by Robert Scott
Chuck said that he had met “Sharon,” and she had even stayed at his apartment for a couple of days in December 2008. Chuck said that she made it clear that she was very interested in starting a relationship with him and wanted to relocate to Orlando. “She was pretty aggressive about this move, and that was a turnoff to me,” Chuck said.
Hebenstreit asked if Sharon had mentioned a husband dying in Colorado. Chuck said that she had mentioned something about it. And Chuck could not remember Sharon ever telling him her last name. Asked about his financial situation, Chuck said that he was a business owner and had sold two companies in the previous year. One of the businesses he sold was an Arthur Murray dance studio, and he was well-off financially. After Sharon’s insistence about moving to Orlando, he’d had little contact with her. They had only exchanged e-mails from that point forward.
The next day, Chuck phoned Investigator Hebenstreit and said he did remember on one occasion that Sharon told him that her husband had died. She told him that her spouse had died from a brain tumor. It was interesting to Hebenstreit that Sharon didn’t say her husband had died from a heart attack, cancer, or something else. According to her, he had died from something to do with his head—the exact place where Alan had been shot.
Hebenstreit asked if Sharon had said how long in the past it had been that her husband had died. According to Chuck, Sharon said it was about six months previously. That would have put it in the summer of 2008, the time when Alan had died. Chuck asked Sharon if it was okay with her that she was out dating so soon, since not that much time had passed since her husband had died. She told him it was okay, because her husband had been sick for a long time before dying.
Hebenstreit asked Chuck, “Did you and Sharon have intimate relations when she spent the night?”
Chuck replied, “Yes, we did.”
Meanwhile, back in Grand Junction, Colorado, Miriam and her defense lawyer, Steve Colvin, waived her right to a preliminary hearing within the next thirty days. And the local newspapers learned just exactly what the arrest warrant contained. One of the notations by an investigator was that even though Alan Helmick’s body was lying on the kitchen floor next to a .25-caliber shell casing and a wallet, the residence was not greatly disturbed. There were a few desk drawers opened in an adjoining room and an overturned wastebasket. But as the investigator wrote, None of the drawers were on the floor and nothing else appeared disturbed. To the investigator, it was not the usual burglary scene, where many rooms are usually ransacked.
Mesa County pathologist Dr. Robert Kurtzman had also stated an opinion on this matter. He had told the investigators, “We should proceed under the assumption that this was a homicide, based on the scene and condition of the body.” Kurtzman did not believe that it was a suicide.
The reporters were also able to track down an inconsistency in Miriam’s statements. She had told investigators that Alan had been too drunk, after coming home from the Elks Lodge in Delta, to speak on the phone to his daughter, Portia, on the evening before his murder. Bartenders at the Elks Lodge stated that Alan hadn’t been there in four or five months, and a toxicology report after Alan was deceased proved that there was no alcohol in his system.
The newspapers related further about Miriam forging Alan’s checks and keeping all bank representatives from contacting him. They also went into the matter about the greeting card found under the doormat, which stated that Miriam had better run, or she would be next. And, of course, Miriam had bought that card at a local market.
There was a lot of circumstantial evidence against Miriam, but even the affidavit admitted that no gun had been found. Instead, there was a paragraph stating: Alan Helmick likely owned a .25 caliber pistol which could have fired that bullet that killed him. A handgun hasn’t been recovered in the investigation.
CHAPTER 29
EXPERTISE
There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that Miriam had murdered Alan Helmick to cover up the fact that she had been forging his checks and raiding his bank accounts, but there was no concrete evidence that she had murdered him. No confession, no videotape of the act, no gunshot residue traced to her, not even a murder weapon. The prosecution was going to have to convince twelve jurors that she had committed first-degree murder for financial gain. And to do so, they were going to have to convince the same jurors that their list of expert witnesses knew exactly what they were talking about.
To this end, the prosecutors started collecting a list of some of the best in the business. They began with criminal investigator personnel, not unlike the types made so recognizable on the popular television show CSI. One of these was Cynthia Kramer, of the Colorado Department of Public Safety (CDPS). Her main discipline was forensic biology, which dealt with DNA and blood, and she was also a Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) administrator. On her path to being a Level II investigator, Kramer’s education included a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from Colorado State University in 1996, and graduate credits in molecular, cellular and developmental endocrinology from the University of Colorado in 1999.
Kramer’s list of seminars and training had also been vast and varied: everything from Gene Mapper Training, to Shooting Scene Investigation and Reconstruction, to Bloodstain Pattern Analysis. She’d attended national conferences at the FBI on six occasions and had testified in more than a dozen major trials in Colorado.
Shawn West, of CDPS, was just as educated and trained in his field, which mainly dealt with controlled substances. West had received a Bachelor of Science at the University of Colorado and a Master of Science in forensic science–criminalistics from the University of Central Oklahoma. While his main area of expertise dealt with drugs, both legal and illegal, West also had attended various training conferences. These were as disparate as Fire Debris Analysis Training, Gunshot Residue Analysis, Microscopic Hair Analysis, and Fire Debris Analysis. He’d even taken a course called “How Not to Bomb in Court.” In other words, how to stand up to grilling by a defense attorney.
Just as qualified was Barry Shearer, of CDPS. And Shearer was the most international of the lot. Shearer had received a Bachelor of Science in chemistry at the University of Leicester in England and a Master of Science at King’s College London. Shearer’s training had included everything from Secondary and Tertiary Glass Transfer to Use of Statistics in Forensic Science. Shearer had been an expert witness over thirty times in state and federal courts.
Covering the area of hair, fibers, and biological residue for CDPS would be Sheri Murphy. She had a Bachelor of Science from Phillips University and extensive training in Fiber Analysis, Gene Mapping, Hair Analysis and even something called Clandestine Labs Syntheses. For courtroom experience, she wrote down on her reference sheet: Testified numerous times in several district courts in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado in the areas of controlled dangerous substances, serology, hairs and fibers and trace evidence.
The prosecution was going to be covering a lot of bases in the upcoming trial, not just with physical evidence but with psychological profiling as well. And one part of that angle was going to be Special Agent Robert Morton, of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. As Morton noted in his reference: NCAVC serves as a resource for federal, state and local law enforcement officials in the investigation of bizarre, unusual and repetitive crimes, including serial murder, homicide cases, child abductions, kidnappings and terrorism. Morton noted that he had been consulted by law enforcement agencies in hundreds of these types of cases.
Agent Morton stated that he was actively involved with research on serial murder and sexually motivated homicides. He was also the primary editor on the FBI Serial Murder Monograph. By 2009, he’d been a senior crime scene analyst for over ten years.
Even a criminal investigator from the United States Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory (USACIL) was going to be called upon. This was Shauna Steffan, who was a physical scientist with a Master of Science in forensic sciences from the University of New Haven, i
n Connecticut. Steffan was skilled in Evidence Photography, Crime Scene Reconstruction and Fingerprint Identification. She had even taught courses in Crime Scene Search and Preservation for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
The most exotic and specialized member of the group was Lieutenant Tracy Harpster, of the Moraine Police Department (Moraine PD) in Ohio. Harpster specialized in 911 homicide calls. In that capacity, Harpster taught courses to law enforcement agencies around the country about people calling 911 and reporting incidents as robberies and suicides—when, in actuality, the person calling in had committed homicide. And that is exactly what the prosecution was alleging with Miriam Helmick. Harpster had even been published on this subject, with titles such as “The Nature of 911 Homicide Calls to Identify Indicators of Innocence and Guilt” and “Is the Caller a Killer?”
MCSO had recently dealt with the Michael Blagg case, where Michael called a 911 operator about a supposed home invasion when he returned home from work and found his wife and daughter missing. As with Miriam’s call to a 911 operator, Michael did not act like the usual person who was faced with similar circumstances. There were times he seemed to be acting.
And of the supposed robbery in the Blagg home, it was determined that Michael Blagg had pretended that a break-in had occurred and his wife and daughter ended up missing. Blagg, however, did not know how to stage a robbery to make it look convincing. As far as the prosecution in Miriam’s case went, they believed the same thing had occurred at the Helmick residence in Whitewater. They conjectured that Miriam had opened a few drawers, got rid of a few pieces of jewelry, and knocked over a wastepaper basket.
Just what Miriam’s state of mind was in 2009 as she went through the pretrial process was best ascertained by a recorded phone call she made. It was to her brother in Florida. A recorded voice came on the line stating, “Hello, this is a collect call from Miriam, an inmate at Mesa County Jail. This call is subject to recording and monitoring.”
Miriam asked how her brother was, and he said he was doing fine. Then Miriam said that she was sorry it was so late at night, Florida time, but it was the only time she was able to make a phone call. Miriam began by saying, “I wanted to let you know that we had our pretrial hearing yesterday. And 48 Hours was there. They’re doing something on Sunday. It looks really, really, really bad [about me]. But it’s not really bad (what’s occurring in court). In fact, we’re optimistic.”
To all of Miriam’s conversation, her brother barely said a word, except to say “Um-hmm,” or “Okay.” Miriam went on, “We’re extremely optimistic because my attorney said something about me leaving here (jail) by Christmas. Our trial’s not until November. We put it off to November because there’s some work we have to do. The main thing that we did Friday was to do fact-finding, which we really did well. There’s a lot to be desired from the sheriff ’s office here.
“I wanted you to see if you can call Chris and let him know there’s nothing I can do about 48 Hours doing this thing. It’s ugly! And there’s some stuff in there you would not believe! We’re still trying to figure out . . . Well, it sounds worse than it is. And, um, we can’t tip our hand.
“I can say, they (48 Hours) did ask the detective when they first started looking at me. And he pretty much said they never looked at anyone else. Part of the evidence—they (Miriam’s defense team) are going to try to get thrown out. There were things that really made my attorney optimistic. He told me, ‘Don’t read the newspaper.’ It will just depress me. ‘I want you to stay focused. We have a lot of work to do. And, hopefully, you’ll be out of here by Christmas.’”
Miriam wondered if the 48 Hours segment would not be on until her brother and his family got out of church on Sunday evening. He thought it would still be on when they returned home.
Miriam continued, “The way they brought it (the story) out, well, because we didn’t do objections, they were able to bring it out any way they wanted. I was furious. I wanted to jump up and down! But my lawyers told me to have a poker face the whole time.”
Her brother said one of the people on Miriam’s defense team had called him, and that it was a woman. Miriam replied, “Yeah, she’s really a sweet lady. She’s a good detective. She’s the [attorney’s] investigator. I’ll put it this way. I can tell you that Portia got on the stand and lied.” (This had happened at a pretrial hearing.)
Then Miriam was very excited about the next bit of news. “The gunshot residue test came back. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! So they can’t place me there (at the murder scene). I’m only telling you stuff that can be verified. Our neighbor saw Alan out at the barn at eight A.M. I was gone by eight-thirty.”
Her brother said he’d heard it was a weak case, and Miriam replied, “It’s a very weak case. After Friday’s hearing, I was walking on air. When the newspaper came out with a story—it still couldn’t pull me down.
“I need to do more outside exercise. Keep my muscles in shape. When I leave here, I don’t want to be an old woman. Anyway, I’ve decided I’m going to take advantage of this 48 Hours thing. Whoever the highest bidder is, I’ll give them an interview at the end, and that [money] will go to Mother and Daddy. And then I’ll write whatever I need to write, book-wise or whatever. And that goes to paying back everybody that needs to be paid. And giving Chris school money.”
Miriam then said, “They (the police) wouldn’t give me back my ID. I couldn’t apply for welfare or Social Security or even get an old 401(k). I couldn’t get my driver’s license.”
And then switching gears very quickly, she declared, “They (Miriam’s lawyers) are going to put me on the stand. Because they say a lot of the things have to be explained. And they figure I’m the one to explain them, because I’m the one who knows them best.”
After that, her brother and Miriam talked for a while about his children. But Miriam really wanted to get back to what concerned her most, her present situation. “If Chris watches, or anybody watches . . . I’m really concerned about what he would see [on the show] and what he would say. I just want to get this over with.”
Once again, her brother said that the Mesa County detective who came to Florida did not impress him. Miriam chimed in and said, “Well, they haven’t impressed me, either.”
Her brother added that a detective wanted to meet him at work to talk about Miriam. He finally said that they could meet for lunch near his place of work. He waited fifteen minutes there, at the appointed time, and then the detective said that he couldn’t make it. The detective called and said he had been detained. Miriam’s brother thought this attitude was very unprofessional.
Miriam replied, “I know what you’re talking about. He’s the one who . . . Well, we’ve had some interesting dealings with him.”
Miriam’s brother may not have been impressed with the MCSO detectives, and Miriam was unimpressed as well. They might have been more impressed, however, if they’d known just how hard the detectives had been working on the case, and how much information they already had.
CHAPTER 30
A MOVIE AND A CAR FIRE
By the time of Miriam’s second phone call to her brother from the Mesa County Jail, she was not as optimistic as she had been on the first phone call. And once again, Miriam did most of the talking. She began by saying, “Sorry I didn’t call earlier. Have you kept in touch with my attorney?”
Her brother replied that he hadn’t talked to Steve Colvin in a while. Miriam continued, “Things are sort of happening here. We have a bunch of motions coming up and I wrote you about the Barbara Watts thing. And well . . . nobody has ever read me my rights. Not ever in Florida. So anything they got during that time can’t be used.” (This allegation of a Miranda violation was according to Miriam.)
“And, um, going back to the situation in Delta, the fibers they were trying to hang me on didn’t match. Nothing of the tests they’ve done have come back their way. I didn’t think they would.” (Perhaps there had been some clothing fibers near the wick, which Miriam was referenci
ng.)
Her brother said, “Well, you’ve got to jump through hoops.”
Miriam agreed, and then replied, “The wheels of justice don’t move fast like you see on TV. But my attorney seems to be very pleased with the motions. Nightline has been in contact with me. Because they’re getting things they know are wrong. Delta didn’t have a case (against me) because Alan told them I was with him the whole time. They conjured up their stuff.
“I’m starting my second novel. That’s the honest truth.” Miriam laughed aloud. “I’ve always wanted to write. When they didn’t replace the books here after five months . . . I read every single one of them about four times. Finally I did what I should have done when I was younger. Sit down and write my own novel. I did it. And it was fun. I mean there’s more to be done. Editing and things like that. It was written by hand, so it needs to be typed up.
“It kept me busy for a month. And I’ve got even more months before, well, dismissing this thing. Because when they arrested me . . . The minute they thought I was a suspect, and started digging through garbage cans . . . Well, that’s why they considered me a suspect.
“Even when Chris was there, they lied to me and told me they wanted me to give them some stuff. The autopsy report showed Alan had such bad heart disease . . . but the family tried to get me for poisoning. The autopsy showed that his heart was so bad he shouldn’t have been alive. But they arrested me on that one, anyway.” (Miriam was referring to the poisoning charge.) “That was part of their arrest warrant. Smells fishy, doesn’t it?”
Her brother asked, “If they did everything bogus, do you have the right to sue them?”
Miriam responded, “Oh, I’ve already got that started. I can use the attorneys here or I can use the ACLU. Because they held my driver’s license, birth certificate, everything that I had that defined me as a citizen. They held those and wouldn’t give them back to me, even after repeated requests.
