CHAPTER 15
The End of Days
In the back of many people’s minds for Taylor’s trial was the thought “When will the fireworks begin?” If Justin was mildly disruptive with his “I want to die,” statements, many believed that was nothing compared to what Taylor might say while in court. One reporter even told Chris Darden that he would be going to the trial in expectation of Taylor blowing up at some point.
At first, before jury selection began, those predictions seemed to come true. Taylor and the lawyers had a hearing on September 17, 2004, to discuss issues while Suzanne Chapot was asking once more for a change of venue. During the proceedings, Ray and Mabel Carberry were in the gallery, as were Chris Darden and Nancy Hall. Chris said later, “Taylor was laughing loudly during some parts of the hearing. He was smiling and really interacting with his two attorneys. He seemed to be having a very, very good time at the defense table. He was talking so loud that everyone was listening to him talk to his attorneys.
“Taylor then turned around and looked into the gallery. He saw a young, very tall attorney in the gallery. Taylor gave a huge smile to the young attorney. Then he wrote a half-page letter, handed it to Ms. Chapot, who got up from the defense table, walked back to the gallery and gave the letter to the young attorney. That attorney wrote back to Taylor and then walked up to the defense table and started talking to Taylor. Taylor was laughing and smiling. It almost looked like he was hanging out with a buddy of his. Clearly having a great time.”
Chris noticed one more thing. After Taylor was escorted away for the day, Judge O’Malley made eye contact with Chris Darden and Ray and Mabel Carberry. She smiled and said, “It’s good to see everyone again.”
If Taylor was having fun in the courtroom, the 650 prospective jurors were not. Brought in seventy-five at a time, many looked for ways to get out of jury duty any way they could. They cited financial hardships, vacations, illness and child-care concerns. One woman even said that she mostly spoke Mandarin and did not understand English very well. About people with vacations, Judge O’Malley smiled and said, “We take vacations very, very seriously around here.”
The biggest laugh during jury selection was when O’Malley asked a person if she had any dependents. The woman answered, “Just my parrot.”
If Justin’s trial got off to a rocky start with the Associated Press reporter, it didn’t take long for Taylor’s trial to be heading in the same direction on October 28, 2004. One potential juror was a Mormon, and Judge O’Malley asked if she could put that aside. The woman said that she could, but she wondered if she could tell her husband about aspects of the case as it went along. O’Malley informed her that she wouldn’t be able to speak about the case with anyone until the trial was over. The woman acknowledged this and said that she understood.
Less than an hour later, the same woman was out in the hall during a break and phoned her husband on her cell phone. Someone overheard her talk about Taylor’s case on the phone and it sounded like the woman was indeed talking to her husband, because of the nature of the conversation.
Incredibly, the woman with the cell phone had a husband who was a Mormon who had done his mission in Brazil, just like Taylor. The woman’s conversation had even included the phrases “That’s what I thought. I thought you did yours in Brazil. I told the judge that you did, and I got a look from everyone in the courtroom.”
Another comment by the woman, according to the person who overheard the conversation, was “The prosecutor—I’m not sure about yet. But that defense woman, I don’t care for her!”
The person who overheard the conversation went up to bailiff Mike Harkelroad and asked, “Would Judge O’Malley want to know about this?” Mike said that she would.
Harkelroad, Judge O’Malley, Harold Jewett, Suzanne Chapot and Gordon Scott (also a lawyer for Taylor) all went into chambers and discussed the problem. A short time later, Judge O’Malley in open court said, “We’re on the record to discuss the matter that has been brought to the attention of the court. A potential juror who was overheard discussing the case after having been admonished several times not to do so and specifically admonished not to talk about the case to her husband—that potential juror assured the court that she would not discuss the case with her husband. It has become very clear that she was indeed speaking to her husband when asking if it was Brazil where he did his mission, as well as making some remark as to her feelings toward some of the attorneys in this case. I feel I have a problem with this person. Do any of the attorneys have any objection to the court itself removing her?”
Then she added, “Neither side will lose any of their peremptory challenges. This one will be on the court.”
Neither side did object, and the juror was sent packing.
If Taylor Helzer had been all smiles and good cheer on September 17, that was not the case on November 5, 2004. A professional photographer, Don Wilson, was allowed by the court to take photos of Taylor sitting with his attorneys. As Wilson set up his camera in the front of the courtroom, Taylor snapped, “Can you give us a minute? This isn’t a circus! This is serious business! Hold on. I said, hold on!”
Wilson ignored Taylor’s outburst and quietly went about his business. He did snap several shots of Taylor sitting with Suzanne Chapot and Gordon Scott.
One person who was sitting in the gallery commented later, “Well, we just saw the real Taylor Helzer.”
Chris Darden commented later, “I’ll bet he (Taylor) was that way with the Stinemans. Demanding and abrupt. Can you imagine how scary that must have been for them?”
The jury was all selected by November 5, and Tom Moyer, the court clerk, read all eighteen charges and thirty-nine overt acts. The reading took almost a half hour to complete.
On November 8, 2004, opening statements began in The People of California v. Glenn Taylor Helzer. Harold Jewett told the jurors, “There is a tremendous amount of information in this case. Where does all the evidence fit into the big picture? And there is a big picture. This trial is the end of an investigation that began on August 3, 2000. And it all started with a nine-one-one call in Marin County.”
Jewett said that over time, fifty investigators interviewed 450 witnesses. There were stacks of boxes of evidence in the courtroom, and they were only a small percentage of the total. Many more items were kept in a storage room and took up two whole walls.
Jewett declared, “The investigation is not over yet. This case is not over until you say it’s over!”
Once again, he gave a recitation of the lives of the victims: Ivan and Annette Stineman, Selina Bishop, Jenny Villarin and James Gamble. Then he recited about the lives and crimes of Taylor Helzer, Justin Helzer and Dawn Godman before Children of Thunder. Jewett said, “Selina was necessary as a middle person. They needed a patsy. From the day the defendant met Selina, she was marked for death.”
Jewett recounted, day by day, the carnage that had been dealt out starting on Sunday, July 30, 2000. Unlike at Justin’s trial, the story did not end with the initial arrests at Saddlewood Court on August 7. The story took off again, as Taylor had, when he jumped out the window of Detective Inskip’s vehicle. It followed him as he ran down his neighborhood streets and confronted William Sharp and Mary Mozzochi.
Jewett summed it all up by saying, “At the end of this case, we want one thing—justice!”
Suzanne Chapot, on the other hand, told the jury that Taylor had already pleaded guilty on all charges and was remorseful. He would be locked up for life, no matter what happened now. She said, “You are human. You have feelings of outrage. But you must restrain your emotions.
“Taylor was a friend, a husband and a devoted father. What made him do this? We will present evidence of a life spinning out of control. Only a sick person would do it. This doesn’t minimize Taylor’s responsibility, but we are asking for life.
“The prosecution wants you to focus on a single period of time. [But] there is mental illness in his family. Both sides of the family are Mormons, and his grandfather on his mother’s side claimed that he once saw Jesus Christ in his front yard. He was there for hours.
“Taylor was ordained at twelve, became a teacher at eighteen and was called to the priesthood. He had a blessing from a bishop saying how special he was. Taylor’s first experience away from home was in the National Guard. There was evil that he saw there in Texas. He had discussions about premarital sex with others in his unit and even made some converts. He was determined to fight evil and he had the scriptures to fall back on.
“Taylor trained for his mission in Utah. He was one of the star trainees and he knew many of the scriptures better than the teachers.
“It was in Brazil that he began to argue about the LDS Church’s doctrine. He even argued with the mission president in Brazil.”
Then Chapot said that when Taylor married Ann, it opened up a whole new world for him—a world he had no contact with before. He could now watch television programs he was not allowed to watch at home while living with his parents. He could go to movies. As far as sex was concerned, Chapot said, “He was like a kid in a candy store. Everything was new. It was overwhelming.
“It was a combination of his extreme views on scripture, mental illness and Introspect that tipped Taylor over the edge. He combined Introspect with Mormonism. He thought he could transform the world. He saw governments within governments that affected us.”
Then Chapot spoke of Taylor being committed to a mental ward in 1999. She claimed that he never thought he was crazy, so he made up a tale about faking mental illness to his friends so that he could cover up his real mental illness. He was afraid and ashamed of being mentally ill and did everything he could to hide it, even by saying that he was just faking it. He made them believe he was scamming the government. Chapot said that Taylor began taking meds and meth to make the voices stop.
As Taylor went to raves, sold ecstasy and recruited Justin and Dawn, Chapot said, “His world became smaller and smaller. His inner voices became more prevalent. Dawn and Justin and Taylor fed on their own neurosis.”
Many of the witnesses on the stand were the same as in Justin’s trial and much of their testimony touched the same areas. Every so often, however, a new and unheard wrinkle would be added. Nancy Hall summed up the aftermath of the first week of August 2000 by saying, “I think of my life as a spinning plate on a stick. When you break the stick, the plate falls. That’s how I felt. I was numb most of the time. The news was always worse. Our cornerstone was gone. Then you have to figure out how you’re going to live the rest of your life. We know that if we do anything to disgrace ourselves, it hurts our mother and father.”
George Calhoun spoke of trying to snap Taylor out of his New Age philosophy, or “New Age bullshit,” as Calhoun put it. He said, “We started getting complaints from clients. I told him, ‘You’re going to screw up a good job, your life and family.’ Taylor was getting off track. I tried to get him grounded and back to business. I tried to steer him away from that philosophy.”
Kelly Lord expanded on her previous testimony in Justin’s trial. She said of Taylor, “At first, I thought his energy was terrific. He was somebody fun. Somebody cool. He had so much hair. It was almost like a disguise. I thought, ‘Hooray! Somebody who is alive and wants to go do God’s work.’”
Lord also told of going to a Wicca meeting with Taylor, Justin and Keri. She said, “It was a group of people sitting around talking about energy. They were talking about emotions and primal screams. Primal screams was where you released energy by screaming as loud as you can. Keri, Justin and Taylor all screamed. I didn’t.”
Lord also expounded on the incident with Taylor at a Carl’s Jr. restaurant. He asked her, “If we could rob a small place like this, would you be up for it?”
She thought it was just one more of his rhetorical questions, a chance to see how loyal she was to him and his ideas. Then he said, “If I did something that the newspapers said was criminal, but I didn’t do it, would you come and get me?”
She answered, “Absolutely.”
Looking back at the incident, she said, “If a newspaper said he did something wrong, then it could be proven later he was already legally insane.”
Lord spoke of the incident in Marin County where Taylor told her, “If Kelly gets in my way, she’s fucked!” She looked over at him now, sitting at the defense table and said, “That’s not the Taylor I knew. He never wore glasses. He was more stylish. New Age. He had a lot of energy. I’ve never seen Taylor sit this still or be this quiet for so long.”
Chapot asked Kelly Lord how Taylor was when he changed. She said, “I found out he was just regurgitating others’ beliefs. They weren’t original ideas. I’d found out that they weren’t his quotes. He was full of crap.
“He became very curt and condescending. I felt so betrayed after learning about the drugs. After the drugs, it was a real cutoff point for me.
“One of the things was, he tried to hug me on that last night. I said no. I knew I had a victory over him that night. Otherwise, I could have been Dawn (Godman).”
Dawn Kirkland said on the stand that Taylor’s testimony at the Third Ward had been bizarre. She said, “He made some comments about not going to church for a while, but God had wanted him to come back. He asked, ‘Do you know what it’s like to live without sin?’ He said he lived without sin for a period of time.”
Rosanne Lusk Urban and Tony Micelli testified again. There were always motions outside the presence of the jury as well. Suzanne Chapot had concerns about several potential witnesses. She said that a woman named Robin, whom Jewett wanted to call, had supposedly been involved in a scam Taylor wanted to pull on Dean Witter in 1998. Chapot said that Robin and Taylor had been boyfriend and girlfriend for a very brief time in 1996, but they were out of touch by 1998.
Jewett responded that Taylor had been coherent enough in 1998 to plan the scam, when he was claiming to be mentally ill to Kaiser Hospital psychologists. He added, “Taylor was perfectly capable of using his mental processes to buy and sell stock.”
Judge Mary Ann O’Malley, however, would not let this evidence in.
Bishop Halversen once again took the stand and spoke of Mormon doctrine and Taylor’s deviation from it. He said that there was no passage in the Book of Mormon that advocated by doing evil, one could hasten the Second Coming of Christ. Halversen also said that Taylor’s testimony at the Third Ward had been “disturbing and bizarre.” Halversen said, “Taylor shared his feelings from the pulpit. The things he shared were not coherent to me. After two or three minutes, I asked that he be excused so that the next person could testify.”
Halversen claimed that the aftermath of the situation was not confrontational. He said, “I met him that day and shook hands with him after the meeting. There was no acrimony.”
At a second meeting with Taylor about three weeks later, Halversen said they had about a five-minute discussion. Halversen wanted to welcome him to the ward and asked if there was anything he could do for Taylor. Halversen would not discuss directly what Taylor talked about. To do so would have been to abuse confidentiality, much like a Roman Catholic priest not speaking of what’s said in confession. But Halversen noted some things in general that Taylor had touched on.
Taylor at some point spoke of John 3:5 from the Bible:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
This tied in with Taylor’s preoccupation with Spirit and voices from Spirit.
Halversen also spoke of Taylor’s concern with Article 10 of the Mormon faith about the restoration of the tribes of Israel and the Second Coming of Christ. There was a concept of millennialism in Mormonism and many Protestant sects of Christianity.
Jewett asked about a note found at Saddlewood concerning 2 Nephi 2:22 and 2:27. In part Halversen spoke of it:
And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden.
And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them, which are expedient unto man.
And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and power of the devil.
Halversen said that Taylor did know good from evil, right from wrong. He said, “We have an intuitive knowledge about whether we are heading toward the light or darkness.”
Jewett asked, “Anything in the Book of Mormon that speaks of killing someone and dismembering them and feeding their flesh to a dog?”
Halversen responded, “I’m not aware of anything in the writing.”
A witness who hadn’t been heard from in Justin’s trial was Robin Stewart. She had met Taylor in 1996 at a birthday party. They became friends and were soon intimate. She said, “Initially we got along very well. We got involved very quickly. What was so attractive about him was that he was so positive. You are wonderful. I’m wonderful. Life is wonderful.
“He experimented with things that were taboo. This included sex. He was into pornography and trying sexual things out of the mainstream. I was uncomfortable with that. He wanted to embrace all of life’s experiences and not be afraid of pain. He thought that all human beings had the potential to become God. He wanted to eliminate fear. He said that he had a pre-knowledge of life. It was like reincarnation.
“None of his behavior ever mortified him. He was very self-aware of what he wanted to do with his life. It never occurred to me that he might be mentally ill.”
Like many others, Stewart went river rafting with Taylor. It was in the early summer of 1998 when the water was swift and treacherous in the mountain rivers. Stewart, with some others, was in a raft guided by Taylor. Only after they were through did he tell them that he’d been up all night, the night before, partying. Stewart said, “That was very upsetting for me. It can be dangerous in those rivers.”
That was the last time Robin Stewart saw Taylor.
Another new witness on the stand was Tyler Bergland. He moved from North Dakota to an apartment on Victory Lane in Concord in November 1997. It was at those apartments that he met Taylor and became friends with him. Bergland recalled, “Taylor said he wanted to scam the system. He didn’t want to work. He said that he was pretending to act crazy so they’d have to pay him. I never saw him acting crazy.
“He was very charismatic. Very open. He could get you to explore different ways of thought. I think I’m the one who introduced him to raves. He spoke to me about selling marijuana. Later, ecstasy and cocaine. He had brought a large sheet of paper with rules about how it would happen if it did happen (meaning the sale of drugs).”
Bergland spoke of meeting Taylor again at the Willows Shopping Center in Concord in late July 2000. Indications are that it was a few days before the abduction of the Stinemans. Taylor was with his kids and Bergland said that, “he seemed normal.”
One person who had definitely been at Justin’s trial was Keri Furman Mendoza. She was back on the stand again, wearing a green sweater and dark sunglasses. She looked like a Hollywood starlet. If many in the gallery expected another round of fireworks between her and Deputy DA Jewett, they were disappointed. Keri, this time, was soft-spoken, demure and straightforward. She added a few more things to the record that were not presented in Justin’s trial.
Keri said, “Taylor and I became friends after meeting him at the Peppermill Restaurant. We’d talk after I got off my shift. There were no actual dates for a while.”
When she moved in with him at the apartments on Victory Lane, she said, “He was very professional. He showed a lot of responsibility. He got up very early. Dressed nicely.
“He talked a lot about Impact and how it served him well in life. I was very intrigued and interested. I wanted to go. I couldn’t understand how he could be so positive. He was full of life and love. I had a difficult life growing up. I aspired to be like Taylor. I loved him.”
As for mental illness and his possible faking of it, Keri recalled, “He talked of having a breakdown. He wouldn’t shower for a couple of days. Taylor would practice how he would act before going to a doctor.”
Of raves and drugs, she said, “There was one rave at the old Home Depot in Oakland. I helped him by looking out for security during his ecstasy sales. He could gross a thousand dollars in a night. He wore black leather pants and flashy shirts.
“Once I started working for the Gold Club, he wanted me to influence other dancers. There would be a party to have men in a room with dancers. The purpose behind the parties was to make money. The men would pay a lump sum up front. It was just talk, though. It never got that far. It never evolved. It was in part from the movie Eyes Wide Shut.”
As far as In To Me See went, Keri recalled, “It would be Taylor sharing himself and how he looked at things and viewed relationships. Taylor did counsel his mom and her boyfriend, Donald, who was an instructor with Harmony. The questionnaire was actually brought to Donald’s house at one point. I thought the questionnaire was funny. I just attended the counseling group there. People could see I was Taylor’s girlfriend and they too could have true happiness and love.”
Jewett asked her about the “it depends” questions on the questionnaire:
Lying is wrong: T F It depends
Stealing is wrong: T F It depends.
Breaking the law is wrong: T F It depends.
Murder is wrong: T F It depends.
Keri said she didn’t remember the “it depends” questions. She thought the questionnaire may have evolved through several versions. She may have been right about this—Dawn Godman spoke of helping Taylor on a version of the questionnaire.
Keri stated, “Taylor always said things were a choice. As an example, you don’t have to clean the cat box. But if you have a cat, and you don’t want the house to smell, it would be a good idea to clean the cat box.”
Keri said that she did help him create the In To Me See cards. On them were written things such as, “Do you enjoy love? Passion? Communication? Openness?”
It had the name Jordan Andrew Taylor on the card, along with a phone number. The last line read, “Are you ready for a change?”
Keri said that by the time they moved out of the Oak Grove house to Martinez, she and Taylor were distant from each other. In February 2000, she moved away from Taylor back down to southern California. She only visited him in northern California one more time. She thought that was either in May or June 2000. This visit may or may not have led to Rosanne Lusk Urban sighting her silver Mitsubishi in Woodacre. If the car was there, Taylor may have borrowed it and Keri was not there. There is no official record that Keri and Selina Bishop ever met.
Taylor did call Keri several times during spring 2000. She said, “We mostly argued. He wouldn’t answer some of my questions. We were supposed to meet in San Luis Obispo, about halfway between where we lived. He didn’t come. He did loan me money for my Mitsubishi. But I felt it wasn’t really a loan. I felt like he owed me that money. I had supported him for years.”
Keri told Jewett about a phone call she made to Taylor on Wednesday, August 2, 2000. Indications are that she called him from Dallas, Texas, where she was on a promotional tour. Keri said, “Taylor told me, ‘Don’t call me again unless you’re dying or seriously injured!’”
Of course, on August 2, 2000, Taylor was luring Selina to her death at Saddlewood.
Keri also testified that Taylor wrote her a few letters from jail after he was arrested. In one, he told her to remember who he was and not believe newspaper reports and television news about what he had supposedly done. He claimed that the police had planted evidence at Saddlewood and that he was innocent.
Dawn Godman also had a few new things to say from the stand. One was: “One time, Taylor was sitting in the back of the church surreptitiously holding hands during a service. It was with Keri.”
Dawn also said, “Taylor believed everything could be filtered through the Twelve Principles of Magic. Spirit knows everything that is going on around you. It was a way to live your life more in alignment with God. I began to accept the Twelve Principles of Magic. I believed that Taylor and Jesus Christ were brothers.
“When I first heard of Children of Thunder, I felt unsure. But I never felt it was wrong. By then I was so wrapped up in Taylor, I would have followed any idea.”
Dawn also spoke of a half-baked plan that Taylor came up with to get young girls from the “Burning Man Festival” and turn them into sex slaves. She didn’t elaborate if they were supposed to be Taylor’s harem or sell their bodies for money. Like many of Taylor’s ideas, this one did not get off the ground.
Dawn said that just before Children of Thunder went into effect, “We asked God to protect us by beams of light and his angels. During the time we were deciding who these people [to be killed] would be, we prayed for God to lead them to us. We believed that they would give up their lives, whether they knew it or not. The only thing I felt in 2000 that was evil, was Satan.”
Asked by Jewett if she still felt that way, Dawn answered, “Now I don’t have an answer to that question.”
Detective Erin Inskip presented emotional testimony of Taylor’s flight from her vehicle. She said, “I heard a terrible thud. He threw himself through the window. I lost sight of him and got on the phone with Sergeant Heying to set up a perimeter. Concord PD responded.”
There was testimony by William Sharp. Asked what he was doing on the morning of Monday, August 7, 2000, he responded, “Bathroom, kitchen and coffee.”
Jewett asked what he thought of Taylor and his demands. Sharp replied, “I thought, ‘This guy’s screwy.’”
Mozzochi spoke, as well as Patrol Officer Kathy Watson, Detective Mike Warnock and Ron Mingas. Detective Mingas said, “The evidence you see in the court is only a small percentage of the total.”
Other people had spoken of Impact and Harmony, but when Neil Fisher got on the stand, he gave insights into what it was like to head a self-awareness group. Fisher was the creator and organizer of Introspect. Originally he had gone to Impact in 1990 and gone on to became a trainer and enrollment director for that group. Even though Fisher enjoyed Impact, he eventually left because he was often not paid on time for his services. He said in court, “I had a terrific experience with Impact. It was life-changing. But I thought I could run a business better. My fundamental philosophy was the celebration of life. Love yourself and love your neighbor.
“Introspect was set up for people to notice things that limited them. Anything that impeded aliveness. The role of the trainer was to confront a person about their belief systems. In Impact, it could be harsh and confrontational. Introspect was gentler and kinder. I hired two trainers from Impact, who left for the same reason I did. Introspect was similar to Impact, but more spiritual in nature. You got to know people on a more intimate basis.”
Fisher said of Introspect that it was less rigid. It was a “shift in the way to experience life.” As for love, he said the Greeks had many words for it, so perceptions of the word “love” in English depended upon a person’s outlook. Fisher recalled that he met Taylor in 1992 or 1993. He said, “Taylor loved the workshops. He helped people to love life. He asked to come and work for me. He was very sensitive and very kind. He got along with everyone in the group. He was a seeker. He wanted to live a full and happy life.”
Jewett: “No talk from him about the end of the world?
Fisher: No.
Jewett: Any talk about the Garden of Eden? A perfect environment?
Fisher: No.
Jewett: Did it come up, if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there, does it make a sound?
Fisher: (laughing) I really don’t know.
Something new was introduced to court outside the presence of the jury by Harold Jewett. He wanted to get into evidence the matter of Taylor making a forty-foot rope out of shredded bedsheets and T-shirts in August 2002. And even more than that, he wanted to introduce some evidence no one had heard up until that point.
According to Harold Jewett, on February 7, 2004, Taylor was talking to a fellow inmate at the county jail named Danny Ramirez. Ramirez was there on a court matter—his usual place of confinement was the maximum-security prison of Pelican Bay. Knowing that both Ramirez and Helzer had committed violent crimes, a jail deputy flipped a switch and listened in on their conversation.
Taylor, at one point, asked Ramirez, “Once I’m transferred to a state prison, what level is the best level to escape from?”
Taylor also wanted to know where guard towers were located at various state prisons. Ramirez told Taylor that for $100,000 he could set up a prison break. He would have a helicopter fly in with “SWAT-TYPE stuff.” He said he’d need $25,000 each for four participants in the escape.
Taylor wondered if he could be freed while riding on a prison bus to one of his regular psychiatric meetings in Martinez. Ramirez told him it would be difficult because the bus was bulletproof and the guards had a lot of firepower.
Taylor also spoke with inmate Adam Gardner that day and discussed the possibility of escaping while en route to the doctor’s office. Gardner told him it would be possible to put a sniper on the roof of a building on Alhambra Avenue, near the high school. This person would take out the driver while “some dudes blast the other three guards.”
The next day, Carma Helzer visited Taylor in the jail. A jail deputy was listening in on the intercom because of the previous day’s discussion of an escape. The guard heard Taylor tell his mom that he needed $100,000. He also said he wanted nothing to do with Justin’s trial because it would make his own escape harder to accomplish. Then he said that if he was on death row, it would be very hard to escape.
Just how serious the escape attempt was became a matter of debate now. Later, Gardner and Ramirez would say that they were only trying to bilk Taylor Helzer out of $100,000. They even called him retarded.
According to Chris Darden, “Taylor was able to get Carma to take $10,000 out of her bank account, since she was not able to raise $100,000. The next part isn’t really clear. She either put $10,000 into some stranger’s mailbox in the middle of the night, or her husband, Gerry, stopped her from doing it before it went that far.”
Even the local newspapers were intrigued by this new angle. The Contra Costa Times headline of December 3, 2004, was DETAILS OF HELZER ESCAPE PLOT TOLD:
Lt. Joe Caruso said Helzer asked his mother, Carma, to raise at least $100,000. Carma refused to respond to Taylor’s strange request, but she later placed $10,000 cash into an unknown person’s mailbox, prosecutor Harold Jewett said.
Jewett did tell the court, “Whether or not Carma Helzer knew what the purpose of the money was, it’s certainly more than just a coincidence.”
As to why Carma Helzer had not been charged with anything was never brought up in court by Jewett or anyone else.
Jewett definitely wanted all these escape plans to be presented before the jury. More than anything, he said it would refute the contention that Taylor was now a model prisoner who no longer was a threat to anyone and was remorseful for what he had done. Jewett said it proved that less than a year before, Taylor was willing to kill guards. Jewett said, “It shows he understands the depths and wrongfulness of his crimes, and was not under the influence of meth at the time.”
Chapot contended, “This consciousness of guilt is irrelevant. Taylor has already pled guilty. This cannot be brought out in the penalty phase.
“Those were idiotic ideas. There is no evidence of an overt act. It was just jail talk.”
Jewett countered, “Before July 30, 2000, people might have thought that killing five people to bring peace and love to the world was idiotic. But it happened.”
Judge O’Malley pondered the matter and said, “Getting down to the nitty-gritty of it, is it sufficient to go to the jury?”
The next day, O’Malley ruled that it couldn’t come in under Factor A—that was closed off because they were past the guilt phase. She left open the possibility that it could come in through Factor B. As far as that went, she would have to do more research on the matter.
That a door was still open seemed to satisfy Jewett. He withdrew his request to have the jury hear about Taylor’s escape plans, with a proviso. Jewett said to the judge, “I hope the court keeps a good ear open during all of these doctors that defense brings in, giving their testimony about his mental illness and how bad he is, for when that door is open.”
Chris Darden said, “I took it that since the doctors will say Taylor was so mentally ill and on meth, he can’t understand the nature of his crimes when they occurred, but Jewett will counter that he is still thinking how to commit crimes. And Taylor has been in a controlled environment for the past four years and has had no access to meth and is still thinking of how to kill multiple people.”
By December 6, 2004, the defense began to call a parade of psychologists and psychiatrists once again. In fact, not unlike Justin’s trial, Taylor’s fate in many ways hinged upon whether the jury decided he was insane at the time of the crimes. Dr. Richard Foster was a clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. His specialty was working with young men who had mental problems. In 1995, Foster saw Taylor Helzer at a Kaiser Hospital clinic.
Dr. Foster said that in that year Taylor came to see him about sexual problems within his marriage. He claimed he was dissatisfied in that area because his wife would not do sexual things he wanted to do. From the way Taylor talked and the things he spoke about, Foster came up with a diagnosis of “narcissistic features with grandiosity and self-inflation.”
Taylor complained that he could influence all the events in his life—except sexual satisfaction with his wife, Ann. Foster said, “Taylor felt as if his wife had somehow tricked him about being more sexually open. Taylor felt, ‘I deserve this.’ He had a lack of ability to put himself in the shoes of his wife. He felt he was being deprived. He wanted a wife to give him what he saw in pornographic films.”
On top of this, Taylor told Dr. Foster, “Man is becoming like the ‘Father in Heaven.’ I have the ability to reform society, but I can’t get the kind of sex I want from my own wife!”
At Dr. Foster and Taylor’s second meeting, Taylor showed him a detailed plan about what he wanted sexually. Taylor was scheming to put ads in Brazilian newspapers for eighty to 120 women applicants. They had to want sex on a daily basis. He would whittle down the list to thirty-five women and then meet them. They would have to sign a two-year contract to satisfy him sexually whenever he wanted. Supposedly he would do all of this while still married to Ann.
Foster noted that Taylor craved the approval of everyone around him. He couldn’t stand it if someone thought ill of him. It was a classic case of narcissism, as far as Dr. Foster was concerned.
The next doctor on the stand was Dr. Jeffrey Kaye. In 1998, he was working at the Kaiser Intensive Outpatient facility (IOP) in Martinez. Many patients who came to the IOP had been hospitalized for a short while for mental problems. In fact, in 1998, a doctor named Pollock told Dr. Kaye, “Taylor Helzer is a perfect candidate for IOP.”
Dr. Kaye said, “He (Taylor) was coming to see me because he was not able to function in his job and didn’t understand what was happening to him. He was in a manic phase. He was all over the map. His movements were jerky, and he had pressured speech. He was under obvious distress.”
In fact, Dr. Pollock’s reports had noted, “This person is falling apart. It’s a cry for help.”
On September 1, 1998, Dr. Kaye noted that Taylor couldn’t concentrate and was angry at inappropriate times. He complained that people could see right through him. There was a rapid shift of moods and he was constantly on the verge of tears.
On his first visit with Taylor, Dr. Kaye diagnosed him with a bipolar disorder type I with manic/psychotic features. He also noted ecstasy abuse and marijuana abuse.
According to Dr. Kaye, Taylor couldn’t tolerate being around a group of people in a therapy setting. Jewett, on the other hand, pointed out that this was at the same time that Taylor was mixing with lots of people at raves and seemed to enjoy company.
Dr. Kaye talked to Keri Furman about Taylor and she seemed genuinely concerned for his welfare. On September 29, 1998, Taylor came in with Keri and began to talk about spirits. About Keri, Dr. Kaye said, “I thought hers were authentic concerns. She seemed both loving and concerned. She seemed to be a young woman way in over her head. I believe Keri was in love with him. She was scared for him.”
Dr. Kaye said that he wanted Keri to contact the Alliance for the Mentally Ill. This was a support group for family and friends of mentally ill people. Kaye recalled, “I felt Keri was supportive of this with Taylor.”
Dr. Kaye thought that Taylor should voluntarily place himself in a mental hospital for treatment. On December 10, 1998, Taylor was full of mixed moods and Keri was so frustrated with him that she said she would leave him if he didn’t take his meds. It was also around this time, at least according to Taylor, that he picked up a hitchhiker in his car. Then, in an irrational gesture of trust, he let the hitchhiker “borrow” his car. He never got it back.
On December 22, Taylor had a full-fledged panic attack in front of Dr. Kaye. He was hyperventilating, sweating and supposedly filled with intense fear. A week later, he showed up wearing a bizarre outfit. Dr. Kaye said, “He looked like a strange cartoon character.”
On January 13, 1999, Taylor told the doctor that he was walking in the street when a voice told him to walk up to a man with a motorcycle. If he did so, he would come into a great deal of money. Taylor walked up to the motorcyclist, but no money came his way.
Taylor also said, “God has great plans for me. Like being president. The voices told me not to take my meds.”
February 25 was either a bravura performance by Taylor, or a genuine nervous breakdown. Keri had to take him to Mount Diablo Hospital. Taylor hid in the bushes until attendants got him. He was transferred by ambulance to a Kaiser Hospital. He was kept under observation for a couple of days, under a 5150 hold (meaning they could hold him for 72 hours).
Dr. Kaye saw Taylor again on March 9. Taylor spoke of spirits and hallucinations. On March 24, he complained of erectile problems. Two weeks later, Taylor looked and acted more coherent, and said maybe he really wasn’t a prophet.
Dr. Kaye’s last meeting with Taylor occurred on April 23, 1999. Instead of looking unkempt and acting crazy, Taylor once again looked like a stockbroker with a clean-cut appearance and pleasant manners. He did, however, relate a strange story about sleepwalking. It wasn’t clear if during the sleepwalk, he intended to hurt himself or someone else.
Dr. Douglas Tucker had a return appearance to court in Taylor’s trial. He interviewed Taylor in jail for three hours on December 5, 2004, as Taylor’s trial was ongoing. Tucker’s diagnosis of Taylor was acute mania that bordered on the psychotic. Taylor claimed, “The whole world is crazy, so who’s to say I’m not a prophet of God? I’m naturally more evolved than the rest of humanity. That’s why I can hear God. We are all in a dream state. I am not Taylor. I am a manifestation of God’s consciousness. He created the illusion of individuality. We are all aspects of God.”
Dr. Tucker described Taylor’s flitting from one subject to another as “tangentiality.” He said, “You just go off into the ozone. It is difficult to fake mania. Unless you’re a psychiatrist, you wouldn’t know the symptoms, especially the nonverbal parts. It’s almost impossible to keep it up for hours. It’s too exhausting.”
As to the crimes, Taylor told Dr. Tucker, “Maybe I failed because I didn’t hear God correctly. I wanted to free humanity from sexual slavery and other horrific things. I could end war and sexual slavery. Right and wrong are statistical and illusions, but good and evil are deeper and eternal traits. I regret what I did. I feel bad about the people who died. I was guilty as charged, but my purpose was right and good. I could have avoided all this by being selfish and enjoying the paradise of my life. But some die, so many can live. The idea was beautiful and right. The drugs might have confused me.”
Dr. Tucker said, “He’s a guy who wants to do right. His orientation is to helping people. He is not antisocial.”
The testimony of doctors Foster, Kaye and Tucker were only a prelude to psychiatrist Dr. Robert Chamberlain. He had seen Taylor more than all the others, from February to September 2004, and they often based some of their conclusions on what Dr. Chamberlain already had written. In a grueling one-and-a-half day struggle, Jewett covered almost every point that Chamberlain had made. He covered all of Chamberlain’s thirty-one-page report that had only been finished on November 19, 2004. Jewett seemed to wear down Chamberlain, the jury, the gallery and even himself in the lengthy questioning.
It might have seemed unnecessary to some, but this was the crux of the matter. Was Taylor sane or insane at the time of the crimes? Whether he got life without parole or the death penalty depended on this.
Dr. Chamberlain’s testimony went clear back to when Taylor was on his mission in Brazil. Chamberlain noted, “Taylor would write in his journal at three and four in the morning. He couldn’t sleep. His relationship with God became more intense. His speech patterns were littered with scripture. A very stilted language. He would link disparate ideas. A person struggling with mental illness will often say they are faking it. It is to mask their shame of really being mentally ill. There was an illogic in his schemes. A flamboyant mania.”
Chamberlain’s diagnosis of Taylor was one of an individual with schizo-affective disorder and possibly bipolar as well. A schizo-affective disorder could be effected by a family history of mental illness, something that seemed to be prevalent on Carma’s side of the family.
As far as religious aspects and grandiosity went, Jewett had Dr. Chamberlain admit that he had not consulted with any experts in Mormon religion or doctrine. Chamberlain was basing most of what he knew by layman’s input. His diagnosis of Taylor also came from personal observation, and by speaking with Taylor, Carma and Taylor’s cousins and friends.
Jewett talked on at length and sometimes became somewhat agitated himself. He drew a laugh at one point by stating, “Let me slow down. I’m becoming manic myself.”
Many in the gallery wondered if Jewett would get in testimony about Taylor’s escape attempts from jail. This seemed like a real possibility when Jewett asked Chamberlain if he’d heard that Taylor had forty feet of handmade rope in his cell. Taylor’s claim was that he was going to use it to commit suicide. Chamberlain admitted, “It seems longer than necessary.” That’s as far as any testimony of jail breaks went.
Jewett also zeroed in about Taylor’s sanity at the time of the Stinemans’ murders. Taylor supposedly said later, “We decided to bang their heads on the bathroom floor until they were dead. A gunshot would have been too loud.” This statement indicated that Taylor knew what he was doing and took steps not to be caught in an act that he knew to be illegal and wrong.
Heather took the stand for Taylor, as she had done for Justin during his trial. She was also once again almost breathless and crying as she answered questions. Even members of the victims’ families in the gallery felt sorry for her.
Heather was the historian of the family and told of various members, especially on her mother’s side, who had suffered from mental illness. She spoke of Grandpa Doyle Sorenson seeing Jesus Christ standing in his front yard for hours. She recalled, “Taylor was interested in spiritual things, since I can remember. He was wonderful. A good brother. When Taylor came back from his mission, he was still good and motivated. He met and married Ann, and that was a good thing. Everything was great in 1993. In 1994, I saw changes in Taylor. I saw him sad about his marriage and his job.”
As the changes grew with Taylor and her mother, Carma, Heather moved about as far away from them as she could. She went to college in Alaska. When her mother was excommunicated, she thought that Taylor should be as well. He had deviated far from the mainline Mormon doctrine.
Heather said, “By 1997, Taylor had thrown away his religion. He seemed so callous. It was hard to listen to him. He was confrontational. He wanted to argue with me about God and the Church. We argued a lot on the phone. He had a different philosophy. He wanted me to see my religion as false. He wanted me to see a greater truth. I was very disillusioned by all the New Age ideas of my parents.”
Heather got married and moved with her husband to Utah. She saw Taylor only once in 1998 and twice in 1999. She said, “He was actually better in 1999. We didn’t fight. There was a safe topic about our chil-dren.”
Asked how she felt now, Heather cried, “I can’t tell you how we’ve all felt. I can’t explain how awful we feel.”
She apologized to the family members in the gallery for what her brother had done.
Chapot asked her, “Do you want your brother to die?”
Heather practically wailed, “No!”
Even Harold Jewett could see her sincerity and pain. He didn’t cross-examine her.
Ann Helzer took the stand as well. She was somewhat more restrained than she had been about Justin in pleading for his life. But she said, “Taylor writes to our girls and sees them in jail. His girls love their father. It would be catastrophic to my girls if he was put to death. This is their dad.”
Closing arguments began on December 14, 2004. Jewett started by showing a collage of photographs on an overhead screen. Each photo showed a pair of people; Annette and Ivan, Jenny and Selina, Jim and his mom, Frances. Jewett asked, “Is this case about the service of God or is it about power and greed?” He answered his own question by saying, “It is about cruelty. It is In To Me See, not In To God See. It was all about promoting Taylor.
“Greed is a selfish desire for power and money. Cruelty—it’s a willingness to hurt. A savageness and inhumanity. Ends justifying the means. The defendant is a psychopath, but that does not make him mentally ill.
“The defendant cited Samuel 15: ‘And Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord.’”
“It’s Samuel’s retribution. It’s ironic the defendant chose that passage.”
Jewett pointed to the Bill of Rights on the wall of the courtroom and the Fourth Amendment; these dealt with due process and life, liberty and property. He said that Taylor had taken property, liberty and life from others illegally. “This is not revenge—this is retribution. Follow the law whether you agree with it or not. You don’t want to leave this courtroom with a sense of regret. Reach a just verdict. This has all been about justice.”
Jewett read through a series of aggravating circumstances. For Factor A, he said, “It can be things like feeding a tattoo to a dog or slitting Annette Stineman’s throat while her husband’s head is being beaten on the floor.” For Factor D, mental disturbance, he said, “this case was not in the heat of passion. It was cold-blooded and premeditated.” And for Factor F, moral justification, Jewett said, “Doing it for God—wasn’t that his Star Trekkian philosophy?”
Jewett showed a gym bag to the jury and said that he’d done them a favor by not showing one of the real bags that Taylor had used. Jewett said that he spared them the blood and stench of the real bags. The smell of death. He said, “This bag was to hide the bodies. Taylor appreciated the criminality. There was a reason Jenny and Jim were killed.”
And then very passionately Jewett related, “Each photograph has two people in it. The ties that bind.” Jewett started up the electrical reciprocating saw and its noise filled the courtroom. Jewett thundered, “Taylor cut the ties that bind! You have to see that bathroom in your mind’s eye. The sights, sounds and smells. There was blood everywhere. He did it with extreme cruelty.
“In your mind’s eye, look inside that house on Saddlewood, the living room lit only by a fire. All the lights are out and Selina’s effects are burning. Then he (Taylor) had to fish through the bags of body parts to slice off her tattoo. The tattoo, he cut it off because he understood the criminality of his actions. I hope you see the reality of this. What does feeding a tattoo to a dog have to do with love? With God? That’s as evil as it gets!”
Jewett took the jurors back through the case, witness by witness, statement by statement. One of Taylor’s self-incriminating statements was to Debra McClanahan. She had asked him about one crazy scheme, “Aren’t you afraid you’ll be caught?”
Taylor answered, “I’ve been talking to God. Who would believe I’m guilty? I won’t be held responsible.”
Another damning statement was from Taylor to his aunt Marsha Helzer. He said, “Since I can’t be perfect, I have to get all of the evil out of me in this life.”
Jewett declared, “Taylor said that there had to be darkness at the Apocalypse. There was darkness and Apocalypse at Saddlewood Court!”
Jewett told the jury to look at all the items and evidence, even the small evidence that was found in Selina’s car. He said, “If I wasted your time, I’m sorry. But sometimes these things are the last vestiges of our lives. Hell was brought to earth that week! It’s been four years, but don’t think the memories have diminished by the passage of time for the family members. Justice is what this trial is about. You have to look at the degree of enormity. Justice is the imposition of the death penalty.”
Jewett’s entire argument had gone from 9:00 A.M. to 4:10 P.M. on December 14.
Suzanne Chapot began her closing arguments on December 15. By contrast, her remarks were sober and measured. She told the jurors, “Each of you, look into your hearts and your minds. Ultimately you must answer to your own conscience. You can never shift the responsibility to another. It must be your individual act.”
As for mitigation, she said, “This is a human calculation, not a mathematical calculation. A single factor to vote for life is enough. There is nothing in our laws that say you must return a verdict of death. It doesn’t mean you’re forgiving Taylor. Life without parole is hardly a tolerant act.
“Mercy is the better part of justice. For all the days of his life, all his actions will be circumscribed by stone walls.”
She quoted a poem by James Joyce that spoke of the horrors of prison life.
“Right and wrong, good and evil, these are concepts you’ve heard all through this trial, but they are not the law. As his mental illness took hold, he began to lose his place in society. Mental illness comes to different people in different ways.”
She spoke of three cousins of Taylor who were mentally ill. She asked, “Was that a choice for them? None of them was faking their mental illness. And Taylor was not faking his either. He could not fool all of the doctors, all of the time. Taylor had no choice in his mental illness.
“‘That’s not the Taylor I know.’ You heard that from a lot of people. How do you judge this man? Taylor was sweet, loving and gentle. If one aspect can be singled out about Taylor, it was to help other people. Mormons don’t believe they can bring the Second Coming of Christ. These were delusional thoughts. Even in his darkest hours, he believed he was acting for the greater good.
“In Brazil, he began to struggle with his demons. Later, he became obsessed with Impact. He began drinking and using drugs, not uncommon for someone with mental illness. In his twisted mind, Taylor believed he had a special mission. Everyone expected great things of him, but he lost his battle with mental illness and his world turned upside down.
“Safely locked in prison, he will have to live with the horror of what he did, all the days of his life. The prosecutor said he was rational. What is rational about Children of Thunder? Extreme mental illness is mitigation. What does death for Taylor accomplish? It offers the illusion that taking a life preserves life. An exercise of mercy is one of the more noble human traits. You must look at Taylor’s life as a whole. This man is a complex mixture of love, compassion, mental illness and remorse.
“What good will it accomplish by putting Taylor to death? What good will it do those five people? Taylor’s death will solve nothing.”
Chapot showed the jurors a large photo of Taylor and his children. She said, “You will decide what kind of society we live in. I am pleading with you that we overcome hatred with compassion.”