Verdicts reached in men’s slayings
After a day of deliberation, jurors for the trial of two women accused of murdering homeless men for insurance claims said Tuesday they had reached verdicts for some of the counts, but had yet to reach unanimous consent on others.
Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, each stand accused of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of conspiracy to murder for financial gain. The jury Tuesday afternoon asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David S. Wesley “what happens if we do not have unanimous consent on a particular count.”
Wesley pointed jurors to an instruction allowing a homicide jury to find defendants guilty of a lesser crime, in this case second-degree murder. Wesley instructed jurors to seal verdicts they had reached and continue deliberation.
Prosecutors allege that the women staged the hit-and-run deaths of Kenneth McDavid, 50, and Paul Vados, 73, to collect $2.8 million in insurance.
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