Talking Dateline: The Thing About Helen & Olga

Summary

Dateline NBC – Talking Dateline: The Thing About Helen & Olga

Release Date: February 11, 2026
Host: Lester Holt
Guests: Keith Morrison (Dateline Correspondent, Host of “The Thing About Helen & Olga”), Susan Leibowitz (Senior Producer, Dateline NBC)

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Episode Overview

In this special episode, Lester Holt sits down with Keith Morrison and Dateline producer Susan Leibowitz to discuss the making of the true-crime podcast series “The Thing About Helen & Olga.” The episode revisits the chilling case of Hel en Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt, two elderly women who, under the guise of charity, befriended, insured, and ultimately murdered homeless men in Los Angeles for insurance payouts. Through relaxed, in-depth conversation, the team recounts the multi-year investigation, bizarre courtroom moments, behind-the-scenes stories, and lingering mysteries that surround this case.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scam: Kindness as a Cover

• In the late 1990s, Helen and Olga portrayed themselves as charitable figures, helping homeless men in L.A.

• Beneath the surface, they patiently cultivated relationships over years, took out life insurance policies on their victims, and staged their deaths to look accidental, collecting significant payouts.

• Keith Morrison calls them “sort of Thelma and Louise of crime.” [02:44]

  “We say elderly ladies. They weren’t that elderly when they started their scams, who just played the most interesting and patient games with men to try to take their money away... There is sort of Thelma and Louise of crime.”
  — Keith Morrison [02:44]

• Their key asset: patience. They’d wait years before making a claim, so as not to arouse suspicion from insurers.

  “They would spend two years waiting for the time when an insurance company would trust them to give them the money...”
  — Keith Morrison [03:34]

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2. The Investigation & The Role of the “Granny Task Force”

• The scam unraveled when an insurance investigator noticed something suspicious about the payout claims.

  “I’ve never encountered somebody who is quite so calm, methodical, and deliberate. He just would not give up until he solved this puzzle.”
  — Keith Morrison [04:42]

• This investigator’s dedication pushed law enforcement to take a closer look, leading to the formation of the “Granny Task Force”—a specialized group assigned to trail Helen and Olga.

• The comedic element: police struggled to keep up as then-septuagenarian Olga hiked steep Runyon Canyon, outpacing her would-be followers. [07:20]

• Evidence gathering included surveillance, financial tracing, and late-night crime scene recreations to confirm allegations.

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3. Confrontation and Break in the Case

• A dramatic moment is recounted when Helen expected a life-changing insurance check only to be handed a refund instead, all caught undercover on video.

  “If you’re not going to pay me the full amount, this has been a total waste of my time. I am very unhappy. A lot of grief and heartache and problems.”
  — “Helen or Olga” reenactment [06:31]

• At Olga’s house, she wouldn’t open the door, reaching out only enough to grab her check and slam it closed, underscoring their mounting desperation.

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4. The Murders and Attempted Cover-up

• The killings involved staging fatal accidents, such as running men over with cars in alleys.

• Detectives tried to reconstruct these crimes, working with the California Highway Patrol to recreate how Kenneth McDavid was killed, staying up “til two in the morning.” But this elaborate evidence was never used in court as prosecutors changed strategy. [08:42–10:12]

  “I never completely understood what they were trying to prove, but they were trying to figure out if there was something they could do to help make their case.”
  — Susan Leibowitz [09:29]

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5. Other Alleged Victims & Civil Suits

• The story included a segment about Fred Downey, an elderly man in Cape Cod befriended by Helen’s daughter, coerced to sell his house, and who later died in circumstances echoing the California murders. His family was unsettled to find Helen and Keisha’s gravestones beside his.

  “There are two more gravestones there for Keisha and Helen. Right. So they’re going to be buried beside poor old Fred Downey. And Fred’s relative is very, very, very unhappy about that.”
  — Keith Morrison [13:23]

• Helen and Olga were involved in numerous civil suits—against lighting stores, gyms, grocery stores—over suspicious “accidents.”

  “They were just looking around, which he said was unusual in lighting stores… at one point he hears crash. And one of them… has been hit by one of their lamps… and later on, the store gets sued.”
  — Susan Leibowitz [17:02]

  “In order to have that lamp hit you… you’d have to go out of your way, bring the lamp low enough… so it just seemed peculiar at the time.”
  — Royal Lighting Store Owner [17:46]

  • Susan describes searching through a basement full of missing paper court files, highlighting both their brazen litigiousness and the system's flaws.

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6. Personality, Motives, and Legacy

• The discussion explores whether Helen or Olga was the ringleader. Keith suggests Helen was the prime schemer, though both were opportunistic. [14:46]

• Their backgrounds and relationship remain partly mysterious; even those close to them wanted little to do with them. Attempts to reach friends and family were largely rebuffed.

  “People wanted to keep them at arm’s length.”
  — Susan Leibowitz [15:26]

• There are hints that the full extent of Helen’s (and possibly Olga’s) misdeeds may never be known, with questions remaining about unexplained property transfers and other suspicious deaths. [16:12]

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7. Trial, Verdict, and Ongoing Impact

• The trial saw Helen attempt to shift blame to her daughter (who has never been charged), but the jury found both women guilty of murder.

  “The jury didn’t seem to have any trouble reaching a verdict in Helen’s case. But they talked a little longer about Olga before they finally came to a conclusion.”
  — Keith Morrison [20:19]

• Both women are now elderly, in separate prisons, likely to die behind bars. As of this episode, Helen is 95 and Olga is nearly 93.

  “Whatever else prison life has done for them, it has not harmed their longevity.”
  — Keith Morrison [24:36]

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8. Behind the Scenes: Human Impact & The Hollywood Presbyterian Church

• A number of poignant, personal moments focus on the lingering toll these stories take on the journalists who cover them—Susan ended up sending her own daughter to the preschool at the same church where Helen and Olga befriended their victims. [22:48]

• Both Keith and Susan touch on the emotional cost and the need to balance empathy with professional distance.

  “Life can be tragic for people, and you live in those moments. You feel tremendous empathy for people who are the victims of crime… But… you’ve got other things in your life… and then move on to the next one.”
  — Keith Morrison [23:54]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There is sort of Thelma and Louise of crime.”
  — Keith Morrison [02:44]

• “If you’re not going to pay me the full amount, this has been a total waste of my time.”
  — “Helen or Olga” (reenactment) [06:31]

• “They were just looking around, which he said was unusual in lighting stores… and later on, the store gets sued.”
  — Susan Leibowitz [17:02]

• “There are two more gravestones there for Keisha and Helen. Right. So they’re going to be buried beside poor old Fred Downey.”
  — Keith Morrison [13:23]

• “Whatever else prison life has done for them, it has not harmed their longevity.”
  — Keith Morrison [24:36]

• “People wanted to keep them at arm's length.”
  — Susan Leibowitz [15:26]

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Important Timestamps

• 01:03 – Episode begins, Lester introduces guests and recaps the case
• 02:44 – Keith Morrison dubs Helen & Olga “the Thelma and Louise of crime”
• 03:34 – Patience and method in their insurance scam explained
• 04:36–05:51 – The pivotal role of the insurance investigator
• 06:06 – Undercover confrontation where Helen receives a refund, not a payout
• 07:20 – The “Granny Task Force” and their unusual surveillance challenges
• 08:42–10:12 – Crime scene recreation with law enforcement
• 11:56–14:40 – The Cape Cod victim Fred Downey, and family reaction to burial plot
• 15:03 – Little known about origin of Helen and Olga’s friendship
• 16:12 – Speculation about unknown crimes and property transfers
• 17:02–18:38 – The lighting store “accident” and pattern of suspicious civil lawsuits
• 20:02–20:34 – Trial outcome and Helen blaming her daughter
• 22:48–23:32 – Susan’s ironic connection to the case through her child’s preschool
• 24:36 – Update on Helen and Olga: ages, prison status, no chance of release
• 25:23–25:41 – Susan's correspondence attempts with the women, including odd responses
• 25:49–25:58 – Closing thanks from hosts

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Final Thoughts

This episode provides an intimate look at the investigation, personalities, and darker layers of the Helen and Olga case—the calculated patience, systemic blindspots, and the odd, often surreal details. Morrison and Leibowitz blend reporting with personal experience, providing a revealing and at times darkly comic take on one of Dateline’s most memorable stories.

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For listeners newer to Dateline or The Thing About Helen & Olga, this episode both recaps the facts and brings out the tangled, often absurd human side behind the headlines—making it essential listening for true-crime aficionados who want a deeper understanding of both the case and those who reported it.

Transcript

[Keith Morrison]

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[Lester Holt]

Hi everyone, I'm Lester Holt and we're talking DATELINE today. I'm here with Keith Morrison to talk about his original podcast series, the Thing About Helen and Olga, and DATELINE senior producer Susan Leibowitz, who has been following the story with Keith for nearly 20 years. It's good to see both of you. Thanks for coming on.

[Keith Morrison]

Hello. Thank you for for having us on.

[Lester Holt]

Lester before we get into the discussion, let's tell folks that we're dropping the full series in the Dateline feed as a bonus while DATELINE is taking a break for the Winter Olympics. So go take a listen and then come right back here later. We'll have an extra clip from an interview that didn't make the show with the manager of a Mom and Pop lighting store in Los Angeles who had his own encounter with Helen and and Olga. And Susan has a story about the church where Helen and Olga volunteered. But to recap, in the late 1990s, Helen Golay and Olga Rudderschmidt appeared to be two kindly old ladies helping homeless men off the streets of Los Angeles. But as private investigator Ed Webster discovered, along with the LAPD and FBI in the so called Granny Task Force, the women were actually singling out men for insurance policies, then staging their deaths to collect big payouts. They were convicted in the murders of Kenneth McDavid and Paul Vados and remain behind bars today. So let's talk dateline, shall we? KEITH this story contains so much greed, betrayal and good old fashioned detective work. It was kind of a typical DATELINE plot. But not let me let you kind of describe what we're talking about.

[Keith Morrison]

It's just, it's just the craziest story. I can never understand why nobody made it into a movie. Helen and Olga are these two. You know, we. We say elderly ladies. They weren't that elderly when they started their scams, who just played the most interesting and patient games with men to try to take their money away or try to take advantage of them and get money, farm them for money, if I can put it that way. Strange, crazy story. There is sort of Thelma and Louise of crime.

[Lester Holt]

It sounds like they kind of played the long game you talked about. They had patience. I mean, this thing did play out over years. And the victims, it appears, were identified way in advance. Was that their secret weapon? Is that how they were able to do what they did over such an extended period?

[Keith Morrison]

You know, Susan, I don't know whether you heard about how they came up with the notion of doing it that way, but they were very patient. And they, you know, they would spend two years waiting for the time when an insurance company would trust them to give them the money from the death of these homeless men who they took in, housed, fed, took care of for all that time so that they could score from the insurance policy when the men, unfortunately, suddenly died. And they would, of course, be the ones behind that unfortunate sudden death. So they had to be patient because the insurance companies would flag a policy if somebody tried to claim it, so that they just had to avoid the appearance of criminal activity enough to. So the insurance company wasn't going to pay attention to it. And since these were not gigantic policies, maybe they wouldn't bother spending the amount of time it would take to investigate it. And for a while, it worked.

[Lester Holt]

And Keith, this starts unraveling because an insurance investigator takes a closer look.

[Keith Morrison]

He was the most interesting man I've never encountered, somebody who is quite so, you know, calm, methodical and deliberate. And he just would not give up until he solved this puzzle. He was another character who could have been, you know, a lead actor in a movie in the sense that when I'm talking about his character could have been because he was like a boy Scout who wouldn't give up. And with. Without that determination of his, this might not have been solved.

[Susan Leibowitz]

He reminded me of like some 1970s TV detective, you know, I don't know, is it Rockford or Mannix? Maybe it was the mustache. But he also was so determined to get justice for these. His guy, Kenneth McDavid, and then ultimately for Vados as well. But it was Kenneth McDavid that got him looking in. There was something not right. And he could not let go of the idea that these women were getting, getting away with these terrible murders of these men that other people had thought nothing of because they were homeless people. But he was determined. He came out here and he was just supposed to do a double check on this that looked a little weird. And he was. He was hooked.

[Lester Holt]

And Helen and Olga didn't like him.

[Keith Morrison]

Well, understandably so.

[Susan Leibowitz]

No, he only had bad news to give them.

[Lester Holt]

Can you tell me what happened when. When he confronted them and. And basically said, we're. We're keeping the money.

[Susan Leibowitz]

Well, that's all on video, which is awesome to see. And they think, you know, Helen meets with the investigator and he's. He's with a. He's with an undercover LAPD detective who is recording all this. And she thinks she's getting the big payout check. And she gets a check that is a refund of what she paid for her premiums. And she is not happy.

[Keith Morrison]

No, indeed.

[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

If you're not going to pay me the full amount, this has been a total waste of my time. I am very unhappy. A lot of grief and heartache and problems.

[Susan Leibowitz]

And then they go to Olga's and knock on her door. Now, she probably already knew what was coming, and she never really opens the door. She like, sticks her hand out to get the envelope and slams the door.

[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

This is money's check. What is it? What is it? Eighteen hundred dollars. What is it?

[Keith Morrison]

It's a.

[Susan Leibowitz]

For the premiums that you pay.

[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

No, we don't. What is. Read it. Read the policy there letter.

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[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

Thank you.

[Keith Morrison]

Yes, that was because that's the end of, you know, several years of waiting. And it was also recognition. Okay, maybe this is the jig might be up here. We might not be able to do this anymore.

[Lester Holt]

I was. I was curious. What's the story behind this Granny Squad?

[Susan Leibowitz]

So Detective Dennis Kilcoy and asked for guys to follow these old women. I remember they were trying to follow Olga, who's 70. What, five at the time. Seventy something. And she would go on these crazy hikes in Runyon Canyon, which I don't know if either of you have done that. It's very uphill. And these. These. The people following the cops following her could barely keep up with her. They did encounter her at a Tinko's where she was ordering credit cards and other people's names. And they also saw her talking to another potential victim. So, I mean, there was a good reason to follow them around, but it was a funny thing to have to, you know, surveil women in their 70s.

[Lester Holt]

Well, it sounds like the police were Kind of had kind of figured out what was going on, but they couldn't. They clearly couldn't make the case for a long time. It's just.

[Keith Morrison]

Just proving a case can be very difficult with these ladies. They were apparently trying to come up with a way to present the case. Was the. The recreation in the middle of the night where they tried to recreate the running over of one of these elderly men in a. Back in Westwood. Yeah. And so at 2 o' clock in the morning, they're out there trying to recreate the scene in order to what, I guess come up with some kind of theory or evidence that they could use against these women.

[Lester Holt]

I was going to ask Susan. You were there at this recreation?

[Susan Leibowitz]

Yeah, it was a huge team of people. They had some really grainy video of a car going through that alley at the time they believe Kenneth McDavid was killed. So they used the same type of car, what they thought was the same type of car, and they wanted it to match the speeds it hit, the different cameras.

[Keith Morrison]

So with the car and that surveillance video in hand, Detective Kilcoyne asked for help from the California Highway Patrol.

[Lester Holt]

Okay, here's what we're going to do tonight.

[Keith Morrison]

The CHP marked where the body was found, where the bike was, the glasses they added in the location of the cameras and what they could see on that fuzzy videotape. And they put it all together to figure out exactly what happened in that dark Alley to Kenneth McDavid.

[Susan Leibowitz]

They were. I, to be honest, I was telling Keith this. I never completely understood what they were trying to prove, but they were trying to figure out if there was something they could do to help make their case. And yes, and I was there. And I was there till two in the morning, until the detective was like, you have to go home because I was pregnant. My daughter's about to go to college now.

[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

But.

[Lester Holt]

Okay, you just dropped that in?

[Susan Leibowitz]

Yeah. And the detective's like, you have to go. I was like, okay.

[Lester Holt]

Did that video or that recreation ever come of any use?

[Keith Morrison]

Not for them. It was. It was quite useful for us.

[Susan Leibowitz]

It was interesting to see how they do that. But it was not used in the trial. They changed prosecutors and the second prosecutor had. Wasn't interested.

[Lester Holt]

So when we come back, we're going to play that interesting interaction involving the two women at a lighting store in Los Angeles. We're back after this.

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[Susan Leibowitz]

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[Lester Holt]

We've been talking in Los Angeles terms, Runyon Canyon and things like that. Part of the story plays out actually in New England. And can, can you explain that story?

[Susan Leibowitz]

So there's another man named Fred Downey and Fred Downey is not part of the criminal case that played out in Los Angeles. He was. Fred Downey was this old 95, 96, 97 really old man who lived alone, who had no kids. He lived in Cape Cod. And he meets Helen Golay's daughter Keisha, and they become friends. Keisha is a 20 something and he's a 90 something and she spends all her time with Fred. And Fred eventually moves to. To live with Helen and live out his last years in beautiful Santa Monica.

[Keith Morrison]

Which is inexplicable, by the way, to his, to his family because he, you know, he's crossing the country to live way over, far, far, far away from them, where with this person they don't really know in Santa Monica on the other coast.

[Susan Leibowitz]

And he sells his house to Helen and Keisha for $100 house on Cape Cod. And he writes letters to his niece Mildred about how wonderful it is. It's amazing Santa Monica. And then the letters become not so happy and, and they're not feeding him very much, and he's not sure he made the right decision, and he gets run over by car on Ocean Park Boulevard. So we went to talk to Fred's niece, and Keith made this amazing discovery while we were at the cemetery where Fred was buried. Keith, you want to talk? You remember that?

[Keith Morrison]

Well, I do remember that. It wasn't such an amazing discovery. We're standing in the cemetery, and there are leaves in the ground. It's autumn, I guess. And just shuffling my feet around where the gravesite is. And there are two more gravestones there for Keisha and Helen. Right. So they're going to be buried beside poor old Fred Downey. And Fred's relative is very, very, very unhappy about that.

[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

That is terrible. Look at that.

[Susan Leibowitz]

Pete.

[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

Fred, Merrill, a Keisha. I never knew they were here. That is horrible. I'm gonna put sand on them and gravel or something and put grass seed. That is horrible. Oh, I just can't get over that. I had no. I had no idea. No, it's upsetting.

[Keith Morrison]

But she hadn't discovered that before. And Susan tells me that those graves are still empty, still kind of waiting for somebody who probably won't get there.

[Lester Holt]

So you guys have immersed yourself in this story. Who is the leader of this group? Could they have pulled this off singularly?

[Keith Morrison]

I mean, certainly. They were both apparently scheming and conniving people who were looking for an easy mark. I got the impression that Helen was the one who was scheming and coming up with these ideas.

[Lester Holt]

What's the backstory between how they linked up and became friends?

[Susan Leibowitz]

Well, Dennis Kilcoyne, the detective, told us he believed they met at the gym, but we don't know. Yeah, we don't know the details of that. Were they both on the bicycles next to each other? I have no idea, but they're unlikely friends.

[Lester Holt]

Have either of you been able to hear from friends or people close to Helen and Olga who might be able to provide some extra insight?

[Susan Leibowitz]

They didn't. People didn't want to talk. Helen's ex husband didn't want to talk. Helen's daughter, who lives in Cape Cod, didn't want to talk. And we went and knocked on her door. There was a guy who had maybe who dated Helen I talked to on the phone. He didn't want to talk. People wanted to keep them at arm's length. I know that people in Olga's apartment building didn't like her, that she was always yelling at people and complaining about the music being too loud and things like that. Olga's husband had left the country before we got on the story. And I tried to talk to Keisha, but she didn't want to talk to me. Yeah, we didn't get very far with people who knew them.

[Lester Holt]

Do you think there's more to be uncovered in this story?

[Susan Leibowitz]

Yes, I do. I think that there's other things that Helen did and maybe other things that Olga did. And I tried to find out. There's. There's a guy who Helen worked for who was some sort of real estate development guy. At some point, he dies and. And a lot of his property goes to Helen by quick cleans. His family sues her, saying that she stole it, and his family loses. Is there more to that story? I don't. I don't know.

[Keith Morrison]

But given what happens, it makes you want to look at it more carefully. All right.

[Susan Leibowitz]

Right. And I think these women were energetic. You know, they were not sitting around counting their money. They were sitting around thinking about how to get more money.

[Lester Holt]

So go into more detail, if you will, about this interaction in a lighting store in Los Angeles.

[Susan Leibowitz]

What I remember. So I tried to get a hold of people who had been sued by them. So this was a store called Royal Lighting. I don't think it exists anymore, but maybe it does. And I talked to one of the owners, and he said the two women were there. They were just looking around, which he said was unusual in lighting stores. You come in and you say, I need a lamp to go next to my bed, or I need a standing lamp. Like you know what you want when you walk in. And at one point he hears crash. And when one of them, I think it was Olga is. Has been hit by one of their lamps. And then the other one, because Helen said, oh, my God, I have a camera. Let me take a picture of this for you. And. And then later on, the store gets lost.

[Lester Holt]

Let's take a listen to that.

[Royal Lighting Store Owner]

It was in the corner back here. It was a lamp that we had that was. I either attach to the wall or a floor lamp. And in order to have that lamp hit you, you'd have to. First of all, the lamp was too tall in order for the top of it to hit you. And you'd have to go out of your way and bend back. Now that I think about it, actually it was a very tall lamp, and you'd have to go out of your way, bring the lamp low enough to have this hit you in the head to begin with. So it just seemed peculiar at the time.

[Susan Leibowitz]

And they got money from the lawsuit.

[Royal Lighting Store Owner]

That'S what I heard.

[Helen or Olga (voice in reenactment)]

Yeah.

[Susan Leibowitz]

The insurance company paid out money, I guess.

[Royal Lighting Store Owner]

Yeah.

[Susan Leibowitz]

Yeah. I mean, that was hard. They were mom and pop store like, you know, that hurt them more than a bigger place. I think they also sued Jack Lane's gyms at the time and I don't know, a couple other their Vons grocery store. There were a bunch of lawsuits involving.

[Lester Holt]

What potentially were staged incidents.

[Keith Morrison]

Yes, exactly.

[Susan Leibowitz]

That's what it seems to be. And I tried to find all the lawsuits and I don't know if I found them all. And I went to. There's this archive of old court records in the basement under the county records building. And it's this creepy place where like the ceiling's falling down and you go into this room that's, you know, fluorescent lighting really low. And then you ask for the cases. And a lot of them, the documents had been removed. You know, I got empty files like someone else had taken them. Maybe Olga went down there and took them. Who knows? Wouldn't put it past them. But that's when things were kept on paper and things disappeared. And I just remember it was like this creepy place to go to. But I tried to find. That's why I found Royal Lighting's details. So we were able to interview them. We should point out that Helen and Olga were never charged in connection with any civil lawsuits. And we never got a chance to ask Helen and Olga about the Royal Lighting lawsuit or any civil lawsuits.

[Keith Morrison]

Although that scene in the. In the low ceilinged room with the fluorescent light and the missing files would be a fabulous little scene in the movie, don't you think?

[Susan Leibowitz]

I know. I guess I should. Should write that down. Remember when we write the movie, Keith?

[Keith Morrison]

Right.

[Lester Holt]

So let's talk about the trial. The police finally make their case and this. This goes before a jury. Any surprises there?

[Susan Leibowitz]

I mean, I think Helen pointed at her daughter, which I don't know if that was a surprise as the real culprit. And we should say Keecha Golay, Helen's daughter, has never been criminally charged in connection to those lawsuits we've talked about or in the deaths of fred Downey, Kenneth McDavid or Paul Vados.

[Keith Morrison]

It wasn't a surprise, but boy, was it ever in character. But the jury didn't seem to have any trouble reaching a verdict in Helen's case. But they talked a little longer about Olga before they finally came to a conclusion.

[Lester Holt]

The jury found Helen and Olga guilty for the murders of Kenneth McDavid and Paul Vados. And they were sentenced to life in prison. Okay. After a short break, why Susan went back to the church where Helen and Olga found their victims.

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[Lester Holt]

Well, welcome back, everyone. Susan, there's an interview in the series with a pastor from the Hollywood Presbyterian Church where Helen and Olga volunteered. This was not your last time at that church, was it?

[Susan Leibowitz]

No, and I'm not a Presbyterian, but it wasn't. So when we're doing the interview, I just come back from maternity leave and at the very end, the, the pastor said, you know, we have a preschool here. And I'm thinking, no way am I sending my child to the preschool where these women found their victims. And that's exactly where I sent her because it was perfectly between work and home. And they were lovely people and they fed the homeless on the north side of the church and the preschool was on the east side of the church. And there was a security guard that stood in between making sure nothing went awry and the preschool kids made sandwiches for the homeless. And it was a wonderful, wonderful place. But people would ask me, how'd you find your preschool? And I said, well, I was on this date line and these women were killing homeless guys.

[Lester Holt]

Oh, no, no, you didn't.

[Susan Leibowitz]

I did.

[Lester Holt]

Oh, goodness. All right. Well, reporting on these stories, they become so much more than a day job. We have a question about how we disconnect from work. So, Keith, Susan, I'll put the question to both of you. How do you disconnect from stories like the one you just told Susan?

[Keith Morrison]

Life can be tragic for people, and you live in those moments. You feel tremendous empathy for people who are the victims of crime, and you feel whatever you feel for the people who committed it, sometimes more angry than other times. Sometimes they're pathetic, sometimes they're really treated quite evil people. But as Susan says, you've got other things in your life. You. You leave it behind you. You. And then move on to the next one. Human beings are just endlessly fascinating in their variety, in their goodness, and in their ability to be really bad when they want to be.

[Lester Holt]

Susan and Keith, I know you've been kind of loosely, at least, tracking them and where they are right now. What do we know?

[Keith Morrison]

They're in two separate prisons in California. Both. They have never, as far as I know, been in the same prison, perhaps for good reason. And they have, you know, whatever else prison life has done for them, it. It has not harmed their longevity. Helen has just turned 95. Olga is 92, about to turn 93, as far as we know. And they're going on about their. About their lives in prison. They've been there for quite some time now, and they. There's no chance that they're getting out. They'll die there. But as they may die there a long time from now, the way things go with them.

[Lester Holt]

Have you been able to talk to either of them over the years?

[Keith Morrison]

No, they. You. Susan has tried endlessly, and I would love to.

[Susan Leibowitz]

I've written to them in prison over the years and gotten responses like, if you can loan me the money for my next appeal, I promise I'll pay you back when I get out, and.

[Keith Morrison]

Then maybe we can talk and then we'll do it.

[Susan Leibowitz]

I have not loaned them the money.

[Lester Holt]

I think you did, but thanks for clarifying.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah, that's right.

[Lester Holt]

Well, Keith and Susan, what an amazing story. Thanks for coming on and sharing it.

[Susan Leibowitz]

Thanks so much, Lester.

[Keith Morrison]

Thank you. A delight to talk to you and a delight to talk about this story, the thing about Helen and Olga. So thank you.

[Lester Holt]

Well, that's going to do it for a talking DATELINE this week. We are not on the air on NBC for the next two weeks for the Winter Olympics, but you can tune in to our Dateline 24. 7 channel for our On Thin Ice marathon, streaming Thursday through Tuesday. And on Monday, we'll drop another of Keith's original podcasts right here. And he'll be back again next week to talk dateline. So get your questions ready for him. DM us your audio or video on our socials at Dateline NBC, or leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252 for a chance to be featured. Thanks for listening, everyone.

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