Father Arrested in 1995 Death of Young Son

Capping a mother’s campaign for the arrest of her own son, authorities took the man into custody Friday on suspicion of murdering his 2-year-old boy, accusing him of the same crime that toughened state child abuse laws but also may have sent an innocent woman to prison.

Police arrested 37-year-old David Helms and booked him on suspicion of murder and felony child endangerment in the beating death of his son Lance three years ago in North Hollywood.

The district attorney’s office must still sort out its case against Helms’ former girlfriend, Eve Wingfield, who spent 21 months in prison for the death. Wingfield had pleaded guilty to felony child endangerment in a plea bargain that she accepted only because her lawyer at the time warned that she would otherwise probably be convicted of murder, her new lawyers said.

Wingfield, 25, has been free on her own recognizance since Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff ruled last year that a reinvestigation of Lance’s death by an LAPD detective established a “compelling” case for her innocence.

Even after Wingfield went to prison, Gail Helms--grandmother of the dead boy--insisted that police should instead be investigating her son, who she said had a history of family violence and a long criminal record.

“It’s almost like I can’t believe it’s finally come,” Gail Helms said after the arrest Friday. “It’s bittersweet because David is my son, but I knew Eve Wingfield didn’t murder [Lance] despite what the authorities tried to convince us.”

Helms was taken into custody at his Hollywood apartment, according to LAPD spokesman Don Cox. He will remain at Van Nuys jail until he is arraigned Monday or Tuesday.

The toddler’s death ignited widespread criticism of the Los Angeles County Dependency Court. The court returned Lance--who had been taken away by social workers--to his father’s custody under a policy that emphasized reunification of families. As a result, the state Legislature later passed a law requiring that a child’s safety be the ruling factor in such decisions.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor J. Hunter could not be reached Friday to discuss the prosecutor’s case against David Helms or to explain why authorities took so long to arrest him after the November 1996 release of a 31-page Los Angeles Police Department report that appeared to exonerate Wingfield and name Helms as the primary suspect in his son’s slaying.

Wingfield’s attorney expressed satisfaction with the arrest despite the delay, saying that the district attorney’s office appeared to feel it was better to proceed slowly against Helms to avoid the kind of errors that wrongly imprisoned his client.

“It’s been our position since the beginning that the wrong person was arrested,” said Michael E. Goodman of the alternate public defender’s office. “It’s gratifying to see that the district attorney is finally in agreement with that.

“My client is extremely relieved to see David Helms off the street,” added Goodman. “She has feared for her safety and that of her daughter since her release.”

Still, Wingfield, who has changed her plea to not guilty to the original charge of murder, faces a court hearing April 13.

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Last year, Wingfield’s defense was moved to the alternate public defender’s office after the LAPD report was submitted to the district attorney’s office. The alternate defender’s office said that Wingfield had been advised by her previous counsel--Deputy Public Defender Joel Wallenstein--to plead guilty to child endangerment, a felony carrying a 10-year prison sentence, on the grounds that prosecutors had a strong enough case to convict her of murder.

Wallenstein said his advice was based in large part on the damaging medical testimony given at Wingfield’s preliminary hearing by Dr. James K. Ribe, a senior deputy medical examiner with the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Ribe testified that Lance was beaten so severely that his liver was split, resulting in his death about 30 to 60 minutes later, court documents show.

Prosecutors used that testimony to argue that Wingfield must have carried out the crime on April 6, 1995, at Helms’ apartment in the 11600 block of Oxnard Street because she had been caring for him in that time period. Wingfield was out of the apartment redeeming jewelry at a nearby pawnshop when Lance died in the apartment, with his father present.

Yet, that theory appeared to evaporate after LAPD Det. Terry Lopez--who dug into the case even after Wingfield had been sentenced and imprisoned--interviewed Ribe. The medical examiner told Lopez that the boy “suffered fatal injuries that were instantly incapacitating, leading to rapid death,” records show.

Lance must have died during the beating, the report indicated, but he had been alive when Wingfield left the apartment, so the beating must have occurred after she left, when only David Helms was present.

Ribe’s revised statements also cast doubt on Helms’ statement to authorities that his son “was conscious, talking and drinking water,” shortly before he died. The toddler would not have been able to do so, Ribe said.

In their report, Lopez and her partner wrote that “David Helms was the last adult to have care and custody of Lance Helms, during the time immediately prior to his death,” adding that the evidence indicated that “Helms used his fist to repeatedly strike Lance Helms with tremendous force in the abdominal area, causing massive internal injuries and death.”

The report also raised Helms’ violent past, “an extensive criminal record dating back to 1978.”

Helms was convicted of larceny and conspiracy while serving in the U.S. Army, the report said. After a bad-conduct discharge, Helms had more run-ins with the law, including arrests and convictions involving prostitution, burglary, narcotics and robbery, according to the report.

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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.

She said he had a habit of punching his brothers and sisters in the abdomen when he lost his temper, the same type of blow that killed Lance.

During his relationship with Eve Wingfield, the LAPD police report cited numerous incidents of spousal abuse, including punches “causing black eyes,” and instances in which he “shoved her against dressers, bookcases and beds.”

Lance Helms, 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 his aunt, Ayn Helms. But David Helms later sought and won custody of the boy, under family court rules that encouraged family unification.

Wingfield lived with Helms on and off, and he fathered two of her children, one of whom was born while Wingfield was in jail.

Goodman, Wingfield’s current attorney, praised Lopez for “police work above and beyond the call of duty” in compiling the report.

The case was reopened after Gail Helms, believing there was police misconduct in the original investigation, contacted her cousin, a retired LAPD detective. That led eventually to the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division’s assigning Lopez and Det. Steve Bernard to investigate the case.

“You kind of have a blind spot with your own kid and a lot of people might have accepted things the way they were,” Gail Helms said.

“But after reliving what Lance went through, I knew it wasn’t right. The arrest of my son is a relief because we’ve been working toward it for a long time, but it’s nothing to celebrate.”