
Morrison attributes its recent uptick in popularity to the rise of social media as well as the proliferation of internet sleuths sharing information online in real-time. The current fascination with true crime is nothing new. “So in the end, how much did they get away with that we still don’t know all about?” “Then they added to their profitability by trying to do a bunch of other things that were clearly against the law,” he said. Morrison said in his many years of working in the realm of true crime, he’s learned that not all villains “are like in the cartoons, scurrying around, twirling his mustache with an evil grin, plotting what he could to take advantage of in the situation.” The two women in this case were “kindly old ladies” for whom fraud and murder was “easy as pie,” he says. It’s terrible blight on what is the richest country on the planet.” What this story also shows is that we have a big problem with homelessness, a very big problem. “He figured there had to be something in exchange for what they’d offered. “Jimmy smelled a rat, I guess, but he was one of those people who understood that it’s wise to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Morrison said.
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There’s also Jimmy Covington, a homeless man that Morrison describes as having “movie star looks,” who ultimately declined the women’s offer for free food and rent, although that didn’t stop them from taking out a life insurance policy on him as well. While this case has been covered on shows like “Dateline,” “Deadly Women,” “Wicked Attraction” as well as being loosely worked into the storyline of a 2009 “CSI:NY” episode starring Kim Kardashian and Vanessa Lachey, Morrison said that there are things in the podcast that haven’t been shared before.įor instance, Morrison dives into how investigator Ed Webster followed the money, a move that ultimately helped uncover a motive for the murders. There’s a spot later on in the podcast where we’ll get to hear a frank conversation between the two, which happens to be recorded, about who did what to whom and what the repercussions ought to be.” “The nature of what they did is binge-worthy, and I found myself fascinated by the way they behave. “I won’t say the characters are inspiring in a good way, but they are certainly fascinating,” Morison said. As the story unfolded, these killings became known as The Black Widow Murders. The women were also found guilty of nine counts of fraud: They’d taken out multiple life insurance policies on both men. However, by 2008, they were convicted for the murders of two men, Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid, that they had supposedly been helping.

In the late ’90s and early ’00s, the two women, who were both in their 70s, helped homeless men, providing them with food and shelter. On the surface, Olga Rutterschmidt and Helen Golay, both of Los Angeles, were saints.

This is one of those stories Morrison just couldn’t stop thinking about.
