The Last Dance

Dennis Murphy Correspondent • Profile

The dance of love begins with one hand taking another. A simple step, a spin and then the magic starts.

At least that's how it all began for Alan and Miriam Helmick -- two lost souls who found each other on the dance floor.

Penny Lyons: They were awesome. There's no other word that comes into mind except "fun." They made everything they did fun.

They met in a small dance studio in the quiet town of Grand Junction, Colo. Two widowers getting a second chance at love.

Dennis Murphy: Favorite vignette where you see them in your mind, see what they're doing?

Penny Lyons: Alan doing a swing move.  Miriam going, "Oh, my God."

To fellow dance students like Penny Lyons, their romance seemed to be what little girls dreamed about.

Penny Lyons: Alan for her was like her knight in shining armor. I mean, he came into her life and said, "I want to care for you. I want to care about you. And your joy is my goal."

And 59-year-old Alan Helmick wasn't just the knight in armor to Miriam. A lot of people in his hometown of Delta, Colo., felt the same way about him. Alan, the broker on Main Street, had helped people get into their homes and helped build their businesses.

Alan Helmick: My father was probably one of the best people I've ever met in my life. And I don't just say that because I'm his son.

To Alan Helmick, Jr., his father was the epitome of the All-American success story. Forty-years before his life criss-crossed with Miriam's, he was a golden-eared musician and star baseball pitcher, who married his high school sweetheart, Sharon. Together, they raised four children while Alan ran the local savings and loan, and eventually his own mortgage and title companies.

Dennis Murphy: I almost think of the George Bailey character in “It's a Wonderful Life.” Come into the savings and loan and "what if I hadn't lived?"  (laughter)

Alan Helmick: Right. Except my dad would have got a second job to make up the money he lost. (laughter)

But on New Year's Eve 2003, the wonderful life of Alan Helmick suddenly fell apart when Sharon died of a heart attack. Alan was struck hard and deep.

Alan Helmick: I think that he died that day-- a big part of him.  You know, he lost my mother who he'd been with since he was 14, his love, his life. I'm sure that everything that he thought was real was ripped out from under him.

Months passed before Alan picked himself up, and decided to get out on his own. He realized he still had some unused credit at a ballroom dance studio he had once taken classes at.

Alan Helmick: He thought, "Well, maybe it's something I should do."  He's trying break out of-- you know, the-- the slump he's in, so he goes back to the classes.

And that's where he met his dance instructor -- 48-year-old Miriam Giles. Miriam had lived in Florida, and recently moved to Colorado to start a new life of her own.

Like Alan, she was still raw from tragic loss -- her daughter, Amy, had passed away in 2000 from a drug overdose, and her husband, Jack, had committed suicide two years later.

Romance was the last thing on Miriam's mind, but as her friend Penny remembers it, Alan was persistent.

Penny: He went for dance lessons. She wasn't interested in anything else.  He was. She told him no. He had to fight to get her to go out with him.

Dennis Murphy: What do you think he found in her, in that kind of mysterious chemistry of people becoming couples?

Penny: She was exhilarating.  She was very lively.  And she'd match him in his joy of doing the things they liked to do.  And you get someone to do it with. You can't beat that.

The couple soon became inseparable -- Miriam moved into Alan's home in Delta. In June 2006, they decided to marry.

Dennis Murphy: Did you see the lights go back on in your father?

Alan Helmick: He was definitely – miles, miles better. Yeah, I think that the traditional role that he grew up in -- you know, there's the man and the woman. And they grow old together and they die together.  So I think that she filled a purpose that he needed sorely.

The Alan everyone had missed -- fun-loving, happy, and optimistic -- was finally back. And with his new wife, he was looking for new business opportunities too.

Before his wedding, Alan stopped by the office of his accountant and longtime friend, Bob Cucchetti.

Bob Cucchetti: Alan came in, and we were doing some taxes.  And he was-- he said that he was gonna invest in-- a dance salon.  And-- and--

Dennis Murphy: A dance salon?

Bob Cucchetti: Yeah.

Dennis Murphy: Where did that itch to open a dance studio come from, do you think?

Bob Cucchetti: Oh, it had to be Miriam.  I mean, hell, why would he do that?  I mean, like having a root canal.

Well, if Alan wanted to open a dance studio, so be it. Supportive friends of many years, people like Ed Benson, a contractor, signed up for dance lessons along with his wife.

Ed Benson: Alan actually put on an exhibition.  Alan and Miriam danced.  And-- Alan is a very competitive person and-- he was good.  I mean, whoa, he was very, very good.

But a small-town ballroom dance studio would always be a business of the heart, and a couple years later, it was bleeding money. By then, though, Alan and Miriam had turned their attentions in a new direction.

They had bought a 40-acre property in Whitewater, a rural community just outside Grand Junction, with the idea of starting a horse-breeding business. Alan's accountant didn't sugar-coat his opinion of the venture.

Bob: That was a nightmare.  I tell him, I said, "Alan, anybody who gets-- raisin' horses is gonna lose some money." But-- he was determined he was gonna make money at it. 

Friends thought it a little unusual that someone as smart and business-savvy as Alan would get involved in such a risky start-up. But they just chalked it up to an expensive hobby.

Ed Benson: It was just, you know, just something to make his wife happy.  I-- I don't think he was, you know, naive enough to realize that he was gonna make money doing that.

Whatever the case, the Helmicks seemed to love the challenge. And for two people who had lost so much in their lives, this seemed like a new adventure... One they'd share together. It might have all ended happily there, but it didn't.

On June 10, 2008, the local news carried the story of an apparent robbery-homicide out in the Helmicks' neighborhood.

Ed Benson: My wife and I were starting to get ready for bed, and I-- I said, "I wonder if that's Alan?" And by the-- morning's news release, it was out that that is exactly who it was.

Alan Helmick had been murdered in his home, the victim apparently of a robbery gone bad. But as investigators got to work, they would come up with the theory of a crime more shocking, and darker than anyone on the western slope of the Rockies could have guessed.

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