Victims’ family gathers for Helm trial
As attorneys in the vehicular homicide trial of Clifford Helm winnowed through a jury pool Thursday, several Mennonite relatives of the family whose five children died in the crash Helm is accused of causing gathered quietly in the Spokane County Courthouse.
In many criminal trials, supporters of the state’s case sit on the opposite side of the aisle from people backing the defendant, rarely mixing. That wasn’t the case on Thursday, as the Mennonites chatted with Clifford Helm and his wife, Sandy, occasionally exchanging hugs and words of encouragement.
“They’re here to support me,” Helm told a reporter. He has apologized to the family for the deaths of the children and has said he doesn’t remember the crash.
The Deer Park businessman is charged with five counts of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular assault in the Nov. 1, 2005, crash north of Spokane that killed five children of Jeffrey and Carolyn Schrock: Carmen, 12, Jana, 10, Carrina, 8, Jerryl, 5, and Craig, 2.
Jacob Schrock, an Oregon grass seed farmer from Halsey, south of Portland, is the grandfather of the children killed in the head-on collision. He traveled to Spokane with his wife, Ruth, for the trial. His daughter Sara, who is married and lives in Chewelah, is attending as well.
Jacob Schrock, who also serves as pastor of a 90-member Mennonite congregation at Tangent, Ore., said they’ve developed a friendship with the Helm family. They are also here to support their son Jeffrey, the sole survivor of the horrific crash, and his wife, Carolyn, who was not in the family’s truck that day.
“This has been very traumatic for our family,” Jacob Schrock said. “We are very concerned about Clifford Helm as an individual. But we are not here to tell law enforcement officials what they should do.”
Jeffrey Schrock, the children’s father, is en route to Spokane from Belize, where he has been serving a two-year Mennonite mission since October 2006. He is on the witness list for the trial.
Carolyn Schrock just gave birth Feb. 1 to a boy, Carl, his beaming grandfather said. She was pregnant with a girl, Jolynn Marie, when her older children were killed, and delivered six weeks after the accident. Jolynn turned 2 in December.
This week, the jury pool has been narrowed to 77, from 100 people. Late Thursday, the selection of the final 12 jurors and two alternates was under way. Opening arguments and the first witnesses in the state’s case are scheduled Monday.
Also Thursday, prosecutors filed a declaration by Spokane County Medical Examiner Sally Aiken who says she wants to use autopsy photos of the children during her testimony to describe how they died. Lawyers for Helm already persuaded Spokane County Superior Court Judge Michael Price to exclude some photos of the dead children taken at the accident scene.