MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Momma's Boy (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

One night in the winter of 1958, a pregnant young woman was getting ready for bed, when she heard a sudden, loud knock at her front door. She walked out of the bathroom and looked across the room to the glass sliding door that led to the front of her property, and she was immediately disappointed at who she saw standing there. But regardless, she wrapped her robe tightly around her and walked over to see what they wanted. Minutes later, one of the worst crimes in California history would be committed. And at the end of the trial, more history would be made when the judge in this case handed down a sentence that was so harsh, it has yet to be repeated in the state of California.For 100s more stories like this one, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. One night in the winter of 1958, a pregnant young woman was getting ready for bed when she heard a sudden loud knock at her front door. She walked out of the bathroom and looked across the room to the glass sliding door that led to the front of her property, and immediately she was disappointed at who she saw standing there. But regardless, she pulled her robe tight around her and walked over to see what they wanted. Minutes later, one of the worst crimes in California history would be committed. And at the end of the trial, more history would be made when the judge handed down a sentence that was so harsh, it has yet to be repeated in the state of California.

But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please replace all of the Amazon Music Follow Buttons clothes with the exact same clothes, but three sizes smaller. Okay, let's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round-the-world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before.

Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also, tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts

or the Wondery app. I'm Peter Frank-O'Pern. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone full disclosure this is a big one for me

Nina Simone one of my favourite artists of all time somebody who's had a huge impact on me who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time.

You think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. The year was 1957, and Olga Nettikopensik was about to leave her home in Vancouver, Canada, and make the 1,400-mile trip south to the west coast of the United States. Carefully folding her clean white uniforms into her suitcase, the 29-year-old surgical nurse felt thrilled just thinking about the new job that awaited her at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. Because for Olga, getting this job was a dream come true. Ever since Olga could remember, from the time she was a teenager growing up in the tiny town

of Benito, Manitoba, one of Canada's western provinces, she had wanted to do something meaningful with her life, something that would help people in practical ways. And after graduating from high school and working in a doctor's office, Olga had decided what that something was. She wanted to become a nurse. So six years earlier, back in 1951, Olga took the plunge. She had packed up these very same bags that she was using again now and headed to the highly regarded nursing school at British Columbia's General Hospital in Vancouver. It had been a trip of 1,200 miles, almost as long as the journey she'd be making the next day when she left for California. Even all these years later,

she still remembered how homesick she felt after leaving Benito. She remembered waving goodbye to her parents and her younger brother and sister, and seeing her father, who had worked for 34 years as a foreman for the National Canadian Railroads, look so proud and so sad as she climbed onto the train that would take her off to school. And now, as Olga thought about all the additional miles she'd be putting between herself and her family with this move to California, she suddenly felt a fresh wave of that same homesickness. But Olga was not someone who let herself dwell for very long on her own problems. Taking a break from her packing, the small and slim woman with curly auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a quick smile sat down for a few minutes on her bed and tried to collect her

thoughts. She reminded herself that she and her family would be exchanging letters and that once she settled in Santa Barbara, she might be able to persuade her parents to come down to California and visit her and maybe see a little bit of the United States. In the meantime, they would keep Olga up to date on all the news she loved to hear the most, all about what was happening in her hometown and the arrival of any new children in the family. And looking around now at her clean, bare bedroom, Olga also reminded herself that this was the moment she had worked so hard to achieve. Her graduation from nursing school and getting her surgical nursing certificate had been one of the best moments of Olga's entire life.

When she closed her eyes, she could still practically smell the huge bouquet of fresh flowers she had carried with her on graduation day, and she could still recall how complete she felt wearing her new crisp white cap that was an emblem of her new profession. Taking a deep breath, Olga stood up from her bed and reached for the last pile of her skirts and slacks, and as she did, she felt all her excitement return to her in a rush. A few minutes later, the young nurse, affectionately known at Vancouver General Hospital as Ollie, gave a last look around and then hurried out of her room to say goodbye to her friends and fellow classmates. A few weeks later, in the fall of 1957,

Olga reported for duty at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California. Ever since arriving a few days earlier and getting settled into her new apartment, Olga had spent hours just drinking in the sights and sounds of her new home, a beautiful gem of a city right on the central coast, tucked between the Pacific Ocean

and the steep Santa Ines Mountains and Olga's impressions of her new hospital job were every bit as positive as her impressions of the city of Santa Barbara from the moment Olga had walked through the doors of Cottage Hospital the young Canadian nurse became known for how competent and conscientious she was while she was in the operating room and for her ability to care for patients who had come through life and death crises. But along with the professionalism that made Olga a favorite among the doctors and supervising nurses, Olga's personality also made her a favorite among her co-workers, who would often stop by Olga's apartment after work to swap stories and cottage hospital gossip.

And Olga would not be at work long at cottage hospital before she had her own exciting news to share with her friends. Because early in November, just a few months after stepping off the train that had taken her from Vancouver to California, Olga had met the young Santa Barbara lawyer who would later become her husband. Like most patients and family of patients who find themselves in a hospital, 28-year-old Frank Duncan had arrived at Cottage Hospital early in the morning of November 7, 1957 because of a medical emergency. Frank was there because his mother, Elizabeth Duncan, known as Betty, had overdosed on sleeping pills,

and Olga was one of the nurses assigned to care for her. Although Betty Duncan would make a full recovery, she remained in a coma with Frank at her side for nearly four days, and during that time, Frank and Olga wound up seeing a lot of each other, and it wasn't long before the criminal defense attorney and the surgical nurse fell into the habit of talking to one another about their personal lives. Olga told Frank about the tiny town where she grew up, in a province that was almost twice the size of the whole state of California, but with a lot fewer people. And Frank told Olga his very different story, about growing up in several apartments and households as he followed his mother, Betty,

through a series of marriages and divorces before the two of them had arrived here in Santa Barbara just two years earlier. But despite their differences, Olga and Frank also had a lot in common. Like Olga, Frank was a hard worker who had held down two and three jobs in order to put himself through law school in San Francisco while also helping to support his mother. Betty's marriages had produced six children, but not a lot of savings. And now, at the age of 53, Frank's mother had felt alone and financially dependent on Frank and his comfortable income. In fact, as Frank told Olga, it had been the prospect of living by herself after her latest marriage ended that had driven Frank's mom to attempt suicide via the sleeping pill overdose. Olga, it had been the prospect of living by herself after her latest marriage ended that

had driven Frank's mom to attempt suicide via the sleeping pill overdose. Olga was horrified, and she could also relate to Frank's terrible sense of guilt over his mother's feelings of desperation and abandonment. Because to both Olga and Frank, family obligation was not just an idea, it was at the very heart of who they were. By the time Frank's mother was well enough to leave the hospital, Frank had settled it so that Betty would come back to his apartment and live with him. When Betty was finally discharged, Frank thanked Olga for all her help and support, but when Frank left Cottage Hospital, gently guiding Betty out the door and toward the parking lot,

Olga felt a sudden pang of regret. She had liked Frank, liked his dark wavy hair, his intelligent eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses, and she liked the way he talked, with just the slightest lisp that made his S's and Z's sound like a TH sound. But Olga did not have to miss Frank for very long. It would turn out that Frank felt the same attraction to Olga that she felt for him. And by January, two months after the pair had first met, they were dating, getting together at least three or four times a week. And it wasn't long after that, that Frank had fallen in love with Olga, and Olga was telling her co-workers at Cottage Hospital, as well as her family, that she was pretty sure she had just found Mr. Right. And sure enough, five months later,

on the beautiful morning of Friday, June 20th, 1958, Olga and Frank walked together hand in hand down to the famous Santa Barbara courthouse, where they were married in a ceremony performed by a superior court judge. The simple service was just what they had wanted it to be. Just the two of them, no expensive or elaborate wedding, and no family having to undertake the hours and expense of traveling from Olga's home in Manitoba to the central California coast. But it did not take long before Olga and Frank's marriage started showing signs of serious trouble. As soon as Frank moved out from living with his mother to go live in an apartment of his own with

Olga, both Frank and Olga became acutely aware of just how tightly Frank's mother, Betty Duncan, wanted to fasten her apron strings around her favorite and most financially successful child. It apparently wasn't enough that Betty was still able to stay in Frank's old apartment, despite him leaving. What Betty really seemed to want was unlimited access to Frank's time and attention. And when Olga discovered, not long after she and Frank were married, that she was pregnant, things only got worse. Betty never missed out on an opportunity to talk negatively about her new daughter-in-law, even suggesting

to Frank that Frank was not the father of Olga's baby. While Frank did his best to persuade Olga that his mother's hostility would eventually disappear as soon as her grandchild was actually born, for Olga, the only silver lining in the situation was the fact that she hardly ever saw Frank's mother in person. Betty may have wanted her son, Frank, to spend all of his free time in the apartment with her, but Frank put in long days at work and Betty had her own busy and active social life. Always carefully dressed and groomed and wearing stylish glasses with frames that tilted up at the outside edges, Betty was a regular at the courthouse where

Frank tried his cases. But Betty and her closest friend and constant companion, an 84-year-old woman named Emma Short, also made the rounds of local businesses and clothing stores, as well as lunch spots like the Woolworths Department Store and the Tropical Cafe and Bar in downtown Santa Barbara. Neither woman had their driver's license, so the two of them had become a very familiar sight on the city bus routes, with Betty always leading the way and making the decisions about where the two of them should go and what they should do. So even though Betty's routine included calling Olga and Frank, or just Frank, to complain about being ignored or to describe Olga as a, quote,

foreigner who had trapped poor Frank into marriage, it was only Frank that Betty actually wanted to see. Still, it wasn't long before Olga was almost as annoyed as Betty was with Frank. Because now, in an effort to keep all the women in his life happy, Frank was shuttling back and forth between the apartment where he lived with Olga and the apartment he had once shared with his mother. Meanwhile, rumors about the couple's troubled marriage had started to swirl among Olga's co-workers and among Betty's friends.

And so, just two months after Frank and Olga had walked into that courtroom in Santa Barbara to get married, the couple walked into another courthouse in Ventura, California, 27 miles to the south of Santa Barbara, and signed the legal documents that confirmed that their marriage was now officially over. Based on the complaint that the couple presented to the court that the two were not living together, in the eyes of the law, it was now like the marriage had never existed in the first place. But even though this annulment was welcome news to Betty Duncan, it did not mark the end of the relationship between her son, Frank, and Olga. By the time Olga was almost

seven months pregnant, she was in an apartment that Frank had found for her at a place called Garden Street Apartments, located three miles from Cottage Hospital. And at least a few times a month, Frank would stop by to eat dinners with Olga and sometimes stay late into the night. Unlike Frank, Olga did not believe that Betty would ever have welcomed Olga or her baby into the Duncan family. But whatever happened, Olga still wanted Frank to be a part of their child's life. In her letters back home to family in Manitoba, Canada, Olga would tell her parents that Frank still had a lot of growing up to do. But if her family really wanted to help her, they could do that just by telling her their

news about home and the children. Even though Olga's marriage had not worked out, her attitude was upbeat. She was thrilled that she was going to become a mother, and even though Frank had been a disappointment as a husband, Olga had a close circle of friends and a job that she loved. As she began seeing less and less of Frank, Olga instead spent her time concentrating on her work at Cottage Hospital and on making plans for two months in the future when her baby was due to arrive and when Olga's own mother would be coming to visit and help Olga with her newborn. But even as Olga was adjusting to a life without Frank, which is just what Frank's mother had hoped would happen, Betty started having problems of her own. And these were problems she did not want to share

with her son. As a criminal attorney, Frank often represented clients who were guilty. And despite his best efforts to keep them out of jail, some of those clients still wound up behind bars. And to Betty's horror, on november 12th six months after frank and olga had gotten married and four months after that marriage had been annulled betty had become the target of an extortion scheme related to one of frank's clients the wife of one of frank's clients who wound up going to jail had had approached Betty while she was eating lunch with her best friend Emma at the Tropical Cafe. This woman, Esperanza Esquivel, walked right up to Betty and promptly accused her son, Frank, of charging Mrs. Esquivel's husband, Frank's client, who happened to be the owner of the Tropical Cafe, too much in legal fees. And now Esperanza demanded that money, $500, back. And if Betty went to Frank

or the police about this extortion threat, then Esperanza said she knew two men who would hurt or kill the one person Betty loved most in the world, her son Frank. And for Betty, this threat was so terrifying that she did not hesitate to comply. Within days, she had cashed a check Frank had given her to make a down payment on a new typewriter, and instead of making the down payment, Betty handed the $150 over to Esperanza's so-called enforcers. But before Betty could even figure out a way to come up with the remaining $350 that Esperanza had demanded, one of the men Esperanza had hired to collect the money, or they would hurt Frank, had made a new and much bigger demand. And suddenly, Betty Duncan started wondering exactly what it was that she had gotten herself

involved in. The End pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us

to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. On Monday, November 17th, five days after Betty's meeting with Esperanza Esquivel, Olga arrived for work at Cottage Hospital just as she always did, right on time with her white uniform neatly starched and her cap pinned securely to her hair. Even though she was seven months pregnant, she was as active and busy in the operating room and tending to patients as she had been the very first day she'd arrived one year earlier.

The only difference now was that Olga, on one of her recent visits to her obstetrician, had been diagnosed with an inflammation of the nerves in one of her hands that caused a loss of feeling in her fingertips. But other than that, the baby doctor had given Olga a clean bill of health, assuring Olga that the weepy feelings that sometimes came over her were nothing to worry about. And just as Olga's pregnancy had not interfered with her work, it had also not interfered with Olga's modest but important social life. So at the end of that work day on Monday, Olga invited her two friends and co-workers, Doreen and Sylvia, back to Olga's apartment, Unit 11 at 114 Garden Street, so she could show them the gown that she was making for her unborn baby.

But what was supposed to be a short visit and a light meal of hot buns and coffee, soon turned into an entire evening of talking and laughing among the friends. And by the time Doreen and Sylvia had called out their final goodbyes to Olga and piled into a taxi cab to head off to their own apartments, it was almost 11 p.m. Smiling, Olga had listened to the last of her friends' laughter before the door of the taxi shut and the car engine revved as the taxi pulled away from the curb. Before her friends had left, Olga had changed out of her work clothes and into her comfortable pink and white quilted bathrobe. Now standing at her open front entrance, Olga thought about her baby's father. The last time Frank had stopped by to see her was 10 days earlier on November 7th, his 29th birthday.

Sighing, Olga stepped back and closed and locked the glass door. She was so preoccupied that she barely heard the sound of another car with a loud engine slowly driving down the street outside the front of garden apartments. Still thinking about Frank, she could hardly believe that it was only a year ago that they had first met in Cottage Hospital at the bedside of Frank's mother. When Olga's obstetrician had recently suggested that Olga's weepiness might be caused by temporary depression, she knew he was right. Because even after everything that had happened, Olga still loved the man she had once married. But just as she had written to her mother and father five days earlier in her last letter home,

Olga also knew that life was short and she was determined to enjoy the rest of it with or without Frank Duncan. And putting Frank out of her mind, Olga turned her thoughts to her mother's upcoming visit, which was planned to begin in just six weeks. Olga couldn't wait to see her mother's face when she stepped down from the train and got her first good look at Olga's new home. She knew how much her mother would love Santa Barbara, with its landscape of Spanish-style architecture and red clay tile roofs, and the streets and lawns dotted with palm trees, and once again, Olga thought about how lucky she was just to be there. With that thought in mind, Olga headed to her bathroom to brush her teeth and hang up her robe

before turning out the lights and going to bed. But before Olga had even picked up her toothbrush, she was startled by a sudden and very loud knock on the front door of her apartment. Putting her toothbrush back down on the sink counter and pulling her robe even more tightly around her, Olga stepped back into her bedroom. After a moment's hesitation and wondering if maybe this was Frank, Olga ran her fingers through her auburn curls then walked in the direction of her unexpected visitor. The next day, on Tuesday, November 18th, 1958, Olga Duncan, who was scheduled to assist in a morning surgery,

did not report to work at Cottage Hospital. She also wasn't answering her phone. This was so completely unlike Olga, who had not missed a single day of work despite being pregnant, and despite all the upheavals in her personal life, that two of her co-workers left the hospital right away to go to Olga's apartment just to make sure that she was okay. But instead of finding that Olga had just overslept, which is what they told each other must have happened, when they got to Garden apartments, they found the sliding glass door of Olga's apartment

open. And inside of her apartment, they could see that the lights were on and the bed had been turned back, but it had not been slept in. The neat pile of baby clothes was exactly where Olga had left it folded up on the couch, and sitting on her dresser was the purse that Olga never failed to carry with her anytime she left her apartment. And Olga's friends weren't the only people standing next to the open glass door of Olga's apartment trying to make sense of a situation that was suddenly starting to appear very scary and suspicious. Joining them was the apartment manager, Dorothy Barnettett whose eyes behind her rhinestone trimmed glasses were filled with worry and concern Dorothy had always had a soft spot for her young

Canadian tenant and had often referred to Olga as a lovely girl Olga had always been friendly quiet and never late with her rent just the kind of person that the older landlady would have liked to see in every one of her units. A few minutes later, Frank Duncan would get an urgent call from his office. According to Frank's secretary, it was a woman named Dorothy Barnett, and she was calling to inform Mr. Duncan that Olga had disappeared. Frank received this message while he was in court, representing a client named Marciano Esquivel. Stepping away from the courtroom as soon as he could,

Frank called the Santa Barbara police station to report that his wife, Olga Duncan, was missing. What Frank did not know, as he returned to the courtroom, was that Marciano Esquivel's wife, Esperanza, had very recently extorted money from Frank's mother, Betty Duncan. At the police station, the officer who took Frank's call had asked Frank what he knew or thought of Olga's apparent disappearance. Unlike Dorothy Barnett and Olga's two hospital co-workers, Frank was concerned but not alarmed. According to Frank, Olga had been angry with Frank and that's why she might have left. Or maybe she had decided to go back to her hometown

in Manitoba, Canada and pay a visit to her parents and family. So it wasn't until November 20th, two days later, when there was still no sign of Olga, that police issued a missing persons bulletin and assigned a detective to investigate. Over the next three weeks, several different officers from the Santa Barbara Police Department would follow up on a variety of tips and leads in their search for Olga Duncan. But it was during the first 72 hours that police developed their initial theory of the case. Based on their examination of Olga's apartment and the interviews with the nurses who had visited with Olga the night before she disappeared, police quickly decided that Olga must have somehow been taken from her apartment against her will. This was

based on the fact that she had not made any plans to visit family or friends in Canada or anywhere else that police were aware of, and Olga had left behind all the documents and belongings that people would normally carry with them on any kind of trip. In addition to leaving her purse on top of her dresser, she also left behind all of her luggage, her passport, and her driver's license. And then there was the witness statement that Olga's landlady provided to the police. According to Dorothy, after she heard Olga's friends leaving Olga's apartment at about 11 p.m. on the night of Monday, November 17th, Dorothy reported hearing footsteps on the stairs outside of her own bedroom window.

At the time, she believed she was hearing one of her neighbors, but the next day when Olga was gone, those neighbors told Dorothy, no, they had not been walking outside late the night before. The police also ruled out two other possible scenarios. Since nothing of value seemed to be missing from Olga's apartment, it did not seem likely that this was some kind of robbery gone wrong. They also ruled out any connection between Olga's disappearance and reports from several days earlier about a man or men who had harassed two teenage girls in towns outside of Santa Barbara. Instead, the one person police were most interested in speaking with was Frank Duncan,

the father of Olga's unborn baby. Even though Frank and his mother Betty both had alibis for the night that Olga disappeared, they spent that evening together watching TV, police were very curious about the role that Frank and Betty had played in Olga's life, especially when Frank himself would eventually admit to police that even after separating from Olga, he continued to visit her, a fact that Frank had tried to hide from his mother. But much to the surprise of local detectives, it was not Olga's disappearance that brought Frank and Betty into the Santa Barbara police station on November 22nd, four days after Olga went missing. Instead, it was a

totally different criminal matter. In response to questions from Frank about what had become of the money Frank had given Betty so she could make a down payment on the typewriter Frank wanted to buy, Frank's mother had finally told Frank about the extortion demands from Esperanza Esquivel. Outraged over the threats that the Esquivels had made to his mother, that unless she paid them back the legal fees he had charged them, they would physically harm Frank, Frank dragged his mother off to the police station to file a formal complaint against Esperanza and her two enforcers, charging them with extortion and blackmail. Betty explained to police that she had given one of Esperanza's enforcers $150,

but now they had bumped up their demand from a total of $500 to $2,000. And unless police could find and jail Esperanza's enforcers, Betty was worried that she and Frank would never be safe, especially since Betty had never gotten a close enough look at the men's faces to be able to recognize and identify them. What puzzled the police was that Frank did not seem at all worried about whether Olga's life might also be in danger. If these extortionists or blackmailers or whoever they were would harm the attorney and his mother, why would they ignore the mother of Frank's unborn baby? But without any hard evidence to connect Olga's disappearance to the extortion scheme, and without a description from Betty

about what these enforcers looked like, all police could do was set up phone taps on Frank's and Betty's home telephones in case the extortionists tried to contact Betty or Frank by phone. Meanwhile, by the end of November, so roughly two weeks since Olga's disappearance, the key figures in the investigation had already started to move on with their lives. Betty was still working with Santa Barbara police looking at mugshots of potential suspects in her extortion case, but still not able to make any positive IDs. Due to the publicity surrounding Olga's disappearance, Frank had left Betty and Santa Barbara and moved 95 miles south to Los Angeles to look for a new job. And by December 10th, not only had Frank found work, he was also

spotted stepping out on a date with a new attractive woman he'd met in San Francisco. But on December 12th, three weeks after Olga's disappearance and two weeks after Betty had told police about her blackmailers, Olga's disappearance would once again take center stage in Frank and Betty's lives. That's when 30-year-old Santa Barbara detective Charles Thompson literally stumbled on the information that would break the mystery of what happened to Olga wide open. Only recently assigned to the extortion and missing person cases, Detective Thompson had decided to re-interview friends and acquaintances of Olga, Frank, and Betty. And while going over the statement of one of the very minor players in both cases,

Detective Thompson listened in disbelief as this very unlikely source let slip a piece of information that would change everything police knew or thought about Olga's disappearance. On the following day, Saturday, December 13th, the Santa Barbara police made their first arrest. And on Sunday, December 21st, so one month and four days after Olga's disappearance, three Santa Barbara detectives were standing next to their parked police car at the edge of Casitas Pass Road, 17 miles south of Santa Barbara and just over the line into Ventura County.

south of Santa Barbara and just over the line into Ventura County. In front of them was a narrow, steep-sided gully that sloped about 20 feet down from the deserted two-lane highway. Leaning a little bit forward, the officers could just make out the end of a corrugated metal drainage pipe that ran side to side directly under the road where they had parked their car. Standing next to the detectives was the passenger who had come with them from the Santa Barbara police station. After a few moments of looking, the passenger raised their hand and pointed to a shallow depression just in front of the end of the metal drainage pipe. A few minutes later, the passenger was back inside the car while the three detectives, carrying the shovel that they had stowed in the car trunk,

were slipping and sliding their way down to the bottom of the pit. Based on the information that that passenger had provided to Santa Barbara police, along with the information gathered by Detective Thompson nine days earlier, here is a reconstruction of what really happened to Olga Duncan almost five weeks earlier on the night of Monday, November 17th, and early in the morning of Tuesday, November 18th. After Olga said goodbye to her friends at about 11pm on that Monday night, she didn't notice that the car with the loud engine that she'd heard coming down the street had actually stopped right outside of her apartment building. Olga had been so busy thinking about her baby, about Frank, and then about her mother's upcoming visit to Santa Barbara, that the sudden silence as the driver turned off the car engine

did not even register. And neither did the sound of quiet footsteps as the person inside of that car got out and walked up the stairs to the sliding glass door of Olga's apartment. The first Olga knew about the arrival of her surprise visitor was the sound of urgent knocking on her front door, and when she stepped out of her bedroom to see who it was, her first feeling was just disappointment. Even through the drapes that covered the door, she could tell that the shadowy figure outside was not Frank. that covered the door, she could tell that the shadowy figure outside was not Frank. But that feeling of disappointment immediately turned to concern when she heard a voice telling her that something was wrong with Frank and Frank needed Olga's help. Still dressed in her pink and white quilted robe and house slippers, Olga opened the door just wide enough to have a conversation.

She did not invite her visitor in, but once Olga had heard that Frank was actually sitting in a car right outside and that he was very, very drunk, Olga agreed to go downstairs and check on him. A moment later, Olga had stepped out of her apartment, not even bothering to turn out the lights or pull the door closed all the way behind her. A minute later, Olga was on the street, leaning down to look through the front car window at a man huddled in the passenger seat. But even as Olga realized that this man was not Frank Duncan, it was too late. The next thing she knew, there was an explosion of pain in her head as the man behind her brought the butt of a.22 caliber pistol down on the back of Olga's skull.

brought the butt of a.22 caliber pistol down on the back of Olga's skull. Even as Olga's attacker yanked open the back door of the car and started pushing Olga inside, the man who had been slumped in the front seat had turned around so he could help pull the unconscious nurse onto the back seat of the gray 1948 Chevy. Moments later, Olga's first attacker had run around the car and slipped behind the wheel into the driver's seat while his partner in the passenger seat sat up straight and looked around to make sure there was no one watching them. Then, with a grinding of gears, the old Chevy pulled away from the curb to begin the 230-mile trip from Santa Barbara south to Tijuana, Mexico. For the two young men in the front seats of the car,

there was nothing personal about this kidnapping or about what they planned to do with Olga once they reached Mexico. Instead, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. They'd been promised $6,000 for making Olga disappear, an amount of money that today would be worth more than $31,000 for each of them. But almost as soon as they had left garden apartments, the men's carefully laid plans for how to kill Olga Duncan started to fall apart. They had not even made it out of Santa Barbara before Olga had regained consciousness and began struggling and screaming for help. Pulling off the main road and parking the car along a track to a deserted beach, both men got out and opened the rear passenger doors. Leaning in over their struggling and terrified

kidnap victim, one of the men held Olga down while the other started hitting her head again and again with the butt of his gun, using so much force that the pistol actually broke. Once Olga was finally still, with blood now pouring out of her head into the car seat right under her, the men used the tape they'd brought with them to bind Olga's hands and feet before they got back into the front seats and began heading once again for the main road south. But the kidnappers had only driven 13 more miles before they started to have car trouble. And instead of driving to Mexico, they were forced to get rid of Olga's body somewhere much closer to home.

Turning onto rural Highway 33 South out of Santa Barbara, they headed through the mountains toward a very small town in Ventura County. And along the way, on Casitas Pass Road, the two men found exactly the spot they were looking for. Pulling the car over to the side of the road, they killed the engine and then got out to look down at a steep-sided gully 20 feet below the road and at the opening of the drainage pipe that ran crossways underneath the road where they were standing. A few minutes later, sometime after 1 a.m. in the morning of Tuesday, November 18th, the two men dragged Olga's body out of the car and down the side of the ravine

to a slight depression in front of the outflow pipe. Since their gun was now broken and would not fire, the two men took turns beating and then strangling Olga. When they were sure that the young mother-to-be was dead, they used their hands to dig a shallow grave, then rolled Olga over until she lay inside the hole. After covering Olga with dirt and gravel, the two men climbed out of the gully, hopped back into the 1948 Chevy they had rented the evening before for $25, and drove back to Santa Barbara. After getting rid of their bloody clothes and cleaning Olga's blood off the back seat before returning their rented car, the two murderers were ready to

collect their paychecks. So, later that same morning, 20-year-old Luis Moya and 25-year-old Augustine Baldonado picked up the phone and called their employer, Betty Duncan, to tell her that the daughter-in-law she had hated so much was now dead, along with Frank's unborn child. It would turn out that Betty Duncan was so possessive of her beloved son Frank that when Frank met and fell in love with Olga at Cottage Hospital back in November of 1957, Betty was out of her mind with jealousy. From the moment Frank started dating Olga, Betty had done everything she could to break up the romance, calling Olga at least once a day for more than three months to threaten and insult the young woman and to scream at her to leave her

son Frank alone. But it wasn't until Frank and Olga snuck off to be married at a civil service in June of 1958, by which time Olga was already pregnant, that Betty moved her hate campaign into high gear. On the couple's wedding night, Betty, who had found out about the marriage from a switchboard operator at Cottage Hospital, showed up at the apartment that Frank and Olga had rented and demanded that Frank come back to the apartment he Frank and Olga had rented and demanded that Frank come back to the apartment he shared with his mother. But even though Frank agreed to do just that, he refused to break all of his ties to Olga. So, two months later, on August 7th, Betty decided to take steps of her own to legally end the marriage, using the same skills at deceit and lying that had allowed Betty to marry

and divorce 11 times and con most of her unsuspecting spouses out of some or all of their money. Betty paid an odd job worker from the local Salvation Army $60 to go with her to Ventura Courthouse. Once there, the two of them actually managed to impersonate Frank and Olga and get Frank's marriage annulled. After faking that annulment, Betty started working on a more ambitious plan, permanently erasing her son's wife from the face of the earth. And over the next four months, Betty would approach five different people to see if they would kill Olga. All of them declined until Esperanza Esquivel put Betty in touch with two small-time criminals, Luis Moya and Augustine Baldonado, who agreed on a price of $6,000 for murdering Olga Duncan. What the killers did not

know was that Betty had never intended to pay them $6,000. Instead, after making a down payment of $150 using Frank's typewriter money, Betty was already busy making up a story in which she was the innocent victim of extortion and her two hired guns would be the blackmailers she would later report to the Santa Barbara police. It wasn't until December 12, 1958, three weeks after Olga's murder, that Betty's best friend and constant companion, 84-year-old Emma Short, would tell Detective Charles Thompson about Betty impersonating Olga in order to get Frank's marriage annulled. Emma would also talk to police about Betty's hatred for Olga and Betty's various plots to get her daughter-in-law murdered. One day later, on December 13th, police arrested Betty Duncan for forgery

and filing false legal papers in order to get her son's marriage annulled. And once Betty was in jail and police began investigating the information they'd gotten from Emma Short, it would only take two more weeks before police had also arrested Olga's killers. On Sunday, December 21st, Augustine Baldonado confessed to murder and described to police what had happened on the night that Olga was kidnapped. Then, Augustine agreed to lead the three Santa Barbara detectives to Casitas Pass Road, where Augustine and Luis had buried Olga's body. But it was not until the Ventura County medical examiner completed an autopsy on Olga Duncan

that the police and the public would understand the full horror of what had happened to the young nurse from Canada whose baby girl was due to be born in less than two months. It would turn out that despite being beaten, pistol-whipped, and strangled, Olga Duncan was still alive when Augustine Baldonado and Luis Moya rolled her body into that shallow grave. In the end, the cause of Olga's death was suffocation, and her final breaths were lungfuls of dirt and gravel. On March 17, 1959, after what newspapers described as California's trial of the decade, Elizabeth Betty Duncan, Luis Moya, and Augustine Baldonado were all found guilty of conspiracy to commit

murder and sentenced to death. Three and a half years later, on August 7, 1962, Luis and Augustine stepped into the same gas chamber at San Quentin Prison, where they were strapped into adjoining wooden chairs and executed. The next day, on August 8, 1962, at 10 in the morning, Betty Duncan was executed alone in the same gas chamber, the last woman ever to be executed in the state of California. Betty Duncan's last words were,

Where's Frank? in the state of California. Betty Duncan's last words were, where's Frank? On December 30th, 1958, nine days after the discovery of Olga's body and just over one year after the young nurse met Frank and Betty Duncan, Frank arranged a small service in memory of his murdered wife. Weeks later, Frank finally agreed to release Olga's cremated remains and send them back to her parents in Benito, Manitoba. Frank would go on to marry two more times. He would also go on to build a successful law practice in Los Angeles. Even though Frank defended his mother to the very end, after her execution, Frank refused to answer any questions about his mother's trial or the murder of his wife, Olga Duncan. Follow buttons close with the exact same clothes, but three sizes smaller.

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