Elizabeth Duncan

The love of a mother for her child is a wonderful thing but occasionally this love can spiral out of control. Such was the case with Elizabeth Duncan, eleven times married and mother of four. Three of her offspring she gave up for adoption but Frank was different! She loved him with every ounce of strength in her body, working her fingers to the bone, including a spell as a madame in a San Francisco brothel, to give him the education she felt he deserved. He did not disappoint her and grew up to become a successful lawyer. However, in return Elizabeth required that Frank's wings be well and truly clipped and on the one occasion when he suggested, at the age of twenty nine, that he might leave home, a furious row ensued. The result was that Elizabeth stuffed herself with sleeping pills and had to be removed to the local hospital in Santa Barbara. There she was looked after by a pretty young Canadian nurse called Olga, to whom Frank was seriously attracted. Unknown to Elizabeth they got married although Frank continued to return to his mother's appartment every night! Finally the inevitable happened and Olga became pregnant. Frank imparted the good news to his mother who flew into a rage and proceeded to do everything possible to break up the marriage. This culminated in her hiring two unemployed drifters to kill Olga which they did with remarkable ineptitude. They buried the pregnant daughter in-law still alive. They hit her over the head, then stuck her in the ground on a hillside in Santa Barbara, CA.  When apprehended they confessed all and Elizabeth was arrested soon afterwards. Whilst awaiting execution in the San Quentin gas chamber on 8 August 1962 her final words were "I'm innocent! Where's Frank?" She died alone, Frank being at that moment at the courthouse still pleading his mother's case.