By Michael J. Tittinger
Daily Press Staff Writer

OCEAN PARK — While the very nature of the charges being mounted against Helen Louise Golay are shocking, those who truly knew the 75-year-old Santa Monica property owner who will enter a plea today in federal court on 10 counts of insurance fraud are more intrigued by the case than floored by the news of who was allegedly behind the deadly plot.

Several of Golay’s tenants at 2817 Third St. have been talking about heading to downtown Los Angeles today as a group to see their landlady face the music in federal court.

Interested, yes. Shocked, not so much.

“Helen is Helen. I’m glad to see her in jail, actually, and not walking on the streets,” remarked one tenant, who asked not to be identified. “A 75-year-old woman going to jail ... nothing surprises me anymore.”

Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, of Hollywood, are accused of masterminding a devious plot to befriend homeless men, set them up with paid-for apartments and then cash in on their life insurance policies when they are killed in mysterious hit-and-run accidents.

In two separate instances, the women are accused of collecting more than $2 million in claims from 19 different policies taken out on the victims.

Another Third Street tenant, Emily Meyers, labeled Golay “a bully” from the time she moved in a month and a half ago. Meyers said Golay would repeatedly drive by the six-unit apartment complex, rolling by at a snail’s pace and eerily peering in her windows.

“She showed us the property one way, and then when we move in it would be another way,” said Meyers, a documentary filmmaker who’s considering Golay as her next subject. “Of course, any misunderstandings would rest with us.

“Things have been better since the arrest.”

Golay and Rutterschmidt were arrested on May 16 and held without bail. Rutterschmidt has been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Golay, meanwhile, was said last week to be “in transit,” according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Web site.

The women are reportedly suspects in last year’s deaths of 73-year-old Paul Vados in 1999 and 50-year-old Kenneth McDavid, after having become eligible for the life insurance payouts shortly before each of the men’s hit-and-run deaths that occurred in back alleys.

John Necich has lived in a condominium adjacent to Golay’s home at 424 Ocean Park Blvd. for the past 33 years, and had seen McDavid, who was homeless at the time, on countless occasions around the neighborhood. That is, up until the pair of septuagenarian women allegedly set him up with an apartment in the years leading up to his unsolved murder.

“She asked me how old I was one time and I told her it was none of her business,” recalled Necich last week, reasoning Golay was sizing him up as a potential target. “But they were looking for bums and whinos.”

According to the LAPD, the women were put under arrest on federal mail fraud charges because authorities feared the pair may have been on the prowl for new victims.

Necich said the tenants who lived in Golay’s building on Ocean Park Boulevard — her lone property exempt from rent control, according to Santa Monica city officials — were constantly changing over the years.

Sheldon Haupu recalled seeing Golay in the morning as he left his nearby residence for work each day, describing it as just “a ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ thing.” He also was on hand the Tuesday in which Golay got taken into custody.

“It was a trip, the FBI was all over the place,” said Haupu. “Ever since, I’ve seen a lot of people just coming around, checking out the place.”

Last Wednesday, authorities were back on the scene in the alley behind Golay’s pink stucco Ocean Park apartment building, taking pictures, rummaging through nearby trash bins and scraping the driveway floor for evidence, according to witnesses.

Necich said a brand new beige Mercedes SUV that sat dormant in the alley with no registration for more than a year was towed from the scene early last week. Golay drove another Mercedes about town, said Necich, even after having the SUV dropped off brand new in the alleyway.

“Two and a quarter million buys a lot,” he said, while out walking his Staffordshire bull terrier “Homeboy” on Thursday morning. Since news of the case against Golay broke, Necich was reminded of the time one year ago he met a man from New York City with a briefcase who was desperately searching for the landlord, presuming now that he was one of the many insurance handlers who had met with Golay over the years to settle claims.

It was a note reportedly found amid a search of the seldom-used SUV and Golay’s home that could tie her to the car used in McDavid’s hit and run. According to an affidavit, LA police detectives have found notations with the make and model of a station wagon that has also been seized by authorities.

“Those two women — I didn’t even want to know them,” said Necich. “They were both giving you dirty looks so you wouldn’t look at them anymore. They would treat you like you were inferior, never carrying on a conversation. They looked at you like you were a piece of crap.

“I’m not surprised at all (by the case),” he said.

At Golay’s third Santa Monica property — a four-unit structure at 609 Marine Ave. with white picket fencing — tenants were more reluctant to talk about their dealings with their landlord, likely due to Golay’s daughter Kecia still living on the premises. One tenant remarked that nothing had changed for her since the arrest, aside from being instructed by Kecia to make her payments directly to her.

Over on Third Street, the handwritten notes from Kecia Golay to tenants that were crammed into the doorjambs late last week were greeted with skepticism, requiring them to make out their rent payments to her, even as she is scheduled to begin serving a 200-day jail sentence for stalking a former boyfriend.

“I mean, look at this,” said an unidentified tenant of the note, rolling her eyes. “She wants us to pay her quick before heading off to jail too.”

Attempts to reach Kecia Golay for comment were not returned.

On Third Street, a rent-controlled complex, two single apartment tenants are paying just $311 and $327 in rent, respectively.

And so this morning, federal inmates 43630-112 (Golay) and 43629-112 (Rutterschmidt) will be led into a courtroom at the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles to answer to the 10-count indictment levied against them, entering a plea on mail fraud charges even as the investigation into the deaths of Vados and McDavid continues.

U.S. Attorney Jason Gonzalez, who is overseeing the case against Golay and Rutterschmidt, declined to comment on today’s arraignment proceedings.