The effects of the death helmet or empathy belt are not applied to remote players' actors; the fact that they pick it up is shown (the item disappears), but they do not have any effect as far as what other players can see and or hear.
It's possible this is related to the hook in CActor::HandleBeingPickedUp and setting the properties at 0x238 on the player's actor, but would require additional research/investigation to nail it down. Mostly disabling the hook and seeing if it resolves the issue.