LOS ANGELES - The crimes were six years apart, but the circumstances behind them were too chillingly similar for investigators to overlook: two homeless men run down by a car in dark alleys, no witness accounts, and then two elderly women come forward claiming to be relatives of the victims.
Helen Golay, 75, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 72, were arrested Thursday after they allegedly collected more than $2 million in benefits from policies issued on the lives of two homeless men killed in hit-and-run crashes in 1999 and 2005, authorities said.
Police believe the women may have committed the fatal accidents themselves, and were befriending other men to set up more insurance policies.
"Anyone would think that even though they're making financial gains for this, that they would leave the actual dirty work to someone else or hire someone," police Detective Dennis Kilcoyne said. "We're not so sure about that anymore."
Golay and Rutterschmidt allegedly provided the men with apartments for two years in exchange for signing a life insurance policy, investigators said. They duplicated their signatures on rubber stamps and used them to secure more than a dozen other policies, investigators said.
Golay and Rutterschmidt, described by authorities as longtime friends, appeared in federal court Thursday and were ordered held without bail.
They were each indicted on eight counts of mail fraud for making false insurance claims, said assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Gonzalez. Each face up to 160 years in prison if convicted of all counts, he said.
"We're focusing our direction directly at Helen and Olga for the murder aspect of the investigation," Kilcoyne said.
When Rutterschmidt was asked by the judge if she understood her rights, she responded, "Yes, I'm shocked."
Golay's daughter told The Los Angeles Times her mother was innocent.
"That's just not what is going on," Kecia Golay said.
At Rutterschmidt's apartment in Hollywood, no one answered when a reporter rang the doorbell.
Their arrests came after authorities searched two locations Thursday morning, arresting Rutterschmidt at her home and Golay at the triplex she owns in Santa Monica, police said. Their assets were frozen, said FBI special agent Herb Brown.
Both women were retired; Golay was in real estate and Rutterschmidt previously owned a coffee shop, police said.
Investigators discovered the alleged scam while looking into a fatal hit-and-run accident last fall. One investigator had mentioned the case of two women who had taken out large life insurance policies on 50-year-old Kenneth McDavid, when another recalled working on a similar case in 1999, in which 73-year-old Paul Vados was killed.
Investigators said the women filed $3.8 million in claims, but around $2.4 million was paid out before authorities contacted the insurance companies.
In court Thursday, prosecutors said on the same day McDavid's body was discovered, Golay had requested a towing service several blocks from the alley where he had been hit.
According to court documents, a former roommate of McDavid's told investigators that Golay approached McDavid at a church and offered to get him off the streets if he would sign an application for a $500,000 life insurance policy. The roommate said Golay paid for McDavid's monthly rent at a Hollywood apartment.
When it became known that McDavid was sharing the apartment with others, the roommate said a woman named "Olga" showed up with an unknown man carrying a revolver, demanding the roommate leave.
Undercover officers spied on Golay and Rutterschmidt in recent months, and saw them making contact with other elderly men, possibly to set up more life insurance policies, Kilcoyne said.
"We can't sit by and wait for something else to happen or another body is found in an alley," said Kilcoyne.
