‘He Made Me Do It’ Part 5: Unbelievable

This series discusses sexual assault, trafficking and suicide.  Please read and watch with care.

The U-Haul had nowhere to hide.

Not only did the standard white and orange decal stick out on the freeways of Southern California in the early morning hours of July 16, 2022, this particular U-Haul had been linked to an armed robbery in Arizona.  And now several cop cars in California were trying to stop the truck.

It started when an officer went to pull the U-Haul over for a traffic violation.  But the driver refused to stop.  

The rogue U-Haul led officers down the freeways of Orange County for more than an hour, forcing police to blow out the U-Haul’s tires.  That’s when the rental truck stopped in its tracks and flipped around, so the two people in it were facing the swarm of officers that had been on their tail. 

The driver looked unamused. But his passenger? She looked terrified.

This was just a fraction of the terror Helen Simmons said she’d endured since she’d met Matthew Jones just a couple weeks before on a dating app. And the end of this police chase would put Helen on another wild journey into the gray area of the criminal justice system.  

Is she a suspect, a victim or both? 

The robbery

Four days earlier, on July 12, 2022, the employees at Andrew Z Diamonds + Fine Jewelry in Anthem, Ariz. were getting ready to close the store.

It was minutes before 6 p.m.  The jewelry had already been moved out of the cases.  But the front door hadn’t been locked yet.

Suddenly, two people covered head-to-toe in black clothing and black helmets burst through the door.  One had a gun and aimed it toward the staff still in the front of the store.  The other had a hammer and started smashing the glass cases.

As staff ran toward the back, the guy with the gun moved forward.  Then, the jeweler came out with his own gun to confront the robbers.  The suspect with the gun opened fire, striking the jeweler multiple times.  

The suspects fled out the front door, leaving the jeweler fighting for his life.  The robbers didn’t get any jewelry. The whole ordeal lasted 22 seconds.  

“How did they decide to choose this little store in Anthem? That's what bothers me,” said Joe Alvarez.

Alvarez, a longtime Anthem resident, was on the other side of the shopping center when the shooting happened. 

“And all of a sudden, we saw police. Everything [was] happening here,” he said.  

Within minutes, the parking lot was swarming with police and first responders.  The jeweler was rushed to a hospital.   Surveillance footage showed the pair arriving on a motorcycle.  But their getaway was a big mystery.

“They wanted cash, whether that was for things they do or whatever, but it was amateurs,” Alvarez said. “You could tell it was amateurs.”

There were five people working in the store at the time of the shooting and robbery attempt.  12News is not naming any store employees to respect their request for privacy.

When the 12News I-Team interviewed Alvarez in 2023, he was serving as president of the Anthem Rotary Club. The club even put on a car wash that raised thousands of dollars for the victims.  For Alvarez, this was personal.  He knows the store owner and the jeweler. 

“He’s lucky to be alive,” Alvarez said.

Despite multiple gunshot wounds causing significant injuries, the jeweler survived the shooting.

As the community rallied around the jeweler and the other store employees, the suspects were still at large.  

A little bit of relief?

Investigators started tracking down surveillance footage and interviewing eyewitnesses.  They learned they might be looking for a U-Haul that had been staged by the store.

That leads us back to that U-Haul police chase, 400-miles away in southern California.

After police blew out the tires and surrounded the truck, they ordered the pair inside to get out. 

Miles Madison, a photojournalist with County News Service, caught it all on camera.

“The driver just had a face of defeat,” Madison remembered. “I think he knew exactly what was going to happen. He was going to jail for a long time. And I remember the female was visibly upset. I don't know if she was actually crying or had tears, but you could tell that she was upset.”

Police in Huntington Beach took 22-year-old Matthew Jones and 18-year-old Helen Simmons in custody on charges stemming from the police chase.  Their descriptions also matched the suspects in the Anthem armed robbery case.  

Police found a motorcycle packed in the back of the truck along with black clothing, helmets and a hammer.

“It was a sense of relief. Right?” said Joe Alvarez. “Okay, they've got them. So they're not going to do it again.”

The arrest and Madison’s U-haul chase footage was all over the news in Arizona.  Some reports referred to the arrestees as being like Bonnie and Clyde.

“They just seemed so defeated,” Madison recalled. “It seemed like everything was coming down. It almost seemed like there was a little bit of relief.”

Relief?

“You'd think it was like a Bonnie and Clyde-type of situation, they'd be like - they’re getting split up,” Madison said.  “Like ‘I'm so sad to see you go, we've been together this time.’ I didn't see that type of reaction.”

What the footage doesn’t capture, is what suspect Helen Simmons told investigators after her arrest in California.  That this was a moment she’d been waiting for.  Someone to get her away from Matthew Jones.  A guy she met only weeks before - who she said wouldn’t let her go.

This series discusses sexual assault, trafficking and suicide.  Please read and watch with care.

Helen Simmons was finally separated from Matthew Jones when police arrested them both in Huntington Beach on July 16, 2022.

The two were taken into custody on charges related to the U-Haul chase. When Helen was taken to the jail at the Huntington Beach Police Department, she asked to speak with officers to share her side of the story.

‘Beyond the scope of anything she would do’

At 18 years old, Helen was preparing to start school at Arizona State University and was planning to live with her sister, Natasha, in Phoenix.

“I know the kind of person she is,” Natasha said. “I’m aware of the - I think the capacity of what she would do. And this is so far beyond the scope of anything that she would do.”

According to phone records provided by Helen’s mother, Helen left her home in Vermont and arrived in Phoenix on June 29, 2022. Helen said she would meet Matthew Jones within two days.

Her family described Helen as creative and ambitious, but Helen described some struggles at home. 

Helen told a forensic interviewer that as a child, her parents’ divorce was hard on her.  Helen said she moved between her parents’ places in New Hampshire and later Vermont.

She said she’d smoke and drink, sometimes even at school, and briefly tried some harder drugs.  

At one point, she said she wound up staying with her high school boyfriend, but that didn’t work out.  In 2021, Helen’s brother-in-law died by suicide, according to Helen and her family.

“Being young and she just barely came out of a kind of crazy relationship and stuff, I think she was seeking that connection with someone,” said Natasha.

A connection Helen said she found on a dating app.

“At first he was very sweet to her, I guess, of what she said,” recalled Natasha.  “And so, I didn't really think anything of it while she was there.” 

But for Helen and Matthew, things moved very quickly.

“Kind of like she met him and all of a sudden she's gone type of thing,” Natasha said. “I was concerned, but I don't know.  I figured it was just some teenage infatuation type of thing.”

Helen stayed the night with Jones the first night they met. And the next night. And the night after that.

“I tried to talk to her about it a little bit,” Natasha said. “But it was difficult to get information out of her.”

Text messages from Tuesday, July 5, 2022:

Natasha: Is everything going okay with him?

Helen: Yes

But things were not okay.

A victim of human trafficking?

Helen Simmons had only known Matthew Jones for about two weeks before they went to rob the jewelry store in Anthem.

When they were arrested four days after the robbery in California, Helen told police in Huntington Beach that she was a victim of domestic violence and trafficking.

Later in the day, two officers told her they wanted to talk to her as a victim.

“I honestly don't care about the crime,” the Huntington Beach officer told Helen in an interrogation room. “We were told that you're a victim of human trafficking. So, we're here to talk to you as a victim.” 

The 12News I-Team obtained video footage of Helen’s interview with Huntington Beach police that appears to show Helen speaking with two male officers.

“So, you meet him on Tinder?” an officer asked.

“Yeah,” Helen replied.

She said she met with Jones and stayed with him willingly, at first. But then, when she wanted to leave, she told the officers that Jones refused to give her a ride home.

Helen said he started controlling her food, clothes and phone.  As the days passed, she said he still wouldn’t let her go home.  There was only one time.  Helen said Jones took her by her sister’s apartment to grab some of her stuff while Natasha wasn’t there, but he wouldn’t let her stay.

When Helen said she tried to leave on her own, things turned violent.

“He ended up choking me and then throwing me on the bed,” Helen said.  “He had duct tape around my head - not just my mouth, but my head and my hair. He went around two or three times. And then he handcuffed my arms behind my back and then tied my legs together and told me that if I move, he's going to shoot me and grabbed his gun and put it to my head.” 

Natasha said she had no idea how much trouble her sister was in.

“I guess he said not to tell us his true name,” Natasha said. 

Looking back, there were some signs that things weren’t right.

“There were a couple of times where she had texted me to come pick her up,” Natasha remembered.

According to Natasha, Helen first asked for a ride over a phone call and when Natasha asked for the address, phone records reviewed by the I-Team show that Helen responded by sending a screen-shot of Matthew’s sister’s apartment complex.

But soon after, Helen texted back that everything was fine.

“And then later, she told me that each time he had taken control of her phone,” Natasha said.

On July 11, the night before the robbery, Helen told investigators that she tried to leave again.

“But he got out of the shower as I was leaving and he absolutely flipped out,” Helen said. ”Like, he grabbed me and he started choking me like really bad.  He hit me and I know he bit me right here.”

She pointed to her right eye. 

“That's how I have the black eye because that was the day he punched me in the eye,” she said.

And this time, Helen said there was a witness.

“His sister was there,” she explained. “And she saw that I was begging her to give me a ride home.”

Helen said Jones took her from the apartment before his sister could intervene. They wound up at a motel in Scottsdale for the night.  She told police she tried to end her life or hurt herself so she could be taken to a hospital.

That evening, Natasha received more text messages from Helen’s phone.

Text messages from Monday, July 11, 2022 – 8:42 PM

Helen: You home?

Helen: I need a ride please

Helen: Lol

Helen: Can u text me not call

Helen: ?

Natasha: My phone was on silent. Where do you need a ride to?

Helen: Home

Helen: From Scottsdale

Helen: For real this time.

Natasha: Send me the address and I’ll come get you

But like before, Helen scaled it back.

Helen: I can get a ride

Helen: In the morning

Helen: Everything is okay I just want to go home 

Natasha: I don’t mind coming to get you. Whatever works for you

Helen: Tomorrow is best

Text messages from Tuesday, July 12 2022 – 8:45 AM

Helen: I’ll be home in the afternoon time 

Natasha: See you then (smiley face emoji)

“Then she said later, like, ‘No, everything's fine. I'm gonna have him drop me off at your house tomorrow,’” Natasha said. “So, I waited for her the next day to show up.”

Helen never came home.

Sex for money

The investigators in Huntington Beach said Helen’s allegations of abuse in Arizona were out of their jurisdiction. Still, they continued to ask her about her allegations that she was trafficked in California.  

“He's been making me take pills and stuff and putting things under my tongue,” she told the officers in the interview video. “I don't even remember. I don't even know what day it is. I don't even know half of what's gone on anymore. I know I've had to f*** random guys for money and I don't get to keep any of the money.”

Helen told the officers that Matthew Jones put pictures of her online, advertising sex for money. She admitted it had all been a blur, but said she remembered Jones arranged meet ups with at least four men.

She said the men would get motel rooms or they would go directly to their homes.

“Is this something where you are agreeing to have sex with them for money if you got to keep the money, but now he's stealing the money from you, when you get back to the car? Is it like that?” asked one of the Huntington Beach officers. “Or is he forcing you to go in and get raped? Because there's a big difference.”

“So let me explain it,” Helen said. “So, I told him, ‘I don't want to be around you. I don't like you. I want to leave as soon as I can.’ And he's like, ‘Well, you cannot leave me until we both have enough money to be set by ourselves.’ And so, he was like, ‘You have to do these things, in order to leave me, in order to have the money to leave me.”

“And what do you mean by these things?” the investigator asked Helen.

“Like, f*** random people,” she replied.

“Did he give you an amount that you each needed to get?” the investigator asked.

“350 at least,” Helen said.

“Doesn’t go very far with inflation,” remarked one of the officers.

“I just wish I would have gone home,” she said later. “It just pisses me off. Because I don't know how I could have left and everybody's like, ‘Why didn't you just leave it?’ I was so scared.”

Helen felt like she did try to leave.  She thinks back to the messages with her sister, her attempts to escape that she said always ended in violence. 

She told the investigators that she didn’t try to fight back after he tied her up.

“Once he gets control of you, then that's kind of the weapon that he's going to use to keep you in line,” one of the officers told Helen.

Helen reported that she tried to help herself in California, too.  She said she let a motel worker know she was in trouble.  She even said she told one of the men she was forced to meet.  When she tried leaving one of the motel rooms, Helen said Matthew Jones grabbed her and choked her until she almost passed out.

“You want to be a victim of domestic violence with him?” one of the officers asks.

“Yeah,” Helen said. 

A confession

Although Helen was being interviewed as a victim, she remained a suspect in the Anthem robbery case.

While Helen was speaking with the Huntington Beach police officers, two detectives from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrived from Arizona.

They take over questioning and Helen starts her story again. 

This is all recorded on the same video as the interview with HBPD.  She told MCSO about meeting Matthew Jones, moving in with him right away.

“Almost immediately, I started seeing super red flags,” she said.

She described the physical abuse again.  Referencing her black eye.  She said Jones always tried to stop her from leaving.  She told them that Jones’ sister witnessed him being violent.  She told them he made her have sex for money in California.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” one of the MCSO detectives told Helen.

“I put myself in the situation,” she replied.

Helen shared another attempt to harm herself, another attempt to escape.

“I just didn't want to do this,” Helen said.  “I still don't, but I mean, I thought that the only way I could get out of the situation was to kill myself.”

“Sounds like he's made you do some pretty horrible things,” the detective stated.

“Yeah,” Helen replied. “I don't even know if I can live with it.”

“What's the worst thing you think he's ever made you done?” the detective asked.

At first, Helen told the MCSO detectives that the worst thing was the sex for money in California.  They talk again about her allegations in Arizona and ask Helen if she wants to be a victim there, too.

Helen asked what that would entail, and the detectives said that if they’re able to determine a crime took place, she’d have to go to court and testify to what she was telling them in this interview.  

“Okay yeah,” Helen said. “I’d do that.”

The detectives keep pressing.

“What’s the worst thing he ever made you do?” the detective asked again.

Helen started to cry. 

“He made me take all these pills and he told me that if I don't help rob the diamond store, then he’s going to kill me and kill my sister,” she said through tears.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Helen told them. “He made me. I just wanted to go home. I know you know. He made me. He was gonna kill me.”

Helen told the officers she’d tell them whatever they wanted to know. 

“I was so scared I was gonna get shot,” she told the MCSO detectives. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

When Helen first sat down in this interview room, she was told she was being interviewed about what she said Matthew Jones did to her. 

According to the video recording, she was never told otherwise when the MCSO detectives first came into the picture.  But that changed after she started talking about the robbery.

One of the detectives read Helen her Miranda rights.  She told them that she understood her rights.  And they asked her to start again from the beginning.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Helen asked. “I'm scared to talk. I’m scared I’m going to go to jail.”

“We don't have any charges right now,” one of the detectives said.

According to the footage, Helen answered all of the MCSO detectives’ questions about the robbery.  She told them that Matthew Jones told her what to do.  He told her to smash the glass.  She said he forced her at gunpoint inside the store and threatened her life and her sister’s life if she didn’t listen to him.

“And then I heard a few shots go off,” Helen remembered. “And I didn't know who it was. I just dipped out that door. And I was like, ‘I just want to go home.’”

She said she and Jones left on the motorcycle and went to a U-Haul they had parked nearby.  She said Jones put her in the back with the motorcycle, while he got in the front and started driving.  Helen said she didn’t know they were in California until Jones stopped and let her out of the back of the truck.

The MCSO detectives left the room after finishing their questions about the robbery. 

Her cries for help

As Helen sat alone in the police department room, she started to sob.  She was still being recorded on the police interrogation camera.

“Somebody please help me!” Helen cried out.

She moved off of her chair and sat down in the corner of the room.  She pulled two chairs in front of her, building a barricade of sorts around her.  She continued to sob to herself.

“I didn’t do anything, he made me do it!,” she cried.  “I’m scared.  I’m scared. Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me. Please.”

The video showed that she cried in the corner for about six minutes until the Huntington Beach investigators came back into the room.  

“Nobody is going to hurt you,” one of the officers said. “Do you want to go home or not?”

“I really want to go home,” Helen said.  “I’m so scared.” 

She started to get up from the corner and sit back down at the table.

“Let's act like an adult,” the Huntington Beach police officer said.

The gray area

This balancing act between suspect and victim puts this whole case in a big gray area.

“Coming from such a traumatic situation and then just thrown into jail, thrown into an interrogation room,” Natasha said. “Her mind was so messed up from like trauma and the drugs he had her on. She didn't even have a lawyer present while they were talking to her, because she didn't think to ask for one.”

We can’t know for sure who sent what messages from Helen’s phone. But there were more messages sent to Natasha after the robbery, when Helen said Matthew told her to get in the back of the U-Haul as he drove to California. 

Messages from July 12, 2022:

Helen: Hey I’m going to stay with him longer

Helen: I can’t leave yet

Natasha: Okay

“I was scared,” Helen’s sister Natasha said.  “I think back to that a lot, and I wish I would have done more.” 

In the Huntington Beach police room, Helen was starting to feel hopeful.  She was finally free of Matthew Jones and thought she finally might be able to go home.

“Sounds like you're gonna get to go home but we have a search warrant for some things from you,” the Huntington Beach investigator told her. “And then once that is done, you'll be good to go home.” 

Helen said she was never taken for an exam after disclosing she was abused and trafficked, but records show analysts with Maricopa County did take some photographs. One of them appears to show Helen with a black bruise around her right eye.

These photographs weren’t part of her case as a victim.  They took the same kind of photos of Matthew Jones, all on a warrant for the jewelry store robbery case.  From here, she’d eventually be booked in a jail in Orange County.

“Don't be scared,” one of the Huntington Beach investigators told her.  “I think the stuff you've been doing - what you told me about for the past couple of weeks is way more scary than jail.”

The Huntington Beach investigators head toward the door with Helen and walk out. 

“Good luck to you in the future here,” one of the officers said as they left the room. “Let's not meet any more dudes on Tinder.”

Helen stayed in jail in Orange County until August, when she was extradited to Arizona and booked in the Maricopa County Estrella jail.  

Matthew Jones was prosecuted in California for the U-Haul chase and sent to a California prison, according to a spokesperson from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.  Jones stayed in prison until MCSO filed to extradite him back to Arizona, too.  

The I-Team learned this wasn’t Jones’ first time in prison. In fact, he had a history of hurting women.

“He was in prison for keeping a woman against her will before,” Natasha said.

This series discusses sexual assault, trafficking and suicide.  Please read and watch with care.

Helen Simmons knew Matthew Jones had already been to jail when they met, but said he lied about why.

“They can pretend to be somebody they’re not,” Helen during a phone call with the I-Team. “And that's what happened with me.” 

The I-Team spent nearly four hours speaking with Helen over the course of several days while she was in the Maricopa County Estrella jail.  

“The night I met him, he was very persistent about us hanging out that night,” Simmons told the I-Team during a phone call from the Maricopa County Estrella Jail. 

“It was all manipulation, there was no, there was no relationship,” she added. 

A history of hurting women

The I-Team learned that Matthew Jones was in an Arizona prison before he met Helen. In fact, he was released just two weeks before she said they met.

According to court records, Jones was serving time for aggravated assault and unlawful imprisonment. The details from court records show striking similarities to the accusations Jones now faces from Helen. 

Court records indicate he assaulted a woman he met online in 2020 when he was 20 years old. 

Police wrote he abused the woman over the course of six weeks in Arizona and California. When she asked to leave, Jones hit her. When she attempted to escape, he attacked her, suffocating her. 

The woman managed to send a message to her mother: “send police now,” and Jones was ultimately arrested.  

Police later recorded the woman’s injuries, including bruising, bite marks, signs of strangulation and a broken nose. 

He served more than a year in prison in Arizona for that case.  But the I-Team learned, it was not Jones’ first conviction. 

Court records indicate Jones had several convictions in California, including assault and domestic violence.

In July 2022, Jones was facing new charges with Helen, all related to the jewelry store robbery. 

Although Helen opened up to investigators about the robbery and what she said Matthew Jones did to her, Matthew Jones decided not to talk.

“I would rather speak when I have an attorney with me - present,” Jones told detectives. 

The investigators walked out of the room and Jones made no further statements, according to video obtained by the I-Team. 

Both Jones and Simmons were later charged with multiple felonies, including aggravated assault, endangerment, kidnapping and attempted robbery. Jones faced one additional charge for having a gun as a prohibited possessor. 

They each faced decades in prison and each entered not guilty pleas. 

“Significant harm to the community” 

In Maricopa County Superior Court, Helen’s legal defense argued to lower Helen’s bond.

“I fully believe my client is a victim in this case,” said Kamille Dean, one of Helen’s attorneys told a judge during a court hearing. “She was kidnapped, held captive forced to do sexual acts and also drugged up.”

Helen’s defense used Jones’ criminal history to support Helen’s story.

“We have proof that the co-defendant had just been in prison for unlawful imprisonment. He had done similar things with someone else,” Dean told the court. 

The prosecutor, however, saw the case very differently.

“She's a danger. She went into that jewelry store smashing the cases,” the prosecutor said in court. “She was angry. She participated in planning it. She helped him and she herself admitted she was left in the U-Haul with multiple opportunities without a co-defendant.”

“There is significant harm to the community with her being outside,” the prosecutor added.

The prosecutor pointed out what she saw as opportunities for Helen to get away or ask for help. 

Before the jewelry store robbery, investigators found video of Helen inside the U-Haul store, renting the U-Haul, without Jones in the building with her.  

“I just wish that everybody will understand that,” Helen told the I-Team over the phone. “That's not me. I just did that because I didn't want to die.  I went in there scared, scared as every other person was in there. I didn't hurt anybody. I didn't come near anybody. I just broke glass.” 

To Helen, the threats didn’t seem empty. She said Matthew Jones did know where her sister lived.  He picked her up the very first night they met. She also said they stopped by the house one other time when Natasha wasn’t home.  That’s when Helen said Matthew must have swiped a necklace and her sister’s engagement ring from her late husband.  

Investigators also found surveillance video of Helen entering a pawn shop and getting cash for her sister’s engagement ring, as she said Jones waited outside. The video shows she was in the pawn shop for 20 minutes, but never asked anyone in the store for help. 

“That's something I struggle with,” Helen said. “You know, I had to go in and get rid of my dead brother's ring,” Helen said. 

“I was afraid for my life,” she added. “If I had not been what he said I would be dead.”

Forced criminality

Dominique Roe-Sepowitz is the program director for ASU’s Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research. She learned of Helen’s case in 2023.

“You can be both,” Roe-Sepowitz said. “You can be a victim and have other people that are affected by your victimization. Those two can coexist.”

Roe-Sepowitz spent more than eight hours interviewing Helen in jail about this case. 

“Our system has to do better,” Roe-Sepowitz said. “We have to be more sensitive. We have to be more aware.”

“I have read all the reports related to the case and looked at the evidence,” she said. I'm not an investigator. I'm a college professor, but I know an awful lot about human trafficking and trauma and violence. And her story makes sense.” 

Roe-Sepowitz pointed out key signs of trafficking in Helen’s allegations against Jones. She said he controlled her food, sleep, he isolated her, and forced sex without her consent. She explained that forced criminality, where a victim can be forced to commit other crimes.

“As you break a person down, they're less and less likely to think on their own to have the natural ability to defend themselves,” Roe-Sepowitz explained. “And in two weeks, he did that amazingly well. Systematically. What to eat. What to wear. How to clean. How to brush your teeth. How to shower. You belong to me.” 

“I’m here watching over you…”

That sense of ownership came through in Matthew Jones’ own words, in a letter he wrote to Helen while they were both behind bars in California.

“I’m here watching over you making sure you alright Jus remember that.” Jones wrote. 

In the letter, Jones described graphic sex acts and told Helen she looks good “skinny.” 

“So dont eat a lot over here!!” he wrote. 

He reminded Helen not to talk. 

“While we dealing with this the best thing we can do is not snitch on ourself because we wanna talk about what did\didnt happen,” he wrote. “Keep what happend inside your head and don’t screw over urself.”

Instead of signing his name, Matthew Jones wrote “- God.” 

“He signs his name as God, which is what he made me call him,” Helen said. 

Helen said she didn’t respond to the letter and turned it over to investigators.

“If we believe that people will drink poison for a cult leader, why do we not believe that a person will commit a crime with someone else who has broken them down so systematically?” Roe-Sepowitz said. 

In addition to meeting Roe-Sepowitz, Helen also participated in a forensic interview for her defense. 

After interviewing Helen at length, a psychiatrist concluded, in part:  “If Helen Simmons’ account…is true…she would have believed that she was compelled to engage in the… offense by the threat and use of immediate physical force against her…and her sister by Mr. Jones…which would result in their deaths, and that resistance would increase the likelihood of said harm.”

Court records show Jones wrote a separate letter to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, blaming Helen for the crime. 

Neither Jones nor his attorney agreed to an interview with the I-Team. 

Another interview with police

Helen was released on bond in December 2022. She began living with her sister, taking classes, and still hoped for charges against Matthew Jones. 

In January 2023, Helen went to speak with an MCSO detective again about her allegations.

Katrina Ontiveros, an advocate who used to work with Helen’s attorney, went with Helen to the interview.

“He's a predator,” Ontiveros said, referring to Matthew Jones. “He goes after women and he abuses them.” 

This time, the interview with the investigator lasted more than three hours and Helen shared more details.

Recounting how she met Jones, she told the detective about an incident in which Jones held her leg to his motorcycle and intentionally burned her. She said it was an injury that was photographed when she was arrested. 

Then, she told the detective Jones sexually assaulted her after tying her up when she tried to leave his sister’s apartment.

“He's like ‘I own you,’” Helen told the detective. “He's like, ‘You're my slave. So whatever I want you to do you have to do.’”

“I was crying, sobbing,” Helen added. “He’s like, ‘this is what happens when you don’t listen to me.” 

Helen told the detective that Jones sexually assaulted her one other time at his sister’s apartment in Scottsdale.  She said he also sexually assaulted her at a motel the night before the robbery and forced her to have sex with another man in exchange for drugs.

Helen told the detective that she didn’t feel like she had the chance to share every detail when she was first questioned in California.

But these new details would become a problem for Helen in the developing criminal case.  The “inconsistencies,” as the detective called them, would cast doubt on her story.

This series discusses sexual assault, trafficking and suicide.  Please read and watch with care.

While limited records exist of the days Helen and Jones knew one another in July 2022, the I-Team did find one documented incident. On July 11, 2022, one day before the robbery, Scottsdale police responded to a call for help from Matthew Jones’ sister.

According to police records, Jones’ sister reported she was concerned about her brother’s friend named Helen.

Jones’ sister believed there was a possible “confrontation” and described Helen as having “two black eyes.” She said that her brother and Helen already left the apartment before police responded.  

The police did not make contact with Matthew Jones or Helen and they did not make a report, though they did provide the I-Team with their notes from the call log. 

Ultimately, Scottsdale police considered the incident a “welfare check” and did no further investigation. 

“We have to be careful about saying someone should have done something if we didn't give them enough to go on,” said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, with the ASU Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research. 

“She didn't call 911,” Roe-Sepowitz said of Helen and the Scottsdale police department. "She wasn’t there. They didn't interact with her.” 

Roe-Sepowitz would later become involved in Helen’s case.

“I wish they had,” she added. “I think everybody wishes, including every single person involved in the case.” 

Helen didn’t talk to officers that day, but she did speak to Jones’ mother. 

The I-Team spoke with Jones’ mom in 2023 and asked about the phone call. She said she remembered speaking with Helen on the phone and said that she was fine. Jones’ mother said she didn’t know why Helen would say that if she was really in trouble. 

Helen would later tell police that Jones threatened her with a gun while she spoke to his mother.

“He did tie me up. And so I started to tell her about that, and he grabbed the phone from me, and, like, almost immediately hung up on her,” Helen later told a detective with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. “He's like, ‘I can't go home. You can't go home. So what are we supposed to do? This is all your fault. Like, now we're gonna have to go somewhere…’” 

More allegations of sex trafficking

That night, which was the night before the robbery, Helen said Jones did not take her back to his sister’s apartment. She did not return home to her own sister either. 

Instead, Helen later told police the two ended up at a motel in Scottsdale. There, she said that Matthew Jones made her have sex with an unknown man in exchange for drugs. Afterward, she said Jones sexually assaulted her again.

In hindsight, Helen now believes this was the first incident that she was trafficked. But on the day she was arrested in Huntington Beach, California, she told investigators all of the trafficking happened in California. 

“Why might someone in Helen’s position not realize that she's being trafficked?” the I-Team’s Erica Stapleton asked Roe-Sepowitz. 

“I don’t think a lot of people understand the parameters of what trafficking is,” Roe-Sepowitz said. 

“I think people don't understand because they maybe don't understand what human trafficking is,” said Jenelle Goodrich. 

Goodrich runs From Silenced to Saved, a nonprofit that, in part, helps human trafficking survivors navigate the criminal justice system in Colorado. 

“They assume that they're being snatched off the street and being held against their will in these physical chains and basements, and they're not,” Goodrich said. “It's psychological chains of coercion and control.”

Goodrich is not involved in Helen’s case and has never met her, but laid out what questions her organization may ask while screening a possible victim. 

“Do you have control of your documents? Do you have control of your own money? Are you able to come and go as you want?” Goodrich said. “Are you ever in fear if you don't do what your partner is asking you to do?” 

“Do you see that they only have the clothes on their back?” she added. “Do you see that maybe they're a little malnourished? Maybe they're not eating as much as they should?” 

Still, Goodrich acknowledged that even if a person may appear to be a victim based on those questions, signs of trafficking could be overlooked if the person is also a suspect.  

“The problem is people seem to forget that we can have two of the same true thoughts, even if they're different, right?” she said. “Just because you committed a crime doesn't mean that you can't also be a victim of a crime.”

Finding people who need help

In Arizona, Roe-Sepowitz and her team are working to better identify people who need help. 

In February 2023, her office launched a statewide human trafficking hotline and as of June 2024, they’ve had 193 calls.

Her team also partnered with MCSO on a program at the Estrella jail where women can flag themselves as victims of trafficking and connect with resources.

RELATED: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office discusses new ASU partnership to help investigate sex crimes

In the second half of 2023, nearly 100 women flagged at the jail were connected to these services. 

“What can we do before a person is trafficked when they are vulnerable?” Roe-Sepowitz said. “They need to know the language of it. They need to know what to look for. They need to know that if a Matthew Jones approaches them, what he is saying and what that means, and have the words for it to keep themselves safe.”

Helen now says she didn’t spot all the warnings, and some she ignored. 

“It can happen to anybody,” Helen told the I-Team.  “I never thought it’d happen to me but it did.”

Still, she questions whether anything else could have happened differently to help her. The I-Team found the following points of possible intervention:

• Matthew Jones’ sister called police for help, but Helen wasn’t there to speak to them

• Jones was on probation

• Jones is a prohibited possessor and shouldn’t have had a gun

• His felony record should have kept him off of Tinder

The I-Team found a copy of Tinder’s terms of use from 2022, when this would have happened.  The terms state that felons are prohibited from creating accounts. 

It also states that the company doesn’t do any criminal background checks and that Tinder is not responsible for the conduct of any member on or off the service.

A spokesperson for Tinder told the I-Team they didn’t have a record of Matthew Jones or Helen Simmons meeting and did not answer any other questions. 

Still, those things did not stop Helen from facing serious felony charges in the jewelry store robbery. 

In court, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Justin Beresky weighed Helen’s allegations of abuse against the charges she faced. 

“The fact that Ms. Simmons immediately when she was arrested, told the arresting officers what she had been through at the hands of Mr. Jones…it seems like there really may be an issue here of Ms. Simmons doing these things after being threatened with just not abuse but death threats, threats to her sisters’ lives, physical abuse, all kinds of things,” Beresky said. 

But he also recognized the prosecutor’s arguments. 

“You're going to argue that, at that point, she could have alerted someone, asked for help, ran away, something to get away from him,” the judge said. 

What occurred during the robbery attempt restricted what legal defenses Helen would be able to use in court.   

Helen said she was told would not be able to use the “duress” defense on some of the charges she faced because the victim in the robbery suffered serious injury.  Duress is the legal term used to describe someone who says they were coerced or forced into committing a crime.  

“Under the Arizona code, it's not available if someone was intentionally or recklessly injured with a serious physical injury during the course of what would otherwise be a crime,” the judge said.  “So…duress wouldn't be available to one of the more serious, if not multiple of the most serious charges, in the case.” 

Without that option to defend herself on some of the most serious charges, it seemed Helen’s only path forward would be through prison. 

This series discusses sexual assault, trafficking and suicide.  Please read and watch with care.

There’s no avoiding it.  Helen Simmons was going to prison.  

But there’s still a debate over whether she should be.

Helen turned 19 years old less than a month after the robbery.  She was facing decades in prison for her role in the Anthem armed robbery, along with her co-defendant Matthew Jones. Without the ability to use duress as a defense, Helen was afraid to take her chances at trial. 

Instead, she took a plea deal for kidnapping and aggravated assault, agreeing to 5 to 10 years in prison. Helen’s hired defense attorney called the deal “overly harsh” and an “injustice.”

Some of Helen’s family members and advocates hoped that the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office would charge Helen differently than Matthew Jones in the robbery case. They wanted law enforcement to investigate Helen’s claims that she was abused and trafficked by Jones, and that he forced her into the robbery.

“I do think she could have been charged differently in a way that that defense could have been used,” said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, with ASU’s Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research. 

Helen first met Dominique after agreeing to go to prison.  Helen was booked back in the Maricopa County Estrella Jail after signing the plea deal to await sentencing.  This time, she could flag herself as a victim of human trafficking in Dominique’s new program.  Dominique quickly became involved in Helen’s case.

“When do you think she should have been treated as a victim?” asked the I-Team’s Erica Stapleton.

“The day that she was picked up in Huntington Beach,” Dominique said. “She reported that she had been a victim of two crimes, a physical assault and trafficking and a sexual assault by a customer. That's where initially it should have happened. 

“When she came back to Maricopa County, she should have been treated as a victim there, as well,” Dominique added.

As the I-Team worked to substantiate Helen’s story, 12News reviewed records from police agencies in Arizona and California alongside evidence Helen’s defense team received from prosecutors, and records kept by Helen’s family. 

Together, these records showed possible opportunities to corroborate or disprove Helen’s claims that were apparently overlooked or uninvestigated. 

The California investigations 

In California, the I-Team learned that the Huntington Beach Police Department, the agency that first arrested Helen and Matthew Jones in the U-Haul chase, determined that her allegations of trafficking and abuse likely happened in Westminster and Costa Mesa, Calif. 

HBPD sent copies of its report to agencies in those cities as “courtesy reports,” and both Costa Mesa and Westminster police departments filed reports where Helen is listed as the victim.  Helen told the I-Team she didn’t know either of those agencies filed reports on her behalf until the I-Team tracked down the records. 

Even though three separate agencies in California were aware of Helen’s allegations, it was unclear to what extent her claims were investigated. 

A spokesperson for Costa Mesa police told the I-Team that Huntington Beach did the investigation.  The Huntington Beach and Westminster Police Departments did not respond to our requests for an interview.

Helen was also shocked to learn that both Costa Mesa and Westminster departments wrote in their files that Helen was not a victim of sex trafficking. 

A Costa Mesa report said Helen was having sex with men “by choice” and had “multiple attempts to leave.” 

Westminster police wrote that Helen changed her story; that she was “consensually having sex with people to make money” and “posted nude photos of herself.” 

The Westminster report showed this information came from the Huntington Beach police report, but it doesn’t reflect what Helen said to HBPD detectives in the interview. 

Excerpt of Helen’s interview with HBPD:

Helen: …basically he would post my picture.  Like, post pictures of me, like dressed, naked, whatever.  Make a profile of me and he would get these guys -  like, these guys would text me and stuff and he would text them, talk to them.

We also reviewed part of the recorded interview where HBPD investigators ask Helen about the trafficking allegations. 

Excerpt of Helen’s interview with HBPD: 

HBPD Investigators: Is this something where you are agreeing to have sex with them for money if you got to keep the money, but now he's stealing the money from you when you get back to the car? Is it like that? Or is he forcing you to go in and get raped? Because there's a big difference.

Helen: So let me explain it. So I told him, I'm like, ‘I don't want to be around you. I don't like you. I want to leave as soon as I can.’ And he's like, ‘Well, you cannot leave me until we both have enough money to be set by ourselves.’ And so he was like, ‘You have to do these things, in order to leave me in order to have the money to leave me.’

HBPD Investigators: And what do you mean by ‘these things?’

Helen: Like, f*** random people.

HBPD Investigators: How much? Did he give you an amount that you each needed to get?

Helen: 350 At least, like 350 bucks, at the least.

HBPD Investigators: Doesn’t go very far with inflation, where it's at, you know.

“That's coercion,” said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz. “That's what coercion looks like: ‘If you do this, you sell sex for me, I will release you.’” 

 Helen denies changing her story to say she wasn’t trafficked. 

“I had bruises all over my body, they took pictures of it,” Helen said. “I had also told them that I had been sexually assaulted and choked unconscious that day, and I hear that there's forensic tests that they could have done...” 

In June 2024, the I-Team traveled to California and attempted to retrace Helen’s journey in an effort to learn more beyond the limited police reports. 

The manager at the motel referenced in police reports in Westminster did not want to speak with us, but an employee at the motel in Costa Mesa said he vaguely remembered Helen, Matthew Jones and the U-Haul.

He said he didn’t remember whether he talked to police about the case, or if they turned over any camera footage and said the camera system was replaced last year anyway. Any possible footage of the pair was long gone.

It’s also not clear if any California police departments ever got records from Helen or Jones’ phones.

Records show those phones were taken into evidence by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, and are still apparently there. 

Still, Helen’s mother provided the I-Team with her phone’s call log from that time. The I-Team found four unknown numbers from California from the time frame she said Matthew Jones forced her to have sex for money with at least four men.

Two of the men who answered denied knowing Helen Simmons. When the I-Team called the other two numbers, no one answered. It’s unclear whether any police agency attempted to contact these numbers.

Helen said she never heard from Huntington Beach police after her interview with officers.  She was in jail when the cases in Costa Mesa and Westminster were filed and said she never heard from those agencies either.

Westminster police wrote that “due to lack of information and evidence, and the inability to interview Simmons, this crime is unfounded and the case will be closed pending contact with Simmons.”

Costa Mesa police submitted the report to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for review. The DA declined to prosecute, saying the case could be resubmitted if there was further investigation. 

“I think that we missed our opportunities to support a person who had been victimized because we were clouded,” Roe-Sepowtiz said. “We, as the big we, were clouded by her participation in a crime.” 

The Arizona Investigations 

Back in Arizona, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office also opened a case where Helen is listed as a victim.  

Helen hoped detectives there would speak to Matthew’s sister to substantiate her allegations of abuse the day before the robbery. 

Helen began asking MCSO about this when she was arrested in California. She followed up a month later, and again in January 2023. The first documented attempt by MCSO to reach Matthew Jones’ sister was in April 2023.  An MCSO spokesperson told the I-Team that Jones’ sister has never gotten back to them to set up a time to talk. 

Over text, a person who said she is Matthew Jones’ sister responded to the I-Team. She didn’t answer questions about the case. 

The I-Team also spoke to Jones’ mother in September 2023. She did not want to appear on-camera and declined to do an interview, but said that it was possible her son could have forced Helen to do things. She questioned why Helen would have stayed with him. 

As of July 2024, MCSO said investigators have not attempted to make contact with Matthew Jones’ mother or anyone else in his family, aside from his sister.

The I-Team also learned that Helen and the detective on her case in Arizona were not on the same page.

In reports, the detective wrote that Helen “never divulged being sexually assaulted” by Matthew Jones before the robbery when she was initially arrested. 

However, in a January 2023 follow-up interview, Helen did say Jones sexually assaulted her in Arizona. The detective wrote he wanted to follow-up with Helen to “discuss inconsistencies in previous interviews.” 

Records indicate the follow-up never happened.  From Helen’s perspective, her story and the details aren’t inconsistent. 

“They seemed like they were more interested in getting a confession in the criminal case,” Helen said of the first time she spoke with MCSO detectives. 

“I blocked a lot of it out of my mind,” Helen added. “It took a lot of therapy for me to be able to really think about it, talk about it. But I told them everything I could physically and mentally tell them at the time.”

The I-Team also discovered that the same detective investigating Helen’s claims of abuse was also investigating the robbery case where Helen was a suspect.  A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said this is not a conflict of interest and each allegation is investigated independently. 

In August 2023, after Helen signed the plea agreement, a new detective met with Helen in jail and opened a new case.  According to MCSO, this detective works sex trafficking cases, unlike the previous detective.  

These reports show the new detective looked into Helen’s allegation that she was forced to have sex in exchange for drugs at a Scottsdale motel the night before the robbery.

In September 2023, more than a year after Helen said they’d been there, the new detective asked the motel about Helen and Jones and wrote he was told their names didn’t come up in the motel’s records.

When the I-Team asked, a motel employee said he couldn’t find their names either. But the employee also said he couldn’t see records before 2023, making it impossible for the I-Team to confirm or deny if Helen Simmons and Matthew Jones were there in 2022.

As of July 2024, both of Helen’s cases with MCSO remain open. MCSO declined to do an interview about these cases.

Prosecuting Helen Simmons 

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office also declined the I-Team’s requests for an interview on this case.

An MCAO spokesperson said prosecutors could only focus on the case in front of them, the robbery.  No charges in Helen’s open cases against Jones have ever been submitted to MCAO for review.  Everything Helen said happened in California, happened after the robbery. 

Still, in court, the prosecutor said they did take Helen’s allegations into consideration. The prosecution offered Helen a plea deal of 5 to 10 years in prison, while offering Matthew Jones 20 to 30.  Jones also signed his plea offer.

The prosecutor’s job was to get justice for the victims in the jewelry store robbery, which meant prison time for both Matthew Jones and Helen Simmons.

“It's been really difficult to watch our criminal justice system,” said Roe-Sepowitz. “Our system responded to her only as a perpetrator, not as a victim and I think we have to be able to do both.”

Prosecuting people who are both victims and perpetrators can be controversial.  It’s something Jenelle Goodrich weighs in all of her cases. 

“I do think sometimes that prison is an appropriate option for people who have been involved in human trafficking,” she said. “And I do think that sometimes those second chances of deferred judgments are appropriate. I think it's a case-by-case basis.’ 

Again, Goodrich is not involved in Helen’s case, but part of her role with From Silenced to Saved in Denver is working with law enforcement and prosecutors trying to figure out what’s best for alleged victims who are also facing criminal charges.  She noted how challenging these sorts of cases can be.

“I've heard homicide detectives say that they would rather be in the homicide unit than the human trafficking unit because it's easier to prove a homicide than it is human trafficking,” she said. “If you don't have…that digital evidence and things like that to follow back, it really falls on the shoulders of a victim or a survivor. And that's a lot.”

Next time

You can watch Part 5: Unbelievable on 12News+ and all other 12News platforms right now. He Made Me Do It Part 6: If You Never Met will drop on 12News+ and all other 12News platforms starting on September 13,  2024. 

He Made Me Do It is a 12News I-Team series that uncovers where things went horribly wrong for Helen Simmons.  We look at whether someone can be both a suspect and a victim and whether someone could be forced to commit a crime.  We investigate if allegations of abuse were ignored and if anyone could have helped Helen before or after meeting a guy with a history of hurting women. We also follow Helen through the criminal justice system as she faces serious prison time.

'He Made Me Do It' docuseries

Catch up on the latest episodes of the 'He Made Me Do It' I-Team docuseries here.

Resources to keep yourself and others safe

If you or someone you know needs help, you can call or text 911

Human Trafficking Tip Line in Arizona: Call 1-877-4AZ-TIPS

National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call 988 

• Operates 24 hours a day
• Online chat option on website

National Human Trafficking Hotline: Call 1-888-373-7888

• Operates 24 hours a day

National Domestic Violence Hotline: Call 1-800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788

• Operates 24 hours a day
• Online Chat option on website
• If you are concerned your Internet history is being monitored, call 800-799-SAFE

National Sexual Assault Hotline: Call 1-800-656-4673

• Operates 24 hours a day
• Operated by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)
• Online chat option on website

Strong Hearts Native Helpline: 1-844-762-8483

• Operates 24 hours a day
• Online chat option on website

Dating Abuse/Teen Dating Abuse Hotline: 1-866-331-9474 or Text LOVEIS to 22522

• Operates 24 hours a day
• If you are concerned your Internet history is being monitored, you can call 1-866-331-9474
• Online chat option on website

Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence: Call 206-279-2980 or 800-782-6400

• Hours are Mon, Wed, Thu, Fri 8:30 - 5; Tues 8:30-7
• You can call, text, email or chat online
• Email is helpline@acesdv.org

ASU Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention and Research (STIR)

• Sex Trafficking resources in Arizona
  • Provides list of services by County and Service Type
• Contact STIR online

Phoenix Dream Center: Call 602-346-8716

• Provides resources for survivors of human trafficking
• Also provides resources for food assistance; housing; addiction

Solari Crisis Response Network: Call 1-800-203-CARE

• 24-hours a day crisis lines for those experiencing a mental health crisis
• Solari operates in Arizona and Oklahoma
• 211 Arizona Referral Service
• Eligibility and Care Services
• Homeless Management Information Services

La Frontera Trauma Healing Services 

• 24-hours a day services for individuals affected by sexual assault, domestic violence, or hate crimes
• Sexual assault hotline: 480-736-4949 or 866-205-5229
• LGBTIQ: 480-736-4925
• EMPACT 24-hour Crisis Hotline 480-784-1500 or 855-785-1500

UMOM New Day Centers: Call 602-275-7852

• Homeless services for families
• Contact 211 to be connected with homeless services

211 Arizona: Call 211

• Referral Service
• Operates 24-hours a day

Soul Survivor Ink

• Non-profit that helps survivors of human trafficking and prior gang affiliation in removal of “branding” tattoos and scars
• Scholarship application on website
• Contact form on website

Arizona Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith and Family

• Information on victim resources, training, hotlines and national programs