ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 5, 1996 TAG: 9610070036
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FLOYD
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
A Floyd County man found innocent of capital murder by reason of insanity in the June 1992 rape and murder of a 77-year-old woman was committed to a state mental hospital by a General District Court judge Friday.
Thomas L. Helms Jr., 36, will remain there until doctors and the court say he no longer poses a danger to society, according to Floyd County Commonwealth's Attorney Gino Williams.
Williams said General District Judge Ray Grubbs reviewed two reports that evaluated Helms' mental state. Based on those reports and the criminal evidence that Williams presented, Grubbs committed Helms.
Each year for the next five years Helms' mental state will be evaluated and he could be released if he improves. After five years, Helms' evaluations will come every two years, Williams said.
Helms - deaf and mute since birth - raped and murdered Harriet Shank Allen more than four years ago. A relative found her body in her yard on June 9, 1992.
Williams said the case dragged on until this past summer because Helms' competency to stand trial was constantly in question.
In July, Williams said he probably would not have been able to get Helms to trial if he had not agreed to the insanity plea. An insanity defense is attempted by less than one-half of 1 percent of people brought to trial on a capital murder charge.
Shanks' survivors said they would have preferred a jury trial, but this was the best way to ensure Helms would stay incarcerated.
Helms claimed, through an interpreter, that he was not the one who killed Shanks. He told investigators that a man dressed in black forced him to attack Shanks and the man killed her by slitting her throat.
LENGTH: Short : 40 linesby CNB