00:00:05
Every fraud begins with a promise, but most don't end in murder. >> My husband, >> a quick fortune, easy money, or a life
00:00:17
torn apart. >> It was for $250,000 for a payout on life insurance. >> But behind these illusions, is this an
00:00:25
isolated incident or could there be more? lie calculated deceptions. Two months before his death, there was an
00:00:33
incident where somebody had tried to blow up Allen's car, carefully hidden in plain sight.
00:00:42
>> Do you know anyone that would have a problem with you? >> There are two people that have had a
00:00:45
problem with it. >> Sometimes these criminals are backed into a corner. >> That's the last thing people are
00:00:52
thinking of when they're genuinely in love with somebody >> and feel their only way out is to kill.
00:00:57
What was shocking to everyone, how somebody could go to these lengths to cover up $40,000 in checks.
00:01:23
In June 2008, police were called to the home of married couple Alan and Miriam Helmick.
00:01:34
>> What's the problem? Tell me exactly what happened. >> It looks like somebody came in and
00:01:40
robbed him. >> My name is Sean Wells. I was the detective sergeant in charge of Alan
00:01:48
Helmick's case. This was definitely a unique case in my career as an investigator.
00:01:54
This had not happened during my tenure at the police department and as far as I know still hasn't happened.
00:02:03
Allan and Miriam lived in Whitewater, Colorado. June 10th, 2008. Mesa County dispatch received a call
00:02:12
from Miriam that she had came home from being downtown after Allan had failed to
00:02:18
meet up with her and she found her husband Allan dead in a pool of blood on the floor.
00:02:28
Upon examination, the police determined that Allen had been killed with a gunshot to the back of the head.
00:02:39
Karen Wilson was a local news reporter who covered the story. In 2008, I was working as a news reporter in Grand
00:02:47
Junction, Colorado for the NBC affiliate. I was in the newsroom. We have a police
00:02:52
scanner. So, we heard something come over the scanner about a possible robbery homicide in Whitewater. We have
00:02:59
a stringer photographer that works with us. So, he's first on the scene, as well
00:03:04
as the police working their investigation, removing Allan from the scene. >> Miriam had told police she had returned
00:03:12
home after being out all morning. >> She discovered Allen dead in a pool of blood. It looked like the house had been
00:03:20
ransacked and robbed. >> Miam claimed that the house was a mess when she arrived home and found Allan
00:03:29
dead. Miriam did say there was an intruder in the house and that somebody had came in
00:03:35
to burglarize the house. She believed Allen was dead when she arrived home. Every detail at a murder scene is very
00:03:44
important. It could be the most minute thing, the smallest piece of evidence. It isn't necessarily everything that
00:03:54
jumps out at you. It could be things that maybe later on throughout the investigation is your big evidence
00:04:01
moment that will direct you to the killer. The investigators found a small handgun in the home, but the caliber of
00:04:10
that handgun did not match the bullet pulled from Allen's body. They also found a spent shell casing in the home
00:04:18
that matched the bullet that was removed from Allen. In a place like Whitewater, Colorado,
00:04:26
with it being such a tight-knit community, the death of Allen Helm was shocking to everyone.
00:04:33
>> Delta is on the western slope. We're a smaller area. Agriculture has always been our base. We have the mountains, we
00:04:42
have the rivers, and we have desert here. It's a wonderful place to be. 62-year-old father of four Alan Helm and
00:04:53
his 51-year-old wife Miriam had been married for 2 years and were familiar faces in the local community.
00:05:01
>> Alan Helmick was a businessman in Delta. He was a banker. He was very well known.
00:05:07
I knew him through his kids. I grew up with a few of them and knew the Helms to be good upstanding people in the city of
00:05:18
Delta. Alan Helmick was a very wellrespected member of the community. He was very
00:05:26
financially stable commercial real estate development, title insurance, and he did very very well.
00:05:36
Allan was very generous, very kind, and unfortunately he was a widowerower. Allan's first wife had passed away a few
00:05:44
years prior of a heart attack on New Year's Eve. It was very tragic. My name is Dr. Kerry Nixon and I'm a
00:05:53
consultant forensic psychologist. This is a man who had been happily married. He had children who were grown
00:06:01
up and his wife died and he was actually still grieving when he met Miriam in 2005 shortly after his wife's death.
00:06:15
He was very depressed and his friends and family encouraged him to take ballroom dancing lessons. That's how
00:06:22
Alan and Miriam originally met. She was his dance instructor um for ballroom dancing lessons.
00:06:30
Despite clauses in place in her contract and whatever Allan signed when he signed
00:06:35
up to take lessons, there was no fratization between clients and instructors. Despite that, Alan and
00:06:42
Miriam began a relationship. She was a widowerower herself, so she was able to connect with Allen where he
00:06:53
had uh his wife had passed away. Miriam had previously been an instructor at another studio but had suddenly left.
00:07:02
Miriam was fired from that dance studio. What had happened is the owner realized
00:07:08
a checkbook was missing and somebody had written a check and she had maybe thought it was somebody else, but that
00:07:13
just didn't make sense and she figured it must have been Miriam. From there, Miriam said she wanted to
00:07:20
start her own ballroom dancing lessons, her own company and studio. Uh, and she did that.
00:07:27
>> Allan and Miriam married in 2006, and soon after Allan began investing money in businesses for Miriam to run.
00:07:37
For a town the size of Grand Junction, there's not enough clients to sustain two separate ballroom dancing companies.
00:07:46
Um, but she did it anyway. The other business that Allan helped Miriam start was a horse breeding
00:07:52
business. And that was to obviously breed horses, but also to give riding lessons to people. Again, not seen as a
00:08:01
super good financial win. It was probably going to be a loss. But Allan wanted to make Miriam happy and he
00:08:09
wanted to fund her dreams. Now, in each of those businesses, Allan owned 95% of the businesses and Miriam owned 5% of
00:08:17
the businesses. He was obviously desperate to be happy again, desperate to have a wife, desperate to be in love,
00:08:26
and he was willing to do anything to make her happy. He gave her money for businesses, a dance studio, a horse
00:08:34
business. What we can see is that he was a very kind and generous man who wanted
00:08:39
to be loved and his way of making her happy was to give her everything he could.
00:08:47
>> Allan being a successful businessman, he knew he could make businesses work and
00:08:53
Miriam wanted some businesses to run for herself. So the dance studio did not turn out as Allan had hoped and it
00:09:04
caused him some financial strain as well as the horse breeding business and they
00:09:09
were starting to drain Allen's bank account. >> My name is Fiona Hodston Moore and I'm a
00:09:16
forensic accountant and expert witness. If Allan had invested significantly large sums in the two businesses on
00:09:26
behalf of Miriam, then potentially he's borrowed a lot of money to do that and that will put financial pressure on his
00:09:32
other businesses. I'm Dr. Briana Fox. I'm a psychological criminologist at the University of South
00:09:40
Florida and a former FBI special agent. Alan may have known that Miriam's businesses were not going very well. uh
00:09:49
for one because he had to keep purchasing more and more for her. So he knew one business wasn't successful. It
00:09:55
was becoming replaced by another. Aside from the two businesses he started with Miriam which were described as losers,
00:10:02
Allan was very financially stable. People viewed him as a very successful businessman. His net worth was somewhere
00:10:08
in the ballpark of 2.5 million. As police began their investigation into Allen's death, they became suspicious
00:10:20
about Miriam's claims that Allan had been murdered during a home robbery. When police arrived, they found Allan
00:10:28
had been shot in the back of the head. And they also found what Miriam thought was a robbery, but it looked a little
00:10:34
funny. All the drawers were pulled out to the same space. Nothing was really taken.
00:10:42
When the Mace County investigators looked at the scene, they examined Allen's wallet and found that his credit
00:10:48
cards and anything of value was still in his wallet. They found that drawers that
00:10:53
were open and doors on cabinets and bins that were tipped over, nothing of value
00:10:59
was taken. And immediately they knew it appeared to be staged. very high value items were all left
00:11:07
behind, which somebody willing to kill in a robbery wouldn't have made that mistake. They also saw that Alan
00:11:15
Helmck's body had been dead for much longer than she had stated he was dead for. So those two pieces made them think
00:11:23
this wasn't a robbery. What really happened? Police investigating Alan Helmick's
00:11:34
death had asked Miriam to talk them through her movements that day. >> Miriam had a lot of evidence that she
00:11:42
had kept to show that she was in town, that she was trying to call Allan. >> Hey Alan, this isn't funny anymore. I've
00:11:51
been sitting here in front of the Chinese dragon or the Chinese place for 15 minutes and you're never late.
00:11:59
>> She had receipts for every store that she went into. She had phone calls of her calling Allen to see where he was.
00:12:09
And it was just too convenient for her to have those things ready to go organized for those investigators.
00:12:17
In my experience as an investigator, most people in that situation would be frazzled enough to not be prepared to
00:12:26
present those at that time. But not Miriam. She was ready to go and prove the timeline.
00:12:35
>> Police also realized the bullet that killed Allan was of the same caliber of a gun that Allen had owned.
00:12:42
>> Allan was shot with a 25 caliber bullet. Now, no gun was found in the house. >> Police did find out that Allan had owned
00:12:51
a 25 caliber handgun, and one of his daughters had noticed that it had been there in the home previously, but now
00:12:59
it's missing. >> After speaking with Allen's children, police also discovered that the family
00:13:06
was becoming concerned about Miriam's true motives for the marriage. >> His kids were definitely starting to get
00:13:12
suspicious. Miriam essentially took control of Allen's phone. So when the banker had been trying to reach him, she
00:13:19
would answer, say he was sick and that he would call her back. They never got calls back cuz Allan never got those
00:13:25
messages. Now the same thing happened with his children. Miriam would intercept the calls and she would tell
00:13:31
the kids, you know, make up an excuse as to why Allan couldn't talk and that he would call them back. Uh and he never
00:13:37
did. And they definitely suspected Miriam of being in the marriage for only money.
00:13:45
>> Something that's fascinating in this case is not just her motivation for money. She was also very very
00:13:52
controlling. She distanced him from his friends and family. She kept his cell phone in her bag so she limited the
00:14:00
calls. We see her isolate him and that's absolutely coercive control which tells
00:14:08
me that this was also an abusive relationship as well as a relationship where she wanted to take his money.
00:14:23
As the investigation developed, Delta police records uncovered a shocking incident that had been reported just two
00:14:30
months earlier. Somebody had tried to blow up Allen's car. Now, the way they tried to blow it up, they had put a wick
00:14:39
in the gas tank and lit it, and they expected that car to explode. >> Shawn Wells was one of the officers who
00:14:45
responded to the call. >> And that's when I met Miriam for the first time as she was also on scene.
00:14:52
Alan and Miriam had driven down to Delta, Colorado that day. Allan was selling his portion of a title company
00:15:01
and he received a check for $100,000. When he did that, what happened is they were getting ready
00:15:09
to leave and Miriam said she had some stomach issues and she needed to go inside and use the restroom. So Miriam
00:15:17
went inside, spent a little bit of time there, and when she came out, realized somebody had tried to set Allen's car on
00:15:23
fire. When I arrived on scene, the sergeant met with me and showed me what they found when they arrived.
00:15:34
And there was light damage to the trunk area and the rear tail light area. The fire was fairly small. Uh Allan had
00:15:44
noticed smoke. He looked in his rear view mirror, jumped out of the car, ran to the back, and was able to extinguish
00:15:50
the fire. Was a clumsy arson attempt. Mr. Helm had just put fuel in it. So, the there were a lot less vapors,
00:15:59
therefore, it did not burn the car to the ground. >> Police questioned Allan and Miriam as to
00:16:06
who might have had a potential motive to harm them. Allan thought it could be a number of
00:16:13
people, a failed business partner, a former friend that uh he had testified against before, or even just some random
00:16:22
kids walking by doing kid things. >> Do you know anyone that would have a problem with you?
00:16:28
>> There are two people that have had a problem with me. >> Okay. Who are those two people?
00:16:32
>> Uh or two entities. One was at the state bank, the president, the vice president.
00:16:36
They were trying to accuse me of an illegal loan, which I didn't make. I attempted to talk to Miriam. Miriam
00:16:44
was very nervous around me as I tried to ask her some questions. She didn't want
00:16:50
to talk to me. She seemed kind of elusive. And at that point, I noticed that she is
00:17:01
making an attempt to avoid me. She stated that she needed to go to the bathroom again. as I started asking more
00:17:09
questions and we said that was fine. Well, about 20 feet from where we were was where she had went to the restroom
00:17:18
prior to my arrival. Instead of going back to that restroom, I found it very interesting that Miriam decided to walk
00:17:27
across four lanes of traffic to go to the restroom across the street at a convenience store.
00:17:35
As investigators were going through this attempted murder crime scene, they went
00:17:40
into the bathroom that Miriam had used and noticed that it smelled very strongly of lighter fluid.
00:17:46
What's ticking in my mind is she knows more than she's telling. And why did she need to get away from me
00:17:56
so quickly? She knew that the questions were pointed. She knew that I was asking
00:18:01
for basic things and she couldn't provide answers. So, I felt that I needed to do my due
00:18:08
diligence, check the area, look for video footage, and talk to others that may have been on the street at the time,
00:18:16
but also I was turning to focus on Miriam. >> Based on the way that the police had
00:18:25
questioned Allen and had questioned Miriam by telling them both, we have to assume that the police were absolutely
00:18:32
suspecting Miriam as the perpetrator. There were no people seen walking through the area at the time of the
00:18:40
fire. Unfortunately, there was no video from any of the businesses at the time to show Miriam lighting it. But the
00:18:48
absence of anybody in the area during that time and her actions when I interviewed her on scene led me to focus
00:18:56
on her. After the arson attack, Shawn even informed Allan that he was investigating
00:19:08
his wife as a potential suspect for the attempted murder. >> Allan was not happy with me when I
00:19:16
called him to let him know that I was focusing on Miriam and I felt that he may be in danger. He was upset with me.
00:19:23
He told me that Miriam would never hurt him, she would never do anything to him,
00:19:30
and that I was wrong. Allan said, "There's no way it could have been Miriam. She has no reason to kill me.
00:19:37
I'm worth more to her alive than dead." >> Allan did come by the police department
00:19:44
and demand that I stop the investigation against Miriam. Demand that I stop focusing on her. And he that he didn't
00:19:54
want anything to do with this investigation anymore. I did tell Allan what I discovered, what I saw. and he
00:20:01
told me he didn't believe it and that she would never hurt him. >> Less than 2 months after the arson
00:20:10
attack, Detective Shawn Wells worst fears were realized. >> When I received a phone call that Allan
00:20:17
was murdered, I was afraid this was going to happen. >> Miriam was taken to the station to be
00:20:24
interviewed. While there, she was checked for forensic evidence. Miriam was checked for gunshot residue
00:20:32
and none was found. There was none found on her hands, her face, her body, her clothing, which a person that does
00:20:42
enough research will know that if they go shower, change their clothes, you're not going to find gunshot residue on
00:20:49
them. >> When investigators see a murder occur, one of the first things that we always
00:20:55
say is check the spouse. And uh one of the things that they'll always do is see what was going on in the marriage
00:21:01
immediately before this death happened. One thing would be was there any financial pressure. These could be
00:21:07
unpaid debts living beyond their means. This could be easily checked into by seeing what were the bills that were
00:21:13
coming in. Were they within their income range or were there significant stressors?
00:21:21
While Miriam was interviewed, officers seized bank statements and other documents that led them to a startling
00:21:28
discovery. >> Miriam was writing checks on Allen's account. She was forging his signature
00:21:35
and it wasn't discovered until investigators dug into that Allen, I don't believe, ever realized that she
00:21:43
was draining his accounts to pay for whatever she was paying for. this activity of her forging Allen's name on
00:21:51
checks was happening and she kept it hid for for quite a while since probably they were together.
00:21:59
>> She had been defrauding Allen for quite some time. What she had been doing is
00:22:04
writing checks to the businesses that she owned with him, Dance Junction and the horse breeding business. And she
00:22:10
would pass those checks to the businesses and then take that money out herself. This was about $40,000
00:22:19
which she had essentially stole from Allan and Allan was close to figuring out what was going on. His account was
00:22:27
depleted. >> Mesa County interviewed Miriam and she admitted that she had signed the checks
00:22:34
but claimed she had permission from Allen. It is very difficult to differentiate
00:22:41
between normal household activity and fraudulent activity by a spouse. So one would normally look at the historical
00:22:50
expenditure and activities on someone's bank account. What did they normally spend and how did they normally spend it
00:22:58
before the alleged fraudulent activity? So really to have a look at a pattern and what changed and what might have
00:23:05
changed it. Police also seized a number of computers from the home. As police were doing
00:23:13
their investigations, they took any electronics Miriam had, cell phones, computers. Now, what they found in the
00:23:21
search history was very interesting and very alarming. One particularly interesting search was
00:23:30
what would happen when Viagra is introduced in combination with some of the other drugs that he was taking,
00:23:37
particularly for somebody who had heart problems, which Allen did. >> She may have looked up ways to poison
00:23:44
somebody. I know that Allan's children, specifically one of his daughters, was concerned that he was not himself and
00:23:53
that he was sick quite a bit and felt that he may have been being poisoned. >> They had a lot of prescription drugs in
00:24:01
that house and there were a lot of searches about those drugs and about how it might kill somebody.
00:24:10
Police also discovered Miriam stood to benefit considerably in the event of Allen's death.
00:24:17
>> It appeared at the time that it was for $250,000 for a payout on life insurance if
00:24:23
anything happened to Allen. >> What Miriam did is she called an insurance agent and inquired about
00:24:32
opening her own insurance policy on Allen's life without him knowing. That was the maximum she could get. What
00:24:40
she had originally asked for was 2 million. >> Through the investigation, it was found
00:24:48
that she had asked the agent if they could execute this uh insurance policy without her husband being involved or
00:24:56
knowing about it. >> You cannot claim or take out a insurance policy on someone else without their
00:25:05
knowledge of consent. And you have to have a financial interest in that person. So you have to be in some way
00:25:11
dependent on that person. >> They've been together for 2 years and she's trying to set up life insurance
00:25:19
without his knowledge. That is a major red flag. When you're in the initial stages of a relationship and you're in
00:25:28
love, you don't think, "Oh, I know. Let's go and set up some life insurance." That's the last thing people are
00:25:36
thinking of when they're genuinely in love with somebody. >> Police investigating Alan Helmick's
00:25:42
death wanted to know more about Miriam. >> Miriam Helmick was also a widowerower.
00:25:47
She came from Jacksonville, Florida. Her former husband had passed away. Their daughter had passed away a couple of
00:25:55
years prior. Miriam had one son left. As I focused on Miam, knowing that she was not from Colorado and that she was
00:26:05
from out of state, I needed to look out of state. So, at that time, I ran the information I had from Miriam and found
00:26:15
that she indeed was out of Florida. And as I looked at things that I was able to
00:26:21
access on these databases we use in law enforcement, I had seen a pattern. Miriam's family life was pretty dark.
00:26:31
She was surrounded by a lot of death, a lot of hardship. >> Her husband and daughter had died under
00:26:38
suspicious circumstances, but both were ruled uh as a suicide. The daughter's case was ruled as an
00:26:47
accidental overdose. Miriam was present when her daughter passed away and by all accounts her
00:26:56
daughter didn't use drugs. Her daughter definitely didn't use prescription drugs. So there was a little bit of
00:27:02
speculation around that. >> She claimed that she was there um and watching her daughter. Her daughter had
00:27:10
used drugs and that's what she had let law enforcement know and they believed it. Shawn discovered Miriam had had
00:27:17
insurance policies on both her first husband and her 23-year-old daughter. >> What we later learn is that Miriam had
00:27:25
life insurance on her daughter, and that was about $100,000, which she blew through very quickly.
00:27:35
Now, the money that Miriam received from her daughter's death did not go to uh any rehabilitation of drug users or
00:27:44
anything good. She purchased a vehicle. She purchased clothing, flashy things, things that just would not be on the
00:27:54
mind of a grieving parent. And she did so fairly quickly after receiving payout.
00:28:00
In 2001, after the shocking death of their daughter, Miriam's husband also died.
00:28:07
>> Miriam's former husband had shot himself in the head while they were lying in bed
00:28:12
together. And the speculative reason that he did this is because their daughter had passed away due to an
00:28:20
accidental drug overdose. >> Miam, she happened to be in a room in bed when her husband supposedly
00:28:28
committed suicide. It was ruled as suicide, but that he was shot in the side of the head that Miriam laid on.
00:28:36
>> The weird part about this is that Miriam had just laying down in the bed. That's
00:28:40
what she told police. He put up a pillow barrier to evidently protect her. >> Her first husband was right-handed, and
00:28:50
you would have thought that he would have used his right hand to fire the gun. Instead, the wound was found on the
00:28:57
left side of his head and the weapon was found on the left side of his body. So, either he reached around his head at
00:29:06
a weird angle which did not align with the trajectory of the bullet or he used his non-dominant hand to shoot himself
00:29:14
with his wife beside him. >> Police also became suspicious about the way her husband's death was initially
00:29:22
investigated. It was Miriam's half brother that was the police officer that arrived on
00:29:29
scene. >> She knew how to manipulate her family and others. So, I don't feel that she
00:29:38
was worried about it at all. >> Once again, Miriam collected a large insurance payout after her husband's
00:29:45
death. When she received payment for her first husband's life insurance, she also, as soon as she received the money,
00:29:54
bought flashy things, things that just would not seem to be on the the mind of a grieving wife.
00:30:02
>> Police found other worrying similarities between Miriam's past life in Florida
00:30:08
and their investigation into the arson attack on Allen. I found that arson was attempted on her parents' home. I found
00:30:17
that very, very interesting because she had embezzled lots of money from them and they were upset with her. Miriam had
00:30:26
moved in with her father and stepmother and she started to commit some fraud. She started to write checks to herself.
00:30:36
She was intercepting her father's bank statements so that he wouldn't see that money was missing.
00:30:42
and that's when she moved to Colorado. >> After those discoveries, I realized this
00:30:49
is not just bad luck for Miam. I realized that there's more to this story than we know. They wanted the Florida
00:30:59
law enforcement agency to reopen the case and investigate it, but they told me they would not reopen the case and
00:31:06
they would not reinvestigate it. They also advised Mesa County that they would not reopen the case and reinvestigate it
00:31:14
as an attempt murder or a murder in this situation. >> 16 days after Allen's murder, police
00:31:25
received another call from Miriam. Miriam had called and let the sheriff's office know that she'd found a card
00:31:34
under her doormat >> and it said to the grieving widow. Inside the card it was a woman sitting
00:31:43
in a rocking chair and it said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. Allan was first. You're next. Run
00:31:52
run run. There were misspellings in that card. Allan was spelled wrong as well as the
00:31:57
incorrect version of your. After Miriam had found that card, she made sure a friend was with her when she
00:32:03
found it. Investigators found this suspicious. So, they investigated the card and where it came from.
00:32:14
They found that the card was purchased at a City Market store about 10 miles from Miam's home. The investigators were
00:32:24
able to uh access the cameras inside the City Market store. And so as they viewed
00:32:32
the camera footage, they were able to see Marian pick up that card, walk to the register with it, purchase that
00:32:39
card, and leave the store. >> When Allan was found dead, one thing that law enforcement thought was, is
00:32:47
this an isolated incident or could there be more? And Mrs. Helmick wanted to further that narrative because of course
00:32:55
if she was at risk, she couldn't possibly be the perpetrator. When police asked Miriam about the card
00:33:02
and why she had that, why she did that, she said she would didn't feel like the police were doing enough for Allen's
00:33:09
investigation and she wanted to speed things up and also get it back into the public eye.
00:33:16
She wrote a note to try and make the police think that she was also a potential victim. These things they
00:33:24
suggest that even though she's manipulative, she's not actually that right. She hadn't really thought it
00:33:31
through. It wasn't enough for Miriam just to have her financial problems go away. She had an issue and she wanted to
00:33:39
solve it, but she had to be the center of attention and the victim. Not only did her husband die, not only did she
00:33:45
get what she wanted, she had to also be at risk herself. It really shows here's this woman that has this personality
00:33:53
issue where not only is it sufficient to have just one instrumental goal achieved, she had to go through much
00:34:01
more. Bringing more attention under herself, only raising her profile and making more people pay attention to her,
00:34:07
which of course is exceedingly dangerous. As police were building their case, Miriam went on the run.
00:34:22
>> Miriam took off. She disappeared from the area. She took her car and interestingly enough, she took the ID of
00:34:33
Allen's first wife, Sharon, and left. Later on, she was uh found on CCTV at a pawn shop where she was attempting to do
00:34:44
business as Sharon Helm, Allen's first wife. >> When we learned that Miriam had left
00:34:51
Colorado, no one was surprised. And what it looked like is that she was running from something.
00:35:00
While Miriam was on the run, police still needed to trace the missing murder weapon. Allan was shot with a 25 caliber
00:35:07
bullet. One of Allen's daughters did remember there being a 25 in the house. It belonged to her mother, Sharon. Now,
00:35:16
there's a really interesting story tied to this and it's pretty wild. So, police
00:35:21
had the shell casing and they were told a story that the gun was handed down to Sharon from her stepfather. And I think
00:35:30
about 30 years prior, her stepfather had gotten into an altercation near his home
00:35:36
and he had that gun on him. He struggled with a neighbor who had stepped in to try to protect the other person and he
00:35:42
fired a shot into the ground. >> Investigators were able to locate that spent round or fired round in the ground
00:35:50
at the Helmick's old home in Delta. Luckily, that neighbor still lived there and was able to kind of point to the
00:35:58
area where he thought the bullet went into the ground. Police had metal detectors, but they they recovered that
00:36:04
bullet. Forensic testing was done. It was determined that it matched the rifling
00:36:11
and striations matched the bullet removed from Allen. So then they were able to conclude that
00:36:18
that 25 caliber handgun that belonged to Allan was missing from the home was the
00:36:23
weapon that killed Allan. >> The gun was never found at all. It was never recovered.
00:36:30
Police issued a warrant for Miriam's arrest. >> December of 2008, Miriam was arrested
00:36:38
for the murder of Allen when she was located in Jacksonville, Florida. While in Jacksonville, Miriam, she just
00:36:48
went right back to it. She joined a dating website. I believe that was for wealthy individuals. And she met a man.
00:36:58
She drove down to Orlando from Jacksonville, which is at least a few hours, to go on a date with this man,
00:37:04
and she ended up spending the weekend with him. And what we later learn is that Miriam had assumed the identity of
00:37:11
Sharon Helmick. In fact, the man that she went to go meet, he thought her name was Sharon.
00:37:19
>> Miriam was charged with first-degree murder of Allen, and she was also charged in the attempt murder in my case
00:37:26
in Delta. We combined those cases into her murder trial in Mesa County. In November 2009, Miriam Helmick stood
00:37:42
trial for the murder of her husband, Allan. Detective Sergeant Shawn Wells was called to give evidence.
00:37:49
>> I did testify in court and I did uh share what I did throughout my investigation in that trial.
00:37:58
>> Sergeant Wells testimony included his account of Miriam's behavior during the
00:38:03
arson attempt on Allen. I was able to speak to Miriam's demeanor on scene. Very nervous, elusive, going across four
00:38:12
lanes of traffic to go to the restroom when there was one 20 ft from her. Um, her uncooperiveness.
00:38:20
>> Crucially, police were able to present forensic evidence that tied Miriam to the arson attempt and the murder scene.
00:38:28
This piece of wick that was in the gas tank came into play when Mesa County called and asked if I had any evidence
00:38:37
by chance from my attempt arson case. And I was able to let Mesa County investigators know that I did keep the
00:38:46
wick as evidence and I still had it in my property and evidence room. >> Alan and Miriam had driven down to
00:38:54
Delta, Colorado that day. They were getting ready to leave and Miriam said she had some stomach issues and she
00:39:02
needed to go inside and use the restroom. At that point, she wanted to change her shoes, so she went into the
00:39:07
trunk. This is when uh the wick might have been ignited. >> Mesa County prosecutors found that the
00:39:16
wick had possibly matched a cutout of a horse lead or rope from the horse trailer that Miriam used to haul her
00:39:25
horses. The investigators in the district attorney's office was able to determine the type of rope that the wick
00:39:33
was made out of and also found that same type of rope in Miriam's horse trailer.
00:39:41
>> When police were looking at Miriam, they tested her for gunshot residue. They
00:39:46
didn't find any on her person. What they did find was a very small amount of gunshot residue in her car on her
00:39:54
steering wheel. We learned about this during the trial. Even Miriam's son was called to testify
00:40:02
at trial. Not far into the investigation, Miriam called her son and said she wanted to move back to Florida. Uh what
00:40:11
he told her was that she needed to stay in Colorado, wait for the dust to settle, you know, and then she could
00:40:17
come if it was appropriate. Miriam then lied to her son and said that the police
00:40:22
had cleared her. She also mentioned that she was taking Sharon's car and that she
00:40:26
had Sharon Helmick's ID. He said, "Please don't do that. That's a bad idea. Not only is it illegal, but it's
00:40:32
wrong." Testifying in court against his mother was very hard for Miriam's son. He had lost his sister. He had lost his
00:40:40
father. He was about to lose his mother. And it's still something that he struggles with to this day. He can't
00:40:45
comprehend how somebody could go to these lengths to cover up $40,000 in checks.
00:40:53
And this is something he'll continue to struggle with, I'm sure, for the rest of
00:40:56
his life. After a month-long trial, Miriam was found guilty of murder and fraud.
00:41:06
Miriam received a life sentence plus 78 years for the fraud counts. >> This was definitely a unique case in my
00:41:16
career as an investigator. This had not happened during my tenure at the police department. People will go
00:41:23
to long lengths to cover up their fraud. They're afraid they're going to go to jail, so they think they got to hide it.
00:41:33
And then some people will do whatever it takes. Some people will kill to cover up
00:41:40
fraud. And Miriam was definitely one of those. I did not like to see a case unfinished. So this case was a bit
00:41:50
frustrating where where the victim Allan wouldn't cooperate where I was unable to
00:41:55
get Mariam in to talk to me. But I wasn't going to stop. I was going to find a way until I could bring the case
00:42:03
to a close, a successful close. >> Despite her conviction, Miriam still maintains her innocence.
00:42:12
>> Throughout the investigation, the trial, the sentencing, Miriam has maintained
00:42:19
her innocence the whole time. She's appealed the verdict multiple times. The Colorado Court of Appeals just
00:42:26
reconfirmed everything from the original case and said, "Yes, she is guilty." >> Miriam continues to deny that she
00:42:36
murdered Alan. This could be due to many reasons. However, with the control that she exhibited in
00:42:44
that relationship, I expect it's to still remain in control. In this case in particular, it seems
00:42:55
that Miriam Helmck didn't just come up with this all at once. She had been building up to this by engaging in
00:43:02
similar insurance frauds where she financially benefited and she inflicted the harm on her own property, but this
00:43:09
time she was inflicting the harm on her husband. And she also thought, here's how I'm going to essentially have an
00:43:15
alibi and cover it up. >> Miam is definitely a gold digger. Uh I believe that Miriam is responsible for
00:43:23
for a lot of death in her immediate surroundings. She was a manipulator, a liar, and a very cold evil person.
00:43:34
>> She is very much a gold digger, but she's more than that. A lot of women who are gold diggers will
00:43:45
use manipulation, may use their bodies, may use sex, but they just get the money. This is a woman
00:43:54
who was a gold digger, but was also a murderer. She was willing to go to that point to
00:44:02
get what she wanted. And she didn't want the man. She wasn't willing to live the
00:44:05
life to have the money. She wanted rid of them. She wanted the insurance money. >> Despite Miriam's conviction, the murder
00:44:15
of Alan Helmick has had a lasting impact on not only Detective Shawn Wells, but the wider community of Delta.
00:44:23
>> It does make me sad that it it came to that in our community. We're small towns.
00:44:30
This just doesn't happen here. And and I think it made people think and realize that it can happen anywhere. I believe
00:44:37
that Miam would have continued this kind of pattern and continued to defraud and
00:44:44
murder. Again, >> this is a criminal, a dangerous woman who is willing to take the lives of men
00:44:55
in order to get money. We see people who are incredibly wealthy, that have wives that we can
00:45:07
certainly say probably wouldn't be with that person if it wasn't for their huge amount of wealth. But those people are
00:45:15
willing to marry them and are willing to stay married and have that lifestyle because they're so driven by the need
00:45:22
for money. they're certainly not planning on killing that person. Whereas in this case, that was her plan
00:45:29
all along. It wasn't just to marry somebody for money and put up with the unhappiness
00:45:38
for the money and the lifestyle. She actually planned to take people's lives for their money.
00:45:47
I think if Allan would have would have let me speak with Miam and continued to investigate, I believe that I would have
00:45:55
been able to charge Miriam with the attempted arson. I believe that Allan could have accepted that. I think he
00:46:03
would have accepted it once he saw the evidence that I had compiled. And I think that he would have been sad, but I
00:46:11
think he would have been okay with the outcome and ultimately that would have saved his life.