A manhunt last Friday evening stoked fears in the San Geronimo Valley after an 82-year-old Forest Knolls resident was found on French Ranch Fire Road near Lagunitas School, suffering from a head wound. Initial statements from Marin County deputies that Richard Helzberg had succumbed to a gunshot wound were not supported by a preliminary autopsy performed on Monday that found he had died from a blunt-force strike.
Mr. Helzberg, a family law lawyer, was on a walk with his dog in a spot where he often stopped to feed carrots to his neighbor’s horses over a corral fence, according to friends. He died that evening at MarinHealth Medical Center.
Initial assessments of Mr. Helzberg’s injuries by transporting medics, an emergency room doctor and a trauma surgeon found that he had suffered a ballistic wound to the head, which prompted a nine-hour search in the valley that resumed on Saturday morning on a smaller scale. Deputies told citizens at the scene and ABC News that they were dealing with a possible death by gunshot from a high-velocity firearm.
But the next morning, the sheriff’s office released a statement with no mention of a weapon. It described the death as “suspicious” and said there was no believed danger.
On Monday evening, after reviewing the evidence on scene, an autopsy, X-rays and an evaluation by the chief coroner investigator, Mr. Helzberg’s cause of death was confirmed to be an unknown blunt-force trauma. A complete coroner’s report is pending.
“This was potentially caused by a kick from a horse, which was on scene along the fire road where Helzberg had been hiking,” a press release issued by the sheriff’s office on Monday stated. “No other significant injuries were noted during the completed examination.”
According to Roger Fielding, the chief deputy of the coroner’s division at the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, discrepancies in injury assessment are not uncommon, though they happen more often in urban areas with higher murder rates. Paramedics and emergency department physicians rapidly assess patients and make expeditious medical decisions, while coroners and forensic teams have more time to assess injuries and are more experienced in death investigation.
“Initial assessments are not always accurate for several good reasons, and not because of inexperience or incompetence,” Mr. Fielding wrote in an email. “Differentiating between [blunt force], an entrance or exit gunshot wound, a stab wound and other wounds is sometimes quite challenging. Additionally, differing opinions are not uncommon between members of a single agency.”
After a valley woman reported finding Mr. Helzberg’s body at around 7 p.m. last Friday, deputies shut down one lane of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard for several hours. A helicopter and airplane patrolled the valley before twilight and then using infrared until 3 a.m., in search of a possible suspect.
According to a spokeswoman from MarinHealth, the hospital was placed on a level 1 lockdown—the highest level of facility and perimeter security—at 7:26 p.m. due to a gunshot victim’s arrival at the emergency department. Thirty minutes later, the lockdown was reduced to level 4 while security continued to monitor the situation, allowing in only emergency room patients. The lockdown was lifted after another 30 minutes.
Frenzied by the abnormal police presence, residents of the San Geronimo Valley took to social media looking for answers. Several threads on Nextdoor yielded hundreds of comments in which residents traded hearsay and expressed frustration over the lack of communication from law enforcement.
The sheriff’s office sent its first tweet related to the event at 10:14 p.m. on Friday night.
“Marin Sheriff actively investigating an incident in San Geronimo Valley. Please stay out of area. Traffic restricted on Sir Francis Drake, between Wild Iris Rd. and Lagunitas School Rd. Updates to follow,” it read.
The rest of their posts related to the incident concerned traffic opening back up, but on Saturday morning, the office published a press release titled “Suspicious death—San Geronimo Valley.” It said an unnamed man had succumbed to a head wound and fall and that a cause of death had not been reached. An autopsy was pending.
Lagunitas School principal Laura Shain was out to dinner Friday evening when she received word from the sheriff’s office that the gym was to be used as a command post. By the time she made it to the school, several parents had called and emailed her concerned over the presence of police, and some were asking about a gunshot.
Ms. Shain said that around 9:30 p.m., a deputy told her the cause of death was a bullet from a high-velocity gun and that there were entrance and exit wounds on his head. At 11 p.m., she sent out an email to parents relaying the information and advising people to avoid the campus and nearby trails.
“It’s been frustrating for us honestly, because we didn’t get any direct communication from the sheriff’s office [on Friday,]” she said. “Over the weekend I, like many other valley residents, had to rely on social media, which was quite frustrating. The press releases felt like they were contradictory to the information given by the deputy and to what we were seeing with the helicopters.”
Sheriff Jamie Scardina told the Light that he was not aware of any of his staff telling people that the death was the result of a shooting. But he said it was possible that deputies could have mentioned the possibility to residents.
“The victim was transported before deputies reached the scene,” he said. “It was the medical personnel who told our deputies that it was a gunshot wound. When we heard that, that’s why we ordered a shelter-in-place for the community. Anytime there’s a gunshot in the valley, we get numerous reports of it from residents. But the witness never heard a gunshot, the deputy working in the valley that day never heard a gunshot, and we received no reports about a gunshot. Once we put all those things together, we formed the opinion that it was most likely caused by this horse. We were not 100 percent sure.”
Ms. Shain said that Sheriff Scardina called her on Saturday instructing her not to communicate with the school community about the incident beyond information given in the press release.
“We had a bit of a light disagreement on that,” she said. “Our priority as a school is very different from law enforcement. We use the area right around the campus every day and the security and safety of the area is essential.”
On Monday, recess was held outside, but children and staff were not permitted to leave campus to go on hikes or use the trails. Deputies were not routinely monitoring the campus after Friday evening, Ms. Shain said.
Suspicious activity in the valley in recent days fed residents’ concerns. One week before Mr. Helzberg’s death, on Friday, May 26 at 7:57 p.m., the sheriff’s office received a call about a man carrying a rifle with a scope walking toward the maintenance buildings on the former San Geronimo Golf Course. The subject, who was wearing a tan baseball hat, a camo jacket and blue jeans, was never identified.
On Sunday, after Mr. Helzberg’s death, a woman whose property borders the golf course said her husband had found their private property sign shot through. More calls made to the sheriff’s office over the weekend expressed concern over the lack of information about the incident.
A spokesman for the sheriff’s office said there is no risk to the public but encouraged residents to reach out about suspicious activity.
Mr. Helzberg was born and raised in Kansas City, Mo. He studied economics and eventually law at the University of Michigan. After he graduated in 1965, he worked in the entertainment industry, from running a radio station in Contra Costa County to booking talent for movies and television. He was in his 50s when he decided to explore a more lucrative career. He got an internship at a family law practice in San Rafael and soon after experienced a traumatic event that he said gave him the insight essential to the practice. After opening his own office in 1992, he focused on custody, interstate custody and child abduction cases.
Mr. Helzberg was both erudite and spry in his senior years, doing cardio and lifting weights several days a week. Several valley residents told the Light that he often walked the network of trails in the valley with his dog, India, an Australian shepherd that was with him on Friday.
He was dedicated to his law practice and referred to his work as his purpose in life. On the wall of his home office reads a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can, point out to them how the nominal winner is often the real loser—in fees, expenses and waste of time. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.”
“This is my philosophy as well,” Mr. Helzberg said in a home video. “Abraham Lincoln just said it better.”
Mr. Helzberg leaves behind his wife, Carol; four children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Clarification: This article was amended on June 20 to clarify that Richard Helzberg was found in a location where he often stopped to feed treats to his neighbor’s horses, according to friends. Originally we wrote that he was feeding the horses at the time of his fatal injury.