In L.A., a Case Straight Out Of 'Arsenic And Old Lace'

Insurance companies look most closely at deaths that occur within two years of a new policy. Police say that explains why Vados did not turn up dead until Nov. 8, 1999. Searching Golay's apartment seven years later, police found a movie ticket stub from the night before his death, for a 10:45 showing of "The Bone Collector."

The women filed a missing-persons report 10 days later, claiming that Vados was a cousin to one and the fiance of the other. They told police they found the TV on in his apartment but no sign of him.

"We are very sorry to learn of your fiance's death," Mutual of Omaha wrote to Golay a month later, enclosing a pamphlet called "Grief and Healing." Eight months later, Golay wrote to the insurance company to threaten a lawsuit over "outrageous delays." Within weeks she received a check for $25,000.

"Helen is a tough negotiator," said Peter Mullins, a real estate agent who sold Golay four properties, including two of the apartment buildings that appeared to provide her with a reasonable living, five blocks from the ocean in Santa Monica. "Helen knew the business inside out, as far as the technical aspects," he said, referring to real estate.

Because of her frugality and attention to appearance, Golay seemed to Mullins "a typical old-fashioned sort of matriarch who ran the show with the Chanel suit and the helmet hair and the handbag."

"But I have a soft spot for all of them," he added, "because they're just so tough."

Rutterschmidt lived across town in Hollywood. It's unclear how the women became friends, though in court filings a detective quoting a relative of one said the pair "came across one another in the '70s and found that they had a common interest in fleecing people."

"Dear Helen," Rutterschmidt wrote in a May 2000 letter investigators found, "I have a few very interesting and good life insurance company listings. They pay regardless of illness, or accidental cause. (No hassle, no investigations.)"

Before signing, Rutterschmidt also hinted at her sense of humor and joie de vivre. "Regards, and kisses, Olga," she added. "I enjoy life to the fullest with my G-string friend who visits me barefoot."

In August 2002, Golay wrote complaining of pain from plastic surgery. "I better look good after this hell and live long enough to enjoy this 'face job.' If only I could get a new 21 year old body for this brain I've been working on for 70 years."

Around the same time, Golay approached McDavid, 50, at an Episcopal church in Hollywood, offering him an apartment in exchange for signing a $500,000 insurance policy, prosecutors say. Rutterschmidt had a rubber stamp made of his signature, used to sign policies that eventually were worth a total of $7 million.

His body was found June 21, 2005, in an alley in Westwood near UCLA. The same night, Golay phoned AAA for a tow a block away. The car was not her Mercedes SUV but a 1999 Mercury Sable registered to a woman whose ID had been stolen, then used to purchase the car at an Orange County lot. A neighbor happened to photograph it parked behind Golay's apartment not long afterward.