Salesman testifies in slayings

A former car salesman testified Thursday that he sold a Mercury Sable station wagon to one of two elderly women accused of using the vehicle to kill a homeless man in a murder-for-life-insurance scheme.

Mario Medina is the first eyewitness to tie Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, to the car that prosecutors say was the murder weapon in the death of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in an alley in West Los Angeles in 2005.

She and Helen Golay, 77, are charged with killing McDavid and another homeless man for insurance benefits.

On cross-examination Thursday, Medina appeared to have some memory lapses about Rutterschmidt, who allegedly bought the station wagon at his Vermont Avenue dealership in 2004.

Among other lapses, Medina told jurors that the woman had an accent, even though he had previously told police that he couldn’t recall whether or not she did. Rutterschmidt, an immigrant from Hungary, speaks with a thick accent.

“After I was testifying, I kept thinking and thinking about the transaction and that just kind of came back,” Medina said as he was cross-examined by Rutterschmidt’s attorney, public defender Michael Sklar.

“I remembered that she spoke with a certain accent.”

Medina said Rutterschmidt first came to the dealership alone and returned a few days later with another elderly Caucasian woman. But Medina, one of the few eyewitnesses tying the women to the murders, said he did not recognize Golay. In earlier police interviews, Medina picked out Golay in a photo lineup, but could not identify Rutterschmidt.

Medina fumbled in his recollection at other points in his testimony, saying prosecutor Truc Do also cross-examined him in preliminary hearings when in fact it was a different deputy district attorney, who is older and Caucasian.

If convicted, Rutterschmidt and Golay could face life in prison without parole for allegedly staging hit-and-run accidents of McDavid and Paul Vados, 73, who was killed in 1999.

Prosecutors allege that the women sheltered homeless men and obtained fraudulent life insurance policies on them, collecting $2.8 million.

On Thursday, prosecutors also showed jurors notes found in Golay’s planner that had a partial license plate number and partial vehicle identification number, which led police to the Sable. Authorities said they found McDavid’s DNA in the wagon’s undercarriage.

Prosecutors allege that the women bought the vehicle using a stolen license under the name Hilary Adler. On Thursday, Adler testified that she did not know either defendant, and that her license was stolen with her purse in 2003.

Surveillance cameras from nearby businesses captured a vehicle resembling a Mercury Sable passing through the alley where McDavid’s body was found on the night of his death.

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victoria.kim@latimes.com