Father Goes on Trial in Son’s Slaying

In June 1995, Deputy Los Angeles County Medical Examiner James K. Ribe was summoned to a Van Nuys Municipal courtroom to testify at a preliminary hearing for Eve Wingfield, a young woman charged with beating to death 2 1/2-year-old Lance Helms.

Now, with another trial set to begin for Lance’s killing, Ribe’s statements again could prove pivotal in determining what happened to the precocious little boy who loved to sing and finger-paint, and whose death changed state child custody law.

This time, however, the accused is Lance’s 37-year-old father.

In his testimony in 1995, Ribe said Lance died in his North Hollywood apartment 30 to 60 minutes after being beaten, placing the beating during the time he was being watched by Wingfield, then his father’s live-in girlfriend.

On the apparent strength of those statements, a public defender convinced Wingfield that she was facing a possible life sentence for murder and persuaded her to accept a plea bargain with a 10-year state prison sentence.

But last September, Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff ordered Wingfield, 25, released from prison, largely because Ribe changed his opinion about the time of death.

The deputy coroner had told two Los Angeles police detectives reinvestigating Lance’s death that the toddler probably died almost immediately from repeated blows to the abdomen, fixing the time of death in a period when the boy was in the care of his father, David Helms.

Helms was charged April 6 with murder, seven months after Wingfield’s release from prison and three years to the day after his son’s death.

As the trial unfolds over the next three weeks before Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Sandy R. Kriegler, Ribe’s testimony could prove a formidable obstacle for Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor J. Hunter.

She will contend that the boy was beaten by his father over a period of 11 months before his death and that some of the alleged abuse was witnessed by neighbors, according to court documents.

Helm’s defense attorney, Jack Stone, said he would debunk the prosecution’s case of “battered child syndrome” by calling as many as seven of his own medical experts, perhaps even Ribe himself, to cast doubt on the prosecutor’s timeline.

“This case will rise and fall on the doctors,” Stone said. If medical experts cannot pinpoint a time of death there is “a reasonable doubt [as to the guilt] of either one of them,” he contends.

But prosecutors could get help from key witnesses. Among them are Gail Helms--the mother of the defendant and grandmother of the dead boy--and Wingfield, who in June pleaded no contest to felony child abuse in a second settlement with the district attorney’s office.

Lance, the child of another of Helm’s girlfriends, was born Sept. 11, 1992, heroin-addicted. The Department of Children’s Services placed him in the care of his aunt, Ayn Helms, before Helms sought and won custody of his son in August 1994.

Shortly after being placed in his father’s care, relatives began to notice bruises and scrapes on his body, according to the victim’s grandmother.

In an effort to get the attention of child welfare authorities, she took photographs of Lance’s injuries. She also made notes in a diary she kept from November 1994 until the boy’s death six months later.

Lance’s final day was spent at home with Wingfield and his 4-year-old half brother, Calvin. Both boys had been sick with a stomach flu that also left Lance dehydrated and suffering from diarrhea, according to court records.

Sometime between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., Helms arrived home and demanded that Wingfield redeem some items from a nearby pawn broker, the documents show. Wingfield said she left Lance sitting up on the couch talking to his father, who would later tell authorities his son was up and drinking a glass of water at that time, according to court records.

Wingfield returned 15 to 20 minutes later to find Lance slumped on the couch, his lips blue. By the time paramedics arrived at Helm’s apartment in the 11600 block of Oxnard Street they found the boy on the floor with no pulse.

The toddler’s death ignited widespread criticism of the Los Angeles County Dependency Court, the agency responsible for returning the boy to his father under a policy that emphasized reunification of families. That prompted the state Legislature to pass a law requiring that a child’s safety be the ruling factor in custody cases.

Wingfield was sent to prison on her first plea bargain, but evidence later surfaced that appeared to exonerate her.

LAPD Dets. Terry Lopez and Steve Bernard dug into the case and uncovered what appeared to be a series of errors by the Los Angeles Police Department, the district attorney’s office and the coroner’s office.

After going back to Ribe, the detectives reported new medical evidence showing the boy “suffered fatal injuries that were instantly incapacitating, leading to rapid death.” The report went on to say that “once Lance suffered these injuries, he would not have been able to move, talk, or do any activity.”

If that were the case, they reasoned, then the fatal injuries must have been inflicted after Wingfield left the apartment, but before she returned.

They concluded that the boy’s father “used his fist to repeatedly strike Lance Helms with tremendous force in the abdominal area, causing massive internal injuries and death.”

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.

Police interviewed Ribe after Gail Helms convinced them to investigate her son, who she said had a history of family violence--especially of punching abdomens--and a long criminal record.