All photos by AP
This year, in Los Angeles, two senior citizens, Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, were convicted of murder. They were both sentenced to consecutive life terms. On two separate occasions, they had taken homeless men—Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid—under their wings, housed, fed, and looked after them for two years, then killed them with cars, hit-and-run style. They had also taken out millions and millions of dollars in dozens of separate life-insurance policies on each man. LAPD homicide detective Dennis Kilcoyne was part of a task force that broke open the case.
Vice: You happened upon this case by accident, right? You were looking into a simple hit-and-run?
Dennis Kilcoyne:
So it’s not like they were so concerned about what may have happened to the guy, or if there were any leads? They just wanted proof he was dead.
What was unusual? The dollar amount on the policy?
It would have behooved them to talk to this guy though, if they wanted their money, right?
What’s your job with LAPD?
So that loophole represented an opportunity for Helen and Olga to do what they did.
Helen Golay immediately after receiving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Do you think Helen and Olga were ever really friends? I mean they set all of this up, and worked on various scams together for 20 years. It’s almost like a marriage, but in the videos of them in the interrogation room, they’re pretty bitter toward one another.
Do you think her millions came from illegal activities?
What’s going to happen to that property now that she’s in jail?
Were Helen and Olga friends?
Olga lived in a little apartment in Hollywood.
Were they blinded by greed or psychotic or what?
Olga had a cafe in downtown LA a long time ago. Do you think there was ever a point in her life when she was an honest person?
And she never got caught?
She seemed more concerned with the financial part of it than the execution of the actual crime, though. The Mercury Sable wagon she ran over McDavid with had to be towed when she was done. And later, there was still evidence on the undercarriage of the vehicle, connecting it to the crime. So it seems that she was hasty about the crime itself, but pragmatic about the money end of things.
Yeah. I guess it’s like if you have a half a million, or a million bucks in life insurance on a guy, you’re not just sitting around waiting to kill him and collect your money, you are paying that premium every month. Or premiums.
Do you think they did other things that they didn’t get caught for that were maybe not on this scale? More like petty crimes that they got away with?
Do you think Helen’s daughter, Kecia—whom Helen tried to blame for the murders of Vados and McDavid in the middle of the trial, to no avail—is completely innocent, or is she kind of shady? She’s the one who hooked up with Downie.
How do you think Helen pitched the idea of getting Fred Downie to move to California to Kecia?
Was the other daughter romantically involved with Downie?
How did they con him so bad? I see where he would be lonely, but how did he agree to these crazy terms?
That is a crazy coincidence. So I guess I’ve veered off. Maybe we should get back to the case itself. How did things fall into place? Whose name was on the Mercury Sable that killed Kenneth McDavid?
And they registered the Sable in her name?
The 1999 Mercury Sable station wagon driven by Helen Golay in the hit-and-run murder of Kenneth McDavid.
After the tow-truck driver hauled it away from near the scene of the crime, how long was it before you guys went and said, let’s take a look at this car?
So if they only had, say, $50,000 on McDavid, they would have just gotten the check, right?
Why do you think, at that age, this stuff was even important to them? Like you said, Helen had money.
What do you think their mindset is now, sitting in prison? Defeated?