by Robert Scott
If Ann and Taylor’s marriage was a struggle from the very beginning, by the summer of 1996 it was sliding toward a precipice. Taylor wanted to test the “sinning side of life.” He began smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, two un-Mormon pastimes. Ann said that in 1996 Taylor really took to alcohol. Then in 1997 he began experimenting with drugs. He smoked marijuana, tried cocaine, mushrooms and ecstasy.
Ann said, “He felt he had missed out in his teen years, so he wanted to try everything that everyone else got to do. He started staying out all night at nightclubs. He began to resemble a fifteen-year-old with his attire. He was all over the board. He went off the deep end!”
There were times that Taylor wouldn’t even come home for several weeks on end. Ann no longer trusted him with her daughters. She wouldn’t let Taylor take them out of the house.
Another friend of the Helzers, Christina Kelly, began to notice Taylor’s strange behavior as well. Kelly had first met Carma in 1992 when she went to a health club for an injury to her back. Carma attended to Kelly during therapy rehabilitation. Kelly met Taylor at the health club and liked him almost immediately.
Kelly began going on raft trips with the Helzers, and Taylor would often guide the rafts through white water. He was strong and good-looking. Kelly said of him, “He was gentle and loving and attended the LDS Church regularly.”
Then, by 1996, she noticed a dramatic difference in Taylor. He started questioning the doctrines of the Mormon Church. She had a conversation with him about this and he told her, “I’ve been betrayed by the church. I got married, went on a mission, and it wasn’t meant to be. I did everything I was supposed to do. I can no longer be a member of the church.”
Even longtime friend Dane Williams noticed the dramatic change in Taylor. He said, “Taylor was becoming weird. I felt sad that a close friend made some bad choices. He was smoking, experimenting with drugs and morality issues. I had looked up to him. Now I didn’t want to be around him.”
Soon Ann began to notice another troubling development. Justin was starting to emulate Taylor’s behavior. She said, “Justin was a follower. He lacked self-confidence. He would never stand up to or argue with Taylor.”
To top it all off, Carma Helzer had taken a self-help course in Utah called Impact. She was so enthralled by what was taught there, she recommended it to both Taylor and Justin. Unfortunately, with their precarious mental states, Impact was to have disastrous results for them and everyone around them.
CHAPTER 2
In To Me See
Various people in the Helzer family and their friends would go through Impact, or a similar program like it, at different times in the 1990s. Carma Helzer was the first of her immediate family to attend, followed by Gerry, Justin, Heather and Taylor. Some of the most telling statements about Impact would come later from Charney Hoffman and others.
Charney Hoffman said, “The staffers at Impact basically enforced the group. You go, and if you protest something that’s happening, you have a bunch of staffers that come up and try to help you get with the program. They all work with the facilitator who is extremely totalitarian. Very authoritarian.
“All in all, the staffers do the facilitator’s bidding. If anybody doesn’t look like they’re getting with the program, they teach that person to hate themselves until they learn to love themselves. Impact was very emotionally manipulative. I know a lot of people who snapped because of going through it.”
Jill Tingey, Carma’s cousin, said of her experience in Impact, “The thing that I remember that I didn’t like—it was very abrasive. I think the philosophy was to break down the old beliefs or things that don’t work, and rebuild. But that breakdown was abrasive and it seemed like abuse to me. I’m not a shy person, but I kind of crawled inside myself, and I didn’t want that to happen to me. I didn’t want any of them tearing on me. There were a lot of good things—individualization and thinking deeply. But some of it was really in your face.”
A friend of Carma Helzer’s named Jeanette Carter was introduced to a program like Impact called Harmony. She said later, “It was all about overcoming obstacles in one’s life. Places where people were stuck. It broke down the barriers.
“It was a positive way of communicating with my children. I was often angry at my kids. I wanted to be like Carma. It cost two hundred eighty dollars for the first level, which was called Quest. Quest stood for who you really were in life. It was a way to find the center of your life. The first level was four consecutive days and started at six A.M. on a Wednesday and went all day.
“Quest was led by a man named Dion. Dion asked everybody questions about their lives. This happened in front of a dozen other people. Dion was the facilitator. He challenged you. It was very intense. People were crying and getting sick. Dion was professional and authoritative. His voice was commanding.
“I hated the first two days. Then I started to feel differently on the third day. It was more loving, but still tough. I started to feel a difference in myself. It changed me.”
Carter did admit that some people hated Harmony all the way through the course. One particular instance was brutal. Carter said, “You play a game and pretend you are on a ship with other people and it was going to sink. You pleaded for your life. You told them why you wanted to be saved. Only three people could be saved in a lifeboat. Everybody had three Popsicle sticks. You gave some to the people you wanted to save. Most people kept one Popsicle stick for themselves.”
Even though Carter could have saved a Popsicle stick for herself, she gave all of hers away. In essence, she drowned while saving others. It is not recorded if Taylor and Justin tried to save themselves in the game of lifeboat. One thing is certain, Taylor loved the idea of certainty and dynamic forcefulness that the facilitator had. He wanted to become a facilitator himself one day. One of the most prevalent ideas of Impact and Harmony was that there was no right or wrong—just what works. “Right” and “wrong” were supposedly belief systems that often retarded a person’s self-awareness. Both Impact and Harmony stressed the dynamics of self, not groups or social interaction. This only reinforced Taylor’s already considerable vision of himself as a leader who had an important message for others around him.
One thing Charney Hoffman did notice about Taylor as things disintegrated in his marriage, “He seemed more interested than ever in showing people how the Latter-Day Saints had deviated from the path that was previously held. Taylor was very zealous to point out differences between what the church had taught in the early days with what the church had been teaching in more recent times.
“I remember pointing out that several people within the church disagreed with his interpretation of things, his perspective. He said in so many words that he no longer cared what the leaders of the church said. His reason was because they simply had parted from the path originally set forth by the founders of the church. When I started to disagree with him, he seemed to become very upset if I didn’t see things the way he did.”
Taylor was disappointed with the way things had turned out with Ann as well. He began to believe that the Latter-Day Saints Church had lied to him. He believed he had followed all their rules and still was not happy in his job, his marriage or his life. It didn’t dawn on him that he might be wrong in his appreciation of their doctrine. Instead, they must be wrong and it was his purpose in life to bring them back to the way the founders had anticipated that they go. Everyone always said he had drive, charisma, charm and a dynamic personality. He was just about to prove that with an impressionable young woman who had moved to the area from southern California.
Keri Furman was one of those girls who was a beauty from the day she was born, in 1976. Keri, however, grew up in a troubled home in southern California. She later said of her childhood, “I was a latchkey kid. When I was eleven, I cooked for myself and cleaned the house for my dad, who worked two jobs to support my brother and me.”
Keri’s mother had left the family when Keri was young. It forced her to grow
up with a very independent streak. She also indicated that the person she was growing up with was not her real father, but rather a stepfather. She said later, “I was naive when I was young. I grew up very badly with a stepfamily.” Anxious to get out of the house, she graduated early and was on her own by the age of seventeen.
To support herself, Keri began selling perfume in southern California. Looking for a change of scene, she moved north to the Bay Area, selling perfume and working in a veterinarian’s office. She said later that she was in a bad relationship with a man older than herself. She indicated that it was an abusive relationship. She recalled, “I didn’t know how to show my feelings then.”
In 1998, Keri began working as a waitress at the Peppermill Restaurant in Concord. One evening, a tall, handsome young man sat down and she served him. He was Taylor Helzer. Keri thought he looked adorable. They began chatting and really hit it off.
After the meal was over, instead of leaving a tip, he left his credit card on the table and told her to buy something nice with it. She was blown away by the gesture. No one had ever done anything like that for her.
Keri said later, “He was different. Enticing. I wanted to know more about him. I didn’t use the credit card, but I called his number from a business card he left. He came into the restaurant again the very next night.
“He was exciting. Very straightforward. He would say what was on his mind. He was loving and kind. It felt good being around him.”
Taylor and Keri developed a relationship, even though he was still married to Ann. Keri eventually moved into an apartment on Victory Lane with Taylor. A man named Tyler Bergland lived nearby and met Taylor on the apartment grounds. Bergland said, “He was very charismatic. Very open. He could get people to open up. He could get you to explore things in different ways.”
After the apartment on Victory Lane, Taylor and Keri rented a house, along with Justin and housemates Olivia Embry and Brandon Davids, on Oak Grove. Within this house, they were free to do as they pleased, which over time became free to do as Taylor pleased.
By this time, the Mormon Church was not a big factor in Taylor’s life and Keri only went there once with him. She said of the experience, “I really didn’t care about it. I was in a youth group when I attended a Christian church when I was younger. Being a Mormon wasn’t for me.”
Of that early period with Taylor, Keri recalled, “He gave me more confidence. In the beginning, he was very loving. He would hug me for half an hour. ‘Why are you so free?’ I would wonder. I wanted to be a better person. He made a lot of people feel that way. It was special just to know him.
“He made me feel pretty. And I had been in an abusive relationship before Taylor with a different boyfriend.”
Keri said of Justin, “He was sweet and kind. He had a loving environment with his brother. I didn’t grow up in a happy home. They gave each other hugs, though Taylor was domineering. I saw them fight only once. It was a wrestling match in the front yard. It was like boys wrestling.”
Keri may have thought of the residence on Oak Grove as a loving household, but a cloud came over that residence when Taylor sought to quit his job at Dean Witter. He began to ask friends how he could scam the company by feigning mental illness. He wanted to get disability and not have to work anymore.
Charney Hoffman said later, “Taylor didn’t say he was not really mentally disabled, but that was kind of what he implied in the idea that he was going on disability. He asked me to promise not to tell anybody what he was doing. I never promised not to tell anybody, just reassured him by telling him that I had no reason to tell anybody. He seemed to accept that as a commitment that I wouldn’t.
“I remember him ranting and raving how the welfare system was messed up. He asked me to trust him that by doing what he was doing, he would be able to ultimately fix the system. Maybe I asked him how. It didn’t make a lot of sense at the time. It seemed nutty.”
Taylor also told Tyler Bergland at one point that he was faking mental illness to scam the system. Bergland recalled, “Taylor said he didn’t want to work anymore. He’d like to scam the system. He said he’d practiced acting crazy and they’d have to pay him. I never saw him crazy, though.”
Taylor made Keri confirm his mental distress with Dean Witter. He wouldn’t shower or shave for a few days before going to see a psychiatrist. And once in the office, he would babble on about wild ideas and experiences. Keri said that she went along with him to several sessions. She recalled, “I had to drive him to a hospital once. When he got there, he hid in the bushes outside. Some big guys had to come outside and get him. I thought he was faking everything, including the sessions (with the psychiatrists).”
Taylor had decided that just being a stockbroker was too ordinary a life. After going through Impact and Harmony, he had his own plans for America and his place in it. The plans were very nebulous in the beginning—unformed thoughts and schemes that percolated in Taylor’s mind without solid foundation.
To get Keri on his wavelength, Taylor insisted that she go to Harmony in Sacramento. He drove her there without her knowing where she was really going. Keri later said of the experience, “I thought it would make me a better person. That it would change my life. I did become a woman after going through it. I got in touch with myself and my femininity. Able to accept love.”
What happened next depends on statements that Keri made at future dates. And the circumstances vary. In one version, she said that she and Olivia were looking at a Playboy magazine. Half-jokingly, they dared each other to pose nude for Playboy. Keri told Taylor what they were talking about and he said, “Go for it!”
In another version, it was Taylor who came up with the idea and talked her into doing it. Whatever happened, the truth of the matter was that Keri was concerned about the size of her breasts and wanted breast enhancement. The problem was that neither she nor Taylor had the money for this. Each breast enhancement would cost $5,000 per procedure. (Another source would speak of each breast enhancement costing $2,500, for a total of $5,000.)
Eventually Keri went to Taylor’s dad, Gerry, and got a loan to cover half the cost. She had to come up with money elsewhere for the other half. When the operation was completed, Keri’s figure became 34D-26-33.
With her new body, Keri posed nude as Olivia took photos of her in the backyard of the Oak Grove residence. Keri then sent the photos to Playboy. Awhile later, Playboy was impressed with Keri and they had a professional photographer photograph Keri in the nude. Some of the photos that eventually made it into Playboy were of her in-line skating in short shorts wearing a pink top. Another was of her crouching down near a fence with an Irish setter. Another had her posing with a straw hat, see-through pink blouse and tiny pink shorts.
The rest of the photos were the most revealing of all. Keri wore lingerie pulled aside to show her breasts and pubic area, or she wore nothing at all, except for gold-colored sandals. The Playboy article described her as a cross between Pamela Anderson and Claudia Schiffer. Keri said that she liked to think of her new self as a version of Marilyn Monroe. She described Marilyn as being sweet and friendly with everyone, male or female. Of the new her, Keri said that she always wandered around with a huge smile on her face and people wondered what she was so happy about. She responded that she was happy to be alive and had a lot more going for her than she did before.
One thing she wrote about in Playboy—and it’s not certain if she was talking about Taylor or another boyfriend—was a memorable occasion. Keri said that her boyfriend woke her up early one morning and told her he was going to give her a surprise. He told her to go back to sleep and he’d wake her up when he was ready. An hour and a half later, he blindfolded her and led her into the bathroom. Sade was playing on the radio. When he took her blindfold off, the Jacuzzi was filled with milk and little flower-shaped candles. He told her that Cleopatra had milk baths every day and she deserved one as well. Then he bathed her with milk and shaved her legs.
One thing more wa
s added to Keri Furman’s new persona—she called herself Kerissa Fare in the Playboy article.
Not everything was milk and honey at Taylor’s house, however. Even though four other people lived in the house on Oak Grove Road and Taylor didn’t even work, it was decidedly “his house.” Keri said later, “Everybody had to do what he wanted to do. You lived by his rules. Because he went to Harmony, I had to go there, and Olivia and Brandon as well. No one was ever on his level. If you didn’t agree with him, then you ‘just didn’t get it.’ I was putty in his hands. He was coming up with a lot of schemes. Taylor ran the house. Everyone had to live by his rules.”
Whereas Taylor made everyone adhere to his rules and was very vocal about it, Keri said that Justin was quiet and sweet at the Oak Grove home. She said, “Justin was so innocent. He’d be excited by the smallest things. A song he loved. A piece of jewelry. Justin had few material things. He appreciated everything he had.
“He ate organic foods. He was compulsive about his food and health. He wouldn’t even try a cookie from a store. He did yoga and meditation in his bedroom. A lot of times, he was either in his bedroom or at work. He never had a girlfriend when I was there.
“Justin was totally nonviolent. One time I was going to kill a bug. He said, ‘No, take it outside.’ He wouldn’t kill a fly.”
Taylor introduced Keri to the rave scene. By this time, he was using and selling ecstasy at the raves. According to Keri, she didn’t take any drugs at that point. She claimed that she didn’t even take aspirin. But one day she had a terrible headache and Taylor gave her something. A while later, he asked her, “How do you feel?”
“I feel great!” she responded.
“That’s ecstasy,” he said.
From then on, Keri started using ecstasy with Taylor, especially at raves. She liked to dance and ecstasy gave her a feeling of freedom and movement.
At one point, Taylor forced Justin to go to a rave. According to Keri, “Taylor told Justin to watch him deal drugs. Justin didn’t want to do it, but he did it. It was our daily lives to be directed by Taylor. Taylor told him how to think, walk, talk and hold his head up. How to dress. He told Justin, ‘Don’t be flashy with jewelry.’”
