16 Jul 2008

Insurance killers of homeless men jailed for life

11:09 am on 16 July 2008

Two elderly Los Angeles women who befriended and then murdered homeless men in order to collect $US2.8 million in life insurance have been sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives.

Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, will die behind bars after being sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

They were convicted in April of orchestrating a scheme that saw them take out insurance policies on destitute men before killing them.

Prosecutors told the Los Angeles Superior Court that they received $US2.8 million in insurance payouts before the killings were discovered.

They were each charged with murder and conspiracy in the deaths of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in June 2005 and Paul Vados, 73, in 1999.

According to prosecutors, they applied for 26 life insurance policies on three different people - including the two dead men.