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Two women get life for insurance fraud
=Two elderly women sat stony faced as a judge denounced their greed on Tuesday and sentenced them to spend the rest of their lives in prison for murdering two indigent men to collect insurance policies taken out on their lives.
- AP
- Published: 00:05 July 17, 2008
Los Angeles: Two elderly women sat stony faced as a judge denounced their greed on Tuesday and sentenced them 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 Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, a native of Hungary.
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 (Dh10.3 million) before the scheme was uncovered.
The judge said the two men they killed needed only food, water and shelter.
"They needed a helping hand. They thought they were getting this from you," Wesley said. "Instead these unfortunate men were sacrificed on your altar of greed." Recalling a scene from a surreptitiously recorded videotape of the women talking after their arrest, the judge turned to Rutterschmidt and said, "During this trial, Ms Rutterschmidt, you recognised something in Ms Golay you did not recognise in yourself. You pointed a finger at her and said, 'You are greedy'." Wesley said he did research on the meaning of greed and found definitions including a selfish desire for money, not to purchase anything but just to have it. He noted that although there is no possibility of parole, a probation report was done on the women.
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