed she never thought the dose was enough to kill Forest. She thought he had just passed out and was going to wake up the next day and get back to his life.

What’s interesting is that after her arrest, a lot of people did come forward in defense of Alix, saying, "Hey, she has a big heart. She’s a sweet girl. She just took a wrong turn. She had zero qualities of a cold-blooded killer. She’s not a murderer."

But then something unexpected happens. Alix Tichelman enters the courtroom one day before her trial to say she’s pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and administering drugs. She is sentenced to six years in a local jail, with credit for time served.

And there’s another reveal after the guilty plea: Forest’s family actually comes forward and says, "Hey, we were never interested in pressing charges against Alix. We were just ready to move on, close this chapter, and grieve our loved one. This trial and everything—it wasn’t necessarily what we wanted."

Still, the guilty plea keeps Alix in jail for the next three years before she’s released early for good behavior. She also gets sober during this time, which she says helped her turn her life around.

Once Alix completed her jail sentence in March 2017, she was deported back to Canada where she was born. But for her, it was a fresh start: she was clean, sober, working in the hospitality industry. She has since said that she thinks about Forest every single day.
Yeah.

However, this is not the end of the story. In September 2018, a grand jury in Georgia—where she had moved—filed new charges against Alix Tichelman. This was after she had been released from jail, gone back to Canada, and started over.

The new charges? Felony murder and distribution of heroin and oxycodone. This time, in connection to another man: her ex-boyfriend, 53-year-old Dean Riopel, owner of a popular Atlanta music venue.
Okay.

So they filed these charges in 2018. And when did this take place?
In 2011–2012.
Oh wow.
Okay.

So, it kind of comes to the surface that this is not just a one-time incident with her—where a man dies around her.
Yeah.

So here’s what happened. Around 2011–2012, Alix and Dean were introduced. They immediately began dating. Dean wanted to help Alix cleanse herself of her inner demons, sort of erase her past. But at the same time, Alix and Dean shared a very particular hobby: they were both into bondage and bondage clubs.

Alix said Dean liked to take her out to clubs on a collar and leash, and she said it was something she was really into as well. But outside of those interests, people did say their relationship seemed normal. They moved in together. Dean bought Alix a promise ring. The two talked about getting married.

Alix even posted on Facebook in 2012: “Life is great. I’m seriously blessed as a mother effer.” She had a great boyfriend, nice house, monkeys—yes, they had pet monkeys.
Oh no.
Nah.
Nope. Line’s drawn. Not okay.

“Loving family,” she said. “Doesn’t get better than this.”

I think it truly seemed like Alix was happy, but there was one problem: Dean hated that Alix had a heroin problem she couldn’t kick. Everyone who knew Dean said he was pretty straight edge when it came to drugs and alcohol. So this was the one thing about their lifestyle that did not align.

But Dean was willing to do everything in his power to help Alix get on the straight and narrow. He paid for her to go to rehab. In August 2013, he bought her an engagement ring and told her if she stayed clean for 14 months, they would get married on Halloween night in 2014.

Unfortunately, Alix only lasted a week. Then, on September 7th, Dean discovered something heartbreaking: Alix had created an online account and was soliciting sex work so she could pay for her drug habit.

According to one of Dean’s good friends, that’s when things started to fall apart for him. Part of him wanted Alix out of his life, but the other part loved her and didn’t know how to help her make positive changes.

So in order for them to kind of stay together, Dean began drinking.

Then, on September 17th, 2013, Alix called 911. She said she was in the shower when she heard a crash, and when she got out she found Dean unconscious. She claimed she tried to revive him for about five minutes before calling for help.

Dean was rushed to the hospital. He died a week later. His autopsy report listed his death as an accidental overdose from heroin, oxycodone, and alcohol.

A few weeks later, on October 30th, Alix moved to California to start fresh. She immediately went on seeking.com to start making money again. And three weeks later, Alix was with Forest Hayes on his boat.
Holy crap.

Finding herself in an almost identical situation just two months after the last.

Okay, so cut back to 2018. After being released from prison for Forest’s case, Alix is now facing charges for Dean’s. And as of this recording, she has yet to go to trial for Dean’s case because it’s currently on judicial hold.

But she’s in Canada, which means they have to get her extradited back to the U.S.—and sometimes it’s not, uh, what’s the word…
Important enough?
Yeah. Sometimes they’re not going to extradite you if they don’t think it’s worth it. I don’t know.

So in the meantime, there are now a lot of questions about Alix and her motives.

I mean, is it possible that this accidentally happens twice around you?
Yes.
Is it?

I think when you’re doing that heavy of drugs—yeah, I think it’s pretty—

But everyone in Dean’s life says no. He had just started drinking. He wasn’t doing drugs.

So, I mean, there is a side of people who believe, which I totally get and understand. I think I would believe them if there wasn’t video footage of Forest literally allowing himself to be injected. Because Dean could have very well done the same thing. Not saying he did, but after seeing what Forest did, I’d be surprised if she just started going around forcing people to do heroin.

I don’t know. These are just my thoughts. I believe what happened with Forest was an accident. Now, with Dean…I don’t know.

Is there a lack of responsibility here?
Oh, 100%. Should she be held accountable for the fact that she didn’t call or attempt to get help? Yes. 110%.

Again, Dean’s case hasn’t gone to trial, but in his case there were reports of a domestic disturbance between him and Alix days before his death. She called the police saying Dean had thrown her to the ground. Dean told the police she had taken pills, drank too much, and they got in a fight over her exposing her breasts at his club.

Apparently after that, Alix also bit Dean on the finger and threatened to hit herself and make it look like Dean had done it. However, Alix was the one arrested for battery that day—not Dean. And then just a few weeks later, Dean was dead.

So, it’s going to make this case complicated if we ever do see it go to trial.

This is so complicated. I mean, first of all, I feel extremely bad for Forest’s family. It sounds like they want to move on past it, so I won’t address that too much.

Second of all—don’t do drugs.

The thing is, Forest’s case is probably going to be a huge part of it. It’ll be a big part of Dean’s case, because you can’t talk about his death without talking about Forest’s.

Also, I do think it’s important to hold her responsible for the mistakes she did make. But these cases are so intertwined—it’s just one of those cases where you’re like, "What?"

It’s hard, because I feel like I have a lot of—I don’t know if I’d say friends, but acquaintances—where I hear about this stuff. They’re into heavy drugs, they do heavy drugs, they have drug issues. And then all these quote-unquote unlucky or unfortunate things happen in their lives. And it’s like, how many coincidences can we have before it’s just the cause of doing drugs?

Yeah.

I think it’s hard. I think where I stand is addiction is a devil. Addiction is a demon.
Yeah.

And when you’re stuck in the throes of addiction, most likely other parts of your life are going to fall apart. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s not just heartbreaking for you—there are victims, there are other people.

So I think what Garrett’s trying to say is, this isn’t a coincidence. If you’re into hard drugs, things like this can happen. And you should be held responsible.

Yeah.

I also think it’s important that in a Facebook post, Alix had once said, “It’s really nice to talk with someone about killing sprees and murdering people in cold blood because they love it too.”

Now, as a true crime enthusiast, I don’t know if she was coming at this from a true crime angle, or if there’s something more concerning here.

Okay. Well, the problem is, the way she said it was very unlike true crime.
I don’t think there are many of our listeners who—well, I’ll say back then we weren’t as conscious about the verbiage we used in true crime. But still—that’s some crazy verbiage.

Yeah.

On the other hand, in Alix’s defense, there are people who’ve come forward and said Dean was on a bender in the days before his overdose. They were convinced Dean was experimenting with drugs to try and get closer to Alix.

So in the end, we are left to wonder: is this all a terrible coincidence for Alix, or is there something more nefarious going on here?

There’s one thing I can say for sure: life always offers temptations. It’s our job to remember all of the beautiful things we have, weigh the consequences, get help, heal, and decide—is it really worth risking it all?

And that is the case of Forest Hayes and possibly Dean Riopel.

That’s an interesting one. Kind of a little different than our other cases. I don’t know, I don’t really have too much to say.
Well, because it doesn’t feel like cold-blooded murder in either situation.
No, but I do feel sorry, obviously, for Forest’s family. But yeah, it doesn’t seem like cold-blooded murder.

I guess we’ll see if Dean’s case ever comes to fruition. I don’t think it will, because I don’t think she’ll be extradited. I don’t think it’s a top priority. But we’ll find out.

This is why they say: not even once.
Not even once.
Not even once.

All right, you guys. That is our episode, and we will see you next time with another one.
I love it.

And I hate it.

Goodbye.

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