Judge in ‘Black Widow’ case OKs defense strategy

A lawyer in the “Black Widow” murder trial can argue that defendant Helen Golay’s daughter framed her for the hit-and-run killing of a homeless man out of “intense hatred for her mother,” a Los Angeles judge agreed today.

The decision came just before the prosecution rested its case, as the trial entered its fourth week. Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, are accused of housing two destitute men, Kenneth McDavid, 50, and Paul Vados, 73, then having them killed in staged accidents so the women could collect $2.8 million from insurance policies they had taken out on them.

Defense attorney Roger Jon Diamond told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Wesley today that Kecia Golay, 44, hated Helen Golay because she did not approve of Kecia’s then-boyfriend. He said he can show Kecia Golay set her mother up to take the fall for the McDavid killing.

Helen Golay in 2003 sued her daughter and the boyfriend, Steve Taracevicz of Santa Monica, accusing Kecia of assaulting her and trespassing on her property.

Kecia Golay and Taracevicz denied all the allegations. They said in court papers that Helen Golay had threatened to kill Taracevicz, scraped his car with a key and hired a security guard to keep him from visiting her daughter.

They also said Helen Golay had exhibited “30 years of psychopathic behavior.”

In 2004, Kecia Golay filed suit against her mother, claiming Helen falsely acted as the daughter’s “attorney in fact” and engaged in other deceitful conduct to cheat her out of ownership stakes in four properties.

Diamond said Kecia Golay has not visited her mother in jail, where she has been held for the last two years. Kecia Golay pleaded no contest last year to charges of stalking Taracevicz.

Diamond said he would show that the Mercury Sable that ran Kenneth McDavid down was purchased with an identification stolen from someone who attended the same fitness club as Kecia Golay. Criminalists testified that they found McDavid’s DNA on the undercarriage of the vehicle.

Diamond also plans to offer psychiatric reports prepared after she was arrested that allegedly document Kecia Golay’s “intense anger” toward Helen Golay.