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Episode 762: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk

March 02, 2026 / 53:35

This episode covers the bizarre case of Olga Kupchik, her tumultuous relationship with her mother-in-law Elizabeth Duncan, and the ensuing drama surrounding her disappearance. Key discussions include Olga's pregnancy, Elizabeth's obsessive behavior, and the eventual police investigation into Olga's missing person case.

Hosts Ash and Alaina recount Olga's life, starting from her nursing career in Santa Barbara to her relationship with Frank Duncan, who was heavily influenced by his overbearing mother, Elizabeth. The episode highlights the troubling dynamics between Frank, Olga, and Elizabeth, including Elizabeth's threats against Olga.

The narrative escalates as Elizabeth's harassment of Olga intensifies, leading to Olga's disappearance shortly after she and Frank marry. The hosts discuss the alarming signs that suggest Elizabeth's involvement in Olga's fate, including her erratic behavior and threats.

As the investigation unfolds, the police begin to suspect Elizabeth's role in Olga's disappearance, despite her claims of being a victim of extortion. The episode builds tension as the hosts reveal the shocking details of Elizabeth's actions and the impact on Frank and Olga's lives.

The episode concludes with a cliffhanger, leaving listeners eager for the next part of the story, as the hosts reflect on the disturbing nature of the case and the dynamics of family relationships.

TLDR

Olga Kupchik's disappearance is linked to her obsessive mother-in-law, Elizabeth Duncan, revealing a toxic family dynamic and escalating threats.

Episode

53:35
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. >> And this is Morbid. >> [music] [music] >> This is Morbid.
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Guys, I love doing this podcast, but I am a little upset right now [music] because I was eating some dill pickle
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pretzels that were really good and I can't eat those on air, so I had to stop. >> [music]
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>> And it was upsetting for me. And she said that's your fault, so I never said [laughter] that. I never said
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that, you guys. This crazy [ __ ] over here. >> [laughter] >> This crazy [ __ ] >> This crazy [ __ ] I'm post-sedation.
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Okay. >> [laughter] >> Post five hours sedation. I had a lengthy dental procedure done. Probably
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the last of them, which is fun. >> That's exciting. >> Uh but it was it was wild and Ash was my
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my pick-me-up person cuz Joe we had John stay with the ladies. And she got to see me full
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full post-sedation. >> I will never I'm you're lucky that I'm a good inherently good person Yeah.
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>> I could have used I could have done you so nasty and just taken photos of after.
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>> I really wish I had, actually. I do regret not taking at least one photo just for myself.
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>> Damn. I walked in there and it was just for me for a lol. >> Just for me. I walked in there and she's
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got these big sunglasses on cuz you know like big sunglasses they do you at the dentist and just like chipmunked out to
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the nines cuz you were packed with gauze. >> Yep. Blood all over her teeth [laughter]
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and her lips. I was like, "Hey, like how is she?" And they were like, "Oh, she's back there.
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Like you can you can say hi to her." I walk in and she just slowly rises and goes, "Hi."
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I [laughter] was like, "What the fuck?" And I go, "Baby girl, are you [laughter] okay?"
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>> did. You go, "Baby girl." You were so baby girl coded [laughter] in that moment. I said, I have to I have
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to care for her. You did. >> It was crazy. But you know what? I'm I'm a fair I'm not a combative sedated
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person, which is good. No, you're hilarious. >> I I just go with it. >> you a strawberry shake and you would
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have thought that I handed you a million dollars. Liquid gold. >> [laughter] >> Liquid gold.
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I got you in the car, do you remember this? You go, "Oh my god, YOU'RE THE BEST." [laughter]
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NO, I DON'T. I think you said like you're such a genie or like something like that. I was
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like, "Okay." I was [laughter] really excited. I do remember being very excited for the
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strawberry shake. >> hilarious. Oh, yeah, it was a whole thing. But I think I'm I'm feeling
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better today. You look better. I'm not as chipmunk-y. I told John I was like cuz I texted him to update him while you
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were down and out and I was like, "Oh my god, she looks great. She's coming out of sedation." I didn't want to scare
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her. Today I saw him I go, "I lied to you." He's like, "Oh, I know." >> [laughter]
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>> Oh, yeah, sorry. It's been a trip, but I'm here. Yeah, but everybody's been so
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helpful. And I'm not lisping. So that's good. I know, you're not lisping at all.
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>> worried that I would be. And your teeth look [ __ ] awesome. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome.
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>> So you know, we're all fixed. And uh I don't know why I said that that I was under I was post-sedation. Oh, maybe cuz
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I was being a dick. Maybe. >> By saying that you said that it was everybody's fault that Oh, yeah.
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>> [laughter] >> Maybe if I just directed it toward that I never said Wait, I just picked up a
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pretzel to eat it like I I could just eat [laughter] it here. I can't I need to be stopped. They're really good. They
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are. They're I got them at um the Big Y and they're like dill pickle flavored. Oh, yeah. Change your [ __ ] life.
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>> flavored anything yeah, is really where it's at. >> It is. I love a dill pickle moment.
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>> Yeah. Like we had dill pickle uh Pringles the other day. Oh, [ __ ] yeah. [ __ ] life-changing.
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>> Wait, have you seen this whole thing um it's like a whole like switch up. So like it's like Ruffles, Doritos, and
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Cheetos. They're doing like Let me pull it up so I can actually say it exactly how it is.
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>> me that like they're actually so healthy for you. It's crazy. [laughter] Did you see this bombshell report?
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That Cheetos are actually so healthy. No. >> [laughter] >> I was like, "What?" Give me some.
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>> It's a It's a flavor swap, okay, ready? So, this is going to be a lot. So, it's
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Ruffles cheddar chips in Doritos form. Oh. And then Cool Ranch Doritos in Ruffle chip form.
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Oh. >> And then finally, the one that I really, really want to try is Lay's uh barbecue
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chip in Cheeto form. Oh, I want every one of these. This is a dream. This is a revelation. We need to a revolution. We
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need to order all of them, and we need to to do like a live tasting. >> Yep. Yeah.
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>> I need that. I'm going to figure it out. We should probably order them soon because I think it's a big thing right
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now, so they're probably going to like sell out. >> What was the first one? It's Ruffles cheddar and sour cream that
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flavor, but as a Dorito. Oh, okay. That's That one I'm really excited about. >> Yeah, actually it's hard to say which
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I'm most excited about. I'm really excited about the barbecue chip as a Cheeto, Mhm. but I also love Ruffles. I
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don't really like Cool Ranch that much, though. >> Oh, I like Cool Ranch. I like the cheese
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one better. The nacho cheese. >> Yeah, your kids had that at my house the other day, and Drew doesn't like cheesy
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chips, so I just have a whole bag of Doritos for me. >> Oh, hell yeah. >> Yeah, I feel rich. Hell yeah, you are
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rich. You're rich with chips. Good. [laughter] >> [gasps] >> And that's important.
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>> All right. Um you have a plug? Oh, I have a little quick pluggy plug. Duh. Um
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we're running low on the signed Barnes & Noble copies of The Butcher Legacy. So,
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you better go get those. >> get it. Go pre-order it now before it's gone cuz we're like literally at the end
00:05:47
of the stock. Uh and and that's it for right now. Yeah, and those are all at Barnes & Noble. Pre-order my Barnes &
00:05:54
Noble. They have signed copies. Go get them. Go get them. Go get them. >> the list of them. And if you just want
00:05:59
some Butcher Legacy in your life, which you should, let's go, girls. Hello. >> Uh butcherlegacy.com, you can get them
00:06:06
anywhere you can get them you can get them You can get them anywhere. >> Get the Butcher Legacy pre-on pre-order
00:06:11
anywhere you want to order it. >> Yeah. And yeah, go scoop up those signed copies at Barnes & Noble. Hell yeah.
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So, I have a crazy case today. It's It's somewhat old-timey, like in the '50s. Oh, here we go.
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>> This is the murder, unfortunately, of Olga Kupchik. Um while I was reading this, have you ever
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seen the movie Monster in Law with J. Lo and Jane Fonda? >> It was so reminiscent of that, but like
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real, that it was deeply upsetting. I was like, this is if that movie played out in real life and and was even more
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awful somehow. You wonder if they had any kind of uh inspiration. I don't know. Or if someone knew about the case
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and kind of like drew a little bit of it. >> They may have. [clears throat] Maybe. I
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mean, unfortunately, mother-in-laws do just also get a bad rap. >> They do. That's true.
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>> Rap rap. Mine is also rap or rep? I rap. You have a bad rap. Okay. My mother-in-law
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>> right? Cuz it's reputation. >> Yeah, right. But you always hear like, oh, it has a bad rap.
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Is it both? We're discovering right now live on the air. While I hold a heating pad to my face.
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>> The correct Yeah, the heating pad on your face is actually insane. >> a photo? Can I actually have this? Yeah.
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You look cute over there. You just look ridiculous. >> [laughter] >> Oh, you're so adorable.
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Okay, the correct idiomatic phrase is bad rap, which means an undeserved negative reputation, which is weird
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because it's reputation. Um I [snorts] don't know, but Oh, it derives from the 19th century slang
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for a rap, a criminal charge. That's why. Like your rap sheet. That makes sense.
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>> all right. So, >> it out. Yeah, mother-in-laws in general just get a bad rap, but we have good
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ones, luckily. >> Mine's awesome. So is mine. >> going to talk about a good one today.
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No. So, Olga Neddy Kupchik was born March 24th, 1928 in Manitoba, Canada to Elias and Justina Kupchik. Olga was
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super pretty, super smart. She was friendly. She had a ton of friends, a great social group. Everybody said from
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a very early age, too, that she was a caretaker. And by all accounts, a good one.
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Unfortunately, there's not that much known about her early life in Canada, so we're going to start when she met
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30-year-old Frank Duncan in the fall of 1957. Let's go. That fall, Olga had moved from Vancouver to Santa Barbara to
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finish nursing school. And when she finished nursing school, she started a job at St. Francis Hospital.
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It was there in November that Olga met Frank, who had come by one night to visit his mom, who was in the hospital.
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Earlier that month, the night before his 30th birthday, Frank and his mother Elizabeth got into a [ __ ] explosive
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argument. Damn. She used his money to buy a beauty parlor without his permission. That's a big thing to buy.
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Yeah, buying a beauty parlor without somebody's permission is crazy with their money.
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>> yeah. So, in a fit of anger, Frank, who had lived with his mom his entire life
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up to that point, announced his desire for some [ __ ] space Yeah. and asked if she would please find a new place to
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live. And pretty heavily suggested that she do that. Later, he told a detective, "My mother's
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terrified of being alone, and she's afraid of losing me." Aw, that's sad. Yeah. Devastated. It is for right now.
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>> Yeah. Devastated by her son's decision, Elizabeth Duncan retaliated, and this
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is, uh, trigger warning, uh, by taking an overdose of the sleeping pill Seconal. Oh. Yeah. By the time Frank had
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discovered what she had done, Elizabeth had lost consciousness, and so she was rushed to St. Francis Hospital, where
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she stayed in a coma for nearly a week. >> god. >> Yeah, this was a big deal. >> So, Frank obviously felt like this whole
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thing was his entire fault. Like, he was really upset >> course. that his desire for independence
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had caused his mother's overdose. So, he stuck by his mom's side every single day
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that she was in the hospital, really trying to get back in her good graces. He was like, "You don't have to move.
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It's fine." Yeah, that's awful. But, privately, at least some of his interest in being by his mother's side was also
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the daily opportunity to chat with Elizabeth's nurse, 29-year-old Olga Kuptchik.
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>> Oh. By the time Elizabeth was discharged from the hospital roughly 2 weeks later,
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Frank and Olga had started dating, Damn. >> much to Elizabeth's disappointment. >> Oh, Elizabeth, come on. She did not like
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that. So, in the years that followed, Frank's relationship with his mom became the source of a lot of salacious rumors
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and speculation. Oh. Frank said, "Mother has always been very proud of me, and I
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suppose I was the apple of her eye." It's the mother. All I can think of, if you guys are Bravo heads and you're not
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listening to Watch What Crappens with Ronnie and Ben, what are you doing? There's this show called Southern Charm,
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if you're not a Bravo head, and there's this guy Whitney on it, and he like, I don't know that he lives with his mother
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still. He might. >> He He did on the show. He did for a while. >> Yeah. And Miss Patricia, forever. But,
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when they do their impression of Whitney talking to his mother, they always go, "Mother." And they always like,
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"Mother." >> [laughter] >> It's It's just so You got to go Find a Southern Charm recap.
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>> That's all I can think of. Listen to it. So, that's why That's what I was channeling when I did Frank's quote
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there. >> That's mother. So, he was like, you know, she's the apple of my eye, she's
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proud of me, but there's all these rumors. Now, when it came to the suggestion that their relationship was
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anything other than that of a normal mother and son, Frank vehemently denied the insinuation. But, there were plenty
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of insinuations that they had a weird [ __ ] relationship. >> Damn. Still, to even the most casual observer,
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Frank's relationship with his mother was far [snorts] and beyond the normal mama's boy stereotype.
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>> Which is scary. It is. It's really freaky. >> Cuz the mama's boy thing in and of
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itself is scary, but then it's far beyond that, that's scary. >> Yeah, agreed. So, in a court deposition
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the following year, which should tell you something, Elizabeth's friend, so Frank's mother's friend, Emma Short, she
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said Frank's relationship with his mother was, quote, very intimate, such as a man and wife should be.
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I'm sorry, what? Yeah, that's what she said. >> That is far beyond Yeah. what a mother
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and son should be. >> One hundo percent. >> Holy [ __ ] So, with the exception of a
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very small period during law school when he lived in San Francisco, Frank always
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lived with Elizabeth and was always there to cater to her every last need. Even when he was in school and living
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away from home, he would go to her house to have dinner every single night. Wow.
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Yeah, they were close. Elizabeth and Frank had always had a really codependent relationship, but Elizabeth
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became significantly more needy about 7 years earlier when Frank's stepfather walked out, because he could no longer
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tolerate her demanding and abusive nature. Oh. Yeah. From that point on, Elizabeth seemed to
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rely on Frank entirely for companionship, emotional support, financial support, validation, whatever
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it was. Just >> things you need from a partner. >> Yes, just absolutely every last thing.
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Later, when Frank would come up in a conversation, Olga's friends would refer to him as a big baby. Oh, gross.
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>> Yeah. And the women who worked at the courthouse where he occasionally practiced law privately referred to him,
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this is mean. This is bullying. They called him a wicked wascal wabbit. Because they were mocking the way that
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his mother infantilized him, but um he also had a slight speech impediment. So, they were being really [ __ ] mean.
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>> that's mean. >> Yeah, don't do that. >> Ew. He can't help that. Ew. Yeah. I'm
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actually really mad at them for that. >> Yeah, I really don't like that. [laughter]
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>> That actually pisses me off. >> Olga's friends calling him a big baby, fully support.
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>> big baby, but >> Making fun of a speech impediment, grow up. That's not something he can control,
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you [ __ ] >> To quote my papa, grow up. >> Grow up. >> Get a life. >> There it is. So, regardless of how her
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friends felt about Frank, Olga was very drawn to him. He was quiet, he was unassuming, he was a lawyer, like, you
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know, there's a lot there. By the time she was just discharged from the hospital, Elizabeth Duncan could
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obviously see that Olga and Frank were attracted to each other. And the following week, her suspicions were
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confirmed when Frank invited Olga to the house. Which is very normal. He's a 30-year-old dude, he's going to be
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dating, and you know, he wants you to meet this lovely young woman who was also taking care of you, by the way.
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>> Yeah, exactly. >> Like, meet her in a little more uh It's honestly like the best case scenario.
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Yeah. Like, you already know she's a caretaker. Also, [ __ ] you were in a coma, now you're not. Thanks, Olga.
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Thank you, Olga. Hello. So, during that visit, Elizabeth made an offhand comment about Olga not being
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good enough for her son, and how she could easily get rid of her by pushing her down some stairs.
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I would have run. And this is hindsight. This is hindsight. I would have run for
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the [ __ ] hills. If a man's ever brought me home and his mom was like, "You're not good enough, and I could
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push you down the stairs," I would say, "I'm sorry, but >> Yeah. nothing is going to make up for
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that. Nothing's going to make up for that." >> wrong here. If that's the feeling from the mom,
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something's wrong. Ain't nothing good enough to keep me in that relationship, babe.
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>> Don't care who you are. No. >> [gasps] >> So, Emma had heard this Emma, who was
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Elizabeth's friend, she had heard this kind of talk from Elizabeth before, so she really didn't think anything of it
00:15:01
at the time. She's like, "Ah, that's just her." She was like, she's just angry, she's blowing off steam, she's
00:15:05
not actually going to push this lady down the stairs. So, whether she was serious about
00:15:09
pushing her son's girlfriend down the stairs or not, Elizabeth had every intention of making her objections to
00:15:14
this relationship known. Almost immediately after they started dating, Olga started getting calls from
00:15:20
Elizabeth not only at home, but at work, too. Huh. At first, the calls were chiller, not not polite in any way, but
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it was just Elizabeth explaining how important Frank was to her and pleading for Olga to quote leave her son alone.
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>> What? >> Where she's like like we think you'd we think the other one is cool. We want us
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like this should be a good thing, babe. We want to spend time together. We're getting to know each other.
00:15:45
>> date your son. You can't. It's actually super against the law. You can't be doing that. But when her appeals to
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Olga's sympathy didn't work, Elizabeth just took a new decidedly more nasty approach. Former landlord Olga's former
00:15:58
landlord Dorothy Barnett said she claimed that Olga was unfit, said she was a foreigner.
00:16:04
Elizabeth gets like >> out of here. Ew, Elizabeth. >> What are you doing? >> She's also like
00:16:09
I just can't Eventually, the calls became vaguely threatening with with Elizabeth implying that she would end
00:16:15
the relationship one way or another. >> What the [ __ ] >> Which like how do you handle that?
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>> That's the thing. >> like also I'm like Frank hello? Hello, Frank. >> Can you do something here?
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>> I'm wondering here. I'm like where's Frank in all this? Are you going to do something? Step in? No.
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>> No? No, period. >> Cool. Yeah. This gets crazy. Oh, by the way, I didn't even mention this is going
00:16:35
to be two parts because it's that crazy. >> Woah. So, after about a month of daily
00:16:40
phone calls, so 30 to 31 days of daily phone calls unless it was February, Olga had her phone number changed hoping that
00:16:47
it would put an end to Elizabeth's harassment. But unfortunately, all it did was make Elizabeth more determined
00:16:53
to run Olga out of Frank's life. When she wasn't able to get Olga by phone, she just started calling the hospital
00:16:59
while Olga was working. What? Olga's friend said that she was being threatened and harassed by Elizabeth on
00:17:04
a daily basis at that point. Yeah, and I'm sorry. I don't This is not worth No. I don't I mean He had to have been a
00:17:13
fine lover. >> say is he just stellar in every way? He had to have been a good man.
00:17:19
>> this being worth it. >> He had to have been top-notch. >> Yeah. So, in like every way. Yeah. Now,
00:17:24
during the early months of their relationship, you were just like, "Hey, where's Frank?" Yeah.
00:17:27
>> Frank and Olga just tried their best to ignore his mom, her constant interference in her husband, which would
00:17:32
be kind of impossible. >> to say. But, in May of 1958, Olga discovered that she was pregnant, and
00:17:39
that changed everything. >> Yeah, it sure does. Olga's pregnancy, Frank found put himself in a difficult
00:17:45
position. He was excited about the baby, and he wanted to start a family with Olga, but he thought back on the
00:17:51
previous year when he asked his mother to move out, and he knew that breaking the news to her was going to be pretty
00:17:56
[ __ ] tough. This is insane. It's wild. >> Like this is all I'm like, what? What do
00:18:02
you mean? >> Never have I ever heard another case like this except when I watched Monster
00:18:05
in Law with Jane Fonda and J. Lo. This is wild. >> And this is worse. So, a few weeks later, they decided, you
00:18:11
know, it's probably time to inform Elizabeth that she's going to be a grandma, which would probably be and
00:18:15
should be the most exciting time for a lady. Absolutely. >> As like an older lady with an
00:18:19
accomplished son. Yeah. So, all they could do was really just mentally prepare themselves for whatever fight
00:18:24
she was going to put up cuz they knew that she wasn't going to receive the news well, but they were like, "I mean,
00:18:28
we have to tell her." >> Yeah. It turned out that they were right to expect the worst. When she found out
00:18:33
about the pregnancy, she exploded and declared that she would never allow them to live together.
00:18:40
I'm sorry, he's the the grownest >> old. >> ass man. Yeah. What is going on right now? You can't I
00:18:48
don't know. I don't know. You can't conceive of this. >> is a lot. So, when Olga responded with
00:18:53
uncharacteristic anger, like Olga was usually very chill and was like, "Okay, Elizabeth, like we're going to be
00:18:58
together, so you just got to get used to it." >> that Olga is that way. But, she got
00:19:03
really upset. She said, "No, we plan to be married. Like, we are going to be together, and we're going to have this
00:19:07
child. Like, get over it." Elizabeth responded by telling Olga, "You'll never marry my son. I'll kill you first."
00:19:16
And then is this just with Frank standing there being like, Mother, I guess. Silly mother. Yeah.
00:19:21
Like What? Lol mom. Lol. Hello. Haha. >> [laughter] >> So what? Yeah. Now a few weeks later on
00:19:30
June 20th, Elizabeth and Frank were alone just having a little combo. And Elizabeth made Frank promise her that he
00:19:36
wouldn't marry Olga and that he would never leave her. What are you doing, Frank? Um he's
00:19:43
agreeing. He said, "I promise." Frank. Frankie. Frank. >> Frankie, this is not the life you want.
00:19:50
>> Frank. My goodness. >> Frank, you're you're meant to be a tank. You're not meant to be living with your
00:19:55
mom and carrying on a strange relationship. >> No. So he says he promises, but the next
00:20:00
day, unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Frank and Olga got married at the county courthouse. Damn. According to
00:20:05
journalist Joan Renner, Elizabeth went apoplectic when she found out that Frank had secretly married Olga. Oh my
00:20:12
goodness. >> In fact, on the night of their wedding >> Oh no. the night of their wedding where
00:20:17
they're supposed to be having a good old time, honey. Consummating. Consummating.
00:20:21
Elizabeth tracked them down at a motel in the middle of the night and banged on the door until 1:30 in the morning
00:20:30
when pussoir of the century Frank agreed to go home with his mommy rather than let the scene go on any further.
00:20:40
Never touch that man again. >> Never touch that man again. >> again. The [ __ ] That is damaged goods
00:20:47
right there. >> If your mother-in-law shows up >> [ __ ] >> of consummation on the night of your
00:20:52
marriage and starts banging on the door and your husband is like, "I have to go home with her." I have to go home with
00:20:57
my mother. You annul the [ __ ] out of that marriage. >> Yeah, you got the You got the [ __ ]
00:21:01
nerve. >> get in the You say, "Okay, I understand." And then you drive to the courthouse and you say, "Don't [ __ ]
00:21:07
file that paperwork. We were kidding. Yeah. Just kidding. That was a big old joke. Ew. What the [ __ ] Yeah. So hoping
00:21:15
to make the transition easier on mother. Ew. Frank continued living with her until the end of June.
00:21:22
>> god. But starting on July 1st, he and Olga moved to a new apartment keeping the address a secret from Elizabeth
00:21:29
because she's so [ __ ] diabolical they can't even know where she lives. >> And also I I'm sorry She can't even She
00:21:34
can't even know where they live, excuse me. >> I'd be calling the police. Absolutely.
00:21:38
>> Like the first time that this person said to me, you're I'll kill you first, gone. I don't care who you are. Yeah,
00:21:45
restraining order. >> saying it. The thing that sucks though is especially back then the police would
00:21:49
have been like, "What the [ __ ] are we going to do? She's just talking shit." >> yeah.
00:21:52
So they kept the address a secret from her and it's unclear how she found out, but she did and it didn't take her more
00:21:58
than a few days to figure out where Olga and Frank were living. >> Olga's father, Elias, told the reporter
00:22:04
she wrote to us, meaning Olga, that immediately after they were married her husband's mother would come to their
00:22:09
apartment and revile her every time her husband was at work. >> What the [ __ ] And Elizabeth wasn't just
00:22:16
abusive to Olga in the privacy of the apartment, she also had gone out of her way to spread slanderous lies and rumors
00:22:22
about Olga all around town. Just days after Frank and Olga moved in together, Elizabeth told Barbara Reed,
00:22:29
an acquaintance of Frank's, that Olga had become pregnant by another man and that she was trying to frame Frank to
00:22:36
extort money from him. Wow, she's disgusting. >> She's a [ __ ] >> a monster. >> She's a [ __ ]
00:22:43
>> Yeah. Literally monster-in-law. That's what that movie's called. >> is. So according to Olga's family, and I
00:22:48
have no problem calling her a [ __ ] so don't get mad at me anybody. >> No. According to Olga's family, the
00:22:52
escalation of Elizabeth's possessive and abusive behavior just continued to worsen.
00:22:57
They said Olga, quote, told us she was afraid of her mother-in-law and complained of, quote, violence and
00:23:02
threats she underwent at the hands of her mother-in-law. That's wild. Yeah. So while most of the people around Olga
00:23:09
seemed to see Elizabeth as an obnoxiously overbearing, incredibly possessive mother-in-law.
00:23:14
>> That's to put it lightly. >> To put it lightly, exactly. It turned out that Olga was right to actually be
00:23:19
afraid of her. When her attempts to intimidate Olga were unsuccessful at breaking up the
00:23:23
marriage, Elizabeth went to a friend Barbara Reed and offered her $1,500 to {quote} {quote} throw acid in the
00:23:33
face of a girl who is framing her son and then toss her over a cliff. Oh, she's off the deep end.
00:23:40
>> So in case that wasn't clear, she went to a woman in town and said, "Hey, throw
00:23:45
acid on my daughter-in-law's face and then murder her." >> daughter-in-law. Pregnant
00:23:50
daughter-in-law and I'll give you $1,500. >> Elizabeth is a [ __ ] That and that's to
00:23:54
put it nicely. >> Yeah, that's really being nice. According to Reed, Elizabeth told her
00:23:59
Olga had been threatening her and {quote} chasing around her son and she just didn't want anything to happen to
00:24:04
Frank's career. >> get over it. So not wanting to irritate Elizabeth any further, Barbara was like,
00:24:10
"I'll think about it. I'll get back to you." Barbara. Barbara. Barbara. >> Barbara. You call the authorities,
00:24:15
Barbara. >> Barbara, check out the company you keep. >> Yeah, like Barbara, take it easy. So
00:24:19
here's the thing. Barbara was like, "I I think I keep some rough company." And she was like, "I'm not sure what to do
00:24:24
about this, but I think I should call Frank and let him know that this is happening."
00:24:27
>> Probably. 911 would have been your best bet, but >> know, I don't even know if it existed I
00:24:32
guess her husband should know as well. Yeah, so she said, "I think your mother's gone crazy. You had better get
00:24:37
that girl out of town before something serious happens to her." And Frank was like, "Nah." Frank was like, "Uh,
00:24:42
my mother. I'm not going to do that." So whether or not Frank took the story seriously is
00:24:47
uh they say it's unknown, but I think it's pretty clear that he didn't take it seriously.
00:24:51
>> But just 2 weeks after he moved into the apartment with Olga, they separated and
00:24:56
he was living back with his mom. What? Yeah. So, from that point forward, Frank would
00:25:01
visit his pregnant wife from time to time, sometimes promising that they could work things out, but around 9:00
00:25:08
p.m. he would always go home to Mommy. Wow. That's exactly what it is. He would always go home to Mommy. Disgusting.
00:25:16
That truly is disgusting. If Nicholas would hear? >> Nicholas is chomping at the bit right
00:25:20
now to say >> Nicholas would have his piece. He would [laughter] have a fit over this. He'd be
00:25:23
like "What?" I can't even say what Nicholas would say. >> can't either. So, at the time it seemed
00:25:29
like Elizabeth had gotten her way. Frank's relationship with Olga was on the rocks, her son was back living under
00:25:34
her roof, but that wasn't good enough for her. She didn't just want Frank back at home, she wanted to be 100% sure that
00:25:41
this marriage would end and there would be no further threats to her preferred living situation.
00:25:46
>> Elizabeth, gosh. >> This next part will rock you. This is This is top-tier cuckoo nuts bananas.
00:25:56
>> So, one day in early August, Elizabeth called the local Salvation Army and she
00:26:00
asked if they could send somebody to her house to help with work, which was like
00:26:03
a thing that happened back then. She would have gone there herself to choose somebody, but um she had actually
00:26:09
been banned from the Salvation Army for causing too many problems. Wow. So, the phone had to suffice in this instance.
00:26:15
>> Wow. A short time later, uh Ralph Winterstein, a down on his luck former convict, arrived at Elizabeth's door,
00:26:22
assuming he was there to like wash windows or something. >> Yeah. But once he was inside, Elizabeth
00:26:27
said, "Hey, I will give you a hundred bucks if you will just help me out with this simple
00:26:31
scheme I've concocted. You pose as my son Frank. I pose as my son Frank's wife Olga. Well, we're going
00:26:40
to go to a judge, explain that our recent marriage was a mistake, and that we want an annulment.
00:26:46
What do you think? What the actual [ __ ] She hired somebody from the Salvation Army to pose as her
00:26:55
son. She poses as her son's wife and goes to the courthouse and asks for a [ __ ] annulment.
00:27:02
This is like a cuckoo nut man. I can't I cannot I I have no words. >> Also, it must be noted, like I just told
00:27:13
you Elizabeth was so intense and violent and like just nuts that she was banned from the Salvation Army.
00:27:19
>> Yeah. So, I just want you guys to think about like this poor man. He basically
00:27:23
was just like, "Yeah, I don't want her to like throw acid on my face or kill me, so I guess I'll do this for $100."
00:27:28
>> What the [ __ ] >> Yeah, so he agrees to the plan. And on the morning of August 7th, Elizabeth and
00:27:34
Ralph, posing as Olga and Frank Duncan, appeared in the office of attorney Hal Hammons, who had no other choice but to
00:27:41
be an attorney. Hal Hammons is such a good attorney. >> Hammons. Yeah. So, they explained that they had
00:27:46
impulsively married in June, but within just a few weeks they realized their mistake and they really, really wanted
00:27:52
this annulment. In fact, {quote} Frank, aka Ralph, even told Hammons that they hadn't
00:27:58
consummated the relationship and they weren't even living together. >> Oh my god, because you know she was
00:28:03
like, "I need to believe that they have not fucked." >> Meanwhile, Olga's literally pregnant
00:28:07
>> Yeah. With Frank's child. >> But you know she's like, "I need to believe that this is real." 100%.
00:28:12
>> Wow. So, since neither was contesting to the annulment and the entire thing was
00:28:15
mutual, Hammons saw no reason to object and he wrote up the petition. Wow. The next day, Elizabeth and Ralph,
00:28:23
as Olga and Frank, appeared at the Superior Court before Judge Perry Churchill, who had no reason either to
00:28:30
question their story and he granted the annulment. >> Because who would ever be like, "I
00:28:33
wonder if these people are posing?" Yeah, I wonder if that is his mother and a random man that she hired.
00:28:39
>> Yeah, I wonder. So, unfortunately for Ralph, Elizabeth actually didn't have the $100 to spare
00:28:46
right then and there, but she said that she'd pay him in the coming days. Oh, I'm sure. Um despite those assurances,
00:28:52
Ralph was never compensated. Wow. >> got him to do this for her. Damn. A few weeks later, in early September,
00:28:59
Frank learned about the annulment, and it's unclear if he ever told Olga about it.
00:29:06
Again, for the people in the back, Frank learned about the annulment. He learned
00:29:11
that his mother had hired somebody to pretend that they were him, and she pretended to be his wife and got a
00:29:18
[ __ ] annulment. And he didn't tell his wife, his pregnant wife. I'm just like, Frank!
00:29:28
>> Frank, what the [ __ ] >> Frank! He's the most curious specimen I've ever come across.
00:29:34
>> All we can think is that he was raised by Elizabeth, so >> So, there's that. There's that.
00:29:39
>> But, holy [ __ ] >> Yeah. So, instead, he just kept trying to assure Olga that things would get better once
00:29:46
the baby arrived. >> I'm sure that would happen. >> I don't think so. Uh there's a large
00:29:50
evidence large amount of evidence to the contrary, but Olga was holding out hope, because
00:29:55
also she's pregnant. She's in a really [ __ ] vulnerable state. >> Of course. Olga's father said the
00:30:01
letters came every week, and they gradually became more cheerful, although she was still fearful of her husband's
00:30:06
mother. So, Olga's fear, it turned out, was very, very well placed. Although she and
00:30:12
Frank no longer lived together, Elizabeth suspected, correctly it turned out, that they were continuing to carry
00:30:17
on the relationship in private, and she was now determined to find proof. One afternoon in late August, while Olga
00:30:24
was at work, Elizabeth turned up at Olga's apartment building, and according to the landlady, she, quote, kicked up a
00:30:31
terrible fuss about needing to check the apartment for Frank's clothes. What the
00:30:36
[ __ ] Barnett, the landlord, said, "She tricked me into letting her into the apartment. The minute she was inside,
00:30:42
she ran to a closet, threw open a door, and looked inside. She was almost screaming and said, "There, you see his
00:30:48
clothes aren't there. They're not married." I can't get over how much this lady wants to marry her son. I can't get over
00:30:57
this. >> crazy. So, as far as Barnett could tell, Elizabeth was trying to convince her or
00:31:03
maybe herself that Olga was not the kind of person she should be renting to. She said she wanted me to kick Olga out
00:31:09
of the apartment, said her son wasn't going to be responsible for Olga's debts. Okay. She's like, "Uh, what about his
00:31:17
child's debts?" >> Yeah. >> his child, period. >> the marriage, man, so Exactly.
00:31:22
>> Don't worry about it. >> Right. So, the landlady dismissed Elizabeth's comments. She was just like,
00:31:27
"Okay, clearly you're an overprotective human." But, she was caught off guard when just before leaving, Elizabeth told
00:31:33
her she's not going to have him. "I'll kill her if it's the last thing I do." Does anyone want to go to the
00:31:38
authorities? This This [ __ ] is walking around literally being like, "Hi, my name's Elizabeth. I'm literally going to
00:31:44
murder my daughter-in-law." >> She's basically walking around with a sign that says "I'm a nut."
00:31:49
>> I'm sorry. I hear someone say, "I'm going to kill this person." I'm telling someone.
00:31:54
>> to tell someone. Like, see something, say something. Hear something, tell someone. When this lady's walking around
00:31:58
freely saying to anybody, "Don't worry about it, everyone. I'm going to kill this [ __ ] first." Listen to her. Yeah.
00:32:05
>> Do something. >> And and also, she she clearly has a reputation around town >> not well woman.
00:32:12
>> Yeah, she's not easy to get along with, clearly. >> going to random friends being like,
00:32:16
"Will you throw acid in her face and throw her off a cliff? Uh, I'm banned from the Salvation Army,
00:32:20
by the way." Yeah. Getting banned from the Salvation Army is crazy. >> And it's like, people aren't walking
00:32:26
around. Like, mothers-in-law are not walking around saying to people, "I'm going to kill my daughter-in-law."
00:32:32
>> Hopefully not. >> Like, out loud, sitting there being like, "Yeah, just so you know, like, I'm
00:32:35
going to get rid of her." So, it's not a big deal. They're not just freely saying
00:32:38
this [ __ ] >> No, I've never run into that in my life. >> outwardly saying that, they have lost a
00:32:43
a screw is loose and you should call someone. >> 100% >> Like I'm shocked. >> 100% So many people let this go. It's
00:32:50
crazy. It's It's one of those cases where you have to scream about that because it's just like mind-boggling.
00:32:56
>> is. So over the course of September and October, Olga just continued to endure
00:33:01
daily harassments and threats from Elizabeth. But in her letters home to her parents, she did her best to hide
00:33:06
her frustration and her fear. >> No. And Olga's father later wondered if she was doing her best not to upset or worry
00:33:13
her mother because her mother had a bad heart. Aw, that breaks my heart. >> It It really does.
00:33:18
In mid-November though, the letters stopped altogether. According to uh Olga's father, her last letter was sent
00:33:24
from Santa Barbara and dated November 12th, 1958. A week later, on November 19th, Frank
00:33:31
went to the police and reported his wife missing. It was Frank who filed the report, but
00:33:36
it was actually two of Olga's coworkers from the hospital who expressed concern in the first place about Olga being
00:33:41
missing. So it's like were you just going to wait around until >> do here? >> Like did you not think she was going to
00:33:47
be missed? So her friends had and coworkers had last seen her 2 days earlier around
00:33:52
11:00 p.m. when they left her apartment and she hadn't shown up for work the previous 2 days, which was very unlike
00:33:59
her. >> Mhm. At first, investigators thought it might be like a runaway wife situation
00:34:05
because Frank had mentioned to them that there was a lot of tension in the marriage and that he actually wasn't
00:34:09
living with her for a while. >> [snorts] >> So under the circumstances, it did seem
00:34:13
plausible that maybe she simply packed up and left just to get away from everything, but there was a lot more
00:34:18
cause for concern when they started following up on the report. Patrol officer Peter O'Brien, who took
00:34:24
the missing person's report, called Olga's family in Canada to find out whether they had heard from her and he
00:34:30
was informed that they hadn't received word her in about a week, which was very unusual, and she had no plans to visit
00:34:36
them. In fact, they actually had plans to come visit her soon. In the last letter that
00:34:42
they received from Olga, she was super excited about her mom's plans to come visit when the baby was born in early
00:34:48
January. Mhm. Given that, it didn't really make sense that at nearly 8 months pregnant, she would just take off
00:34:54
unexpectedly to Canada. >> Yeah. So, according to the report, Frank told the officer that Olga, quote,
00:34:59
probably took off to teach him a lesson. I'm like, maybe you should mention the fact that you have a homicidal mother.
00:35:05
>> Yeah, perhaps that should be mentioned. >> I have a homicidal mother, I'm definitely going to mention that.
00:35:10
They'd been arguing a lot over the recent weeks, he said, mostly about his not living at the apartment and the
00:35:15
abuse from his mother, but when O'Brien followed up with Olga's co-workers and her landlord uh landlady, everybody
00:35:22
appeared to agree that Olga just wasn't the kind of lady who was just going to run away without telling anybody. Yeah.
00:35:27
So, after looking over the report, detectives paid a a visit to the landlady, Dorothy Barnett.
00:35:33
And she was more than eager to help find Olga. She really liked her. Dorothy had last seen Olga the day uh
00:35:39
she went missing, just after Olga had returned home from work. They exchanged some pleasantries, and Olga complimented
00:35:44
Dorothy's garden before she went upstairs to her apartment. She said the last she heard of Olga was when her two
00:35:50
co-workers who were hanging out with her that night left around 11:00 p.m. Now, things seemed to be pointing in a
00:35:57
different direction, but investigators floated the idea that she possibly could have harmed herself or maybe ran off,
00:36:02
and Dorothy was like, no, absolutely not. She said Olga might have been unhappy about some things, but she would
00:36:08
never do anything to hurt her baby. >> Yeah. Besides, she also insisted Olga simply
00:36:12
wasn't the kind of person who would deliberately hurt herself or somebody else. She said she's way too reasonable
00:36:18
like and level-headed to do that. >> I mean, look what she endured. Yeah, exactly. She clearly can keep a level
00:36:24
head. >> Yeah. So, even-tempered or not, the evidence still didn't exactly support
00:36:29
the increasingly unlikely theory that Olga had run off. It was Dorothy Barnett who discovered the first sign that
00:36:35
something was amiss actually. The morning after Olga's visit with her friends, Dorothy said she heard what
00:36:41
sounded like a strange thumping sound coming from Olga's apartment. And when she went upstairs to investigate, she
00:36:48
found that Olga's sliding glass door was wide open and the heavy drapes were blowing in the breeze. Hmm, so that was
00:36:54
really weird. At first she was like, maybe she just left the door open when she went to work. But while she was
00:37:00
there the two nurses who had been over the night before showed up at the apartment looking for Olga. Oh. They
00:37:06
explained she hadn't shown up for work that morning and they were worried something happened to her.
00:37:10
So now also worried that something could be wrong with the baby or that Olga might be having some sort of other
00:37:15
emergency, all three of them like went into the apartment together to look for Olga, but there was nobody there.
00:37:22
Inside things were still concerning. There were several lights on, there was dirty dishes from the night before in
00:37:28
the sink. There were baby clothes folded and placed in little piles on the couch.
00:37:34
Like it didn't look like somebody intended to leave. >> Yeah. When they looked in the bedroom
00:37:39
too, one of the ladies noticed that the pink robe Olga had been wearing the night before was nowhere to be found.
00:37:45
>> Oh. So they're like, is she still wearing that? >> it? And most concerning was her purse
00:37:50
still sitting on the dresser with its contents undisturbed. Yeah. So it appeared to all of them that Olga
00:37:56
had said goodnight to her friends the previous evening, started folding some baby clothes in the room, and then
00:38:01
disappeared without a trace. >> Oh, no. When pressed by detectives, Dorothy couldn't think of anything that she had
00:38:08
seen or heard the previous evening that seemed super out of the ordinary, but there was the matter of the
00:38:13
mother-in-law. Frank alluded to problems in their marriage to the authorities, but Dorothy
00:38:18
was far more willing to elaborate. >> Yeah, I bet. explained that ever since she met Frank, Olga had been locked in
00:38:24
an aggressively adversarial relationship with Frank's mother, and it was all one-sided. She said, "I don't know all
00:38:30
the specifics, but this woman has been harassing Olga on a regular basis. And she related the story about how
00:38:37
Elizabeth had shown up at the apartment recently and kind of tricked her to get in there looking for Frank's clothing.
00:38:43
She was like, "This lady's She's cuckoo. >> Yeah, she's tapped. So, the detectives thanked Dorothy for
00:38:48
the information, and they headed out the door. But before they made it out, she remembered one other thing from the
00:38:54
night that Olga went missing. She said it wasn't long after her friends had left, she was trying to get some sleep,
00:39:00
and she heard the sounds of heavy footsteps on the stairs leading up to Olga's apartment. At the time, she
00:39:05
thought that it was the couple who lived across from Olga, um the Williamsons, because they went
00:39:10
out to late movies all the time, which like side note, that's just really cute. >> But the next morning when she ran into
00:39:15
Mrs. Williamson, she was like, "Oh, like did you come home late last night? I thought I heard you." And Mrs.
00:39:19
Williamson said that she and her husband had been home all night. Oh. So, the next day, detectives paid a
00:39:25
visit to Frank to inquire about his relationship with his wife a little more in detail. Mhm. He was kind of He was
00:39:32
pretty much up front with the investigators. He gave all the details. He explained that on the night she went
00:39:36
missing, he was at home watching television with mother. With mother. And then they went to bed around 11:00 p.m.
00:39:42
He said that he had no idea where Olga could be, but he did say, "A few weeks ago, she threatened to make trouble for
00:39:49
me if I didn't move back in with her." Guys, why are we letting this this lady just run [ __ ] like that? Like why are we
00:39:57
letting this happen? Well, and it's like I You're saying You're He's making it seem like Olga's like going to cause
00:40:03
trouble. I'm like, she just wants to live with her husband and the father of her child.
00:40:08
>> trouble for me if I don't move What? >> I don't think she was threatening you.
00:40:11
>> Literally married, I mean. She probably was just like, "Hey, we're going to get
00:40:14
divorced if it continues like this, even though neither of I don't know that our
00:40:18
[ __ ] marriage has been annulled. >> Hey, can you break up with your mom? Yeah. That's literally what she was
00:40:22
asking. Can you please break things off with your mother? I hope none of you have a relationship like this with your
00:40:27
mother-in-laws. Do you ever get those Tik Tok videos where people like detail how awful their relationships are with
00:40:32
their mother-in-laws? >> If this is something if this is even remotely similar to a situation you're
00:40:37
going through, our heart goes out to you. Like like I can't imagine. I literally I I cannot fathom This is
00:40:48
next level. >> Like I can't imagine a mother-in-law who thinks that they somehow have like
00:40:56
authority over who their grown ass son dates. >> It literally turns my stomach cuz why?
00:41:02
[clears throat] Why do you feel that way? >> why? If I'm a mother-in-law someday, I'm
00:41:06
going to be the coolest mother-in-law. Like damn, seriously. Damn. But yeah, so Frank had probably been hoping to avoid
00:41:14
the subject of his mother. Um yeah, his monster momma. But his statement about Olga's threat to
00:41:20
make trouble for him inevitably led to more questions about why he didn't live with his wife. Yeah, they're like, wait
00:41:25
a minute. >> like, hey, that's kind of weird. >> Yeah. So he explained that his mother
00:41:29
had a profound fear of losing him and of being alone and that he'd been giving her time to
00:41:34
adjust to him moving out of the house. >> My god. >> Which is like, you're not giving her
00:41:37
time to adjust to being out of the house while still living out of the house. >> No.
00:41:42
His main concern, he said though, was that his mother might try to hurt herself again, like she had the previous
00:41:47
year, if he abruptly left. He said his wife, on the other hand, was a strong woman and he knew she knew that he loved
00:41:54
her, so he wasn't worried that she would do anything irrational. Mhm. Mhm, interesting. Interesting. So when it
00:42:00
came to the matter of Elizabeth's relationship with Olga, Frank quickly rejected the stories that investigators
00:42:05
had heard. He said, "That's just gossip. Mother is mad at me and anything you heard from Olga's friends or from her
00:42:11
landlady's an exaggeration. He actually assured him that his mother had only met Olga one time, so it would
00:42:18
have been almost impossible for her to have developed any negative feelings based on that one occasion.
00:42:24
What? Please remember that the entire reason Frank and Olga even know each other is
00:42:31
because Olga was taking care of Elizabeth while she was in a coma >> what the [ __ ] are you talking about?
00:42:37
>> definitely met on more than one occasion. >> What? Yeah, this very [ __ ] strange.
00:42:42
>> That's wild. Yeah. So Frank's narrative obviously didn't seem to match what detectives had
00:42:47
already learned about the rift between Elizabeth and Olga, so it was inevitable that they were ready to speak to
00:42:52
Elizabeth herself. The next day Frank arrived at the station with his monster mama
00:42:57
who refused to go inside unless she was allowed to speak with Sergeant Myers Oh boy. who was one of the officers that
00:43:03
Frank knew from his work in criminal court. The lead detective on the case, Clarence Henderson, explained that
00:43:09
that's actually not how criminal investigations work, but Frank cut him off and was like, "Listen, we actually
00:43:15
came here to talk about something completely unrelated. We're not even here to talk about Olga."
00:43:20
Okay. And Clarence was like, "What?" He's like, "Hmm." So, you don't say. Um this is where things get racist as [ __ ]
00:43:27
Oh. Just so you know, cuz not only is Elizabeth a homicidal maniac, she's also racist in nature.
00:43:33
>> a literal monster. >> She's horrible. >> Yeah. According to Frank, the week before Olga went missing, she received a
00:43:39
threat from Esperanza Escoval, the manager of the Tropical Cafe, which was a restaurant that Elizabeth and her
00:43:45
friend Emma visited regularly. Okay. Um fraud and extortion weren't his regular beat, but Henderson figured there might
00:43:52
be some overlap between Frank's missing wife, so he was like, "Okay, I'll sit down with you guys and listen to this
00:43:57
story." Elizabeth claimed that after Frank had defended Escoval's husband in a recent
00:44:03
case, the woman demanded that Elizabeth help return the $500 she paid in legal fees.
00:44:09
Elizabeth told the detective she's got two Mexicans going to kill me and Frankie if I don't give back the $500
00:44:16
that she paid Frankie to defend her husband. So much about that, one of the things
00:44:21
being Frankie. Frankie Yeah, that just turned my stomach. >> So upsetting. Um, and also
00:44:27
why would she want the money back if he won the case for her son? Like I think that would be
00:44:34
payment enough. >> Yeah, that doesn't really make sense. Yeah, and also just saying like two
00:44:38
Mexicans. I'm like the way you say that is like very rude. >> you know. So at the time
00:44:44
the Escovels were known to the police as petty criminals and their restaurant, the Tropical Cafe, was known as a
00:44:50
hangout for other petty criminals. It wasn't like it wasn't the best place. So Elizabeth's claims of a stor- extortion
00:44:55
didn't seem that far-fetched. And she also claimed she had a witness to at least one of the attempted extortions.
00:45:01
She said her friend Emma had been with her when Esperanza accosted her on the sidewalk in front of the Tropical Cafe.
00:45:08
According to Elizabeth, Esperanza and another man grabbed her and threatened to kill her if she didn't get the money
00:45:13
for them. >> Jesus. So she said that she pawned some jewelry to give them at least some of
00:45:17
the money. She's in a lot of [ __ ] She's in a lot of [ __ ] She's up to her ears in [ __ ]
00:45:22
>> Yeah. So given what he knew about the Escovels, Elizabeth's story sounded somewhat plausible to Henderson. But
00:45:29
something about the entire thing just felt disingenuous at the same time. She was very performative. She was basically
00:45:35
hysterical, which was usually a pretty good indication that somebody was lying. But Frank had already explained that his
00:45:41
mother was high-strung and she kind of tended toward the dramatics, so it also seemed on brand for her at the same
00:45:47
time. But his hesitancy, the detective's hesitancy, had more to do with the facts
00:45:52
and the timeline more than anything else. According to Elizabeth, this all happened on November 13th, which was a
00:45:58
week before Olga went missing. But she only told her son about it the previous day after detectives interviewed Frank
00:46:04
about his missing wife. Interesting. >> And on top of that, like I said, Marciano Esquivel could have gone to
00:46:10
jail for multiple years, but thanks to Frank, his sentence was cut in half. >> Yeah. Like so, he didn't necessarily win
00:46:16
the case, but he got him much less time in prison. >> And under normal circumstances, a legal
00:46:21
defense on par with Frank actually would have cost three times what Frank charged
00:46:26
the couple. >> he's doing them a solid. >> Yeah. So, all things considered, like I
00:46:30
said, Esperanza and her husband would have been grateful or should have been. >> Not only for the strong defense, but
00:46:36
also for the reduced rate. But, here was Elizabeth saying that not only were they
00:46:40
ungrateful, they were actually demanding a refund. Doubt it. And Henderson wondered, why would they approach
00:46:45
Elizabeth about the money instead of her son who presumably actually had the resources to pay them? Like that doesn't
00:46:51
make any sense. >> Now, according to Elizabeth, the criminals had warned her not to tell
00:46:55
anybody about the extortion, especially not Frank. So, she kept it to herself and she scraped together some money.
00:47:01
Like she said, she pawned some jewelry. Then she asked Frank for a check to buy a typewriter, which she actually used to
00:47:08
pay the rest of the money to Esperanza except for $50, which she said she kept for herself.
00:47:14
Little tip. Little tip for herself. When Frank asked where the typewriter was, she broke down and she told him about
00:47:18
the extortion, adding that she believed they might come back and actually ask for more money, maybe as much as $6,000.
00:47:25
>> Woah. So, a few days later, the missing person's case and the extortion case were actually combined based on the
00:47:32
belief that they were connected and whoever was behind the extortion was also responsible for Olga going missing.
00:47:38
But, the deeper they dug into the case, the more they found themselves being led
00:47:42
back to Elizabeth Duncan, monster-in-law of the century. Er everybody that they spoke to about
00:47:48
Olga told them about the the harassment, how afraid Olga was of her mother-in-law, and every lead on the
00:47:54
extortion case turned out to be a dead end despite Elizabeth insisting that she was the one being targeted. All roads
00:48:00
are leading one way. Yes. So, finally, about a week later, Frank returns uh some mug shots to the police
00:48:07
that they had left at the apartment for Elizabeth to look over. Among the group in the photo array, she
00:48:13
identified two young men, Luis Moya and Gus Baldonado, both petty criminals, as the men who had been threatening her.
00:48:19
Mhm. The next day, Henderson and his partner picked up Luis Moya at the Blue Onion, which was a restaurant where he
00:48:26
was working at the time, and they brought him into the station. He admitted, yes, he knew Esperanza
00:48:31
Esquivel, and occasionally he helped out around the Tropical Cafe, but he said he
00:48:35
wasn't blackmailing anything or he wasn't blackmailing anybody, and he didn't know anything about Elizabeth
00:48:40
Duncan. But when the subject turned to Olga, Luis became even more insistent that he
00:48:45
had nothing to do with her disappearance, and he said, "I'll even stand up in a line. Look, I have nothing
00:48:50
to do with this." Elizabeth, like I just said, had already identified him from his mug shot a few
00:48:55
days earlier, and she swore up and down that she would recognize the men who attacked her anywhere.
00:49:00
But when she was standing on the other side of the two-way glass, she claimed she didn't recognize anybody in the
00:49:06
lineup. Interesting. >> Even though he was literally right there, and she had already identified
00:49:09
him. >> picked him out. Frank, on the other hand, who he didn't even have the experience that Elizabeth did, but he
00:49:14
saw the mug shot, he said he immediately recognized Moya from the photograph, and
00:49:19
he was like, "Mother, why don't you recognize this man?" >> Mother. It was only when he threatened to move
00:49:24
out that she agreed to take another look at Moya. Wow. >> And she begrudgingly told the
00:49:29
detectives, "Yeah, he was the one who's blackmailing me." >> is so gross. >> It's wild.
00:49:34
>> It really is. >> It's wild. So, to everybody's surprise, even after she identified Luis Moya as one of the men
00:49:41
extorting her, she refused to sign a formal complaint. In fact, it actually occurred to the detectives that
00:49:47
throughout the entire investigation, during which Elizabeth had repeatedly expressed fear for her and her son's
00:49:52
life lives. She seemed to go out of her way to not cooperate with them. Interesting.
00:49:58
>> Yeah. Now, with the suspect literally standing in front of her, she did not seem even remotely interested in getting
00:50:03
justice. And if she was unwilling to sign a complaint against him, there was nothing
00:50:08
detectives could do. So, they set the case aside for that moment and continued working on Olga's disappearance.
00:50:15
And pretty soon, they were going to make a crack in this case. I have a feeling I
00:50:20
know where this is going. Potentially. >> not, but maybe you do. I don't know. >> I believe in you.
00:50:27
This is terrifying. Yeah. Elizabeth is a terrifying woman. >> She's horrible. And Frank is a poisswa? Frank is the
00:50:34
poisswa. Of the century. >> Yeah, truly. Like, hello. Of the the universe. >> Actually, when it comes to Frank, like,
00:50:41
goodbye. Yeah. Tooraloo. That was weird. Did you guys just hear that? That was crazy. Um Jinx, do you
00:50:49
want me to cook? Mhm. Okay, do you have a fun fact? Oh, I do have a fun fact. >> Tell me your fun fact. And we'll be back
00:50:54
for part two um right after this. Let me see. Hold on, where's my fun fact? You're taller in the morning than you
00:51:02
are at night. What? You're about 1 cm taller because at night when you're laying down, your spine stretches and
00:51:09
decompresses. But throughout the day, the soft cartilage between the bones get squashed. And you compress a little.
00:51:16
Really cool. >> Yeah. So, you are taller in the morning than you are at night. What the [ __ ] Yeah. Why do you
00:51:22
shrink when you get old? I think hunching over, right? Yeah. Is that it? Just that you're hunched over?
00:51:29
>> Yeah. Oh. Interesting. >> You just crunching and hunching as you get older. Crunching and hunching. I'm
00:51:34
crunching and hunching right now. >> Yeah, I know. I need to I need to get that that form bra that Taylor Swift
00:51:40
wears for posture. Oh, yeah. I always get that ad on TikTok. >> I need to cuz I'm always hunching. I'll
00:51:46
do that for sure. But right now I'm just going to eat more pickle pretzels. [laughter] I think that'll help. We hope
00:51:51
you keep listening. And we hope you >> keep it weird, but not so weird that you are this kind
00:51:57
of mother-in-law because that is crazy on top of your head. >> That is crazy on top of your head.
00:52:03
>> [laughter] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]
00:53:09
[music] [music] [music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 90
    Most unpredictable
  • 85
    Most dramatic
  • 85
    Most surprising

Episode Highlights

  • Post-Sedation Adventures
    Ash recounts the hilarious moments after her dental sedation, complete with big sunglasses and gauze.
    “I walked in there and she's got these big sunglasses on...”
    @ 01m 23s
    March 02, 2026
  • Dill Pickle Pretzel Cravings
    A humorous discussion about the deliciousness of dill pickle-flavored snacks and the struggle of not eating on air.
    “Change your [ __ ] life.”
    @ 03m 33s
    March 02, 2026
  • Mother-Son Relationship Concerns
    Frank's relationship with his mother raises eyebrows, with hints of an unhealthy dynamic.
    “Frank's relationship with his mother was very intimate, such as a man and wife should be.”
    @ 11m 53s
    March 02, 2026
  • Olga's Pregnancy Changes Everything
    In May 1958, Olga discovers she is pregnant, complicating her relationship with Frank and his mother.
    “That changed everything.”
    @ 17m 39s
    March 02, 2026
  • Elizabeth's Explosive Reaction
    When Elizabeth learns of Olga's pregnancy, she reacts violently, declaring she will never allow them to live together.
    “You'll never marry my son. I'll kill you first.”
    @ 19m 12s
    March 02, 2026
  • The Cuckoo Plan
    Elizabeth hires a man to pose as her son Frank to obtain an annulment from Olga.
    “What the actual [ __ ]?”
    @ 26m 53s
    March 02, 2026
  • The Missing Person Report
    Frank reports Olga missing after she fails to show up for work, raising concerns among her coworkers.
    “It was Frank who filed the report, but it was actually two of Olga's coworkers who expressed concern.”
    @ 33m 31s
    March 02, 2026
  • Olga's Excitement for Family Visit
    Olga was thrilled about her mother's visit for the baby's birth in January.
    @ 34m 44s
    March 02, 2026
  • Concerns About Olga's Disappearance
    Dorothy Barnett, Olga's landlady, expressed disbelief that Olga would leave without notice.
    @ 36m 06s
    March 02, 2026
  • Frank's Relationship with His Mother
    Frank explained his complicated relationship with his mother, revealing his fears about her mental state.
    @ 41m 31s
    March 02, 2026
  • Elizabeth's Reluctance to Cooperate
    Despite identifying her extortionists, Elizabeth refused to file a complaint against them.
    @ 49m 43s
    March 02, 2026
  • The Mystery of Shrinking
    Why do we shrink as we age? A surprising discussion on body changes over time.
    “What the [ __ ] Yeah. Why do you shrink when you get old?”
    @ 51m 20s
    March 02, 2026

Episode Quotes

  • Liquid gold.
    Episode 762: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk
  • This is insane. It's wild.
    Episode 762: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk
  • She's a monster.
    Episode 762: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk
  • I'll kill her if it's the last thing I do.
    Episode 762: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk
  • If this is something you're going through, our heart goes out to you.
    Episode 762: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk
  • It's wild.
    Episode 762: The Murder of Olga Kupczyk

Key Moments

  • Post-Sedation Care00:44
  • Threatening Calls16:15
  • Pregnancy Announcement17:39
  • Annulment Scheme26:53
  • Olga's Anticipation34:44
  • Refusal to Cooperate49:43
  • Shrinking Mystery51:20
  • Taylor Swift Reference51:37

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown