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[Music] up next a real estate developer lives in fear for his life somebody wanted this guy dead i was
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scared for him i was very scared for him on a spring afternoon his worst fears come true
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a computer search exposes some dark secrets someone was researching death but it's a
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20 year old clue that helps unlock the case are you kidding you found a bullet that had been fired
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in 1989 in western colorado a successful land developer alan helmick and his wife miriam were
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going through difficult times professionally allen's real estate ventures weren't
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what they once were on a personal level someone had recently tried to take ellen's life while allen is waiting for
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miriam he notices smoke coming out the back end of his car it was right in the middle of a parking
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lot in broad daylight apparently someone had placed a lit fuse in the gas tank fortunately alan saw the smoke and got
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out in time for whatever reason the conditions weren't right for an explosion the car
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did not explode unfortunately the parking lot had no surveillance camera so it was impossible
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to tell who had planted the device do you know anyone that would have a problem with
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you there are two people that have had a problem with me okay who are those two people uh
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our two entities one was the state bank the president the vice president they were trying to accuse me of an
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illegal loan which i didn't make they made i had the sense and i think the investigators had the sense that this
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was going to be a drawn out deal did a business deal go bad there was some sales of some properties
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that involved various people were one of those people angry and took it out on allen in a different
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way maybe because they lost money six weeks later allen missed a scheduled lunch date with
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his wife [Music] when miriam drove home she found him on the floor of his office
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what's the problem tell me exactly what happened he was on the fly and it looks like somebody
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came in and robbed them when police and paramedics arrived they pronounced alan helmick
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dead at the scene he'd been shot once in the back of his head a shell casing from a 25 caliber handgun
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was next to the body suicide was immediately eliminated no weapon present and the location of
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where the injury was was not feasible to to be suicide allen's son-in-law learned of the murder
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when he arrived at the scene [Music] it was terrible for all of us it was it was beyond terrible
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it's terrible for someone to get shot because this is a person that people loved and respected and he loved his
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family and he tried to make his life better and he loved people around him at first
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it looked like robbery was a possible motive several drawers were pulled out and the
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jewelry box was empty but there was no forced entry so that theory was quickly ruled out
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it was not consistent with other burglary cases that i have worked the rest of the house was not ransacked
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as you would expect to find in most of the burglary cases that we've worked since miriam helmick found the body
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she was automatically considered a suspect but she willingly agreed to take a gunshot residue test
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anyone who fires a gun usually comes into contact with the gases discharged when the bullet is fired
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detectives swabbed marion's hands arms and face but no gunshot residue was detected
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investigators now wondered who wanted alan helnick dead and why i'm missing my right my right arm i feel
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like i'm just missing my life i came in and found it alan and miriam helmik had been married
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for about two years it was a second marriage for both allen and miriam were known as being
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inseparable social friends of theirs said they were always together they were like two peas in a pot
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miriam was convinced that alan's murder and the attempted car bombing six weeks
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earlier were both related a week after allen's funeral miriam found a greeting card under her front
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doormat it was addressed to the grieving widow she opened the card and it read insanity is doing the same
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thing over and over again and expecting a different result allen was first your next run run run
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miriam essentially collapses physically collapses many words in the message were
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misspelled including alan's name there was no postmark on the envelope which meant
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it had been hand delivered miriam is frantic about this she is convinced that the killer is now out to get her
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the simple block lettering made handwriting analysis impossible there were no fingerprints on the
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envelope or the letter the envelope wasn't sealed so there was no saliva on the envelope flap and no dna
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to recover and the barcode on the back of the card was missing [Music] it had been cut out and as if somebody
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knew we might want to try to trace that greeting card and find out where it came from
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investigators contacted the company that made the card and learned it was sold in three different stores in
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the area the most recent sale happened just four days before the card was delivered
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it was a cash purchase at a store 13 miles from the helmet's house detectives asked to see the store's
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surveillance lo and behold who's purchasing the greeting card it's miriam helmik based on her haircut
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her glasses the way she walked her body shape there was no doubt in our mind that it was miriam hellmich miriam was
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confronted with the surveillance image she did admit to placing the card at her house her
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explanation was to get law enforcement to refocus on the investigation and be more active
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now suspicious investigators searched miriam and alan's computer hard drives for possible clues
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they had two distinct computers side by side allen used one miriam used one people
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tend to be very intimate with their computers they will ask it questions through google that they
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would not ask another human being and investigators soon learned that miriam had been searching the internet for all
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sorts of interesting information especially about the prescription drugs alan had
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been taking i recovered approximately 180 online medical searches for things such as viagra
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overdose ambient overdose lysinopril overdose a combination of those three drugs mixed
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together pain killing overdoses i think she was looking at various ways to kill alan investigators also learned
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miriam would benefit handsomely as a result of alan's death allen's real estate holdings were worth
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millions yes the oldest motive in the world there was only one problem investigators
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had no proof miriam shot and killed her husband investigators now believed that alan
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hellmacht might have been murdered not by an angry business associate but by his second wife miriam when
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police checked her background they discovered something suspicious six years earlier
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miriam's first husband jack giles shot himself to death while he was sleeping next to her
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anytime you hear that a woman has more than one husband die of a gunshot wound to the head
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you get concerned and colorado investigators soon discovered something odd about this suicide
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for one thing it was miriam's half-brother a local policeman who was first on the scene and declared the death a
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suicide this despite the fact jack giles apparently killed himself with his right hand
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jack couldn't do anything with his right hand he was a complete lefty and yet he would
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choose to shoot himself kill himself with his offhand his right hand that didn't make sense to us also
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strange was miriam's explanation as to why jack committed suicide she said yes he
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was very depressed because of her daughter amy who had supposedly overdosed miriam
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changed that story when she told it to me quite a few times it was overdosed once and one time it
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was uh some sort of min uh physical uh ailment records showed miriam was the beneficiary of jack giles
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100 000 life insurance policy she apparently gets some insurance settlement and very quickly is back living
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the life while trying to solve the murder of miriam's second husband alan helmek investigators found
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a series of checks totaling 40 000 made out to miriam the checks were signed by allen
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but now police weren't so sure we believe there were a lot more checks that she probably forged but we tried to
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limit them to the checks that we thought we had the best evidence on forensic document examiners
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determined ten czechs were forgeries although it was impossible to say conclusively
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that miriam was the forger police now believed that the attempted bombing of alan's car
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was miriam's work she was conveniently away from the car inside the store when alan found the lighted wick
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sticking out of his gas tank to investigators it reminded them of the car bombing
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scene in the hit film no country for old men the villain in that particular movie
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blows up a car using a homemade wick and we wondered if alan and miriam had actually seen that
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movie we checked their cable billing statements and sure enough they had rented that
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movie four days before this attempted car fire in delta colorado police had a wealth of
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circumstantial evidence the surveillance image in the card store the czech forgeries the attempted car
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bombing and the computer searches there are so many components and if you look at the
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totality of all the components it's very clear what happened in this case the only thing they didn't have was the
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murder weapon a 25 caliber handgun allen's daughter told police her father did own a 25-caliber gun that was a
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family heirloom my little sister christy recalled seeing the gun that they believed was used in
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the murder in my father's dresser drawer under the socks she was putting away laundry for
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him that gun was now missing from the home's inventory it would have pointed the finger at
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miriam helmik the person who would have had access to it and easy access to it the gift that kept on
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giving every time you thought she knew everything something else would come up with her
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and investigators learned something more 20 years earlier that same gun had been
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fired in a domestic dispute involving wendy's grandparents my grandfather went a little crazy and tried to shoot
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my grandmother in their front lawn one day a neighbor saw what was happening and
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intervened he jumped on my grandfather and the gun went off turns out it went into the lawn
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that's where this history from this gun comes from the neighbor who intervened in the
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shooting incident 20 years earlier was still alive and remembered it vividly the neighbor did tell the police
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where he believed it had injured the lawn with the slimmest of hopes forensic analysts
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searched for the bullet that had been buried for almost 20 years we went out there
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with metal detectors and after some time we were able to locate the bullet are you kidding you found a
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bullet that had been fired in 1989 amazing we don't get those sorts of breaks
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could the bullet from the 1989 shooting tie miriam to the gun that killed her husband
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family members told police that alan helmick owned a 25 caliber handgun but it was now missing the thing that
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alan's daughter remembered about this gun was that it was smallish and that it had a white handle
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[Music] a bullet from that weapon was fired into the ground 20 years earlier in a domestic dispute
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incredibly with the help of an eyewitness and metal detectors investigators found that bullet
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unfortunately after two decades in the ground it had taken a beating the bullet was
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badly corroded and weathered and it bore marks that are consistent with damage caused by
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striking sand or small stone particles the bullet that killed alan helmuck was also damaged as a result of
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impact but the lands and grooves from both bullets were still visible investigators compared those
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markings to see if both bullets came from the same weapon i was able to determine
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that the bullet recovered from the yard corresponded with the bullet from the victim in
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number of land and groove impressions and their widths i was able to determine also
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that the fired bullet from the yard was a right-hand twist my result was that the two bullets could
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have been fired by the same firearm the ballistics along with the circumstantial evidence
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was more than enough to charge miriam helmik with murder prosecutors believe miriam was
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systematically stealing money from alan's business accounts and that at some point allen found out about it
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thinking their relationship was soon to end prosecutors believe miriam tried to kill
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alan first by giving him an overdose of his prescription medicines [Music] when that didn't work prosecutors
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believe miriam placed a lighted wick in the gas tank of the car while allen waited for her in a shopping
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center parking lot fortunately the attempt failed miserably but prosecutors believe miriam knew
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about the family heirloom 25 caliber pistol allen kept in his sock drawer and when the couple was alone miriam
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waited until alan was in his office walked up behind him and fired a single shot she
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showered changed her clothes and drove to the chinese restaurant in order to set up her alibi
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she left a message on allen's voicemail asking where he was hey alan this isn't funny
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anymore i've been sitting here in front of the chinese dragon or the chinese place for 15 minutes and
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you're never late no one knows where she disposed of the murder weapon and her clothes but presumably she did
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so on her way to or from the chinese restaurant when miriam returned home she called
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9-1-1 saying she had just found allen's body in a pool of blood it looks like somebody came in and
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robbed them after alan's funeral miriam purchased the greeting card and used it to make it appear that she
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too was a potential target she didn't realize the store's surveillance camera would
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capture the purchase oh it was clear as day miriam she was wearing some of the same clothes that
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she'd worn in the interview when she was interviewed by law enforcement during her trial
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miriam took the stand in her own defense trial watchers said her performance did
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more harm than good i didn't know what happened to him and i held his hand for a few minutes and tried to make some
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sense of it all i don't get many opportunities like that and that is something that'll stay with
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me for some time because i had to call her more or less a killer in front of the jury
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and i wasn't going to beat around the bushes with that i was going to let the
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jury know that i didn't buy into her crying act in speaking with the jury when i asked
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what was your impression of her about six people answered together and said liar
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we the jury find the defendant marion helmet guilty and first degree murder miriam hellmick was sentenced to life in
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prison plus 108 years our father is gone but we're gonna move forward and we're gonna have a
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fulfilling life and um you you miriam got what you deserved he was looking for love he thought he
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found it he found someone that was after his money and it cost him his life all the unique
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twists that this case took will be one that will be etched in my memory the greeting card stands out the bullet
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from 1989 the likelihood of us finding that one bullet that allows us to compare to that
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one gun that we can't find is the work that was done on that is [Music] amazing