William Henry Helm (1888 - 1926)

The verdict returned at a late hour on the night of June 19. 1908, by a jury in the city of Stockton, Cal., sealed the doom of the brothers, Elmer and Willie Helm for one of the most diabolical crimes ever committed in this communitv. The trial was had in Stockton on a change of venue because of the represented prejudice against the boy murderers in Fresno. The verdict was accompanied by recommendations of life imprisonment for both. The verdict saved Elmer from the death penalty passed upon him after conviction of murder in the first degree in Fresno in June, 1906, on first trial. The younger boy gained nothing by the second trial because after the first in September, 1906, the sentence upon him was life imprisonment at San Quentin. The case of the Helms was one of the most atrocious brought to the attention of a public prosecutor. Their crime was the wanton murder on the evening of October 30, 1905, of William J. Hayes and wife while camp- ing out near a deserted cabin on the Whitesbridge road, about eighteen miles west from Fresno. The murderers rewarded themselves for the double crime with about three dollars taken from the person of the murdered man. Clues to the murderers were meagre. The authorities worked long and diligently with little success and they might have been baffled in the end but that the fiends, the elder aged twenty-one and the younger nineteen at the time, were not content with their work but undertook another man killing a few months later. Singularly enough the father of the boys was the one to discover the second murder antl to report it. Circumstances directed attention to the Helm boys and thev were connected with the three murders. The late Sheriff Walter S. McSwain, a township constable, made a name for himself in working up a wonderful case of circumstantial evidence. The story of the crimes and the bringing of the youths to justice is replete with incident and detail. The victims were an aged couple who lived at peace with the world and no other motive for their taking off could be conceived than robbery. Hayes had been a justice of the peace at Mendota and lived in Fresno. They owned a tract of land on the West Side, which it was their habit to visit at intervals. The murder was on the home coming from one of these periodical visits. At Whitesbridge a stop was made to buv hay for their horses and paying with check he received about three dollars in change. They were overtaken by night on the journey home and camped near a deserted Mexican cabin, having food and bedding with them. Horses had been fed and picketed and the evening meal was being prepared when the murderers pounced upon them, shot both to death and departed with the paltry booty. Conditions at the camp indicated that the Hayes were taken unawares. The canvas bed lay on the ground as it had been taken down from the wagon and the uncooked potatoes were in the frying pan. Remains were discovered next day by a passing traveler. (The) Autopsy showed that Hayes had received gun shot wound, six inches in diameter in the breast and the heart was literally filled with shot. Her wounds were almost identical. Death came to both instantly. A single barreled shot gun with which the murders were committed was found not far from the scene of the crime, but whose gun was it? Two boys riding bicycles and carrying a package that might have been the shot gun wrapped in gunny sack had been seen on the Whitesbridge road on the day of the murder. But who were these boys? About February 8. 1906, Henry Jackson, a bachelor of over sixty years of age, was surprised in his little cabin home a mile or so out of Fresno and murdered. He had sat at the table and the murderer let loose through the window glass a charge of shot that shattered the old man's neck and almost tore the head from the trunk. The window sill was left powder-marked. The murderer sawed a strip from a near-by board and nailed it over the powder-marked spot. The body was covered in bed quilt and with the aid of buggy axle and two wheels was conveyed to a culvert on the Southern Pacific railroad miles away and jammed therein. The Helm family of husband, wife, daughter and two sons lived only about a quarter of a mile from the Jackson cabin. They were practically nearest neighbors. Helm missed the old man several days, visited the cabin and found it a veritable shambles. He gave the alarm. Days were spent in locating the body and it was found in the siphon, five miles from Fresno near Herndon. There was also a bruise on the head where it had fallen forward on the table after the firing of the shot. Suspicion fastened on the Helm boys. Their reputation was not the best, especially that of the elder. On or about the night of the Jackson murder, Elmer had spent paper money lavishly in Fresno's tenderloin. The youths were taken to prison and the gathering of evidence began. The father was also imprisoned on suspicion but soon re- leased. The owner of the shot gun was discovered, the chain of evidence was started and the links were added. A resident of Fowler, who had been a neighbor of the Helms about the time of the Hayes double tragedy, recognized the gun as one that had been stolen from him. Witnesses were found who saw the gun in the possession of Elmer. Paper money identified as part of that he had spent in the tenderloin was identified by denominations and name of issuing banks as money received by Jackson not long before. The brothers were identified as the pair that was seen on the Whitesbridge road with the package in gunny sack; fabric threads of the sack were found clinging to the gun ; the movements of the pair on the day of the murder were traced to the neighborhood of the Hayes camping spot. The formal accusation for the Hayes murder followed and on it Elmer Helm was first brought to trial June 16, 1906. It lasted sixteen days with much difficulty experienced in securing jury. The verdict was guilty as charged and July 16, 1906, the death sentence was pronounced. Willie's trial in September lasted twenty days. It resulted in a verdict of guilty as charged but with life imprisonment recommended as the punishment. Appeals were taken in both cases. The supreme court granted new trials in December, 1907. In the Elmer case a sapient supreme court reversed the judgment though holding that the evidence while circumstantial was sufficient to sustain the verdict. The ruling was against the appellant on the point that the information was void because filed on one of the continuous holidays declared by the governor following the earthquake and the fire in San Francisco. The reversal was on a purely technical ground that it was prejudicial error to overrule good challenge for cause compelling exhaustion of peremptory challenge to be relieved of jurors who should have been excused under the challenge for cause. The alibi defense of the boys had fallen before the strength of the people's case. For the second trial the county roads near and about Fresno were canvassed for declarations of people as to their prejudice for or against the accused. They were used on a motion for a change of venue to some other county because of the prejudice in Fresno against the Helms for their crime. And so it was that the case went to San Joaquin County for the second trial in June 1908 lasting sixteen days. This trial was notable for the unexpected reappearance of chief witness, Charles Molter, for the prosecution who had disappeared after the first trial. Without him the prosecution would have been greatly weakened in its case. On account of the notoriety because of his connection with the case, he had concealed his whereabouts and for months had been searched for high and low without locating him. Notable as new evidence was the testimony of Willie Helm's cellmate, one Kaloostian, who told of a confession made to him with various threats by Willie as to what he would do when out of the toils. McSwain's evidence was also very material in the tracking of the defendants by the corrugated bicycle tire and a heel-worn shoe. After this second conviction, there was talk of another appeal but it was abandoned and the prisoners left the Stockton jail on their life imprisonments, Elmer to Folsom and Willie to San Quentin.

Missing Witness in Murder Case Appears and Identifies Helm Brothers

Stockton, June 10 -- Both William and Elmer Helm, the youths charged with the murder of Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Hayes of Fresno county on the afternoon of October 30, 1905, were positively identified this afternoon as the persons seen in the vicinity of the cabin where Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were murdered. J.C. Molter, the tramp witness who had been missing for two years and who had cost Fresno county almost a thousand dollars to locate him, was on the stand during the entire afternoon. He stated that he met both William and Elmer Helm the day of the murder. They were on bicycles and had a gun carefully wrapped in a sack. They inquired if there was anybody at the old cabin, referring to the place where Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were camping.

'San Francisco Call' Vol 104 number 11 6/11/1908

(AP) FRESNO, Oct 18 -- Willie Helm was tonight found guilty of murder in the first degree and recommended to life imprisonment for the killing of W.J. Hayes and wife on October 30 last.

His brother, Elmer Helm, was tried last June for the same murder and was sentenced to be hanged.

The two cases attracted much attention, as the evidence was entirely circumstantial.

Elmer is 20 years old and Willie 18.

While the evidence against the younger boy as stronger, the jury saved his life upon the belief that he acted under the influence of the older boy.

The murder of an old man named Jackson in his cabin has also been traced to the boys and they are charged with this crime.

'Los Angeles Herald' Vol 34, number 13, 10/14/1906

Prosecution Springs Sensation in Trial of Helms at Stocton

STOCKTON, June 15. -- The prosecution sprung a big sensation in the Willie Helm murder trial today when Dick Kaloostian, an Armenian who was a cellmate with William Helm for months, testified, after strenuous objections by the defendant's attorneys, that Willie Helm, one of the accused, had after his first conviction confessed to him that (he) had shot Hayes and his wife.

The witness further declared that Helm had plotted to kill Judge Church, District Attorney Church, Constable Mason and whatever constable might convey him to Stockton for the second trial, a change of venue having been secured.

Kaloostian was to procure a gun with which Helm was to carry out the plans, which, if successfully executed, were to be followed by the killing of a witness who saw Helm with the shotgun. The robbery of the Gouler bank was also planned. Helm exhibited a knife and threatened Kaloostian with death if he "peached." Kaloostian waited his opportunity, and when Helm was ill in his cell managed to convey the story to the officers. Cross examination only strengthened the story.

'San Francisco Call' Vol 104, number 16, 6/16/1908