In the quiet community of Whitewater, Colorado, the life of 62-year-old Alan Clarke Helmick, a local businessman, came to an abrupt and violent end on June 10, 2008. Just before noon on that Tuesday, authorities received a 911 call from his wife, Miriam Helmick, reporting a possible robbery at their residence. When law enforcement arrived at their home located at 34449 Siminoe Road, they discovered Alan Helmick deceased from a gunshot wound to the head.
What initially appeared to be a
robbery gone wrong soon unraveled into a complex investigation pointing to someone much closer to the victim. Miriam Helmick, then 51, told authorities that she had found her husband after they had made plans to meet for lunch in Grand Junction. As detectives delved deeper, a pattern of suspicious activities began to emerge around Miriam. Investigators uncovered that in the months leading up to his death, Alan Helmick had become increasingly isolated from his family and friends.
The investigation culminated in the arrest of Miriam Helmick in Florida in December 2008. An arrest warrant was issued, charging her with first-degree murder after deliberation. The case against her detailed a number of troubling findings. Prosecutors alleged that she had been forging checks in her husband's name for nearly a year before his murder. Further investigation revealed that two months prior to the shooting, Miriam had been conducting online searches for terms such as 'Ambien overdose,' 'buy purple foxglove' and 'Viagra overdose,' particularly concerning given Alan's known heart problems. Evidence also suggested an earlier attempt on his life; she was charged with attempted murder in connection with a car fire on April 30. It also came to light that Miriam's first husband, Jack Calloway Giles, had also died from a gunshot to the head in 2002, a case that had been ruled a suicide at the time. With an overwhelming amount of evidence, Miriam Helmick was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and multiple counts of felony forgery, facing justice for the death of her husband, Alan.
