EPILOGUE

In March 2005, Taylor and Justin’s sister, Heather, tried to make sense of how things had gone so terribly wrong. She began to write her thoughts down on paper beginning with their youth.

 

 

Childhood

 

Taylor and Justin were best friends from childhood. I remember them riding their big-wheels (and later bicycles) off to grand adventures, making elaborate setups with their plastic toy soldiers, and running off to play too fast for me to catch up with them. I remember them being super-heroes, wrestling, and stick-fighting each other. We did occasionally play together. I remember Go Fish, Candyland, and Chutes and Ladders. Taylor and Justin were unusually nice brothers. For example, they never hit me which would have actually been normal sibling behavior. As for fighting, neither of them ever started a fight with other children. I remember Justin coming home from elementary school after losing a fight though. It made the world seem scary but Taylor stepped in the next day and Justin didn’t get another bully lesson. I don’t remember Taylor ever getting into a physical fight. All Taylor’s fights were verbal and he always seemed to win them. When Taylor was twelve and Justin was ten, they both shared a paper route for a couple of years. I remember that Taylor spent all of his money and that Justin saved almost all of his. Justin bought the bicycle he had wanted and being content, quit the paper route. I believe all three of us were more self-reliant than average children since once mother hit her late teens she found that she was “ill” about half the time. If she could be induced to see a psychologist, I am confident that she would be diagnosed as psychosomatic. Probably like Taylor and Justin, I was about ten when I realized that she actually wasn’t dying and that although her “sick” days represented some challenges caring for ourselves, they were also opportunities to do whatever we wanted. Please note that half the time our mother was very present in our lives, playing, teaching, hugging, listening, etc. It is just that half the time she wasn’t and since our father held so firmly to the idea that women were to take care of children, and men were to earn the money, he didn’t bother to notice the situation.

 

 

Adolescence

 

Taylor was able to make friends and girlfriends easily, and since Justin didn’t make friends easily, Justin was more than willing to make do with being “Taylor’s brother.” Interestingly, despite their close ages, they never attended high school together. Justin was home-schooled for eighth grade and his Freshman year. When Justin began his Sophomore year at Ygnacio

Valley High, Taylor had decided to test out of high school and begin college a year early. Taylor lasted a semester at college. As for Justin at high school, he became a self-styled nerd. He might have been labeled such anyway, but he played it like it was his Oscar role. He actually sought out hazing and ridicule and his classmates willingly gave it. Justin’s social behavior was outrageous and he was shunned except for two other boys who did not speak English well and had their own troubles being accepted. As his sister, I was angry with him for being “super-geek” when I knew how nice he was at home. Like many teenagers though, I thought my friends were supposed to be the focus of my life and beyond privately telling Justin that I thought he was being dumb, left him to himself. My parents never knew how high school was going for Justin. However, adolescence was the time our family did more things together because our father noticed that we were not children anymore and therefore more enjoyable. As a family we watched movies, went camping, played video games, went to the library, and occasionally ate dinner together as I had finally learned to cook.

 

 

River Rafting

 

In the summer of 1991 my father, thankfully, skipped the “mid-life crisis” many men go through and instead found a hobby he couldn’t do without, in river rafting. Not only that, by the time we reached young adulthood, Dad had realized that Taylor, Justin and I were some of his favorite people, that he absolutely loved us, and that he was willing to tell us so. By the summer of 1992, Dad had gone to guide school, had all the equipment, and was rafting every Saturday. Since our whole family enjoyed rafting, we joined him much of the time. River rafting was definitely our family thing. Our river of choice was the American. Some days we’d do the upper fork, some days the lower fork, some days we’d do both. After going through “Troublemaker,” the biggest rapid on the upper fork, we’d pull the rafts over, climb onto the rocks, and have lunch while we watched other rafts go through it. There were plenty of jump off spots to use to cool us off without getting in the paths of rafts that weren’t stopping, so it was a great time for water play. And of course, the scenery was fantastic. River rafting was a part of my family’s life heavily in the early 1990’s, frequently in the later 1990’s, but virtually stopped after 2000.

 

 

How did this happen?

 

In short, the answer would be Taylor. The complete answer includes five factors, where if any had not been present, I doubt murder would have happened.

The first ingredient was Taylor’s natural charismatic personality. To date, I have never met anyone like him. He was certainly the most interesting person in our family and we willingly gave him center stage. He could talk so convincingly, had genuinely great ideas, and had a talent for making anyone feel special. All of us expected him to do great things in his life and he expected to do so as well.

The second ingredient was the history of mental illness on our mother’s side of the family. Our grandmother was suicidal, our grandmother’s sister was institutionalized much of her life and had children who were likewise institutionalized. We have had several close relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins) who have been institutionalized or diagnosed as mentally disabled. Out of the nine children of my maternal grandparents that reached adulthood, many, including my mother, find it challenging to care for themselves and function in roles such as “employee” or “parent” or “spouse.”

The third ingredient was our family religion. The Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints. We were a very religious family and Taylor and Justin definitely used the teachings, which ranged from being honest and giving service, to no sex before marriage and no alcohol, as the foundation of their morality. When they lost that foundation by leaving their religion (Taylor in 1995 and Justin in 1996), they began a process of establishing new principals to live by and appeared to be stagnating in life in terms of education, careers and relationships. However, Taylor and Justin still held to some of the concepts of our religion which included Jesus Christ’s establishing a church while on earth, that there was a falling away from the truths that He taught, that a prophet was called to restore those truths, that we have a prophet today, and that Jesus Christ will return to earth someday amid great turbulence. These concepts of course were to become the core of their delusion with Taylor being a restorer of God’s truth.

The fourth ingredient was LGAP’s (Large Group Awareness Programs). These are low-level, live-out cults and our family became involved in one called IMPACT in 1991. For a substantial profit they make you feel horrible and then super special using some truth, group psychological tactics, late hours, and hypnosis. Then there is nothing left for you to do but bring all your friends. This we faithfully did and our family phased out of IMPACT after the appropriate year of so span of time that LGAP’s plan on keeping you. Unfortunately, and unusually so, Taylor felt drawn back to IMPACT in 1994, two years after having gotten out. He led my mother, father, and Justin back into other LGAP’s called Introspect and Harmony. For Taylor and Justin, LGAP’s were a part of their lives through the late 1990’s. One LGAP teaching that stands out under the circumstances is, “There is no right or wrong, only what works.” That seems like a particularly dangerous idea to put into a mentally fragile mind. Normally LGAP’s teach people how to follow cult leaders and Justin (and Dawn as well), became well trained at doing so by attending LGAP’s. On the other hand, Taylor, being the unique person that he is, learned somethng different. Taylor learned how to be a cult leader and he apparently created the more destructive, live-in kind.

The fifth ingredient was drugs. This is a very common component in crime today. Methamphetamine makes everyone psychotic eventually and it turns out Taylor had been using for several years rather than giving them up in 1999, like I thought.

I see these five factors coming together as the cause for the tragic deaths of so many people. Everyone knows that drugs are bad, but few people know how to recognize signs of mental illness in their loved ones and the times of life they usually show up. Fewer still are aware of the destructiveness of cults, how common they are, and how they solicit and ensnare.

Please notice that I do not consider my parents’ moderate failings worth rating as a factor in the murderous events of August 2000. I mention their failings so as to bury any hypothesis that might exaggerate them. I know it is quite popular for children, parents themselves, and the public in general to blame parents for failings of their children. However, if one was to give it more than a moment’s thought they would be compelled to admit that many children have had a somewhat distant parent and/or one that was divided between their love for their child and their own “issues” and yet proceeded to turn out fine. In fact, having a mother and father without moderately flawed parenting skills is a rare thing.

 

 

So there it was in a nutshell. In some ways, Heather had analyzed her family dynamics and the personality traits and outside factors that influenced Taylor and Justin, as well as more learned psychiatrists and psychologists. Some of the things she had witnessed in the 1990’s, especially the spell of IMPACT, and Harmony, frightened her, and she fled to distant regions to escape its influence. She fled beyond Taylor’s influence to drag her down as it had others in his orbit.

 

 

The last of the sentencings for the Children of Thunder was on Monday May 2, 2005, for Dawn Godman. By that point, court observer Chris Darden pondered Taylor Helzer’s last ride from his home county of Contra Costa to San Quentin in Marin County, after his being sentenced to death in March. Taylor’s ride in a prison van, crossed over the Richmond /San Rafael Bridge beneath the shadows of Mount Tamalpais. Chris said, “I wondered if Taylor would recall the early morning hours of August 3, 2000, when he and Dawn had driven the exact same route to kill Jennifer Villarin, and by extension, James Gamble. It was these last two murders that had been Taylor’s and the Children of Thunder’s undoing.

“Until the Marin County Sheriff’s Office got involved, and especially Detective Steve Nash, the Stinemans and Selina were just missing persons. Once Taylor had pumped those 9 mm bullets into Jenny and James, the bullets would lead in a long chain back through Selina’s pager and other items to the Helzers. It was the murders in Marin County that started tying everything together. It was so typical. Taylor never knew when to quit. His meth use, his aggression and his narcissism, did him in, in the end. Unfortunately, he brought so many people down with him.”