And Then She Killed Him

by Robert Scott

  “I actually went to a stock show with the Helmicks. Alan wasn’t feeling very well and Miriam came down and was watching a lot of horse events. She asked if I’d like to come and watch the grand prix jumping, and I said sure. I met her there. She said Alan had been sick a lot with stomach flu, and hadn’t been feeling well. And right about then, when the horses were being boarded and trained at my facility, we didn’t receive some of the payments.

  “So I called her to say we didn’t receive the board money and training money. And she said they had been out vacationing on their boat and the payments were in the mail. I called a week later and said the payments never came. Miriam said the payments probably got sent to Alan’s daughter by mistake. She added Alan had taken an overdose of blood pressure medication and he had been misplacing stuff.

  “I tried calling Alan once, but only got through to his voice mail. When I finally got a check, it was written on checks from the dance studio. Even then, the checks didn’t clear. My boyfriend called back to see why they didn’t clear. And there was supposed to be two signatures on the checks, but there was only one. From what I understood, Alan was a pretty good businessman. I couldn’t understand why he would write a check, knowing that it required two signatures. That didn’t make sense to me.”

  Moving on in time, Investigator Jarrell wanted to know when Jeri Yarbrough first learned about Alan Helmick’s murder. Jeri said, “My friend Stephanie Soule called me and left me a voice mail. I called Miriam and said how sorry I was, and if there was anything I could do to help her, and my thoughts were with her. On Thursday night, a couple of days after he had been shot, Miriam called me.

  “She just started talking about what happened and I just said how sorry I was. I asked how she was doing, and had concerns for her safety. She said she was doing fine, but that she was pretty upset because she couldn’t go back home because the police were there. She said it was because they had to do those kind of things. She said they had talked to her for a long time, interrogated her and stuff. And I said, ‘Well, that’s probably normal.’

  “She told me that originally on the day he was killed, they were supposed to go out and do some errands together. But Alan decided not to go, and she went off to do the errands. After that, they were supposed to meet for lunch. Alan didn’t show up, and she started trying to call him and he didn’t answer. So she went back home and found him. She said he was lying on the floor and that he was gone. He was cold to the touch, and she called 911 and they instructed her to do CPR, which she did, but she said that she knew he was gone.

  “She thought it was a home burglary, but she also thought the police were focusing on her. And I said that that was kinda normal. ‘They always look at a spouse first. Just answer the questions and let the police do the work so they’ll be able to figure everything out.’ She said her hands had been tested for gun residue and that her clothes had been taken. And they were also testing for high-velocity blood spatter.

  “She said she didn’t know who could have done it. She didn’t know whether it was related to one of Alan’s businesses or not. She said she didn’t know about his businesses. All the money was in his name. He controlled the checking accounts and money. It was strange—she was pretty matter-of-fact about the whole thing. I mean, I was surprised that she wasn’t more upset about finding her husband killed so tragically. I just thought that maybe she handles things a little bit different than I react to stuff.

  “She was just talking and said that she and Alan hadn’t been getting along for the last few weeks. She said they had been fighting and not getting along, and that he’d been a real asshole the last couple of weeks. They had been at a business, and she went into a restroom and their car started on fire while she was in the bathroom. And she made a strange comment, ‘I didn’t know that a car won’t explode if it has a full tank of gas.’ And then she laughed.”

  Detective Jarrell wanted to know more about Miriam’s attitude regarding law enforcement and what she had done. Jeri related that Miriam had told her that the police had looked for traces of gunpowder residue on her hands. Police had also taken her clothing, looking for traces of blood spatter. Miriam had added to Jeri, “Of course, they had to look for evidence, and told me to be up front so that they could try and learn who had done this.”

  During the phone call to Jeri Yarbrough on June 12, Miriam told her that she didn’t have any money. She wondered if Jeri could buy back some horses at the purchase price. Miriam then told Jeri that the horses were hers and she could do anything she wanted with them. However, Jeri did not want to get into a dispute over property and legal entanglements after Alan Helmick’s murder, so she declined.

  Jeri Yarbrough once again told the investigator that she was not a close friend of Miriam’s, and that some of the things Miriam was saying made her very uncomfortable. She wondered why Miriam was going into such details about what Jeri considered to be private matters.

  Miriam spoke about Alan’s children, and how the daughters were already asking for property, such as the boat and other items. Miriam told Jeri that there was a will, but that she was not mentioned in any of Alan’s life insurance policies or checking accounts.

  In a later conversation with Jeri Yarbrough, Bev Jarrell learned that Jeri had not told her everything that had occurred between herself and Miriam during the phone conversation of June 12. Jeri said that she did not want to betray Miriam in any way, if she was not the one who had been responsible for Alan’s death. During this conversation, Jeri told Jarrell, “Miriam told me that maybe there was a person at the dance studio that had taken money, and maybe Alan had found out about it. [The killing] might have been a vendetta against Alan. I told her she had to contact the police and be honest with them about everything. I don’t remember what her answer was to that.”

  Jarrell wanted to know if Miriam used the words “murdered” or “killed” when speaking about Alan. Jeri said that Miriam hadn’t used either one. She only used words such as “died, gone, or dead,” according to the horse breeder.

  “Alan was an asshole to me for the last couple of weeks,” Miriam had told Jeri. “I had to hide money at the dance studio so that I had some money at all.” Then in a sarcastic tone, Miriam added, “Sure am going to miss him!”

  Jeri observed, “And then she laughed. The feeling I got was that she wasn’t going to miss him at all.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “I JUST FROZE LIKE A PRAIRIE DOG.”

  Trying to get a handle on Alan Helmick’s financial dealings, Investigator Jim Hebenstreit went to see Bob Cucchetti on June 18, 2008. Cucchetti was an accountant with the firm of Cucchetti Baldwin and Co CPAs. Cucchetti told Hebenstreit that Alan had been his customer for almost twenty years. Cucchetti said he didn’t know Miriam very well, but he did know that the first year that Alan and Miriam were married, they didn’t file a joint return. According to Cucchetti, it was because Miriam had “problems with the IRS from a pervious marriage or something.”

  Cucchetti related that Alan and Miriam had filed jointly for their 2006 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax returns, but they had not yet done so for the tax year 2007. Asked if this was unusual, Cucchetti said no; Alan routinely asked for a time extension.

  Investigator Hebenstreit asked Cucchetti about Alan’s financial ventures into a dance studio and horse-training facility. Cucchetti answered, “Alan was always optimistic, but I told him he was going to lose his ass on those businesses. And he did. As far as the dance studio went, Alan financed it, but Miriam ran it. Both the dance studio and horse business were financial losers.”

  All in all, Alan had financial interests in the Title Company of Delta, A. Hughes LLC, Dance Junction LLC, Creek Ranch Sporthorses, Helmick Mortgage Corporation, and Crista Lee LLC. Miriam Helmick was only listed as co-owner of Dance Junction and Creek Ranch Sporthorses. And even with those, she was only a 5 percent owner of each, while Alan was a 95 percent owner. Cucchetti didn’t know if the Helmicks had a prenuptial agreement or any estate
planning. That was not part of his business dealings with Alan Helmick.

  Investigator Hebenstreit looked further into Alan Helmick’s financials and noted that Alan had accounts with American National Bank and Wells Fargo. Hebenstreit obtained Alan’s bank statements, copies of canceled checks, tax records, personal financial statements, and real estate information. Among the documents Hebenstreit received from American National Bank was a personal financial statement completed by Alan and dated November 27, 2007. This was part of a statement by Alan to request a maturity date on two financial loans.

  On that financial statement, Alan had documented his total assets as $3,487,650. This included $1,300,000 in real estate and $2,120,350 in marketable securities.

  Hebenstreit noted that all of the businesses were in Alan’s name, and Miriam had none in hers. In fact, she did not have a checking account or even a credit card in her name. All she had was a 5 percent interest in the dance studio and a 5 percent interest in the horse-training facility. Whatever money she had, Alan apparently doled out to her.

  Hebenstreit spoke with a loan officer at American National Bank named Alan Watkins, who had some very interesting things to say. Watkins told the investigator that when he first learned of Alan Helmick’s death, he wondered if it had anything to do with a letter the bank had just sent Helmick. Watkins said that for the previous three or four months, he had been trying to contact Alan Helmick concerning problems with his accounts. Watkins added that he had sent letters to Alan, left voice messages, and had even gone by the Helmick residence. Not once, however, did Alan respond to these messages. Watkins said that had not been the pattern with Alan Helmick until the previous three or four months. Watkins even wondered if Alan had committed suicide because of these financial situations.

  On June 19, Penny Lyons went over to Miriam’s house in Whitewater. As Penny recalled, “Miriam had a cleaning van out front, and I assumed it was to clean up the bloodstains in the kitchen. I met Miriam in the garage, and I didn’t want to go into the kitchen because of the cleaning. We got into her car a while later, and she mentioned that she’d forgotten her purse in the house. I said I’d go get it. So I went into the house, and when I opened the door from the utility room to the kitchen, I didn’t realize that the towels were already picked up from the floor.

  “I froze when I went in. I just froze like a prairie dog. I couldn’t take my eyes off it! There were still bloodstains on the floor.”

  Penny said later that she realized that law enforcement had allowed Miriam to be back in her home a few days after Alan’s murder. She couldn’t understand why Miriam hadn’t already cleaned up the bloodstains.

  Penny continued, “We went to a Walmart on North Avenue in Grand Junction, and I told Miriam I’d buy her a cell phone. She was extremely concerned about her son, Chris, and she had no way to reach him because the police had taken all her phones. So I bought her a phone with so many minutes on it. It wasn’t like Verizon or BlackBerry or something like that.

  “She was having a lot of trouble because she didn’t have any money. She didn’t have access to any money, and that made even just basic living very difficult. She didn’t have money for feeding the horses, groceries, or gas. So I purchased that phone for her.”

  Another person law enforcement investigators spoke with was a woman named Laegan McGee. Laegan took dance lessons at Amour Danzar in Grand Junction in 2004 and 2005. Laegan said later that she began dating a dance instructor there named David Griffin. David was going to move to another city; and around that time, Laegan was introduced to a new dance instructor, who called herself Francehssea. Later, Laegan learned that the woman’s real name was Miriam.

  Laegan recalled about Miriam, “She told me she was looking to start a dance studio with her former professional partner. I don’t remember his name. She said they had been on the pro circuit together. She indicated that he had been her boyfriend at one time. She also said that they had been looking around for a place to start, and that was when an offer came in from Barbara Watts, who owned Amour Danzar to be a manager there. Miriam thought Grand Junction was a great place to start, because it was somewhere that had a low cost of living and didn’t have a high-quality dance studio.”

  One night in the spring or summer of 2005, Laegan and her boyfriend, David Griffin, went to a bar/restaurant on Main Street in Grand Junction called Boomers. She recalled of this particular night, “Miriam was with a gentleman there. I did not know who the man was, but David did. David pointed him out to me and said that the man had been a student of his at the dance studio.

  “David and I were seated about three-quarters into Boomers, and they were back in toward one of the pillars in a darkened area. David said to me, ‘Don’t look.’ So, of course, I looked. I saw Miriam, and she had her hand under the table, on the man’s right leg. And when she saw me, I tried to turn away quickly, because I wasn’t supposed to look.

  “But she caught my eye and did one of those kind of waves like you do when you accidentally pull out in front of somebody in your car. Kind of like, ‘Oops.’ Ten or fifteen minutes later, she came over by herself. She kind of singsonged, ‘You know, I hear wedding bells.’

  “I was kind of disoriented because David hadn’t filled me in about information of who the man was she was sitting with. I said to Miriam, ‘Your boyfriend in Florida?’ That’s because that person had been with her approximately a month before. And she said no. ‘It’s Alan over there. Do you want to go meet him?’

  “And then she said, ‘He’s going to buy me a house. He’s going to buy me horses. He’s going to build me my own dance studio.’ And she was ticking those things off on her fingers. I said, ‘Wow, that’s really fast.’ She didn’t really respond to that.

  “When David and I were getting up to leave, David knew Alan (Helmick) from having taught him previously. And Alan and Miriam came over, because David waved them over. And we were standing there talking. And David and Alan kind of talked briefly, like have you seen so-and-so. And Miriam told me that he owned several businesses. I was still kind of shocked by the suddenness of all of this. I was still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I was going to wait for David to fill me in on who was what, and what and where.”

  Since it was now known that Miriam had managed a dance studio in Grand Junction for a woman named Barbara Watts, before opening up her own dance studio, Investigator Chuck Warner contacted the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) in Gulfport, Mississippi, where Watts lived. The Harrison County Sheriff ’s Office gave Warner information as to how he could contact Watts. Until contacting HCSO, Warner had tried on thirty different occasions to reach Barbara Watts by phone, and he had received no return calls.

  An officer for HCSO eventually contacted Barbara Watts and put her on the phone with Investigator Warner. Warner asked what Miriam’s relationship had been with Watts, and she said that she had hired Miriam after Miriam had come to Mississippi from Florida. Miriam had told the dance studio owner that she needed a new start in life because her husband had recently shot himself in the head. Two years before that, her daughter had died from taking aspirin while having an ulcer.

  Miriam started attending the dance school, Amour Danzar, and wanted to work there. Watts told Investigator Warner that Miriam was very good, and got even better under training. Miriam started teaching on her own, and she also did book work in the office.

  Miriam wanted a man named Anthony Keith Coppage, who went by the name Keith, to come teach at the school as well. Watts said that when Keith arrived, he showed up in a wrinkled shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been pressed for days. He didn’t have dance shoes or even good clothes, but Watts added that Keith did a fine job once he was properly outfitted. He was a good dance instructor.

  Later, after Keith left, Watts noticed that the money collected from a Friday-night dance party was missing. Miriam generally collected that money and put it into a safe after the parties. Miriam, who was living in a cottage in back of the dance
studio, told Watts that she had no idea where the money had gone. The studio owner assumed Keith had stolen it before taking off. Later she would think otherwise.

  As well as the dance studio in Gulfport, Barbara Watts owned a dance studio in Grand Junction, Colorado, and the woman who managed the place was going to quit soon. Miriam asked if she could manage that studio, and Watts agreed that she could. Just before Miriam left, there was a Christmas party and Watts decided to pay for it by a credit card rather than cash. While they were at an Outback Steakhouse, Watts noticed Miriam looking at the wad of money she had not used for the party. At that point, Watts told Investigator Warner, “I knew something was up with her.”

  On the way home from the party, Watts and Miriam sat in the front seat of Watts’s car. The employer recalled placing a checkbook on the front seat between them. Later on, she could not find the checkbook. Even though this concerned her about Miriam, she couldn’t prove it and decided to send her to Grand Junction, Colorado, anyway. As a safeguard, however, she wanted all the clients to pay by check and not with cash.

  Watts and Miriam flew to Colorado, where they stayed in a hotel. At one point, Watts left the room to get some ice, leaving the door ajar, since she was already suspicious about Miriam. When Watts was gone from the room, she heard the door shut. She said that she returned with the ice and stood outside the door, listening. She thought she heard Miriam rummaging through suitcases. Watts told the investigator that she believed a lot of her money was gone when she returned to the room; but once again, she could not say for sure if this was so.

  Despite this, Barbara Watts still let Miriam stay on as manager of the dance studio in Grand Junction. Watts even left Miriam with a credit card for business expenses. After a while, Watts started getting charged for things on the credit card that were not related to business. And Miriam would not return Watts’s phone calls. When she finally reached Miriam, she demanded the credit card back. Within a few days, she got it.