Dateline Originals - The Thing About Helen & Olga - Ep. 4: Girl Talk

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Detectives leave Helen and Olga alone together in a room wired for sound. Old resentments boil over.This episode was originally published on November 16, 2021. 

It's accepted wisdom among tellers of tales, both fictional and true, that even hardened criminals are guided by some code of conduct. It's an enduring notion. The idea that somewhere, even in the most corrupted soul, there beats a heart true to its own values. Even if the only unbreakable rule is don't rat out your friends. But future screenwriters hoping to apply even a low-bar patina of honor to the story of Helen Golay and Olga Rutter Schmidt will have their work cut out for them.

There's no doubt in my mind that they were going to continue this as long as the large sums of money were flown from the insurance companies. They lied. They cheated. And if the LAPD was to be believed, they had killed for money. Tough customers, these two old ladies. But Helen Golay?

Well, crusty cops considered her the worst. If she was a young man, she would be referred to as just one of the scariest killers this country has ever seen. In this episode, you'll hear recordings investigators uncovered that reveal crimes as they are being committed. And you are a 48-year-old male, date of birth 11-12-1954. Right. Approximately 5'11", weighed 185 pounds. And you applied for a $100,000 life plan, is that correct? Yes, that's correct.

You'll eavesdrop on conversations that prove there was no honor between these themes. We're going to go to jail, honey. They're going to lock you up. And you'll have a ringside seat to a dramatic confrontation between these two partners in crime, something we at Dateline had never seen before. Why did you make all these extra insurances? Too many you had. There's a limit. You can't do that many. I'm Keith Morrison,

and this is the fourth episode of Dateline's newest podcast, The Thing About Helen and Olga. The takedown of Helen and Olga in May 2006 was a well-orchestrated affair. We had LAPD out in force, detectives, Metro Squad. We had FBI, Postal. We had Department of Insurance. That's Special Agent Sam Mayrose, a.k.a. FBI Sam. I mean, if you looked like an able-bodied person standing anywhere in the area, I think you almost got recruited at that point.

Overkill? Hardly. LAPD Detective Dennis Kilcoyne said Helen's place was a virtual Fort Knox. They are little old gals, but you don't know if somebody lives with them that is a little more of a threat to you. So we have to be careful. I just woke up. I don't know what's going on. My daughter's going to be wondering what's happening.

Who else is in the house? Nobody. What's happening? I've never had anything like this go on in my life. Ma'am. I don't have my purse. I don't have anything. I don't know what's going on.

What have I done? Watch yourself. Though federal agents ultimately made the arrests on mail fraud charges, the feds did not take Helen and Olga to the Federal Processing Center downtown. No, by prior agreement, the ladies were briefly taken to Parker Center, the old LAPD headquarters down the street from the federal courts and the U.S. Attorney's offices. It was here that the women were placed alone in an interrogation room that was wired for video and sound. All right, ladies, the people that are going to transport you over to the federal

processing system will be here in just a few minutes, all right? We're going to be in and out. Not our attorney, please. Hang on, hang on. The plain white room was awash in a harsh fluorescent light. The only decoration, a lucky horseshoe, nailed over a door behind Olga. Lucky? Well, yes it was. For the cops.

Because seconds after Detective Kilcoyne left the room, Olga, now dressed in a white striped pullover, because seconds after Detective Kilcoyne left the room, Olga, now dressed in a white striped pullover, unloaded on Helen. Helen, that's your fault. You cannot make that many insurances. It's on your name only. Three different extra insurances. Though Helen, in a sleek black pantsuit, sat with her back to the camera,

one can imagine the wintry scowl she'd trained on her partner. I want to ask for a different location if you're going to talk. I don't want to talk. Don't talk to me. But it's three insurances on your body. I don't want to talk to you. Just the conversation Detective Kilcoyne was hoping for, planning for, in fact, as he told me later. Olga, because of her talkative personality.

You kind of expected she would. We figured that she was going to run her mouth a little bit in there. Yes, the cops knew their suspects well. Supply enough rope and wait for them to hang themselves. Metaphorically, that is. You did all these assurances extra. That's what raised the suspicion. Stupidity.

You should have a good relationship with me. That would not happen. So really what she's saying is, Ellen, you're too greedy. Exactly. Your greed has gotten us into this. It's your fault that we're here. So much bile.

So much resentment. How had such a lengthy and profitable partnership come to this? Greed, of course. Investigators knew from insurance company records that Helen and Olga had been jockeying to undercut each other ever since the day Kenneth McDavid came under their control. McDavid was a cash cow, and they intended to feed like hyenas on a carcass. California interview department, this is Brandy. How may I help you? Oh my goodness, this has been a long way. You must be busy. In this call, recorded by one of the insurance companies, we get a glimpse of Helen Golay in action.

The date is September 29, 2003, nearly a year and a half before Kenneth McDavid would be crushed to death in a dark alley. Okay, let me give you the information. This is the secretary, and then I'll put him on the line for you. This is application number GB-5399-481, and it's for Kenneth E. McDavid. You said McDavid? Uh-huh. Hold one moment, let me pull up that application. Thank you. The lies roll off her tongue. Fiction's so familiar, they're almost like a second skin. Okay, thank you for holding. And you said Mr. McDavid is going to be on the line? Yeah, Fiction's so familiar, they're almost like a second skin. Now came the tricky part. Somehow, Helen would have to produce Kenneth.

Hello, this is Mr. McDavid. Can I help you? Mr. McDavid, this is Brandy from United Investors. Yes. Your secretary called us so that you could do your telephone interview. Are you prepared to do the interview at this time? Yes. Okay. This call will be taped and monitored for purposes of quality control, okay?

Mm-hmm. Your address is listed as 424 Ocean Park Boulevard, Santa Monica, California. Right. Helen Golay, your fiancée, is listed Santa Monica, California. Right. Helen Golay, your fiancée, is listed as your beneficiary. Right. What's your occupation? Investor. None of that is true, of course. Kenneth McDavid, a homeless man who hasn't held a job in years,

has no secretary. He has no fiancée. He doesn't live in Santa Monica, and according to his sister Sandra, that isn't his voice. Okay, and what's your state of birth? New York. I think I'll just sign the application. Right, we're verifying the application. What did you think when you heard that voice?

It's obviously a woman's voice. And obviously not your brother? Obviously not my brother. Ken's voice is a deep voice. He has a good, deep radio voice. No, that wasn't Kenneth. It was Helen. No doubt you'll have noticed that Helen made no mention of her partner, Olga, in that call. Even though on most of their life insurance applications,

Olga was a blood relation of Kenneth, his cousin from the Hungarian side of the family. No, Helen Doley was going rogue on this call, cutting her partner out of the action. Any payout from this policy would be hers and hers alone. So it's definitely not a friendly situation all the time. It wasn't the first time, said the FBI's Sam Mayrose. Helen did the same thing with the policies on Paul Vadas.

And it was kind of interesting because together on Paul, they both owned four policies for just about $740,000. And then Helen, without Olga's knowledge, bought three more policies valued about $90,000. Oh, the treachery of it all. And it gets worse. As Kenneth McDavid's life neared its expiration date in June of 2005, each partner tried to undercut the other. Is there any way you can put any kind of a code on these so that others, anyone else that calls in would not be able to have access? The date of this call is June 6, 2005, two weeks before Kenneth McDavid would be crushed to death. At this late date, Helen is surreptitiously trying to have Olga's name removed from a policy so that she, Helen, will be the only beneficiary once Kenneth McDavid is dead.

I have you as an owner and also Olga. And we're going to make some changes on that. So the form should come to me, not to her. Helen, I believe you will need her signature. The only other way we could possibly do this, and I don't know, I guess it would be a brand new policy. The reason I ask my question about anyone calling in is we've had a little bit of reorganization in our business. A reorganization? There aren't many ways to reorganize a two-women tag team.

Still, in this call, Helen is working every angle and is apparently concerned that if she doesn't shiv Olga first, Olga will surely shiv her. Olga, for example, has all of the other owners. She has all the information on me, my social security number, my everything. So she wouldn't be able to call in. Oh, if she gave that to someone else, they'd be able to call in, pose and get all the information.

So that's what I wondered, what security methods you might have. Helen's fear that Olga might try to cheat her was not unfounded. Olga had, on occasion, ratted out Helen, contacted insurance companies, and reported her own partner for insurance fraud. Olga, I think, started cluing in and was getting pretty angry, and that's when she started getting her own policies separate from Helen. It was an ongoing game, said FBI agent Sam Mayrose.

Cheat versus cheat. Found a letter that Olga wrote that pretty much said that Helen was claiming to be, I think it was married to somebody and she wasn't. She was trying to get policies and Olga thought something needed to be done about it. Like, boy, I just, thanks, Olga. So much tension and distrust smoldering beneath the surface. Little wonder, then, that on the day law enforcement dropped the hammer on Helen and Olga, all that anger and mistrust suddenly burst into an open flame.

I know what you thought, that our relationship ended up like this, because what you did, of course I got angry. Oh, yes, quite the cozy confab going on in that interrogation room. It had investigators hanging on every word. All they're after is mail fraud. All the insurance companies are claiming that jointly, mail fraud.

Yes. They have nothing else. And they will confiscate the money that they paid you and me. Be quiet. Who cares? Who cares? We have nothing left. They can arrest you now and they can put you in jail until you bail out $2 million. Well, you have to get out of bail. I'm not going to pay bail, no.

I asked Ms. Mayrose, I said, Who in the world has convinced you that this was mail fraud? I said, there's no mail fraud. About $2 million bail, we're not going to put up. Why not? We put up 10%. That wouldn't happen, Helen, if you didn't listen to me. Keep a nice relationship, don't do that extra Helen, if you didn't listen to me. Keep a nice relationship. We don't do that extra things and it will be everything all right.

Do you realize what you're saying? That's greediness. And you better be quiet. As Detective Kilcoyne sat watching the video feed of Helen and Olga in the interrogation room, he knew this was good. So good, in fact, he was concerned a judge might consider the circumstances as a form of entrapment and therefore not allow the tape to be played at trial. So, from time to time, the detective re-entered the room as a reminder to the women that they were under arrest and not just shooting the breeze at home. You all right?

Uh-huh. Feel better without the handcuffs on? Yeah, because I really do. You don't want any misperception that they, oh, they forgot they were in a police station because of their age or whatever. So I come in every couple minutes to let them see my face. The cautionary cameos had no effect. As soon as Detective Kilcoyne left the room, the conversation resumed. This is only...

I just want to tell you one thing. You better be quiet. You better be quiet. But you better be... I'll tell you something. One insurance company, Mutual of New York, or Money, seemed to be very much on the women's minds that day. Remember, it was Mutual of New York that had sent Ed Webster to investigate those two Kenneth McDavid policies. And it was Ed Webster who had personally delivered the news to them that money was not going to pay off on their million-dollar claim. But who started the name for money?

All of them. Money did this. I know. So money is going to pay... I told you that will happen. Money is going to pay a big price. Now be careful what you're saying in here. Money is going to be sued to the guilds. My shares have to be sued too because we are partners.

You're suing on your half. You're taking care of your half. So what's your attorney's name? Miller. Miller? Yeah, it's no secret. Ask him to represent both of us. I already told him no, only me.

Fine, okay. But I cannot... Even as Detective Kilcoyne watched the video feed of the women bickering and blaming, he knew something was missing. A lot of talk about insurance, but not one word about murder. The detective had two murders on his plate, Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid. With zero physical evidence connecting Helen and Olga to those deaths, what he needed was

some incriminating comment. So once again, the detective and an associate entered the interrogation room. I couldn't believe this morning they broke into my place. Okay, like I said, very shortly now... This time,

the goal was to give their conversation a nudge. So, as the detectives spoke to each other, they let the ladies know there was more than mail fraud on the menu. Do you want to sign this receipt? No, no, that's for something else. No, no, no, that's part of the murder investigation, not part of this investigation. Murder investigations? That should have gotten their attention.

But Helen and Olga didn't react to the prompt. As soon as the detective left the room, they picked up right where they'd left off. Now one thing, listen to me. Regardless, whatever you feel, angry or not angry, we have to cooperate. We have to attack money together. The truce didn't last long. Soon Olga was back on the attack, berating Helen over the additional insurance policies she'd accrued. You can't do that, Benny. You make all these goddamn extra insurances. Too many you had. There's a limit. You can't do that many. You were greedy.

That's the problem. That's why I got angry. We had no problem with the relationship. You pay me and be nice and don't make extra things. I was doing everything for you. Listen, you are talking. Your fault. I know, but your fault that our relationship ended up like this, and you ended up like this.

I know. But admit it was your fault, because what you did, of course I got angry. I think it would have occurred money, no matter what. Money would have done this, no matter what. Not if you didn't have the AA and the garden estate. You had another one. Three extra you had.

Yes, of course I did. How nice of you. I paid for them. You don't listen to me, Elaine. It's a big mistake. You're not. That's almost better than a confession. Oh, they're putting the noose around her neck right now.

Listen, you are wasting your time and energy with this. We're going to go to jail, honey. They're going to lock you up. Everything's out. This is male crime, and it's not $2 million bill. Can you pay anything? I'm going to jail. It was then, about 12 minutes into this little heart-to-heart,

that Helen decided to reframe the whole narrative. This wasn't their fault, Helen declared. No, not at all. Their current troubles were actually Kenneth McDavid's fault. After all, the insurance policies were his idea, right? She needed Olga's buy-in, but Olga wasn't having it. If Kenneth wanted these policies,

he signed for these policies, and we have been punished because of what he wanted, that's not right. Now, remember the bottom line. I was the cousin, you were the fiancé, boy. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Though Detective Kilcoyne had promised the women

they would only be in that room a few minutes, it had now been more than 20 minutes, and neither was losing steam. This was not a conversation. It was a grievance download. I should have taken the plane last month and get the f*** out of here. Go back to Europe.

See the greediness that you get into this. In addition to wishing she'd gone to Europe, Olga told Helen she'd given some thought to striking out for Canada. To set up a new business there. A new franchise, as it were. Same similar setup, you understand? I wanted a new business. I understand. I wanted a new business for $2 million,

but since we're not in stocking term and the other investor is not as suitable as you, that's what I had in my mind. It's all f***ed up now. Helen, on the other hand, seemed less intent on woulda, shoulda, coulda, and more focused on getting their narratives in line for the coming trial. She seemed to understand that she and Olga would likely never again be able to strategize together.

And you have to remember, the bottom line is this. Whatever Kenneth wanted, he did. Kenneth wanted all of this. He wanted. You've got to remember. Yeah, he wanted, I know, of course. And he wanted it. Why, I don't know. And what his philosophy was, if he planned to keep these in force. We supported, honey, we supported him. I don't know where all of Kenneth's money came from, and neither did you. We supported him. We gave him money, yes. Our money was intermixed. Yeah.

It was combined. All of our monies were combined. When he needed money, I gave him money, you gave him money, whatever. But you have to remember, I don't know where Kenneth got his money from. As far as I know, he always seemed to have money in his pockets. No, he was a rider. You know what I want? I think he was paid under the table. This is just conversation between you and me. Kent always had plenty of money in his pocket. And he liked for me to pay the bills. And he reimbursed me when he could.

But in appreciation, why did he make the life insurance? Why? Because he loved us and he wanted to be a part of our family. I supported him financially very heavily. And he wanted us to do business together. And he loved both of us.

Finally, an agreement on something which sparked one more question. Helen to Olga. Kind of important. What would the police find when they searched Olga's apartment? Did you know that they're in there ransacking through your house, your apartment? I know. My computer, yes.

Everything. Horrible, horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. But all kinds of documents. All kinds. Are they going to find anything bad on your computer? No, not too many, no. But I have other things, yes.

Other things? Oh yes, there were plenty of other things. And the homicide detectives would have to inspect all of them with a fine-tooth comb. Why? Because as incriminating as Helen and Olga's encounter on insurance fraud charges was, it wasn't the murder confession Detective Kilcoyne had been hoping for. Now, building murder cases against Helen and Olga would have to be done the new, old-fashioned way, by studying the security cameras that were aimed at one of the crime scenes.

Helen Golay and Olga Rudderschmidt were guilty of murder. Detective Kilcoyne was sure of it. The problem was he couldn't prove it, at least not yet. What he needed was a murder weapon. He needed evidence that put the weapon in the lady's possession, and he needed proof they'd either been at the scene of the crime or had paid someone else to do their dirty work. Detective Kilcoyne and the other homicide cops hoped the evidence they'd seized

from Helen and Olga's apartments and cars would provide the break they were looking for. Newspaper and magazine clippings they'd found in Helen's apartment seemed a promising start. Her clippings file was dominated by one particular theme, murder. If I remember right, there were obituaries and there were articles about, you know, how to off somebody without getting caught. It was crazy stuff that just kind of goes to their state of mind. It's like you don't expect people normally to be trying to figure out, well, how do I kill this guy and nobody catches me?

But those kinds of things were in there as well. But even that was not the most macabre item seized. No, that prize went to an old movie ticket found in Helen's Mercedes. The ticket was from November 7th, 1999, An old movie ticket found in Helen's Mercedes. The ticket was from November 7th, 1999. A late show, according to the 1045 timestamp. And attached to the ticket was a post-it note with a name scribbled on it.

FBI agent Sam Mayrose remembers well the moment when he first saw it. Yes, I do. It was a post-it in Helen's writing, and it had Paul Vados' name, his biographical information, where he was born, his California ID number. Based on the date and the time stamp, it was clear that the ticket had been purchased just six hours before Paul Vados turned up dead in a dark alley. Have they treated Paul to one last night on the town before?

Well. Oh, and what movie was playing at the Santa Monica AMC in those last doomed hours of his life? It was The Bone Collector, big budget flick about a serial killer starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. That was an interesting find, yeah. I mean, it's just, the evidence just keep piling up.

It was fantastic. It was about a month after the arrests of Helen Golay and Olga Rudderschmidt, almost a year to the day after the death of Kenneth McDavid, that the LAPD decided to do a little bone collecting of their own. Detective Kilcoyne wanted to re-examine the body of Paul Vados. He knew where the bones were buried, because Helen had kept a record. It was her plot.

You know, I think Helen has got graves in her name all over the country. We have another one in East LA for her, actually waiting for her, that Mr. Vados occupied for a short while. The way the detectives figured it, if Kenneth McDavid had been drugged before he was run over, then there was a good chance the same had been done to Paul Vados. We knew from the autopsy that Kenneth had been drugged and what the drugs were that knocked him down or knocked him out. We got search warrants to go back to both Olga's residence and Helen's residence, and we found the ingredients for the drug cocktail at Helen's residence. So that helped out as well.

And then based on that, we got another federal search warrant to exhume Paul Vados' body. It was June 2006, a Friday morning, little after 9 a.m., when a big yellow front loader eased up to a vacant plot of ground in the Evergreen Cemetery in East L.A. According to cemetery records, this was the spot where Paul Vadas was buried, seven years earlier. Paul's closest neighbor was a 13-year-old boy who had been moved to the neighborhood a few months after Paul. The boy had a stone.

Paul did not. As the front-end loader dug deep into the ground, a couple of cemetery employees stood nearby, leaning on shovels and wearing straw sombreros as a shield against an unrelenting sun. From the looks of it, Helen and Olga hadn't splurged when choosing a casket for Paul. This one seemed to disintegrate as the crew worked. In a matter of minutes, Paul Vallis' body was loaded up and hauled away for testing. But here's the thing about investigating murder. Sometimes the results are not what you expect. Mr. Vados, he had nothing in his toxicological reports to indicate that he was inebriated or on drugs

or there was nothing in his system. He was just a frail little old man and they very easily just could have pushed him down and then drove over him. And I don't think he would be able to get up too quickly. His body was crushed? Absolutely. And scraped? Well, they refer to the coroner's office a number of abraded injuries, which is basically the tearing of flesh from the body and clothing. And as he is being somewhat dragged and rubbed under the car against this rough surface here, you know, his body is tearing apart, as are his clothes.

And he is being snapped and crunched and just brutally murdered. This is a horrible, horrible death. There's nothing instant about it. It'd be like driving over a pile of rocks. I mean, you just kind of move and push along until it's done, and then you go on about your business and go file your claim forms. The detective was sure Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid had both been murdered for money.

As sure of that as he was that the moments surrounding Kenneth McDavid's death had been caught on camera. Why? Well, security cameras, of course. There were security cameras all over the area where Kenneth McDavid died. Cameras on the front of stores facing parking lots. And cameras mounted on the rear of those stores, facing the alley where Kenneth McDavid's body was found. The problem was this. The McDavid case was already two months old by the time Detective Dennis Kilcoyne took it over. Most businesses, just because of economics, they loop everything

over and you know your opportunity to get something is usually a matter of two or three days, and it's taped over. But as luck would have it, we were able to get the recordings from the Bristol Farms grocery store. Lucky? Oh yes, it was the closest thing to being there. The surveillance images were not the best, grainy black and white, but at 11.45 on the night of June 21st, 2005, a silver-colored car, which looked to be either a Ford Taurus wagon or a Mercury Sable, can be seen driving through the Bristol Farms parking lot. The car passes from view, but seconds later, another camera on the rear of the grocery store picks it up, turning into the back alley.

The alley is as dark as a California cabernet. But there is no mistaking that silver car. At that point, the car actually goes under the camera, and we have a very good view of that. But unfortunately, you can't make out the occupants of the car or how many people are in the car. All we're working on is the car, and it's grainy, and we can't view a license plate or anything of this nature. Just as the car passes out of the view of the Bristol Farms alley cam,

another camera further down the alley picks it up. And as the vehicle moves down, it gets to a point where all of the lights in the car go out. And this occurs for a 45-minute period that the lights are off on the car. What happened during that four minutes and 29 seconds of total darkness is anyone's guess. But the detective had a hunch. So we are surmising that this is the point where they're laying out their crime, their victim. They've pushed him out of the car. They're getting him, dragging him around

into a position for their advantage, probably lengthwise across the alley. At about 11.50 p.m., the car's brake light suddenly flashed on. Next came the backup lights. And in the next couple of frames, you see the vehicle come towards the camera as it backs up to get a running start to drive over this man. And that's exactly what you see.

The backup light goes off, brake lights come on, brake lights go off, vehicle moves forward and then past where the body is. So they've already run him over, they stop again as if to look back to make sure that, I mean they got to make sure the guy is dead. They can't just drive off and then the car continues down the alley. Wow. That is amazing. That was very amazing. For months, Detective Kilcoyne and the California Highway Patrol had searched for that silver wagon,

but with no license plate number, no VIN number or registration, they were out of luck. And then one day, their luck changed.