LITMIR.BIZ

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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 released. 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.

       Murder of Policeman Van Meter

      Policeman Harry S. Van Meter was murderously shot while on duty on the night of February 20, 1907, and died on the following day. He encountered a suspect at the corner of I and Inyo Streets. Three shots were fired by the night prowler and all took effect. Van Meter wearing a heavy overcoat was unable to open it to draw revolver to defend himself. One Ernest C. Sievers was arrested suspected of the murder but never prosecuted as the evidence proved insufficient. Van Meter twice identified him as his murderer, the last time on his death bed, but there was no corroboration save in a gray hat such as Van Meter stated the fellow, who had shot him, wore. Sievers claimed an alibi and that at the time of the shooting he was in a certain saloon. This was in part corroborated, but not positively as to the hour. The murder of the young policeman created such a sensation that a public money subscription was raised for the widow. He was a son of City Attorney E. S. Van Meter. Early in December 1909 came a story from Folsom penitentiary of the murderer of Van Meter in February 1907." One Mack Reed imprisoned under a life sentence claimed to be the murderer according to admissions to a cellmate. The latter drew the story from him, informed a guard and former resident of Fresno of the details, and the guard writing to the police and learning that no reward had been offered for the apprehension of the murderer related the confession on a visit to Fresno. The prisoner's confession was made four months before the official recital. No action was ever taken on the supposed confession. Reed is under sentence for a criminal assault upon his ten year old daughter in the fall of 1907. Ernest Sievers, the man that Van Meter had identified as his assailant, was tried for his life and acquitted and after liberation returned to his home in Missouri. Reed in his confession claimed to have shot Van Meter five times after having been detected in a burglary of dye works on South I Street. Escaping at the rear door he met the patrolman in the alley at Inyo Street at the spot where the shooting took place.

       Watchman Murdered

      There was an epidemic of night store burglaries during the fall and winter season of 1907. L. C. Smith, night watchman in the city business center, was found shot and killed on the morning of October 10 in the alley off Fresno Street alongside the Barton theater. He had evidently surprised a housebreaker and in the rencontre was murdered. The attempted burglary was of the Opera Bar at the back transom. Seven shots were fired in the alley flight of burglar or burglars in the direction of Merced Street. Three times was "Dad" Smith wounded in the right side, two shots high and the other low, all evidently from a large caliber revolver and at short range judging from the powder burns. No weapon was in the hand of the watchman when found dead, or near him. The murder was never cleared up.

       Tax Defalcation

      In December 1907 report was made to the supervisors in 141 typewritten pages covering an exhaustive investigation of the books of the county tax collector's office from January 1, 1899 to July 2, 1907 following discovery of defalcations by W. M. Walden, who was deputy and cashier under the administration of the late J. B. Hancock. The net balance found due was $2,130.14 with discovery of numerous errors and disbursements in a debit originally by the collector of a total of $4,141.77. Walden was indicted, pleaded guilty, sentenced and later liberated on probation. The peculations were in small sums and covered a long period. Discovery of them was made incidentally in examination of the collector's books in the auditor's office while working over them at night. In turning over the leaves a page of an account book was held up for better reading with the electric light behind it. This showed erasure with chemical fluid so that the spot was transparent. This excited suspicion and the volume being closer scrutinized against the light numerous other like erasures were discovered. A sensation followed that was at once taken before the grand jury for investigation with stated result. Walden was indicted July 9, 1907 for falsification of public records and pleading guilty October 4, was sentenced to the penitentiary at San Quentin for seven years.

       Fifty Years for Highway Robbery

      "Why didn't you bury me alive?" hissed back Julius Smith one day in December 1907 upon Judge H. Z. Austin's sentence of fifty years imprisonment at San Quentin after he had pleaded guilty to the charge of highway robbery. His accomplice had previously confessed and would have been used as state's evidence against Smith. The time was when highway robberies were epidemic. The sentences came under fierce criticism by the prison commissioners sitting as a board of pardon. The sentence was equivalent under the prison credit system for good behavior to twenty-nine years and

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