RALEIGH — Timothy E. Helms, a mentally ill inmate whose skull was smashed following an August 2008 fire in his prison cell, died at a Greensboro hospital Sunday morning.
He was 49.
The blunt-force trauma Helms suffered while in custody at a state prison in Taylorsville caused extensive bleeding in his brain, leaving him bedridden and unable to walk. Though he showed some signs of improvement in the past two years, he could still hardly speak or perform such mundane tasks as feeding himself.
