New Trial Over Boy’s Beating Death Opens

The trial of a Hollywood man charged with the beating death of his 2 1/2-year-old son opened Tuesday in Van Nuys with the defendant’s former girlfriend telling the jury she once pleaded guilty to the boy’s killing because she feared for her life.

Eve Wingfield, 25, painted David Helms, 37, as a controlling and menacing figure who threatened to kill her if she told authorities what she knew about the period during which Helms’ son Lance was fatally beaten--an issue at the heart of the trial.

“He said the police were going to harass us. They were going to try to make us go against each other, that we had to stick together,” Wingfield said. “David said if I was to get off on this thing,” he and another man “were going to kill me.”

Wingfield was sentenced to 10 years for Lance’s death after pleading guilty to a charge of felony child endangerment on the advice of her lawyer. She was freed after a new police investigation found that the key witness against her had changed his account. Prosecutors then brought charges against Helms.

County Medical Examiner James K. Ribe had said initially that Lance died 30 to 60 minutes after he was beaten, placing the attack during a time he was in Wingfield’s care. She was released last September and her trial was reopened after Ribe told investigators that Lance died almost instantly from the beating--moving the assault into a period when Helms was alone with the toddler.

Wingfield was one of four witnesses in Van Nuys Superior Court on the first day of the trial. The others included people who say they saw Helms hit and kick the boy previously.

The slaying ignited criticism of the dependency court--which took Lance from a relative’s care and returned him to his father--prompting the state Legislature to change the law to require that a child’s safety take precedence over policies aimed at reunifying families.