Conviction in duct tape murder on Woodland Avenue, 11 years on
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---Raphael Helton, now 65, was found guilty of murder Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026 for the 2015 beating death of Michael Fedock, 67 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Helton was finally charged with murder in August 2025 after the case had gone cold. At the time of the murder, Helton was living in Fedock's home at 216 Woodland Ave. His wife, Barbara Helton, was also a tenant there, too, but at the time of Fedock's beating, she was being held at the Allen County Jail.
It is a tale of horror.
Detectives established that Fedock's activities stopped after a Feb. 26, 2015 bank deposit.
The normal monthly pattern was a large withdrawal after the Social Security deposit. The withdrawal typically amounted to $1100.
Coincidentally, that evening at 7:57 p.m. Helton took a jail call from his wife, Barbara Helton.
"Got to take care of Mike. This is going to be hard," he told her. Although Helton's attorney said the younger Helton often helped Mike get around the house, prosecutors Tom Chaille and Rachel Gschwend found those words foreboding.
Helton tracked Fedock's movements constantly in his daily journal, they said. For the month of January and February of 2015 there were more than 120 entries each month detailing Fedock's whereabouts in the house.
Then those type of journal entries stopped cold after Feb. 26., the same day the bank withdrawal was made.
On March 28, 2015, Fedock's badly decomposed body was discovered in the closet of the second floor bedroom Fedock once shared with his wife when an officer arrived for a wellness check. He got suspicious because of a bad smell like "death."
(From left: Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tom Chaille, Detective Jeff Marsee and Deputy Prosecutor Rachel Gschwend. Magistrate Sam Keirns presided over the trial)
"Mike's not here," Helton immediately told the officer at the door.
Scremin emphasized that Helton was a renter and did handyman jobs with Fedock.
"He had nothing to gain from Fedock's death," Scremin said. The two had known each other for four to five years, Helton said on the stand Thursday just before closing arguments began.
"There was no one else to blame."
There was a reason why prosecutors didn't bring charges in 2015, Scremin said. But Chaille and Gschwend said they weren't sure why charges weren't brought. In 2025, however, when the murder charge was filed, the top personnel at the Allen County Prosecutor's office had changed.
In his closing arguments, Scremin said the case was based on innuendo and that family and law enforcement found some things "weird," but there was a lack of forensic evidence.
Take the duct tape that had both Helton's and Fedock's DNA on it. The DNA was found on a roll of duct tape outside in Fedock's work van, not on the duct tape used to wrap around Fedock's body.
Police found Fedock's body crammed into a small second floor bedroom closet, wrapped in clear plastic. Piles of clothing and blankets and like things were piled on top, as seen in crime scene photos shown in court.
The closet door was screwed shut. During the wellness check, Helton told the officer to come back in a week and he'd have it open, but Allen County Sheriff's Deputy officer Sean Kelly thought something was fishy and called for backup.
Kelly and Fort Wayne officer John Chambers used pliers to open the closet door. More suspiciously, when Kelly came back in with Chambers, there was a window open.
Scremin also maintained that anything in that second floor bedroom where Fedock's wife had died from cancer five years before was "not Helton's business" and there was no evidence, DNA or fingerprints, to tie him to the body.
"Anyone could have killed Mr. Fedock," Scremin said and there was unidentified DNA that was suspect. "Sooner or later, someone (was) going to find it," Scremin said, referring to Fedock's body. Helton could have disposed of it at any time.
The house smelled rotten, Scremin told the jury, but it wasn't necessarily because of the deceased body. Feces were smeared on the walls of the basement toilet that didn't work. and it was the basement where allegedly Fedock slept. Was it Fedock that a Community Corrections officer saw on March 2 covered up on a couch in the basement and was told someone was sleeping, head covered up due to medications. Medications the prosecution said Fedock didn't take?
On March 28, 2015 the home was in disarray and the Christmas decorations were still up.
"This house probably doesn't smell good on any given day," Scremin said, no doubt making the family sitting in the gallery upset. But the smell the officer found really bad came from Fedock's bedroom upstairs and that was where Fedock's body had been, likely since his death on Feb. 26, 2015 after the jail phone call, if you are to believe the prosecution's version of the story.
So what was the motive? First, the prosecution is not required to give a motive although juries like to have one.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tom Chaille suggested in his closing remarks that $1100 was never accounted for after Fedock made his monthly trip to ProFed bank on Feb. 26 and withdrew that amount, the bulk of his Social Security check.
And when the family tried to contact Fedock, Helton concocted a story about Fedock going to Michigan for double knee surgery.
Without notifying his family? Even if the family noticed that Helton's arrival sometime in 2014 brought an estrangement between Fedock and his children, it would be hard to believe he wouldn't tell his family about the upcoming surgery.
Deputy Prosecutor Rachel Gschwend told the jury that the autopsy did not indicate any knee surgery which put a lie to Helton's claim.
Court officials: Allen Superior Court Magistrate Sam Keirns presiding; Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tom Chaille and Deputy Prosecutor Rachel Gschwend for the state; Robert Scremin and Chase Stoddard, public defenders.
Go to www.theprobablecause.com on YouTube to watch closing arguments and Helton take the stand.
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