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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. >> [music] >> This is Morbid. This is Morbid. This is
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pretty Morbid. >> What's up, Big Red? Uh, I don't It's been busy. Yeah, it has been busy. It's been busy.
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It's been good. Yeah. >> Um, everything outside of this house is pretty ratchet.
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>> [sighs] >> But, uh, in here, pretty good. Yeah. [laughter] In here, it's all right. We do want to
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rearrange our room a little bit. >> to rearrange the pod lab, yeah. >> And here is actually also pretty
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ratchet. >> this room specifically, yeah, pretty rough. Yeah. We're just going to
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move some stuff around, that's all. >> Yeah. You know, when like you worked at a really terrible place for a long time
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and then like things remind you of working at that This is hypothetical. Things remind you of working there.
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Yeah. >> And then you just want to change everything about the the time in your life where your room looked like that.
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>> Yeah, cuz when it was like the worst time of your life working at that place where you were breaking down
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every day and crying and screaming and and wanting to quit. Um, that energy hangs out in a place, I think.
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>> And you can only salt the rug so much. >> You can only salt the rug. You can only
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palo santo the room so many times. >> Oh. >> [laughter] >> Hypothetically, palo santo was keeping
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my life together. It It sure was. Hypothetically. [laughter] Hypothetically. But now that we're so happy and vibey
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The room's got to match the vibe. >> to be happy and vibey. It was cluttered with all the, uh, dankness.
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>> souls for a little while, so. >> Yeah. Allegedly. >> we began with that I think really made a
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difference was I got, um, Ash got me potato slippers. >> Slippers that look like a potato with a
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face and two little feet. >> Mhm. And I've never been happier with a pair of slippers in my life.
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>> You're welcome. And so I think this is the beginning of something beautiful in
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here. I got croissant slippers, but I left them at home. I'm wearing We're wearing slippers in the office office,
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it's a new thing. Office slippers. >> Office slippers, of course. I'm wearing big old cheetah ones that Drew got me
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and I love them. >> Yep. But I also want to wear my croissant slippers. >> Yeah, Deb Deb Deb has some bear
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slippers. >> Yep, I got her bears. We got to get Mikey some slippers. >> Some appropriate slippers.
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>> have animal ones when I the place I was looking for a man's feet. >> Yeah, a man's feet.
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>> You know. But, yeah, that's what we have to say [laughter] to you guys. You know, that that's our business for
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today. Get your Get yourself some office slippers. And when your boss says, "What
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the [ __ ] are you doing?" say, "Don't worry about it." >> Don't [ __ ] worry about it.
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>> [ __ ] off." Just kidding, you'll get fired. Don't do that. [laughter] >> Who gives a [ __ ] Um, and also
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uh, continue trying to do those little romanticizing your life things. >> Absolutely.
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>> As the world gets crazier, get more romantic. I got a little romantic with my bedtime. I have been and it didn't do
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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
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think, more consistently. I got the hatch alarm clock. >> Oh, I love my hatch alarm. This is not
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an ad. It's not an ad, but they were nice enough to send us them. >> They did. Um, and I was nice enough to
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give mine to Debbie and Mikey. And then Drew, because I knew that Drew got me one for Christmas. I I accidentally saw
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that on her bank statement. >> [laughter] >> Uh, anyway, I started doing the meditations the nighttime meditation.
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>> have some cool ones. And I fell asleep, literally just meditating. And I want to
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do it every night before bed. It's life-changing. >> I love my sunrise alarm. And again, not
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an ad. We're just literally loving our hatch alarm. >> I love them so much it and the I really
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love the bedtime meditations. Last night I [ __ ] myself over because I'm trying
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to get more fiber in and I said, "You know what a fun way to do that is? Let's have some [ __ ] dark chocolate,
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bitch." And I had some dark chocolate before bed and I forgot that that has caffeine in it.
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>> Oh, it does. You're right. I was wide awake. Wide awake. It was It was rough.
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I set my hatch alarm to, again, not an ad. I don't know why I keep saying like my hatch alarm.
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>> [laughter] >> I set my alarm to like this Gatsby jazz, like slow cuz I've been telling you guys
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the slow morning jazz, which I did share at the playlist a bunch times on my story, but I think people kept missing
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it. I feel like at this point I should just put it on my grid. You know what you can do, actually, and if you don't
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want it on your actual grid, um, do a highlight. >> Oh, there you go. So it's like
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>> 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.
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>> I'll show her how to do it. >> Yeah, the the the youth will show me how to do it.
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>> I got you. Um, but yeah, so I there's a setting on it on the alarm that you can
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wake up to like slow and it's literally called like Morning on West Egg. >> It's gorgeous.
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>> And it is such a good way to wake. And you can also pick like the colors that
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you wake up to. And it's seriously this isn't an ad. Like I swear to you >> like, "This is an undisclosed No, we
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would have We actually like have to tell you if it's an ad. It's really not. Uh,
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and just to end the conversation there, I I'm just obsessed with it. It's really
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changed [ __ ] and it makes it a lot easier to wake up in the morning. >> Yeah, it's a it's little stuff like that
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that I think we all need. Little things that make you happy. >> You know, if you can't get a hatch alarm
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right now, romanticize your life in other ways. Just get a pretty glass to put your
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drink in at dinner. Yes. In fact, one one last thing before we get into this stuff.
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>> get new glasses? Um, if you go like if you you can find them anywhere. Um, they're like little like water carafes.
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>> [gasps] >> If you look at like a antique-y looking one and it's like the glasses on top of
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it, if you put it on your nightstand or even just like in your living room as like a
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one, it makes you drink more water. >> It does. >> Because you'll want to finish that
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carafe. >> It does because you don't want it sitting out. >> Just know that you'll be peeing in the
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middle of the night. >> peeing. But also, you will feel like a fancy like noblewoman.
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>> diva. >> [laughter] >> You really would >> between us. Noblewoman/diva. Um, I literally almost bought one off
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the TikTok shop the other night, but then I was like, "Is this like too trendy?" Um, because it was cherry.
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Like, uh, It was like a cherry, which was cute, but I I like what you're putting down over there. I like a
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vintage vibe. >> at like an art deco like Gatsby era like 1920s looking carafe, you can get them pretty cheap.
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Like you can look on Amazon, you can look wherever you want. But you can find a lot of different styles and you can
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make and they look so fancy and so expensive, but they're not. And it's just one little thing to add a little
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bit of whimsy and a little bit of luxury-looking [ __ ] >> Also, I'm here to say it. If you have a
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guest bedroom, put it in your guest bedroom because it says, "I have my [ __ ] together."
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>> It does. >> I love I love putting together a guest bedroom when somebody's coming over and
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making it just like bougie as [ __ ] I love it. Not that I ever have people over, but
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>> I was going to say I never have people over, but >> Very rarely, but when I do, I go for it.
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>> Yeah. So, that's just little things, you Yeah, I need to >> said you liked like having little things
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to to romanticize. >> romanticize, so that's why I'm trying to I'm trying to offer it whenever I can. I
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have these cups that I got like vintage shopping or like, um, thrifting and they're so pretty. They're like beveled
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glass and then they have like this on the rim it's like this thick, um, border that's like gold leaf almost and I want
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to find more of them cuz I only have four. I'm like, "I need to find them." And that's I love thrifting, but that's
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the only issue is that it's not mass-produced. So now >> [laughter] >> now you can find more. Like now you're
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going to be looking. I know I am. I'm on the hunt. So, if you see anything like that, let me know. It's true. All right,
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let's get into it. >> into it. >> So, we are still talking about the murder of Olga Kupchik. And if you
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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
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in, okay? So, Olga married Frank after meeting him while his mom was in the hospital where Olga was a nurse. So, she
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literally took care of his mom. And he was like, "Oh my god, you're gorgeous. You're taking care of my mom. Let's
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date." They dated. >> Elizabeth, Frank's mom, is obsessed with him and essentially wants to be married
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to him. So, she hates Olga and she secretly annuls their marriage after they get married.
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>> And Frank's like acting like a poisswa. Yeah, Frank is the poisswa of the century, truly.
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>> case. Olga gets pregnant in the middle of all this and unfortunately and incredibly sadly, she goes missing at
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eight months pregnant. >> Jesus. Now, coincidentally, Elizabeth, while she's being looked at and kind of
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questioned a little bit, she admits that she was getting blackmailed around this
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same time and she points toward this man Luis Moya, but refuses to sign a formal
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complaint and the way she identified him was super weird. >> Yeah. >> She identified him The police sent her
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home with like a bunch of mugshots, which I have to think they don't do anymore. Yeah. When I first read that, I
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was like, "What?" >> They're like, "Go home and look at these." They're like, "Here's a book of
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of criminals. Look at them." But so she identified the mug him in the mugshot and then didn't identify him in a
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lineup, but Frank had seen the mugshots and he was like, "Isn't that the guy literally right there?"
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>> Yeah. And she was like, "Oh, gee whiz, it is." But then she wouldn't sign anything. So, the police were like,
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"What's going on here?" >> They're kind of at a dead end and now they're frustrated by Elizabeth's
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stonewalling. So, they went back to her friend Emma Short, the only other person
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who seemed to have any insight into what the [ __ ] was going on here. >> Come on, Emma. Because remember, Emma
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would go to the Tropical Cafe Yeah. who, um, was owned by the people that Elizabeth
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said were blackmailing her. >> Yeah. So, at first, Emma refused to speak to the detectives and suggested
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that Elizabeth had actually told her not to talk to the police about anything. >> Oh. But in her protest, Emma
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inadvertently mentioned something that caught Detective Henderson's attention. The annulment.
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>> Oh, I was waiting for that to be discovered. >> Yeah. Until that point, investigators
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actually hadn't heard anything about an annulment and actually if Emma hadn't brought it up on accident, there was a
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good chance it actually would have gone gone unnoticed for probably forever to be honest.
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>> Probably. But now that it was out, there was no going back and Emma knew it. So
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Emma explained to the detectives that she only went with Elizabeth and Ralph to see the lawyer and go to the
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courthouse. So she was there for some of it. But she insisted that she played no role
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in the scheme. She was simply there. I simply let it happen. >> Yeah, exactly. I just just didn't do
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anything to stop it. >> anything to anyone. And didn't tell anybody. >> Yeah. So she knew all the details and in
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early December she ended up telling the police everything she knew about Elizabeth and Ralph posing as Olga and
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Frank. Soon the conversation shifted toward the Escobals who owned the Tropical Cafe.
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And the people who Elizabeth claimed was blackmailing her. The topic seemed to make Emma
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uncomfortable when it was brought up. Not because she was just simply afraid of the blackmailers, but it seemed like
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she was afraid of Elizabeth actually, her friend. Probably. So now convinced that there was a lot more going on with
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this whole thing than anybody was willing to tell him, Detective Henderson suggested that they continue their
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conversation at the police station. And once they were there, Emma finally came out with the truth.
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>> Yeah, Emma. So according to Emma, when the annulment failed to end Frank and Olga's relationship because Frank just
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didn't do anything about it, Elizabeth took the next step in her plan and she actually approached Esperanza Escobal
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for help. >> What the So the very woman she's saying is blackmailing her, she went to turn to
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for help. It was Escobal who introduced Elizabeth to Luis Moya who she had identified and
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another man, Gus Baldonado. The plan was that the two men would kidnap Ol- Olga from the apartment and take her to
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Mexico where they would kill her. Mind you, she's 8 months pregnant. >> pregnant.
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>> And dump her body. This is her daughter-in-law who is 8 months pregnant with her grandchild. Yeah. But she
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doesn't she's not recognizing that that baby is her grandchild. She is like, oh,
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Olga got pregnant by another man. >> what? She knows it is. >> Absolutely, she knows.
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>> in me that believes that she doesn't know that's her grandchild. No, no, no. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just
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saying like she's so gross that she's like making up all these rumors. She's such a That's wow. She's a [ __ ]
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>> Wow. She's a [ __ ] >> She is. So in fact, Emma told the detectives that Elizabeth had actually
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tried multiple times to find somebody to kill Olga before finally making the deal
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with Luis and Gus. First, if you remember, we talked about it in part one, she tried to convince a woman
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Barbara Reed to do it, throw acid in her face and throw her off a cliff. >> Jesus. But that fell apart when Barbara
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went to Frank and was like, "Hey, I think your mom's losing her [ __ ] mind." >> Yeah.
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Then after the annulment, she went back to Ralph Winterstein and offered him a very large sum of money, but he was
00:12:32
like, "Nah, I don't want to kill anyone." But I'm also like, you also could have gone to the police.
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>> Yeah. So the list of people that Elizabeth approached also included one of Frank's former clients. Jesus. And
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then just another woman named Becky who she recently met. And she told Elizabeth
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that she could find somebody to help her, but she just never ended up coming through. I love that this woman is just
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Becky. Yeah, just Becky with the murder tendencies. >> But she she didn't do it. Forget Becky
00:12:57
with the good hair. Don't ask Becky to do that. Like don't do that. Becky will not come through.
00:13:01
But also you have to think of the amount of people that she approached to murder
00:13:06
her daughter-in-law and none of them were like, "911, I'd like to tell you something."
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>> trying to get somebody to kill her daughter-in-law who's pregnant. Like hello.
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So according to author Deborah Holt Larkin, that's the real tragedy of the story. Olga didn't have to die. So many
00:13:20
people knew. >> Yeah, they should all be ashamed of themselves. So the story was obviously
00:13:24
compelling to the detective and all the pieces seemed to fit. He was like, "Oh [ __ ] we're really making headway here."
00:13:29
But in order to arrest Elizabeth, they needed something a little more concrete. For the time being, the district
00:13:34
attorney in Santa Barbara asked the detectives to continue pursuing the case and in the meantime, he was going to
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call the district attorney in Ventura County, Roy Gustavson, and report the fake annulment and the
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imprisonment and the impersonation, excuse me. If nothing else, that would be enough to hold Elizabeth until they
00:13:51
could track down Luis Moya and Gus Baldonado. Yeah. So the next day, Detective Henderson and his partner
00:13:57
started rounding up Esperanza Escobal, Luis Moya and Gus Baldonado. Under the threat of being charged as a
00:14:03
co-conspirator, Esperanza basically said, "Yeah, everything that Emma told you is true."
00:14:08
>> Jesus. She was like, "She approached me. She needed somebody to get rid of her
00:14:12
daughter-in-law. I showed her Luis and Gus, but that's where my part in all of this ended."
00:14:17
>> She's like, "So I'm completely innocent." Exactly. [laughter] Obviously. She's like, "I just
00:14:22
introduced her to two hit men. What was I to do?" >> I didn't do anything else. I have a
00:14:25
tropical cafe to run. >> there, not my business. Like, oh, okay. Like okay, did you think they were just
00:14:30
going for coffee? Like what the [ __ ] Everybody knows everything that's going on with everybody here. Agreed. She also
00:14:35
did inform them of one other detail. In exchange for Olga's murder, Elizabeth offered the two men $6,000.
00:14:42
>> Jesus. Which is a little more than sev- 67,000 today. Which like it's a lot of
00:14:46
money, but like to kill somebody? >> Yeah. Hello. >> Hello. When he got back to his desk, Henderson
00:14:53
found a note from a patrol officer in the traffic division asking that he return his call.
00:14:59
So the officer told Henderson he was holding a guy named Chico Rojo on a DUI and Rojo actually seemed to know
00:15:06
something about Gus Baldonado. >> There's so many people involved in this. It's a lot of people. According to Rojo,
00:15:12
he had loaned his car to Baldonado and Moya a few weeks earlier and when they returned it, the upholstery in the
00:15:19
backseat was ripped and burned. Oh my god. At the time, the car was at the impound lot because obviously the guy
00:15:25
was drinking and driving. But when they went to take a look, the backseat had definitely been destroyed. But it was
00:15:31
obvious from the specs of dried blood that somebody had clearly tried to get rid of evidence. Oh, no. It's crazy how
00:15:37
this is all just like lining up now. He gets like one piece of information and then it's slowly exactly. So while
00:15:43
investigators kept putting the pieces together and going over the growing body of evidence, Henderson and his partner
00:15:49
went to Frank Duncan's house and arrested his mother. >> Good. Yeah. The following day, Elizabeth
00:15:54
was charged with four felony counts including charges of fraud, forgery and impersonation.
00:15:59
Despite the evidence against her, she refused to cooperate which I'm sure is so hard to believe.
00:16:04
>> Cuz she's a [ __ ] And she just said that she was innocent and was being blackmailed.
00:16:07
>> Yeah. She didn't even say she was a [ __ ] No, she just knew. >> But you know what? We know. We knew it.
00:16:11
>> She's a [ __ ] >> Yeah. So Elizabeth Duncan might not have been talking, but her co-conspirators were a
00:16:17
lot more forthcoming. >> Of course. Having been identified by Emma Short and Esperanza Escobal as one
00:16:22
of the men hired by Elizabeth to get rid of Olga and also having now been linked
00:16:26
to the bloody vehicle, it didn't take long for Gus to confess and implicate everybody else.
00:16:31
>> Oh, yeah. According to Gus Baldonado, he and Luis met with Elizabeth who was with
00:16:36
Emma, by the way. Also So Emma knew about this. >> They're always trying to get themselves
00:16:40
further away from it and I'm like, "You're going to get caught." >> were literally there.
00:16:43
>> Yeah. They met at the Tropical Cafe on November 13th and they established that
00:16:47
she would pay them $3,000 when they killed Olga and another 3,000 within three to six months, like when she could
00:16:54
get the money. >> What a complete piece of [ __ ] Truly, all of them. >> Yeah. The plan was that they would
00:16:59
kidnap Olga from her apartment and take her to Tijuana where they would kill her
00:17:03
and dump the body. An 8-month pregnant woman. Yep. So on the night of November 17th, after Olga's friends left for the
00:17:10
night, Luis and Gus went to her apartment and Luis went up and knocked on the door, which is where the landlord
00:17:16
or the landlady heard the footsteps. >> When Olga came to the door, Luis told her Frank was in the car and he was
00:17:23
really drunk and they needed help getting him inside. So they preyed upon her. And also
00:17:30
no grown men need your help. Nope. No, no. Especially when you're 8 months pregnant.
00:17:35
>> Hell no. Nope. But obviously she's worried about her fiance. Excuse me, she's worried about her husband. So
00:17:40
she's like, "Oh [ __ ] like let me help you." >> Yeah. So in the car, Gus was sitting in
00:17:44
the backseat posing as Frank. But when Olga got down to the car and opened the door in the back, Luis hit her in the
00:17:49
back of the head with the butt of his gun and Gus pulled her into the backseat as Luis drove away.
00:17:55
So violent. >> It is. Along the way, they stopped the car because she was struggling so much
00:18:01
that Luis hit her again with the gun and then taped her hands, ankles and mouth.
00:18:06
She went through hell. >> So they planned to drive her to Mexico, but they had car trouble when they
00:18:10
reached Ventura County. So they stopped in Ojai and pulled the car off the road by Casitas Pass, a culvert that ran
00:18:18
under the road. They used the gun as a club several more times, which then caused it to jam. So
00:18:24
they couldn't use it anymore. So they then took turns strangling Olga until they no longer felt a pulse.
00:18:32
Wow. >> Assuming she was dead, they dug a shallow grave and they tossed her body
00:18:37
in there, covered her with dirt and then drove the car back to Santa Barbara. Holy [ __ ] Once there, that's where they
00:18:43
tore the upholstery and tried to destroy the blood evidence and then just went back, called Elizabeth and told her the
00:18:49
job was done. Wow. Yeah, just went about their lives. They just went about their lives and
00:18:55
Elizabeth just said, "Okay, good. Thanks for killing my my daughter-in-law." And
00:18:59
my grandchild. The wife of my son. Yep. Thanks for doing that. >> NBD. Yep. On December 21st, Gus
00:19:06
Baldonado actually led police to the culvert in Ojai where they had buried the body and Olga's remains were
00:19:11
disinterred and taken back to Santa Barbara. This is horrible. When the medical examiner performed the
00:19:17
autopsy, it was obviously noted that Olga was pregnant and that she'd suffered several blunt force traumas to
00:19:23
the head as well as having been manually strangled. But the cause of death was listed as
00:19:28
suffocation such as would be produced by being buried alive. Oh, [ __ ] >> She wasn't fully dead when she wasn't
00:19:36
dead. She was buried alive. She was buried alive. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. You can only hope that she was unconscious.
00:19:44
That's horrific. >> Because her pulse was so faint or they didn't think they felt a pulse anymore
00:19:48
when they buried her, but she was alive when she was buried. >> That is horrific.
00:19:53
>> Yeah, and pregnant. Please don't forget that. Holy [ __ ] So when Luis Moya was
00:19:58
confronted with the evidence, witness statements, Baldonado's confession, all of it, he too confessed.
00:20:04
And he confirmed that had he had also been hired by Elizabeth Duncan. And he also confirmed that while she had
00:20:11
given him uh the two of them a few hundred dollars as a upfront payment, which she got from pawning some jewelry,
00:20:17
she hadn't given them the money that she promised them when they were hired. >> She wasn't going to.
00:20:21
>> did all this for nothing. >> Yeah. I mean she's an [ __ ] through and through. Like she's not going to
00:20:25
she's not going to follow through. >> She's not going to come through with anything.
00:20:28
>> No. Now on December 21st, the District Attorney Roy Gustafson charged all three
00:20:33
with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder, among other things. And bail was set at a
00:20:39
hundred thousand dollars. According to Deborah Holt Larkin, Roy Gustafson had political ambitions, and
00:20:45
he had actually been looking for a case that would elevate his prominence. So he was eager to prosecute Elizabeth
00:20:50
and her co-conspirators in what would be a death penalty case. Damn. >> Yeah. When the updated charges were announced
00:20:57
in the press, he took full credit, saying, "I was tired of waiting for somebody to do something with this case,
00:21:01
so I ordered my men to question Baldonado." Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm to prosecute the killers, the
00:21:08
District Attorney had forgot to inform Olga's family that her body had been discovered. Oh my god.
00:21:17
>> It was only when reporters called the house that evening that Olga's family learned she was in fact dead
00:21:23
and had been murdered. >> Yeah. A reporter for the LA Times wrote, "Mrs. Kupchik answered the phone, insisting on
00:21:29
being told what the call was about. When she was told, she moaned and left the telephone." Oh.
00:21:36
That's the kind of [ __ ] that you're like, "Don't report on that." >> That's horrific.
00:21:39
>> Like I get like certain things need to be reported on, but like nobody deserves to know what her initial
00:21:45
>> Oh, that's awful. >> response was to finding that out. >> Yeah, that's really awful. Now from her
00:21:49
jail cell in Ventura County, Elizabeth Duncan continued to say she was innocent. She maintained that she was a
00:21:54
victim of blackmail, even though all of the evidence was pointing to the contrary. Gustafson told the reporter,
00:22:00
"As far as I'm concerned, the only reason Moya and Baldonado sought some money from Miss Duncan was because they
00:22:05
wanted the the pay they were promised for the job they did." So she's saying like I was being
00:22:10
blackmailed, and he's like, "No, you hired them to kill your daughter-in-law, and they were looking for payment."
00:22:16
Which is not They're all shitty. >> It's just horrible the way around. >> [snorts]
00:22:21
>> But you're not a victim of this. [clears throat] >> You're not a victim. So less than a week
00:22:24
later, Gustafson presented the case to the grand jury, calling on almost a dozen witnesses. So all of whom
00:22:30
testified that Olga had been repeatedly being harassed by Elizabeth Duncan consistently, and had actually gotten
00:22:36
multiple death threats. >> Yeah. Given the number of people who had heard Elizabeth make all of these
00:22:41
threats to or something similar, Gustafson really didn't have a lot of trouble as portraying Elizabeth Duncan
00:22:45
as a viciously overprotective mother with a deep hatred for Olga. I don't even if you know if you can calling her
00:22:53
an overprotective mother, even viciously overprotective, is even the correct thing to say. She's just a monster.
00:23:00
>> that child. She had a weird attachment to that child that is unnatural. >> the thing like he's saying
00:23:06
>> not a natural motherly protection. And there's nothing to protect him from. He
00:23:10
willingly got married. He willingly decided to have a child. >> Like what's the problem here?
00:23:16
>> Yeah. Now, speaking of Frank, he was noticeably absent from the grand jury hearing. After he learned what had
00:23:22
happened to Olga and that his mother was being you know brought on charges for it, he
00:23:28
just disappeared. Wow. Yeah. >> [snorts] >> According to Elizabeth's lawyer, S. Ward
00:23:33
Sullivan, Frank had moved out of the apartment that he'd rented with Olga and hadn't been seen since the body was
00:23:38
recovered. Most likely he moved out, but she wasn't living there. >> Yeah. He lives with mommy.
00:23:42
>> Exactly. Now the trial began in late February of 1959, and by that time Frank
00:23:47
had resurfaced >> Oh. and was standing by mommy, fiercely supportive of her claims of innocence.
00:23:54
In that time in or in the time that had passed since the indictment, Luis Moya and Gus Baldonado had actually withdrawn
00:24:00
their pleas of innocent and actually plead uh pleaded guilty to the charges. But their lawyers had signaled their
00:24:06
intent to refile pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity, [snorts] which is like no.
00:24:11
>> [laughter] >> You had every You got paid to do something horrific and you >> every chance to stop. This isn't a crime
00:24:17
of passion, a crime of insanity, none of the above. But that meant that when it came time for the trial to for the
00:24:24
murder of Olga, Elizabeth would stand alone in the courtroom because she was the only one maintaining innocence.
00:24:29
Now once the jury was selected and and the case really got started, it proved to be a lot more sensational and bizarre
00:24:35
than anyone had expected. In addition to the already bizarre facts of the case and the salacious and scandalous rumors
00:24:42
surrounding Elizabeth and Frank's weird [ __ ] relationship, the investigation also turned up some previously unknown
00:24:49
facts about Elizabeth >> Oh. that while not exactly relevant here, were still very fascinating for
00:24:54
reporters. >> hey, I want to know. Among other things, Elizabeth had been married eleven times.
00:25:00
Holy [ __ ] Homegirl was married eleven times. Okay. She also had dated one of Frank's
00:25:09
law school classmates while they were in school together. Okay. Ding ding ding ding ding. Salacious and scandalous
00:25:17
rumors? Nope. I think we're just seeing it for what it is. >> Yeah. >> You're dating one of his classmates? I'm
00:25:23
also like were you trying to make him jealous? >> What the [ __ ] >> she was trying to make Frank jealous in
00:25:28
a weird way. >> Ew. So Gustafson seemed to relish telling the jury, and I would have too.
00:25:32
>> Yeah. It wasn't relevant to the case, but it was interesting. >> Still you're like gross. So the District
00:25:37
Attorney also seemed entirely willing to share gossip and unverified rumors about
00:25:41
Elizabeth that I personally believe. Including the fact that she had paid for Frank's law school by conning several
00:25:47
men out of money and writing bad checks. >> Damn. Given that she'd stiffed everybody she'd
00:25:52
promised money to in the murder of Olga, I'm pretty sure that's true. Like she's
00:25:56
just known to not make good on her word. >> something to think about. Now as far as
00:25:59
the facts of the case and the people called to the witness stand, there was no shortage of drama there either.
00:26:04
In the early days of the trial, Gustafson called Barbara Reed to testify. She was the woman who Elizabeth
00:26:10
was like, "Hey, could you throw some acid in my daughter-in-law's face?" And she was like, "I'll think about it."
00:26:14
>> Yeah. So Barbara told the jury all about that, and then she brought up Elizabeth's daughter Patty, who had died
00:26:19
suddenly at age fifteen. [clears throat] >> And Elizabeth obviously cried at the
00:26:23
defendant's table, but her tears were quickly replaced with fiery anger as soon as Barbara claimed that Elizabeth
00:26:30
tried to hire her to commit murder. Oh. The testimony was continuously interrupted by Elizabeth having some
00:26:37
kind of outburst. She would yell at the prosecutor, she would cry about the loss
00:26:41
of her daughter, the love for her son, and also at random times she would just lol. And there's pictures of her like
00:26:47
>> a lol fit. >> with her head thrown back laughing. Yeah. >> in the courtroom. >> Yeah, she's something.
00:26:52
She wasn't the only one in the courtroom whose hysterics added to the drama. At various points throughout the trial,
00:26:57
Frank's audible weeping also disrupted the proceedings. At one point during Luis Moya's
00:27:03
testimony, where he gave a detailed account of the kidnapping and the murder, Frank flooded the courtroom in
00:27:08
tears, saying >> not over the death of his wife. Hold on. What? I cuz I'm like oh, I mean like
00:27:14
obviously I would also be that way. He said, "It is inconceivable that my mother could associate with a man like
00:27:21
that. What a cold-blooded man! Mommy would never like him." Wait a minute. [snorts] So my mother would never be
00:27:28
friends with a creep like that. is his concern. Uh-huh. It's mind-boggling. >> I I don't even know what to say about
00:27:35
that. >> Nor do I. >> Nor do I, brother. Holy [ __ ] So the testimony from the killers really didn't
00:27:41
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
00:27:46
said she would like to scare her out of the way. After we gained each other's confidence, though, she said she would
00:27:51
like me to get rid of her and would leave it up to us what to do." >> Jesus. According to Moya, Elizabeth said
00:27:57
that Olga was blackmailing Frank and trying to ruin his career, and that's why she wanted her out of the way, but
00:28:03
she had some ideas as to how they could go about it. Moya said, "She told me she
00:28:07
had acid, rope, and sleeping pills if we decided we could use them. The pills were to be for an overdose, the rope to
00:28:14
tie her, and the acid to disfigure her face and fingerprints." Now here's the thing. That's so [ __ ] up I can't even
00:28:21
conceive of it. And also, the whole acid in the face thing, she is so jealous of
00:28:26
Olga >> Absolutely. >> is such a clear psychological like manifestation of that. She wants to
00:28:32
disfigure her because your son is in love with her. One hundred thousand percent.
00:28:37
>> pisses you off. >> And that thought process is inconceivable. >> alien to me that I can't even get on the
00:28:43
same planet as it. Like I just cannot. >> Like why are you so jealous of your son's wife?
00:28:48
>> relationship. >> It's so [ __ ] >> And there's something deeply, deeply dark and [ __ ] up about it.
00:28:53
>> I we've told a couple of these mother and son cases, and they freak me out to
00:28:58
no end. >> freaks me the [ __ ] out. >> I hate it. Now in his testimony, Gus Baldonado was a lot less forthcoming. He
00:29:04
mostly just responded to questions with "I don't remember" and "I don't recall."
00:29:08
But when it came to Elizabeth's involvement, he was a lot less cagey. He said they both asked why they couldn't
00:29:14
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
00:29:19
not possible." Wow. It was clear that what Elizabeth wanted was for her daughter-in-law to be killed, and like
00:29:25
you said, disfigured beyond recognition. >> Yeah, that's some Freudian [ __ ] right
00:29:29
there. >> It is. So the dramatics continued when Emma took the stand toward the end of
00:29:33
the trial to testify against her BFF, Elizabeth. >> Jesus. Her BFF, Jill. At one point during her testimony, as
00:29:40
she was describing how she went with Elizabeth to meet with the killers, Elizabeth jumped out of her chair and
00:29:46
shouted, "You're Shut the [ __ ] up. >> And her attorney was like literally trying to restrain [laughter] her.
00:29:51
>> Was like, "Shut the [ __ ] up." >> you're not doing any favors for yourself."
00:29:55
When she was admonished by the judge and warned about future outbursts, Elizabeth
00:29:58
replied, "This woman has my clothes on right now and she is a liar. I feel like tearing them right off of her." I love
00:30:06
that she's like, "She has my clothes on." >> She said, "Bitch stole my look." >> Like this [ __ ] is saying that you are a
00:30:11
literal like murderess and it's like you're like, "But you're wearing my goddamn sweater. Yeah. I want
00:30:16
>> [laughter] >> Like what what the [ __ ] I may not be able to wear my own clothes soon.
00:30:20
>> But I want it. So despite all the outbursts, all the antics, Elizabeth insisted on testifying on her own
00:30:26
behalf. >> Honestly, good. >> These [ __ ] always do. >> Dig that that grave for yourself. And
00:30:31
she took the stand on March 3rd, which is weird because today is March 3rd. >> don't do this on purpose. I don't know
00:30:38
why this happened. >> we were supposed to record this like a couple days ago, I think. Holy [ __ ]
00:30:43
>> Hello. What is that? Now, according to Elizabeth, she did once have a plan to
00:30:47
truss truss up her son Frank and take him out of Santa Barbara, quote, in the hope that he would come to his senses
00:30:53
and leave his wife. But she never went through with that, she said. No. I love that she was going to truss up her son.
00:30:59
>> Yeah. Hello. >> Truss him up. She even went as far as admitting that she tried to enlist
00:31:03
Barbara Reed in the plan, but she insisted that she never went through with it and certainly she never arranged
00:31:08
for the kidnapping and murder of Olga. >> No, I love that she's like, "Of course I
00:31:12
asked Barbara to throw acid in her face and toss her off a [ __ ] cliff, >> [laughter]
00:31:16
>> but I would never go so far as to organize a kidnapping and murder." She wasn't even admitting to that. She was
00:31:22
saying that the whole she was saying Barbara was lying about everything and that she had only gone to Barbara to
00:31:28
truss up Frank. Not nothing >> up Frank? >> Yeah, that's what she said. >> What the [ __ ]
00:31:33
>> [laughter] >> Like they were going to kidnap him and scare him into leaving Olga is what
00:31:37
she's saying. Now, according to Elizabeth, the entire plot had everything to do with keeping
00:31:41
her sunny at home and nothing to do with Olga personally. Olga was fine. She didn't care about it.
00:31:46
>> Yeah, she's like She just wanted her son to be with him. >> Yeah. Or with her, excuse me. She told
00:31:50
the court, "If I had to live alone, I wanted to die. I'm petrified if I have to be by myself at night." Babe.
00:31:56
You're going to be by yourself for a long time. >> long time. She claimed she never wanted Olga to be
00:32:01
murdered, but she didn't make any secrets about how she felt about her daughter-in-law. She said when she
00:32:06
learned that Olga had become pregnant before they were married, she confronted Olga and she yelled to the court, "I
00:32:13
told her I didn't want a daughter-in-law of her character and she called me a bad
00:32:17
name and she said she would marry my son whether I liked it or not." >> what I would have called you? A [ __ ] A
00:32:24
[ __ ] What? C U N T. The worst name. >> C U N T. That's what I would have called
00:32:29
you. >> Honestly, I hope she did call her that. I love that she was like in death being
00:32:34
like, "Listen, I didn't murder her, but I [ __ ] hated her." Yeah. She's like, "You're not doing yourself any favors
00:32:39
here, miss." >> it's going to help though cuz she's like, "Look, I'm being honest about how
00:32:43
I felt." >> Yep. So the testimony got heated the next day when Roy Gustafson cross-examined Elizabeth. At one point,
00:32:50
he said he was going over answers to questions that she'd been asked the previous day in relation to her son,
00:32:55
Frankie. Mhm. Frank leapt to his feet and shouted, "Just a minute, Mr. Gustafson. My name
00:33:02
is Frank, not Frankie." >> [laughter] >> "I'm a big boy, sir." >> mommy gets to call me Frankie."
00:33:10
"Mr." Ew, I hate it. "Poo to you." In response, Gustafson was like, "Hey, can you eject him from the courtroom?"
00:33:16
>> "Can you get that poo swa the [ __ ] out of this courtroom?" >> But the judge would not. Ugh. Going
00:33:21
forward though, whenever Gustafson referred to Frank as anything other than Frank, Elizabeth sharply corrected him
00:33:27
and said, "Frank is an attorney and an officer of the same court as you are, Mr. Gustafson. I think you should have
00:33:33
some respect for him." So as anyone could have predicted, Elizabeth proved to be a pretty
00:33:38
difficult witness under cross-examination. [laughter] She would refuse to answer questions and
00:33:43
she would only answer them after the judge was like, "Hey, you have to [ __ ] answer that." At one point when
00:33:47
the prosecutor was like, "There was no blackmail. You were just supposed to make payments for the murder that you
00:33:52
hired somebody for." She said, "I did not. I did not. I did not I did not do that."
00:33:58
Even though her testimony was riddled with outbursts and sarcastic remarks, frequent bouts of weeping, all of the
00:34:03
above, she did manage to stick to her story more or less. Her protests and her insistence that she
00:34:09
was the victim were consistent, but they were nothing compared to the mountain of
00:34:12
evidence and testimony linking her to the murder of Olga. So on March 17th, 1959, after a brief
00:34:19
deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom to find Elizabeth Duncan guilty of the first-degree murder of
00:34:26
Olga Kupchik. The verdict kind of shocked everybody in the court, but Elizabeth seemed to primarily focus on,
00:34:33
you guessed it, her sunny boy. After the verdict was read, she told him, "Don't worry too much, Frank."
00:34:40
What? Lord. >> Later when she was asked about the verdict, she told the reporter, "I don't
00:34:45
know how that jury could do this to me. I didn't do it." You did. Okay. In the week that followed, the jury
00:34:51
heard arguments in the penalty phase, first to determine if Elizabeth was of sound mind when she committed the crime.
00:34:56
I bet that probably went on for a long time. Then to determine the actual penalty. In
00:35:01
his testimony, psychiatrist Dr. Louis Nash said of the evaluation, "I found Mrs. Duncan to be a maladjusted,
00:35:09
egocentric, and emotionally immature individual. >> Hell yeah, you did. >> The defendant particularly has been
00:35:14
unable to stand frustrations or maintain her emotional equilibrium and independence during major and minor
00:35:20
stresses. Yeah. But when asked whether he believed Elizabeth met the criteria for mental incompetency, he said, "I did
00:35:28
not find her to be insane." So he said she's sane, she's just a lot. >> Yeah, she's just very difficult.
00:35:35
>> Yeah. She's got There's something going on for sure, but she's sane. So according to Dr. Nash, Elizabeth's
00:35:40
personality was the same as most criminals and those who he came in frequent contact with in his
00:35:46
in his line of work. He said, "A psychopathic personality is a social misfit who causes problems for
00:35:52
themselves and the world they live in." And that's her. Right. And it's like you
00:35:55
can be a psychopath, but still be sane and I I know that's hard to understand, but yeah, that's the facts. Yeah. So now
00:36:03
that she was determined to have been sane, but really a lot when she contracted Louis and Gus to kill Olga,
00:36:09
the jury followed the prosecutor's wishes and they sentenced Elizabeth to death. Whoa. Yeah. When asked for a
00:36:16
reaction by a reporter, she was defiant. She said, "They are not going to make me
00:36:19
cry. Those jurors were prejudiced. I think they all lied when they said they would give me a fair trial. Liars, all
00:36:26
of them." >> After her trial, Louis and Gus were also determined to be sane at the time of the
00:36:30
murder and they too were sentenced to death. >> Yeah, you're all going down together.
00:36:34
Yeah. According to author Deborah Holt Larkin, which of course we'll link her book in the show notes, she wrote,
00:36:40
"Duncan's trial might never have stood up to today's legal standards." Which is pretty true. Yeah. It's highly likely
00:36:46
that Gustafson kind of tainted the jury a little bit with his repeated release of irrelevant facts about Elizabeth.
00:36:52
>> do look at the the legal part of that, like really pair it down to the skeleton there, it's
00:36:58
you can't do that. Yeah. [laughter] Like we can look at it now and be like, "Well, yeah." Yeah, we can talk about
00:37:02
it, but if we were presenting this case to a jury, we really couldn't say those things. They're not pertinent to the
00:37:07
case, unfortunately. The guilty verdict and the death sentence could have been more the result
00:37:12
of a character assassination than a strong case put forward by the prosecution. But you also have to
00:37:17
remember at the same time, it could have had a lot to do with the fact that Olga
00:37:21
was 8 months pregnant when she was killed. >> Yeah. And the heaping mountain of evidence against Elizabeth.
00:37:26
>> Absolutely. I mean, you have several people who are tell and are showing a pretty clear paper trail and a pretty
00:37:32
clear trail of evidence that lead back to this. >> Right. And when the jury >> friend is saying that she knew that that
00:37:37
she was there. >> A woman who is literally there when she hired these men is like, "I was right
00:37:42
there and she's my friend and I'm actually wearing her sweater right now." >> Yeah, she also was there for the
00:37:45
annulment thing. So she she's been there. She's been a pretty ride or die friend and at this point she's like,
00:37:51
"Yeah, I got to tell you cuz I'm under [ __ ] [clears throat] oath." Yeah, I can't perjure myself. That this is what
00:37:56
happened. So it's like This isn't out of nowhere. It's not like they're just like, "Yeah, you're a [ __ ] and you have
00:38:01
a weird unnatural attraction to your son." >> Yes. So we're going to pretend that
00:38:04
you're a murderer. Like there was evidence, but I do understand that they're saying like
00:38:10
the case could have been tighter, I think. >> definitely could have been tighter, but
00:38:13
I really do think a lot of it had to do with Olga having been 8 months pregnant.
00:38:18
If I was sitting on that jury, that would absolutely factor into my decision-making. How could it not? Yeah.
00:38:24
So after sentencing, Elizabeth's lawyer petitioned the court for a new trial. Obviously, that always happens. At
00:38:29
appeal, the the defense argued, among other things, that the jury had been prejudiced by all the news coverage and
00:38:34
that Elizabeth hadn't got a fair trial. In the spring of 1960, the California Court of Appeals heard the case and
00:38:40
after reviewing the evidence and hearing testimony, they concluded that the prosecution and the trial court had
00:38:45
followed procedure with regard to the jury and that the judge was well within his rights to deny the request to move
00:38:52
the trial. There you go. I mean, some of the things that they let out, they were
00:38:56
gossipy, they were rumors, whatever. Not a lot of them would lead me to believe that somebody would
00:39:02
do this to their daughter-in-law. You know what I mean? Yeah, it makes me think she's a [ __ ] and that she's an
00:39:06
unlikable and very untrustworthy person. >> But there's also all the evidence of her
00:39:11
guilt. Yeah. So with her appeal denied, Elizabeth's lawyer petitioned California's Governor
00:39:17
Pat Brown for clemency. We've talked about Pat Brown before. Mhm. At the time, he actually had expressed sympathy
00:39:23
for those on death row and he frequently sided with the anti-death penalty movement, particularly in the case of
00:39:30
Caryl Chessman, the so-called Red Light Bandit. >> about that. >> about. When the clemency case came up
00:39:35
for his review in this case, Pat Brown's assistant evaluated the case and, quote,
00:39:39
acknowledged there had been serious irregularities in the trial, but ultimately decided that the evidence was
00:39:45
so overwhelming that Elizabeth Duncan acted with malicious predatory intent. So, they denied the request.
00:39:52
>> Yeah, I mean, again It's everything we're saying. >> There was some extra little spice in
00:39:56
there that didn't need to be there that could have and now probably would [ __ ]
00:40:01
up the trial. >> A big time. But what the meat of the trial was there. >> Exactly. And it was again, a very
00:40:05
different time. >> Yeah. So, she exhausted all of her appeals at that point and Elizabeth
00:40:09
Duncan was sent to the gas chamber on the morning of August 8th, 1962 and so were Luis Moya and Gus Baldonado.
00:40:17
>> Woah. Elizabeth's last words before the gas was released were, "Where's Frank?"
00:40:25
That That makes sense. That makes sense. And then the cyanide pellets were dropped
00:40:29
and that was a wrap on Elizabeth. >> Damn. A few minutes later at 10:12, the prison doctor announced all three were
00:40:35
dead. And Elizabeth Duncan was actually the last woman executed in the state of California. Wow.
00:40:41
>> Isn't that crazy? >> What a distinction. Now, in state records, it seems that she was buried on
00:40:45
the grounds of San Quentin Prison, but there's actually no records of her grave being in the cemetery. Huh. The general
00:40:52
consensus is that Frank actually claimed her remains after the execution and that
00:40:56
had he had her buried in a private cemetery. >> I Not one part of me believes that.
00:41:01
>> No. Didn't like that absolutely happened. Now, what about Frankie, may ask? >> What about Frank? Frank remained
00:41:07
committed to his mother's innocence for the rest of his life. But the case, Elizabeth's notoriety, all
00:41:15
of that obviously negatively affected him in the years that followed cuz remember, he's a lawyer. Like that
00:41:19
ruined his career pretty much. Immediately after Elizabeth was arrested, he was let go from the legal
00:41:25
firm that he worked for. And in the years that followed, he was repeatedly sanctioned by the California
00:41:30
Bar for previous offenses until May of 2022 when disciplinary charges were filed
00:41:37
that resulted in his being found ineligible to practice law in California. Woah. The following year, he
00:41:43
was disbarred. But the reasons for the disciplinary actions and the disbarment are not public information. Wow.
00:41:51
>> Yeah. So, that is the case of [snorts] Olga Kupchik's murder. Holy [ __ ] >> Yeah.
00:41:59
So, it's just really that's it's just such a tragic case with Olga. Yeah. Like just being terrorized in the
00:42:06
final year or so of her life. >> Yep. And then ultimately murdered. >> being kidnapped and murdered. Like what
00:42:13
the [ __ ] It's really sad. >> Yeah. Yeah. Awful. So, let's do a fun fact. Yes. Bees actually have knees.
00:42:23
>> [laughter] >> You know how people say like the bee's knees and you're always like, "What?"
00:42:27
>> Fun fact. >> Yeah. This expression, the expression bee's the bee's knees comes from the
00:42:32
fact that they store large buildups of pollen in hairy baskets on their knees. Hairy baskets? Mhm. They have just hairy
00:42:41
baskets hanging from their knees? >> Don't you? That is a fun fact. >> I love it.
00:42:46
>> That's a fun fact that keeps on giving. >> Yeah, bees in fact have knees. That came from the factsite.com.
00:42:52
I love that. And with that, we definitely hope you keep listening. And we hope you
00:42:56
>> keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't think about the fact that bees have knees.
00:43:02
[music] I'll think about that forever. Think about it forever. Bye. Bye. >> [music]
00:43:15
[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]