The Murder of Olga Kupczyk (Part 2)

Summary

Morbid Podcast
Episode: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk (Part 2)
Hosts: Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Date: March 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this emotionally charged, research-heavy, yet often darkly comic episode, Ash and Alaina continue their deep dive into the infamous murder case of Olga Kupczyk. Building on Part 1, Part 2 explores the shocking unraveling of the plot against Olga—a heavily pregnant woman—by her twisted mother-in-law, Elizabeth Duncan, and the web of conspiracies, betrayals, and courtroom drama that followed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene & Quick Recap (09:09–10:27)

• Ash summarizes the story so far for listeners jumping in late:
  • Olga met Frank when he was visiting his ill mother at the hospital where Olga worked.
  • Frank’s mother, Elizabeth Duncan, became bizarrely obsessed with her son’s relationship, ultimately annulling their marriage in secret.
  • Olga, eight months pregnant, went missing; suspicion and a series of blackmail accusations soon followed.

Quote:
"Frank is the pusoir of the century in this." (Ash, 09:44)

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2. The Conspirators Emerge: Elizabeth’s Scheming (12:17–14:28)

• Key informant, Emma Short, inadvertently reveals the annulment plot and that Elizabeth approached numerous people to have Olga killed, including:
  • Barbara Reed (asked to attack with acid and push her off a cliff),
  • Ralph Winterstein, and
  • A random woman called Becky.
• Nobody went to the police despite these murder-for-hire attempts.

Quote:
"The real tragedy of the story—Olga didn’t have to die. So many people knew." (Ash, 14:41)

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3. The Murder Plot and Execution (15:55–24:27)

• Esperanza Esquivel (café owner) admits Elizabeth paid Moya and Baldonado $6,000 (~$67,000 today) to kidnap and murder Olga.
• Through a link provided by a traffic officer (Chico Rojo), police discover the getaway car with blood-stained, burned upholstery—a critical piece of evidence.
• Gus Baldonado confesses, recounting how they lured Olga (claiming Frank was drunk), violently assaulted and abducted her, attempted to drive to Mexico, but eventually murdered her during a breakdown near Ojai.
• The grim discovery: Olga was ultimately buried alive.

Notable Quotes:
"When Olga came to the door, Lewis told her Frank was in the car and he was really drunk and they needed help getting him inside. So they preyed upon her...she's eight months pregnant." (Ash, 21:23)
"The cause of death was listed as suffocation, such as would be produced by being buried alive...She was buried alive." (Ash & Elena, 23:41–23:42)

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4. Arrests, Charges, and Grief (19:57–26:28)

• Elizabeth is formally arrested on multiple felony counts; her co-conspirators begin to cooperate, unravelling the full scheme.
• The family learns about Olga’s death not from authorities, but through a press call—a particularly heartbreaking moment.
• Elizabeth consistently claims innocence, insisting she was the true victim of blackmail.

Quote:
"It was only when reporters called the house that evening that Olga's family learned she was in fact dead and had been murdered." (Ash, 25:22)

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5. Sensational Trial and Courtroom Dramas (28:17–41:43)

• Elizabeth’s eccentric, volatile behavior and long history (married 11 times, student affairs, fraud) become fodder for the prosecution and the press.
• Gripping testimonies reveal Elizabeth’s real motivation—her jealous, unnatural attachment to her son Frank.
• The prosecution dramatizes, suggesting Elizabeth not only wanted Olga dead, but disfigured.

Notable Moments:

• Dramatic courtroom outbursts, both from Elizabeth and Frank who supports his mother blindly.
• Testimonies from would-be co-conspirators and close friends, including Emma, whose cross-examination included Elizabeth yelling, "You're a liar!" and accusing Emma of wearing her clothes (35:55).

Quotes:
"Why are you so jealous of your daughter-in-law? This is an unnatural relationship." (Elena, 32:52)
"Elizabeth insisted on testifying on her own behalf...These always do. Dig that grave myself." (Ash & Elena, 36:35–36:39)
"If I had to live alone, I wanted to die...I told her I didn't want a daughter-in-law of her character." (Elizabeth's testimony, 38:03–38:30)
"Frank leapt to his feet and shouted, 'Just a minute, Mr. Gustafsson. My name is Frank, not Frankie. I'm a big boy.'" (Frank, 39:15)

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6. The Verdict: Sentencing and Aftermath (41:43–48:00)

• Psychologists declare Elizabeth egocentric and emotionally immature, but not insane.
• All involved (Elizabeth, Louis, and Gus) sentenced to death.
• The hosts discuss how modern legal standards might have changed the trial, but the gravity of Olga’s murder—while eight months pregnant—helped solidify the outcome.

Final Moments:
Elizabeth’s last words before execution:
"Where's Frank?" (Ash, 46:24)

• She was the last woman executed in California. Frank, her son, never wavered in his support, but his career spiraled and ultimately ended in disbarment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "The real tragedy of the story—Olga didn’t have to die. So many people knew." (Ash, 14:41)
• "She was buried alive." (Ash & Elena, 23:41–23:42)
• "Frank is the pusoir of the century in this." (Ash, 09:44)
• "You're a liar!…This woman has my clothes on right now and she is a liar. I feel like tearing them right off of her." (Elizabeth, 35:55–36:13)
• "If I had to live alone, I wanted to die...I'm petrified if I have to be by myself at night." (Elizabeth, 38:03)
• "Where's Frank?" (Elizabeth's last words before execution, 46:24)
• Fun Fact Ending: "Bees, in fact, have knees!" (Ash, 48:53)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Romanticizing daily life & pre-case banter: 01:32–09:08
• Recap & case re-entry: 09:10–10:27
• Annulment revelation & Emma's confession: 10:50–12:31
• Murder plot mechanics: 12:31–14:28
• Co-conspirators’ confessions & Olga’s murder: 15:55–24:27
• Evidence discovery (the car): 18:57–19:41
• Olga’s remains and autopsy: 23:09–23:56
• Bizarre courtroom dynamics: 28:17–41:43
• Verdict, aftermath, and execution: 41:43–48:00
• Fun fact closer: 48:25–49:00

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Tone & Closing Thoughts

Ash and Alaina maintain their signature blend of meticulous research, empathy for victims, wry observations, and comic relief—no one is spared from their sharp (often explicit) commentary. They highlight the enduring tragedy of Olga’s story, the horror of bystander silence, and the truly grotesque obsession of Elizabeth with her son Frank—a psychological nightmare preserved in legal history.

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Resource Mention

• Book by Deborah Holt Larkin (the episode's primary source; see Morbid’s show notes for details).

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Useful for: Listeners seeking a comprehensive, engaging, and unflinching look into the murder of Olga Kupczyk and Elizabeth Duncan’s twisted motivations, even if they haven’t caught Part 1. The episode provides emotional resonance, memorable quotes, and all the key facts—serving true crime aficionados and newcomers alike.

Transcript

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[Ash]

I'm Ash.

[Elena]

And I'm Elena.

[Ash]

And this is morbid. This is morbid. This is morbid.

[Elena]

This is pretty morbid.

[Ash]

What's up, Big Red?

[Elena]

It's been busy.

[Ash]

Yeah, it has been busy.

[Elena]

It's been busy. It's been good. Yeah. Everything outside of this house is pretty ratchet. But in here, pretty good.

[Ash]

Yeah. In here it's all right. We do want to rearrange our room a little bit.

[Elena]

We are going to rearrange the pod lab.

[Ash]

And here it's actually also pretty ratchet.

[Elena]

Yeah. Like this room specifically ratchet. Pretty rough.

[Ash]

Yeah. It's got to move some stuff around, that's all.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

You know when like you worked at a really terrible place for a long time and then like things remind you of working at that this is hypothetical. Things remind you of working there and Then you just want to change everything about the time in your life where your room looked like that.

[Elena]

Yeah. Because when it was like the worst time of your life, hypothetically, where you were breaking down every day and crying and screaming and wanting to quit. That energy hangs out in a place, I think.

[Ash]

And you can only salt the rug so much.

[Elena]

You can only salt the rug for those Palo Santos the room so many times.

[Ash]

Oh, hypothetically, Palo Santo was keeping my life together.

[Elena]

It sure was. Hypothetically.

[Ash]

Hypothetically.

[Elena]

But now that we're so happy and

[Ash]

vibey, the room's gotta match the vibe.

[Elena]

The room needs to be happy and vibey.

[Ash]

So we cluttered with all the dankness

[Elena]

with our tortured souls for a little while.

[Ash]

So, yeah, allegedly.

[Elena]

And what we began with, that I think really made a difference, was I got Ash got me potato slippers.

[Ash]

I did so.

[Elena]

Slippers that look like a potato with a face and two little feet. And I've never been happier with a pair of slippers in my life.

[Ash]

You're welcome.

[Elena]

And so I think this is the beginning of something beautiful in here.

[Ash]

I got croissant slippers, but I left them at home. I'm wearing. We're wearing slippers in the office. It's a new thing.

[Elena]

Office slippers.

[Ash]

Office slippers. Of course. I'm wearing big old cheetah ones that Drew got me, and I love them, but I also want to wear my croissant slippers.

[Elena]

Yeah, Deb. Deb has some bear slippers.

[Ash]

Yep, I got her bears.

[Elena]

I have to get Mikey.

[Ash]

Mikey slippers.

[Elena]

Appropriate slippers.

[Ash]

They didn't have animal ones. When I. The place. I was looking for a man's feet.

[Elena]

Yeah, a man's feet, you know, but yeah, that's what we have to say to you guys.

[Ash]

You know, that. That's our business for today. Get your. Get yourself some office slippers. And when your boss says, what the are you doing? Say, don't worry about it.

[Elena]

Don't worry about it.

[Ash]

Say, allegedly off.

[Elena]

Yeah. Just kidding.

[Ash]

Don't do that.

[Elena]

Who gives a. And also continue trying to do those little romanticizing your life things.

[Ash]

Absolutely.

[Elena]

As the world gets crazier, get more romantic.

[Ash]

I got a little romantic with my bedtime. I have been. And it didn't do a lot for me last night. But the, like, two nights ago, this really helped me, and I just need to get into doing it, I think, more consistently. I got the hatch alarm clock.

[Elena]

Oh, I love my hatch alarm. This is not an ad.

[Ash]

It's not an ad. But they were nice enough to Send us them.

[Elena]

They did.

[Ash]

And I was nice enough to give mine to Debbie and Mikey and then Drew because I knew that Drew got me one for Christmas. Yeah, I. I accidentally saw that on our bank statement. And anyway, I started doing the meditations. The nighttime meditations.

[Elena]

Yeah, they have some cool ones.

[Ash]

And I fell asleep literally just meditating. And I want to do it every night before bed. It's life changing.

[Elena]

I love my sunrise alarm. And again, not an ad, not an ad. Literally loving our hatch alarm.

[Ash]

I love them so much. And I really love the bedtime meditations. Last night I myself over because I'm trying to get more fiber in. And I said, you know what a fun way to do that is? Let's have some fucking dark chocolate, bitch. And I had some dark chocolate before bed and I forgot that that has caffeine in it.

[Elena]

Oh, it does.

[Ash]

So I was wide awake.

[Elena]

Wide awake.

[Ash]

It was rough.

[Elena]

I set my hatch alarm to again on net. I don't know why I keep saying, like my hatch alarm. I set my alarm to like this Gatsby jazz, like slow. Because I've been telling you guys the slow morning jazz, which I did share the playlist a bunch of times on my story, but I think people kept missing it. I feel like at this point I should just put it on my gr.

[Ash]

You know what you can do actually, if you don't want it on your actual grid? Do a highlight.

[Elena]

Oh, there you go. So I'll try to do that. So if you guys are still looking for that and I'll keep adding to it, I'll put it in my highlights.

[Ash]

I'll show her how to do it.

[Elena]

Yeah, the youth will show me how to do it.

[Ash]

I got you.

[Elena]

But yeah, so there's a setting on it on the alarm that you can wake up to, like, slow. And it's literally called, like morning on West Egg.

[Ash]

It's gorgeous.

[Elena]

And it is such a good way to wake.

[Ash]

And you can also pick the colors that you wake up to. And it's serious. This isn't an ad.

[Elena]

Like, I swear to you, like, this is an undisclosed.

[Ash]

No, we would. We actually, like, have to figure if it's an ad. It's really not. And just to end the conversation there, I'm just obsessed with it. It's really changed and it makes it a lot easier to wake up in the morning.

[Elena]

Yeah, it's. It's little stuff like that that I

[Ash]

think we all need.

[Elena]

Yeah. Little things that make you happy.

[Ash]

You know, if you can't get a hatch alarm right now romanticize your life in other ways. Just get a pretty glass to put your drink in at dinner.

[Elena]

Yes. In fact, tell me one last thing before we get into this.

[Ash]

Did you just get new glasses? If you go, like, if you, you

[Elena]

can find them anywhere, they're like little like water carafes. If you look at like an antiquey looking one and it's like the glasses on top of it, if you put it on your nightstand or even just like in your living room as like one, it makes you drink more water.

[Ash]

It does.

[Elena]

Because you'll want to finish that carafe.

[Ash]

It does.

[Elena]

Because you don't want it sitting out.

[Ash]

Just know that you'll be peeing in the middle of the night.

[Elena]

You'll be peeing.

[Ash]

Join me.

[Elena]

But also you will feel like a fancy, like, noble woman.

[Ash]

And that's the difference between us. Noble woman slash diva. I literally almost bought one off the TikTok shop the other night, but then I was like, is this like too trendy? Because it was cherry. Like, it was like a cherry, which was cute. But I, I like what you're putting down over there. If you look like a vintage vibe,

[Elena]

look at like an art deco.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

Like gatsby era, like 1920s looking carafe, you can get them pretty cheap. Like you can look on Amazon, you can look wherever you want, but you can find a lot of different styles and you can make. And they look so fancy and so expensive.

[Ash]

I better do.

[Elena]

And it's just one little thing to add a little bit of whimsy and a little bit of luxury looking.

[Ash]

Also, I'm here to say, if you have a guest bedroom, put it in your guest bedroom because it says I have my together.

[Elena]

It does.

[Ash]

I love, I love putting together a guest bedroom when somebody's coming over and making it just like bougie as hell.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I love it. Not that I ever have people over.

[Elena]

I was going to say I never have people over.

[Ash]

Very rarely. But when I do, I go for it. Yeah.

[Elena]

So that's just little things, you know?

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

I need. You guys said you liked, like having little things to, to romanticize. To just romanticize. So that's why I'm trying to. I'm trying to offer it whenever I can.

[Ash]

I have these cups that I got like vintage shopping or like thrifting. And they're so pretty. They're like beveled glass. And then they have like this on the rim. It's like this thick border that's like gold leaf almost pretty. And I want to find more of them. Cuz I only have four. I'm like, I need to find them.

[Elena]

That's.

[Ash]

I love thrifting, but that's the only issue is that it's not master. I want more of it.

[Elena]

Now you can find more. Like now you're going to be looking.

[Ash]

I know I am. I'm on the hunt. So if you see anything like that, let me know.

[Elena]

It's true.

[Ash]

All right, let's get into it.

[Elena]

Let's get into it.

[Ash]

So we are still talking about the murder of Olga K. And if you didn't listen to part one and you're here for part two, that's silly. I'm not judging you, but I'll fill you in. Okay, so Olga married Frank after meeting him while his mom was in the hospital where Olga was a nurse. And she literally took care of his mom.

[Elena]

Yes.

[Ash]

And he was like, oh my God, you're gorgeous. You're taking care of my mom. Let's date. Elizabeth, Frank's mom is obsessed with him and essentially wants to be married to him. So she hates Olga and she secretly annuls their marriage after they get married.

[Elena]

And Frank's like acting like a pus.

[Ash]

Frank is the pusoir of the century in this.

[Elena]

In this case.

[Ash]

Thank you. Olga gets pregnant in the middle of all this. And unfortunately and incredibly, sadly, she goes missing at eight months. Pregnant. Jesus. Now, coincidentally, Elizabeth, while she's being looked at and kind of questioned a little bit, she admits that she was getting blackmailed around this same time. And she points toward this man, Louis Moya, but refuses to sign a formal complaint. And the way she identified him was super weird. Yeah, she identified him. The police sent her home with like a bunch of mug shots, which I have to think they don't do anymore. Yeah, when I first read that, I was like, what?

[Elena]

They're just like, go home and look at these.

[Ash]

And they're like, here's a book of criminals.

[Elena]

Look at them. But.

[Ash]

So she identified the mug, him in the mugshot, and then didn't identify him in a lineup. But Frank had seen the mug shots and he was like, isn't that the guy literally right there?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And she was like, oh, gee, Whitney. But then she wouldn't sign anything. So the police were like, what's going on here?

[Elena]

Something's weird.

[Ash]

They were kind of at a dead end. And now they're frustrated by Elizabeth stonewalling, so they went back to her friend Emma Short, the. The only other person who seemed to have any insight into what the was going on.

[Elena]

Come on, Emma.

[Ash]

Because Remember, Emma would go to the Tropical Cafe.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Who was owned by the people that Elizabeth said were blackmailing her.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So at first, Emma refused to speak to the detectives and suggested that Elizabeth had actually told her not to talk to the police about anything.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

But in her protests, Emma inadvertently mentioned something that caught Detective Henderson's attention. The annulment.

[Elena]

Oh, I was waiting for that to be discovered.

[Ash]

Yeah. Until that point, investigators actually hadn't heard anything about an annulment. And actually, if Emma hadn't brought it up on accident, there was a good chance it actually would have gone. Gone unnoticed for. Probably forever, to be honest.

[Elena]

Probably.

[Ash]

But now that it was out, there was no going back and Emma knew it. So Emma explained to the detectives that she only went with Elizabeth and Ralph to see the lawyer and go to the courthouse. So she was there for some of it. But she insisted that she played no role in the scheme. She was simply there.

[Elena]

But she simply let it happen. Happen.

[Ash]

Yeah, exactly. I just.

[Elena]

Just didn't do anything, didn't say anything to anyone.

[Ash]

I didn't tell anybody.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So she knew all the details. And in early December, she ended up telling the police everything she knew about Elizabeth and Ralph posing as Olga and Frank. Soon the conversation shifted toward the Esquivels who owned the Tropical Cafe and the people who Elizabeth claimed was blackmailing her. The topic seemed to make Emma uncomfortable when it was brought up. Not because she was just simply afraid of the blackmailers, but it seemed like she was afraid of Elizabeth, actually.

[Elena]

Yeah, probably so.

[Ash]

Now, convinced that there was a lot more going on with this whole thing than anybody was willing to tell him, Detective Henderson suggested that they continue their conversation at the police station. And once they were there, Emma finally came out with the truth.

[Elena]

Yeah. Emma.

[Ash]

So according to Emma, when the annulment failed to end Frank and Olga's relationship, because Frank just didn't do anything about it, Elizabeth took the next step in her plan. And she actually approached Esperanza Esquivel for help. So the very woman she's saying is blackmailing her, she turned to for help. It was Esquivel who introduced Elizabeth to Louis Boya, who she had identified, and another man, Gus Baldonado. The plan was that the two men would kidnap Olga from the apartment and take her to Mexico, where they would kill her. Mind you, she's eight months. Eight months pregnant and dump her body.

[Elena]

This is her daughter in law who is eight months pregnant with her grandchild.

[Ash]

Yeah, but she doesn't. She's not recognizing that that baby is her grandchild she is like, oh, Olga got pregnant by another.

[Elena]

But you know what? She knows it is.

[Ash]

Absolutely.

[Elena]

There's nothing in me that believes that she doesn't know that's her grandchild.

[Ash]

Oh, no, no, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying, like, she's so gross that she's like making up all these.

[Elena]

She is such a much of. That's.

[Ash]

Wow, she's a 12.

[Elena]

Wow, she's a 12.

[Ash]

She is so. In fact, Emma told the detectives that Elizabeth had actually tried multiple times to find somebody to kill Olga before finally making the deal with Lewis and Gus. First, if you remember, we talked about it in part one, she tried to convince a woman, Barbara Reed, to do it, throw acid in her face and throw her off a cliff.

[Elena]

Jesus.

[Ash]

But that fell apart when Barbara went to Frank and was like, hey, I think your mom's losing her mind.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Then after the annulment, she went back to Ralph Winterstein and offered him a very large sum of money. But he was like, nah, I don't want to kill anyone. But I'm also like, you also could have gone to the police.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So the list of people that Elizabeth approached also included one of Frank's former clients. Jesus. And then just another woman named Becky, who she recently met. And she told Elizabeth that she could find somebody to help her, but she just never ended up coming through.

[Elena]

I love that this woman is just Becky.

[Ash]

Yeah, just Becky with the merchant.

[Elena]

I tried to get Becky, but she didn't do it.

[Ash]

Forget Becky with the good hair.

[Elena]

Don't ask Becky to do that. Like, don't do that.

[Ash]

Becky will not come through. But also, you have to think of the amount of people that she approached to murder her daughter in law, and none of them were like 91 1. I'd like to tell you something.

[Elena]

This lady's trying to get somebody to kill her daughter in law who's pregnant.

[Ash]

Like, hello. So according to author Deborah Holt Larkin, that's the real tragedy of the story. Olga didn't have to die. So many people knew.

[Elena]

Yeah, they should all be ashamed of themselves.

[Ash]

So the story was obviously compelling to the detective and all the pieces seemed to fit. He was like, oh, we're really making headway here. But in order to arrest Elizabeth, they needed something a little more concrete. For the time being, the district attorney in Santa Barbara asked the detectives to continue pursuing the case. And in the meantime, he was going to call the District Attorney in Ventura County, Roy Gustafson, and report the fake annulment and the imprisonment and the impersonation. Excuse me. If nothing else, that would be enough to hold Elizabeth until they could track down Luis Moya and Guy Boltinato.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So the next day, Detective Henderson and his partner started rounding up Esperanza Esquivel, Louis Moya and Gus Baldonado. Under the threat of being charged as a co conspirator. Esperanza basically said, yeah, everything that Emma told you is true.

[Elena]

Jesus.

[Ash]

She was like, she approached me. She needed somebody to get rid of her daughter in law. I showed her Lewis and Gus. But that's where my part in all of this ended.

[Elena]

She's like, so I'm completely innocent. Exactly. Obviously.

[Ash]

She's like, I just introduced her to two hitmen.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

What was that?

[Elena]

I didn't do anything else.

[Ash]

I have a tropical coffee.

[Elena]

She did from there. Not my business.

[Ash]

Like, oh, okay, okay.

[Elena]

Did you think they were just going for coffee? Like, what the.

[Ash]

Everybody knew everything that was with everybody here. Agreed. She also informed them of one other detail. In exchange for Olga's murder, Elizabeth offered the two men $6,000.

[Elena]

Jesus.

[Ash]

Which is a little more than 67, 000 today. Which like it's a lot of money but like to kill somebody.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Hello.

[Elena]

Hello.

[Ash]

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[Ash]

When he got back to his desk, Henderson found a note from a patrol officer in the traffic division asking that he return his call. So the officer told Henderson he was holding a guy named Chico Rojo on a dui. And Rojo actually seemed to know something about Gus Baltinado.

[Elena]

There are so many people involved in this.

[Ash]

It's a lot of people. According to Rojo, he had loaned his car to Baldonado and Moya a few weeks earlier. And when they returned it, the upholstery in the back seat was ripped and burned.

[Elena]

Oh, my God.

[Ash]

At the time, the car was at the impound lot because obviously the guy was drinking and driving. But when they went to take a look, the back seat had definitely been destroyed. But it was obvious from the specks of dried blood that somebody had clearly tried to get rid of evidence.

[Elena]

Oh, no.

[Ash]

It's crazy how this is all just, like, lining up, though. He gets like one piece of information and then it slowly comes. Exactly. So while investigators kept putting the pieces together and going over the growing body of evidence, Henderson and his partner went to Frank Duncan's house and arrested his mother.

[Elena]

Good. Yeah.

[Ash]

The following day, Elizabeth was charged with four felony counts, including charges of Fraud, forgery and impersonation. Despite the evidence against her, she refused to cooperate, which I'm sure is so hard to believe because she's a. And she just said that she was innocent and was being blackmailed.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

She didn't even say she was a.

[Elena]

No, she's just.

[Ash]

But you know what? We know.

[Elena]

We knew it.

[Ash]

She's a bitch.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So Elizabeth Duncan might not have been talking, but her co conspirators were a lot more forthcoming. Of course, having been identified by Emma Short and Esperanza Esquivel as one of the men hired by Elizabeth to get rid of Olga. And also having now been linked to the bloody vehicle, it didn't take long for Gus to confess and implicate everybody else.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah.

[Ash]

According to Gus Baldonado, he and Lewis met with Elizabeth, who was with Emma, by the way. So Emma knew about this.

[Elena]

They're always trying to get themselves further away from it and I'm like, you're going to get caught.

[Ash]

Like you were literally there. They met at the tropical cafe on November 13th and they established that she would pay them $3,000 when they killed Olga and another 3,000 within three to six months. Like when she could get the money.

[Elena]

What a complete piece of shit.

[Ash]

Truly, all of them.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

The plan was that they would kidnap Olga from her apartment and take her to Tijuana where they would kill her and dump the body.

[Elena]

An eight month pregnant woman.

[Ash]

Yep. So on the night of November 17th, after Olga's friends left for the night, Lewis and Gus went to her apartment and Lewis went up and knocked on the door, which is where the landlord or the landlady heard the footsteps.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah.

[Ash]

When Olga came to the door, Lewis told her Frank was in the car and he was really drunk and they needed help getting him inside. So they preyed upon her.

[Elena]

And also no grown men need your help.

[Ash]

Nope.

[Elena]

No, no, no. Especially when you're eight months pregnant.

[Ash]

Hell no.

[Elena]

Nope.

[Ash]

But obviously she's worried about her fiance.

[Elena]

Excuse me?

[Ash]

She's worried about her husband.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So she's like, oh, shit. Like, let me help you.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So in the car, Gus was sitting in the back seat posing as Frank. But when Olga got down to the car and opened the door in the back, Lewis hit her in the back of the head with the butt of his gun. And Gus pulled her into the back seat as Lewis drove away. This is so violent.

[Elena]

It is.

[Ash]

Along the way they stopped the car because she was struggling so much that Lewis hit her again with the gun and then taped her hands. Ankles And Mouth, she went through hell. So they planned to drive her to Mexico, but they had car trouble when they reached Ventura County. So they stopped in Ojai and pulled the car off the road by Casitas Pass, a culvert that ran under the road. They used the gun as a club several more times, which then caused it to jam, so they couldn't use it anymore. So they then took turns strangling Olga until they no longer felt a pulse. Assuming she was dead, they dug a shallow grave and they tossed her body in there, covered her with dirt, and then drove the car back to Santa Barbara.

[Elena]

Holy shit.

[Ash]

Once there, that's where they tore the upholstery and tried to destroy the blood evidence. And then just went back, called Elizabeth and told her the job was done.

[Elena]

Wow. Yeah.

[Ash]

Just went about their lives.

[Elena]

They just went about their lives. And Elizabeth just said, okay, good.

[Ash]

Thanks for killing my daughter in law.

[Elena]

Pregnant daughter in law.

[Ash]

And my grandchild, the wife of my son. Yep.

[Elena]

Thanks for doing that.

[Ash]

NBD.

[Elena]

Yep.

[Ash]

On December 21st, Gus Baldonado actually led police to the culvert in Ohioai where they had buried the body. And Olga's remains were disinterred and taken back to Santa Barbara. This is horrible. When the medical examiner performed the autopsy, it was obviously noted that Olga was pregnant and that she'd suffered several blunt force traumas to the head, as well as having been manually strangled. But the cause of death was listed as suffocation, such as would be produced by being buried alive. Oh, she wasn't fully dead when she wasn't dead.

[Elena]

She was buried alive.

[Ash]

She was buried alive.

[Elena]

Holy shit. Yeah.

[Ash]

You can only hope that she was unconscious.

[Elena]

That's horrific.

[Ash]

Because her pulse was so faint. Or they didn't think they felt a pulse anymore when they buried her, but she was alive when she was buried.

[Elena]

That is horrific. Yeah.

[Ash]

And pregnant. Please don't forget that. Holy. So when Luis Moya was confronted with the evidence, witness statements, Baldonado's confession, all of it, he too confessed. And he confirmed that had he had also been hired by Elizabeth Duncan. And he also confirmed that while she had given him, the two of them, a few hundred dollars as a upfront payment, which she got from pawning some jewelry, she hadn't given them the money that she promised them when they were

[Elena]

hired, she wasn't gonna.

[Ash]

So they did all this for nothing?

[Elena]

Yeah, I mean, she's an through and through. Like, she's not gonna.

[Ash]

She's not gonna fall.

[Elena]

She's not gonna come through with anything. No.

[Ash]

Now, on December 21st, the district attorney, Roy Gustafsson charged all three with first degree murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder, among other things. And bail was set at a hundred thousand dollars. According to Deborah Holt Larkin, Roy Gustafson had political ambitions and he had actually been looking for a case that would elevate his prominence. So he was eager to prosecute Elizabeth and her co conspirators in what would be a death penalty case.

[Elena]

Damn. Yeah.

[Ash]

When the updated charges were announced in the press, he took full credit saying, I was tired of waiting for somebody to do something with this case, so I ordered my men to question Baldonado. Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm to prosecute the killers, the District Attorney had forgot to inform Olga's family that her body had been discovered.

[Elena]

Oh, my God.

[Ash]

It was only when reporters called the house that evening that Olga's family learned she was in fact dead and had been murdered.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

A reporter for the LA Times wrote, Mrs. Kupchik answered the phone insisting on being told what the call was about. When she was told, she moaned and left the telephone. Oh, that's the kind of that you're like, don't report on that.

[Elena]

That's horrific.

[Ash]

Like, I get like, certain things need to be reported on, but like, nobody deserves to know what her initial oh, that's awful response was to finding that out.

[Elena]

Yeah, that's really awful.

[Ash]

Now, from her jail cell in Ventura County, Elizabeth Duncan continued to say she was innocent. She maintained that she was a victim of blackmail, even though all of the evidence was pointing to the contrary. Gustavsson told a reporter, as far as I'm concerned, the only reason Moya and Baldonado sought some money from Ms. Duncan was because they wanted the pay they were promised for the job they did. So she's saying like, I was being blackmailed. And he's like, no, you hired them to kill your daughter in law and they were looking for payment.

[Elena]

Yep.

[Ash]

Which is not.

[Elena]

They're all shitty.

[Ash]

It's just horrible all the way around. But you're not a victim.

[Elena]

Yeah, exactly. You're not a victim.

[Ash]

So less than a week later, Gustafsson presented the case to the grand jury, calling on almost a dozen witnesses. So all of whom testified that Olga had been repeatedly being harassed by Elizabeth Duncan consistently and had actually gotten multiple death threats.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Given the number of people who had heard Elizabeth make all of these threats too, or something similar, Gustafsson really didn't have a lot of trouble as portraying Elizabeth Duncan as a viciously overprotective mother with a deep hatred For Olga.

[Elena]

I don't even know if you can. Calling her an overprotective mother, even viciously overprotective, is even the correct thing to say. She wasn't just protecting that child. She had a weird attachment to that child. That is unnatural.

[Ash]

Well, and that's the thing.

[Elena]

Like he said, that is not a

[Ash]

natural motherly protection, and there's nothing to protect him from. He willingly got married. He willingly decided to have a child.

[Elena]

He's a grown man.

[Ash]

Like, what's the problem here? Yeah. Now, speaking of Frank, he was noticeably absent from the grand jury hearing. After he learned what had happened to Olga and that his mother was being brought on charges for it. He just disappeared.

[Elena]

Wow. Yeah.

[Ash]

According to Elizabeth's lawyer, s ward, Sullivan, Frank had moved out of the apartment that he'd rented with Olga and hadn't been seen since the body was recovered. Also, like, he moved out, but she wasn't living there.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

He lived with Mommy.

[Elena]

Exactly.

[Ash]

Now, the trial began in late February of 1959, and by that time, Frank had resurfaced.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

And was standing by Mommy fiercely supportive of her claims of innocence. In that time and. Or in the time that had passed since the indictment, Lis Moya and Gus Baldonado had actually withdrawn their pleas of innocent and actually plead. Pleaded guilty to the charges. But their lawyers had signaled their intent to refile. Please. Of not guilty by reason of insanity. Which is like.

[Elena]

No. Yeah.

[Ash]

You had every.

[Elena]

You got paid to do something horrific,

[Ash]

and you had every chance to stop. This isn't a crime of passion. A crime of insanity. None of the above. But that meant that when it came time for the trial for the murder of Olga, Elizabeth would stand alone in the courtroom because she was the only one maintaining innocence. Now, once the jury was selected and the case really got started, it proved to be a lot more sensational and bizarre than anyone had expected. In addition to the already bizarre facts of the case and the salacious and scandalous rumors surrounding Elizabeth and Frank's weird fucking relationship, the investigation also turned up some previously unknown facts about Elizabeth.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

That, while not exactly relevant here, were still very fascinating for reporters.

[Elena]

Yeah. Hey, I want to know.

[Ash]

Among other things, Elizabeth had been married 11 times. Holy homegirl was married 11 times.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

She also had dated one of Frank's law school classmates while they were in school together.

[Elena]

Okay. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Salacious and scandalous rumors. Nope. I think we're just seeing it for what it is.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

You're dating one of his classmates.

[Ash]

I'm also, like, Were you trying to make him jealous?

[Elena]

What the.

[Ash]

I think she was trying to make Frank jealous in a weird way.

[Elena]

Ew.

[Ash]

So Gustavsson seemed to relish telling the jury, and I would have too. Yeah, it wasn't relevant to the case, but it was interesting still.

[Elena]

You're like, gross. So.

[Ash]

The district attorney also seemed entirely willing to share gossip and unverified rumors about Elizabeth that I personally believe, including the fact that she had paid for Frank's law school by conning several men out of money and writing bad checks.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

Given that she had stiffed everybody she'd promised money to in the murder of Olga, I'm pretty sure that's true.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Like she's just known to not make good.

[Elena]

Something to think about.

[Ash]

Now, as far as the facts of the case and the people called to the witness stand, there was no shortage of drama there either. In the early days of the trial, Gustafsson called Barbara Reed to testify. She was the woman who. Elizabeth was like, hey, could you throw some acid in my daughter in law's face?

[Elena]

And she was like, I'll think about it.

[Ash]

Yeah. So Barbara told the jury all about that. And then she brought up Elizabeth's daughter Patty, who had died sadly at age 15. And Elizabeth obviously cried at the defendant's table. But her tears were quickly replaced with fiery anger as soon as Barbara claimed that Elizabeth tried to hire her to commit murder. The testimony was continuously interrupted by Elizabeth having some kind of outburst. She would yell at the prosecutor. She would cry about the loss of her daughter, the love for her son, and also at random times, she would

[Elena]

just loll and there's pictures.

[Ash]

She was having a LOL fast with

[Elena]

her head thrown back, laughing in the courtroom.

[Ash]

Yeah, she's something. She wasn't the only one in the courtroom whose hysterics added to the drama. At various points throughout the trial, Frank's audible weeping also disrupted the proceedings. At one point during Louis Moya's testimony where he gave a detailed account of the kidnapping and the murder, Frank fled the courtroom in tears, saying, not over the death of his wife. Hold on.

[Elena]

What? Because I'm like, oh, hold on. Obviously I would also be that way.

[Ash]

He said, it is inconceivable that my mother could associate with a man like that. What a cold blooded man. Mommy would never like him.

[Elena]

Wait a minute. So my mother would never be friends with a creep like that is his concern. Uh huh.

[Ash]

It's mind boggling.

[Elena]

I don't even know what to say about that.

[Ash]

Nor do I. I don't. Nor do I. Brother. Holy shit. So the testimony from the killers really didn't leave a lot of doubt for the jury as to the role of Elizabeth in Olga's death. Luis Moya told the court. At first she said she would like to scare her out of the way. After we gained each other's confidence, though, she said she would like me to get rid of her and would leave it up to us. Us? What to do?

[Elena]

Jesus.

[Ash]

According to Moya, Elizabeth said that Olga was blackmailing Frank and trying to ruin his career and that's why she wanted her out of the way. But she had some ideas as to how they could go about it. Moya said, she told me she had acid, rope and sleeping pills. If we decided we could use them, the pills were to be for an overdose, the rope to tie her and the acid to disfigure her face and fingerprints.

[Elena]

Now here's the thing that. That's so fucked up I can't even conceive of it. And also the whole acid in the face thing. She is so jealous of Olga.

[Ash]

Absolutely.

[Elena]

That that is such a clear psychological like manifestation of that she wants to disfigure her because your son is in love with her 100,000% and that pisses you off.

[Ash]

And that thought process is inconceivable.

[Elena]

It is so alien to me that I can't even get on the same planet as it. Like, I just cannot.

[Ash]

Like, why are you so jealous of yourself?

[Elena]

This is an unnatural relationship.

[Ash]

It's so.

[Elena]

And there's something deeply, deeply dark and up about it. I.

[Ash]

We've told a couple of these mother and son cases and they freak me out to no end.

[Elena]

That freaks me the out.

[Ash]

I hate it. Now in his testimony, Gus Baldonado was a lot less forthcoming. He mostly just responded to questions with I don't remember and I don't recall. But when it came to Elizabeth's involvement, he was a lot less cagey. He said they both asked why they couldn't just scare Olga to the point where she fled and didn't return. And Elizabeth told them, no, I've tried that and it's not possible.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

It was clear that what Elizabeth wanted was for her daughter in law to be killed and like you said, disfigured beyond recognition.

[Elena]

Yeah, that's some Freudian shit right there it is.

[Ash]

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[Ash]

So the dramatics continued when Emma took the stand toward the end of the trial to testify against her bff, Elizabeth Jesus. Her BFF Jill. At one point during her testimony, as she was describing how she went with Elizabeth to meet with the killers, Elizabeth jumped out of her chair and shouted, you're a liar.

[Elena]

Shut the fuck up.

[Ash]

And her attorney was like literally trying

[Elena]

to restrain and was like, shut the fuck up.

[Ash]

Hey, you're not doing any favors for yourself. When she was admonished by the judge and warned about future outbursts, Elizabeth replied, this woman has my clothes on right now, and she is a liar. I feel like tearing them right off of her.

[Elena]

I love that she's like, she has my clothes on.

[Ash]

She said, stole my look.

[Elena]

Like, this is saying that you are a literal, like, murderous. And it's like you're like, but you're wearing my goddamn sweater.

[Ash]

I want it back right now. I may not be able to wear

[Elena]

my own clothes soon, but I want it.

[Ash]

So despite all the outbursts, all the antics, Elizabeth insisted on testifying on her own behalf, honestly.

[Elena]

Good.

[Ash]

These always do.

[Elena]

Dig that grave myself.

[Ash]

And she took the stand on March 3rd, which is weird, because today is March 3rd.

[Elena]

We don't do this.

[Ash]

We don't plan.

[Elena]

I don't know why this happened.

[Ash]

In fact, we were supposed to record this, like, a couple days ago, I think.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Ash]

Hello.

[Elena]

What is that?

[Ash]

Now, according to Elizabeth, she did once have a plan to trust truss up her son Frank and take him out of Santa Barbara, quote, in the hope that he would come to his senses and leave his wife. She never went through with that. She said, I love that she was going to truss up her son.

[Elena]

Yeah, Hello. Truss him up.

[Ash]

She even went as far as admitting that she tried to enlist Barbara Reed in the plan, but she insisted that she never went through with it. And certainly she never arranged for the kidnapping and murder of Olga.

[Elena]

No, I love that. She's like, of course I asked Barbara to throw acid in her face and toss her off a cliff, but I would never go so far as to organize a kidnapping murder.

[Ash]

She wasn't even admitting to that. She was saying that the whole. She was saying Barbara was lying about everything and that she had only gone to Barbara to truss up Frank.

[Elena]

Truss up Frank?

[Ash]

Yeah, that's what she's saying.

[Elena]

What the.

[Ash]

Like, they were gonna kidnap him and scare him into leaving Olga is what she's saying. Now, according to Elizabeth, the entire plot had everything to do with keeping her sunny at home and nothing to do with Olga personally. Olga was fine. She didn't care about it.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

She's like, she just doesn't want her son to be with him.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Or with her. Excuse me. She told the court, if I had to live alone, I wanted to die. I'm petrified if I have to be by myself at night, late.

[Elena]

Babe, you're gonna be by yourself for a long time.

[Ash]

A long, long time. She claimed she never wanted Olga to be murdered, but she didn't make any secrets about how she felt about her daughter in law. She said when she learned that Olga had become pregnant before they were married, she confronted Olga and she yelled to the court, I told her I didn't want a daughter in law of her character. And she called me a bad name. And she said she would marry my son whether I liked it or not.

[Elena]

You know what I would have called you? A. A cunt.

[Ash]

The worst thing.

[Elena]

C u n T. That's what I would have called you.

[Ash]

Honestly, I hope she did call her. I love that. She was like in death being like, listen, I didn't murder her, but I hated her.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

She's like, you're not doing yourself any favors here.

[Elena]

She thinks it's gonna help though, because she's like, look, I'm being honest. Yeah. About how I felt.

[Ash]

Yep. So the testimony got heated the next day when Roy Gustavson cross examined Elizabeth with. At one point, he said he was going over answers to questions that she'd been asked the previous day in relation to her son Frankie. Frank leapt to his feet and shouted, just a minute, Mr. Gusabson. My name is Frank, not Frankie. I'm a big boy.

[Elena]

Only mommy gets to call me Frankie. Mister, you poo to you.

[Ash]

In response, Gustavsson was like, hey, can you eject him from the courtroom?

[Elena]

Can you get that poo swabbing the out of this courtroom?

[Ash]

But the judge would not. Going forward, though, whenever Gustavsson referred to Frank as anything other than Frank, Elizabeth sharply corrected him and said, frank is an attorney and an officer of the same court as you are, Mr. Gupson. I think you should have some respect for him. So as anyone could have predicted, Elizabeth proved to be a pretty difficult witness on the cross examination. She would refuse to answer questions and she would only answer them after the judge was like, hey, you have to fucking answer them. That at one point when the prosecutor was like, there was no blackmail. You were just supposed to make payments for the murder that you hired somebody for. She said, I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not do that. Even though her testimony was riddled with outbursts and sarcastic remarks, frequent bouts of weeping, all of the above, she did manage to stick to her story, more or less. Her protests and her insistent that she was the victim were consistent. But they were nothing compared to the mountain of evidence and testimony linking her to the murder of olga. So on March 17, 1959, after a brief deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom to find Elizabeth Duncan guilty of the first degree murder of Olga Kubchik. The verdict kind of shocked everybody in the court. But Elizabeth seemed to primarily focus on, you guessed it, her sonny boy. After the verdict was read, she told him, don't worry too much, Frank Lord. Later, when she was asked about the verdict, she told a reporter, I don't know how that jury could do this to me. I didn't do it.

[Elena]

You did. Okay.

[Ash]

In the week that followed, the jury heard arguments in the penalty phase. First to determine if Elizabeth was of sound mind when she committed the crime. I bet that probably went on for a long time.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Then to determine the actual penalty. In his testimony, psychiatrist Dr. Lewis Nash said of the evaluation, I found Mrs. Duncan to be a maladjusted, egocentric, and emotionally immature individual.

[Elena]

Hell, yeah, you did.

[Ash]

The defendant particularly has been unable to stand frustrations or maintain her emotional equilibrium and independence during major and minor stresses.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But when asked whether he believed Elizabeth met the criteria for mental incompetency, he said, I did not find her to be insane. So he said, she's sane. She's just a lot.

[Elena]

Yeah, she's just very difficult. Yeah.

[Ash]

She's got. There's something going on for sure, but she's sane. So according to Dr. Nash, Elizabeth's personality was the same as most criminals and those who he came in frequent contact with, with. In his. In his line of work. He said, a psychopathic personality is a social misfit who causes problems for themselves and the world they live in.

[Elena]

Yeah. And that's her right.

[Ash]

And it's like you can be a psychopath but still be sane. And I. Yeah, I know that's hard to understand, but. Yeah, it's the facts.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So now that she was determined to have been sane, but really a lot. When she contracted Lewis and Gus to kill Olga, the jury followed the prosecutor's wishes and they sentenced Elizabeth to death.

[Elena]

Whoa. Yeah.

[Ash]

When asked for a reaction by reporter, she was defiant. She said, they are not going to make me cry. Those jurors were prejudice. I think they all lied when they said they would give me a fair trial. Liars, all of them. After her trial, Lewis and Gus were also determined to be sane at the time of the murder, and they, too, were sentenced to death.

[Elena]

Yeah. You're all going down together. Yeah.

[Ash]

According to author Deborah Holt Larkin, which of course will link her book in the show notes she wrote, Duncan's trial might never have stood up to today's legal standards, which is pretty true.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

It's highly likely that Gustafsson kind of tainted the jury a little bit with his repeated release of irrelevant facts.

[Elena]

About Elizabeth, you really do look at the. The legal part of that, like, really pare it down to the skeleton there. It's. You can't do that. Yeah. Like, we can look at it now and be like, well, yeah, yeah, we

[Ash]

can talk about it. But if we were presenting this case to a jury, we really, really couldn't say that they're not pertinent to the case. Unfortunately, the guilty verdict and the death sentence could have been more the result of a character assassination than a strong case put forward by the prosecution. But you also have to remember, at the same time, it could have had a lot to do with the fact that Olga was eight months pregnant when she was killed.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And the heaping mountain of evidence against Elizabeth.

[Elena]

Absolutely. I mean, you have several people who are tell. And are showing a pretty. Pretty clear paper trail and a pretty clear trail of evidence that lead back to this.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

And when the jury friends are saying that she knew this, that she was

[Ash]

there, a woman who was literally there when she hired these men is like, I was right there, and she's my friend and I'm actually wearing her sweater right now.

[Elena]

Yeah. She also was there for the annulment thing. So she's been there. She's been a pretty ride or die friend. And at this point she's like, yeah, I gotta tell you, because I'm under oath. Yeah. I can't perjure myself that this is what happens. So it's a. Like, this isn't out of nowhere. It's not like they're just like, yeah, you're a. And you have a weird, unnatural attraction to your son.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

So we're going to pretend that you're a murderer. Like there was evidence. But I do understand that they're saying, like, the case could have been tighter.

[Ash]

I think the case definitely could have been tighter, but I really do think a lot of it had to do with Olga having been eight months pregnant. If I was sitting on that jury, that would absolutely factor into my decision making. Sure. How could it not?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds (Mint Mobile Ad)]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So after sentencing, Elizabeth's lawyer petitioned the court for a new trial. Obviously, that always happens at appeal. The. The defense argued, among other things, that the jury had been prejudiced by all the news coverage and that Elizabeth hadn't got a fair trial. In the spring of 1960, the California Court of Appeals heard the case. And after reviewing the evidence and hearing testimony, they concluded that the prosecution and the trial court had followed standard procedure with regard to the jury and that the judge was well within his rights to deny the request to move the trial.

[Elena]

There you go. I mean, some of the things that they let out, they were gossipy, they were rumors, whatever. Not a lot of them would lead me to believe that somebody would do this to their daughter.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

You know, I mean, yeah, it makes me think she's a. And that she's an unlikely, likable, and very untrustworthy person.

[Ash]

But there's also all the evidence of her guilt.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So with her appeal denied, Elizabeth's lawyer petitioned California's Governor, Pat Brown for clemency. We've talked about Pat Brown before. At the time, he actually had expressed sympathy for those on death row. And he frequently sided with the anti death penalty movement, particularly in the case of Carol Chessman, the so called red light bandit.

[Elena]

We talked about that.

[Ash]

We talked about when the clemency case came up for his review. In this case, Pat Brown's assistant evaluated the case and quote, acknowledged there had been serious irregularities in the trial, but ultimately decided that the evidence was so overwhelming that Elizabeth Duncan acted with malicious, just predatory intent. So they denied the request.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I mean, again, it's everything worth saying

[Elena]

there was some extra little spice in there that didn't need to be there, that could have. And now probably would fuck up the trial big time. But the meat of the trial was there.

[Ash]

Exactly. And it was again, a very different time.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So she exhausted all of her appeals at that point. And Elizabeth Duncan was sent to the gas chamber on the morning of August 8, 1962. And so were Louis Moya and Gus Baldonado.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Ash]

Elizabeth's last words before the gas was released. Where's Frank?

[Elena]

That. That makes sense. That makes sense.

[Ash]

And then the cyanide pellets were dropped. And that was a wrap on Elizabeth.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

A few minutes later, at 10:12, the prison doctor announced all three were dead. And Elizabeth Dungan was actually the last woman executed in the state of California.

[Elena]

Wow. Isn't that crazy? What a distinction.

[Ash]

Now, in state records, it seems that she was buried on the grounds of San Quentin Prison, but there's actually no records of her grave being in the cemetery.

[Elena]

Huh.

[Ash]

The general consensus is that Frank actually claimed her remains after the execution and that had he had her buried in a private cemetery, I.

[Elena]

Not one part of me believes that didn't like that absolutely happened.

[Ash]

Now, what about Frank?

[Elena]

You may ask, what about Frank?

[Ash]

Frank remained committed to his mother's innocence for the rest of his life. Life. But the case, Elizabeth's notoriety, all of that obviously negatively affected him in the years that followed, because remember, he's A lawyer like that ruined his career pretty much immediately after Elizabeth was arrested, he was let go from the legal firm that he worked for. And in the years that followed, he was repeatedly sanctioned by the California Bar for previous offenses until May of 2022, when disciplinary charges were filed that resulted in his being found ineligible to practice law in California. Yeah.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Ash]

The following year, he was disbarred. But the reasons for the disciplinary actions and the disbarment are not public information. Wow.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So that is the case of Olga K's murder.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Ash]

Yeah, so it's just really. That's. It's just such a tragic case with Olga being, like, just being terrorized in the final.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Year or so of her life. Life.

[Elena]

Yep. And then eight months pregnant, being kidnapped and murdered. Like, what the.

[Ash]

It's really sad.

[Elena]

Yeah, it's awful.

[Ash]

So let's do a fun fact. Yes. Bees actually have knees. You know how people say, like, the bee's knees and you're always like, fun.

[Elena]

What fact?

[Ash]

Yeah, this expression. The expression bees, the bee's knees comes from the fact that they store large buildups of pollen in hairy baskets. Gets on their knees.

[Elena]

Hairy baskets. They have just hairy baskets hanging from their knees.

[Ash]

Don't you?

[Elena]

That is a fun fact.

[Ash]

I love it.

[Elena]

That's a fun fact that keeps on giving. Yeah.

[Ash]

Bees, in fact, have knees.

[Elena]

I like that a lot.

[Ash]

That came from the Fact site dot com.

[Elena]

I love that.

[Ash]

And with that, we definitely hope you keep listening.

[Elena]

Yeah. And we hope you keep it weird,

[Ash]

but not so weird that you don't think about the fact that bees have. Have knees. I'll think about that forever.

[Elena]

Think about it forever. Bye. Bye.

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[Elena]

What can't you do?

[Ash]

Visit Capella.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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