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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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More on the \'Black Widow\' murders

September 25 2009
Two women pensioners face dying in prison after being convicted of murdering two homeless men in a bid to get their hands on their life insurance In a case dubbed the 'Black Widow murders', Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, drugged and then ran over their victims in order to cash in £1.4m in life insurance policies. The women - friends of 20 years - befriended their victims at a Hollywood church group and put them up in apartments. They then hired security guards to watch them and took out life insurance policies in their names, before sedating and killing them in staged road accidents with a car bought especially for the grisly deed. A senior detective in the case described it as "one of the most sinister and evil plots I have ever seen." Their victims were Paul Vados, 73, and Kenneth McDavid, 50, who were killed in 1999 and 2005. After the murders - which police initially thought were hit and runs - the women collected $2.8 million (£1.4 million) in insurance. Deputy district attorney Truc Do said: "The victim would always be run over - crushed to death - in an alley with no witnesses... It always looked like it was a hit-and-run accident." A Los Angeles jury convicted Golay, a former estate agent, of murdering both men. Vados Rutterschmidt was convicted of conspiracy to murder Mr McDavid.
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