> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # ‘Widows’ face murder rap - URL: https://www.smdp.com/widows-face-murder-rap/ - Published: 2006-08-01T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T19:07:01.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Crime, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless *Elderly landlord charged with conspiring to kill homeless men* *By MICHAEL J. TITTINGER Daily Press Staff Writer* DOWNTOWN LA — The macabre plot investigators believe was hatched by a pair of elderly women — one a Santa Monica landlord — began to take shape Monday, as murder charges were filed against the so-called “Black Widows” in connection with the hit-and-run deaths of two men whom the women had allegedly befriended in a conspiracy to cash in on their life insurance policies. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office has filed capital murder charges against Helen Golay, 75, of Santa Monica, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, of Hollywood, accusing the alleged conspirators with concocting a deadly plot to set homeless men up in paid-for apartments and then collect on multiple insurance claims by posing as the deceased’s relatives following their untimely deaths. All told, the pair collected more than $3 million in insurance pay-outs, 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 deaths of Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid. Vados, 73, was killed in a hit-and-run collision on Nov. 8, 1999, while in an alley in the 300 block of North La Brea Avenue in Hollywood. McDavid, 50, was felled in similar fashion, run over in an alley in the 1200 block of Westwood Boulevard in Westwood on June 21, 2005. Both Golay, who owns three apartment complexes in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica, and Rutterschmidt were charged on Monday with two counts of capital murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder for financial gain. The pair have been behind bars since their arrests on May 16 on charges of insurance fraud. “They’re already facing a trial in federal court, so when they are transferred depends on the proceedings there,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokesperson for the DA’s office. “There’s already a trial set there, so when that’s concluded the state can proceed.” According to Gibbons, an arrest warrant needs to be issued when a defendant is already being held in another jurisdiction, so that officers can “physically arrest them” again. A July 25 trial date on the fraud charges was postponed until Oct. 24, while investigators continued their probe into the hit-and-run cases. Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels, who is prosecuting the case, asked the court on Monday to hold both women without bail, standard for a capital murder case. The DA’s office will not make a decision on whether to seek the death penalty against the defendants until the case moves closer to trial. Last week, Golay’s Santa Monica-based attorney, Roger Jon Diamond, reported having filed a new motion with U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner to have his client released on bail because she had been facing just federal fraud charges. Klausner had yet to schedule a hearing for the bail request. It’s widely expected that the federal fraud charges will be dropped now that state murder charges have been filed. An upbeat Diamond likened the imminent dismissal of federal charges as a victory on Monday, when reached in his car while heading to San Diego for another federal trial. “We’re halfway there, the federal case was worthless,” said Diamond, who added that authorities have little new evidence regarding one of the alleged murders. “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... “I’m confident this will all result in a dismissal or acquittal.” Rutterschmidt’s attorney, deputy federal public defender Kim Savo, didn’t return a call seeking comment on Monday. Before an arraignment date for the murder charges can be set, federal prosecutors would have to drop the fraud case and the women would have to be transferred to a state facility from the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles where they are currently being held. Diamond said he had met with Golay for an hour on Monday, leaving just before the charges were filed by the DA’s office. Still, he said his client was prepared. “Naturally, anyone has to be aware of potential charges, but she was in good spirits, very confident she will win,” he said. “In the end, she’s going to look back on all this as just an episode in her life... basically, because she’s not guilty.” 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 duo allegedly struck again, according to the criminal complaint, only that time they raised the stakes considerably. 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. That 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 paid the men’s utilities and visited them regularly for roughly two years, according to the criminal complaint. The scheme began to unravel between December 2005 and May of this year, when several of the insurers deemed the claims on McDavid to be suspicious and withheld payment, prompting Golay to challenge the companies and even threaten litigation, according to the criminal complaint. 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. The investigation by LAPD detectives is ongoing. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 1, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/080106.pdf?ref=smdp.com)