AN ELDERLY Californian woman has been convicted of the murders of two homeless men in a plot to collect millions of dollars in insurance.
Helen Golay, 77, was convicted of the first-degree murders of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in 2005 and Paul Vados, 73, in 1999. She was also convicted of conspiracy in both killings. Her friend, Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, was convicted of conspiracy to murder
McDavid for financial gain. She still faces murder charges.
Prosecutors said the women collected $2.8 million (£1.4 million) from insurance policies on the lives of two homeless men who were killed in staged hit-and-runs.
The women showed no reaction to the verdicts.
"Basically the ladies did not do very well today," said Golay's lawyer, Roger Jon Diamond.
Prosecutors said the women preyed on the homeless of Hollywood, invested thousands of dollars in insurance policies on them and in put them up in apartments, then drugged them and ran them over in secluded alleys.
Both men initially appeared to have been victims of hit-and-run accidents.
Prosecutor Bobby Grace called the women "the worst of the worst".
"They didn't need this money. They weren't poor and destitute. They went out of their way to target men who had nothing," he said.
The jury saw a secretly recorded videotape of the two in a lock-up after their arrests. Rutterschmidt berated Golay, saying her actions in taking out 23 insurance policies raised a red flag when the men died.
She was heard to say: "It's your fault. You can't have that many insurances. You were greedy. That's the problem."
On insurance policies, the women represented themselves as a cousin and a fiancée of McDavid. Golay said she thought McDavid loved them.
On the tape, Rutterschmidt snapped: "I was the cousin. You were the fiancée. Baloney."
Their lawyers admitted the women were involved in insurance fraud, but denied a murder conspiracy.
There were no witnesses to the killings. But prosecution evidence included identification of Rutterschmidt by the man who sold her a car that was found to have McDavid's DNA on its undercarriage. There was also evidence that the car required a tow from an intersection near where McDavid's body was found an hour later, and that Golay's breakdown membership number was used to summon the tow truck.
A key prosecution witness was a homeless man who said he was targeted, but left when he was pressured by Rutterschmidt for personal information and to sign documents.
Jimmy Covington, 48, said he was approached by Rutterschmidt on a street in 2005 and was promised benefits, a place to stay and money.
The full article contains 451 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
