Woman allowed teen to be raped by husband, NC cops say. Both are heading to prison
A man in North Carolina will likely spend the rest of his life in prison after prosecutors accused him of raping a young girl for years — before and after he impregnated her at 15, media outlets report.
Brandon Helms, 34, was sentenced Wednesday to between 88 and 136 years in prison on various charges relating to statutory rape and child abuse, Fox8 reported.
Helms had entered an Alford plea the day before, which is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgment that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
His wife, 39-year-old Marcy Lynn Helms, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting her husband, Fox8 reported.
Helms, who prosecutors say knew of the abuse but did nothing to stop it, was sentenced to 18 years in prison, according to the Associated Press.
Police in Winston-Salem started investigating the pair in May 2018 after social services received calls about a family living in an abandoned house, according to WXII.
The house was condemned — boarded up with no running water — and “smelled of human feces” with “unsteady floors and a tarp covering a hole in one of the ceilings,” the Journal reported.
Police ultimately found five children in their care, including two toddlers and the girl, according to another Winston-Salem Journal article. One of the toddlers reportedly belonged to the girl.
Police stacked a slew of charges against the pair in June 2018 after an initial investigation was completed, WXII reported.
Prosecutors said Helms started sexually abusing the girl when she was 8, according to the Journal.
He reportedly raped her for years, got her pregnant at 15 and then continued to rape her after. The girl was in labor for more than two days without medical attention and delivered the child on a table, the Journal reported.
Helms justified the abuse by claiming he started a religion and the girl was his “concubine,” according to WFMY.
Merriam Webster defines a concubine as a woman who cohabitates with a man but whose status in the household is “below that of a wife.”
This story was originally published November 1, 2019 at 2:00 PM.
