On September 17, 2013, Alix Catherine Tichelman called 911 to report that her boyfriend, Dean Riopelle, was having a drug overdose.[1] “I think my boyfriend overdosed or something, like he won’t respond,” she told the operator, “His eyes are open, but no, he’s not awake.” Tichelman then said he had been drinking and taking painkillers, but that she did not know what kind of pills they were or even if they were prescribed. “I don’t know; you’re asking the wrong person.”[2]
Riopelle fell into a coma and was transported to a hospital where he was put on life support. He died a week later on September 24, 2013. Local media initially reported his death as the result of a heart attack, but the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office listed it as the result of heroin, oxycodone, and ethanol toxicity.[3] Those who were close to Riopelle maintained that he never used drugs, much less hard drugs. Khristina Brucker, his live-in nanny, said, “This is a man that doesn’t like to take Tylenol. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke. He hated both and he definitely hated drugs.”
Some accepted Riopelle’s death as a cliché: the owner of an alternative music and fetish nightclub was using heroin and eventually died from it. While the Masquerade was a fun place to visit, it can not be forgotten that it was a business, and a successful business at that. It was also known that Riopelle lived in Milton, just outside Alpharetta—a wealthy Atlanta suburb. None of this is typically associated with intravenous drug users. However, a certain level of uncertainty about Riopelle existed by some in the community after his sale and attempted demolition of the Masquerade seven years prior. It had to be accepted that most did not know Riopelle that well, and that the wizard who was talked about in whispers may have had a secretive double life.
Then, less than two months after Riopelle’s death, a new man involved with Alix Tichelman died under very similar circumstances. This time, however, security footage captured her injecting the man with the lethal dose of heroin, before drinking wine as he lay dying.[4]
Dean
Dean Alan Riopelle was born on March 18, 1960 in Tampa, Florida. Before attending Hillsborough High School, he was a competitive bowler playing tournaments at Temple Lanes in Tampa.[5] While attending high school, Riopelle was an honors student and involved with the Honorary Science Society, Mu Alpha Theta (the national math honor society), the Big Red Band (Hillsborough High School’s renowned marching band), Stage Band, and the Interact Club. The last of allowed him to display his lifetime love for Halloween by assisting with Interact Club’s annual Haunted House fundraiser which went toward the March of Dimes and American Cancer Society. This Interact Club was also known to dress as female cheerleaders during the school’s powderpuff football games, something else Riopelle carried a lifetime affinity for. He was also part of the wrestling team and wrestling club, which was presided over by Berta Ochs, who would later be another one of the Masquerade’s founders.[6]
Upon graduating from Hillsborough High School in 1979, Riopelle moved north to Gainesville to attend the University of Florida to work toward his BS in Building Construction. While at UF, he was active in Pi Kappa Alpha, the school’s Isshin-ryū karate and boxing teams, and the Alachua Boxing Council team. He received his degree in 1982.[7] Riopelle got a job in the field, but according to his sister, he quit after his boss told him to cut his hair and wear a larger tie.[8] He then veered heavily toward music and entertainment.
Riopelle always loved music, to the point that at 21 years old, he and his friend Bill Kane were the first people in line to enter a Rolling Stones concert in Orlando, having arrived 31 hours before the show was scheduled to start.[9] He performed in several local bands, including one called Life and Death, but most notably the Impotent Sea Snakes. Described as a “punky, glam rock quintet in drag,” the Sea Snakes began in Tampa, releasing Too Cool for Rock & Roll in 1986.[10] Soon after, Riopelle and fellow Sea Snake Brian McNamara established their first Masquerade venture in the historic district of Ybor City in Tampa. Two years later, they opened the Atlanta Masquerade, where Riopelle also moved the Impotent Sea Snakes. As described in the fifth circle of this website, the Impotent Sea Snakes were more than just musicians—they were a spectacle, with up to ten members on stage and in their photoshoots. Included in the group was Christy Shealy, who went by the stage name “Princess Christy.” In February 1999, the HBO series Real Sex, released a special on the band titled “Exotic Erotic Wedding,” covering Riopelle and Shealy’s wedding. Their marriage produced two children, a son and daughter, before they eventually sought a divorce.
Dean Riopelle was indeed a multifaceted person. In both high school and college, he was an honor student and involved with several sports. Later, he ran multiple successful music venues, dressing in drag and performing in a hyper-sexualized band himself—yet, he also coached his son’s youth football team, assisting them to win an undefeated season. He also had a certain wit about him—during 1986-1987, Riopelle was a frequent submitter to silly contests that the Tampa Tribune held weekly in which the newspaper asked readers to do tasks such as designing license plates for historic figures (which Riopelle did “RUA-10” as John Derek) or proposing celebrity marriages with comical name changes (Riopelle proposed Cher and Steve Cropper, resulting in Cher Cropper). He was also an animal lover, who raised monkeys and other exotic animals later in his life on his property in Milton. Riopelle even got a permit to turn said property into a zoo, upsetting his neighbors and earning him the nickname: “the Monkey Man.”[11]
Alix
Alix Catherine Tichelman was born in Canada to a father heavily involved in the technology industry. He was the branch manager at IBM in Toronto for over a decade, later becoming the Vice-president of UniTel Communications for almost five years, all before taking a job in Georgia where he moved his family.[12] As a result, Tichelman spent much of her youth in Georgia, having attended Northview High School in Duluth. She eventually attended Georgia State University in 2008, where she completed two semesters toward a journalism degree before dropping out.[13] During her teenage years, Tichelman developed an addiction to heroin. Years later, she wrote a poem about the drug on her Facebook page:
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,
your thoughts become emotionless,
your soul feels too old.
Around 2005, when Tichelman was 18, she dated Warren Eugene Ullom, the singer for an Atlanta local band called the Judies. Ullom became a heroin user as well, later blaming Tichelman for getting him into the drug.[14] He said, “The first time I had heroin in my veins, an 18-year-old girl put it there. We had been hanging out, and she asked if I was interested in trying it. I was pretty dumbstruck. If she was into it, I was into it. As much as I faked cool in those days, if a girl as alluring as her was into running across the highway, well, I was into that too.”[15]
Three years later, on June 5, 2008, Ullom met a girl named Rachel San Inocencio in a parking lot in Little Five Points in Atlanta. The next night, she went to Ullom’s apartment, where they shot heroin. San Inocencio began overdosing on the drug, but instead of calling the police, Ullom called his cocaine dealer known only as “The Sweet Man.” Ullom asked the Sweet Man to bring over some cocaine. The Sweet Man claims that Ullom told him that he had been in a similar situation in the past, and that injecting cocaine had reversed the effects. As San Inocencio laid nearly naked and unconscious for about four hours, Ullom threw her into an ice bath and injected her twice with the cocaine in failed attempts to awaken her. [16]
At some point in the night, the Sweet Man shot up his own speedball, and he and Ullom both faded in and out of their highs into the early morning. San Inocencio breathed slowly during this time, and occasionally mumbled incoherently. At 7:00 am, the Sweet Man recognized she was turning blue and said they needed to call 911, which Ullom adamantly refused to do. The Sweet Man then left the apartment and called 911, but was unsure of the exact address, and gave the ambulance only a general location, making it difficult for them to find her.
Ullom sent the Sweet Man a text message saying, “she is better no ambulance.”[17] However, San Inocencio died just thirty minutes later, causing Ullom to finally call 911. He then placed the remaining cocaine into her purse and stole her 3.5 carat diamond earrings, which he pawned three days later. Two years later, in June 2010, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, receiving 20 years in prison.[18]
Around the same time Ullman was receiving his sentence, Alix Tichelman moved back to Atlanta after working as a stripper in San Francisco. She began dating Dean Riopelle and quickly moved in with him. They shared similar sexual interests, going out to clubs with her wearing a collar and leash; while also posting pictures of herself on social media scantily clad, often in leather or lingerie, and calling herself a “sweet & sexy vixen.”[19] Tichelman also had several tattoos, including one that read “Kiss or Kill,” a large one on her forearm that read “’Till Death Do Us Part,” and another beneath her right collarbone that read “Hell is Love.”
According to Khristina Brucker, Riopelle’s live-in nanny, Riopelle and Tichelman’s relationship had long been tumultuous. They were on-again-off-again and Riopelle kicked her out several times for using drugs, something he did not want brought into his home around his children. In addition to a strained relationship with Brucker, Tichelman also did not get along with Riopelle’s daughter, calling the 13-year-old a sociopath and threatening her on at least one occasion by saying, “Don’t you ever get in the way of me and your father, if you ever get in the way I’ll kill you, you little bitch!” Brucker lived in an apartment in Riopelle’s basement, where his daughter would sometimes go to get away from Tichelman. The daughter complained to Riopelle, but according to Brucker, “Alix had him wrapped around her finger.”[20]
Riopelle and Tichelman’s most documented domestic dispute happened on September 6, 2013. Tichelman called the police, saying that Riopelle had thrown her to the ground. When police arrived, Riopelle told them that she had taken pills and mixed them with alcohol. He said the argument began when they were at the Masquerade earlier in the evening, where she was stage diving and exposing her breasts. Not approving of this at his place of business, Riopelle took her home. At some point that night, Tichelman bit Riopelle’s finger, and told him she was going to hit herself and tell the police that he beat her. A neighbor overheard this threat, so police arrested Tichelman for false report of a crime and for battery.[21] She spent the night in jail and her bond was set at $5,000.
Less than two weeks after this incident, Tichelman claims she was in the shower when she heard a crash in the bedroom. She rushed to find Riopelle unconscious on the floor. She said she tried administering CPR to him for five minutes before calling 911. Tichelman told the police that she did not know how many drugs he had taken that day, but that he was on a “bender the last few days.”[22] Riopelle never regained consciousness and was taken off life support about a week later. He was 53 years old.
In 2016, the television series 48 Hours did a special on the incident where they interviewed a supposed friend of both Riopelle and Tichelman. He said he was an Atlanta businessman and wished to remain anonymous, requesting to be listed only by the name of “Todd.” Todd’s claims go against that of Brucker and others who knew Riopelle, saying that not only did Riopelle drink, but that he drank heavily. Todd also says that on the day after Tichelman’s September 6th arrest, Riopelle found out that she was advertising herself as a prostitute online to support her heroin habit. Todd believes that Riopelle was devastated when he discovered this, and that perhaps in an attempt to either understand her weakness to the drug or to make them feel closer, Riopelle tried heroin.[23]
Forrest Hayes
After Dean Riopelle’s death, Alix Tichelman moved back to California and created a profile on a website called “SeekingArrangement,” a site for “sugar babies” to find “sugar daddies.” It was through this site she met Forrest Hayes, a married father of five, who lived in a $3 million house. Hayes was a tech executive for Google X, which has been described as their “moonshot factory,” where their “most extreme, wildest, imaginative, farthest reaching ideas” are shared. Hayes’ job was to figure out how to make these imaginative ideas a reality.
According to Todd, Tichelman had been meeting with Hayes since November 2, receiving upwards of $2,000 an evening with him. On the night of November 23, 2013, Hayes met Tichelman on his 47-foot yacht, Escape, off the coast of Santa Cruz. As someone so heavily involved with technology, Hayes’ yacht was equipped with high-definition cameras—approximately $200,000 worth. The camera footage has not been released by investigators, however it was described in detail on the 48 Hours special.
The cameras first show Tichelman arriving on the boat giving Hayes a quick hug before walking into the main cabin. In the main cabin, Tichelman is seen to have brought the drugs and the materials needed to cook and shoot them. At some point, Tichelman is given a glass of red wine. She can clearly be seen preparing the syringe, however when she goes to inject the drugs into herself, her back is turned from the camera. As she is doing this, Hayes watches. She then takes the needle and injects it into him, where “almost immediately, he starts to go into distress.” Tichelman then pats him on the face and tries talking to him, before holding his head as he slumps forward in his chair. He eventually falls to the floor.
Tichelman then gets up and tries to remove all evidence that she was there. She is seen packing up her drug paraphernalia, and wiping her fingerprints off of places she touched. All the while, Tichelman keeps the wine glass in her hand, sipping it occasionally as she steps over Hayes’ lifeless body. According to her public defender, at one point in the tape she is seen crying.[24] After approximately seven minutes of evidence tampering, she lowers the blinds and leaves the boat.
As the night went on, Hayes’ wife, Denise, became concerned when he never returned home. Aware that he would often visit his yacht, his prized-possession, she called the captain Hayes retained and asked him to visit the boat.[25] When the captain arrived, he called 911 and may have attempted to destroy the camera footage showing Hayes’ affair.[26] Regardless, investigators were able to receive the footage as it was uploaded to a cloud. While the security cameras showed Hayes with a woman, investigators did not know who she was until they went through his cellphone. She was then identified as Alix Tichelman.[27]
Arrest and Sentence
After identifying Tichelman, police began planning a way to arrest her. Eight months into their investigation she posted on her Facebook page that she planned to move back to Georgia, making it so that the police had to act fast. A Santa Cruz detective thus created a profile on SeekingArrangement under the pseudonym “Sebastian.” Tichelman agreed to meet Sebastian for sex, after he deposited several hundred dollars into her account. She expected $1,000 more upon arrival, calling him a “cheapskate” throughout the negotiation as her “other clients usually pay twice that amount.”
Tichelman arrived at the negotiated spot, a Santa Cruz resort, again possessing heroin. When it was revealed that she was not rendezvousing with a typical john, and that she instead was under arrest, she cried. She was arrested for prostitution and manslaughter for the death of Forrest Hayes.
The attempt to pin Tichelman for Hayes’ murder was difficult. Her public defenders, Jerry Christensen and Larry Biggam, pointed out that the security footage does not show Hayes given heroin against his will—in fact, he uses his own cellphone light to show Tichelman where to inject the drug. “Alix Tichelman did nothing that Mr. Hayes didn’t want her to do. Two adults engaged in mutual and cooperative drug usage. And it went wrong. But it was an accident,” Biggam argued. The defense also argued that because she was seen crying and patting him on the face, it indicated that his death was not intentional. They claimed she panicked, tried to cover the evidence, and left.
The defense requested to be provided with six months of security footage from the Escape, believing it would show Hayes as having a history with both extramarital affairs and intravenous drug use. If this was the case, the defense could further argue that Hayes needed no convincing by Tichelman to use heroin, and that he was experienced beforehand. However, Hayes’ family did not want the footage released—they were already humiliated enough by the ordeal. Supposedly, Hayes’ family preferred the case getting dismissed altogether, rather than Tichelman standing trail and releasing sordid details of Hayes’ life to a courtroom and the media.
Then, on May 19, 2015, Tichelman shocked everyone when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter at her hearing.[28] She was sentenced to six years, though she served less than two for good behavior. Upon being released from prison on March 29, 2017, Tichelman—who was living in the United States with a green card—was detained by agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who requested the prison to hold her for 24 hours longer than her sentence. She was then deported back to Canada.
Meanwhile, a new development in Dean Riopelle’s death broke in Georgia. When Tichelman was interviewed by the Santa Cruz Police Department about Hayes’ death, she told investigators something that she never revealed to the Milton Police: that she also supplied Riopelle with the heroin that led to his death. As a result, the Fulton County DA wanted to take a second look at the mysterious circumstances around Riopelle’s death that are so similar to Hayes’.[29] In September 2017, six months after Tichelman’s deportation, a Fulton County grand jury indicted her for distribution of heroin, distribution of oxycodone, and two counts of felony murder. They issued a warrant for her arrest on September 28, 2017. The Fulton DA told the press that they were working with Canadian authorities to extradite Tichelman back to Atlanta to face charges.[30]
As of 2024, she has yet to do so.
[1] “Exec’s ‘escort’ linked to 2nd Death,” WXIA-TV, USA Today, July 11, 2014, B3.
[2] “New Details – Google Exec, Ga. Deaths May be Tied – California Woman Allegedly Present When Both Men OD’d On Heroin,” Alexis Stevens, the AJC, July 11, 2014, A1
[3] “Boyfriend of suspect in Google exec’s death ‘believed in people’,” Alexis Stevens, the AJC, July 11, 2014, https://www.ajc.com/news/boyfriend-suspect-google-exec-death-believed-people/MsrtqizYncK98ekTzIpH2L/
[4] “Alix Catherine Tichelman: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know,” Tucker Archer, Heavy.com, June 14, 2018, https://heavy.com/tech/2014/07/alix-catherine-tichelman-google-heroin-hooker-forrest-timothy-hayes/, accessed March 25, 2022.
[5] “Junior Bowl Tourney Set,” Tampa Tribune, January 6, 1973, Page 3
[6] Information found in the 1976-1979 Hillsborough High School Yearbooks.
[7] Information found on his LinkedIn page, https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-riopelle-6908b913/, accessed on August 15, 2022.
[8] Alexis Stevens article.
[9] “Stones fans roll in early despite warning,” Diana Faherty, the Miami News, October 24, 1981, 4.
[10] “An Evening with a Different Twist,” Michael Canning, the Tampa Bay Times, July 3, 1998, https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1998/07/03/an-evening-with-a-different-twist/, accessed on August 15, 2022.
[11] Dean Riopelle’s Obituary
[12] Information taken from Bart Tichelman’s LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/barttichelman/, accessed on August 15, 2022.
[13] “Jailed in death of Google exec, woman indicted for Milton man’s death,” Mitchell Northam, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, June 26, 2018, https://www.ajc.com/news/local/canadian-woman-indicted-overdose-death-masquerade-owner/lvx4EJtMfCPcaGBgGdNsrN/, accessed in March 22, 2022.
[14] “Woman accused in Google exec’s death dated killer in similar case,” Joseph Serna, the Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-escort-heroin-google-exec-death-similar-20140710-story.html, accessed on March 22, 2022.
[15] “Warren Ullom: Death, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Part I,” Mara Shaloup, Creative Loafing, March 17, 2011, https://creativeloafing.com/content-165798-warren-ullom-death-drugs-and-rock-n-roll-part. Accessed in August 15, 2022.
[16] Shaloup article.
[17] Shaloup article.
[18] “Singer Admits Role In Woman’s Drug Overdose Death,” WSB-TV, June 8, 2010, https://www.wsbtv.com/news/singer-admits-role-in-womans-drug-overdose-death/241863649/, accessed on August 15, 2022.
[19] “Veil lifted on call girl held in Google executive’s death,” Donna Leinwand Leger, USA Today, July 9, 2014, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2014/07/09/lingerie-model-charged-with-killing-google-executive/12427649/, accessed on March 22, 2022.
[20] ‘Hell is Love’: Inside the toxic world of CEO daughter turned ‘call girl killer’ Alix Tichelman accused of killing Google exec with heroin overdose,” Laura Collins, Daily Mail, July 12, 2014, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2689370/Hell-Love-Inside-toxic-world-CEO-daughter-turned-call-girl-killer-Alix-Tichelman.html, accessed May 5, 2022.
[21] “Woman in Google Case Linked to Death of ex-Ybor Club Owner,” Associated Press, July 11, 2014, https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/woman-in-google-case-linked-to-death-of-ex-ybor-club-owner/2188035/, accessed May 5, 2022.
[22] “Prostitute in Google exec case linked to 2nd death,” the Associated Press, July 11, 2014, https://cdispatch.com/news/2014-07-11/prostitute-in-google-exec-case-linked-to-2nd-death/, accessed May 5, 2022.
[23] “Kiss of Death and the Google Exec,” CBS News, July 30, 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-forrest-hayes-case-kiss-of-death-and-the-google-exec/, accessed August 15, 2022.
[24] “Kiss of Death and the Google Exec,”
[25] “Kiss of Death and the Google Exec,”
club[26] “Call Girl Killer: Who is Alix Tichelman and where is she now?” Aliki Kraterou, the U.S. Sun, February 25, 2021, https://www.the-sun.com/news/2405064/who-alix-tichelman-where-now/, accessed on March 22, 2022.“Junior Bowl Tourney Set,” Tampa Tribune, January 6, 1973, Page 3[26] “Call Girl Killer: Who is Alix Tichelman and where is she now?” Aliki Kraterou, the U.S. Sun, February 25, 2021, https://www.the-sun.com/news/2405064/who-alix-tichelman-where-now/, accessed on March 22, 2022.
[27] “Kiss of Death and the Google Exec”
[28] “Kiss of Death and the Google Exec,”
[29] “Fulton – ‘Harbor Hooker’ Indicted Again,” Mitchell Northam Mitchell, the AJC, June 29, 2018, B8
[30] “Jailed in death of Google exec, woman indicted for Milton man’s death”
Painted Black 