LOS ANGELES, April 17, 2008
"Black Widows" Guilty In Homeless Murders
Calif. Duo Convicted In Scheme To Collect $2.8M In Insurance Payouts After Staged Hit-And-Runs
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These photos released by the Los Angeles Police Department show insurance fraud suspects Helen Golay, left, and Olga Rutterschmidt, at a news conference Thursday, May 18, 2006, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/LAPD)
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Helen Golay, 77, listens as guilty verdicts are read against her in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, April 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Luis Sinco, Pool)
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Olga Rutterschmidt, charged with murdering two homeless men to collect insurance payouts, listens to the partial verdicts being read on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Luis Sinco, Pool)
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Grannies Convicted Of Murder
Jurors came to a partial verdict in the trial of two grannies who were convicted of collecting more than $2.8 million from the insurance proceeds of two homeless men they befriended and killed. Mark Coogan reports.
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The jury was deadlocked Thursday on another murder count and a conspiracy count against 75-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt.
She was convicted of murdering Kenneth McDavid. The judge has ordered the panel to reconvene Monday to try to decide the other two counts involving victim Paul Vados.
Rutterschmidt's co-defendant Helen Golay, 77, was found guilty Wednesday of the first-degree murders of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in 2005 and Paul Vados, 73, in 1999. The jury also convicted her of conspiracy to murder for financial gain counts in both killings.
From the start, the defendants' advanced ages kept the case in the headlines, drawing comparisons to the play and film "Arsenic and Old Lace," the Los Angeles Times reported. The killings came to be known as the Black Widow murders.
Prosecutors said the women collected $2.8 million from insurance policies on the lives of two homeless men who were killed in staged hit-and-run incidents.
Golay's convictions carry potential sentences of life in prison without possibility of parole. The single conspiracy count returned against Rutterschmidt carries a sentence of 25 years to life.
Jurors' struggles on some counts became evident Tuesday when they handed in some sealed verdicts and continued deliberating. On Wednesday, the panel asked for readings of testimony by three witnesses and a laptop to review DVDs entered in evidence.
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The women showed no reaction to the verdicts. Golay sat with her head close to her attorney and read along as the court clerk went through the charges.They didn't need this money. They weren't poor and destitute. They went out of their way to target men who had nothing.
Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace"Basically the ladies did not do very well today," Roger Jon Diamond, the attorney for Golay, said afterward.
But he said he was confident there were significant issues to raise on appeal of Golay's conviction.
Diamond said a key issue would be whether it was proper for the judge to admit a videotaped conversation between the women which was surreptitiously recorded by authorities while they were in a holding cell.
He said he felt the overall defense was harmed by the decision of Rutterschmidt's lawyer to attack Golay and suggest she was a killer.
Rutterschmidt's attorney did not comment.
Experts said the defendants made the prosecution's job easier by turning on each other, the Times reports. Attorneys for both women conceded in their closing arguments that McDavid was murdered, but each pinned the killing on the other.
Prosecutors said the women recruited their prey from among the homeless of Hollywood, invested thousands of dollars in insurance policies on them and in putting them up in apartments, then drugged them and ran them over in secluded alleys.
Both men initially appeared to have been victims of hit-and-run accidents, and police only linked the cases in late 2005 when a detective investigating one case overheard a colleague describe a very similar case.
In his closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace called the women "the worst of the worst."
"They didn't need this money. They weren't poor and destitute. They went out of their way to target men who had nothing," the prosecutor said.
Defense lawyers admitted the women were involved in insurance fraud but denied a murder conspiracy.
"We'll concede it's pretty sleazy what's going on here with the insurance," Diamond said in his closing. He said the idea was to insure old, sick homeless people who would die more quickly.
But prosecutors pointed out that most of the policies were for accidental death, not death due to natural causes.
By the end of the five-week trial, the women had turned on each other.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WHAT IS THAT LIKE 6 MONTHS, A YEAR TOPS BEFORE THEY ARE DEAD ANYWAY LOL
LOL
But of course, they will get to live out there rest of their lives in comfort and be fed three hot meals per day, all at the taxpayers expense.
This country''s "Justice System" is a TOTAL JOKE!
When are we the people going to take it back and DEMAND PUNISHMENT for these Heinous Crimes?
Posted by brianbwb at 09:57 AM : Apr 17, 2008
Thelma & Louise Part 2:
After faking thier deaths by appearing to drive off a cliff, they collect a large insurance claim & they retire in LA. Money starts to dry up & they start bumping off more men in more insurance scams.
They could even use the same actresses. They should be in thier 70''s by now.
Posted by jjarden
you have a point, but it start with the parents as well making sure their children are accountable for their actions. then if that failed, make them be accountable for the actions in jail, not the hilton.
human rights have gone too far.
''hey let go kill some homeless men for the money. i would have s e x with them a couple of times, we are going to kill em anyway. if we get caught, no biggie, i am a tired old woman and i would love to live in the hilton for a couple of years!''
The 2 Homeless men murdered will be forgoten.
Good ''ol liberal Hollyweird ending!
Hmmm, I don''t think Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis would appreciate what you just said. Now Susan Sarandon could be getting close, it is hard to tell. She I think keeps getting plastic surgery because she has a younger husband. But Geena Davis isn''t even close.
I actually didn''t like that movie. I think it was because Brad Pitt was in it.
Now there ya go! That is more like it!
What do you mean?
Would you please read the article. You might not make such a fool of yourself if you took the time toe read more than just the headline. You see, the article explains what happened and answers your idiodic statement.
Which for a 77 and 75 year old would be about 2-3 years before they die of old age
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by smurfcrusher
June 17, 2008 1:13 AM PDT
- ***! These hotties could turn Medusa to rock!
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