If You Can't Trust Grandma, . . . ?

When little old ladies make the news, it is usually becuase they are being defrauded, abused or worse.

But, from the Washington Post and the LA Times comes this story (quoting the WaPo version):

Two elderly women devised a complex plot in which they befriended homeless men, took out life insurance policies on them, and then killed the men in hit-and-run accidents in alleys around Los Angeles to collect $2.2 million in payments, police said Monday.

The LA Times article emphasizes the sophistication of the crime:

A pair of elderly women accused of fraudulently collecting more than $2 million in life insurance on two homeless men demonstrated a remarkable knowledge of the intricacies of life insurance policies, officials said, and aggressively used this expertise in pressing their claims.

Insurance industry experts familiar with the prosecution's case said that Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt took advantage of a provision that makes a policy valid after two years even if it was obtained using fraudulent information on the application.

"They were bullying the insurance companies into making sure they paid off, threatening a lot of lawsuits," said Marty Gonzalez, chief investigator for the fraud division of the California Department of Insurance. "In one instance, they filed a complaint with the Department of Insurance, saying their claims were not being handled properly. They knew how to deal with these companies. They were very comfortable trying to collect on the money they felt they had coming to them."

I'm not sure why I find this story amusing, becuase certainly it is not funny in fact, but these women are so far out of stereotype that you alomost have to laugh. Can you imagine some poor schmuck flim flam artist trying to run an insurance con -- or any kind of a con -- on these two? It would be a little like snatching a backpack off a suicide bomber.