Gaston County woman pleads guilty in murder of man who tried to help her

LOWELL, N.C. — A Gaston County woman pleaded guilty to killing a man who tried to help her get off drugs.

Iva Helms got less than 16 years for the murder of Jimmy Dellinger.

Eyewitness News reporter Ken Lemon was in the courtroom Monday where Helms gave a tearful apology.

Some of Dellinger's family members didn't agree with this plea.

They said they will be at every one of Helms' parole hearings to make sure she serves the maximum sentence allowed under the plea deal, which is 20 years in prison.

"I am a good person,” Helms said. “I just make bad choices and decisions."

Helms said one of those bad choices was lashing out against Dillinger, who was 61 years old at the time of the murder.

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He let her stay at his home in Lowell so she could stay off the streets.

His family members said they warned him that Helms had a drug problem.

"He wasn't no drug rehab center,” nephew Tim Dillinger said. “That he needed to send her on down the road."

The district attorney said that last fall, Helms saw Dellinger's bank statements and realized how much money he had.

The DA said Dellinger refused to give her money and she stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

Dellinger reportedly advised her not to call emergency medical services because there were drugs in the house.

The DA said Helms took his debit card and went to several locations trying unsuccessfully to get money while he bled to death from a combination of a cut artery and a blood thinning medication he used.

"She could have saved my brother's life by making a 911 call," Clyde Dellinger said.

Dellinger's family said their worst fears came true.

"She took his life for nothing," sister-in-law Cathy Cooper Dillinger said.

Helms pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

"I please beg you one day to find it in your heart to forgive me," Helms said.

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