'Black Widows' to stand trial for murder of homeless men

[Renaissance]

'Black Widows' to stand trial for murder of homeless men

Thu Mar 15, 7:17 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Two elderly women will stand trial for allegedly murdering a pair of homeless men in order to collect 2.8 million dollars in life insurance, a Los Angeles judge ruled on Thursday.

Helen Golay, 76 and Olga Rutterschmidt, 74, have been dubbed the "Black Widows" for the scheme, which allegedly saw them befriend two homeless men and take out life insurance policies on them before having them killed.

Los Angeles Superior Court judge David Wesley said after a four-day preliminary hearing there was enough evidence for the two pensioners to stand trial on murder and conspiracy charges.

The women are alleged to have killed Kenneth McDavid, 50, in June 2005 and Paul Vados, 73, in November 1999, according to prosecutors. Both men died in hit-and-run crashes.

Prosecutors told the court Golay and Rutterschmidt paid rent on behalf of the two men along with life insurance premiums for two years in order to create the impression of close ties to their victims.

The women lied to insurance investigators about their relationship with the dead men, claiming to be a fiancee or a cousin in several cases, in order to secure multiple insurance policies, prosecutor Shellie Samuels said.

Lawyers for the women had called for the case to be dismissed, claiming that the evidence of "inappropriate insurance practices" did not prove involvement in the victim's deaths.

So why did these elderly women do this? Because they were in need of a ton of money to secure their future? Or because they're not human beings and just doing it for 'sport'.

Other recent articles relating:
Teen 'sport killings' of homeless on the rise

February 20, 2007

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (CNN) -- All Nathan Moore says he wanted to do was smoke pot and get drunk with his friends.

Killing Rex Baum was never part of the plan that day in 2004.

"It all started off as a game," Moore said.

The 15-year-old and his friends were taunting the homeless man -- throwing sticks and leaves -- after having a couple of beers with him.

No big deal, Moore says, but he's sorry for what came next.

It was a mistake, he said, a sudden primal surge that made him and his friends Luis Oyola, 16, and 17-year-old Andrew Ihrcke begin punching and kicking Baum.

"Luis says 'I'm gonna go hit him,' We're all laughing, thought he was joking around,'" but he wasn't, Moore concedes. "We just all started hitting him."

They hurled anything they could find -- rocks, bricks, even Baum's barbecue grill -- and pounded the 49-year-old with a pipe and with the baseball bat he kept at his campsite for protection.

Ihrcke smeared his own feces on Baum's face before cutting him with a knife "to see if he was alive," Moore said.

After destroying Baum's camp, the boys left the homeless man -- head wedged in his own grill -- under a piece of plastic where they hoped the "animals would eat" him.

Then, Moore says, they took off to grab a bite at McDonald's.

Baum's murder was indicative of a disturbing trend.

A National Coalition for the Homeless report says last year, there were 122 attacks and 20 murders against the homeless, the most attacks in nearly a decade. (Coalition report on 2006 homeless attacks)

Police found Baum's body two days after the teens attacked him.

They bragged about it around town. Police picked them up and they described what happened.

Ihrcke told police that killing "the bum" reminded him of playing a violent video game, a police report shows.

All three teens pleaded no contest to first degree reckless homicide charges and went to prison.

Moore recently turned 18 at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, where he is serving a 15 year sentence.

"When [the beating] stops, you say, 'What did we just do?'" he told CNN. "There's no rational explanation."(...)

Woman Burned to Death in S.F.

02-15

San Francisco (AP) --

Two women are accused of soaking a homeless, drug-addicted prostitute with gasoline and burning her to death after she reported that one of them had robbed her.

Leslie "Jill" May, 49, was abducted from the street and killed at Candlestick Park the day she told the police that Mia Sagote, 30, robbed and beat her over a debt May's boyfriend owed, authorities said.

Sagote and Leslie Siliga, 29, have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and kidnapping.

Prosecutor George Butterworth said the crime showed "exceptional depravity."

On Jan. 11, Sagote allegedly slammed May into a wall, threw her down and punched her because she had not collected a $150 debt from May's boyfriend, police said. Witnesses said they saw Sagote drag May behind a trash container later that day, strip her clothes off and take her cash.

May reported the crime the next day. After Sagote found out, she and Siliga forced May into a car. The two women stopped to buy gasoline, then drove to the parking lot of the stadium where the San Francisco 49ers play and set her ablaze, police said.(...)