LOS ANGELES—Two elderly women were sentenced to life in prison without parole Tuesday for murdering two indigent men to collect insurance policies taken out on their lives.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Wesley on Tuesday sentenced 77-year-old Helen Golay and 75-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt to two consecutive life terms each.

In April the women were convicted of a scheme in which they befriended homeless men, took out insurance policies on them and then killed them in murders staged to look like hit-and-run auto accidents. Prosecutors say the women collected $2.8 million before the scheme was uncovered.

The judge denounced the women, saying the men they killed needed only food, water and shelter and thought the women were going to help them.

“Instead, these unfortunate men were sacrificed on your altar of greed,” Wesley said.