THE CRIME

On July 30, 1993 Dale Helmig called the Osage County Sheriff's Department in Linn, a small town in Central Missouri, and reported that his mother, Norma, was missing from the house they shared in the outskirts of town.

Two days later, on August 1, 1993, her body was found floating in a nearby river, tied to a concrete block. Dale was convicted of her murder and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES

Dale Helmig, a 37-year-old self-employed housepainter had moved into his mother's house a few months earlier, after separating from his wife. His parents, Ted and Norma, were also separated. Dale moved in when his father moved out.

Around noon on Friday July 30, 1993 Dale, accompanied by a friend with whom he had spent the previous night, returned home after having been away for a few days. When he saw his mother's car parked outside, he assumed she was home. But she was nowhere in sight.

Inside the house, things didn't look right. His mother kept a neat home, but there were pillows on the floor and her clothes were piled on the bed. A small metal fan had been knocked over. The air-conditioning — which his mother never left on while she was away — was running. He went outside and discovered that a heavy window fan he had recently installed was missing. At that point, Dale says, "Chills ran up my spine."

That afternoon, friends and family of 55-year-old Norma Helmig gathered at her house. She had not been seen for more than 36 hours. Dale called the police and reported his mother missing{link missing persons}. When the deputy arrived, he began interviewing family members. Osage County Sheriff Carl Fowler arrived at around 4 p.m. and Dale pointed out the suspicious things he'd noticed around the house. But as far as the sheriff was concerned, Dale was the most suspicious thing on the scene.

Two days later Norma's body was found floating in the Osage River, tied to a concrete block. She was dressed in her nightgown, as Fowler claimed Dale had predicted two days earlier. The coroner determined that Norma Helmig died sometime in the very early hours of Thursday, July 29. Although the cause of death was not established, her death was ruled a homicide.

THE INVESTIGATION

From the start Sheriff Fowler believed Dale was involved in his mother's disappearance. Fowler believed that Dale knew more than he should about what Norma had with her when she disappeared. He was suspicious of Dale's insistence that Norma was a victim of foul play when he saw nothing at the scene to support that conclusion. In his earliest report, Sheriff Fowler notes Dale's unsolicited alibi. "Without my inquiring, Dale Helmig gave me a detailed account of his whereabouts for the past four days."

On August 1, the day Norma's body was found, Dale wrote a statement at the sheriff's office, explaining his whereabouts between Tuesday July 27, the day before his mother's disappearance, and Friday July 30 when he returned to the house.

According to that statement, Dale spent Tuesday night at a friend's house in Holts Summit where he had been working on a housepainting job. He intended to return home the next day, but due to severe flooding, the bridge over the Missouri River was closed. He tried to call his mother but got no answer. On Wednesday night, the 28, he went to a local Wal-Mart to buy some toiletries for his overnight stay and chatted with a clerk there. He also ran into a friend of his. He then checked into a motel in nearby Fulton. Around 10:30 p.m. he ordered a pizza. An hour later he went to bed.

Thursday morning Dale learned that the Missouri River Bridge had reopened. He drove across the bridge to Jefferson City where he spent the rest of the day visiting friends. That evening he met up with an old friend and the two of them checked into a motel in Eldon. The next day, July 30, they left the motel in the morning and by noon, were headed to his mother's house to get cleaned up in preparation for the first visitation he'd had with his children in a year. That's when Dale discovered his mother was missing.

In investigating Dale's alibi, Sheriff Fowler found that Dale's visits to the various places he mentioned were "substantiated at or near the times he indicated." Nonetheless, Fowler believed Dale still had an opportunity to commit the crime and continued to see him as his number one suspect. The autopsy established that Norma Helmig died sometime in the early hours of Thursday morning. According to Dale, he was alone in his motel room at the time. But nobody could corroborate his story.

The Missouri River Bridge reopened at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, before Dale checked into the motel. Dale claimed he didn't find out the bridge was open until Thursday morning. But Sheriff Fowler didn't believe him. He believed Dale left the motel some time after 10:30 p.m. when the pizza was delivered, drove across the reopened Missouri River Bridge to his mother's house in Linn and killed her.

THE TRIAL

The Prosecution's Case

The prosecution's theory at trial was that after Dale had a pizza delivered to his motel room at approximately 10:30 p.m. on July 28, he drove his car over the Missouri River Bridge, killed his mother at her house, put her body into her own car trunk, drove her car to the Osage River Bridge, dumped her body over the bridge, and then drove her car back home, parked it, and returned in his own car to the motel in Fulton, once more crossing the Missouri River Bridge.

The case against Dale:

No physical evidence linked Dale Helmig with his mother's murder. The state claimed that before his mother's body was found, Dale revealed knowledge that only her killer could have had. In the prosecutor's words, "Dale knew too much, too soon." The state argued that this "guilty knowledge," along with suspicious behavior, motive and opportunity tied Dale to the crime.

Guilty Knowledge

1) The nightgown: On Friday, the day he reported that his mother was missing, Dale accurately predicted that his mother would be found in her nightgown.

2) The Purse: On that Friday, Sheriff Fowler asked Dale for the keys to his mother's car. Dale claimed he didn't have a set. He told Sheriff Fowler the keys must be in his mother's missing purse. More than six months after Norma's body was found, a farmer discovered the purse buried in the sand about a mile and a half east of the Missouri River Bridge. As Dale had predicted, her car keys were in her purse.

At the trial, Norma's sister, Dorothy Bauer, and Dorothy's husband, Alex, both said that Norma always wore her car keys attached to her belt loop. The prosecution claimed that Dale could not have known that her keys would be in her purse unless he put them there.

Suspicious Behavior

1) Sheriff Fowler testified that when he returned to the Helmig residence and informed the family that Norma's body had been found, Dale "looked very surprised and very shocked" and started tapping his foot rapidly. The prosecution suggested he was surprised because he had not expected anyone to find his mother's body.

2) Dale was arrested on March 5, 1994. Later that day he was interviewed by a state trooper. The state trooper would testify that he told Dale that his own mother was dead but that he still spoke to her on a regular basis. The trooper told Dale that his mother (Norma) was watching him and that he could speak to her if he wanted to. According to the trooper, Dale began to sob, leaned forward in his seat and said: "I'm sorry, I'm just so sorry." The prosecution cited the incident as more proof of Dale's guilt.

Motive

The prosecution claimed that Dale and his mother had a hostile relationship. They said Dale was a freeloader who was sponging off his mother and that he killed her because she had threatened to cut him off.

1) The owner of a tow truck company testified that about a month before Norma's death, she towed Dale's car back to his mother's house outside Linn. The owner testified that when Norma paid Dale's towing bill, she said, "He better be happy because his meal ticket's about to run out."

2) Norma's sister, Dorothy Bauer, testified that Norma was afraid of Dale. She testified that a few days before her death, Norma told her that she and Dale had a huge fight about a $200 telephone bill that he'd run up. According to Dorothy, Norma told her that Dale was furious and that she was afraid of him.

Opportunity

The prosecution argued that Dale had time, the pizza was delivered, to cross the opened bridge, kill his mother in Linn, and return to his motel in Fulton.

Norma's purse was found a mile and a half east of the Missouri River Bridge. The prosecution claimed that Dale threw the purse into the water as he crossed the bridge on his way back to the motel in Fulton. To support this claim, the state presented the evidence of a hydrologist (an expert in water currents and water movement). The hydrologist testified that in order for the purse to end up where it did, it must have been thrown off the Missouri River Bridge.

The Defense Strategy

In defending Dale at his murder trial, attorney Chris Jordan's strategy was to argue that the state couldn't prove a murder had actually taken place. Since the autopsy was inconclusive, it was, he said, possible that Norma Helmig, who some say was addicted to a number of prescription drugs, had died as a result of a drug overdose or as a result of mixing drugs and alcohol, and someone had placed her body in the water.

Since Norma was found with a cement block tied to her, the jury had a difficult time with the argument that no murder had taken place. Further, the fact that the toxicology report on Norma Helmig's liver did not show traces of drugs (though the handling of the liver was in question and the report on her spleen, which did show the presence of drugs, had not been given to him in discovery) did not bolster Jordan's defense for Dale.

Focusing his arguments on the state's insufficient proof that a murder had occurred, Jordan failed to introduce any suspects who might have had greater reason to kill Norma Helmig than did Dale. The jury couldn't buy the argument that more evidence was needed to prove homicide, when the victim was found with a cement block around her waist. Presiding Judge Jack Edwards mocked Jordan's theory in his closing.

Jordan failed to refute key arguments of the prosecution, though he had access to material and personal testimony that could have challenged the prosecution's case. He did not show that Norma's sister, Dorothy, assumed that she was wearing her nightgown at the time of her death and was heard by witnesses to say as much.

Second, Jordan did not present witnesses who could testify that, contrary to what the state argued, Dale and Norma had a loving relationship. He did not put witnesses on the stand who could have expressed their opinion that Dale would not kill his mother over a $200 phone bill.

And since Jordan advised Dale not to testify in his own defense — saying that the prosecution would have a field day with Dale's previous misdemeanor drug conviction — Dale didn't get the chance to refute these two key pieces of speculation himself.

THE VERDICT

On March 9, 1996, three days after the trial began, Dale Helmig was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.