District Judge Glenn Goggans set bond for David Helms at $133,000 and formally charged the 41-year-old Wetumpka man with murder and second-degree escape, both felonies, and criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, after Helms was arrested Monday when county authorities discovered the body of 59-year-old Jane Huddleston of Wetumpka in a well where she was placed after apparently being strangled with a dog collar.
Helms appeared in the courtroom at the Elmore County Judicial Complex wearing jail-issue stripes with the pants cut off at the knee. He said little, but that he had been refused water by sheriff’s department employess after asking for it “about four or five times.”
After a tip from an inmate and a brief investigation, Huddleston’s body was found Monday morning in a well at 79355 Tallassee Highway (Highway 14), about three miles west of the Claud community. Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin said the victim had some sort of ligature around her neck which looked somewhat like a dog collar.
Franklin said the investigation that resulted in the discovery of Huddleston’s body began early Monday morning after a county jail inmate approached corrections officers with information about a homicide.
“It all started (Monday) morning when my chief deputy contacted me to let me know that a corrections officer had been given a note by an inmate that pretty much said what Mr. Helms had done to Mrs. Huddleston,” Franklin said. “From time to time, we’ll get notes like that and a lot of times there’s no validity to them. Inmates are just trying to somehow help themselves out. This was a rare instance where just about everything the inmate said he was told turned out to be true.”
Franklin said that after receiving the note, the sheriff’s office began to attempt to locate Huddleston, who Franklin said he had attended high school with and who had also visited the jail in the past. Franklin eventually contacted Huddleston’s estranged husband, who made attempts of his own to contact Huddleston. Franklin contacted the husband later and was told the husband’s texts to Huddleston were not going through. The estranged husband then asked Franklin to do a welfare check.
“I had been to Eclectic on another case, so just as soon as I left Eclectic, I went to the 79000 block of Highway 14,” Franklin said. “When I got there, the front gate was locked and chained. The house sits about 150 yards off the highway and I saw a white male walking down the driveway. Well, that was Helms.
“We talked to Helms and he said he had not seen Huddleston and was looking for her. He said he had not seen her since Saturday night.”
Franklin said while he was talking with Helms another gentleman he referred to as a “drug associate” of Helms and Huddleston stepped out of the residence.
“I know this other gentleman and we pretty much had a come-to-Jesus and I told him we were not leaving until we found Mrs. Huddleston,” Franklin said. “He said he had been there about 45 minutes and about 15 minutes before we got there Helms told him that he had strangled Mrs. Huddleston and put her in a well on the property.
“We detained both men and got written statements from them. We then went to edge of property behind a fenced area and when I got about five yards from the well I got a strong stench of a decomposing body. I looked into the well and you could see the body of a white female lying face down.”
Franklin said upon discovering the body he summoned his investigative division, got a search warrant from a local judge and began to collect evidence.
“What’s unusual about this case is that Helms had told both the inmate and his drug associate all about the details of the murder,” Franklin said. “We did find some kind of ligature around here neck when we retrieved her body from the well.”
Franklin added that when Helms arrived at the county jail he was irate and broke an interior window in the facility.
“I guess he was attempting to escape,” Franklin said. “But he’ll be charged with criminal mischief and escape for the window as well as murder.”
Franklin said it appears that Helms killed Huddleston between Thursday night and Friday evening.
“We made contact with Mrs. Huddleston’s daughter,” Franklin said. “She said her mother brought a check to her in Montgomery Thursday night and she was with Mr. Helms at that time in a truck. Around noon on Friday, Helms comes back to Montgomery and says, ‘Hey, we can’t find your mother.’ Mr. Helms was picked up for shoplifting on Friday evening and that’s when he revealed to the inmate that he had killed Mrs. Huddleston.”
Helms had made bond with the Wetumpka Police Department on the shoplifting charges, which enabled him to be at home at the time the sheriff’s office began following up on the tip they had received.
