Man Held in Son’s 1995 Death in North Hollywood

Capping a mother’s campaign for the arrest of her own son, authorities took the man into custody Friday on suspicion of killing his 2-year-old boy, accusing him of the crime that led to tougher state child abuse laws but also may have sent an innocent woman to prison.

Police arrested 37-year-old David Helms and booked him on suspicion of murder and felony child endangerment in connection with the beating death of his son Lance three years ago in North Hollywood.

The district attorney’s office must still sort out its case against Helms’ former girlfriend, Eve Wingfield, who spent 21 months in prison for the death.

Wingfield pleaded guilty to felony child endangerment in a plea bargain that she accepted only because her lawyer at the time warned she would otherwise probably be convicted of murder, her attorneys said.

Wingfield, 25, is now free on her own recognizance pending a hearing April 13 after Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff ruled last year that a re-investigation of Lance’s death by Los Angeles Police Department detectives established a compelling case for her innocence.

Even after Wingfield went to prison, Gail Helms--mother of David Helms and grandmother of the dead boy--insisted that police should instead be investigating her son, who she said had a history of family violence and a long criminal record.

“It’s bittersweet because David is my son,” Gail Helms said Friday.

David Helms was taken into custody at his Hollywood apartment, according to LAPD spokesman Don Cox. He will remain at Van Nuys Jail until he is arraigned Monday or Tuesday.

The toddler’s death ignited widespread criticism of the Los Angeles County Dependency Court. The court had returned Lance--who had been taken away by social workers--to his father’s custody under a policy that emphasized reunification of families. As a result, the state Legislature passed a law requiring that the child’s safety be the ruling factor in such decisions.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor J. Hunter could not be reached Friday to discuss the prosecution’s case against David Helms, or to explain why authorities took so long to arrest him after the November 1996 release of a 31-page LAPD report that appeared to exonerate Wingfield while naming Helms as the primary suspect.

Wingfield’s attorney, Michael E. Goodman of the alternate public defender’s office, expressed satisfaction with the arrest despite the delay. “It’s been our position since the beginning that the wrong person was arrested,” he said.

Wingfield’s defense moved to the alternate public defender’s office after the LAPD report was submitted to the district attorney’s office. The alternate defender’s office said that Wingfield had been advised by her previous counsel--public defender Joel Wallenstein--to plead guilty to child endangerment, a felony carrying a 10-year prison sentence, on the grounds that prosecutors had a strong enough case to convict her of murder.

Wallenstein said his advice was based in large part on the damaging medical testimony given at Wingfield’s preliminary hearing by Dr. James K. Ribe, a senior deputy medical examiner with the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Ribe testified that Lance died 30 to 60 minutes after the beating, documents show.

Prosecutors used that testimony to argue that Wingfield must have carried out the crime in April 1995 at Helms’ apartment because she had been caring for Lance during that period. She was not there when Lance died at the apartment with his father present.

That theory appeared to evaporate when an LAPD detective later interviewed Ribe, who stated that the boy’s injuries “were instantly incapacitating, leading to rapid death,” records show. Lance must have died during the beating, the report indicated, but he had been alive when Wingfield left the apartment, so the beating must have occurred after she left, when only David Helms was present.