MARTINEZ — After less than two days deliberating, a jury on Wednesday found Justin Helzer — a Concord resident charged in the summer 2000 slayings of five people — guilty with special circumstances on multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary and extortion.
Helzer, 32 — dressed in a green cardigan, white shirt, brown tie and gray pants — sat quietly and displayed no emotion as the court clerk read aloud the jury’s guilty verdicts on 11 of 12 charges. The jury found him innocent of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to sell.
During the six-week trial, the prosecution called more than 100 witnesses, including a confrontational Playboy bunny and a self-described “good witch.”
Along with the testimony from police officers, distraught family members and an adult bookstore clerk, Deputy District Attorney Hal Jewett presented a tale of religious fanaticism, replete with declarations of war on Satan and dreams of a Utopian paradise.
It was Helzer’s quest for power and money that led to the killings of Ivan Stineman, 85, and his wife, Annette, 77, both of Concord; Selina Bishop, 22, of Woodacre; her mother, Jennifer Villarin, 45, of Novato; and Villarin’s companion, James Gamble, 54, of Laytonville, the prosecution argued.
The Stinemans’ daughters wept silently on Wednesday as the verdicts were read. Helzer’s mother sat quiet and still. After the verdicts, Helzer gave his mother a reassuring nod as he was led from the courtroom with his hands cuffed behind him.
Helzer had pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. His older brother, Glenn, 34, has pleaded guilty to 18 felony counts against him. They include five counts of capital murder that make him eligible for the death penalty.
Justin Helzer now faces life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Next week, the trial’s sanity phase — during which the defense will try to prove Helzer was not mentally stable at the time of the killings — will get under way.
The defense has argued that Justin Helzer was under the influence of his domineering older brother, a man that the defendant believed was a prophet of God.
Court records said Glenn Helzer sought to extort $100,000 from the Stinemans to fund a number of proposed business ventures. Five people wound up dead when things did not go according to plan.
The Stinemans were abducted from their Concord home on Frayne Lane on July 30, 2000. Between then and Aug. 2, 2000, they were held captive in a home rented by the Helzers on Saddlewood Court in Concord. There, the Stinemans were forced to sign over checks totaling $100,000 before they were killed and dismembered in the bathroom. Ivan was beaten to death. His wife’s throat was slashed with a hunting knife.
It was all part of a plan hatched by the Helzer brothers and their roommate, 29-year-old Dawn Godman, prosecutors said. To avoid the death penalty, Godman pleaded guilty and testified against the brothers. Under state law, she must serve at least 35 years and nine months in prison before being eligible for parole.
Dubbed “Children of Thunder,” the plan called for readying the world for the second coming. To ensure the plot’s success, anyone deemed a threat to its ultimate goal was killed, the prosecution argued. Selina Bishop, Glenn Helzer’s girlfriend and the daughter of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop, was murdered Aug. 2, 2000, to prevent her from becoming a witness.
Like the Stinemans, her body was dismembered and decapitated. To hamper identification, the victims’ teeth were knocked out using a hammer and chisel. The body parts were then intermingled in gym bags and dumped in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Defense attorney Dan Cook never disputed Justin Helzer’s participation in the three murders. He did, however, argue his client was not guilty of killing Bishop’s mother and her companion.
Evidence showed Glenn Helzer was the trigger man in the shooting deaths of Villarin and Gam-
ble on the night of Aug. 3, 2000, while they house-sat Bishop’s Woodacre apartment, Cook said. Godman drove the getaway car.
Glenn Helzer marked Villarin for death because he feared she knew too much about him. Gamble was killed because he just happened to be at the apartment that night.
During his closing arguments earlier this week, Cook argued that Justin Helzer was asleep when Glenn and Godman planned the killings and drove to Marin County to carry them out.
On Wednesday, the jury of 10 women and two men didn’t accept the argument.
Outside the courthouse, Cook said the verdicts were not surprising, but he disputed prosecutor Hal Jewett’s claim that a hunger for power was at the heart of the case.
“What this case is really about is that Justin suffered from a delusion that his brother was a prophet of God,” Cook said. “This case would not have been if it weren’t for Justin’s maniacal brother. None of these things would have happened.”
Cook said his only strategy during the sanity phase of the trial is “to get the truth about Justin out.”
“(Justin) really is not capable of distinguishing what is morally right from what is morally wrong,” Cook said. “He really thought his brother could communicate with God.”
If the jury finds that Helzer was insane at the time of the killings, he will face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Jewett, who has commented little to reporters throughout the trial, said the fact that the jury found Helzer innocent of possessing methamphetamine did not bother him.
“Let’s just say (the drug charge) was the least of my interests,” he said.
Nancy Hall and Judy Nemec, the Stinemans’ daughters, hugged each other on the street, but had no comment.
Opening arguments in the sanity phase of Justin Helzer’s trial are scheduled to begin June 24.
Simon Read covers police and courts for the Herald. He can be reached at (925) 416-4849, or sread@angnewspapers.com.
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