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Charge Dropped, Re-Filed On Accused Black Widow

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Jan 18, 2007 8:32 pm US/Pacific

Charge Dropped, Re-Filed On Accused Black Widow

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― A judge dismissed the case against one of two elderly women accused in the killings of two homeless men, but prosecutors promptly re-filed murder charges against her.

The case against Helen Golay, 75, had to be dismissed because her right to a speedy preliminary hearing was violated.

"For about an hour-and-a-half today, Helen Golay had no federal case pending against her, because that's been dismissed and no state case pending against her because that case was dismissed," said Roger Jon Diamond, Golay's attorney.

"When I was with Helen in the lock-up there, I said you're a free woman right now because I said at the very beginning I would get the federal case dismissed, which is true, and I said I would get the state case dismissed, which is true, and so for a brief moment there she had nothing pending against her, she was a free lady," he said.

Golay, of Santa Monica, who remained in custody, was arraigned again after the state charges against her were re-filed. She is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder for financial gain stemming from the hit-and-run deaths of Paul Vados in 1999 and Kenneth McDavid in 2005.

She and her 73-year-old co-defendant, Olga Rutterschmidt, who is similarly charged, allegedly killed the men to collect $2 million in life insurance policies they had taken out on them while allegedly posing as their relatives and business partners.

Authorities accuse Golay and Rutterschmidt of befriending the men and putting them up in low-rent hotels while secretly taking out multiple life insurance policies on them, claiming to be their fiancees or relatives. They allegedly rendered the men unconscious with a mix of prescription drugs and alcohol before running over them with a car. Both men were found dead after having been run over in alleys during early morning hours.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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