Defense: Murder case is weak
DOWNTOWN, LA — An arraignment was postponed Thursday for the so-called “Black Widows,” a Santa Monica woman and a female accomplice, who are charged with murder for the hit-and-run deaths of two homeless men they allegedly befriended in a plot to cash in on their life insurance policies.
Helen Golay, 75, of Santa Monica, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, of Hollywood, agreed to waive their rights to a speedy arraignment until Aug. 29. The postponement is a result of Rutterschmidt not having an attorney to represent her on capital murder charges. Citing financial hardship, Golay has petitioned the court for her private attorney to be paid for by the public, said Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Sandi Gibbons. If approved, Golay’s attorney will be paid similarly to what a public defender would be paid under the Indigent Criminal Defense Program.
Golay will appear in court on Aug. 28 when it will be determined whether or not her legal fees will be covered by the public.
The charges against the women include special allegations that could make them eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors have not said whether or not they will seek capital punishment.
Arraignment continuances are common in cases where the death penalty may be involved, Gibbons said.
Superior Court Commissioner James Bianco on Thursday ordered the women remain in custody with no bail. They have been in jail since May 16, when the pair was arrested on charges of insurance fraud. Those charges were later dropped so the murder case could go forward.
They are accused of the murder for the Nov. 8, 1999 death of 73-year-old Paul Vados, who was run over in an alley in the 300 block of North La Brea Avenue in Hollywood,and the June 21, 2005 death of 50-year-old Kenneth McDavid, killed in an alley in the 1200 block of Westwood Boulevard in Westwood.
The pair allegedly befriended the two men and took out about $2 million in life insurance policies on them.All told,the pair collected more than $3 million in insurance payouts, according to a felony criminal complaint filed by the DA’s office against the women,who allegedly made dozens of claims with a wide array of insurance companies after the murders.
Between December of 1999 and November 2000, according to the complaint, Golay and Rutterschmidt successfully cashed in on nearly $600,000 worth of premium benefits from 13 insurance policies payable upon the death of Vados — whom Rutterschmidt claimed was a cousin. On Nov. 30, 1999 — 22 days after Vados’ death — Rutterschmidt signed an order for release of the victim’s body and had his remains buried in an unmarked grave.
More than five years later, the deadly duo struck again, only this time they raised the stakes considerably, according to the criminal complaint. According to the DA’s office, Golay and Rutterschmidt attempted to amass a collective $7.24 million from 23 separate life insurance policies naming McDavid as the insured and themselves as the beneficiaries. This time, it was Golay who claimed to be a cousin of the deceased, seeing to it that McDavid’s remains be immediately cremated.
In each instance, Golay and Rutterschmidt were said to have set up the victims in rent-free apartments — Vados at 861 Fedora St. in Los Angeles, McDavid at 1843 N. Cherokee Ave. in Hollywood. They also paid the men’s utilities and visited them regularly for roughly two years.
The scheme began to unravel between December of 2005 and this past May, when several of the insurers deemed the claims suspicious and withheld payment to the women, prompting Golay to threaten litigation against them if they were not forthcoming with the payouts.
The complaint also details the pair’s purchase of a 1999 Mercury Sable station wagon under the name of Hilary Adler, with Golay allegedly storing the car in the alley behind her Ocean Park Boulevard apartment before it was used on June 21, 2005 to run over McDavid in a back alley. Just before midnight that same day, Golay called the Automobile Club of Southern California to request a tow truck for the disabled car, later abandoning it just five blocks from Rutterschmidt’s Hollywood residence.
According to the LAPD, the women were put under arrest on federal mail fraud charges in May because authorities feared the pair may have been on the prowl for new victims.
Santa Monica-based defense attorney Roger Jon Diamond — who represented Golay in the federal insurance fraud case — said the prosecution’s case is circumstantial and does “not equate to first-degree murder.”
“We’re halfway there, the federal case was worthless,” Diamond said in a previous interview.“There’s nothing new here, it’s rehashed in a state case. They just took off the federal wrapping and put on state wrapping. They’re the same charges investigated by the LAPD in 2000. For six years, the Vados case was investigated and dropped.
I’m confident this will all result in a dismissal or acquittal.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 18, 2006. Read the original PDF.