Signed in Blood: The True Story of Two Women, a Sinister Plot, and Cold Blooded Murder

by Jeanne King

They came from different backgrounds, but when Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt met in the 1980s, they became fast friends. For decades, they made a game of engaging in petty crime—bad deals, insurance fraud, robbing wallets. But after years of dabbling in theft, they came up with a way of making their pocketbooks even fatter. They found a way to make murder pay… It was a plan out of Arsenic and Old Lace : Befriend a homeless man, place life insurance policies in his name—and then have him killed. Their scheme worked once…but then police started to notice a pattern. Helen and Olga were discovered, and in front of a court of law, their coldhearted pact to kill and cash in would finally be exposed.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 30, 2009

Reviews

[Koren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the basic premise of the story. It's pretty rare to read about two older ladies who befriend homeless or down-on-their luck gentlemen, take out multiple insurance policies on them with themselves as the beneficiaries, and then kill them. But we find this out in the first pages and then the rest is trial, first the preliminary trial, which is similar to a grand jury trial, and then the main trial, which is mostly a repeat of the preliminary trial. The book doesn't delve very much into the background of the ladies or their victims. If you like the minutia of reading about trials, you may like this book, otherwise skip it.

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this again in December of 2016. I remembered the story being very interesting (two old ladies who insure homeless men and then kill them). If you like reading about courtroom battles more than police investigations, this might be the book for you; the perpetrators are arrested by page fifty and the rest of the book is devoted to the preliminary hearing and the trial.

[Marsmannix · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. 80% of the book is pretty much a description of the trial.
Only the first part of the book goes into the actual crimes. Very minimal treatment of the backgrounds and psychology of the perpetrators.
snooze.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

did not like it...very boring!

[Janine Cave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just too long

This book was just too long. The court case is in detail - which if you're into that, you'll love this book. I skipped entire chapters and didn't miss a thing.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good true crime book.