US News
Elderly women receive life sentences for murders of homeless men
Jul 15, 2008, 21:45 GMT
Los Angeles - Two elderly California women received life sentences Tuesday for murdering two homeless men to cash in on life insurance policies, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A Los Angeles judge sentenced Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, to life without the possibility of parole. The women had been convicted of murder and insurance fraud in April.
Prosecutors said the women plucked the two destitute men off the street as 'investments,' sheltered them for two years, took out millions of dollars in life insurance on them - then killed them in staged hit-and-run accidents in dark alleys.
The crimes occurred years apart, raising police suspicions after Kenneth McDavid, 51, was found dead in 2005. The women killed Paul Vados, 73, in 1999.
The case has earned the women the title of 'black widows' and the has been compared to the 1939 play Arsenic and Old Lace, made famous in the 1944 movie with Cary Grant.
They had taken out more than 25 life insurance policies on the men worth 2.8 million dollars while posing as fiancees or cousins.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
I wonder if life means life for these two women.
If they are really going to spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars then why not execute them? If society will never be safe from them [which I would say is obvious] then who thinks the tax payer can and should afford to pay for their choices.
The death penalty does have a place and this would be one of the candidates.
to execute them would take longer than old age to kill them. What with all the appeals and everything it could take 25 years to stick a needle in their arses. Why waste the money, let them do the time.
If they had an access to Bush, they would have killed the idiot too. They were very innovative in the morally bankrupt nation!
page: 1
I wonderJul 15th, 2008 - 22:24:10
what idiot Bush would be doing today if he hadn't stolen the presidency twice. One thing is for certain; no Iraq war, low gas prices, New Orleans would have been taken care of, better economy, healthy medicare & social security system, better relations with the rest of the world, no McCain, no Obama, and more rights. Other than that, things would be about the same.
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