A Douglas, Wyoming, man who shot his former Green Beret cousin to death after a night of drinking has been sentenced to between 48 and 62 years in prison.
Mark Helms, 44, was given 516 days' credit for time he already spent in jail; and he was ordered to pay $7,000 in restitution as well, according to a sentencing order filed Thursday.
Helms killed his cousin Nicholas Velazquez, 38, on Sept. 13, 2023.
The pair had been drinking together overnight at Helms’ home. At some point, Helms ran into his room and retrieved a rifle, then he shot Velazquez in the chest, according to court documents and statements.
Helms told law enforcement at the time that he blacked out. He later argued at trial that his post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) from about 24 years of military service and battle deployments damaged him mentally.
He’d pleaded “not guilty by reason of mental illness.”
The jury did not accept that plea, rejecting the notion that Helms was too mentally ill to rationalize his conduct or conform it to the law, and convicted him of second-degree murder, which carries a penalty of between 20 years and life in prison.
Converse County District Court Judge F. Scott Peasley imposed the 48-to-62-year sentence after a Feb. 11 sentencing hearing, according to the order.
The Veteran
The message Velazquez’s loved ones presented at Helms’ sentencing was clear: they disputed the intensity and merit of Helms’ military exploits and said Velazquez was the real hero.
Ty Winstead, who told the court he was one of Velazquez’s best friends and became a Green Beret with him, said he and his friend did hundreds of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and “lived it.”
He told a story in which the men were on a dangerous route with IEDs “all over the place,” and Velazquez had had a dream that the third truck in their convoy was going to explode.
Velazquez demanded that he be placed into the third truck instead of Winstead, the latter told the court.
“I want his legacy to live on,” said Winstead. “I want you to factor that in — not only the man he was in life, but the life he should have lived.”
Winstead asked for the “maximum sentence possible,” which under second-degree murder is a life term.
Post-Traumatic Stress
Dr. Trent Holmberg, a mental health evaluator working with Helms’ defense counsel, testified at sentencing that Helms has PTSD, but would likely respond well to a kind of evidence-based, individualized trauma treatment that he’s likelier to find at a Veteran’s Affairs facility outside of prison than within the prison system.
Converse County Chief Deputy Attorney Shawn Wilde countered, reminding Holmberg that the jury rejected the idea that Helms had PTSD to a degree that would have allowed him to dodge culpability under the law.
Scott Stowell, a friend who served with Helms in the military, said he, Stowell, also has PTSD, depression and insomnia, all tied to his own military service.
He said until about 2012, soldiers avoided discussing PTSD and mental illness while they were serving.
Other friends characterized Helms as a truthful man, a good friend, and a hard worker. Some urged the judge to consider Helms’ traumas and show mercy.
This Biography
Helms’ defense attorney Rob Oldham had taken issue with several points in a pre-sentence investigation report a Department of Corrections’ Probation and Parole agent prepared to advise the judge at sentencing.
The writer indicated that Helms only took an interest in post-traumatic stress disorder after Oldham gave him literature about it while Helms was in jail. Helms tried to get the military to pay for an injury he suffered in high school, and Helms was inconsistent about the symptoms that befell him after he took a 150-foot fall in the military.
Oldham said many of the points were taken out of context or with scant evidence, and were calculated to make Helms look untruthful.
Peasley said most of those points were irrelevant anyway, and he wouldn’t work them into his final sentence. But the judge said he would consider mental health evaluations contemplating Helms’ trauma from his military service.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
