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Aug 30, 2006 7:51 am US/Pacific
'Black Widows' Denied Bail In Insurance Fraud Case
LOS ANGELES (AP) ―
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Helen Golay, Olga Rutterschmidt and their victims.
CBS
A judge denied bail for two women accused of killing homeless men in hit-and-run crashes so they could collect on the victims' life insurance.
Superior Court Commissioner James Bianco said Tuesday that Helen Golay, 75, and Hungarian-born Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, will be held without bail as long as prosecutors consider a death sentence for them.
Golay's lawyer, Roger Jon Diamond, had argued that her 23-hour lockdown is unduly harsh.
The judge granted a request by Rutterschmidt's new attorney, Michael Sklar, to postpone the women's arraignment until Sept. 13 so Sklar could review evidence.
Each woman faces two counts of murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder for financial gain in the deaths of Paul Vados, 73, in 1999 and Kenneth McDavid, 51, in 2005.
Authorities alleged that Golay and Rutterschmidt befriended the two transients, convinced the men to sign them on to their life insurance policies and then collected $2.3 million after having the men killed in hit-and-run crashes in secluded alleys.
After the women were charged in late July, Diamond said his client would win the case because "there was no murder and there is no evidence of murder."
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