Father Convicted of Son’s Fatal Beating

VAN NUYS —  A Hollywood man was convicted Friday of killing his 2 1/2-year-old boy, capping a saga that turned mother against son, sent the killer’s girlfriend to prison in error and changed state child-abuse laws.

Friends and relatives of Lance Helms, who was killed three years ago by punches to the stomach, wept and embraced after the dead boy’s father--David Helms, 37--was found guilty on three felony counts, including second-degree murder.

Dressed in gray slacks and a beige-striped shirt, Helms shot a piercing stare into the court gallery before the jurors’ findings were read. The verdicts by the 10-man, two-woman jury appeared to stun him.

Lance’s death--which came after a Los Angeles Dependency Court judge’s decision to place him in his father’s custody despite Helms’ criminal record and a history of abusing family members--shocked even a child-welfare system deluged with heart-wrenching tales of abuse.

The images of the bright-eyed, sandy-haired toddler, his body splotched with black and purple bruises after the fatal beating, prompted the Legislature to pass a law placing a child’s safety above all other considerations--even parents’ rights--in custody cases.

The guilty verdicts marked the culmination of an often lonely, difficult three-year campaign by the defendant’s mother, Gail Helms, to have her son arrested for her grandson’s killing.

“It’s nothing to celebrate, because it’s my own son,” Gail Helms said outside court Friday. “All I kept thinking in court was, ‘David, look what you did, David.’ This is finally justice for Lance.”

Helms could receive 25 years to life in state prison, according to prosecutors. Superior Court Judge Sandy R. Kriegler set sentencing for Sept 25.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter, the prosecutor, said that over and above the testimony by medical experts and Helms’ former live-in girlfriend, Eve Wingfield, the two-week trial boiled down to Helms’ actions after his son’s death on April 6, 1995, in Helms’ North Hollywood apartment.

Helms did not act, she said, like a man whose child had been beaten to death by his girlfriend, as his defense contended. “He didn’t say anything,” Hunter said.

During the trial, Hunter called half a dozen witnesses who testified they had heard or saw Helms abusing Lance, including one witness who said he saw Helms hit the boy hard enough to knock him out of his stroller.

“The system failed Lance since he was very young,” Hunter said after the trial ended. “I wasn’t going to fail him.”

In January 1996, Wingfield was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a public defender persuaded her to plead guilty to a charge of child endangerment causing death, counseling her that otherwise she probably would be convicted of murder by a jury.

The lawyer’s advice was based on damaging testimony by Los Angeles County Medical Examiner James K. Ribe, which indicated that Lance died 30 to 60 minutes after being beaten, meaning the beating occurred while Lance was in Wingfield’s care.

But Ribe had arrived at a different conclusion by the time two Los Angeles Police Department detectives, Terry Lopez and Steve Bernard, reinvestigated the killing at the urging of Gail Helms. On his own time and expense, Ribe kept on the case, consulting experts and other sources to expand his knowledge of the medical issues involved.

When the detectives interviewed Ribe later in 1996, he had concluded that Lance died immediately after the beating, shifting it to a period when Lance was in the care of his father and Wingfield had left the apartment.

In September, on the strength of a 31-page report by the detectives, a Superior Court judge ordered Wingfield released from prison. She later pleaded no contest to felony child abuse for failing to protect Lance from his father, and was placed on probation.

During the trial, Ribe delivered powerful testimony that Lance had died immediately from blows that tore the boy’s insides with the force of a car accident, cracking a rib, splitting his liver and ripping through blood vessels that anchor organs to the spine. He also called his previous conclusion, that the boy lived as long as an hour after the beating, “just ridiculous.”

Helms’ defense attorney, Jack Stone, hammered on the change in medical testimony, calling Ribe’s turnabout “frightening” and accusing Ribe of “tailoring his scientific opinion to coincide with the facts.”

Stone had no comment after the verdicts.

Several jurors said after the trial that they felt Ribe showed integrity by admitting his mistake.

“I think justice has been served for the first time in three years,” said the jury foreman, who declined to give his name. “The most emotional part of it was having to look at the pictures of Lance. That was very hard to look at . . . that little innocent face.

Added a female juror: “There were so many mistakes . . . that boy didn’t have to die.”

Gail Helms called her son, the oldest of four children, “a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” with a history of violence against other family members. “He hit every woman he ever lived with,” she said. He had a habit, she said, of punching his brothers and sisters in the abdomen when he lost his temper, the same type of blow that killed Lance.

Lance, born drug-addicted to another of Helms’ girlfriends, was taken by the Department of Children’s Services from his drug-addicted parents and placed in the care of an aunt, Ayn Helms. But David Helms later won custody under family court rules that encouraged family unification.

In an effort to get the attention of child welfare authorities, Gail Helms in 1994 began keeping a diary of her grandson’s injuries, a practice she continued until the beating that killed the child.

“The one thing I would like to see come out of the whole thing is removal of confidentiality of dependency court cases,” Gail Helms said. “The secrecy shields the public from what kind of rulings are made in that court. It could have made a difference for Lance.”

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Helms Chronology

Sept. 11, 1992: Lance Helms is born addicted to heroin and placed in the care of an aunt, Ayn Helms. She later inquires into adopting Lance.

Aug. 4, 1994: David Helms is awarded trial custody of Lance, despite social workers’ and family members’ testimony the boy would be in danger. Ayn Helms is awarded visitation rights.

Nov. 1, 1994: Six photos documenting injuries to Lance are presented at a follow-up custody hearing. Lance’s grandmother, Gail Helms, begins keeping a diary tracking his injuries. Ten additional photos are later presented to the court.

Jan. 17, 1995: David Helms is awarded final unmonitored custody of Lance. No testimony by social workers or family members is requested during the hearing.

Jan. 18, 1995: David Helms leaves Lance at Ayn Helms’ home for a visit. According to Kathleen Schormann, the social worker assigned to Lance’s case, the toddler had a severe black eye when he arrived. Schormann immediately brings him to a hospital for treatment. A request to restore custody to Ayn Helms is filed in court.

Jan. 23, 1995: Lance is returned to David Helms’ care by order of the custody court.

April 6, 1995, 6:31 p.m.: Paramedics find Lance dead at David Helms’ North Hollywood apartment.

April 8, 1995: An autopsy reveals that Lance died from massive internal injuries, including a ruptured liver, broken ribs and internal bleeding. The injuries are consistent with someone hitting the boy in the stomach.

April 20, 1995: Eve Wingfield, girlfriend of David Helms and mother of his 4-year-old son Calvin, is arrested and charged with second-degree murder and two counts of child abuse in Lance’s death.

June 28-29, 1995: Los Angeles County Deputy Medical Examiner James K. Ribe testifies at Wingfield’s preliminary hearing that Lance died 30 to 60 minutes after suffering abdominal injuries, which places Lance in Wingfield’s care at the time of the injuries.

Sept. 25, 1995: Ayn Helms, 31, dies from complications of lupus, a disease she had battled since she was in high school.

Dec. 4, 1995: Wingfield, accepting a plea-bargain offer from the prosecution, pleads no contest to a lesser charge of child endangerment in the death of Lance.

Jan. 10, 1996: Wingfield is sentenced to 10 years in state prison.

Jan. 30, 1996: State auditor, moved by Lance’s death, requests an in-depth performance audit of the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services.

Aug. 31, 1996: The state Assembly changes child welfare laws, requiring judges not to return children to their parents’ custody if the child will not be safe.

Oct. 23, 1996: A state audit of the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services is released, suggesting the agency overhaul its systems to better protect children under its jurisdiction. The audit was partly in response to Lance Helms’ death.

November 1996: A 31-page police report is presented to the district attorney’s office. It contains a retraction of Ribe’s testimony, stating Lance was beaten later than first believed.

June 1997: The alternate public defender’s office files the report with the Superior Court judge who sentenced Wingfield, asking that she be freed.

Sept. 16, 1997: Wingfield is released from prison after 21 months when the court, in light of the report citing her innocence, allows her to withdraw her 1996 no-contest plea.

April 6, 1998: David Helms, 37, is charged with the murder of Lance.

June 12, 1998: Wingfield is sentenced to time already served after pleading no contest--over the objections of her lawyer--to one count of felony child abuse for failing to protect Lance. Wingfield says she feared that if she fought the charge at a trial, she could be sent back to prison.

Aug. 5, 1998: Ribe testifies at David Helms’ murder trial that Lance had died immediately from the injuries, contradicting his testimony at Wingfield’s preliminary hearing. Ribe explains that since then he has extensively researched liver injuries and attended numerous seminars on forensic child abuse. In light of his research, he is amending his earlier testimony.

Aug. 14, 1998: David Helms is convicted of second-degree murder, assault on a child causing death and felony child abuse. The conviction carries a possible sentence of 25 years to life in prison.