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Woman Honored for Her Role as Witness

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

For years, Gail Helms fought a lonely battle to convict the man who fatally beat her 2 1/2-year-old grandson, Lance Helms--a man who is also her son and the dead toddler’s father.

Helms, whose efforts also helped change state child abuse laws to emphasize a child’s safety over a policy of family reunification, was honored Tuesday with the California District Attorneys Assn.’s Patricia Lewis Witness of the Year Award.

The honor--named for a woman who was repeatedly threatened after witnessing a gang killing--was presented at a Long Beach luncheon to Helms for her efforts to win a conviction against her son David Helms, 37, after his girlfriend Eve Wingfield was wrongly imprisoned for the child’s beating death.

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“I was so moved that they would do this,” Helms said. “I have had such incredible people to help me through this whole ordeal. If it weren’t for them, I would still be writing letters trying get someone to listen.”

Helms first tried to get the attention of authorities shortly after her son, a drug addict with a long criminal record and history of abuse, was given custody of Lance in Los Angeles County Dependency Court.

Lance was killed April 6, 1995, in the North Hollywood apartment David Helms shared with Wingfield. Wingfield was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January 1996 after a public defender persuaded her to plead guilty to a charge of child endangerment causing death, counseling her that otherwise a jury would probably convict her of murder.

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

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 in late 1996.

On the strength of a 31-page report by the detectives, a Superior Court judge ordered Wingfield released from prison, leading to the arrest and eventual conviction of David Helms on murder charges last year.

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Deputy District Atty. Eleanor Hunter, who nominated Gail Helms, called her the force behind winning a 21-year prison sentence against her son.

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