by Robert Scott
Cook responded, “Mr. Jewett is full of nonsense, and he knows it. The defense had turned over more than is required by law. I have never received a report from Dr. Dolgoff, therefore I cannot submit something I do not have.”
Dr. Stephen Raffle took the stand for the defense. He had a B.S. in physiology from UC Berkeley, and attended the Chicago School of Medicine and also taught for eleven years at the Hastings School of Law. In his career, he had studied somewhere between three thousand and five thousand cases. In the 1990s, he was an expert witness in ten murder trials.
Jewett asked him during voir dire, “How many times have you testified to the diagnosis of shared delusional disorder?”
Raffle admitted, “Never.”
Hoehn noted that Dr. Raffle had interviewed Justin Helzer five times in jail in 2003, and one time in 2004. After these interviews, Dr. Raffle came to several conclusions about Justin. One was that Justin had a delusional disorder with Axis 1—a current or recent onset of the disorder—and Axis 4—psychosocial stressors, i.e., fired from a job, which brought on depression. He also concluded that Justin was afflicted with the rare but severe shared delusional disorder. Dr. Raffle explained this as being when two people are in an extremely close relationship, and there is one active dominant person. The active person already has a delusional disorder, and the passive person develops the shared delusional disorder so as not to lose the active dominant person from their life.
Dr. Raffle said that Justin lost his own grip on reality when Taylor had a mental breakdown. To prove that Justin was insane, Raffle administered the MMPI test on him, which is the standard psychiatric test worldwide. He also checked to make sure that Justin was not malingering or faking his insanity. To do this, Dr. Raffle compared his notes with four other doctors. All of the reports stated that Justin was telling the truth during interviews.
To further check into the possibility of shared delusional disorder, Dr. Raffle had two meetings with Taylor Helzer in the Martinez County Jail. He noted that Taylor talked very fast, as if he were on meth, even though he hadn’t had any in a while. Taylor couldn’t seem to concentrate on any one subject for any prolonged period of time. Raffle said, “He was restless, nervous and jittery.”
Taylor explained to Dr. Raffle at one point that the way he dealt with voices in his head was by shouting at them. Dr. Raffle concluded that Taylor was a borderline neurotic and psychotic. He also surmised that Taylor’s afflictions had been visited upon Justin’s fragile ego.
Hoehn asked, “How could a person (Justin) with no criminal record, after twenty-eight years, just lose their moral compass?”
Dr. Raffle answered, “Justin became delusional, believing that Taylor was a prophet of God, and that Satan embodied the United States government.”
Hoehn asked why Dr. Raffle’s diagnosis was at odds with portions of those submitted by Dr. Good and Dr. Carol Walzer. Raffle said that those doctors had only seen Justin for two hours, while he had spent thirteen hours with him. Therefore, he had a much clearer idea of the severity of Justin’s mental problems. He also said that neither one of those doctors had obtained a history of Justin’s state of mind directly after the crimes had been committed. Nor had they looked into Justin’s family background. Had they done so, they would have noted that there were mental problems in Justin’s extended family.
One comment by Dr. Raffle was a two-edged sword. He claimed that Justin did understand that what he had done was legally wrong, but he did not understand that it was morally wrong. According to Dr. Raffle’s reading of the California code on insanity, a perpetrator had to understand that what he was doing was both legally and morally wrong.
As for Children of Thunder, Dr. Raffle said the hierarchy of that organization was already familiar to Justin. Justin recognized its similarities to the hierarchy of the Latter-Day Saints Church. It was a hierarchy he could be comfortable with.
On cross-examination, Jewett zeroed in on what he saw as Dr. Raffle’s shortcomings in the process:
Jewett: No tests, no written reports, were viewed by you before Justin’s NGI (not guilty by reason of insanity plea) in October 2003. Is that correct?
Raffle: Yes.
Jewett: So only after Justin entered a NGI plea, is when you began to review reports on Justin’s insanity?
Raffle: True.
Jewett: At any time during the interview, did Justin tell you Taylor was hearing voices?
Raffle: No.
Jewett: In fact, Justin specifically told you that Taylor did not actually hear any voices, but instead they were more like thoughts?
Raffle: Yes.
Jewett made Dr. Raffle confirm many things that Justin had said about Taylor and about his own views as well. Dr. Raffle had noted that Justin said:
“Taylor didn’t really know if the Spirit revelations were true or not. Taylor was weighing it all and using me as a sounding board. There’s no right way, just differences. As an example, a drunk driver who hits a pedestrian is not entirely at fault. The pedestrian put themselves in the way too and was partly to blame. It was a karmic reaction.
“I first thought that Taylor was a little nuts. But then I decided the ends justify the means. Selling dope was okay because it really wasn’t hurting anyone and we needed the money to save America from destruction.
“Killing for greed, laziness or self-indulgence is not right, but killing for God’s work, to better the People, is good. God didn’t command us to kill, but he gave us the green light.”
After Justin was arrested, he admitted, “Being in jail caused me to rethink my beliefs in Taylor. I started to believe my brother wasn’t a prophet of God, but a devil in disguise. Otherwise, things would have turned out okay and we wouldn’t be here in jail.”
The trial on Tuesday, June 29, was delayed on Cook’s request, and for a very good reason. During the late-night hours, around midnight, Justin’s cell was searched and it was discovered that he had been hoarding some medication. When the jailer asked him if he was contemplating suicide, he refused to answer.
According to Cook, deputies removed Justin from his cell and placed him in a padded room. They used leg irons to shackle him to the floor and took away his pillow and blanket. With those items gone, Justin hadn’t slept all night long.
Cook related that Justin kept asking to speak with his lawyer, but he was never granted that privilege. He did speak with his mother sometime around 1:00 A.M., and she called Cook’s office and left a message there.
Cook said, “I find it odd that these interrogators, whatever their motivation, would find the need to hurry to court, and alert the court about this, but at the same time would not call Justin’s lawyer.”
Judge O’Malley interrupted Cook and said, “I don’t know all the facts yet because they are still coming out.”
She paused for a moment and then said, “Mr. Cook, I was just given the incident report by my bailiff. In reading the information in here, it looks like your client was asked a question whether he was suicidal, and your client refused to answer. Martinez County Jail has a policy, when they suspect prisoners may be suicidal, that they take them to a padded room and take away instruments and objects from them, such as a pillow or blanket, so as not to harm themselves in any way.
“All Justin had to do was answer the question. He would have either been in a padded room or remained in his jail cell. Because your client refused to answer the question, the sheriff’s deputies had no choice but to follow protocol and place him in a suicide watch. They checked on him every fifteen minutes, and wrote a brief report every fifteen minutes.
“Even as recent as seven-twenty A.M., the sheriff’s deputies asked if your client was suicidal. He refused to answer the question and stated that he wanted to talk to his lawyer before he answered the question.
“I even gave your client an additional thirty minutes this morning before court, between nine and nine-thirty A.M., to shower and get cleaned up while we were waiting. It turns out that your client refuse
d to shower as well.”
Cook replied, “I am puzzled just as well as the court why someone would refuse to take a shower. But I do know that because Justin was forced to sleep on the floor with shackles around his ankles, without a pillow or blanket, Mr. Helzer (Justin) is very upset and extremely tired, due to not getting any sleep all last night. Because my client is very tired and also very upset, Mr. Helzer is unable to focus on the trial today and cannot listen to the testimony that would be given. Mr. Helzer is also unable to assist his counsel with his defense, due to his tiredness and lack of sleep. I ask the court to delay this trial while I get the rest of the facts and my client’s status changes.”
Judge O’Malley countered, “It is nine-thirty A.M. now. As long as your client refuses to answer the question, then your client’s status is not going to change! This is not something we’re going to be dealing with every day. So I suggest you talk with your client after we recess. I will excuse the jury for today and order them to come back tomorrow at nine A.M.”
Court did resume the next day without the jurors ever knowing what had happened on the previous day. Dr. Raffle admitted that Justin had scored in the top 75 percent of the population on the Wexler IQ test. Raffle also admitted that he had no opinion on what negative effect Impact and Harmony might have had on Justin. He did say, “Justin was a loner and okay by himself. But (Taylor) declared war on Satan. Justin said after that, ‘Soldiers kill, they don’t murder.’ Justin knew it was legally wrong, but not morally wrong to do what they planned. In Justin’s mind, there was a difference between ‘kill’ and ‘murder.’”
Dr. Raffle added one more interesting thing. Before the guilt phase, Justin had declared that if he was acquitted, he wanted to go to Tibet and spend the rest of his life in a monastery.
Dr. Raffle also had the task of reviewing other doctors’ reports on Justin. He told of Dr. Larry Wornian stating that Justin had been a model Mormon boy and had been ordained as a deacon at twelve years of age. He had become a priest at sixteen, and was an elder at nineteen. He left on a mission that year, but he had a hard time with it. When he came home, he felt disillusioned about the LDS Church and himself. He felt “wimpish” and unmasculine. According to Wornian, Justin was in a physical and spiritual crisis.
Dr. Raffle also commented about Dr. Good’s report. He noted Justin saying, “We wanted to avoid violence, but we had to sacrifice the few for the greater good.”
Dr. Carol Walzer’s report was one of the hardest to contend with, for Justin and the defense’s viewpoint. She cited no signs of schizophrenia, bipolar disease or signs of delusion or depression in Justin.
At one point, Jewett brought up the condition to Dr. Raffle that Taylor had been faking his mental illness; so it followed that if he wasn’t insane, Justin could not share in his insanity. In essence, there could not be a folie à deux, since Taylor was not psychotic. Jewett asked Dr. Raffle, “If Justin’s shared delusional disorder is crucial to Taylor’s delusional disorder, and you’ve received all of these reports about Justin knowing of Taylor’s faking—why didn’t you get Justin’s beliefs on that?”
Of these sometimes contentious exchanges, Juley Salkeld said, “The entire exchange between Jewett and Raffle was both frustrating and exhausting, and yet often fascinating. It was as if we were privy to a battle of wits or a chess game with equally matched opponents. Raffle was very deliberate in his answers, as if he was trying to keep his story straight and not give Jewett an inch. Luckily for Jewett, there were plenty of times when Raffle couldn’t support his argument.”
She also said, “I thought the most important part of the day was when Jewett spent probably forty minutes going through each individual case where a witness testified that Taylor was faking his mental illness to get out of work so he could focus on Impact America. On one occasion, he actually hit himself in the head with a rock so he could go to the doctor and claim he fell during a psychotic episode. The whole point was that shared delusional disorder simply didn’t exist if the main psychotic, Taylor, did not have a psychotic disorder.”
Jewett even brought in a statement from Justin, where Justin told someone, “Oh, Taylor’s faking his mental illness so he doesn’t have to work.”
Dr. Raffle countered these contentions, by stating that Taylor had been diagnosed as bipolar since 1998. Taylor also experienced a psychotic disorder on February 25, 1999, and was taken by ambulance to Mount Diablo Hospital. Raffle said that Taylor had delusional disorders more than once, heard voices and was not malingering. He added, “He could not separate the voices from reality. He would spend a few minutes on his knees when the angels were calling.”
Another point of contention between Jewett and Raffle was Justin’s claim that when Annette was cut across the torso, “her organs fell out.” Jewett cited Dr. Reiber as saying this was physically impossible. Jewett asked Raffle if Justin was lying. Dr. Raffle replied to this that Justin had been traumatized at the time, and he might have imagined the organs falling out.
Next on the stand, after a very lengthy stint by Dr. Raffle, was twenty-five-year-old Jennifer Aubrey. She was the daughter of Sherry Matheson, who had directed Harmony in Sacramento. Aubrey was first introduced to Impact in Salt Lake City when she was only eleven years old. She described the experience as very dramatic and very emotional. “Lots of people throwing up, yelling and screaming, degradation and humiliation.” The point was to break down the people’s barriers and take away their belief systems. She said that the new “trainees” were told to trust the trainer, trust the process and trust the environment.
Her training began on a Wednesday at 6:00 A.M. and went until one or two o’clock the following morning. The same thing happened on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, it went from ten in the morning until nine-thirty that night, when the graduation ceremony began. During the long days, there was very little food or water, and a person could wait hours to use a rest room, to which they were escorted, there and back. Trash cans, in which people could throw up, were strategically placed around the room.
Aubrey’s recollections of Impact were of two large men standing at a double-door entrance and yelling, “Doors open,” and then the people walking into a hall, where bright lights were shining and soft mystical music was playing. The temperature in the room was ice cold; the room was soundproofed; there were no windows. If a person showed any resistance to what the facilitator wanted, a screaming match usually ensued. And if the trainee did not eventually break, they were kicked out of the room.
There were many “games,” as Aubrey called them, including Lifeboat, which had been in at Harmony, Sacramento. Aubrey’s recollection of Lifeboat was pretty much the same as Kelly Lord’s. Aubrey recalled that Justin was a willing participant in everything that happened at Impact. She said, “He was great in training. Very willing. Very engaged. He was really breaking down his walls and finding his inner child. At first, he was very quiet and subdued, but as he progressed, he became more active and involved.”
At one time, Justin even asked Aubrey out on a date. She said she would have gone out with him, but she was engaged at the time.
Aubrey’s impression of Taylor was very different from her take on Justin. She said, “Taylor was domineering, outspoken and opinionated. In one meeting, he took control of the room. He was very charismatic, very powerful. Around women, he was affectionate and flirtatious. He locked eyes with the woman he was speaking with. He was captivating.”
Hoehn asked Aubrey how she felt about Impact now. Tears welled up in her eyes and she related that she had been molested at six years of age. In Impact, she had been taught that even six-year-old victims were responsible for incidents that befell them. Molestation victims were called “daddy’s little sluts” and received no sympathy. Aubrey said it wasn’t until her late teens that she started coming to grips with her molestation. She was currently in therapy about it.
The next witness was David Sullivan. Sullivan had been Cook’s private investigator, and on Cook’s
instructions, he took two courses of Impact in March and April 2001. He took the courses in Salt Lake City so that they would be the most similar to the ones Justin had taken. Sullivan said that the new trainees were taught that there was no right and wrong and there were no victims. You were not allowed to use words such as “try, hope and need.” A key concept was the word “choice.” You chose to do something and then had to accept it for good or bad. It was posited there that if you got on a plane that crashed, you were not a victim, but had made a conscious choice to take that flight. They even claimed that the Jews were responsible for their own fates in the Holocaust.
There was a “pity party,” where people in the group laughed and mocked anyone who tried to elicit sympathy for something that had happened to them. Overweight women were forced to put on cow outfits and wear bells around their necks. They were told that their fates were to be hit by a semitruck.
Trainees were encouraged to spread the word about Impact and its positive results. A phrase was used that it would “transform America.” This phrase was not lost on Harold Jewett.
The most incredible incident occurred when Sullivan related his recollections of the game Lifeboat. Sullivan said that the ship you were on sank in shark-infested waters and only four people could climb into a lifeboat and save themselves. All the rest would be dismembered by sharks and killed. Their remains would be picked up later and placed in body bags. All the remains would be intermixed and relatives would have to sort them out later.