by Robert Scott
But Tuttle got Miriam to agree that a trail horse and a dressage horse-training business were a lot different. And Tuttle got Miriam to agree that Alan never did take dressage lessons, only she did.
Changing subjects, Richard Tuttle asked if her relationship with Charles Kirkpatrick had moved along just as quickly as her relationship had with Alan Helmick. Miriam said that her time with Kirkpatrick was not a relationship. She described it as a fling.
Tuttle rejoined, “You were exchanging e-mails with him on MillionaireMatch-dot-com. And you saw how many assets he had, correct?”
Miriam replied, “I actually didn’t look at his assets.” Tuttle responded with mock surprise. “Oh, you didn’t look at his assets?”
“No, I was looking at more of what we had in common. His income wasn’t actually all that important. He liked to dance and do those kind of things.”
Now Tuttle was very scornful. “So his income was inconsequential to you?”
Miriam said, “That’s correct.”
“But, in fact, you were trying to build yourself up to fit the profile. There was that [admission that] you were a 2007 Western Colorado Dressage Champion?”
Miriam replied, “Actually, Shadow was a 2006 Grand Valley Dressage Horse of the Year.”
“You talked about working for three CFOs of three Fortune 500 companies, correct? That wasn’t true?”
Miriam answered, “I did work for CFOs of Fortune 500 companies. Regency Centers, a real estate investment trust, [and] for a publicly traded railroad, and the Southeastern Development Company.” Miriam said that she worked as an assistant to the president of that company, but she could only recall his last name as being Morgan.
Tuttle was skeptical of this, and also skeptical when Miriam said that she had been a chef at one time. Tuttle asked, “You didn’t actually work as a chef, did you?”
Miriam replied, “My dad taught me how to cook. My dad was a chef in the military.” And then Miriam finally admitted that she hadn’t worked as a chef.
Tuttle asked if her story now was that she had not been interested in Charles Kirkpatrick. Miriam answered that she hadn’t been. So Tuttle asked why she had spent several days with him in Orlando if she wasn’t interested. Miriam answered that she had only spent two days with Kirkpatrick.
Tuttle wouldn’t let her off on this. “He didn’t hold you prisoner there. Would you agree with me that shows quite a bit of interest in somebody that you just met for the first time?”
Miriam said in her mind that it did not. So Tuttle asked, “You weren’t interested in his money?” Miriam replied that she wasn’t. Sarcastically Tuttle replied, “Well, he’s not exactly Brad Pitt. Would you agree with that?” Miriam did agree.
Getting back to the unattended house in Whitewater, Colorado, Tuttle questioned if Miriam was so worried about someone sneaking into the house, why had she abandoned it so that someone could go in there at any time. Miriam replied that Katie Turcotte was keeping an eye on the house.
Shifting gears, Rich Tuttle asked, “Do you recall telling Jeri Yarbrough two days after Alan was murdered—well, actually joking—about how you didn’t know a full tank of gas would not blow up?”
Miriam responded, “I wasn’t joking, but I do remember saying that.”
“Do you remember telling her that Alan was being an asshole for the last two weeks?”
“Yes, I do.”
“This is the love of your life who just had been murdered?”
“Yes.”
“Pretty harsh words two days after he was murdered. Would you agree with that?”
Miriam replied, “It was just responding to a question that she asked in the conversation. I wouldn’t have just blurted it out.”
Getting back to the house, Tuttle asked why Miriam had lived there for six days after the murder: “With blood all over the kitchen floor?”
Miriam answered, “I didn’t think it would be that way when I came home, because that’s not how it was when I left.”
“Well, everybody else seems to have been shocked by that blood on the floor, except you. Would you agree with that?”
Miriam said that she had been shocked by the blood on the floor, and that’s why she hadn’t cleaned it up. It was too traumatic for her to do so, Miriam claimed. Tuttle wanted to know why she hadn’t expressed that to others. Miriam asked a question of her own. She wanted to know what “others” Tuttle was talking about. So Tuttle listed them: “Merredith Von Burg, Katie Turcotte, Penny Lyons.”
Miriam didn’t reply directly to this, but she answered that she had tried to clean up the blood. So Tuttle asked how she had done that. Miriam answered that she had tried getting down on her hands and knees to clean it up. Then she added, “I couldn’t stay around it. I tried not going into that room as much as possible. If anyone came to the house, I asked them not to go into the kitchen.”
CHAPTER 43
THE SPARKS BEGIN TO FLY
Turning to bills and checks, ADA Rich Tuttle questioned Miriam as to why she had never told anyone in law enforcement that on occasion she wrote out checks for Alan Helmick. In fact, she had stated early on to an investigator, “He writes all the bills. He pays everything and just gives me a little bit of money. Everything’s in his name and he takes care of everything.” Tuttle now queried, “You never told them that in the past year you had written eleven separate checks for over forty thousand on his accounts?”
Miriam replied, “I didn’t think that was very important at the time. We were talking about his death.”
Tuttle wouldn’t let her off the hook about Alan’s checks. He said, “Would you agree that it’s rather unusual when you’re taking a check out of a check register to pull out the stub as well?”
Miriam answered that it had been Alan who had done that, and then he handed her the checks.
Tuttle was extremely skeptical about that explanation and said, “So he took the check stub out so he couldn’t keep track of what happened to the check?”
This brought an immediate objection from Jody McGuirk; a sidebar ensued. Outside the hearing of the jury, McGuirk said, “It’s speculation because you’re asking her to explain why Alan took the stubs out.”
Tuttle countered with, “I just asked if she would consider it unusual to take the check stubs out. That’s a perfectly legitimate question.”
Judge Robison replied, “Well, the question that I recall is why Alan would have taken the check stubs out. What I’m going to do at this point is sustain the objection and ask you to rephrase your question.”
When that was over, Tuttle did rephrase his question and asked, “Ms. Helmick, you’ve testified that Alan gave you permission to write each of these eleven checks. Is that correct?” Miriam said that was true, so Tuttle continued his questioning. “Did Alan also give you an explanation as to why he was giving you not only the check, but the check stubs as well?”
Miriam responded, “No. I mean, I took them down to the studio, separated them, and put them in an envelope so that we’d have them down there.”
Tuttle wasn’t buying this explanation, either, and said, “Would you agree that looks like somebody who is trying to write checks on another person’s account and hide it by taking out the check stub?”
Not surprisingly, Miriam answered, “No.”
“Do you know why Alan, or yourself, would take checks out of the middle of a checkbook?”
Miriam replied, “I don’t know why he did it. He just handed me the checks.”
“And Alan’s not with us anymore, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And he can’t come in here and dispute anything you say that he said. Is that correct?”
“No, he cannot.”
Moving on to the dance studio, Rich Tuttle said that Dance Junction was a very unprofitable business and Miriam agreed. But once again, she added that Alan had purchased the business to be a tax write-off, and because he knew how much she liked to dance. There was no sense of Dance Junction be
ing financially successful, according to Miriam, if Alan Helmick wanted to use it as a tax write-off.
Tuttle responded, “Well, that’s a pretty big thing to do for tax purposes. He lost fifty-seven thousand dollars on Dance Junction in 2005. And he lost another twenty-one thousand in 2006.” Miriam agreed with those figures.
The horse business had been a losing proposition for Alan Helmick as well. Miriam testified that just three horses cost $18,000, and the riding arena cost $15,000. On top of that, Stephanie Soule was being paid about $2,000 every month. Tuttle wanted to know why Alan was spending so much money on all of this, if he just wanted a horse to ride into the backcountry to go camping.
Miriam replied, “Actually, all I wanted was a horse to ride and some lessons, and he took it from there. There was a lot of work involved, and he told me he would do it with me. He negotiated everything.”
Tuttle asked if Miriam knew that the dance studio and the horse-training center were losing businesses that were running Alan into the ground. She answered by saying, “I knew that he made no profit from them.”
So Tuttle said, “You knew that things were not going well financially in the Helmick residence at the time of his death, correct?”
Miriam responded, “That is not correct.”
“Let’s get this straight! Arvin Eby comes over on a Thursday or Friday, June fifth or sixth, with the first delivery of two loads of hay, where he was paid forty-eight hundred dollars. He was given a check. And he went to the bank, and the bank wouldn’t accept it. And according to Arvin Eby, you later told him that there were stolen or forged checks on that account, and that was the problem. Do you remember saying that?”
Miriam replied, “I didn’t say it quite like that. Alan told him that he had lost some checks and that there was a hold on the account. That’s all I knew at that point.”
Moving on to the insurance policy, Tuttle said, “Twenty-five thousand dollars to a person who came to town in 2005 with a couple of suitcases, two small dogs, and very little money—[that] is quite a bit of money. Would you agree with that?”
Miriam didn’t agree. So Tuttle asked her, “How much did you have in your pocket when you hit town in 2005?”
Miriam replied, “Probably about six hundred dollars.”
“And so twenty-five thousand is quite a bit of money compared to six hundred. Would you agree with that?”
Miriam answered, “Compared to six hundred dollars, yes.”
“You never mentioned that twenty-five thousand to the detectives?”
“When we first talked about taking out the insurance policy, I didn’t realize it was even there.”
“Well, in fact, you were calling the insurance agent before Alan was even buried. Isn’t that correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“You called the agent on June 16, 2008, the day before the funeral?”
Miriam responded, “I had found paperwork in Alan’s drawer.”
Once again, Tuttle wanted to know why insurance agent Elizabeth Callister had said that Miriam had phoned her about getting a million-dollar life insurance policy on Alan. Tuttle added, “You testified, ‘She ultimately told me that he was too old to get a million-dollar policy and that we had to settle for getting a twenty-five thousand dollar policy.’ Do you remember that?”
Miriam said that she didn’t recall those words. Tuttle responded, “You heard Elizabeth Callister very clearly say that you wanted to do it without Alan’s knowledge.” Miriam responded that she had not said those exact words.
Miriam claimed now that she was trying to get the life insurance policy because one of Alan’s investors wanted a policy, just in case something should happen to Alan. Miriam said that the person who requested it would be the beneficiary, and not her, if Alan died.
Tuttle countered, “Alan threw a lot of money at your interests and hobbies, didn’t he? Things like dancing, horses, that sort of thing.”
Miriam replied, “He didn’t throw it at me. He gave it when he felt like it.”
“Okay, he gave it for your benefit, and that was all coming to an end, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
Rich Tuttle wanted to know why Miriam testified that it was Alan who had searched about medicines and poisons on the Internet. Miriam responded that she didn’t know why he did those things, and she added, “I don’t know what he did in the wee hours of the morning. I know that we discussed looking up his medications.”
As to why Alan would be looking on the Internet about euthanasia procedures on a horse, since they weren’t planning to put one down at that time, Miriam said, “The only thing I can think of is he questioned some of the things on a bill about a horse.”
Tuttle then asked a very pointed question. Why would Alan Helmick be looking up painkiller overdoses on Miriam’s computer? And, as usual, Miriam had an answer for everything. She said that Alan was having problems with his computer connecting to the Internet.
Tuttle countered, “Mike Piechota testified there was no evidence that the Internet was problematic on Alan’s computer during this time period. Mike Piechota’s just wrong?”
Miriam answered, “I don’t know. I’m not saying Mike Piechota’s wrong. What I’m saying is that Alan couldn’t pull up his Internet at all. His wireless wasn’t working. He couldn’t even get the front page when you get on.”
Tuttle was very skeptical that Alan had been searching on Miriam’s computer about overdoses from Halcion, Ambien CR, and Lisinopril. Miriam stuck to her guns, however, and said that he must have, because she hadn’t done so.
Tuttle exclaimed, “So it’s just a coincidence that those drug overdose searches are sandwiched between the car fire on April thirtieth and his murder on June tenth!”
Miriam answered, “I can’t tell you that.”
CHAPTER 44
“A CAT-AND-MOUSE GAME”
Richard Tuttle moved on to why Miriam started passing herself off as Sharon Helmick after moving out of Colorado and heading back to Florida. Once again, Miriam claimed that it was because she couldn’t get her purse from the sheriff ’s office to retrieve her driver’s license. And without a driver’s license, she couldn’t get a copy of her birth certificate.
Tuttle replied, “You didn’t just use her name. You assumed her entire identity. Isn’t that correct?”
Miriam said, “What was on her license, yes.”
“On your employment application, you said you went to Delta High School, correct?”
“I may have. I don’t remember.”
“Okay, so it wasn’t just her name. You were living as Sharon Helmick, correct?”
“Okay. Yes.”
“And you pawned at least one item of jewelry under the name Sharon Helmick, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Even when you went on these dating Web sites, you were Sharon. You weren’t Miriam. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Where were you born?”
“Jacksonville, Florida.”
“What efforts did you make to get a duplicate driver’s license?” (ADA Tuttle meant with the name of Miriam.)
Miriam said she had tried in Colorado, so Tuttle said, “At no other time, you asked for your driver’s license back after June 2008?”
Miriam responded, “How many times did I need to ask for it?”
Moving on from that topic, Richard Tuttle asked, “You didn’t disclose to the detectives [that] there had been an arson attempt on your husband’s life, until they asked whether you had any prior law enforcement contacts, did you? You didn’t blurt out, ‘Somebody tried to kill him just forty days ago!’ What was the story behind that?”
Miriam claimed, “I don’t remember most of the conversations they asked me about. That was a hard day. I wasn’t thinking normally.”
“Well, Ms. Helmick, you seemed to be tracking their questions pretty well that day. Would you agree with that?”
“I really don’t know. I don’t
think so. I mean, I answered their questions. Obviously, I didn’t answer them the way you wanted me to answer them.”
“Is it still your statement that you never actually got back to the back of the trunk?” (Tuttle was referring to the car fire incident.)
“No, I didn’t.”
“So, in the time that you asked him to pop the trunk and then left to run back inside the building to use the restroom, somebody else came to the back of the car, stuck a wick there, lit it, and tried to blow him up?”
“I have no clue when it was.”
“So, in a matter of just a few minutes, some arsonist is out there waiting for you to go into the ladies’ room and they seize those few minutes of time, go to the back of the popped-up trunk area, put a wick that’s burning into a gas tank, and try to blow him up? That’s your story?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Okay. Well, does that make sense to you?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“In fact, you were a suspect in that case from the very get-go, correct?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Miriam, who had countered all of Tuttle’s questions with quick replies, now seemed to be staggering from the onslaught. She was like a boxer who had taken numerous punches, and was just trying to stay in the ring.
Tuttle wanted to know if the smell of gasoline on Miriam’s hand had anything to do with the fact that she had just watched the movie No Country for Old Men. In that movie, a character had placed a wick into a gas tank and blew up a car. Miriam once again said that she had not watched that movie; Alan must have done so.
Tuttle wasn’t buying Miriam’s answer, and questioned, “Do you think it’s just a coincidence that you’re in the exact same position as the villain in No Country for Old Men, a movie that was rented in your house four days before this arson attempt?”
