FULL TEXT: Helen Joyce George ran screaming from the
classroom at Santa Rosa Junior High School one day in February, 1949.
She was fleeing in terror from the voices which kept her to
kill people.
Yesterday the 15-year old girl told Mendocino County
authorities she had at last obeyed these cruel, compelling voices.
“I wanted to kill somebody awfully bad,” she said,
matter-of-factly. “So I killed old Sam back in the hills.”
MOUNTAIN CABIN –
Incredulous at first, officers followed her directions to
the mountain cabin of Samuel Walitch, 70, a pensioner living alone twenty-three
miles north of Willits.
They found Walitch sprawled dead before his kitchen stove, a
bullet hole behind his left ear. A pancake turner was still clutched in one
hand.
Helen Joyce gave this account to Sheriff Beverly Broaddus:
She had been staying with her grandmother, Mrs. Helen Heltz,
on the Robert Harkey ranch near the hamlet of Farley. Saturday morning Mrs.
Heltz and Harkey left her to go to Willits.
DESIRE TO KILL –
“I had a desire to kill,” she said. “I wanted to kill my
father, but was down in Santa Rosa.
“The feeling I wanted to kill someone got stronger and stronger.
“I took Harkey’s pistol and hiked two miles up to the trail
to see Sam. We talked awhile in his yard and when he went into the cabin I
followed him.”
Walitch decided to cook a bite to eat. He stood at the stove
with his back to the girl.
FIRED ONE SHOT –
“While he stood there I put a shell into the pistol,” Helen
Joyce said. “I aimed at the back of his head and fired one shot.
“Then I threw the pistol down and hiked back down the trail.
I decided to tell the pastor what I had done.”
She arrived early yesterday at the home of the Rev. Peter E.
North, pastor of the Assembly of God Church of Willis.
Pastor North doubted her story but summoned police
nevertheless.’’
COMIC BOOKS –
At intervals between questioning, the girl chatted smilingly
with attendants of the juvenile detention home in Ukiah and thumbed through
comic books.
She was transferred to the Mendocino State Hospital for temporary
safekeeping later, after she spoke of suicide.
Sheriff Broaddus said the girl may be a mental case.
She was admitted to the Napa State Hospital on February 28,
1949, after the episode at school, as a “possible psychopathic.”
She was discharged as “improved” a month later in the
custody of her mother. Mrs. Viola George of 1253 Morgan Street, Santa Rosa.
PARENTS PARTED –
Sheriff Broaddus said Mrs. George is presently in the Sonoma
County Hospital with a broken ankle.
District Attorney James Bush of Mendocino County said the
girl will be certified to juvenile court for disposition. A murder charge is
not contemplated because of her age and case history, he said.
[“Girl, 15, Kills Rancher – Admits Desire to Say’,” San
Francisco Examiner (Ca.), Sep. 25, 1950, p. 1]
***
FULL TEXT: Ukiah, Sept. 25. – Fifteen year old Helen Joyce George,
who killed under the compulsion of inner voices, was today made a ward of the
Mendocino County juvenile court and returned to her insane asylum cell while
authorities conferred about her future.
The strange, empty-faced little girl who “wanted to kill somebody
awful bad,” on Saturday shot to death a 70 year old pensioner, Samuel Walitch,
in his cabin, twenty-three miles north of Willits.
Her compulsion satisfied, she confessed to a Willits minister and
then to police.
In today’s brief preliminary hearing, Police Judge Will Van Dyke
made her award of the juvenile court, and Superior Judge Lilburn Gibson signed
an insanity affidavit permitting Helen Joyce to be retained at the Mendocino
State Hospital for the Insane.
It was not the first time Helen Joyce had seen the inside of such
a home. In 1949 she was committed to the Napa home after screaming in terror at
school one day that “voices are telling me to kill people.”
Later she was released as improved and sent to live with her
grandmother, Mrs. Helen Heitz, on a ranch near Willis.
It was from there that she walked to Walitch’s cabin and shot him
in the head as he prepared his evening meal.
[“Girl ‘Compulsion Slayer’ Sent Back to Ukiah Asylum,” San
Francisco Examiner (Ca.), Sep. 26, 1950, p. 1]
***
FULL TEXT: Ukiah, Sept. 30. – A hearing on a murder charge brought
against 15-year-old Helen George has been set for October 13.
The girl is charged with the deliberate shooting of Samuel Walitch,
70, on his ranch near Farley, last Saturday.
Officers said the girl told them she felt “just had to kill
someone.” She once was an inmate of a mental hospital.
The hearing on the murder charge will be a formality rather a
mental hospital.
Helen will appear with officers of the Mendocino county probation
department. After the formality of the law has been satisfied, court attaches
anticipate she will be declared mentally deficient and that the case then will
be transferred to the Sonoma County juvenile court. Her parents live in Santa
Rosa.
[“Ukiah Slaying Hearing Set – Girl, 15, to Face Court On October
13,” San Francisco Examiner (Ca.), Oct. 1, 1950, p. 3]
***
FULL TEXT: Ukiah, Oct. 13. – Helen George, 15-year-old Mendocino
slayer, was certified to Sonoma County juvenile authorities today by Superior
Judge Liburn Gibson pending decision on the results of her psychiatric examinations
at Mendocino State Hospital.
The girl obsessed the murder of Samuel Walitch, 70, on his ranch
near Farley on September 30.
[“County Agents Get Killer’s Case, San Francisco Examiner (Ca.),
Oct. 14, 1950, p. 32]
***
FULL TEXT: Santa Rosa, Oct. 19. – Helen Joyce George, 15, who says
she slew an elderly pensioner because inner voices told her to kill, was
committed to the State Hospital at Napa today.
Superior Judge Donald Geary, sitting in juvenile court, made the commitment
for ninety days, so that State psychiatrists may recommend what to do with the
Santa Rosa schoolgirl. Helen shot Samuel Walitch, 70, in his cabin twenty-three
miles north of Willits, September 23. She had a patient at the Napa Hospital
before, but was discharged as “improved.”
[“Gil Slayer, 15, Sent to Asylum,” San Francisco Examiner (Ca.),
Oct. 20, 1950, p. 23]
***
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