Original subtitles

Kerissa Fare had the perfect look for Playboy in the 2000s.

Quintessential girl next door, and that's what they loved.

But she was definitely out of her element.

She seemed like the type of woman

who could be easily influenced by others.

She's about to launch this huge career

and now all of a sudden, you have homicide detectives trying to talk to you.

Nobody knew a thing.

She just disappeared.

This was definitely the most complicated case that I've ever covered.

If you can see the hair on my arms are standing up right now.

Things just keep getting more and more outlandish.

It was just "What the hell is going on?"

Five people had been murdered and butchered.

And police had arrested the lead suspect,

who is, by all accounts, a mystery man.

But then he decided that he wanted to sell his story.

And so he started writing letters from jail,

and he targeted Playboy.

Because his ex-girlfriend,

Keri, was in that month's issue.

So naturally, authorities very much wanted to track her down.

We're trying to identify the entire picture

as to what all took place.

And if Keri was involved with him

in an intimate relationship, we definitely thought

she had some information or was potentially involved.

Ultimately they locate her

and she's in Las Vegas on a promotional event.

Because Keri, it turns out, is now Kerissa Fare,

the Playboy magazine's September Playmate of the Month.

Kerissa Fare and I came to LA around the same time.

She was a Playmate before I came to Playboy,

but only slightly.

It was the year 2000,

Playboy was really at the top of its game...

Every young woman wanted to be in Playboy,

and it just seemed like

a really magical place to start your career.

I'm Irina Voronina, Miss January 2001.

Kerissa was one of the first Playmates

I ever met in Los Angeles.

She was a typical California girl.

She enjoyed the beach,

she enjoyed the outdoors.

And she was always smiling.

We got Kerissa Fare...

Kerissa was one of the contestants

on Win Ben Stein's Money

and watching the footage of her

I can just see that she's,

like, Playboy's ideal Playmate.

What month are you?

I'm Miss September 2000.

I was Miss April 2001.

I remember when I first met Kerissa,

I really thought she had, like, a Nicole Kidman vibe.

Because she had this beautiful, sort of, like, strawberry blond hair

and she had very fair skin

and a naturally beautiful face

and she was tall.

She was a little bit shy, but super, super sweet.

I found out she is actually

from Southern California, Riverside,

and she grew up in a one parent household

and basically, kind of, raised herself,

and I think when you grow up really fast like that,

you do wanna live a large life.

The early 2000's was a really special time for Playboy.

The brand was very mainstream.

Now, we're here at the Playboy Mansion.

We'd seen all these stars from the '90s,

like, Jenny McCarthy, Pamela Anderson

and Carmen Electra come from the magazine

and go on to these exciting careers.

Kerissa wanted to model and act.

She was definitely embracing opportunities.

In what city is the Pentagon located?

-Washington DC. -Washington DC?

No.

But I feel like she was definitely out of her element.

Kerissa Fare was not her real name.

I remember calling her Keri.

Her boyfriend sent in her pictures to Playboy

because she didn't really

believe in herself all that much.

And nobody really knew about the relationship

but he believed in her.

Kerissa was chosen to be a Playmate,

and in May of 2000 she shared with me that she'd got her months,

which will be September of 2000,

and she was super excited.

It was a very competitive time

because there was a very special search

for a Millennium Playmate.

So it must have felt a little bit like winning the lottery.

Kerissa's Centerfold shoot

had something in the bedroom set up.

Like she was in her beautiful apartment

with some tasteful lingerie and satin sheets.

It was very sexy.

Looking at Kerissa's pictorial,

she is just very much

the quintessential girl next door.

She's really beautiful,

she's got a great body,

she's very voluptuous, a really pretty face.

She looks shy but inviting at the same time.

I think Kerissa was very happy with her Centerfold

and the Playboy shoot in general.

And she was very grateful to be there.

The 2000 Playmates,

they got to do so much cool stuff.

They got to do

Betsey Johnson's fashion show.

They got a layout in W Magazine.

When I saw the layout of all the Playmates in W,

I was like "These are the most beautiful girls in the world."

And Kerissa was one of them.

For a new girl coming into Playboy at the time,

there's an endless potential for opportunity.

I spent the entire summer of 2000

out in Los Angeles

hanging out in Hef's inner circle.

One day you're gonna go and you know, meet Madonna

or you're gonna have tea at Rod Stewart's house.

Which those things actually did happen.

But I don't have any pictures with Kerissa.

She was one of the young ladies

that passed through for a very, very brief time.

She didn't hang around the Playboy Mansion that much,

which was very strange

because I was staying

at the mansion during my shoots

and I was invited out with Mister Haffner practically every night.

But Kerissa had a place of her own in Los Angeles.

She was driving a modest car, like a Honda Civic,

which is not very likely for a girl

who's a Playboy Playmate.

So I knew she didn't have anyone paying her bills.

It was actually very refreshing

because she was different.

I feel like she was, kind of,

somebody who showed up,

did what she had to do.

Everybody really liked her.

She was easy to get along with,

but people felt like she had secrets

and you know things she didn't wanna talk about.

A lot of Playmates, you know,

we had horrible childhood and abusive relationships,

but she didn't wanna talk about it

or share certain things.

She seemed like the type of woman

who could be easily influenced by others

and fallen into a situation

where someone was taking advantage of her.

Keri was described as kind of an enigma.

She was introverted.

But when your issue of Playboy comes out,

all of a sudden you're the center of attention.

You do your Centerfold tour,

which is where you go around

to different cities and people are bringing magazines to you,

and they just want you to autograph it.

This was her time to milk it and enjoy it

to be the center of attention, to be the beautiful self.

And guess what?

Police showed up.

She's about to launch this huge career

and now all of a sudden you have homicide detectives

trying to talk to you about multiple murders.

I think that that would frighten anyone.

And then she just disappeared.

I was like, whatever happened to that Nicole Kidman

looking Centerfold named Kerissa Fare?

Where did she go?

Nobody knew a thing.

I'm Keri Mendoza, Playboy Centerfold Miss September 2000.

It's hard for me to believe what I lived through.

And I want to tell my story.

Playboy was my only ray of hope

that gave me strength.

I had run away, I changed my name.

So when the detectives came to Vegas to interview me,

I was very scared.

And that really changed everything.

I grew up like a very tomboy.

With just my dad and my brother.

My mom left when I was one.

So all I do is focus on school to get out of the house

'cause I wanted to be on my own.

I even graduated early in high school.

And then I had met somebody and we moved in together.

But it was an abusive relationship.

If you didn't have a happy upbringing,

you'd just end up dating, you know, the first guy

who tells you that you're pretty.

I think a lot of Playmates

come from history of abusive relationships.

I had to get away from him.

But every time I tried to leave, he found me.

He would stop me.

He found out where I worked

and he popped the tires of my car.

My dad's like, "You need to disappear."

So I literally packed up all my stuff

and went to San Francisco.

I didn't know anybody in San Francisco.

I just needed to move far away.

I was 21.

And that's when I started working at a cocktail lounge.

And that's where I met Taylor.

Taylor Helzer is about six years older than her

and charming and very successful.

And drew the eye of, of everybody

when he walked into a room.

He was a stockbroker for Dean Winter,

and he would come in there

in a suit and tie and have shots

and was just this very vibrant, outgoing person.

One time he actually left his credit card

and said that was my tip.

He wanted me to buy something nice

so he could take me out dancing,

and I was, you know, flattered.

But I said I would love to go out with you

but I'm not gonna use your credit card.

And he took me out dancing.

Taylor was different because he was...

How can I say this?

Like, he wasn't about having sex with me.

It was about getting to know me.

And he just always was happy.

And I wasn't used to being around people who were always happy.

I didn't grow up in a house where we said I love you

and we were affectionate and he was very affectionate.

And it was different for me.

Kind of, like, showing me a different way of life.

Taylor was raised in an observant Mormon family.

He was the oldest of three.

Glen Taylor Helzer, from the beginning,

he went by his middle name.

He was the family's shining star,

he was very much looked up to within his local church

because he was so successful at evangelizing.

But he was very, very unhappy.

And eventually he leaves.

He moves in with his little brother, Justin,

and eventually, Keri.

And starts living the kind of life

that he believes he should be able to live.

He wanted to try doing things in life,

like go to clubs, and that was forbidden

and things I had never done before, either.

He experimented with drugs and I experimented with him.

My first time I ever did drugs, he said,

"Here's aspirin for your headache."

And it was ecstasy.

I didn't have a headache,

and I didn't know that I was even taking Ecstasy.

I didn't have the opportunity to say no, I didn't wanna take a drug.

But because of the the way that ecstasy affected me.

I got over it quickly 'cause it was amazing.

They couldn't get enough.

As their relationship progresses,

Taylor starts to have plans.

He was starting to act different.

He was trying to scam his job

so he didn't have to go to work any more

and he could just collect disability.

And he's conjuring up all these weird schemes

and things that he wants to do.

And so he was going down

a different path that I was not...

That wasn't me.

He quits his stockbroker job, and it is this turn

that really starts to have an effect

on their relationship and on Keri.

Because one of Taylor's moneymaking schemes

was to and try and pitch Keri for Playboy.

He wanted them to do some, like, escort service.

He thought if I was gonna get into Playboy,

I could talk the girls into it.

Taylor's plan might sound crazy to an outsider,

but believe it or not,

there were, you know, high class escort agencies

who did use girlfriends of Hef's or Playmates.

So it's not inconceivable.

It had already been a year that we had been together,

I didn't have stability until I met Taylor.

So I was, pretty much, did whatever Taylor would say.

So I paid to get my boobs done

and I sent pictures in.

I took them in my front yard.

Taylor took 'em, and I still had scars when I sent my pictures in.

I did not think I was gonna get into Playboy.

But after I had my surgery done, it changed me.

I was starting to feel more independent,

like, maybe I wanted to venture out without Taylor,

and my relationship with Taylor

was rocky at this time.

He was starting to get controlling,

he was taking crazy medications like Klonopin

and mixing them with alcohol and was acting weird.

I was like, I really don't know this person

because he has changed so much.

I think the shift was gradual.

Instead of evangelizing for the church,

Taylor started saying that

he's the one who should be

in charge of the Mormon church.

That the current church leadership

and church elders were not good enough.

Slowly coming to the belief that this was his path

and things just keep getting more and more outlandish.

Taylor was not Taylor anymore.

He was talking about religion.

He was talking about that he was a prophet of God

and that he wanted to extort money

from clients, from Dean Witter.

And that this is what God wants him to do.

And I did not like the things he was talking about.

I did not like the disability thing.

I did not want to be consumed by drugs 24-7.

Now we were also selling drugs.

I was seeing darkness in him,

and it wasn't a healthy relationship anymore.

It was scary.

And I wanted out,

but I felt like I have nowhere to go.

Being in abusive relationships

can do a number on your self-esteem.

But Playboy could definitely be a way out.

When I opened up my PO box

and saw the letter from Playboy,

I thought maybe it was a "Thanks for your submission,

but we're not interested."

But it was the complete opposite.

It was, "We would love to have you do some test shots."

They wanted to see more of me, and I was excited.

Because I wanted to move on without Taylor.

But I didn't feel he was gonna let me go.

And I got really depressed,

and he saw that and said, "I know what you're doing.

I know you don't wanna be here, so just go."

And I literally, like,

grabbed my cat and whatever I could put in my car and I left.

Like, I was gone, like, in 20 min.

She was away from Taylor,

and that was absolutely not in Taylor's plan.

I was really excited

to get down to Southern California

to do these test shots for Playboy.

So I rented a place,

I had a roommate, and I worked for a nightclub.

I was a server there, and I felt free of Taylor.

I felt free of the chaos.

And when they took my pictures, they said

"This very rarely happens but you're in the magazine.

This is gonna be your Centerfold.

Like, you're gonna be Miss September."

Keri had the perfect look

for a Playmate in the 2000s.

She didn't wear a lot of makeup,

very fresh faced, kind of, like, a blank canvas.

And that's what they loved.

Doing Playboy was huge because they were the first people

to ever put makeup on me.

Even the pictures I sent into the mail,

I wasn't even wearing any makeup.

So when they turned me around in the chair,

I was like, "Who is that?"

I felt like I was playing a role.

Kerissa Fare was my character for Playboy.

It's somewhat common for women

to want to use a different name

when they pose for Playboy.

You're, kind of, getting this new image,

and you can use that to start a new life.

It was definitely more than what I expected.

I did not know that there was a contract for two years

or how much more exposure you can get.

Hef knew who I was, and I was shocked.

He was the first one to show me my magazine

when it was all finished and it was so exciting.

He took me to his office and showed me the magazine,

and I was like, "Oh, my God, this is really happening!"

And then one day Taylor shows up at my job unexpected

and scared the crap out of me.

When you become a Playboy Playmate,

some ex-boyfriends come out of the woodwork.

I've seen it so much.

And, quite honestly, I was not aware about

the awful relationship she was in.

I think he was hoping she would come back

and he could start his crazy business plan.

I felt very scared because I was basically rebelling in his eyes.

I did not know why he came, but I felt like I needed

to do whatever he wanted because I wanted him to leave.

So he gave me ecstasy and we went to the beach

and that's pretty much all I really remember.

There's really no getting around

how charming Taylor was and how manipulative.

And how good at being manipulative he was.

I told Hef and Hef was worried about me.

So he said, "I'm gonna make sure that you're not gonna be

in one place for more than two days."

I was all over doing promotions.

I went to Chicago, I was in Texas,

I was in all parts of California.

I lived out of a bag for weeks.

I went to different places every two days.

There wasn't really any protocol

for Playmates who might be having

a problem with a stalker

or with a significant other or an ex.

But Hef promised to keep her as busy as possible

so she wasn't in the same place all the time

I think the Dorothy Stratten tragedy

definitely played a role in Hef

wanting to help out the Playmates that he could,

if they felt like they were in danger.

Because it was such a tragedy that was not forgotten.

And I think the fact that Keri's issue release party

was in Vegas really speaks to that

because usually a Playmate's issue release would be in their hometown,

because that would get a lot of publicity.

Hometown girl poses nude,

so that's almost always what it was.

And there was a little bit

but she was from Riverside, not Las Vegas.

I went to Vegas, and that's when I turned on the news.

Selina Bishop was one of those folks you just couldn't miss.

And I see that Taylor's on the news.

They were calling him by his first name,

Glen Helzer,

and asking the public if they had any information.

Locals recently began seeing her

with Glen Helzer, her boyfriend,

who is now a suspect.

I'm over here just in shock.

I did not know what had happened

but I knew he was capable of doing almost anything.

I was a reporter for the Contra Costa Times.

We covered the entire East Bay.

We became aware--

In the early morning hours of August third,

a terrified homeowner calls 911,

um, gets a hold of the Marin County Sheriff's office,

and says there have been shots fired.

"I have a studio apartment in my basement that I rent out

and I think that it happened down there."

I was advised that there was a homicide

and was asked to respond to the scene.

We actually found that there was two people

that appeared to be deceased.

A Jennifer Villarin and a James Gamble,

as well as nine millimeter bullet casings.

It turns out the woman who actually lives in the apartment

is a 22-year-old named Selina Bishop.

She's not there, but the two victims inside

appear to be Selina's mother and the mother's companion.

So we needed to try and locate Selina.

Right off the bat,

the Marin sheriff's detectives were extremely worried

about Selina Bishop.

It was just a fluke

that it was Jenny and Jim there that night.

So they were not sure

if Selina had been the actual intended target,

and that concern only grew

over the course of the weekend.

The next significant piece of the investigation

is that Selina doesn't show up for work

that following Monday.

Selina worked at the Two Bird Cafe.

Everyone said, "Oh, well, right now she's camping

in Yosemite with her boyfriend,

who she's been dating since May,

and no one really knows much about him."

What they know is that the mysterious boyfriend

lives with his brother, Justin.

And incredibly co-workers find her pager.

And when the police are going through the pager,

they find the name Justin Helzer.

From there what we did is, we obtained some photographs

from the Department of Motor Vehicles

of Justin and his brother,

who we identified as Glen Taylor Helzer.

And we took those photographs

and we showed them to a few people.

And they recognized Selina's boyfriend

as being Glen Taylor Helzer, also known as Taylor.

So the cops decide they're going to go over

to Taylor and Justin's house

and pick up the investigation there.

They go inside the house and they find Taylor

and his brother, Justin,

and they find a third person, a woman.

Her name is Dawn, and she's a roommate.

And something's up.

Much like, if you could see the hair on my arms are standing up right now,

at that time, we're fairly certain

that something horrific had taken place at the house.

They're finding news clippings about Selina's disappearance.

They find drugs.

During that search I noticed some financial documents

that were not related

to either Dawn, Justin or Taylor.

And as I'm looking at them, I literally said,

"Who are Ivan and Annette Stineman,

and why did they have this paperwork?"

And there was a Concord Police Department officer,

standing at the doorway

and his head literally swung to the, to the side

and looked at me and said that they were in the process

of working a missing persons case

related to an Ivan and Annette Stineman.

The fact that the Stinemans are missing

and that this paperwork is showing up

in a location for a suspect

in an entirely different murder case

is gonna get everybody's attention.

You just can't stop thinking

what, what, what could be next.

And then I was told that a bag was located

on the Mokelumne River

that contained body parts

that were ultimately identified

as belonging to Ivan and Annette Stineman,

and Selina Bishop.

At this point, the Helzers and Dawn get arrested.

They can hook 'em up for the drugs,

so they do that right away.

Once the three of them were arrested, no one talked.

As Marin and Concord investigators

dig into this case,

one more name that kept coming up

was Keri Furman.

And she was that month's Playboy Centerfold.

We had learned by talking to people

that Keri had dated Taylor up until about February of 2000,

just a couple of months of when this took place.

So we attempted to make contact with Keri.

Kerissa was in Vegas promoting her issue,

and I can't even imagine what it's like

to find out that your ex-boyfriend

could be a serial killer,

while you're trying to celebrate

your biggest moment in life.

When the police came,

I felt like they were looking at me,

like, I had some involvement or I helped 'em in some way.

When we're looking at investigations like this,

everybody is a possible person

involved with the investigation,

and my impression was that she was a scared young woman,

and potentially she was involved in some fashion.

We just didn't know to what extent.

It's hard to be so closely connected

with something as tragic as what happened.

Taylor was arrested, and within days detectives came to Vegas to interview me.

I can't even really remember the whole interview

'cause it was so traumatic.

We made a deal with the district attorney

that anything that we had found out

would not be used against her.

So at that point we really went into detail

and she started to open up.

They wanted a profile of Taylor

and how he went from a stockbroker

to the things he did.

I block a lot of things out.

So I can't even tell you.

All I know is the way that Taylor got me to do things,

I knew how persuasive he was, and that scared me.

So as we started to learn that Taylor

had this grandiose idea of essentially taking over

the Mormon church for lack of better terms,

he thought that he was a prophet of God

and his intent was to bring everybody into his belief system.

Taylor starts talking about how he's gonna bring

peace and love to the world

through all of these completely bonkers ideas.

Importing women from Brazil

to become high-end prostitutes,

starting a drug ring.

All sorts of things to make money.

People would describe Taylor

as sort of, like, a cult leader,

the way he would try to control people,

and it was all incredibly, incredibly toxic.

Keri's relationship with Taylor

resulted in her helping him

in some of his moneymaking schemes.

Among those was an incident

where she was with him in Mexico

when they purchased Rohypnol, date rape drug.

I really was, kind of, just going along with what he was saying

but not realizing why he wanted it.

We started to think this is why she was concerned

is because she had provided

some money to him to purchase drugs.

But in talking with Keri over multiple different times,

she was was not aware of the violent side of Taylor

because she chose to depart.

Taylor never talked about murder.

For him to be able to snap and choose to do that...

I don't know who that is.

And I don't know if somebody who can feel

that they're a prophet could do that.

This was definitely the most complicated case

that I've ever covered.

As far as Taylor went

and why these five people were killed

was actually not something that was answered

until several years later,

when Dawn Godman decided to cooperate.

After Keri made the choice

to branch away in February of 2000,

that's when Dawn Godman was brought in.

Taylor saw me as being this lost, innocent girl

that he could brainwash

and mold into whatever he wanted.

But I left and I wasn't there when Dawn came into the group,

but I had met Dawn through Justin first.

She had a son and Taylor paid a lot of attention to her

and I think that's what she liked.

I feel that Justin was definitely forced to do the things that he did.

Taylor considered himself a prophet,

and his brother and Dawn, he considered disciples.

Taylor's plans involve a lot of things that he has to do,

including murder,

but he's doing it, in his mind,

at the direction of God,

and that's how he justifies

doing all of the crazy things he does.

He dubbed the three of them "Children of Thunder."

And that comes from the biblical Sons of Thunder,

which was what Jesus called

the inner core of his apostles.

And the plan that Taylor called Transform America

was going to bring in Christ's second coming.

In order, to put it into play

he needed money.

And none of his schemes were successful.

So that was when he thought

of his old job as a stockbroker,

and he targets the Stinemans and their retirement savings.

So they prepared everything that they would need.

And we know all this because Dawn kept all the receipts.

And one of the final pieces of the plan

was finding someone to help launder the money.

So he actively went looking at raves for a naive young woman

who he could charm

into doing what he needed done.

And that May he met Selina Bishop.

Everything was about money.

They went to the Stinemans

who they'd kidnap to obtain their funds.

Taylor abducts the Stinemans at gunpoint.

They get fed Rohypnol,

and under the influence of Rohypnol,

the Stinemans are forced to write two checks

for $100,000 to Selina Bishop.

After the checks were written, Mr. Stineman was murdered

by having his head bashed into the tile floor.

And Mrs. Stineman had her throat slit.

And then the two brothers and Dawn thanked God

for the sacrifice the Stinemans made.

At that time, Taylor picks up Selina

for what is going to be their final date,

unbeknownst to her.

He was using Selina to open an account

so that it wasn't linked to Taylor Helzer.

Selina didn't realize that the relationship was fake

from start to finish.

Where he kills her and dismembers her

along with the Stinemans.

And then they had to find a way to eliminate Selina's mother,

who had met him.

And so they went to Woodacre and murdered her

and unfortunately,

her boyfriend happened to be there.

Taylor tells people

that his goal is to save humanity.

Then how that involves a bunch of dead bodies

is unexplainable.

Keri was never connected to any of the crimes.

There was a thought that maybe the Rohypnol

that was purchased utilizing Keri's funds

may have been used

with Ivan and Annette Stineman.

But we weren't able to identify that.

She didn't know that he had started to execute his plan.

He had talked to me about things,

but not about the things that actually went down.

It was more about things that he wanted to do.

Impact America and, like, embezzle money.

But I did not know it was gonna happen that way.

I think I came very close to being killed.

I'd heard a little bit about Keri's association

with what happened.

And it's just such a crazy story.

And it just seems like such a godsend

that she got chosen for the magazine when she did.

It got her away from Taylor

and ultimately might have saved her life.

All three of them were ultimately charged with five counts of murder.

Dawn pled guilty,

so there was no trial and she received a 38-year sentence

because she testified against Taylor and Justin in their respective trials.

I went to in court.

That was difficult.

Taylor's right there looking at me

as I'm on the stand and I was in tears.

Justin and Taylor both ended up getting the death penalty.

I was happy that Taylor got the death penalty.

I'm very proud of Kerissa,

that she was able to

separate herself from him and start a new life.

And Playboy played a part in that.

I feel like Playboy saved me a lot,

but I also feel like Taylor stole that from me.

Because while Playboy wanted me to be out there

in the open and promote myself,

all this is going on.

All I wanted to do was hide.

And while under contract, I met a guy

and fell in love and got pregnant.

And I chose that over Playboy,

and that was the end of my contract.

For Keri, being so closely connected

with such a horrible tragedy

must feel like a giant weight on your shoulders.

But for her, she didn't do anything wrong.

She got out of there just in time.

She's a survivor of this whole thing.

And I still get fan mail every now and then.

People want me to sign pictures.

One of my quotes was "Never be afraid of your dreams."

And for a short period of time

my dream was to feel pretty

and be accepted into Playboy, and I did.

The Playboy Club was full of powerful men,

but bunnies were not allowed to date customers.

Yet, it doesn't take long for

this relationship to really solidify.

But, just like the bunnies maintain an air of mystery

sometimes that went for the clientele as well.

And jealousy and betrayal can make us act irrational.