Justin Helzer and his brother, Glenn Taylor Helzer, were sentenced to death in 2005 for murdering five people as part of a plot to extort $100,000 to launch a religious group. The death row inmate who killed guitarist Elvin Bishop's daughter and four others in 2000 murder-extortion plot died of an apparent suicide, California prison officials announced Monday. Justin Helzer, 41, was found dead Sunday night in his single cell at San Quentin Prison, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told NBC Bay Area. Corrections Lt. Sam Robinson said Helzer used a sheet tied to his cell bars to hang himself. He was found dead during a security check at around 10.17pm. An earlier suicide attempt two years ago had left the 41-year-old death row inmate blind. Helzer and his brother Glenn Helzer, who went by his middle name, Taylor, were sentenced to death in 2005 for the murders, which were planned as part of a bizarre blackmail scheme. Taylor Helzer was a stock broker and self-described prophet seeking to raise money for a religious group he had launched to hasten Christ's return to Earth. According to court testimony, he dated 22-year-old Selina Bishop so she would open a checking account for him to deposit money he intended to extort from elderly clients of his. The brothers killed Bishop, her mother and mother's boyfriend along with the clients in the summer of 2000. An accomplice, Dawn Godman, testified against the brothers in exchange for a prison sentence that didn't include the death penalty. She is serving a 37-year sentence. ‘In no sense of the word was Justin Helzer a victim,’ Contra Costa County Chief Assistant District Attorney Harold Jewett said Monday. ‘Nevertheless, the origin of the obvious torment he experienced in prison, reflected in self-mutilation and now suicide, clearly rests at the doorstep of his older brother, Taylor.’ In 2010, Justin Helzer attempted to take his own life by stabbing himself in the eye with pens and pencils. He had been under intensified watch since then. After Helzer’s suicide Sunday, his brother has been paced under intensive screening to ensure that he does not attempt to take his own life as well. In 2000, Taylor Helzer and his two accomplices concocted a plot to train Brazilian orphans to massacre the leaders of the Mormon Church so he could become its leader and ‘transform America’ by bringing ‘joy, peace and love,’ according to court testimony. The conspirators, who called themselves the ‘Children of Thunder,’ needed money to carry out the bizarre plan, so they decided to extort one of Taylor Helzer's former clients, Ivan Stineman, of Concord, in the hope of getting $100,000. Justin Helzer ended up beating the 85-year-old man to death while his brother killed his wife, 78-year-old Annette Stineman, by slashing her throat. The murderous siblings accompanied by their former roommate, Dawn Godman, then killed Selina Bishop to silence her after she collected the money on their behalf not knowing about the homicidal plot. The bodies if Selina Bishop and the Stinemans were dismembered and stuffed into nine black duffel bags, which were later fished out by divers from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Justin’s brother later shot dead Bishop's mother, 45-year-old Jennifer Villarin, and her boyfriend, James Gamble, 54, for fear that they would go to police. Taylor Helzer, who was the ringleader of the group and described himself as the ‘No 1,’ had been sentenced to five death sentences. Justin was sentenced to death for three of the murders and life in prison for their other two. Since 1978, when California reinstated capital punishment, 58 death row inmates have died from natural causes, 22 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed in California, one was executed in Missouri, and six have died from other causes. There are 733 inmates remaining on death row.Enjoy watching. IF YOU LIKE, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TODAY ! ----------------------------------------

• published: 30 Dec 2016
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