Chapter 1: What is the story of Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt?
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Chapter 2: How did Helen and Olga's schemes start in Los Angeles?
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Hi, everyone. I'm Lester Holt, and we're talking Dateline. Today, I'm here with Keith Morrison to talk about his original podcast series, The Thing About Helen and Olga, and Dateline senior producer Susan Lebowitz, who has been following the story with Keith for nearly 20 years. It's good to see both of you. Thanks for coming on.
Chapter 3: What role did patience play in their criminal activities?
Hello. Thank you for having us on, Lester. Before we get into the discussion, let's tell folks that we're dropping the full series in the Dateline feed as a bonus while Dateline is taking a break for the Winter Olympics. So go take a listen and then come right back here.
Later, we'll have an extra clip from an interview that didn't make the show with the manager of a mom-and-pop lighting store in Los Angeles who had his own encounter with Helen and Olga. And Susan has a story about the church where Helen and Olga volunteered.
But to recap, in the late 1990s, Helen Golay and Olga Ruderschmidt appeared to be two kindly old ladies helping homeless men off the streets of Los Angeles. But as private investigator Ed Webster discovered, along with the LAPD and FBI and the so-called Granny Task Force, the women were actually singling out men. for insurance policies, then staging their deaths to collect big payouts.
They were convicted in the murders of Kenneth McDavid and Paul Varos and remain behind bars today.
Chapter 4: How did the investigation into their crimes unfold?
So let's talk Dateline, shall we? Keith, this story contains so much greed, betrayal, and good old-fashioned detective work. It was kind of a typical Dateline plot, but not. Let me let you kind of describe what we're talking about.
It's just... The craziest story, I could never understand why nobody made it into a movie. Helen and Olga are these two, you know, we say elderly ladies.
They weren't that elderly when they started their scams, who just played the most interesting and patient games with men to try to take their money away or try to take advantage of them and get money, farm them for money, if I can put it that way. Strange, crazy story. They were sort of Thelma and Louise of crime.
Chapter 5: What was the significance of the insurance investigator's findings?
It sounds like they kind of played the long game. You talked about they had patience. I mean, this thing did play out over years, and the victims, it appears, were identified way in advance. Was that their secret weapon? Is that how they were able to do what they did over such an extended period?
You know, Susan, I don't know whether you heard about how they came up with the notion of doing it that way, but they were very patient, and they—
You know, they would spend two years waiting for the time when an insurance company would trust them to give them the money from the death of these homeless men who they took in, housed, fed, took care of for all that time so that they could score from the insurance policy when the men, unfortunately, suddenly died. And they would, of course, be the ones behind that unfortunate sudden death.
So they had to be patient because the insurance companies would flag a policy if somebody tried to claim it. So they just had to avoid the appearance of criminal activity enough to – so the insurance company wasn't going to pay attention to it.
Chapter 6: What happened during the trial of Helen and Olga?
And since these were not gigantic policies – maybe they wouldn't bother spending the amount of time it would take to investigate it. And for a while, it worked. And, Keith, this starts unraveling because an insurance investigator takes a closer look. He was the most interesting man.
I've never encountered somebody who is quite so, you know, calm, methodical, and deliberate, and he just would not give up until he solved this puzzle. He was another character who could have been, you know, A lead actor in a movie in the sense that when I'm talking about his character could have been because he was like a Boy Scout who wouldn't give up.
And without that determination of his, this might not have been solved.
He reminded me of like some 1970s TV detective.
Chapter 7: Why did Susan return to the church associated with Helen and Olga?
You know, I don't know, is it Rockford or Mannix? Maybe it was the mustache, but he also was so determined to get justice for these, his guy, Kenneth McDavid, and then ultimately for Vados as well.
But it was Kenneth McDavid that got him looking in, there was something not right, and he could not let go of the idea that these women were getting away with these terrible murders of these men that other people had thought nothing of because they were homeless people. But he was determined. He came out here, and he was just supposed to do a double check on this.
It looked a little weird, and he was hooked.
And Helen and Olga didn't like him. Well, understandably so.
No, he only had bad news to give them.
Can you tell me what happened when he confronted them and basically said, we're keeping the money?
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Chapter 8: What is the current status of Helen and Olga in prison?
Well, that's all on video, which is awesome to see. And they think, you know, Helen meets with the investigator and he's with that undercover LAPD detective who is recording all this. And she thinks she's getting the big payout check. And she gets a check that is a refund of what she paid for her premiums. And she is not happy.
No, indeed.
If you're not going to pay me the full amount, this has been a total waste of my time. And then they go to Olga's and knock on her door.
Now, she probably already knew what was coming, and she never really opens the door. She, like, sticks her hand out to get the envelope and slams the door.
Read it. Read the policy there. I don't see it. Thank you.
Yes, because that's the end of several years of waiting. And it was also recognition, okay, maybe the jig might be up here. We might not be able to do this anymore.
I was curious, what's the story behind this granny squad?
So Detective Dennis Kilcoyne asked for guys to follow these old women. I remember they were trying to follow Olga, who was 75 at the time, 70-something. That's right. And she would go on these crazy hikes in Runyon Canyon, which I don't know if either of you have done that. It's very uphill. And the cops following her could barely keep up with her.
They did encounter her at a Kinko's where she was ordering credit cards in other people's names. And they also saw her talking to another potential victim. So, I mean, there was a good reason to follow them around, but it was a funny thing to have to, you know, surveil women in their 70s.
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