Helen Frazier

Speaker 1 We are the Mediterranean crew. We have a standard, and that standard is excellent.

Speaker 2 Below Deck Med raises the anchor.

Speaker 3 There's eight courses.

Speaker 4 Delicious.

Speaker 2 There's drama.

Speaker 2 Captain, who's got the medical stuff?

Speaker 6 Max needs attention.

Speaker 2 In Hispania, you really don't want to mess with me.

Speaker 8 Hey, under no circumstances can the guests go in the water.

Speaker 1 Doug, I gotta let you go.

Speaker 2 The new season of Below Deck Mediterranean.

Speaker 5 You guys ready?

Speaker 2 Every Monday on Bravo and streaming on Peacock.

Speaker 8 Monday on NBC.

Speaker 7 I'm back, baby.

Speaker 10 Where are you going? Welcome back to St.

Speaker 2 Dennis Medical.

Speaker 11 A lot has happened since you were gone. I decided to bring in a professional therapy horse.

Speaker 12 It's the Feel Better Comedy.

Speaker 13 Some people hate hospitals, but everybody loves a pony that's certified fresh.

Speaker 7 The people here are complicated, and I love them.

Speaker 14 Oh, you still have some lightness left inside you. Just give it time, it'll die out.

Speaker 8 St. Dennis Medical, Monday on NBC.

Speaker 5 after decades of false starts and broken hearts one iowa couple takes shelter in each other's arms them two just seemed like they were in love everything was like peachy and cream you know it seemed their lives were finally on solid ground

Speaker 5 until a shocking crime knocked them off their feet She heard a thud.

Speaker 13 The suspect ran out the door, and the victim was on the ground.

Speaker 18 Taking you to Tommy right now, please.

Speaker 5 Within hours, detectives are closing in on a suspect.

Speaker 19 When you first hear the details, you think that, okay, this one's going to be a slam dunk.

Speaker 5 But as the investigation unfolds, a disturbing picture emerges.

Speaker 20 There is this guy from Chicago who's a drug dealer that she's scared of.

Speaker 4 He had owed Andre money in the past and had not paid him back.

Speaker 7 Stories weren't adding up.

Speaker 17 It could have been a fairy tale ending.

Speaker 9 Investigators have to follow what's being told to them, and this led them a lot of different places.

Speaker 5 January 2nd, 2017, Des Moines, Iowa.

Speaker 5 It's 2.30 p.m. when an officer with the Des Moines Police Department hears her radio crackle to life.

Speaker 13 Whenever we have a critical incident that occurs, the dispatch will actually put out a long, loud tone over the radio.

Speaker 13 And I remember them putting out the address and stating that somebody was calling in about a possible stabbing.

Speaker 5 As Officer Chaplin rushes to the scene, emergency operators keep the 911 caller on the line.

Speaker 23 Is he awake right now?

Speaker 18 No, he's not responsive.

Speaker 7 He's waiting for the door.

Speaker 6 Listen to me.

Speaker 7 Is he breathing but he's not doing anything

Speaker 13 they did say that the victim's girlfriend was on scene and that he had been stabbed

Speaker 24 right now please okay we have him on the way there now where was he stabbed at the right side of the upper chest

Speaker 5 Within minutes, Officer Chaplin arrives at the home on East 9th Street. There, she sees an open door.

Speaker 13 I could hear someone in the doorway saying, in here, I'm in here.

Speaker 13 I did see the victim laying on his back on the floor with what I assumed was the caller kneeling next to him on the floor.

Speaker 13 I began to ask her, where did he go in regards to the suspect that she was stating stabbed him? She said that he had just ran out the door. So at that point, I remember feeling an officer behind me.

Speaker 13 I told him to search the house and I went directly to the victim to try to render aid.

Speaker 5 The victim is 55-year-old Andre Brown, and Officer Chaplin is attempting to save his life.

Speaker 13 The first thing that I did was just check for a pulse, and he did not have a pulse.

Speaker 13 It was worth still trying to do CPR and reviving the victim at that time. So that's when I began to do chest compressions on him.
I was focusing on saving his life.

Speaker 5 After growing up in a Chicago foster home, Andre Brown knew he wanted to see the world.

Speaker 26 Andre and Deborah, his sister, came to us as foster children. They had been in three different foster homes, and then we got them and we raised them until he was grown.
Dad went to college in 79.

Speaker 26 He joined the Marines in like the first part of the 80s.

Speaker 26 He went to Japan, to Okinawa. Andre, he just loved traveling.

Speaker 5 He enjoyed it.

Speaker 6 He achieved rank.

Speaker 26 He was a military police.

Speaker 26 So, you know, he was proud. He did a great job.

Speaker 5 Though he returned to Illinois after he was honorably discharged, Andre never lost his taste for adventure.

Speaker 17 Uncle was always just a fly-by-night type of man. Like you could be here for two months and then go.

Speaker 26 I think Andre liked variety, not only in women, but in

Speaker 26 places, people, places, and things.

Speaker 17 Andre was a different uncle. He's not like nobody else, but I could always count on him.

Speaker 5 For many years, Andre made a living in the construction industry and worked as a laborer for Procter and Gamble.

Speaker 28 I don't remember a time my uncle wouldn't work.

Speaker 17 He always worked.

Speaker 5 On the rare occasion he wasn't working, Andre enjoyed spending time with family and friends.

Speaker 17 My uncle was always the life of everything when he was around when I was a child.

Speaker 26 He had a little bar that was by the river on Washington Street. Everybody knew him up in there.
He'd go in there and buy his beers.

Speaker 17 He was just a fun guy. He would laugh, joke, make everybody in the room laugh.

Speaker 5 Though when it came to dating, Andre shied away from commitment. He never married, but he did have plenty of chances over the years.

Speaker 6 Unk liked the women.

Speaker 17 I don't remember nothing else other than Unc always having a cute girlfriend somewhere.

Speaker 5 As he approached 50, the lifelong bachelor once again longed for another change in scenery and settled on Des Moines, Iowa.

Speaker 26 There was freedom, there was nobody, the family wasn't there. I think he just wanted to do Andre.

Speaker 5 By 55, Andre was living a simple but satisfying life.

Speaker 5 Then, in October 2016, he met 51-year-old Chicago native and kindred spirit, Helen Frazier.

Speaker 16 Helen's beautiful. She's beautiful and sweet-talking.

Speaker 16 I don't think she had a problem getting a man.

Speaker 5 At a young age, Helen fell in love with a man named Johnny Burton, and in 1985, they welcomed their first child into the world.

Speaker 10 Johnny was not married to Helen, but Helen has three sons.

Speaker 16 Their father is Johnny.

Speaker 5 The relationship didn't last, and by the early 90s, Helen found herself alone.

Speaker 16 Helen, I believe, didn't have much stability at the time. The brothers were always with Johnny.

Speaker 16 I do know that Helen did hold a job at one point, not sure where, but it would be one of those those on and off again moments where she was doing okay in her life, then the streets would come back around.

Speaker 16 Helen did struggle with substance issues.

Speaker 10 It was mainly alcohol.

Speaker 5 Despite her hardships, in Helen's 40s, she experienced newfound joy when she became a grandmother.

Speaker 16 Helen has six grandchildren and Diamond, her son. We have a son together.
She adores our son. She'll sit there, spend time with him, play with him, you know,

Speaker 16 getting a grandmother mode.

Speaker 10 You know, she's really good at doing that.

Speaker 5 When Helen met Andre in October 2016, she was more focused on taking care of herself and her grandkids than finding love.

Speaker 5 But Andre came across as the kind of man she could rely on.

Speaker 20 Andre was a veteran and he seemed like he was a good guy.

Speaker 26 He was kind-hearted. He was generous with those that he liked.
Andre would do anything for you. And I think that's why Helen saw a safe place of hard work because Andrew's going to always have a job.

Speaker 6 Always.

Speaker 5 Soon, Andre and Helen started dating.

Speaker 17 He seemed like he was happy. They seemed like they was getting along pretty good.
They were going out, you know, to look karaoke and stuff they were having a good time

Speaker 26 while neither helen nor andre wanted to move too fast life had other plans she was homeless she had been the victim of crimes while she was homeless and that wasn't something that that she wanted to go back to and he told her you can come stay with me until you can get on your feet so he let her come and stay with him I spoke to her and, you know, we had a good conversation, you know, and I just told her, you know, at the end of the day, just take care of my uncle, love my uncle, and be good to my uncle, you know, and she was like, oh, I love your uncle.

Speaker 17 I'm going to be there.

Speaker 5 A few months into their relationship, Helen and Andre celebrated the holidays together. And as the couple brought in the new year, both Helen and Andre had high hopes for 2017.

Speaker 16 Helen and Andre, it just seemed like they were very affectionate around the holiday, and them two just seemed like they were in love, like

Speaker 16 near marriage.

Speaker 17 It could have been a fairy tale ending.

Speaker 5 But on January 2nd, 2017, a horrifying crime seems to have robbed them of their happily ever after.

Speaker 9 Andre Brown has been stabbed. He's bleeding.

Speaker 20 He was not moving. He did not appear to have any signs of life.

Speaker 5 As a panicked Helen is ushered out of the room, first responders make a final, desperate attempt to revive Andre.

Speaker 13 The whole time I was doing chest compressions on the victim, it was quiet. There was no movement.
There was no active bleeding. His lips were chapped.
His eyes were dry.

Speaker 13 It was clear to me that he was already dead.

Speaker 5 Coming up, detectives get crucial details from their only eyewitness.

Speaker 4 She heard a thud. When she came out, she said she saw Andre on the dining room floor and a potential motive emerges.
He had owed Andre money in the past and had not paid him back.

Speaker 5 While the rest of Des Moines, Iowa rings in the new year in January of 2017, 51-year-old Helen Frazier is living her worst nightmare.

Speaker 20 She made a 911 call reporting that Andre, her boyfriend, had been stabbed. When the officer gets there, she starts doing CPR until medics arrive and then they take over.
And then he's pronounced dead.

Speaker 5 Des Moines homicide detectives arrive on the scene within minutes.

Speaker 6 There wasn't actually a whole lot of blood at the scene.

Speaker 20 A lot of the blood soaked into the clothes that he'd been wearing. He was wearing a shirt, he was wearing a sweatshirt over that, and he was wearing a coat over that.

Speaker 5 When detectives take a closer look at Andre's injuries, what they find comes as a surprise. A single stab wound to the upper right area of his chest.

Speaker 13 It was like an angle, but if you had seen the injury, it was just a very small laceration, and you wouldn't think anything of it.

Speaker 20 It was a straight in and straight out. There was no other path of the wound.
It was just one six-inch deep wound in his chest.

Speaker 33 It was unusual, I suppose, in the sense that it was a single stab wound, but it punctured his lung, it punctured his aorta twice, which started substantial internal bleeding.

Speaker 5 It seems Andre's killer struck him down with one fatal blow, one that detectives believe he never saw coming.

Speaker 34 He doesn't have defensive wounds. He also had a knife in his coat pocket, suggesting he didn't have a chance to defend himself.

Speaker 5 Who came into Andre's home, took took him by surprise, and killed him before he could react?

Speaker 5 The only potential clue lies in a sink full of dirty dishwater.

Speaker 21 When law enforcement processed the scene, there was in fact a knife in the kitchen sink, but the kitchen sink was full of water.

Speaker 33 And we were unable to obtain any trace evidence off the knife that was in the sink.

Speaker 5 Could the knife be the murder weapon?

Speaker 5 Detectives know that Andre's girlfriend, 51-year-old Helen Frazier, may be the only one who can answer that question.

Speaker 4 So after I got a view of the scene, I went back to the station because Helen Frazier was already there.

Speaker 4 She had been taken to the station by a patrol officer, and I wanted to obviously interview her to find out what had happened, since she was our only witness.

Speaker 5 Helen is desperate for information about Andre's condition.

Speaker 4 I refrained from telling Helen during my interview that Andre had died, so there was still kind of that hope that he he was alive.

Speaker 4 We don't like to tell witnesses about a death because obviously that changes their emotional frame of mind and we don't want that to affect getting the information that we need.

Speaker 5 Helen tells detectives that Andre means the world to her.

Speaker 4 Helen described her relationship with Andre. She sometimes referred to him as her fiancé.
She stated she loved him. Her demeanor was very polite.

Speaker 4 She's a very yes, ma'am kind of person when she talks to you.

Speaker 5 Helen says she had spent the day preparing food for a New Year's celebration that was planned for that evening.

Speaker 20 The plan, according to Helen, was she was cooking this food for this gathering and that she and Andre were both going to go to it.

Speaker 5 According to Helen, Andre stepped out for a short trip to a nearby convenience store while she finished up in the kitchen.

Speaker 3 Andre had left home to walk a block or so to a nearby convenience store to buy some beer and cigarettes.

Speaker 5 Upon his return, Andre didn't have time to remove his coat before before an unexpected guest showed up, 69-year-old Milton Leake.

Speaker 13 Milton Leake was supposed to be a friend of about 10 years for Andre.

Speaker 4 Milton was a homeless individual, and he had stayed there a few months prior to this murder happening.

Speaker 5 Helen claims when Milton showed up that afternoon, Andre was not happy to see him.

Speaker 4 He wanted to talk to Andre. She explained that Milton had owed Andre money in the past and had not paid him back.

Speaker 4 She also claimed that Milton stole a coat when he last stayed there and never returned it.

Speaker 5 Helen says as she continued to cook, Andre and Milton's conversation began to escalate.

Speaker 13 They were arguing as she was cooking in the kitchen.

Speaker 4 She heard a thud.

Speaker 4 When she came out, she said she saw Andre on the dining room floor.

Speaker 13 The suspect ran out the door, and the victim was on the ground.

Speaker 5 Helen says that as Milton fled, she saw a bloody knife clutched tightly in his hand.

Speaker 20 When she is telling what happened, she says that the murder weapon left the house with the murder.

Speaker 5 Helen then rushed to Andre's side.

Speaker 4 Helen stated that after she found Andre, she got on the phone to call 911 to get help.

Speaker 5 After hearing her account, detectives deliver the painful news.

Speaker 4 When we did tell her that Andre had died, she was distraught and was crying.

Speaker 5 Despite her grief, Helen offers to help the investigation in any way she can.

Speaker 25 Helen was very cooperative with the investigation. She consented to a search of the house.
She consented to a search of her phone.

Speaker 5 However, at this point, Helen's statement may well be the most valuable piece of evidence they've obtained.

Speaker 33 It's a pretty strong case when you've got an eyewitness telling you, I was there, I was present during the homicide, and this is the person that did it.

Speaker 34 So yeah, it looked like a relatively strong case.

Speaker 19 When you first hear the details, you think, okay, this one's going to be a slam dunk and we can put it to rest pretty quick.

Speaker 5 Detectives immediately get to work tracking down Milton Leak.

Speaker 19 When she identified Milton as a suspect, we informed all of our officers that we needed to find this man.

Speaker 19 We're going to do it right the first time because we may not get a chance to do it a second time.

Speaker 9 The quicker that they find the person who actually did this, the quicker they can maybe get somebody that's dangerous off the streets.

Speaker 5 For 24 hours, detectives combed the streets of Des Moines looking for any sign of the alleged assailant.

Speaker 4 We went to all the stereotypical places you would look for for a homeless person. We looked at, you know, soup kitchens, and lucky enough, we found him at one here downtown in Des Moines.

Speaker 4 So we brought him in for an interview on the next day, on the 3rd of January.

Speaker 5 Milton admits to detectives that he knows Andre and Helen.

Speaker 25 The October before, Milton had spent a few days at Andre's house, and we believe that overlapped with when Helen was staying there, so the three all knew each other.

Speaker 5 Milton even admits that he owed Andre money.

Speaker 4 He said it was no big deal. He and Andre would lend each other money.
He didn't think anything of it.

Speaker 5 When investigators confront him about Andre's murder, Milton appears surprised to learn of his friend's death and even more surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect.

Speaker 4 He denied it the whole time.

Speaker 4 He was upset, but not out of control upset, but he just said, I didn't do it. He was very adamant that he did not do it.

Speaker 5 Detectives ask Milton to prove it.

Speaker 4 He told us that he had been staying at a local hotel the whole day on the 2nd of January, 2017, when this murder happened.

Speaker 4 He stated that he was by himself and he made two stops that day at the grocery store next door to the hotel and a convenience store as well.

Speaker 4 He was unable to provide any alibi witnesses because he had spent the day alone. So we had no other person to corroborate his statement.

Speaker 5 Between Milton's lack of an alibi and Helen's eyewitness account, detectives make a decision.

Speaker 4 We arrested Milton based on our only witness statement, which was Helen Frazier's, and the detailed account that she gave and the fact that she specifically pinpointed somebody immediately.

Speaker 10 They caught the guy.

Speaker 26 Somehow relieved that they caught the guy.

Speaker 5 Coming up, this investigation is far from over.

Speaker 4 She stated that this person has a big family. They are going to come after me.
It's dangerous for me.

Speaker 13 Most everything was becoming a red flag for me because what I was seeing on the victim was not meshing.

Speaker 5 The things I learned while we were filming this shocked me to my core.

Speaker 14 From the New York Times best-selling author of Bad Mormon, a memoir, comes a new three-part limited docuseries.

Speaker 4 The real secret lives are much darker, deeper, and more tragic.

Speaker 13 My earliest memories are of abuse.

Speaker 21 Had they taken action, could it have saved me?

Speaker 4 I just feel overwhelmed and horrified.

Speaker 14 Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay. Watch all episodes now on Peacock.

Speaker 15 Wednesday on NBC, One Chicago is back with three can't-miss hours. Let's roll! Chicago Mid, Fire, and PD.
You wanna toured the danger, not away from it.

Speaker 12 With everyday heroes risking it all and unforgettable emotional moments on and off the job, you don't want to miss Chicago Wednesday.

Speaker 8 We made a vow to protect this city.

Speaker 22 One night, one family, one Chicago.

Speaker 8 Gear up, we're going in hard.

Speaker 15 Wednesday on NBC.

Speaker 5 In the days after Andre Brown's stabbing death, police have just arrested the man Andre's girlfriend, Helen Frazier, identified as responsible for the murder. 69-year-old Milton Leake.

Speaker 30 At first glance, it was a straightforward homicide case.

Speaker 20 There was a stabbing in a home.

Speaker 35 There was a witness who saw it happen.

Speaker 20 She identified the person who did it.

Speaker 5 Even with Milton behind bars, detectives know their work isn't over.

Speaker 4 After Milton was arrested, A lot of people think that my job's done at that point. Okay, you're arrested, you're done.

Speaker 4 Well, that's actually when all the work really begins because, okay, I have a statement from Helen and I have Milton's statement. so I need to corroborate those statements.

Speaker 27 Law enforcement had gone to businesses in the area of the murder scene, securing security footage from those locations to see if they could find Milton going to or coming from the scene at the time of the stabbing.

Speaker 4 He didn't have a car, so I needed to find ways to spot him in the area to connect him to being there that day.

Speaker 5 When detectives dig through the neighborhood surveillance, it's not what that footage reveals, but what it doesn't that surprises them.

Speaker 34 That footage didn't show Milton at all, which was a little unusual.

Speaker 5 Detectives continue to dig.

Speaker 4 I checked local businesses. I checked with the hotel he was staying at.
We searched his storage area. He had actually had a storage locker and a locker at the local YMCA.

Speaker 4 We got a search warrant for both areas to see if we could find the knife possibly or bloody clothing or anything that would connect him to this crime.

Speaker 4 We We could not place Milton at the scene. We couldn't find anything else to connect him to this murder.

Speaker 5 For detectives, that doesn't necessarily mean that Milton is innocent. It just means they have to keep working.

Speaker 4 It was very clear I needed to talk to Helen again because nothing was coming up. Nothing was corroborating her statement.

Speaker 5 On January 20th, Helen Frazier returns to the Des Moines police station for a second interview. When confronted with the lack of evidence placing Milton at the scene, Helen abruptly changes her story.

Speaker 20 She says, no, it wasn't Milton Leak.

Speaker 20 She admitted that Milton Leak didn't do it.

Speaker 20 She admitted that she had made that up. And she, at that point, said that it was somebody else, this Kenny Oakley.

Speaker 5 According to Helen, it was Kenny, not Milton, who came to the house that afternoon.

Speaker 27 This time, the conflict was not about a debt owed. This time, Andre came back to the house with a man named Kenny Oakley.

Speaker 3 The two of them went up to the second story of the house.

Speaker 4 And that's when she overheard Kenneth Oakley accusing Andre of stealing, and she could hear some arguing.

Speaker 4 As Helen's on the main floor, both Kenneth Oakley and Andre Brown come downstairs. Andre goes into the kitchen, grabs a knife, but Kenneth is able to grab the knife from him him and stabs Andre.

Speaker 21 Kenny goes into the kitchen, throws the kitchen knife into the sink, and then leaves through the door.

Speaker 32 She then calls the police.

Speaker 20 She said the knife that was used in the stabbing was the one that was ultimately found in the sink.

Speaker 5 Detectives are floored. Why did Helen try to pin the murder on Milton?

Speaker 29 She claims she was afraid of the Oakleys and the Oakleys family.

Speaker 4 She stated that this person has a big family. They're going to come come after me.
It's dangerous for me.

Speaker 5 For the second time, detectives embark on a manhunt for Andre's killer.

Speaker 4 There were two Kenneth Oakleys identified just through our general database. One lived very close, just a few blocks away actually from the residence where this murder occurred.

Speaker 4 So I felt that was more likely the proper suspect that she was trying to identify or maybe had a relationship with her. So I was able to track him down.

Speaker 36 When the police asked me to go to the police station, I really didn't want to go because I've seen too many cop shows where people get down there and the police turn stuff around.

Speaker 5 Kenny tells police that he has never even met Andre or Helen.

Speaker 36 Helen, I've seen him around the neighborhood, but I never spoken with her. Just seeing her around, her face was familiar.

Speaker 5 As far as the murder goes, Kenny is adamant that he is innocent.

Speaker 36 Didn't know nothing nothing about it. I've been driving on the road and driving semi-cross-country working.

Speaker 5 Kenny backs up his claim by telling detectives to look at his trucking log.

Speaker 4 He had a solid alibi, which I was able to confirm because he was a trucker and he had a trucking log. So we could confirm he was not even at the house.

Speaker 4 There could be no way that he was at the house because of that evidence.

Speaker 5 After clearing Kenny Oakley, it becomes apparent to detectives that Helen has lied again.

Speaker 20 When they made the realization that she was lying about Kenny Oakley, it's immediately met with suspicion.

Speaker 5 Before they move forward, detectives have one important piece of business to take care of.

Speaker 20 It made them sick that they had charged the wrong person for the crime. Immediately, Milton was released.
And so...

Speaker 20 Like I said, I feel terrible about what happened to him, but I'm glad that the detectives were able to do that follow-up investigation.

Speaker 19 He was falsely accused. So we sent out a press release notifying everybody that that was what was going on.
And we were moving forward with the investigation.

Speaker 5 Back at Square One, detectives turn once again to Helen Frazier.

Speaker 27 So they brought Helen in for a third interview.

Speaker 33 And again, she completely changed her story.

Speaker 20 She says it wasn't Kenny Oakley, it was Mark Keegan,

Speaker 20 this guy from Chicago who's a drug dealer that she's scared of. And that's the reason she lied two times because she's scared of it.
Police didn't really find that that allegation was credible.

Speaker 20 It was coming from a woman who had, by her own admission, falsely accused somebody of the stabbing.

Speaker 4 I kept asking her for more details. She said, well, he's a big-time drug dealer.
He lives in Chicago. He's connected.
He's a gang member.

Speaker 4 She was really afraid, and that's why she was reluctant to tell me the truth. At this point, I believe that Helen was hiding something.

Speaker 25 The inconsistencies in Helen's story were truly astounding.

Speaker 25 From her first interview with law enforcement, where she accused Milton Leake, to the second interview, where she accused the Kenny Oakleys, to the third interview, where she claimed it was Mark Keegan.

Speaker 9 The only person that knows what happened is her. So that's why it matters how truthful she's been, is because she's the one that knows.

Speaker 5 Coming up, police have growing doubts about Helen's story.

Speaker 19 In our business, it's unique to come across that special kind of liar that is so convincing.

Speaker 5 And could a new witness finally help investigators separate truths from fiction?

Speaker 20 They know that she made this 911 call. What they find out is that she also made this call right before calling 911.

Speaker 26 It was shocking. It was like mind-blowing shocking.

Speaker 5 Since the investigation into Andre Brown's murder began, his girlfriend Helen Frazier has been the only witness.

Speaker 20 At first glance, it doesn't appear like there's anything particularly unusual about this case. There's a witness in the house that observes it happen, and a man is arrested.

Speaker 5 But in the two months following the crime, Helen's credibility with police has been slowly slipping away.

Speaker 16 She led them them on a wild goose chase. You accused one guy and then she accused another.

Speaker 16 The detective, she just wanted answers.

Speaker 20 At that point, it's just exasperation.

Speaker 20 How many more stories are you going to tell us before you finally tell us the truth?

Speaker 5 In her third interview, Helen tells police that a dangerous gangster from Chicago is actually the one responsible for killing Andre.

Speaker 34 She named a new suspect, gave law enforcement the name Mark Keegan.

Speaker 5 Though investigators are weary of Helen's third version of events, with nothing connecting Helen to a crime, detectives are forced to release her as they go on the hunt for Mark Keegan.

Speaker 9 Investigators have to follow what's being told to them, and this led them to a lot of different places in this investigation.

Speaker 4 I had to still continue to investigate and find other evidence to prove that she was lying.

Speaker 20 They follow up on Mark Keegan, and they just can't find a Mark Keegan who lives in Chicago.

Speaker 35 And they correspond with the Chicago Police Department.

Speaker 20 They're going through their databases. They look for Mark Keegan.
They look for the address that she claims Mark Keegan lives at. They just don't think this guy really exists.

Speaker 4 At this point in the investigation, I definitely knew that she was lying, and I knew that she was our suspect.

Speaker 5 As word spreads through the Des Moines Police Department that Helen has shifted from victim to suspect, responding officer Dusty Chaplin speaks up.

Speaker 13 Some of the things weren't really matching up and they weren't making sense to me, and I wanted to get that off of my chest.

Speaker 5 According to Officer Chaplin, the day of the murder wasn't her first trip to Andre's home.

Speaker 13 A month prior to this particular call in December, I believe it was December 10th, I was actually dispatched out to the same address for Andre and Helen over some type of dispute.

Speaker 13 She was tearing up the house, just throwing things around, is what he was saying.

Speaker 27 Police had been called to the address by Andre.

Speaker 32 He was telling both dispatchers and then the police officer that arrived on scene that he wanted Helen out of the house, that he didn't want her living there anymore.

Speaker 5 However, a visibly intoxicated Helen refused to leave.

Speaker 13 We just had to explain to him him that until he got her evicted, we couldn't do anything about the fact that she wasn't going to leave the residence because it was her residence as well, which he was not very happy with.

Speaker 34 Law enforcement will instruct people a lot of times: you need to deal with this as a civil issue.

Speaker 33 If you let this person live here, we're not going to referee this dispute right now.

Speaker 5 When detectives look into Officer Chaplin's claims, they find that wasn't Helen's only run-in with police.

Speaker 4 I did see that she had been arrested several times for different levels of assault.

Speaker 3 She did have a fairly violent history of her own. Actually, it's startlingly violent history for a female with five or six prior assault convictions.

Speaker 4 On top of that, there was a handful of calls at that address from the time that Helen had started living there in the fall of 2016.

Speaker 4 Since that time, every single time that there was a a call there about a problem, Andre was the caller, not Helen.

Speaker 5 Intrigued by what they've uncovered, detectives circle back to Helen and Andre's former housemate and former suspect in the murder, Milton Leake, for more insight on life in their home.

Speaker 4 First of all, we wanted to apologize to him, and he was very understanding and very much a gentleman about it.

Speaker 5 Next, Milton tells detectives that he'd witnessed Andre and Helen's rocky relationship firsthand.

Speaker 20 When we met with Milton, he brought up this prior incident that we hadn't heard about before. It was while he was living in the home with Helen and Andre.

Speaker 20 He had witnessed an argument between the two of them in which Helen actually pulled out a knife on Andre.

Speaker 4 They would fight and argue when he was there, and that's why he didn't want to spend much time there, even though he would have shelter his head.

Speaker 5 After speaking with Milton, detectives head to the convenience store Andre had visited right before his death.

Speaker 4 When I pulled footage from the convenience store, Andre indeed was there, and he had some short conversations with some other people that were at the store, I could tell from the video.

Speaker 4 I wanted to know what Andre was talking about.

Speaker 5 When detectives track the men down, they clearly remember the topic of discussion that day.

Speaker 20 They had some smallpox.

Speaker 20 During the smallpox, he mentioned that he was having this friction with this woman that lived in his house and that he was planning to kick her out later that day.

Speaker 4 That was obviously very significant because to me, that seems like a motivation for Helen to kill Andre because he was providing shelter for her at that time. And she was in a vulnerable position.

Speaker 5 When detectives reach out to Andre's sister, Deborah, in Chicago, she confirms his friend's story.

Speaker 33 It was clear when law enforcement interviewed Andre's sister, she was very aware of the fact that Andre had said repeatedly he wanted Helen out of the house.

Speaker 5 To pull a case together, detectives focus on the available evidence.

Speaker 4 We started to look at the cell phone history, the call history on the phones that were in the house that day.

Speaker 7 They know that she made this 911 call.

Speaker 20 What they find out is that she also made this call to her mother right before calling 911.

Speaker 4 So at that point, I needed to speak to Helen's mother definitely to hear it firsthand from her what happened.

Speaker 25 Now, Helen's mother became the pivotal witness in the investigation.

Speaker 33 So law enforcement interviewed her.

Speaker 29 At the end of that interview, she eventually acknowledged that Helen had, in fact, told her over the phone that she had stabbed Andre.

Speaker 5 When detectives reach out to more of Helen's relatives, they confirm her mother's story.

Speaker 20 They talk to several members of Helen's family. Members of the family received a text message from Helen's mother shortly after the stabbing happened saying, pray for Helen.
She stabbed Andre.

Speaker 20 Then she sends another text message later that same day saying, never mind, it wasn't Helen, it was somebody else.

Speaker 5 On March 6th, detectives decide to bring Helen in for her fourth and what they hope will be her final interview.

Speaker 32 She says that, yes, I called my mother after Andre was stabbed because I was panicking and I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 16 I believe, yes, she was scared. I don't, I really don't understand why she didn't call 911, but I also understand why she called her mother.

Speaker 5 But when detectives confront Helen about the details of that call, she shuts shuts down.

Speaker 4 She stated that she had nothing further to say, that she had blacked out. She could offer me no other information.
Frankly, I think she was just out of ideas.

Speaker 25 She was arrested for first-degree murder and two counts of malicious prosecution. One for falsely implicating Milton Leake and one for falsely implicating Kenny Oakley.

Speaker 14 You sent us on this goose chase and then you were actually the killer.

Speaker 17 You want to tell us, oh, you loved him?

Speaker 8 Like, Laney, really?

Speaker 5 Coming up, just when the case seems closed, everything comes crashing down.

Speaker 25 Her mother has recanted, and we started to get a little more concerned.

Speaker 5 And Helen's story changes once again.

Speaker 20 She said that he comes at her. She feels he's coming at her aggressively.

Speaker 5 After working their way through three purported suspects in the murder of Andre Brown, detectives have finally arrested the woman who orchestrated it all, Andre's girlfriend, 52-year-old Helen Frazier.

Speaker 19 She had been present in the investigation since the moment this was called into us. So to have it circle back to her was definitely kind of a surprise to everybody.

Speaker 26 It was shocking.

Speaker 26 I mean, it was like mind-blowing shocking.

Speaker 17 I would have took it better, like just run, you know, let them figure it out instead of you got us feeling ill feelings against this man, you know.

Speaker 17 And it was just disgusting to me that she even made up all those stories.

Speaker 5 On January 22nd, 2019, Helen's trial begins.

Speaker 20 She waived her right to a jury and asked that it be decided by a judge.

Speaker 3 That's called a bench trial.

Speaker 5 For Helen and her defense team, it's a calculated risk. Unfortunately, prosecutors will have to make their case to the judge without a critical witness.

Speaker 33 Law enforcement interviewed Helen Frazier's mother in Chicago, and her mother, much like Helen, recanted

Speaker 3 the claim that Helen had confessed to her.

Speaker 25 You know, we had, at that point, had lost, was a significant piece of evidence for us, and we started to get a little more concerned.

Speaker 5 Then, Helen Frazier takes the stand and makes a shocking confession.

Speaker 23 At that stage, Helen had told yet a fourth story wherein she was actually the person that stabbed Andre.

Speaker 5 Helen's confession comes with a caveat.

Speaker 33 She was responsible for the stabbing. She's just claiming she was defending herself.

Speaker 20 Ultimately, when she was at trial, she shifts gears into self-defense and to argue that it was justified.

Speaker 5 According to Helen, it all began on January 2nd, 2017, when Andre returned from the convenience store in a rage.

Speaker 20 They were getting along very well earlier in the day. They watched a Western.
They were getting along fine. They both had been drinking some amount of alcohol.

Speaker 20 And then at some point, he became upset and told her that she needed to leave the house, that she needed to get out.

Speaker 5 Helen says at that point, Andre physically attacked her.

Speaker 20 He comes at her, and she feels he's coming at her aggressively. So she grabs the knife off the counter that she had been using to cook these vegetables, and she tries to push him away.

Speaker 20 And in the process, she inadvertently stabs him in the chest.

Speaker 5 According to Helen, A lifetime of abuse had left her with a powerful instinct to protect herself.

Speaker 29 She acknowledged going to get the knife to confront Andre,

Speaker 25 but blamed it on this history of sexual and physical abuse that made her unusually nervous when he got loud.

Speaker 5 Helen testifies that pattern of abuse continued into her relationship with Andre, a claim prosecutors are quick to shoot down.

Speaker 20 There was no evidence to back up her claim. that Andre was an abuser, other than her testimony.

Speaker 5 Instead, prosecutors believe Helen acted out of rage and survival.

Speaker 20 He was planning to kick her out of the house. This is the reason that she was set off, the reason that she picked up that knife and stabbed him.

Speaker 19 She's got a place to live, she's got good company, and all of a sudden that's being taken away from her. That could cause somebody to snap.

Speaker 5 To further prove Helen acted out of her own self-interest, prosecutors point to her actions in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing.

Speaker 9 After Andre Brown is stabbed, Helen immediately calls her mom. So her first call is not to 911,

Speaker 9 but to her mother. They talk for 11 minutes, and then she proceeds to call 911.

Speaker 34 So you have to put yourself at the scene.

Speaker 3 This is a point in time where if she's talking to her mother for 11 minutes and 14 seconds, Andre is lying on the ground with a stab wound through his lung, two holes in his aorta, with his chest cavity filling with blood at the time, while she's having a relatively lengthy conversation with her mother.

Speaker 9 That has a huge impact on whether Andre Brown would have lived or died. Sitting there for minutes and minutes before, you know, CPR is performed or before he's brought to a hospital is

Speaker 8 huge.

Speaker 5 On February 15th, the judge hands down his verdict.

Speaker 25 The judge ultimately found Helen guilty of murder in the second degree and two counts of malicious prosecution for falsely implicating Milton Leake and Kenny Oakley.

Speaker 20 In Iowa, that carries a mandatory prison term of up to 50 years in prison, and she's not eligible for parole until she's served 35 of those years.

Speaker 26 I'm happy she got 52 years because that's basically a life sentence. You took a life, so suffer that life that you took.
That was my brother.

Speaker 26 She took away from me and my family, a person that we loved.

Speaker 4 To care so little about another human being, to put such a heavy crime on another person.

Speaker 4 It's just unfathomable to me. I've never met anyone like Helen.

Speaker 4 I mean, I think Helen knows when I put on a certain face, but obviously there's a different side to her, and that's the side that came out. the day that she killed Andre.

Speaker 17 I don't understand what took her from the happy-go-lucky person that I talked to on the phone to this person that stabbed my uncle. It makes me angry to think that maybe

Speaker 4 he could have been saved.

Speaker 17 Maybe

Speaker 17 we wouldn't be here today. She showed no respect, no love, no anything.

Speaker 4 Helen is currently serving her time at Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. Helen will be eligible for parole in 2052 when she is 87 years old.