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the-penny-dreadfuls · 6 years

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Appearances can be deceiving. At first glance Elizabeth Duncan looks like any other kindly grandmother. However, she was the conniving master mind behind the brutal murder of Olga Duncan, her daughter-in-law. Olga, who was seven months pregnant at the time, vanished without a trace in November of 1958. The story of the missing, pretty mother-to-be quickly gripped headlines. What came next was a tale far more harrowing and bizarre than both investigators and the public could have imagined.

Elizabeth Duncan had an unruly appetite for men. She had up to eight husbands, and was always looking for a new relationship to slide into. Even when she was in the courtoom, waiting for her fate to be decided, Elizabeth was trying to flirt with officers. The relationship she had with her son, Frank, would be categorized as obsessive. Some would call it unnatural, as it was believed that Frank and Elizabeth were involved in an incestuous relationship. Out of her five children Elizabeth openly admitted that Frank was her favorite, and did everything she could to make sure he would never leave her. At one point she had tried to commit suicide in an attempt to guilt her son into staying with her. This, however, would prove to be a disastrous mistake. While paying a visit to the hospital, Frank met the young and beautiful nurse named Olga Kupczyk, who was tending to his recovering mother. Frank was smitten.

Although the young couple did marry, they rarely lived together. Frank had yet to fully break away from his mother’s grip. Instead, he bounced between her house and the apartment Olga was living at. They tried to keep Olga’s current residence hidden from Elizabeth, as the new bride already had to move several times because of her mother-in-law’s constant threats. The tumultuous relationship between the two women was well known. In letters exchanged with her family and friends, Olga wrote about her struggles with her controlling mother-in-law. The situation had become so bad that Elizabeth was even threatening Olga’s life. Elizabeth herself was open about her contempt towards the young woman. At one point she told the manager of the apartment complex where Olga was living that she would “kill her, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Police uncovered a peculiar piece of evidence while investigating Olga Duncan’s disappearance. They had uncovered a document stating that the couple’s marriage had recently been annulled. When asked about this, Frank told investigators he had no idea what they were talking about. They would discover that Elizabeth had hired a twenty-five year old man named Ralph Winterstein to pose as her son in court and secure the annulment. Elizabeth was arrested and charged with forgery and falsifying a legal document. Frank stood by her in court. They entered the courtroom, walking hand in hand. His devotion to his mother would not allow him to even consider she had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance, or at least not anything sinister. Frank believed that Elizabeth had been roped into some seedy business and was being blackmailed with the disappearance of her daughter-in-law. He told investigators about a suspicious moment he shared with his mother when Elizabeth was frantically writing a check. She told her son that she was being blackmailed. This would lead police to twenty-five year old Augustine Baldonado and Luis Moya, aged twenty-two.

Nearly a month after Olga was last seen, Baldonado made his confession and lead police to the missing woman’s body. He, along with Moya, had been hired by Elizabeth Duncan to kill her daughter-in-law. They would be paid $3,000 for the deed. Moya lured Olga from her home at 11:00 P.M. night after he knocked on her door and told her that her husband was outside, drunk and needing help to get back inside. The mother-to-be followed Moya out to the car where he then struck her on the back of her head with his pistol. Then Baldonado, who was posing as Frank, pulled her into the car. Olga was stunned, but she was not ready to go down without a fight. With both hers and her child’s life at stake, she fought back against her assailants, kicking and screaming wildly in attempt to break free. The two men would have to beat her into unconsciousness for Olga to finally go quiet. They bound her hands together, and then drove off to a remote area in Carpinteria, California. When they reached their final destination, Baldonado and Moya continued their savage beatings. Each took a turn at trying to strangle Olga as well. When they believed she had died, the men then dug a shallow grave using only their hands. Neither the strangulation nor the beatings would be what killed ultimately killed Olga. Dirt within her lungs showed that the pregnant woman was still alive when she was placed in her grave by a drainage ditch. In the end Olga Duncan died of suffocation. She was thirty years old.

Elizabeth Duncan, Augustine Baldonado, and Luis Moya were charged with the murder of Olga Duncan. All three would plead not guilty by reasons of insanity. These claims would be proven false by professionals. Each defendant was found guilty and were sentenced to death. Despite all of the evidence pointing to Elizabeth’s guilt, Frank Duncan stood by his mother until the bitter end. He fought for her freedom up until the day she was to be executed. On August 8th, 1982 Elizabeth Duncan was sent to a gas chamber for her execution. As she was being lead in, Elizabeth looked around and noticed that her devoted son was not there to witness her final moments. Her last recorded words were, “Where’s Frank?”

Photos: Elizabeth Duncan in court (Top) Olga Duncan (Bottom Left) Frank and Elizabeth Duncan during her trial (Bottom Right)

#Olga Duncan #True Crime #tcoriginal #Elizabeth Duncan #women murderers

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