LOCOL NEWS
Murder case against women outlined
LAPD file photos
Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, top, and Helen Golay, 77, bottom.
Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, and Helen Golay, 77, allegedly took out life insurance policies on homeless men, then killed them.
They plucked the destitute off the street as “investments,” insured their lives for millions, then snuffed them out in staged hit-and-run accidents. They became so consumed by greed that they bickered over the money even after their arrests.
At least that’s how prosecutors Tuesday outlined their case against Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The septuagenarians stand accused of murdering a pair of Los Angeles homeless men in a chillingly deliberate scheme that required them to feed and shelter their victims for two years — the period after which insurance companies often cannot contest policies — before crushing them to death under cars in dark alleys.
“They waited for two years, with murder on their minds each of those days,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Truc Do told jurors in her opening statement. “They started this murder plot with greed, and you’re going to see that even when the jig was up, these defendants remained greedy.”
Do showed the jury portions of hidden camera videotapes that captured Golay, 77, and Rutterschmidt, 75, talking alone in a white-walled room, when they were taken into custody in May 2006 — initially on suspicion of fraud.
The tape was the highlight of evidence not previously disclosed in the case, which has drawn media coverage from around the world.
On the recording, as Golay urges her to stay quiet, Rutterschmidt angrily complains that her co-defendant might have led authorities to them by taking out too many policies on the dead men.
“Why did you make the extra insurances?” says the Hungarian-born Rutterschmidt, in her accented English. “Too many. . . . You can’t do that!”
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-olgahelen19mar19,0,6252440.story