Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - These Insane Women Ran Over Homeless Guys - The Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt Story

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

In 2008, Helen Golay, then 77, alongside her accomplice Olga Rutterschmidt, 75—two seemingly benign elderly women residing in California—were convicted of orchestrating the staged hit-and-run murders of two homeless men.

This is your fix. I am your host, Stasi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone base consequences. It's intoxicating.

The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13, on Hulu, and Hulu on Disney Plus. So this insane woman ran over some homeless guys in order to collect some insurance money. Now the woman's name is Helen, and Helen is 66 years old when the story starts living in Los Angeles, and this woman is straight up evil. She's a longtime con artist who wants nothing more than to make money in the most sinister way possible.

And one day, in 1997, she comes up with a diabolical plan to get paid. She partners up with her friend, this woman, Olga, and to get her, And together, they concoct this scheme to take a life insurance policy out on some random homeless person and then eventually unalive them with their car to collect the money. And so they volunteer at a local church, a church known for feeding the unhoused. Because, you know, they're trying to meet some homeless people. And there they meet this guy, Paul. And Paul is the perfect target for their scam.

And so Helen and Olga, they befriend Paul. And they pretend that they want to help him out. And like they get him set up with an apartment and they help him pay his rent and some of his bills. And Helen and Olga are able to pay for all this because they already have some money. Like they're not poor. And so it seems like they aren't pulling this insurance scam only for the money. It's like they're partly doing it for the thrill. But anyway, while Paul is under their care, they get a rubber stamp made of his signature.

That way they can sign papers for him without him ever knowing that they did. And so signing papers is exactly what they do. And they take out a bunch of life insurance policies in Paul's name, and of course, they name themselves as the beneficiaries. Now, this is a long con, and they can't take out life insurance on someone and then immediately unalive them. That would look way too suspicious. So instead, they wait. And two years go by. And it's now 1999.

And finally, they're ready to unalive poor Paul. And so one night, they give Paul something, sedatives are outlawful. We don't know, but something that makes him pass out. Then they take him to a secluded back alley where no one is around and they place him on the ground, then they get in their car and they start it up and boom, they run over him. That's how they kill him. And so after that, they leave him there. And sometime later, police find him in the alley, unalived, and the whole thing looks like a hit and run.

So I guess they just rule it a hit and run. And he's homeless, so there's no family there to even challenge this. narrative. So then, of course, after this ruling, none of the insurance companies suspect anything nefarious happened. And they all end up paying out Helen and Olga around $600,000. And this is great money for them. However, they seem to think that they can actually get more. And so they try again. They actually try a few more times. And one of those times, Olga spots this unhoused-looking guy on the street, and she approaches him, and she's like, hi, are you homeless? And I guess the guy, like, yeah. And she tells him that she works with an agency that can set him up with money and a place to

live. And so this dude's like, all right. And soon she's having him fill out paperwork. And this paperwork is asking him all kinds of questions. And bro, he doesn't really like this. It feels very intrusive to him. And as they file an insurance policy on him for $800,000, suddenly this dude is like, nah, this is all weird. And he freaks out and he declines all their help. So this guy's lucky, he gets away. But Helen and Olga aren't done. This seems to only make them want to pull this con off even more. But this time, they're going to try and get more money, a lot more money. So in 2002, they decide to try again. They go back to that same church they went to the first time. And there, they meet this homeless guy, his name's Kenneth. And of course, they run their same old scam with him.

They approach him and they say that they can set him up with money and a place to look. And soon enough, he starts trusting them, and they move him into an apartment, and they start paying his bills. Now, Kenneth, he's a former screenwriter with some severe mental health issues. And allegedly, Helen and Olga lure him in with some kind of screenwriting deal or promises of a screenwriting deal, because Kenneth believes he's working for their production company, writing on some sort of like TV or film project. I don't know, it's whatever lie they told this poor guy.

And so they get him to agree to fill out a life insurance. policy as an act of good faith. They also get another rubber stamp, this time of Kenneth's signature. And using this, they take out a total of 18 life insurance policies on this guy worth around $5 million. And so after that, they wait a while so that these policies can settle and so, you know, so that they don't look suspicious. And then finally, one day, they're ready to unalive Kenneth. So one night they get him really high on sedatives and alcohol, just like they did with Paul. Then they put him in their car and they drive him to a secluded back alley and they push him out. And I guess he's just like lying there on the ground and they put his bike next to him because I guess he has a bike.

And they stage it to make it look like he was in the alley fixing his bike when some random driver just came along and accidentally hit him. So then they get back in their car and boom, they run him over twice. and this of course, unfortunately, unalives him. And so their devious plan worked again. He's gone. And all these ladies have to do now is wait for their insurance money. So it looks like they've now gotten away with this scam a second time. Until.

Here's the thing about all this. Helen and Olga, they took out a lot of insurance policies on their victim this time, apparently 18 total. Now before, they waited two full years between when they took the policies out and when they unalive their victim so it's not to look suspicious. And they did the same thing this time. They waited two full years on all the policies, except for one policy. They go to cash in one policy and it's just under the two year mark. And apparently life insurance claims that are cashed in in under two years, they can be investigated for any reason. And that is where this guy steps in.

We'll just call him agent. An agent, he works for the insurance company, and he opens an investigation into all this. And so, agent, he starts looking into it, and he notices that some of these things aren't adding up. Like, the bike tire Kenneth was allegedly fixing wasn't actually flat. So why was he fixing it? Plus, there's oil all over all his clothes.

Like someone drove over him slowly, rather than crashing into him and knocking him to the side, like, you know, what you would suspect would normally happen. Just little stuff like that. And so Agent reaches out to Helen and Olga and he tries to set up a meeting with them, but they won't talk to him at all. I mean, they're acting real shady. And so Agent, he starts realizing that this claim of theirs, it isn't real.

And so he reaches out to the police to get their take on it. And he starts explaining all this to one of the officers about how a homeless guy was run over by a car. And coincidentally, one of the officers there remembers a similar case from years before, where a homeless guy had been run over by a car. Paul's case. And so immediately, agent cancels Helen and Olga's life insurance policies. Meanwhile, Helen and Olga, they're pissed that their policies were canceled. I mean, all that hard work went to waste.

And so they decide to try again. They go out and they find yet another homeless guy. And soon enough, Olga is filling out paperwork with this new guy, but this time the police are on to them. And so, bam, they arrest Olga. Here's her mugshot. Also, bam, they arrest Helen. Here's her mugshot.

And they both go to trial, and they are both found guilty, and they both get life in prison.