By Melody Hanatani
Daily Press Staff Writer

DOWNTOWN, L.A. Frustration and distraught were written all over Olga Rutterschmidt’s face, the guise of a tired old woman clearly annoyed at her current circumstances — arrested and having a hard time finding a lawyer.

Wearing a striped shirt, her hair tucked back, Rutterschmidt turns to her long-time friend and alleged partner-in-crime, Santa Monica resident Helen Golay, snapping “You were greedy ... that’s the problem.”

It was a scene that unfolded during a taped conversation between the two 70-plus year-old women while they were detained at the Los Angeles Police Department shortly after their arrest for federal mail fraud charges in 2005 in connection with an elaborate life insurance scam.

While murder was yet to be in the mix at the time of recording, things would only go downhill from there.

Nearly two years after they were arrested in May 2005, that same recorded exchange was played before a jury on Tuesday morning during opening arguments in a murder trial that has the two women accused of killing two homeless men in an attempt to collect several million dollars from a number of life insurance polices.

The two main characters in the video sat next to their attorneys while the taping aired overhead, the signs of exhaustion from the years-old trial even more pronounced.

The video was just among a slew of possible incriminating evidence that was presented to the jury on the first day of the trial as the prosecution stated its case as to why the women are guilty of murder for financial gain.

“These women looked at these victims and saw profit in their plight, a profit of $2.8 million,” Deputy District Attorney Truc Do said, referring to the total amount of life insurance payouts the two women were able to cash-in on the 1999 death of Paul Vados and 2005 murder of Kenneth McDavid.

Prosecutors believe that Golay, a former landlord who owned three apartment buildings in Ocean Park, and Rutterschmidt, a Hungarian immigrant who resided in Hollywood, befriended Vados and McDavid while they were homeless, fixing them up in rent-free apartments in exchange for naming the women on their life insurance policies. The two women pulled out multiple policies, naming themselves as beneficiaries, Golay always claiming to be the fiancé and Rutterschmidt the cousin, according to Do during her opening argument.

The women would wait two years after the policies were put into place before murdering the victims, Do said, noting the state’s two-year incontestability clause under which a claim cannot be contested two years after a life insurance policy is signed, except in cases of non-payment.

“They knew this loophole was there and they used it to their advantage,” Do said.

The prosecution went on to detail the two murders, drawing the similarities between the two and making the connections to the defendants. McDavid was killed in an alley off Westwood Boulevard in 2005, his upper body literally crushed, leaving his legs nearly unscathed, Do said. Vados was found murdered in a similar fashion in 1999.

Both men sought free services at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.

The deputy district attorney also presented footage of a silver station wagon driving up the Westwood alley on which McDavid was found murdered, the photos caught on surveillance cameras at the Bristol Farms on the corner of Ohio Avenue and Westwood Boulevard and the Copy Express just a few doors south.

A silver station wagon was called to be towed the same night of McDavid’s death using Golay’s automobile club membership to the corner of Fifth Street and Ocean Park Boulevard, just half a block from where Golay resided at the time, Do continued. The silver station wagon was later found to be dumped in Hollywood and bought through a lien. During the course of the investigation, McDavid’s DNA was found in the undercarriage of the station wagon, Do said.

The prosecution called several witnesses to the stand, including Behrooz Haverin who discovered McDavid’s body in the alley past midnight as he was leaving a backgammon game at Roma Design, a furniture store that abuts the alley.

About an hour before the body was discovered, Yoram Hassid left the backgammon game early, popping his head back into the backgammon game to let his friends know there was something suspicious lying in the alley, according to Masoud Khalifian, the furniture store owner who also testified. The recollection of that particular exchange appeared to be unclear to both Khalifian and Hassid, who also testified.

Haverin said he was in the car with the furniture store owner after the game when they saw something lying still.

“I thought he said it was a plastic bag, but when I got nearby, I saw it was a person,” Haverin said.

The prosecution is expected to call more witnesses today. The trial is expected to last at least a week.

melodyh@smdp.com