All language subtitles for Fatal.Fraud.S01E05.1080p.WEB.h264-CODSWALLOP_track3_[eng]

(Narrator) Every fraud
begins with a promise,

but most don't end in murder.

(gunshot)

(Miriam Helmick)
(sobbing) My husband is dead!

(Narrator) A quick fortune,
easy money, or a life torn apart?

It was for $250,000
for a pay-out on life insurance.

(Narrator)
But behind these illusions...

Is this an isolated incident,
or could there be more?

(Narrator)
Lie calculated deceptions.

(Kieran Wilson)
Two months before his death,

there was an incident where
somebody had tried

to blow up Alan's car.

(Narrator)
Carefully hidden in plain sight.

(Detective) Do you know anyone that
would have a problem with you?

(Alan Helmick) There are two people
that have had a problem with me.

(Narrator)
Sometimes these criminals

are backed into a corner...

That's the last thing people
are thinking of

when they're genuinely
in love with somebody.

(Narrator) and feel their
only way out is to kill.

(Kieran)
What was shocking to everyone,

how somebody could
go to these lengths

to cover up $40,000 in cheques.

(dramatic music)

(tense music)

(Narrator)
In June 2008, police were called

to the home of married couple
Alan and Miriam Helmick.

(Miriam Helmick)
(sobbing) My husband is dead!

(Dispatcher) What's the problem?
Tell me exactly what happened.

(Miriam Helmick)
(sobbing) He was on the floor.

It looks like somebody
came in and robbed us.

(Shon Wells)
My name is Shon Wells.

I was the detective sergeant
in charge of Alan Helmick's case.

This was definitely a unique case
in my career as an investigator.

This had not happened during my
tenure at the police department

and as far as I know,
still hasn't happened.

Alan and Miriam lived
in Whitewater, Colorado.

On June 10th, 2008,
Mesa County dispatch

received a call from Miriam
that she had came home

from being downtown after Alan
had failed to meet up with her.

And she found her husband, Alan,

dead in a pool of blood
on the floor.

(tense music)

Upon examination,
the police determined

that Alan had been killed

with a gunshot
to the back of the head.

(gun clicks)

(Narrator) Kieran Wilson was
a local news reporter

who covered the story.

(Kieran Wilson) In 2008,
I was working as a news reporter

in Grand Junction, Colorado
for the NBC affiliate.

I was in the newsroom.

We have a police scanner,

so we heard something
come over the scanner

about a possible robbery-homicide
in Whitewater.

We have a stringer photographer
that works with us,

so he's first on the scene,
as well as the police,

working their investigation,
removing Alan from the scene.

(Narrator) Miriam had told police
she had returned home

after being out all morning.

She discovered Alan dead
in a pool of blood.

It looked like the house had
been ransacked and robbed.

(Shon) Miriam claimed
that the house was a mess

when she arrived home
and found Alan dead.

Miriam did say there was
an intruder in the house,

and that somebody had came
in to burglarize the house.

She believed Alan was dead
when she arrived home.

Every detail at a murder scene
is very important.

It could be the most minute thing,
the smallest piece of evidence.

It isn't necessarily everything
that jumps out at you.

It could be things that maybe,
later on,

throughout the investigation,
is your big evidence moment

that will direct you
to the killer.

The investigators found
a small handgun in the home.

But the calibre of that handgun
did not match the bullet

pulled from Alan's body.

They also found a spent
shell casing in the home

that matched the bullet
that was removed from Alan.

(Kieran) In a place like
Whitewater, Colorado,

with it being
such a tight-knit community,

the death of Alan Helmick was
shocking to everyone.

(Shon)
Delta is on the western slope.

We're a smaller area.

Agriculture has
always been our base.

We have the mountains.
We have the rivers.

And we have desert here.

It's a wonderful place to be.

(sombre music)

(Narrator) 62-year-old
father of four Alan Helmick

and his 51-year-old wife, Miriam,
had been married for two years

and were familiar faces
in the local community.

(Shon) Alan Helmick was
a businessman in Delta.

He was a banker.

He was very well-known.
I knew him through his kids.

I grew up with
a few of them

and knew the Helmicks
to be good, upstanding people

in the city of Delta.

(Kieran) Alan Helmick was
a very well-respected

member of the community.

He was very financially stable,

commercial real estate,
development, title insurance,

and he did very, very well.

Alan was very generous, very kind.

And unfortunately,
he was a widower.

Alan's first wife had passed away
a few years prior

of a heart attack
on New Year's Eve.

It was very tragic.

My name is Dr Keri Nixon,

and I'm a consultant
forensic psychologist.

This is a man who had
been happily married.

He had children who were grown up.

And his wife died,

and he was actually
still grieving when he met Miriam.

(sombre music)

(Kieran) In 2005
shortly after his wife's death,

he was very depressed, and his
friends and family encouraged him

to take ballroom dancing lessons.

That's how Alan and Miriam
originally met.

She was his dance instructor
for ballroom dancing lessons.

Despite clauses in place
in her contract

and whatever Alan signed when
he signed up to take lessons,

there was no fraternisation
between clients and instructors.

Despite that, Alan and Miriam
began a relationship.

(tense music)

(Shon)
She was a widower herself,

so she was able to connect
with Alan where he had, uh...

his wife had passed away.

(Narrator)
Miriam had previously been

an instructor at another studio,
but had suddenly left.

(Kieran) Miriam was fired
from that dance studio.

What had happened is
the owner realised

the chequebook was missing,
and somebody had written a cheque.

And she had maybe thought
it was somebody else,

but that just didn't make sense,

and she figured
it must have been Miriam.

From there, Miriam said
she wanted to start

her own ballroom dancing lessons,
her own company and studio,

and she did that.

(Narrator) Alan and Miriam married
in 2006 and soon after,

Alan began investing money
in businesses for Miriam to run.

(Kieran) For a town
the size of Grand Junction,

there's not enough clients

to sustain two separate
ballroom dancing companies,

but she did it anyway.

(horse snorts)

The other business that
Alan helped Miriam start

was a horse breeding business,

and that was to, obviously,
breed horses

but also to give riding lessons
to people.

Again, not seen as a
super good financial win.

It was probably
going to be a loss.

But Alan wanted to
make Miriam happy,

and he wanted to fund her dreams.

Now, in each
of those businesses,

Alan owned 95% of the businesses

and Miriam owned 5%
of the businesses.

(Keri) He was obviously desperate
to be happy again,

desperate to have a wife,
desperate to be in love.

And he was willing to do
anything to make her happy.

He gave her money for businesses...

a dance studio,
a horse business.

What we can see is that he was
a very kind and generous man

who wanted to be loved,
and his way of making her happy

was to give her
everything he could.

(Shon) Alan,
being a successful businessman,

he knew he could
make businesses work

and Miriam wanted some businesses
to run for herself.

So the dance studio did not
turn out as Alan had hoped,

and it caused him
some financial strain,

as well as the
horse breeding business,

and they were starting to drain
Alan's bank account.

(Fiona Hotston Moore)
My name is Fiona Hotston Moore,

and I'm a forensic accountant
and expert witness.

If Alan had invested
significantly large sums

in the two businesses
on behalf of Miriam,

then potentially he's borrowed
a lot of money to do that,

and that will put financial
pressure on his other businesses.

(Bryanna Fox)
I'm Dr Bryanna Fox.

I'm a psychological criminologist
at the University of South Florida

and a former FBI special agent.

Alan may have known
that Miriam's businesses

were not going very well, for one,

because he had to keep
purchasing more and more for her.

So he knew one business
wasn't successful,

it was becoming
replaced by another.

(Kieran) Aside from the two
businesses he started with Miriam,

which were described as losers,
Alan was very financially stable.

People viewed him as
a very successful businessman.

His net worth was somewhere
in the ballpark of $2.5 million.

(Narrator) As police began their
investigation into Alan's death,

they became suspicious
about Miriam's claims

that Alan had been murdered
during a home robbery.

(Kieran)
When police arrived,

they found Alan had been shot
in the back of the head.

And they also found what
Miriam thought was a robbery.

But it looked a little funny.

All the drawers were pulled out
to the same space.

Nothing was really taken.

When the Mesa County investigators
looked at the scene,

they examined Alan's wallet
and found that his credit cards

and anything of value was
still in his wallet.

They found that drawers
that were open

and doors on cabinets
and bins that were tipped over.

Nothing of value was taken.

And immediately, they knew
it appeared to be staged.

(Bryanna) Very high-value items
were all left behind,

which somebody willing
to kill in a robbery

wouldn't have made that mistake.

They also saw that Alan Helmick's
body had been dead

for much longer than
she had stated he was dead for,

so those two pieces made them
think this wasn't a robbery.

What really happened?

(dramatic music)

(Narrator) Police investigating
Alan Helmick's death

had asked Miriam to talk them
through her movements that day.

(Shon Wells) Miriam had a lot
of evidence that she had kept

to show that she was in town,
that she was trying to call Alan.

(Miriam Helmick) Hey, Alan,
this isn't funny any more.

I've been sitting here
in front of the Chinese Dragon,

or the Chinese place, for 15
minutes, and you're never late.

She had receipts for
every store that she went into.

She had phone calls of her calling
Alan to see where he was.

And it was just too convenient
for her to have those things

ready to go, organised,
for those investigators.

In my experience
as an investigator,

most people in that
situation would be

frazzled enough to not
be prepared to present those

at that time, but not Miriam.

She was ready to go
and prove the timeline.

(tense music)

(Narrator) Police also
realised the bullet

that killed Alan was
of the same calibre

of a gun that Alan had owned.

Alan was shot with
a .25-calibre bullet.

Now, no gun was found
in the house.

(Shon) Police did find out
that Alan had owned

a .25-calibre handgun and one of
his daughters had noticed that

it had been there in the home
previously, but now it's missing.

(Narrator) After speaking
with Alan's children,

police also discover that the
family was becoming concerned

about Miriam's true motives
for the marriage.

His kids were definitely starting
to get suspicious.

Miriam essentially took control
of Alan's phone,

so when the banker had
been trying to reach him,

she would answer, say he was sick,
and that he would call her back.

They never got calls back because
Alan never got those messages.

Now, the same thing happened
with his children.

Miriam would intercept the calls.

And she would tell the kids...
you know, make up an excuse

as to why Alan couldn't talk

and that he would call them back,
and he never did.

And they definitely
suspected Miriam

of being in the marriage
for only money.

Something that's fascinating
in this case

is not just her motivation
for money.

She was also very,
very controlling.

She distanced him
from his friends and family.

She kept his cell phone in her
bag, so she limited the calls.

We see her isolate him.

And that's absolutely
coercive control,

which tells me that this was
also an abusive relationship

as well as a relationship where
she wanted to take his money.

(tense music)

(Narrator)
As the investigation developed,

Delta police records
uncovered a shocking incident

that had been reported
just two months earlier.

Somebody had tried
to blow up Alan's car.

Now, the way they
tried to blow it up,

they had put a wick in
the gas tank and lit it,

and they expected
that car to explode.

(Narrator) Shon Wells
was one of the officers

who responded to the call.

(Shon) And that's when I
met Miriam for the first time,

as she was also on scene.

(Kieran Wilson)
Alan and Miriam had driven

down to Delta, Colorado that day.

Alan was selling his portion
of a title company,

and he received a cheque
for $100,000 when he did that.

What happened is
they were getting ready to leave,

and Miriam said she had
some stomach issues,

and she needed to go inside
and use the rest room.

So Miriam went inside,
spent a little bit of time there,

and when she came out,

realised somebody had tried
to set Alan's car on fire.

(Shon) When I arrived on scene,
the sergeant met with me

and showed me what they found
when they arrived.

And there was light damage
to the trunk area

and the rear taillight area.

The fire was fairly small.
Alan had noticed smoke.

He looked in his rear-view mirror,
jumped out of the car,

ran to the back, and was able
to extinguish the fire.

It was a clumsy arson attempt.

Mr Helmick
had just put fuel in it,

so there were a lot less vapours.

Therefore, it did not
burn the car to the ground.

(Narrator)
Police questioned Alan and Miriam

as to who might have had
a potential motive to harm them.

(Shon) Alan thought it could
be a number of people...

a failed business partner,

a former friend that he had
testified against before,

or even just some random kids
walking by doing kid things.

(Detective) Do you know anyone that
would have a problem with you?

(Alan) There are two people
that have had a problem with me.

OK, who are those two people?

Uh, or two entities.

One was Yucca State Bank, the
president and the vice president.

They were trying to accuse me
of an illegal loan,

which I didn't make, they made.

I attempted to talk to Miriam.

Miriam was very
nervous around me

as I tried to ask her
some questions.

She didn't want to talk to me.

She seemed kind of elusive.

And at that point,

I noticed that she
is making an attempt to avoid me.

She stated that she needed
to go to the bathroom again

as I started
asking more questions.

And we said that was fine.

Well, about 20 feet
from where we were,

was where she had went to the
rest room prior to my arrival.

Instead of going back
to that rest room,

I found it very interesting
that Miriam decided

to walk across
four lanes of traffic...

(car horn honks)

To go to the rest room across
the street at a convenience store.

As investigators were
going through

this attempted murder crime scene,

they went into the bathroom
that Miriam had used

and noticed that it smelled
very strongly of lighter fluid.

(Shon) What's ticking in my mind is
she knows more than she's telling.

And why did she need
to get away from me so quickly?

She knew that the questions
were pointed.

She knew that I was asking
for basic things,

and she couldn't provide answers.

So I felt that I needed
to do my due diligence,

check the area,
look for video footage,

and talk to others that may have
been on the street at the time.

But also, I was turning
to focus on Miriam.

(tense music)

(Kieran) Based on the way that
the police had questioned Alan

and had questioned Miriam
by telling them both,

we have to assume
that the police were

absolutely suspecting Miriam
as the perpetrator.

(Shon) There were no people
seen walking through the area

at the time of the fire.

Unfortunately,
there was no video from any

of the businesses at the time
to show Miriam lighting it.

But the absence of anybody
in the area during that time

and her actions when
I interviewed her on scene

led me to focus on her.

(Narrator)
After the arson attack,

Shon even informed Alan that
he was investigating his wife

as a potential suspect
for the attempted murder.

(Shon Wells) Alan was not happy
with me when I 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.

He told me that Miriam
would never hurt him,

she would never do anything
to him, and that I was wrong.

(Kieran Wilson) Alan said, there's
no way it could have been Miriam.

She has no reason to kill me.

I'm worth more to her
alive than dead.

(Shon) Alan did come
by the police department

and demand that I stop the
investigation against Miriam,

demand that
I stop focusing on her,

and that he didn't
want anything

to do with this investigation
any more.

I did tell Alan what
I discovered, what I saw,

and he told me
he didn't believe it

and that she would never hurt him.

(tense music)

(Narrator) Less than two months
after the arson attack,

Detective Shon Wells'
worst fears were realised.

(Shon) When I received a
phone call that Alan was murdered,

I was afraid this was
going to happen.

(Narrator) Miriam was taken
to the station to be interviewed.

While there, she was checked
for forensic evidence.

(Shon) Miriam was checked
for gunshot residue

and none was found.

There was none found on her hands,
her face, her body, her clothing,

which a person that does enough
research will know that

if they go shower,
change their clothes,

you're not going to find
gunshot residue on them.

(Bryanna Fox) When investigators
see a murder occur,

one of the first things that we
always say is check the spouse.

And one of the things that
they'll always do is see,

what was going on in the marriage

immediately before
this death happened?

One thing would be
was there any financial pressure?

These could be unpaid debts,
living beyond their means.

This could be easily
checked into by seeing,

what were the bills
that were coming in?

Were they within
the income range,

or were there
significant stressors?

(Narrator)
While Miriam was interviewed,

officers seized bank statements
and other documents

that led them to
a startling discovery.

(Shon) Miriam was writing cheques
on Alan's account.

She was forging his signature.

And it wasn't discovered until
investigators dug into that.

Alan, I don't believe,
ever realised

that she was
draining his accounts

to pay for whatever
she was paying for.

This activity of hers,
forging Alan's name on cheques,

was happening, and she kept it hid
for quite a while,

since probably they were together.

(Kieran) She had been defrauding
Alan for quite some time.

What she had been doing is
writing cheques to the businesses

that she owned with him,

Dance Junction
and the horse breeding business,

and she would pass those cheques
to the businesses

and then take that money out
herself.

This was about $40,000 which she
had essentially stole from Alan.

And Alan was close to figuring
out what was going on.

His account was depleted.

(Shon)
Mesa County interviewed Miriam

and she admitted that
she had signed the cheques,

but claimed she had
permission from Alan.

(Fiona Hotston Moore) It is
very difficult to differentiate

between normal household activity

and fraudulent activity
by a spouse,

so one would normally look
at the historical expenditure

and activities on
someone's bank account.

What did they normally spend
and how did they normally spend it

before the alleged
fraudulent activity,

so really, to have a look
at a pattern and what changed

and what might have changed it?

(Narrator) Police also seized a
number of computers from the home.

(Kieran) As police were
doing their investigations,

they took any electronics Miriam
had...cell phones, computers.

Now, what they found
in the search history

was very interesting
and very alarming.

One particularly really
interesting search was

what would happen when Viagra
is introduced in combination

with some of the other drugs
that he was taking,

particularly for somebody who had
heart problems, which Alan did.

(Shon) She may have looked up ways
to poison somebody.

I know that Alan's children,
specifically one of his daughters,

was concerned that
he was not himself

and that he was sick quite a bit

and felt that
he may have been being poisoned.

(Kieran) They had a lot of
prescription drugs in that house,

and there were a lot of searches
about those drugs

and about how
it might kill somebody.

(Narrator) Police also discovered
Miriam stood to benefit

considerably in the event
of Alan's death.

(Shon) It appeared at the time
that it was for $250,000

for a pay-out on life insurance
if anything happened to Alan.

What Miriam did is
she called an insurance agent

and inquired about
opening her own insurance policy

on Alan's life
without him knowing.

That was the maximum
she could get.

What she had originally asked
for was $2 million.

(Shon)
Through the investigation,

it was found that
she had asked the agent

if they could execute
this insurance policy

without her husband being involved
or knowing about it.

You cannot claim
or take out an insurance policy

on someone else without
their knowledge or consent.

And you have to have a financial
interest in that person,

so you have to be in some way
dependent on that person.

(Keri) They've been together
for two years,

and she's trying to set up life
insurance without his knowledge.

That is a major red flag.

When you're in the initial stages
of a relationship

and you're in love,
you don't think, oh, I know,

let's go and set up
some life insurance.

That's the last thing
people are thinking of

when they're genuinely
in love with somebody.

(Narrator) Police investigating
Alan Helmick's death

wanted to know more about Miriam.

Miriam Helmick
was also a widower.

She came from
Jacksonville, Florida.

Her former husband
had passed away.

Their daughter had passed away
a couple of years prior.

Miriam had one son left.

(Shon)
As I focused on Miriam,

knowing that she was not
from Colorado,

that she was from out of state,
I needed to look out of state.

So at that time, I ran
the information I had for Miriam

and found that she indeed
was out of Florida.

And as I looked at things that
I was able to access

on these databases
we use in law enforcement,

I had seen a pattern.

(Kieran) Miriam's family life
was pretty dark.

She was surrounded by a lot
of death, a lot of hardship.

(crow cawing)

(Shon)
Her husband and daughter had died

under suspicious circumstances,

but both were ruled,
as a suicide.

The daughter's case was ruled
as an accidental overdose.

(Kieran) Miriam was present when
her daughter passed away.

And by all accounts,
her daughter didn't use drugs.

Her daughter definitely
didn't use prescription drugs,

so there was a little bit
of speculation around that.

She claimed that she was there
and watching her daughter.

Her daughter had used drugs

and that's what
she had let law enforcement know,

and they believed it.

(Narrator) Shon discovered Miriam
had had insurance policies

on both her first husband
and her 23-year-old daughter.

(Kieran)
What we later learn

is that Miriam had life insurance
on her daughter,

and that was about $100,000.

Which she blew through
very quickly.

Now, the money
that Miriam received

from her daughter's death
did not go to, uh,

any rehabilitation of drug users
or anything good.

She purchased a vehicle.

She purchased clothing,
flashy things,

things that just would not be
on the mind of a grieving parent.

And she did so fairly quickly
after receiving pay-out.

(Narrator) In 2001 after the
shocking death of their daughter,

Miriam's husband also died.

(Kieran)
Miriam's former husband

had shot himself in the head while
they were lying in bed together.

And the speculative reason
that he did this

is because their daughter
had passed away

due to an accidental
drug overdose.

(Shon) Miriam, she happened
to be in the room in bed

when her husband supposedly
committed suicide.

It was ruled a suicide,

but that he was shot in the side
of the head that Miriam laid on.

The weird part about
this is that Miriam

had just lain down in the bed,
that's what she told police.

He put up a pillow barrier
to, evidently, protect her.

(Shon) Her first husband
was right-handed,

and you would have thought
that he would have used

his right hand to fire the gun.

Instead, the wound was found
on the left side of his head

and the weapon was found
on the left side of his body.

(tense music)

So either he reached
around his head at a weird angle,

which did not align
with the trajectory of the bullet,

or he used his non-dominant hand

to shoot himself
with his wife beside him.

(Narrator) Police also
became suspicious about

the way her husband's death
was initially investigated.

(indistinct radio chatter)

(Shon)
It was Miriam's half brother

that was the police officer
that arrived on scene.

She knew how to manipulate
her family and others,

so I don't feel that she was
worried about it at all.

(Narrator) Once again, Miriam
collected a large insurance pay-out

after her husband's death.

(Shon)
When she received payment

for her first husband's
life insurance,

she also, as soon
as she received the money,

bought flashy things,
things that just would not

seem to be on the mind
of a grieving wife.

(Narrator) Police found
other worrying similarities

between Miriam's
past life in Florida

and their investigation
into the arson attack on Alan.

I found that arson was attempted
on her parents' home.

I found that very,
very interesting

because she had embezzled
lots of money from them

and they were upset with her.

Miriam had moved in with
her father and stepmother.

And she started
to commit some fraud.

She started to write cheques
to herself.

She was intercepting
her father's bank statements

so that he wouldn't
see that money was missing.

And that's when she moved
to Colorado.

(Shon)
After those discoveries,

I realised this
is not just bad luck for Miriam.

I realised that there's more
to this story than we know.

I wanted the Florida
law enforcement agency

to reopen the case
and investigate it.

But they told me they
would not reopen the case

and they would not
reinvestigate it.

They also advised Mesa County that
they would not reopen the case

and reinvestigate it as
an attempt murder

or a murder in this situation.

(Narrator) 16 days
after Alan's murder,

police received another call
from Miriam.

Miriam had called
and let the sheriff's office know

that she'd found a card
under her doormat.

And it said,
"To the grieving widow."

Inside the card, it was a woman
sitting in a rocking chair.

And it said,

"Insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again.

Alan was first. Your next.

Run, run, run."

There were misspellings
in that card.

Alan was spelled wrong as well as
the incorrect version of you're.

After Miriam had found that card...

she made sure a friend was
with her when she found it.

(Shon) Investigators
found this suspicious,

so they investigated the card

and where it came from.

They found that
the card was purchased

at a City Market store about
ten miles from Miriam's home.

The investigators were able
to access the cameras

inside the City Market store.

And so as they viewed
the camera footage,

they were able to see
Miriam pick up that card,

walk to the register with it,
purchase that card,

and leave the store.

(Bryanna Fox)
When Alan was found dead,

one thing that law
enforcement thought was,

is this an isolated incident?

Or could there be more?

And Mrs Helmick wanted
to further that narrative

because, of course,
if she was at risk

she couldn't possibly
be the perpetrator.

When police asked
Miriam about the card

and why she had that,
why she did that,

she said she didn't feel like
the police were doing enough

for Alan's investigation and
she wanted to speed things up

and also get
it back into the public eye.

(Keri Nixon) She wrote a note
to try and make the police think

that she was also
a potential victim.

These things, they suggest that
even though she's manipulative,

she's not actually that bright.

She hadn't really
thought it through.

It wasn't enough for Miriam

just to have
her financial problems go away,

she had an issue
and she wanted to solve it,

but she had to be the centre
of attention and the victim.

Not only did her husband die, not
only did she get what she wanted,

she had to also be
at risk herself.

It really show, here's this woman
that has this personality issue

where not only is it sufficient

to have just one instrumental goal
achieved,

she had to go through much more,

bringing more attention
onto herself,

only raising her profile and
making more people pay attention

to her, which, of course,
is exceedingly dangerous.

(tense music)

(Narrator) As police were building
their case, Miriam went on the run.

(Shon) Miriam took off.
She disappeared from the area.

She took her car.

And interestingly enough,

she took the ID of Alan's
first wife, Sharon, and left.

Later on, she was found
on CCTV at a pawn shop

where she was attempting
to do business as Sharon Helmick,

Alan's first wife.

(Kieran) When we learned
that Miriam had left Colorado,

no one was surprised.

And what it looked like is that
she was running from something.

(Narrator)
While Miriam was on the run,

police still needed to trace
the missing murder weapon.

(Kieran) Alan was shot
with a .25-calibre bullet.

One of Alan's daughters
did remember there being a .25

in the house that belonged
to her mother, Sharon.

Now, there's a really interesting
story tied to this,

and it's pretty wild.

So police had the shell casing.

And they were told a story that

the gun was handed down
to Sharon from her stepfather.

And I think about 30 years prior,

her stepfather had gotten
into an altercation near his home

and he had that gun on him.

He struggled with a neighbour
who had stepped in

to try to protect
the other person

and he fired a shot
into the ground.

(Shon) Investigators were able
to locate that spent round

or fired round in the ground

at the Helmicks' old home
in Delta.

Luckily, that neighbour
still lived there and was able

to kind of point to the area

where he thought the bullet
went into the ground.

Police had metal detectors, but
they...they recovered that bullet.

Forensic testing was done.
It was determined that it matched.

The rifling and striations matched
the bullet removed from Alan.

(dramatic music)

So then they were able to conclude
that that .25-calibre handgun

that belonged to Alan,
was missing from the home,

was the weapon that killed Alan.

The gun was never found at all.
It was never recovered.

(Narrator) Police issued
a warrant for Miriam's arrest.

(Shon) December of 2008,
Miriam was arrested

for the murder of Alan

when she was located
in Jacksonville, Florida.

(Kieran)
While in Jacksonville, Miriam,

she just went right back to it.

She joined a dating website,

I believe,
that was for wealthy individuals.

And she met a man.

She drove down to Orlando
from Jacksonville,

which is at least a few hours,
to go on a date with this man.

And she ended up spending
the weekend with him.

And what we later learned is that

Miriam had assumed
the identity of Sharon Helmick.

In fact, the man that
she went to go meet,

he thought her name was Sharon.

(Shon) Well, Miriam was charged
with first-degree murder of Alan.

And she was also charged
in the attempt murder

in my case in Delta.

We combined those cases into
her murder trial in Mesa County.

(tense music)

(Narrator) In November 2009,
Miriam Helmick stood trial

for the murder
of her husband, Alan.

Detective Sergeant Shon Wells
was called to give evidence.

(Shon Wells)
I did testify in court,

and I did share what I did

throughout my investigation
in that trial.

(Narrator) Sergeant Wells'
testimony included his account

of Miriam's behaviour
during the arson attempt on Alan.

(Shon) I was able to speak
to Miriam's demeanour on scene.

Very nervous, elusive,
going across four lanes of traffic

to go to the rest room when
there was one 20 feet from her,

her uncooperativeness.

(Narrator) Crucially, police were
able to present forensic evidence

that tied Miriam to the arson
attempt and the murder scene.

(Shon) This piece of wick that was
in the gas tank came into play

when Mesa County called and asked
if I had any evidence, by chance,

from my attempt to arson case.

And I was able to let
Mesa County investigators know

that I did
keep the wick as evidence

and I still had it in
my property and evidence room.

(Kieran Wilson)
Alan and Miriam had driven down

to Delta, Colorado that day.

They were getting ready to leave.

And Miriam said she had
some stomach issues,

and she needed to go inside
and use the rest room.

At that point,
she wanted to change her shoes,

so she went into the trunk.

This is when the wick
might have been ignited.

(explosion)

(Shon) Mesa County prosecutors
found that the wick had possibly

matched a cutout
of a horse lead, or rope,

from the horse trailer that
Miriam used to haul her horses.

The investigators and the
district attorney's office

was able to determine
the type of rope

that the wick was made out of

and also found that same type of
rope in Miriam's horse trailer.

(tense music)

(Kieran) When police were
looking at Miriam,

they tested her
for gunshot residue.

They didn't find any
on her person.

What they did find was a very
small amount of gunshot residue

in her car on her steering wheel.

We learned about this
during the trial.

(Narrator) Even Miriam's son was
called to testify at trial.

Not far into the investigation,
Miriam called her son

and said she wanted
to move back to Florida.

What he told her was that
she needed to stay in Colorado,

wait for the dust
to settle, you know,

and then she could come
if it was appropriate.

Miriam then lied
to her son and said

that the police had cleared her.

She also mentioned that
she was taking Sharon's car

and that she 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 wrong.

Testifying in court
against his mother

was very hard for Miriam's son.

He had lost his sister,
he had lost his father,

he was about to lose his mother.

And it's still something that
he struggles with to this day.

He can't comprehend how somebody
could go to these lengths

to cover up $40,000 in cheques.

And this is something
he'll continue to struggle with,

I'm sure,
for the rest of his life.

(Narrator)
After a month-long trial,

Miriam was found guilty
of murder and fraud.

Miriam received
a life sentence

plus 78 years
for the fraud counts.

(Shon)
This was definitely a unique case

in my career as an investigator.

This had not happened during my
tenure at the police department.

People will go 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.

And then, some people
will do whatever it takes.

Some people will kill
to cover up fraud.

And Miriam was
definitely one of those.

I did not like to see
a case unfinished,

so this case was
a bit frustrating,

where the victim, Alan,
wouldn't cooperate,

and where I was unable
to get Miriam 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
to a close, a successful close.

(Narrator)
Despite her conviction,

Miriam still
maintains her innocence.

(Kieran)
Throughout the investigation,

the trial, the sentencing,

Miriam has maintained
her innocence the whole time.

She's appealed the verdict
multiple times.

The Colorado Court of Appeals
just reconfirmed

everything from the original case
and said yes, she is guilty.

(Keri) Miriam continues to deny
that she murdered Alan.

This could be due to many reasons.

However,

with the control that she
exhibited in that relationship,

I expect it's to still remain
in control.

(Bryanna Fox)
In this case in particular,

it seems that Miriam Helmick
didn't just come up with this

all at once.

She had been building up to this

by engaging in
similar insurance frauds

where she financially benefited

and she inflicted the harm
on her own property.

But this time, she was
inflicting harm on her husband.

And she also thought,
here's how I'm going to

essentially have an alibi
and cover it up.

(Shon) Miriam
is definitely a gold-digger.

I believe that Miriam is
responsible for a lot of death

in her immediate surroundings.

She was a manipulator, a liar,
and a very cold, evil person.

(tense music)

(Keri Nixon)
She is very much a gold-digger.

But she's more than that.

A lot of women who
are gold-diggers

will use manipulation,

may use their bodies,
may use sex.

But they just get the money.

This is a woman who was
a gold-digger,

but was also a murderer.

She was willing to go to that
point to get what she wanted.

And she didn't want the man.

She wasn't willing to live
the life to have the money.

She wanted rid of them.
She wanted the insurance money.

(Narrator)
Despite Miriam's conviction,

the murder of Alan Helmick has
had a lasting impact

on, not only detective Shon Wells,
but the wider community of Delta.

(Shon) It does make me sad that
it came to that in our community.

We're small towns.
This just doesn't happen here.

And I think it made people think

and realise that
it can happen anywhere.

I believe that Miriam would have
continued this kind of pattern

and continued to defraud
and murder again.

(sombre music)

This is a criminal,
a dangerous woman,

who was willing to take the lives
of men in order to get money.

We see people who are
incredibly wealthy

that have wives
that we can certainly say

probably wouldn't
be with that person

if it wasn't for
their huge amount of wealth,

but those people are
willing to marry them

and are willing to stay married
and have that lifestyle

because they're so driven
by the need for money.

They're certainly not planning
on killing that person,

whereas in this case,
that was her plan all along.

It wasn't just to marry
somebody for money

and put up with the unhappiness
for the money and the lifestyle,

she actually planned

to take people's lives
for their money.

(Shon) I think if Alan would have
let me speak with Miriam

and continue to investigate,

I believe that I would have been
able to charge Miriam

with the attempted arson.

I believe that Alan
could have accepted that.

I think he would have accepted it

once he saw the evidence
that I had compiled.

And I think that
he would have been sad,

but I think he would have
been OK with the outcome.

And ultimately,
that would have saved his life.

(sombre music)

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