LOS ANGELES (1010 WINS) -- Two women in their 70s were charged Monday with having homeless men killed in hit-and-run car crashes to collect more than $2 million in life insurance.
Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, and Helen Golay, 75, were each charged with two counts of murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder for financial gain.
The charges make the women eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors will wait until the case moves closer to trial before deciding whether to seek executions, Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels said in a statement.
The women are accused of arranging hit-and-run killings in alleys using drivers whose identities are unknown. Paul Vados, 73, was killed in November 1999 and Kenneth McDavid, 51, was killed in June 2005.
The women were arrested in May and charged with federal mail fraud. They are awaiting an October trial on those charges.
The women befriended the transients, paid for them to stay in apartments and obtained their signatures before taking out three dozen life insurance policies on them, authorities say.
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