Last Dance in the Rockies
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to after the verdict. Subtribe a deadline premium on apple podcast spotify or a deadline premium dot com. The dance of love begins with one hand taking another, a simple step of spin, and then the magic starts. At least that's how IT all began for Allen and mariam helmet, two law souls who found each other on the dance floor.

They were awesome. There's there's no other word that comes into mind except fun. They made everything they did fun.

They made in a small dance studio in the quiet town of grand junction, colorado, two windows, getting a second chance at low favorite vin. Yet where you see them in your mind, you see what they are doing.

Allen, doing the swing moves. Mari am going on, my god.

to fellow dance students like penny lions. Their romance seemed to be what little girls dreamed about.

Allen, for her, was like her night in shining armour. I mean, he came into her life and said, I want to care for you. I want to care about you, and your joy is my goal.

And fifty nine year old Allen helmet wasn't just a ninety armor to marum. A lot of people in his home town of della, colorado felt the same way about IT Allen. The broken on main street had help people get into their homes and help build their businesses.

My father was probably one of the best people i've ever met my life. And I don't just say that because of .

the son to alan holic, junior, his father was the epidemic, the all american success story for the years before his life, Chris cross with myriam s. He was a golden eard musician and star baseball picture who married his high school sweetheart. Sharing together, they raised four children while Allan ran the local savings and loan and eventually his own mortgage entitled companies I almost like of the George barely character, and it's it's a wonderful life coming to the savings and loan. What if I hadn't lived break.

said my dad. We've got a second job to make up the money he loves.

But on new year's eve two thousand three, the wonderful life of Allan helmet fell apart. His lifetime companion, sherron, had died of a sudden heart attack.

I think that he died that day. A big part of him. You know, he lost my mother, who been instinct. He was fourteen. His love, his life, i'm sure that everything that he thought was real ripped out from under him.

Months passed before Allen could pick himself up and rejoin the world. His ticket back turned out to be some unused credit at a ballroom dance studio where he's wants taking classes.

He that, well, maybe something I should do. He's trying to break out of, you know, the slump he's and so he goes back to the classes.

and that's where he met his dance and structure. Forty eight year old mirum giles mariam had lived in florida and recently moved to colorado to .

start a new life of her own.

Like Allan SHE was still raw from back to back losses. Her daughter amy had passed away in two thousand from a drug overdose, and her husband jack suicide two years later. Romance was the last thing on billion's mine, but as her friend penny remembers that Allen was persistent.

he went for daw's lessons. He was an interested in anything else he was SHE told him, no, he had to fight to get her to go out with him.

What do you think he found IT in her, in the kind of mysterious chemistry of people becoming couples?

SHE was exhilarating. SHE was very lively. And sheet match him in his joy of doing the things they like to do. And you get someone to do IT .

where you can't beat that.

The couple soon became inseparable. India moved into Allen's home and delta, and in june two thousand six, they decided to marry. Did you see the lights go back on?

And your father, he was definitely a miles miles Better. Yeah, I think the traditional role that he grew up in, you know, there's the man and the woman, they grow together and they die together. So I think that he felt a purpose that he needed. Shortly.

the Allen, everyone had missed fun, loving, happy, optimistic, was finally back. And with his new wife, he was looking for new business opportunities, too. Before his wetting, Allen stopped by the office of his account and long time friend bob kochi.

Allen came in and we were doing some taxes, and he said that he is going to invest in a dancer on and dancer on. Yeah, where did that each to open a dance studio come from? Do you think I would have to be married? I mean, how, why would he do that? Like, I want to root. Well, if Allen wanted to open a dance studio sobey supportive friends of many years, people like ed Benson, a contractor, signed up for dance lessons along with his wife.

Allen actually put on an exhibition, a Allen and marian dance. Allen is a very competitive person, and he was good. I mean, wow, he was very, very good.

But a small town ballroom dance studio would always be a business of the heart. And a couple of years later, IT was bleeding money. By then, though, Allen and mariam had turned their attentions in a new direction.

They had bought a forty acre property in White water, a rural community just outside grand junction, with the idea of starting a horse breeding business. Allen's accountant in sugar code, this opinion of that venture, either that was a nightmare. Tell my is anybody gets raised in horses going to lose the money? He was determined.

He was going to make money. Friends thought a little of that. Someone is smart and business savas Allen would get involved in such a risky started, but they struggled off as an investment in a new bride.

IT was just, you know, of something to make his wife happy. I don't think he was not even after to realized that he was going to make money doing.

Now the helps throw themselves into developing their horse property and breathing business work seem to fill the aching hello spots in both their lives, and they might have happily ever offered on their little ranch. But IT didn't work out that way.

The make a, can I share of office and A, C, B, I are investigating a suspicious death tonight and say it's too early, say, whether is a suicide or a homicide. Deputies were called out to a one .

on june tenth, two thousand eight. The local news Carried the story of an apparent robbery, homicide out in the helmets neighborhood.

My wife, I was starting to get ready for bed and I I said, I wonder that alon, and by the morning's news release that was out that that is exactly who IT was.

Alan helmet had been murder in his home. The victim, apparently of a robbery gone bad. But as investigators began to dig, they would come up with the theory of a crime darker than anyone on the western slope of the rockies could have guessed.

IT was a tuesday afternoon about lunchtime called, came in from nine one one dispatch.

IT was june tenth, two thousand days when Miriam helmet walked into her rural colorado home and found her husband on the floor shut to.

Death what?

Investigator jim havens strike of the Mason county share of department heard the dispatch and go out on his radio.

Actually, what happened? He is one of what that was like. Somebody came in a rather. where?

Some of our deputies responded to the residents. They were advised, as they were enough that the person who had called nine one one was the wife and that he was beginning cpr.

Is he breathing? No, what's got to OK man, we going to get to some help pulled on.

okay? When the most account deputies arrived, they saw a marian helmet needing over her husband's body. He'd been shot in the back of the head on the floor beside him, a twenty five calibre shell casing, a wallet and a cellphone. The inspector joined the first responders at the scene.

Mister helmet was lying on his back in an office seria that had joined the kitchen.

At first class, IT looked like a home invasion. But to the detective, something about IT just didn't seem right.

IT appeared that someone attempted to make IT look like a burgers or a robbery gone bad, but IT looked very suspicious. There were jars pulled out of desks, and the office area a small trash camp turned over.

Wouldn't speak to in intruder with a botch robbery rather than a state robbery.

IT more speaks to someone who doesn't know really what a burglar or a robbery looks like. Because the George weren't dumped out. There weren't things scattered all over the floor. There were few draws open in the kitchen. And typically, that's not some place that burgers go to look for valuables.

Police cordoned off a crime scene in an area that hasn't seen very many of them. Tell me about this neighbor. Od.

you get sent to just a little bedroom community. It's probably about ten miles south and grand junction country properties.

People have little agree, exactly one. Some animals, right? Crime there.

It's precision free in that area because that is so remote.

As investigators progress the scene, people started to congregate outside the house. Cameras were there when Allen, sun and law arrived, anxious to see what was going on. Learning the news, he collapsed in grief and rage.

Mariam was said to be shaken as well. What is he showing you in terms of the minor? In these early hours.

the original deputies indicated that that he was crying.

And because homicide detectors always do, they put the surviving spouse through the mill until they can roll him or her out. So they broke mariam down to the share of the office where they tested her hands for gunshot residue.

Just told right hand for me here.

SHE came out clean. The first hurdle verifying her alibi was the second. Mariam described her morning in detail, wake up at six A M to feeding the horses with Allen.

Clean stalls almost about you can going up.

Mariam says he left her home around eight fifteen for a busy morning of errands, with plans to meet Allen later for lunch. SHE first stopped at the market for cigarettes and the drink, and on our way to the next stop phone, Allen, who was busy running his own.

Area love you, just let you know i'm going to walmart. You're going to meet me for lunch. Let's meet at the chinese the fate.

Want to get car service, call me. Let me know. Love a by. No.

call back. No big deal. Myriam said that after he finished walmart, SHE moved on to the third item on her to do list. For that day.

I needed a big, really big bag character for her. I have to go over to Carry .

still. No.

Allen, I like you to call, not call me. So give me a holler. thanks.

Bice mariam drove to her force stop the city market where Allen was supposed to have dropped prescription.

around. At time, has he called to back? Ya, youth is that hard? Yes, it's I bit around there until he was time to meet him. At a eleven clock at the chinese.

myriam drove over to the chinese restaurant part and waited in the line. The plan, he said, had been to have lunch with Allen about eleven. A M. SHE left an another voice.

male. K, and this is funny anymore of visiting here in front of the china of dragon, a chinese place for fifteen minutes and or never late. So would you call the china restaurant? Hi, we get there until about ten or nine fifteen because norway, he's like right time or early.

Mariam stories seemed to check out there were even receipts from her shopping morning, which tracked her from store to store from eight forty nine am until he was recorded by a security can near the chinese restaurant around eleven.

Basically, we were able to determine that they are out that he had described. And the places SHE described were, in fact, accurate.

So that's a pretty good alii. She's not around her housebound. This awful thing is going on at same. Tired of waiting for Allen.

mariam decided to drive home. Do you think I don't remember I saw his truck. I'm going to get my piece of my mind standing you up for long time, not calling you.

So about the food.

So we know that time, and join in a small blood under his head who had paid a fatal .

house call on Allen helmet while his wife was out shopping. What had happened to that ranch? Something random and botched or something planned? The investigators didn't know yet.

What had happened to alan helmet while his wife mirror was out, he hadn't responded to a phone call, had been a no show for their lunch date. And when marum returned home, SHE discovered him on the kitchen floor with a gunshot wounds to the head.

Is he conscious? no. Is he breathing? no. What can you would do this?

The murder had become not only a major investigation. IT was also a red hot story in the local media.

thirsty for developments. I my like i'm just missing you my life. 哎呀。 Don't know what you.

myriam helmer, agreed to talk to a couple of television reporters, mostly softball stuff, about her life with Allan.

I met him teaching, and then I didn't really like you grew on me. And a little while he grew .

on me warm and .

fusing about the courts. So it's just hard to managing. Somebody meet, he would take my car and feel public gas without asking I, me, just little things.

SHE spoke of Allen's generosity, his love.

I mean, we, once we get married, this fit most, this time trying to make me happy. So was do a lot of things in ARM. No regrets. Meanwhile, the cops were playing .

their investigation close to the vest, giving the heavy breathing news. People only drives and drags, and the more they looked at the house where Allen was killed, the more their experience told them that the scene smell the high heaven .

in a burberry or a robbery. It's unlikely that someone is going to be shot in the back of the head. why? Because if the burglary is in progress, the burglar is probably going to run. Most burglars don't Carry a gun into a crime scene with them.

The working theory became, this wasn't a robbery. Allen helmet knew his killer investigators as myriam, who he thought might be responsible. Your immediate question, as well as he having enemy's any idea who could dum us what's he's been doing for the previous couple of days?

That kind of light, right? SHE was able to think of anyone who might have been responsible for his death. He mentioned that Allen and his son, Allan junior had a somewhat strange .

relationship. Ranking people that you found Allen to be continuous with. Who would be? Who would be number one? Who would be at the top of the list? Alan son. Police called .

him in for questioning, but since he lived out of state, he was able to prove that he wasn't around at the time of the murder. Still, he left the share of office on impressed. I remember .

being a little bit upset. Turn the interview with her that he didn't ask enough questions. SHE didn't give me a polygraph. Not that he should be looking at me more, but is this how you're treating everyone? I mean, are you're spending so little time, you know, investigating be puffer er yeah, exactly.

Regardless of how he felt the investigation was progressive, he quickly moved down that list of people of interest. Maybe Allen had a business deal that it's showered detectives as myra m. About any bad blood with former business partners.

Did you have any enemies, any problems with any of these contracting work going on? Any dismuke? Would you share that with you if he did? I think so.

Some of the people who had worked for him in the past said he could be difficult to work for, but nothing that rose to the level of a motive for somebody to wants to kill alan helmig.

But someone had wanted to kill alan. And just recently, two investigators didn't know what to make of a bizarre, failed attempt on how mix life they'd only just become aware of. And the reporters were on IT .

too new details in a master accounting holic de investigation why an unsolved arson case as deputies looking at evidence in another county forty one .

days before Allen's murder, he was involved in a disturbing incident in his hometown of delta. IT happened outside of the office of his old title company. Allen had just finished a business meeting.

He was selling his company, sitting in his car, waiting for mariam to come back from the ladies room. All of a sudden, the gas tank on his boy caught fire. The police thought IT was a case of arson.

The fire was quickly doubt helmig wasn't injured, but that question, why would someone try something as outlandish as torching Allen helma's car? As he said in IT, in broad daylight, on the town's main drag was the failed arsonists. Ks, later, a successful shooter in our TV interview, myriam had been asked about the lighted .

work in the gas ank of the view they know we call us back when he calls, though. Think at all that there may be connected, good possibility and letting them figure that out. We IT was A. Definitely, I see an interesting day because that first time, I mean, was was a sharp to us, you know, but he never mentioned anything about anybody that could would do something like that. Do you think Allen knew his attacker?

In the days after Allen's murder, admits the grief in confusion, mariam had to confront one more emotion, fear, because that seemed her life might also have been in danger. Back at home, mariam was noticing some odd things happening around her doors on luck lights turned on cabinet doors that were pulled open.

SHE asked the neighbors that if anyone has seen a strange car in the area, but no one had, but perhaps the most troubling sign of all was left, right there, their doorstep. And what could that be but a warning that her nightmare was far from over? Good friend penny lions was by her side when IT happened, finding an envelope by the front door of .

the house when we opened up the card hand written inside IT said Allen was first year next run, run, run.

They called IT the happiest place on the high desert, home to a tighten group of thirty somethings who like to party. IT starts as a playboy channel fantasy, where passion leads to murder and a killer seeks god's help with the cover up. I'm judged my gods and this is deadly march on all new podcast from deadline .

to listen to the latest episodes each week, completely free. You can find and follow deadly marrus on pandora. A, i'm kiss Morrison for deadline and c, if you're not already hooked on p ox dark comedy called based on a true story now is the perfect time to dive in.

The new season is out now and it's an unbelievable unpredictable ride based on a true story starts Kelly, coco and Christmas. Sina is new parents eva and Nathan who are eager to be done the world of true crime and their friendly neighborhood, real killer. But when new bodies start turning up, IT seems the world of true crime isn't done with them based on a true story, is dreaming. Now, H E og S.

A new horror .

movie, a promising Young star. SHE was so good at playing a killer, but where did the performance end? And reality began, a story was surprised even hollywood couldn't have imagined.

I'm his Morrison. Think you've heard every deadline story. Think again, listen to killer role and a dozen other riveting series when you follow the deadline .

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Two weeks after her husband had been shot to death in their home, mariam helmet was telling friends he was convinced someone was out to get her to .

IT was married ams assertion that whoever killed Allen was still harassing her, stalking her.

SHE was going on about a White pickup that mariam said repeatedly drove past her home. SHE reported IT to investigate her. Haven stright of the massive county sheriff department left .

a message for me on a saturday on my cell phone and said there is a suspicious vehicle driving around the property. And that was a White gmc possibly pick up with White male, subject to a long. Clearly, here was all the description we had from that. So had any .

neighbors seen this vehicle?

None of the neighbor stood. But alan daughter porch, one day hit, was driving by the property. And did you see a White pickup truck near the house?

The ominous truck? then? That really scary thing on our doorstep.

And after the funeral.

mariam had been saying .

for about three days that odd things were going on in the home. He thought what .

someone was coming in the house and turned to spoker .

well that's certainly what IT seemed like .

penny lions had offered to see her uneasy friend muri um home. As they pulled into the garage that evening, myriam noticed that police crime scene tape, which sheet purpose sely left on the door, had been removed.

So we walked over to the front .

door and down .

underneath the welcome and was a bright and yellow envelope. So I picked IT up and hand written on the front, said to the grieving widow. When we opened up the card hand written inside, IT said Allen was first year next run, run, run. Penny .

remembers the fear SHE saw edged on myrie's face.

SHE just started to shake and go down. I mean, how can you not? Allan had been murdered, and now there's a physical threat that you're looking at.

And good god, scare and live in daylights right out of you. So I just told her to get in the car, get in the car, in the car. And I had enough sense, I guess, to grab the card in the envelope.

throat in the back seat. Investigators started to trace that greeting card, tracking down all the local stores where IT could have been sold. Could the card have come from a shady associate who'd been out to get Allen and IT was now out to get muriel too? Just where was this case heading? In the absence of hard information, rumors began to fill the void.

World on the street was that I might have had something to do with a business deal gone bad. Bob koshi I Allen's account and heard the scuttle. But there was some talk about him own people, money and that crap does that, you know? I mean, he had a couple of debts.

but.

The other rumors, though, were about miring herself increasingly in the court of public opinion as well as in the official investigation. IT was felt mariam had to start explaining herself Better. Investigators had been digging into her story and found that once you broke down her alive, the grieving widow, so Graceful on the dance floor, was looking more and like a suspect her day, a bit too preplanned as a concert.

I don't think that we put that together immediately, but as we began to look at things a little closer, IT did seem that that he had every practically every minute of her movement accounted .

for me other questions where I I have all s in my pocket. Marum had those t from her morning .

shopping in japan's pocket, ready for inspection. So offering IT up.

in the spirit of offering IT up.

you guys need to see the proof what i'm talking about.

right? If you need to check up on me or if there's some questions about where i've been here, I here's the proof that that these .

were the places that I went. And the more investigators studied her police interview, the more they found mra ms. Emotions to be a little off, visibly upset woman one minute. No soon or laughing and then when officers left by herself, his starks.

But SHE actually laughed, I think, at these twice during the interviews of her dominant during that interviews seem a little unusual for a spouse who had come home and founder husband dead on the floor though everybody treats grief and shock and different manners exactly. So um in those early hours we still didn't really know what we had .

but now as they dug around, they realized there was a discrepancy in her story of how I was that he'd been able to clear the deck for such a busy morning of shopping. Originally the day was going to be about Allen's granddaughter coming over to the house for an afternoon horse riding lesson, but early that morning, marion phone, the writing instructor sue bowl, are to cancel. The granddaughter .

lives about forty five minutes from their house, and he hadn't gone and picked her up the night before, which is what they usually did.

At least that's the excuse marion gave the riding and structure, but he gave a different account altogether of why the lesson has been cancelled. When he spoke to Allen's daughter portion, mariam told her IT was the riding instructor, who d cancel instructor says that's not true.

Mariam cancelled the riding lesson.

Allen's children, we're getting suspicious over little things mounting up before and after their father was murdered.

There are so many odd things that happened concerning that woman that, in retrospect, in hand sight that I and I think .

they've been worried for their father, no more so than after his marriage delium, when his physical condition began to slide downhill fast.

he was sickle up during that time now, which was very odd. Blue, yeah ah he's i'm in bed.

you know was that like him to basic .

playing about being never, never stronger and hawk's, that was during that time that I started having nightmares, the shoes, trying to poison him, and i'd wake up in the middle with these crisp dreams. And IT was just horrifying. And I thought this got to be a emotional reaction to her replacing my mother.

Crime scene investigators had found plenty of prescription pills in the homework medicine cabinet. Now the family thought alan juniors dreams might have held the answer to why their father was sick. They believed myriam was slowly poisoning him with cocktails of remedy.

We did not know at the time exactly what happened, although we all had, of course, our feelings.

but you and all the sisters now.

amazingly. So when we ve got together, we all saw I to eye, which was kind of odd. We all kind of look at each other went, really, you felt that way too.

But on the medical examiners autopsy y table, no trace of poison was found in Ellen hamm's body.

There was no evidence of poisoning in the complete toxic logy analysis that was performed.

The M E Robert courts' en did discover, though, that Allen had suffered from serious heart disease. A symptom of that condition is .

extreme fatigue. How on helmick severe blockage of his coronary arteries?

So if his family had reported as they did, he'd been acting out of sorts ill in the previous months. What you saw with this heart with that explain those symptoms.

Certainly that would be very consistent.

but something else trouble the family. Alan helmet had been all but beed written virtually unreached in the weeks before his death. Whenever someone called a cell phone, IT was more than likely that muri um would pick up or that no one would answer and .

the calls would go straight to voice I so much. No attack you. So things are tilling up. If you hear coming, that would be great.

Allen's children would also leave messages on mirror umps phones .

to have their dad call them back. I been calling my dad for about a week, and i'm not hearing back, and I was just hoping to be able to get a hold of him. If you could have him call me as if you get this.

that would be late. None of her calls got returned.

calling both the house phone and his self phone. Yeah.

and that was okay. There you go. That was one of the weird thanks. SHE started answering in a cell phone, which was strange. I thought he had her own phone. You know, the house phone was understandable, but cell phone people would answer that. Always had same number, three years.

Hey, this is portion. I am starting to get a complex fear. I'm starting to get, tell you, deal on. Attack me because you guys never not picked up your phone.

His family wasn't the only one having trouble getting through for the previous three months. Allen's bank had also been trying to reach you with some urgent news concerning as finances news that myra mum definitely did not want him to hear.

In the weeks after alan helmet had been murdered in his home, authorities were increasingly regarding his widow iam, as they remain suspect, but even with evidence piling up against her, most of IT not yet disclosed to the press, some friends like penny lions were convinced he was innocent. SHE couldn't conceive of a motive.

He took care of everything her whole life was Allen, and everything provided in that life was provided by island. So what? But there is nothing to gain.

You a little dance studio by you.

yeah.

You IT was awesome. All that mattered was that you do what you enjoy, and that's the philosopher he lived by. The perception .

of her friends was that myriam didn't obviously benefit financially from her husband's death. Allen had been careful to keep their back accounts and credit cards in his name. Only mariam told the investigators about there. Yours and mine approached the money.

Everything is, is, is everything that is mine. He has more than I.

the hello horse trainer sub lwr said mirra m. Had been cut out of her husband's finances by design.

Am told me, after this all happened, that SHE wasn't on to need the bank account because the family, Allen's family, were worried that he was a Younger woman and that he might want his money and to make the family happy. They had signed a principle.

in fact, in the days and weeks after Helen's death, mariam had to borrow from friends just to buy groceries and gas. SHE was struggling to pay her bills. The trainer had to help merry themselves some horses to raise cash.

I needed to be paid for my services as the bank had put a hold on all the funds for any checks that had been written.

Even on the most cynical of letters, IT seemed that always so generous, Allen was worth more demi um alive than dead in that T. V. interview. SHE acknowledge that her husband had been like .

a sugar daddy to her, his father said, was like hell in each, but he always one shop and gave me money. Anything like that, he could say, have finally killed.

But was mariam getting more from Allen, then simply walk around pocket money? IT appeared, SHE had been, and IT also seemed that Allen didn't know about the extra allowance that he was giving herself, if that's what I was. Investigators began to follow the money trail and discover that for the previous year, myriam had been forging checks in Allen's name, checks written pay, able to herself and the dance studio. A Young man named alan lord had been higher to manage the dance studio, said he suspected all along that mariam had been signing Allen checks and he didn't see anything sneaky in IT.

I uy figured that Allen helmet would just perfectly OK with mariam handling the checks in and out of the studio.

They were the legitimate bills, the money that was oed for the month fees to the instructors.

Certain legitimate bills are getting paid.

Of course, it's not uncommon for husband's and wives design each other other's checks. Maybe he knew about IT, but when investigators spoke to the manager at a land's bank, they came upon something else. Miron may have been trying to hide from her husband.

In the three months before Allen died, the bank had been trying to contact him, but could never get past his voice. Male, an account manager, even button, told merum once when sh'd visited the back and told her Allen really did need to call them immediately. He never did so.

Finally, his bankers resorted to writing formal letters, earth, to help macaws. The investigators found a letter waiting in the IT was posted four days before Allen's murder, and if he'd lived to take delivery of that letter, he would have learned that he was in serious financial trouble. IT was a notification from the back telling him that almost one hundred and forty thousand dollars had been transferred from his personal checking account to cover two outstanding commercial loans, and the bank wanted him to pay off the baLance on those loans immediately.

Did alan realized he was short of cash on? Was that why he was dodging his bankers? His account to regarded Allen as a friend and an honorable business man said he would have been totally out of character for Allen would have been evasive if he owed anyone substantial money. He was a banker. I mean, you know, if he couldn't pay a bill, he would sure go down and explain to the guy and make arrangements. When investigators looked at what appeared to be monkey business going on in Allen's financial affairs, and when they considered merriams apparent lies about how IT was that he was free that morning to run so many errands, IT became harder and harder for them to eliminate her as a suspect. And for Allen's family.

I was already one hundred and ten percent convinced ed, in my mind, that if SHE didn't do that, that he was so we responsible for who did?

Evidence wise, the business about the checking account was intriguing, but also perhaps ambiguous. So the detectives took a harder look at that weird incident weeks before his death, when someone had tried to set fire to Allen's car as he SAT in IT. The police and delta had forwarded audiotapes of their interview with Allen right after the attempt on his life. IT made for interesting .

listening. This is criminal. This is bad.

Investigator jim haben stright was tossing and turning because the puzzle pieces of the Allen helmet murder case weren't dropping me into place.

They were knight when i'd wake up at two or three in the morning and think about something that a witness is set, or something that needed to be done. Does this puzzle piece fit here? exactly? It's it's a kind of case that has not only been bit a lot about investigators kind of thinking all the time.

One of those things he decided to take a closer look at was the attempt on Allen's life. A few weeks before his death.

Allen and mary drove to delta the morning of April thirty eighth because he was having his partner by him out. He just wanted the cash. They had the meeting in which he gave him a cashiers check for hundred and twenty thousand dollars. After the transaction was complete, they got up and went down to the car.

As Allen said in the car, someone had tried to ignite his gas tech. He wasn't heard and neither was his wife mariam, who was in a lady's room when the beauty caught fire. If you connect the dots, someone tried to kill alan help because he went inside to do his business there, exactly blow up in his car, right when he came out as the way appeared. Yes, myriam would later be asked about that incident in her TV interview.

Do you think I will? News attacker.

But more to the point perhaps, what had Allen made of that weird attempt? The delta color to police department had turned out, had made an audio tape interview with Allen the day after the incident. And the homicide detectives investigating a murder have a listen. Allen hadn't .

struck IT off.

According to the police, a homemade wicked been done in the gas tank of the mariam who'd been fiddling around in the trunk. E just moments before going to the ladies room had been the only person near that gas tank.

SHE thought he has shoes, the trunk, so he said about the trunk and need liberal shoes. And that would have been just, I think, just before he went in bathroom.

Well, he was inside the ladies Allen sauce smoke .

in this review mirror there.

Comes back out. Allen raced the back of the car and managed to pull out a charred foot long week.

I referred to IT as a week, but I was a wooden score about twelve, fourteen inches long, with a piece of rope type material, glue IT, that had been stuck down inside the gas cap made work.

But somebody thought about IT.

Yes, obviously somebody had had taken the time to to put that device together, stick IT down in his gas tank and lighted where was married .

when you closed for that? He was right there, I think, because I said, what's that you do not know? Shouldn't take IT and thrown away, bringing you back out? No, why do me SHE did I did IT because the washroom smells like lighter for us with the officer .

made IT clear that he was suspicious. Minium Allen acknowledge that his wife had been back by the gas cap, but trying to inserm.

And and then Allen said .

that thing that so many people would say later, myriam had no motive to kill him, certainly not.

For money. What was SHE game if you died yesterday? SHE, guess nothing that was created prior to the marriage.

As the interview continued, the officer sense that helmet was covering for his wife, and SHE tried to fake out.

I watch the video. Is he on telling .

him that a security camera had captured the whole event and suggested mariam .

was seen lighting the doust White is SHE honored, would you think? No, but I be wrong.

In fact, no such camera for d is existed.

You go to the video, you nice to wait there, but you made me think that you might have seen now. If you've seen her on the video of doing that, I would have been shocked. SHE would be in custody if I had, I can't imagine being delicious.

Alan never talked about what had almost happened in delta. Allen's friends like ed Benson didn't learn about the car fire incident until after Allan had died.

IT didn't make our local newspaper, so IT and Allen didn't say anything about IT. But i'm guessing that if the local police said we think your wife tried to kill you, you you probably who wouldn't tell your friends that I think my life .

would just try to kill me. In fact, Allen told vision, no one.

not even his own son, my father didn't even mention IT just very hot. You know that even working .

that that was an headline news around the family.

this thing that that happens was really strange to me. But that's not to say that a lot of strange things didn't seem to happen during this time frame.

The homicide detectives was pretty sure mirra was responsible for the car fire, but he couldn't prove IT to a jury. Frustrating so much of his case was vapors, all suspicions and circumstance. And then came the investigator breakthrough.

The cops had been praying for not a found murder weapon, not a new witness, but new information about a greeting car. That greeting card left on merriam's dorter, the one that threaten sheet might be the killer's next victim. What a surprise that turned out to be.

IT was a greeting card designed to give a friend a chuckle, but the handwritten message on the one left at mirum hilmer doorstep was clearly meant to inspire fear. Allen was first at red, your next run, run, run. IT shook up friend penny lions twice, first when he discovered IT that evening with Miriam, then when he found out from the cops what the card was really all about. You ask some more questions about that car that was found. And there's a very disturbing story .

that comes to light. Yeah.

here's what happened. Investigators found that this particular card was sold at a chain of city market grocery stores using the u PC. Code on the back of the card. City market was able to trace the card to three purchases from the latter half of june, and they had surveilLance video of those purchases. And of those three buyers, investigators recognized one, in particular epic .

mary amount of of that video. The camera showed mariam.

showed her .

entering the store, showed her back in the card section, showed her at the shakeout, showed her walking out of the store very clearly and very obviously, I was marum helmet.

That was a pretty nifty bit of detective work.

If we had doubts about whether or not mary helmet was our person in this case, I think that, uh, that that pretty much eliminated .

them according to the video tape of the card at the city market that's right .

next to my home.

marum herself had bought the car on june twenty six, four days before sh'd discovered IT with Candy. If that's all true, the business about the current penny and looks as though he was using you yeah, is the kind of witness to this set up story about an intruder continuing to harasser?

If that's true, yeah.

what do you do with that information that's going to be just awful to deal with?

No, it's not. It's really not. My feelings aren't an issue here. All I was doing was being the best friend that I could. Now, however, someone chooses to use that that out of my control. And all that matters now was finding the truth.

The truth about myriam, the one time dancing structures, would be hard for friends to digest, but as the investigation continue, some disturbing stories bubbled up from her past. Right before a moving to grand junction, myra m. Had gotten a job in gulfport, mississippi, as a dance instructor at a studio there in two thousand and four.

IT got messy. Her boss at the dance studio accused her of petty theft in in SHE was eventually found not guilty on those charges. But earlier that same year, myriam had gotten in real trouble with law. Back in Jackson ville, florida, SHE tried to cash almost seven thousand dollars worth of counterfeit checks. SHE admitted the crime and spent three days in jail, a history of financial mischief that was news to her steps on.

So we didn't know anything about those things, those those things, things that represented that was not the wedding invented. You know.

Allen's sun may have been in the dark, but not some of Allen's friends like advancing. He had more than an england about mylius pass.

SHE told us there was allegations of embassy ment, and SHE really deny IT that kind of major wander. A matter of fact, at some point my wife, my bet, a wonderful and really knows what he's gotten himself into .

here bob q shei Allen's account where people saying things like she's getting her mits into him if she's a gold digger is SHE wants to get Allen wrapped up. Now they said that Allen give whether he wanted still friends had hope for the best. And they were, after all, fond of mariam. Until that day in june, when Allen turned up dead.

I feel that maria was either responsible for the Allen's death and or IT was because of something that SHE .

did are directed by August. Less than two months after the murder, mya, now out of a with windings support in town, had left colorado and returned to florida to live with her song.

I was actually very glad that he was there with him. That was where he would have the most support. And the officer said, never said he couldn't leave, so there was no reason why he couldn't go.

Authorities, though, we're keeping tabs on her as they continued to build their case, one that kept coming back to myriam, the former dance instructor.

While that was a circumstantial case, we felt like there was an overwhelming amount of evidence that pointed to mary alma. We were able to eliminate other people whose names came up, but we were never able to eliminate her. And everything seemed to point right back to her.

and that was enough to convince the prosecutor that they had a case. Finally, on december eight, two thousand days, the detective went down to florida to arrest.

Basically, I went up to and said, you know, you might remember me and identified myself and I said during the arrest for um the murder violin .

hello is right.

You want to get back to mistake to take care of this.

对， 不是。

Mariam was transferred back to colorado, where ten days later he was charged with first degree murder, attempted murder and forgery. Stand hill, ky, the master county share of at the time announced the news.

He was not a person that could be eliminated from the very beginning. Pretty confident that we've got the person responsible.

So with merum help, Megan, I awaiting trial for the shooting death of her husband, people began to buzz about another mysterious incident in her pass. The death of her first husband also found shot to death a suicide, according to the authorities, but .

was IT.

Before the western slope of the rockies and the little dance studio there with the lonely widowers, mariam was known as myriam jiles of Jackson ville, florida. SHE was married there to her first husband, jack, and they had two children together. The daughter amy died of a drug overdose in two thousand. SHE was survived by, among others.

her brother Chris. My dad took a hard, he took IT would really, really hard. And I always linger.

His mom, what if I was there? What if I had been there? You know, what if I would have been there to help her out and I wasn't there? So it's not .

for looking back, mariem son Chris says in the wake of his sisters of death, he detected a change in his parents relationship.

They really won't talk to each other. And there was some just kind of attention in the house.

Merriam's brother in law from her florida marriage, tim gill, had never regarded his brother, and mariam is the perfect couple far from IT. They had even separated at one point. When mariam left jack to live with another man, SHE came back. But her former brother in law said things were never the same in that house.

They always seemed indifferent if mary was in the kitch and jack was in the front room, if mayors in front jack was in kid and if that's something, yeah, they weren't never really together. My personal feeling is that they just tolerated each other, becomes of kids.

And then came a morning in two thousand and two that myriam sun will never forget. He was a sleep down a hole when he heard a concussion from his parents bedroom.

I wake up to the gunshot. Mom came running other room, know his air court. Chris remembers .

restraining his mother from going back into the bedroom where his father, now they dead. He called nine one one.

He just said he shot himself. He shot him self and and SHE was just a story, crying and stuff for that nature. And so that's what I just kind of, I just closed the door. I would you want to go back in there? Had shine a couple pounds .

trying to go back in there. Jackson, the authorities ruled the death of suicide, and the case was closed, but not rejects brother tim, who suspected myrie's hand in .

the death after jack's suicide, mariam was very quick to to go out and do her own thing. SHE was really almost too quick. Go on, started to dance studio.

Get out there in the circuit again. He was out there already, and he had been out there. I never knew he could dance, much less do the the tank o tim laws .

touch with his sister in law after jack passed away in two thousand two, in fact, he had no idea what had happened to merriam or the chief been charged with murder until we called him out of the blue, shot me a lot because I had to open .

that door. My man, I found to figure out who marum was again and was married. Worth started thinking about IT and started thinking about the circumstances with million, with jack. My brother IT didn't surprise me.

The brotherton law never bought mariam story that jack had been so overwhelmed by grief following their daughter's death. But he took his own life.

And jack just wasn't that press. Jack was a working holic. Jack was just not that type of person that would just want to shoot self in ahead for because he's depressed over aiim who passed away two years before that.

And there was something else that was strange, something tim didn't know and we didn't discover until we interviewed him when we went through the original share of report, we saw that jack gals had been shot on the right side of his head and that the gun was found in his right hand. We asked him about back to your brow. The jack, was he right handed or left hand? Jack was left. And if you learn from the image, report that the fatal wound was in fact on the right side.

would that make you wonder? Definitely, jack was totally left, added. He didn't do. He couldn't tie shoes.

would try him. There's no question your brother jack was killed with a gun shot to the head. No, you think was holding the gun.

My personal ion marum .

that this was a murder.

This was a murder.

a right handed suicide by a left handed man. The Jackson bill sheriff department agreed to hand over the jack gals records to the team investigating Allen helmets murder.

Her first husband died of a gunshot wound when he was the only other person present in the room with him. Alan helmig died of a single gunshot room to the head. And mariam seemed to be kind of the common denominator in both of those cases.

Colorado forensic pathologist doctor robbert kurt men, who performed alen home's autopsy, studied the jay's death photo.

I felt as though I had the appears that I had been staged.

That was your feeling about the Jackson little death. That's correct. When we spoke to him, doctor kurts men had investigated close to a thousand suicides in his career, and as he studied the photographs of jack jos body as IT was found, he absorbed some audience.

The guard and the gun position would indicate that the gun would have to have been held upside down on the right side of the seen head in order to sustain the gunshot wound.

Now when you say upside down, you mean the pizzle grip facing the ceiling rather than four. That's correct. And when that shot is fired, how does the best to come to rest on the victim's chest?

Well, that's that's apart, which I don't understand, because the ARM would have had to swing around the pillow and then drop onto the front of the chest as opposed to just dropping out street. So that's a lot of motion are that that's defying gravity.

And another observation shot on the pillow case, meaning the bullet was fired through the pillow before its druggies. Can you explain why the person committing suicide would do that?

Unusual findings? Certainly not typical.

So now i'm thinking wrong, hand holding the weapon at an awkward angle upside down, as IT were, and then has to be fired through a pillow as well, not putting a directly in contact with the temple, say, that's correct. That's an awful I going .

on my conclusion that this is a homicide until .

prove and others SE had marian helmet done the unthinkable not once, but twice.

I'm kiss Morrison for deadline and c if you're not already hooked on p ox dark comedy called based on a true story now is the perfect time to dive in. The new season is out now and it's an unbelievable unpredictable ride based on a true story. Starts Kelly, coco and Christmas. Sina is new parents, eva and Nathan, who are eager to be done with the world of true crime and their friendly neighborhood, al killer. But when new body start turning up, IT seems the world of true crime isn't done with them based on a true story is dreaming now only on .

p ock list on the high desert, home to a tight group of thirty somethings who party IT starts as a playboy channel fantasy. But this is real life where passion leads to murder and a killer seeks god's help with the cover up. I'm judged my gods, and this is deadly. March on the all new podcast from deadline.

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In november two thousand and nine, myriam helmet went on trial for the murder of her husband Allen. First degree she's pleaded not guilty. IT was all a premeditated scheme, argued the prosecution in its open .

SHE cleared the way for Allen to be alone at the resonance, and SHE shot him, and then he staged this very hockey burglary to cover up his death.

shot in cold blood left to die on the kitchen floor. For one of the oldest of reasons.

there was always the money prosecutors .

tami area and rich title painted a picture for the jury of a cunning grifter with her claws into a straight aero nice guy, someone too lonely and too much in love to save themselves from her treaty, a victim who probably caught on but way too late into our game.

And we think he basically discovered some of her sani gans with checks, forging checks.

The prosecutors were selling the jury a circumstantial case, a history of a brief marriage. As much as the account of a crime, the murder weapon had never been found. There was nothing forensically helpful like blood, fingerprints or DNA from the scene.

You didn't have an eye witness.

didn't have a murder weapon. And boy, don't Jones like to see all that good csi types, that DNA fingerprints, whatever you got and .

you didn't do. We didn't. But we had a lot of other evidence that pointed to her that we thought was just as valuable.

To depict her as little as gold digger, the prosecution called witnesses who tests the marian brazing reMarks about finding her ideal man.

SHE mentioned that he was the only one with a portfolio that was large enough to consider dating. SHE just said he wanted to work, find A A rich man, then SHE didn't kerikeri had one foot in the grave .

and once mr. He'll do dance into her life, claimed the prosecution. SHE went right for his money by me, a dance studio by me, a horse farm. The prosecutors presented evidence that in the six months before his murder, maria at forge, forty thousand dollars in checks from Allen and's bank accounts. In my opinion, I am writing experience.

IT is highly probable that Allen helmet did not write the maker signature or the pay line on this check, a fraud .

that couldn't last forever. And according to the prosecution, muri um nuit .

Allen is gonna real alive that his assets are no longer what he believes them to be. We had a theory and something that we believed that, and was he had discovered that he had forged his checks.

Murder became her solution at the prosecution, and the plan was a foot. Mariam bought her self time, argue the prosecution by isolating Allen, keeping his family away from him.

Allen's daughter .

portion testified that IT was nearly impossible to reach your father in the months leading up to his death.

I hadn't seen him, him and I could not get a hold of him by phone. So I started calling merriams phone and I did get a hold of her.

Another daughter said. Marian gave countless excuses as to why Allen couldn't pick up a cell phone.

He's sleeping. He doesn't want to be bothered. It's charging. SHE was just turned IT off and put IT in the drawer. SHE was isolating him in order to do what he did so that they were by them selves and he was by himself.

Just the night before his death, marian told one of the daughters that her father couldn't come to the phone because he'd come home drunk from the outs. Lodge and sheds had to put him to back. Prosecutors called the bartender from the lodge who said that story wasn't true. Allen, having been in.

I was the only bar tender I would have to serve him. And to serve somebody, I would have to lies about .

drinking at the lodge lies. The jury was told about why the granddaughters horse riding lesson was cancelled on the day of the murder. The helmets housekeeper testifying that he felt something bad growing .

the day before marine was sitting up the desk, and SHE had an awful look on her face that are usually very cortile and busy doing their things. And but there was something very strange that day. So this was a .

plot that was building.

I think he thought IT out and thought IT through, and IT developed over time, until he decided, this is the day.

and this is the day may have come more than once. Remember, the story of someone trying to set Allen's car on fire widely was in a, the prosecution said that was pure and diluted marine, that he was the one who is stuff to home made week in the gas tank and let IT while shedding h to the lady's room.

IT was so outrageous that we thought, award achieving, get the idea. And one of the detectives said, this looks a lot like the scene from no country for old men.

In the Oscar e winning movie, no country for old men. The injured villain needs to steal some drugs from a pharmacy. He diverts attention from his crime by sticking a week in the tank of a car and .

blowing IT up, and enough the homo s had oriented no country for old men just four days before that incident. And delta.

with the motive established and marries odd behavior on the record, the prosecution next to to take apart what had initially bent merriam strongest argument, her alive, a busy shopping day, hyder and yon, with receipts to prove IT, indicating SHE wasn't yet home when Allen was killed. But investigators have found gaps in that time line, time enough to kill, time enough to dispose of a weapon. Officers had driven for themselves myriam shopping route of june tenth and .

time you actually took me between ten thirteen.

And what they learned was that myriam could have done everything she'd claimed gathered to receipts post for security campus and still had plenty of unaccounted time left over.

SHE told us SHE left at about eight, fifteen, and the first cell phone call that we found on the cell one records was at about eight forty two. So there was nearly thirty minutes of time from the time he told us that he left that was unaccounted for.

The prosecution theory was that mariam shot Allen in the early morning hours, and sometime after eight, fifteen, and I M toss the murder weapon.

SHE could dish pretty much whatever he wanted out in the desert area south of town.

And then there was myrie's behavior after the crime, guilty behavior claimed the prosecution. Things like purchasing that greeting card that you left on her own doorstep and then quickly leave in colorado to live with her son in florida, who was called as an extremely reluctant prosecution witness.

was IT difficult. yes. Was that the hardest thing i've probably ever had to do in my entire life?

Yes, mariam sun told the jury that while he was living with him, SHE was using false identification and not just any phony I D. SHE was posing as alan homies dead wife .

Sharon SHE proceeded to tell me that he had copies of sharer helmick I D. And in the advisor that that wasn't a good course because understand that that's just not legal norms of the right thing to do.

The police founder with a driver's license, paycheck stubs and credit cards, all under the name of Allen's late wife.

SHE, went back to Jackson, bill florida, and very quickly started up a new .

life with a new name.

a new name. The name of shared .

helmet at the court heard that while he was in florida, SHE went back on the chase for a wealthy one on the dating website catering to individuals looking for sugar daddy. As the site says, mariam hooked up with a florida man now called to testify in a murder trial in colorado.

Did he talk about her husband having recently died?

SHE told me that he had died about six to .

twelve months .

before there .

with some type .

of brain disease or something that he had been sick for three to four years prior to that.

Uh, did you have to mate relations with the defendant that night?

yes. Did she's .

express an interest to you in relocating to alone? Be ready?

yes. Are you .

ready for that? We thought IT paint a picture that was quite different than her. Just having lost the love of her life, alan helmig IT really showed who he really was.

One thing the jury would not hear about was the death of her first husband in Jackson, bill. The suicide that some experts thought look shaking, the judge ruled in pretrial not to allow IT, but the prosecutors were satisfied with the story they had told about merriam's brief marriage to a lonely man.

And he left him three years later, lying in a pool of blood on his kitchen floor. Find her guilt. Ty, thank you.

But the defense was about to rise to say that the state had IT all wrong.

The bumper sticker of mariam helmet defense was conscious jars. The prosecutions got nothing.

The requirement that they have to prove the case is a powerful tool in our original.

no bloody fingering prints, no murder weapon, and so many people scratching their heads as to why the gun would be in merriam hand in the first place SHE with no motive to kill a husband worth more alive than dead.

From the moment law enforcement was called, they turned the presumption of innocence upside down.

Mariamne's attorney, Steve calvin, alleged that the helmet investigation was really driven by Allen's children, who felt nothing but contempt for the gold digging new wife.

You thought the person who did this was his helmet? I did not have any other person that I could think of. That was the only person that had been around him in for me.

But attorney calvin said their suspicion on about myriam, a woman they barely knew had no foundation in the real facts of her situation without Allen in her life. Specifically the print up, something he had mentioned to friends, and quite often.

yeah, he mentioned that there was a preventive agreement. SHE mentioned the press, and he mentioned that he loved him.

With Allen dead, Miriam's stood to gain very little according to his will. Everything was left to with kids and grandkids.

Our position is, is that SHE got virtually nothing out of the homicide. That was one of the reasons why we thought there was reasonable doubt.

So the defense broke down the money trail evidence, starting with the prosecutions claim that Allen had gotten wise to maria, forging his signature on forty thousand dollars worth of checks that checks n encounter. The defense was the husband wife arrangement that they'd made on cross examination. The prosecution handwriting expert couldn't say for sure if all the checks had been forced by maria.

There is no conclusion as to who wrote out this.

Helmig functioned as a secretary and a secretarial role, even though he was his wife. And to that in IT was our position that the evident showed that he had authority to write every check, check that he wrote.

And what's more, that whole strange business of someone trying to set Allen on fire, as he said in his car, remember, in that incident, there was also a check involved, a big one. Allen had just sold off a portion of his title company to his partner. Not exactly the right moment for myriam to have been cinerary him.

What form was that in a cash yours check, he's got a check from one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in his pocket. If you want to kill somebody for money. The last time you do IT is when they've one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in their pocket.

And continuing to knock down the argument that he murdered for money. The defense further asserted that in june, when Allen was killed, his bank account was at an all time low.

Why in the world does merum helmet get any benefit from murdering the man if he knows his financial situation is in this array?

SHE gains nothing from that. Of course, people don't get invited for first degree murder because they have a good set effects. In myriam e's case, one of the strongest pieces of evidence against her was that greeting card that he bought.

Her self placed on the door step with a message he wrote, my hand, your next run, run, run. Well, SHE did do that, conceded the defense. IT was dumb, but her excuse was, police were focusing on her and not the real killer. Like maybe that person in the White truck who was driving passed her home.

He had seen the White car. He was frightened. SHE did call law enforcement and asked her assistant. There was no immediate follow up on that. Think that there's clearly evidence that there was a vehicle in that neighborhood and they've never found that person. As for the rest of IT, marian would .

do something fairly rare in a murder case.

Please write here. Do you sell the sore or for under penalty of lood that the testimony give will be the truth of all? sure.

Nothing Better to SHE would take the stand and tell the jury her story in her own words.

Could you state inspiring last name for the record, please? Mariam homie .

mariam wanted the jury to see her not as a gold digger, but a grieving widow who had lost the second chance in her life. SHE spoke of the night Allen proposed to her. His dance .

instructor did little spin out into a nice little dip and asked me, marum, how did I make you fill any proposed to you? I was very excited about IT and SHE.

Remember that terrible june day when he said he found Allen on the kitchen floor.

I didn't know what happened to him. Held a ten for few minutes, try to make some sense of IT all.

As for Allen being reclusive in his final months that wasn't heard deliberately isolating him as the prosecution charged IT was simply Allen being a very sick man with heart disease.

How did Allen act when he was sick? He was. He Normally, he didn't want to talk to anybody, even his own children sometimes is even me.

What about business people? No, he wouldn't. So you check his phone messages for money was stick. yes.

Did you make sure call back everyone that called them when he was sick? No, why didn't you? B he was in a baby. You do that on the zone. So his um unavailability, I think it's pretty obviously explained by his illness.

A man maybe more real than his own family even knew.

I think he is more old than anybody new, including himself and .

Allen's keeping his family at arms length when he was sickly, explained two other things. White lies about the council riding lesson and the night of drinking at the lodge that never happened.

Did you call porsha and teller the election? I didn't say I quite like that. What did you say? I said he had a bit much to drink. That's what you ask me to tell her .

the final behave your myriam had to put in context with her activity after Allen's murder, when he picked up and moved back to why everyone wondered how he assumed the identity of Allan homework s late wife Sharon dumb admitted the defects like the greeting card left on the doorway. But myra um's explanation of the assumed ID business was that investigators in colleran o had configured all her legitimate ideas, and without photo ID SHE was lost. So SHE became sheron .

homework. Why did you take the um because I was going to try to get .

a hotel on the orge SHE literally had no form .

of photo identification and it's impossible to do anything in this country without a photo ID you can even get a hotel room as we're going .

online once you got to florida to find a new guy, check IT up to lonely ess not gold digging.

I felt like I was drowning most of the time. I didn't. Maybe you could even call IT depressed most of the time.

I couldn't get out from under IT. Did you shoot your husband? I know I did not.

Could you've done anything to hurt him? No, why not? I left him.

Soldier summed up the defense. You have a nice little fable about a money grabbing wife, but no evidence whatsoever that he had anything to do with Allen murder. All circumstances with plenty of reasonable doubt.

And that's why we're going to ask you to find you're not guilty.

Thank you. The jury had the case.

Myriam helmet, which portrait of a wife, should the jury believe the grieving widow so unfortunate that SHE discovered her own husband murdered? Or the gold dier, happy to grab what he could and move on down the road. Deadline set down with six of the twelve.

I was just waiting to hear the evidence and nothing. But no, I thought I was A, I thought I was a good case.

The big question to resolve with this, had marian helmet murderer husband staged the scene as the prosecution alleged, or was the killer still at large as the defense suggested? Maybe someone else had done .

this awful thing. That was a possibility at that time.

No, IT is a story that you can say. Well, maybe somebody else did IT, but a botched robbery. The jury didn't buy that.

They agreed with the prosecution. The scene looks staged. Nothing was really a mess.

The house wasn't grand sac like IT had been a robbery scene.

The manner of Allen's death, shot in the head from behind, persuade them that Allen probably knew his killer and had been taken by surprise. IT says to me that whoever committed the crime was someone that that knew him.

We decided that he was probably standing and just totally trusting of the individual behind him and got ambushed to me that looked like he never knew what was coming.

And the jury went back over the police interview tape with myriam just hours after Allen had been found dead. And a praised the emotions. We thought that .

the crying that he did might have looked fake.

SHE never said doing the thing all my paul, of course, one year conceded, grief is handled differently by each person.

Nobody acts the same. People respond differently to the same situation.

And then there was the issue of the murder weapon. The twenty five calibre gun the investigators never found. Was that tough for you? Is a very big problem would to make your .

job is you're in the of, especially if her fingerprints would have been on IT SHE had gunshot ways to do on her hands and there was a big problem.

And what did the jury make of Allen's apparent inability to call his family his business associates? Was he being isolated by merriam? As the prosecution alleged?

I found that her disturbing, actually, that maria was had taken over his cell phone. This is just not right .

because he's not in capable, he expect able to pick up the phone and call them, and yet he doesn't.

does. And he wasn't returning calls to anybody. The only thing that would make sense to me is that he had a plan and isolated him is all part of IT. You get him away from the children, get him away from his friends, get him away from his Normal routine.

But they also noted Allen helmick did have a serious case of heart disease that he was .

sick a lot that possibly could have caused to a little delay in him getting back to some of these issues. But because he was unlike him, not to respond. absolutely. He he a money man. He was on top of everything.

But the motive, why mariam helmet would have killed her husband, that's what perplex the jure most, the prosecution argued. IT all came down to money. The defense said that made no sense. And the jury sort of agree.

SHE has no reason to murder Allen. She's Better off with him alive to have a print up. In effect, she's not going to get anything from him being dead.

And when the jurors reviewed that greeting card threat, mariam admitted sheet planted herself. They found her spin on that name.

Okay, well, I did IT goi. I'm sorry, I was lonely. I just, the police were regnant my story, and I wanted to give him some more ammunition to look for this White pickup track.

And finally, what did the jurors make of myriam helmig testimony on the stand?

For the first, first few moments that he was on the stand? I felt some empathy for her. Empathy was alone in in a town that SHE didn't know very well. That's got to be a terrible position. I didn't know he was gone.

But once mariam started testifying, the juries, perhaps initial sympathy evaporated.

Her ban understand, changed my opinion of her in the case change.

You have.

because of her stories and her lies, just kept building .

and building. I.

in .

the end, the jury took only five hours to come up with a verdict.

And that's a pretty short amount of time for a four to five week murder trial. Um so of course, we are thinking the worst at that point how .

you feel come back .

into the court room. I was scared to death. A lady's .

life was on the line. Alan's family had waited a long time for this moment.

I've spent a lot of time staring at the wall and wondering what IT is as a sun. I could have done, maybe, you know, to be more communicated about my feelings about this woman.

Myriam SAT calmly at the defense table as the judge .

read the verdict, the s of the german jury bird, count them one first degree murder and the lesser included charge of second degree murder. With the jury find the defender mary help my guilty and .

first degree murder guilty, the jury had found myriam helmet guilty of murdering her husband, guilty of attempted murder by arson two months before, and guilty of ten of the eleven council of forgery. Merriam's face was unreadable. SHE seemed emotionless. But in the benches of the courtroom behind her, Allen's children were all but transparent, sadness and relief flooding over them. At the same time, the jury had agreed with their long health belief that mariam helmet had murdered their father at her sentencing, two of baLance daughters, still just feet from their fathers, now convicted killer, and address the .

court not just a man that had become her target, rather my father. He is ripped from the hands of five little girls, their grandfather. We will find now joy and healing, and believe that he has received what SHE deserves. The judge sentence .

medium to life, plus one hundred and eight years in prison without .

the possibility, and pro.

back in florida, myriam sun Chrism got the latest in a run of bad family news. Sister, father, no mother.

it's hard. You know, it's you wouldn't never think somebody would do something like that.

You know, for me if he did do this. Then I just didn't .

lose one friend .

at last two that summer. Because the friend that I had could never done this. Yes.

for Allen son, the death of his father left him in an emotional abyss. I can't get in the time machine and threw you dead the truck and go fishing. Take him away from all of that you know.

that's something i've been robed of the ability to exceed my father's expectations to be you know that older guy where we're sitting down and he says, you know, he did good here. I'll never get that. I've been robed at that completely.

In a footnote.

the death of marian's first husband, jack giles, will remain a close case. The suicide ruling stands, according to Jackson bill flood authorities for marion helmes, the last worlds in the rocket is over.

Friday night on deadline.

did you sexually assault anyone? Did you do fraud anyone?

The international command who faked his own death finally .

comes face to face .

with justice is ended with.