And Then She Killed Him (27 page)

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Authors: Robert Scott

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BOOK: And Then She Killed Him
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C
HAPTER 43
T
HE
S
PARKS
B
EGIN TO
F
LY
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 being 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.”
C
HAPTER 44
“A C
AT-AND
-M
OUSE
G
AME
”
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?”
“I didn’t watch the movie. I didn’t do it.”
“So it’s just a coincidence?”
“It would have to be.”
 
And now, Richard Tuttle got to the important aspect of the greeting card under the doormat at the Helmicks’ residence in Whitewater. The prosecutor had Miriam agree that she had purchased a greeting card on June 22, 2008. She would have had a hard time denying it, since she was caught on store security videotape.
Tuttle asked, “That’s the day you planned this whole thing to pull a ruse on the sheriff ’s department that somebody was out to get you and they had planted a card at your door. You started on June twenty-second by purchasing the card, correct?”
Miriam answered, “Yes.”
“And the murder was on June tenth. That’s a passage of just twelve days. What about the police interview of June nineteenth at your house?”
Miriam answered that an officer there had been “mean to her.” So Tuttle asked what she meant by this, and Miriam said, “He spoke to me in a very mean-spirited way.”
Tuttle countered, “You know that, that conversation was recorded?”
Miriam said that she hadn’t known that, and then she added that the officer had spoken that way after he had left the house, so he probably hadn’t had the tape recorder on at that time.
Asked about housekeeper Trish Erikson’s testimony, Tuttle wanted to know why Erikson would say that Miriam and Alan had had an argument on the day before he died. Miriam disagreed with Trish’s comments and said that she had not had a spat with Alan that day. She added, “I was just irritated with the way he wanted things done. I didn’t argue with him over it.”
Tuttle countered, “Ms. Erikson indicated that she had never been in the house when it was like that before.”
“Well, she only comes in the house once a month. She doesn’t see me enough.”
As far as canceling the horseback-riding lesson for Portia Vigil’s daughter, Tuttle said, “You told her a falsehood, correct?”
Miriam answered, “I told her what Alan asked me to tell her.”
“What about that he went to the Delta Elks Lodge, instead of stopping to see Portia, he got drunk, drove home, and had you put him to bed early. That was his creation?”
“That was his creation. But I didn’t say he got drunk. I said he had a bit too much to drink.”
“Would you agree, Ms. Helmick, that’s a pretty elaborate lie for him to concoct on his own?”
Miriam responded by asking a question: “Why couldn’t he do it on his own?”
“Well, it’s a pretty elaborate lie. And this is a man who was sick a large part of the year. Why didn’t he just say to Portia, ‘I’m sick,’ if he wanted to pull something over on her?”
“I have no clue.”
“In fact, at the time you told Portia that, you didn’t know that we would be able to talk to Chris Ranker and confirm that Alan never went to the Delta Elks Lodge that day, right?”
“I mean, I would have no . . . Why?”
“Would you agree that you were caught in a number of mistruths on what was going on in the afternoon and evening of June 9, 2008?”
“I just repeated what he asked me to say. I wasn’t happy about it.”
“You didn’t communicate to law enforcement on June 10, 2008, this whole elaborate set of mistruths that Alan supposedly directed you to say. You didn’t think it was important on June tenth after he was murdered?”
“There was a lot going on that day for me to remember everything.”
 
Richard Tuttle’s questioning of Miriam Helmick had been very pointed and unrelenting on December 3, and it only intensified the next day of testimony on December 4, 2009. Right off the bat, he questioned Miriam’s testimony that she only had contacted one person about dating in Florida, Charles Kirkpatrick. Tuttle now asked if she had actually contacted another man, named David Benables. (There was some confusion as to whether the last name was Benables or Venables.) Tuttle contended that she had contacted David by phone.
Miriam said she didn’t recall that name, and Tuttle countered it should have been easy to do so. David was rich, and had an English accent. Once again, Miriam said that the only man she remembered talking to on the phone was Charles Kirkpatrick.
Tuttle once again zeroed in on the greeting card placed under the doormat, and he wanted to know why Miriam had placed it there. Miriam responded, “The reason was that I didn’t think that they (law enforcement) were paying attention to me, especially after I reported the white truck the first time. Nobody bothered to ask me about it, come out and check on it, and I didn’t think they would believe me a second time. So I did the note to see if it would call their attention to the property.”
Tuttle related that law enforcement couldn’t respond directly to her, because she had already asked that everything go through her lawyer. And Investigator Jim Hebenstreit had even contacted the lawyer about this so-called white truck that was prowling around the Helmick home. Miriam said, “She didn’t tell me that they had done anything about it.”
Tuttle continued that Miriam had the opportunity to talk to Investigator Mike Piechota about the white truck on June 19, when he was out at the Helmick residence, and she hadn’t done so. Miriam claimed that on that occasion her lawyer had told her not to have a conversation with anyone associated with the investigation team.
Now Tuttle tried tripping Miriam up on her description of the driver of the white truck. She had testified on direct that the man had light-colored, curly hair. But when she spoke with her neighbor Josh Devries, she said the driver had curly black hair. Miriam responded that Devries must have heard wrong and that she always claimed the driver had light-colored, curly hair.
As far as being afraid of this driver, Katie Turcotte had testified earlier that Miriam told her that she was putting powder down on floors, to see if anyone disturbed the powder. Miriam testified now that Turcotte had gotten this wrong. Miriam had only talked about doing that, but she had never actually carried out the plan.
Tuttle was very skeptical about what he called a “cat-and-mouse game” between the supposed “real killer” and Miriam. Tuttle wanted to know if anything was stolen from the house when the person was supposedly coming inside the home after Alan’s murder and disturbing things there. Miriam answered that she didn’t notice anything that was stolen.
Tuttle asked her about some comments she had made at the time that she wished the killer would just come in and kill her as well. Miriam answered, “Half the time I wished that he did come back. I was having a tough time surviving. If he had come back, I probably wouldn’t have cared.”

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