2nd elderly woman found guilty of murder

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"We'll concede it's pretty sleazy what's going on here with the insurance," Golay's attorney, Roger Jon Diamond, said. He said the idea was to insure old, sick homeless people who would die more quickly.

But prosecutors pointed out that most of the policies were for accidental death, not death due to natural causes.

By the end of the five-week trial, the women had turned on each other.

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Diamond said Wednesday that he was confident there were significant issues to raise on appeal of Golay's conviction. One was whether it was proper for the judge to admit the secretly taped conversation, Diamond said.

And he said he felt the overall defense was harmed by the decision of Rutterschmidt's lawyer to attack Golay and suggest she was a killer.

Diamond said in his closing argument that when Rutterschmidt began recruiting younger homeless men, she may have had her own scheme to have them killed.

Rutterschmidt's lawyer claimed his client was "simple minded" and obsessed with Golay, a relatively wealthy woman she met in 1999. Deputy Public Defender Michael Sklar accused Golay of manipulating Rutterschmidt to buy a car used as a weapon but said it was Golay alone who committed murder.

Golay funded the scheme and wrote the checks, Sklar told the jury.

Allegations about Golay’s daughter
Golay's lawyer, failing in a last-minute attempt to derail the case against the women, claimed Golay's own daughter, Kecia, 44, drove the car that ran over McDavid. Kecia Golay was not charged and did not testify in the trial.

There were no witnesses to the killings. But prosecution evidence included identification of Rutterschmidt by the man who sold her a car that was found to have McDavid's DNA on its undercarriage. There was also evidence that the car required a tow from an intersection near where McDavid's body was found an hour later, and that Golay's auto club membership number was used to summon the tow truck.

A key prosecution witness was a homeless man who said he was targeted to be another victim but left when he was pressured by Rutterschmidt for personal information and to sign documents.

Jimmy Covington, 48, said he was approached by Rutterschmidt on a Hollywood street in 2005 and was promised benefits, a place to stay and money.