Jul 15, 2008 12:59 pm US/Pacific
'Black Widows' Sentenced To Life Without Parole
LOS ANGELES (AP) ―
Two elderly women were sentenced today in Los Angeles to spend the rest of their lives in prison for murdering two indigent men to collect insurance policies taken out on their lives.
Superior Court Judge David Wesley handed down two life terms each without possibility of parole to 77-year-old Helen Golay and 75-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt.
The women were convicted of a scheme in which they befriended homeless men, took out policies, and then killed them in murders
staged to look like hit-and-run auto accidents.
Prosecutors say the women collected 2.8 million dollars before the scheme was uncovered.
Both women were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder for financial gain in the 1999 death of 73-year-old Paul Vados and in the 2005 death of 50-year-old Kenneth McDavid.
The judge denounced the women for their greed, saying the men they killed needed only food, water and shelter, and thought they were going to get a helping hand from the women.
The judge said, "Instead, these unfortunate men were sacrificed on your altar of greed."
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