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Miriam
Francis HELMICK
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Parricide - Forgery
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: June 10, 2008
Date of arrest:
December 8, 2008
Date of birth: January 26, 1957
Victim profile:
Her second husband, businessman Alan Helmick, 62
Method of murder:
Shooting (.25-caliber
handgun)
Location: Whitewater,
Mesa County, Colorado,
USA
Status:
Sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 198 years in
prison on December 8, 2009
Alan Helmick’s daughters told a judge that Miriam
Helmick “defiled and infiltrated” a family before insulting the memory
of their late mother by assuming her identity.
“We’re happy she can’t hurt anybody else,” Portia
Vigil, Alan Helmick’s eldest daughter, told the judge during Helmick’s
sentencing hearing Wednesday. “This is the end.”
In a partly symbolic sentence, District Judge
Valerie Robison imposed the maximum term for each of the 14 counts
that Helmick was found guilty of Tuesday by a jury: life plus 108
years in prison.
Helmick, 52, faced a mandatory sentence of life
without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder of Alan
Helmick.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Tammy Eret asked the
judge for maximum terms on each of the other counts, saying the
sentence should reflect the fact Helmick committed specific crimes on
different days, involving different victims.
“Whether it’s symbolic or not, I think it’s
necessary,” Robison said of the unusual sentence.
Helmick, who appeared in court shackled at her
hands and feet for the first time since the start of her trial on Nov.
9, said nothing Wednesday when she was given the chance to speak,
staring forward with no expression.
Feet away, Kristy Helmick-Burd, Alan Helmick’s
youngest daughter, told the judge her father, and grandfather to five
young girls, trusted and embraced his second wife.
“We did the same,” Helmick-Burd said.
Robison ordered Helmick to pay $521 in court costs,
while restitution was left open for 45 days. Costs of prosecution for
the Mesa County District Attorney’s office are expected to be in the
tens of thousands of dollars.
Helmick was sentenced nearly one year to the day
after Mesa County Sheriff’s investigators arrested her in
Jacksonville, Fla. She was arrested during a traffic stop in
Jacksonville, and authorities found in her purse several pieces of
identification belonging to Sharon Helmick, Alan’s first wife, who
died in December 2003.
A jury found that Miriam Helmick shot her husband
in the back of the head in the kitchen of the couple’s Whitewater home
on June 10, 2008, which was 40 days after she tried to kill him by
trying to blow up his car outside a business in Delta.
Day 12 of the Helmick murder trial
NBC11News.com
December 2, 2009
GRAND JUNCTION,
Colo. (KKCO) - The prosecution continued to paint Miriam Helmick as a
woman looking for a man with money and possibly looking to change her
identity in day 12 of the trial.
In court Tuesday,
a former neighbor from Florida took the stand and described the
conversations between her and Miriam. Lee recounted how Miriam told
her about her online dating and what she wanted to get out of it. "She
said she was horny and she needed some sexual... and she needed to be
taken care of, she needed to have fun, let her hair down," said, Lee.
Lee also told the
jury how Miriam admitted to using her husband's first wife's drivers
license while she was in Florida. Alan Helmick's first wife died of
cancer.
Mesa County
Sheriff’s investigators also showed pictures found on a computer used
by Miriam while in Florida. According to investigator Michael
Piechota, Internet files on a computer used by Miriam suggested she
browsed through more than 200 profiles of men on dating sights,
contacting several of them.
There were also
pictures of drivers licenses found on the computer as well as a social
security card and other things. Piechota says, "There's 39 of the
licenses, one of the social security card and then there is one, like
a clip art, for a marriage certificate."
Court file in husband's death details schemes
By Nancy Lofholm - The Denver Post
December 23, 2008
GRAND JUNCTION — A dance instructor, twice widowed
when husbands died of bullets to the head, tried to kill her second
husband by attempting to blow up his car and had been researching
poisoning before she allegedly shot him in a staged robbery, according
to an arrest affidavit.
Miriam Helmick, 51, was arrested two weeks ago and
charged with first- degree murder and attempted murder in the death of
Alan Helmick on June 10. The affidavit detailing the evidence against
her was unsealed Monday.
That affidavit chronicles 49 pages of suspicious
activities surrounding the death of Alan Helmick. He had been known as
a responsible business person and attentive father to his grown
children but increasingly had been cut off from family and friends and
concerned business associates in the months before his death. His wife
kept his cellphone in her purse and returned calls when messages were
left for him.
The affidavit says Alan Helmick had been ill with
mysterious symptoms that kept him mostly bedridden for months while
Miriam Helmick plundered his bank accounts. But he had improved in the
weeks before his death. A coroner's report said no poison was found in
his body.
The affidavit says Miriam Helmick forged $16,000 in
checks on one of her husband's bank accounts. She also sold some of
his property after his death, depriving his children of the proceeds.
She told friends and neighbors that suspicious
things were happening around their house and she thought someone was
targeting her after her husband was killed. But she was filmed on a
store surveillance camera buying a greeting card that she wrote a
threat on and tried to use as evidence that there was a stalker.
The couple had been married for two years before
the killing. They met at a dance studio where she was an instructor
and he was a lonely, well-to-do, 62-year-old widower who was taking
ballroom dance classes after the death of his wife of 36 years. He
owned a number of real estate and development-related businesses.
The couple lived in a 3,200-square- foot home south
of Grand Junction, where they raised horses. Miriam Helmick opened her
own dance studio after the couple married. The affidavit says many of
the 11 forgeries she is accused of were checks paid to that business
from Alan Helmick's account and signed by Miriam Helmick.
She had been arrested twice in 2004 in Florida on
embezzlement and larceny charges. At the time, she lived in
Jacksonville with her first husband.
She was not considered a suspect when that husband,
Jack Giles, died of a gunshot to his brain while lying in bed with
her. Giles' finger was in the trigger of a handgun, according to
police reports, and it was ruled a suicide. That case has not been
reopened.
Two months before Alan Helmick was killed, Miriam
Helmick was doing online searches for "Ambien overdose," "buy purple
foxglove" and "Viagra overdose." Ambien is a sleeping pill, foxglove a
poison and Viagra an erectile-dysfunction drug that can have serious
side effects on those with heart problems like Alan Helmick had.
Forty-one days before he died, the Helmicks made a
trip to Delta where he waited in his car while she went inside a
business. His car caught fire while he was sitting in it. A wick was
found shoved into the full gas tank.
Miriam Helmick had asked her husband to remotely
open the trunk and gone around to the back of the vehicle while he was
waiting in it.
Workers said the bathroom smelled like lighter
fluid after Miriam Helmick used it. She was named as a prime suspect
in that incident by Delta investigators.
Miriam Helmick quickly became the principal suspect
in Mesa County as investigators began unraveling the incidents
surrounding her husband's death.
Helmick was arrested in Florida earlier this month
and returned to Grand Junction, where she has been jailed on $2
million bond.
She appeared in court last week — shackled, stooped
and dressed in a high-security red jail jumpsuit — for a formal filing
of charges.
She is scheduled to return to court Jan. 29 to set
a date for a preliminary hearing.
Checks forged months before Helmick murder
By Paul Shockley - Gjfreepress.com
December 18, 2008
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Miriam Helmick allegedly
forged checks in her husband’s name starting nearly a year before his
murder, according to charging documents filed Thursday.
Helmick, who’s accused of trying to kill Alan
Helmick in an April 30 car fire before killing him June 10 at the
couple’s home, allegedly forged 11 checks between July 15, 2007, and
May 1, 2008 — a dollar figure in the alleged fraud isn’t listed.
Miriam Helmick, 51, was formally charged Thursday
morning in a 14-count complaint with first-degree murder, attempted
first-degree murder and 11 counts of forgery.
Alan Helmick, 62, was shot in the head June 10 at
34999 Siminoe Road in Whitewater in what was reported to 911
dispatchers by Miriam Helmick as a possible robbery at the home.
Steve Colvin, Helmick’s appointed public defender,
waived his client’s right for a preliminary hearing in the next 30
days.
She’s scheduled to return to court Jan. 29.
According to Thursday’s charging documents, Helmick
allegedly had a “wick used to ignite fuel or gasoline” in a fire April
30 in Delta, which damaged her husband’s car as he was in it.
Helmick’s charged with attempted first-degree
murder in connection with the fire. Authorities have confirmed little
about it.
During an interview June 18 with the Free Press,
Miriam Helmick acknowledged a “long thing with cotton-like stuff” had
been shoved into the car’s gas tank, smoldering and partially melting
a plastic gas cap.
“It very well could be related to (Alan Helmick’s
murder), I don’t know,” Miriam Helmick said during the interview.
“It was a full tank of gas in that car,” she added.
Helmick’s arrest warrant affidavit is expected to
be made public early next week.
Alan Helmick’s daughter, Portia Rae Vigil, was
granted “emergency” legal authority over her father’s estate and
financial matters on July 18.
In an affidavit dated July 17, Vigil wrote
unspecified property was missing and sold at the Siminoe Road home.
She said checks written on her father’s bank account had been returned
due to insufficient funds.
“While I am not accusing any person of wrongdoing,
the circumstances surrounding his death suggest that special care be
taken to preserve assets, property and records,” Vigil wrote.
“At this time, nobody knows what information might
be helpful to the sheriff’s investigation.”
Attempts to reach Vigil for comment since Miriam
Helmick’s arrest have been unsuccessful.
The Florida-Times Union newspaper in Jacksonville,
Fla., reported Dec. 8 that Helmick pleaded guilty to charges there in
2004 related to a counterfeit check cashing scheme and spent three
days in jail.
Helmick’s first husband, Jack Calloway Giles, 46,
died of a gunshot wound to the head while lying in bed with his wife
the morning of April 15, 2002, at their Jacksonville home.
Giles’ death was ruled suicide a month later.
Two-time widow held in Colorado killing
Her second husband was shot to death in Colorado
By Jim Schoettler - Jacksonville.com
December 9, 2008
A woman arrested Monday in Jacksonville and charged
with the slaying of her husband in Colorado was previously widowed
from a Jacksonville man whose shooting death six years ago was
investigated as a suicide.
Jacksonville homicide detectives reviewed the 2002
death of Miriam Helmick's first husband, Jack Giles, after learning
several months ago that she was a possible suspect in the Colorado
slaying, said Chief Rick Graham of the Sheriff's Office.
Graham said Monday that detectives found no reason
to reopen the Giles shooting, which occurred while his wife was next
to him in bed. Giles was found with a gun in his hand and his wife
said he had been suicidal, records show. The couple lived on South
Landmark Circle in North Jacksonville.
Graham said his office will likely stay in touch
with Colorado officials to see whether anything relevant to the local
case turns up in their investigation.
"There was nothing in our review that caused any
undue concern that would merit us reopening the [local] case," Graham
said.
Helmick, 51, is charged in the June 10 slaying of
her second husband, businessman Alan Helmick. Helmick, 62, was found
shot in the head in his home near Grand Junction, Colo. His wife
called 911 and told authorities that her husband was the victim of a
robbery.
Helmick was arrested outside a relative's Arlington
home after a murder warrant was issued Monday morning. Colorado
deputies were joined in the arrest by agents with the U.S. Marshals
Service and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Helmick is being held on $2 million bail at the
Duval County jail, pending extradition proceedings. She is charged
with murder, attempted murder and 11 counts of forgery.
Details weren't available on the forgery counts,
but records show Helmick once faced fraud charges in Jacksonville.
Those charges were connected to a 2004 counterfeit check-cashing
scheme in which Helmick, then Miriam Giles, pleaded guilty to and
spent three days in jail.
Heather Benjamin, a spokeswoman with the Mesa
County (Colo.) Sheriff's Office, said she wasn't sure when Helmick
returned to Jacksonville or how long she had been a suspect in her
husband's slaying. Benjamin said the Helmicks had been married for
several years and both had children from previous marriages.
Wife arrested in husband’s slaying
By Paul Shockley - Gjfreepress.com
December 8, 2008
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — An arrest warrant was filed
Monday morning for 51-year-old Miriam Helmick, charging her with
first-degree murder after deliberation in the June shooting death of
her husband, Whitewater businessman Alan Helmick.
Bond has been set at $2 million and the warrant was
filed under seal.
District Attorney Pete Hautzinger said Helmick was
arrested Monday morning in Florida.
District Judge Brian Flynn signed the warrant on
Dec. 2. It was filed at the Mesa County Justice Center on Monday
morning. She was wanted for first-degree murder, attempted
first-degree murder and 11 counts of felony forgery.
Alan Clarke Helmick, 62, was shot in the head at
his home in Whitewater, 34449 Siminoe Road, just before noon on June
10. Miriam Helmick found her husband and alerted authorities to what
was phoned in to 911 dispatchers as a possible robbery.
In an interview with the Free Press, Miriam Helmick
said she and her husband had plans to meet the morning of June 10 in
Grand Junction for lunch.
Miriam Helmick’s first husband, Jack Calloway
Giles, 46, died of a gunshot to the head on April 15, 2002, lying in
bed with his wife.
The Duval County (Fla.) Medical Examiner’s Office
said Jack Giles then shot himself with a .38 handgun he kept in a
night stand next to the couple’s bed.
The case was ruled suicide and cleared by
authorities a month later.
Twice widowed, woman waits for break in
husband's murder probe
By Paul Shockley - Gjfreepress.com
June 20, 2008
GRAND JUNCTION — Miriam Helmick said her husband
gave her a wad of cash early June 10 before uttering one of his
familiar sayings:
“Have fun like hell.”
She said they had plans to meet in Grand Junction
for lunch.
Alan Clarke Helmick, 62, had plenty of favorite
lines like “I wonder what the poor people are doing?” — Miriam said
she heard it for the first time on one of their many Lake Powell
getaways.
“And I don’t mean money,” Miriam said, finishing
the second half of Alan’s take on “poor people.”
“It’s about smelling the roses.”
Miriam Helmick, 51, had the same sayings printed on
Alan Helmick’s funeral program — she buried a husband Tuesday for the
second time in six years.
On Wednesday, she mulled around the garage of the
3,200-square-foot home she shared with Alan Helmick, preparing feed
for the horses roaming the couple’s 40-acre spread just south of
Whitewater.
She returned to the 34999 Siminoe Road home less
than a week after the June 10 slaying of her husband.
“I feel real close to Alan here,” she said. “All of
this was our project.”
Alan Helmick was shot in the head inside his home.
Miriam Helmick found her husband and alerted authorities to what was
phoned in to 911 dispatchers as a possible robbery.
The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office has said next to
nothing about the case in the 10 days since. Sheriff’s spokeswoman
Heather Benjamin last week said Helmick’s murder was the lone focus
the agency’s complex crimes unit.
Miriam said she couldn’t e-mail family photos to
the Free Press Wednesday because sheriff’s investigators had seized
all computers in the home.
‘I thought that kind of life was over’
Jack Calloway Giles, 46, died of a gunshot to the
head on April 15, 2002, lying in bed with his wife, Miriam Morgan
Giles, according to records obtained from the Jacksonville, Fla.,
sheriff’s office.
It was the morning after Jack Giles’ birthday —
Miriam told deputies she woke early for her normal exercise but
instead went back to bed, according to an incident report.
The Duval County (Fla.) Medical Examiner’s Office
said Jack Giles then shot himself with a .38 handgun he kept in a
night stand next to the couple’s bed.
The case was ruled suicide and cleared by
authorities a month later.
Miriam told investigators her husband was still
distraught over the August 2001 accidental death of their daughter,
Amy, 23.
“He sat there the day before and waited by the
phone for her to call, which she’d done every year on his birthday,”
Miriam said Wednesday.
“He couldn’t handle it.”
“I thought that kind of life was over,” she said of
the loss of a second husband.
The couple also had a son, Jason, now 26, who lives
in Florida.
Miriam moved to Grand Junction in early 2005 when
she said a friend told her about a possible job as a dance instructor.
One of her new students was recently widowed.
“I usually don’t associate or fraternize with
students,” she said of her first lessons with Alan. “I guess he sort
of grew on me a bit. Such a gentleman and very sweet.”
Alan and Miriam Helmick married in June 2006.
A businessman with a host of ventures between Grand
Junction and Delta, Miriam says her husband was hard pressed to find
time for one of his passions: golf.
Helmick’s golf clubs were leaned against a garage
wall on Wednesday.
“He was kind of the big decision maker ... always
had more logic than I did,” she said.
“I never saw a (business) situation where he
couldn’t pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
Miriam said her husband was in Delta in late April
— closing on a deal to sell his ownership share of a local title
company — when somebody set fire to his Buick.
Delta and Mesa County authorities have declined
comment on the incident, but suspect possible arson.
According to Miriam, she was inside a nearby
building at the time her husband, in the car waiting, noticed
something burning.
She said a “long thing with cotton-like stuff” had
been shoved down the car’s gas tank and was smoldering, partially
melting the gas cap.
“It was a full tank of gas in that car,” she said.
Alan Helmick ran inside a local business, dousing
the car with cups of water.
The incident’s relationship — if any — to Helmick’s
murder is unknown.
“It very well could be related, I don’t know,” she
said. “I know he thought it was random.”
Who may have wanted to harm Alan Helmick?
“Anything like that is part of their
investigation,” she said, declining to talk about possible motives.
She also knows she’s likely considered a suspect.
“I’m sure they probably do, but that’s just their
job,” she said. “When they get to a point when they figure out what
they’re going to do, they’ll let me know.”
June 10
Miriam said she left 34999 Siminoe Road around 8:15
to 8:30 a.m. on June 10, cash in hand from her husband for a shopping
trip. Alan Helmick went to take a shower, she said.
“Everything was fine,” she said.
He was to meet her in Grand Junction for lunch at
what they called the “pigsty” — a North Avenue Chinese restaurant.
She said she called him several times when he
didn’t show.
“He didn’t call back, and I waited (at the
restaurant) then I came home,” she said. “That’s when I found him and
it all went downhill from there.”
Sheriff’s deputies around noon were called on a
reported possible robbery at the residence — radio dispatch traffic
described someone attempting to resuscitate Alan Helmick.
Despite the robbery reports, Miriam Helmick
declined to talk about the house’s condition.
“My first concern was him,” she said.
One dead after robbery call near Whitewater
By Paul Shockley - Gjfreepress.com
June 11, 2008
Mesa County Sheriff’s deputies responding to a 911
robbery call Tuesday at a home near Whitewater instead found an
adult’s dead body.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Heather Benjamin late Tuesday
said it was too early to say whether investigators had a homicide or
suicide, instead labeling it a “suspicious death investigation.”
Benjamin earlier Tuesday had called it homicide.
Authorities were called on a reported robbery at a
residence, 34999 Siminoe Road, south of Whitewater around noon on
Tuesday.
According to 911 dispatch radio traffic, someone at
the home was attempting to resuscitate an “injured subject” as
deputies were en route to the scene.
The adult — authorities confirmed little about the
individual — was dead when law enforcement and fire personnel arrived.
The home is set back several hundred yards from
U.S. Highway 50, near the Lands End Fire Department. Authorities had
Siminoe Road blocked off most of the day from the highway.
According to Mesa County Assessor records, the home
sits on 40 acres owned by Alan Helmick.
Helmick’s horse breeding business, Creek Ranch
Sporthorse LLC, is operated out of the Siminoe Road home, according to
state business records.
