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Speaker 1: Nob'd just necessary dad where I lost? Terms of g
Speaker 1: It's eighty plus.
Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with Your
Speaker 2: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 4: Good Evening the incredible story of a nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 4: murder that ended with the last woman to ever be
Speaker 4: executed in California, a murder so twisted it seems ripped
Speaker 4: from a Greek tragedy. Deborah Larkin was only ten years
Speaker 4: old when the quiet calm of her California suburb was shattered.
Speaker 4: Thirty miles north. On a quiet November night in Santa Barbara,
Speaker 4: a pregnant nurse named Oga Duncan disappeared from her apartment.
Speaker 4: The mystery deepens when it is discovered that Oga's mother
Speaker 4: in law, a deeply manipulative and deceptive woman, had been
Speaker 4: doing everything in her power to separate Olga and her
Speaker 4: son Frank, prior to Oga's disappearance, from a forged a
Speaker 4: noment to multiple attempts to hire people to get rid
Speaker 4: of Oga, to a faked extortion case. Elizabeth seemed psychopathically
Speaker 4: attached to her son, yet she denied having anything to
Speaker 4: do with Oga's disappearance with a smile. But when Ogo's
Speaker 4: brutally beaten body is found in a shallow grave, apparently
Speaker 4: buried alive, a young da makes it his mission to
Speaker 4: see that Elizabeth Duncan is brought to justice. Adding a
Speaker 4: wrinkle to his efforts is the fact that Frank, himself
Speaker 4: a defense attorney, maintained his mother's innocence to the end.
Speaker 4: How does a young girl process such a crime along
Speaker 4: with the fear and disbelief that rocked an entire community.
Speaker 4: Decades later, Larkin is determined to revisit the case and
Speaker 4: bring the story of Oga herself to light. Long overshadowed
Speaker 4: by the sensationalism and scandal of Elizabeth and Frank, A
Speaker 4: Lovely Girl seems to reveal Oga as a woman in full,
Speaker 4: someone who was more than the twisted family that would
Speaker 4: ultimately ensnare her. As we follow the heart pounding drama
Speaker 4: of the case through Larkin's young eyes, her father was
Speaker 4: the court reporter. A Lovely Girl is page turning yet poignant,
Speaker 4: and makes the reader re examine how we handle fear,
Speaker 4: how we regard mental illness, and how we understand family.
Speaker 4: As we carve our own path in a dangerous world.
Speaker 4: The book that we're featuring this evening is A Lovely Girl,
Speaker 4: The tragedy of Olga Duncan and the trial of one
Speaker 4: of California's most notorious killers, with my special guest author
Speaker 4: Deborah Larkin. Welcome to the program, and thank you very
Speaker 4: much for this interview. Deborah Larkin, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, and congratulations on this extraordinary book.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Let's start off right away with venture at California in
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty eight, and tell us about your family. I
Speaker 4: said in the introduction that you were ten years old
Speaker 4: at that time in nineteen fifty eight. Tell us about
Speaker 4: your family and how you came to be the author
Speaker 4: of this book.
Speaker 5: My family lived in a small subdivision was built in
Speaker 5: a walnut orchard. My father was a newspaper reporter and
Speaker 5: very much a character and well known in the community.
Speaker 5: My mother was a psychiatric social worker at Cameria State Hospital,
Speaker 5: which was a California State mental hospital. And I, at
Speaker 5: ten years old, was in some ways precocious. I read
Speaker 5: everything in the newspaper, and most of all, I was
Speaker 5: a big warrior. And so when Olga's bought. When Olga
Speaker 5: disappeared and then her body was discovered, I became obsessed
Speaker 5: with this crime and wondering how this could possibly happen.
Speaker 5: That was sort of my worst nightmare, for someone to
Speaker 5: disappear into the middle of the night and then the
Speaker 5: body found in a shallow grave near my home.
Speaker 4: Tell us about your dad's career and the relationship you
Speaker 4: for especially over this case.
Speaker 5: Well, I always was a daddy's girl. I was interested
Speaker 5: in everything he did, and he was, like I said,
Speaker 5: he was a newspaper reporter for the local paper, and
Speaker 5: he was assigned to cover this tragedy from the time
Speaker 5: Oga disappeared, through the investigation, through the trial of her killers,
Speaker 5: and so I felt that I could get inside information
Speaker 5: for him and from him. And so besides reading all
Speaker 5: of his columns, I asked a lot of questions. And
Speaker 5: also I would describe my father as having no filter,
Speaker 5: so nothing was really out of bounds for him as
Speaker 5: far as discussions at home, and he used to talk
Speaker 5: about Olga Duncan's disappearance and all the things that happened afterwards,
Speaker 5: right around the dinner table.
Speaker 4: Let's get to November seventeenth, nineteen fifty eight. In Santa Barbara.
Speaker 4: Olga Duncan is pregnant and she has a party with
Speaker 4: two of her work friends from the hospital. Tell us
Speaker 4: who Olga Duncan is, where she works and about this
Speaker 4: night in particular November seventeenth, nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 5: Olga at that time was a surgical nurse at Cottage
Speaker 5: Hospital in Santa Barbara. I got the title of the
Speaker 5: book a lovely Girl because that's how she was described,
Speaker 5: especially her her Landlady first brought it up. But everybody
Speaker 5: had nothing but wonderful things to say about Olga, that
Speaker 5: she was just a lovely girl. And at the time
Speaker 5: she disappeared, she was separated from her husband, Frank Duncan,
Speaker 5: who was a criminal defense attorney in Santa Barbara. Frank
Speaker 5: had moved home to live with his mother because his
Speaker 5: mother was really just obsessed with her son. She was
Speaker 5: also insisted that she could never live alone, and she
Speaker 5: just harassed Frank until he finally left his wife and
Speaker 5: moved home to live with her. And that was only
Speaker 5: like a few weeks after the wedding. He didn't live
Speaker 5: a full time with Olga for any time at all.
Speaker 5: And he also, I think he said that he thought
Speaker 5: that if he could wait till the baby was born,
Speaker 5: that maybe everything would be fine, that his mother would
Speaker 5: be reconciled with the situation. But at the time she
Speaker 5: harassed Olga. She said terrible things to people about Olga.
Speaker 5: She tried to get the stores in Santa Barbara to
Speaker 5: cut off any credit for Olga. She was just She
Speaker 5: showed up at the apartment where Olga lived and got
Speaker 5: the landlady to let her in, to go inside the apartment,
Speaker 5: and she tried to tell the landlady that they weren't
Speaker 5: really married, that Olga was a terrible person and had
Speaker 5: abandoned children in Canada. And that's another thing. Olga had
Speaker 5: moved to Santa Barbara from Canada the year before because
Speaker 5: there was a nurse shortage in California and she thought
Speaker 5: that that would be someplace that she would enjoy living,
Speaker 5: and so she got the job in Santa Barbara.
Speaker 4: Now what happens with the That evening she was talking
Speaker 4: to her friends and you talked about these apartments. There
Speaker 4: was a Missus Barnett that was the landlady, and she
Speaker 4: had experienced those things with Olga's mother in law. But
Speaker 4: that night she met with some friends and then they left.
Speaker 4: The landlady thought that something else had happened a little
Speaker 4: bit later in the evening, tell us about what the
Speaker 4: landlady heard a little bit after those friends had left.
Speaker 5: Well, she heard footsteps on the stairs, but she thought
Speaker 5: that it was Frank leaving. She wasn't at that time,
Speaker 5: really didn't really realize that Frank had pretty much moved
Speaker 5: out of there, because he did come sometimes to visit Olga.
Speaker 5: So when she heard the footsteps on the stairs, she
Speaker 5: just thought it was Frank going out for cigarettes, she said,
Speaker 5: And she actually mentioned this to another tenant. She also
Speaker 5: said that she thought maybe it was another tenant, a couple,
Speaker 5: a young couple that sometimes went to the movies. She
Speaker 5: thought it might have been them also, But once she
Speaker 5: talked to the tenant, they hadn't gone out at all,
Speaker 5: and so that concerned her.
Speaker 4: These nurses that worked with her were concerned. And so
Speaker 4: then there was a missing person's rea. And then you
Speaker 4: introduce a couple characters, Detective Jim Hanson and somebody that's
Speaker 4: even more important character in this story, Detective Charlie Thompson.
Speaker 4: What happens? What did they hear immediately about particulars of
Speaker 4: this case and they speak to Frank Duncan.
Speaker 5: Yes, they the first day they were still thinking, well,
Speaker 5: maybe she just took off. Frank said that she might
Speaker 5: have done this to get back at him for not
Speaker 5: living at the house. But they also heard from the
Speaker 5: landlady that day that the missus Duncan, the mother Elizabeth Duncan,
Speaker 5: was harassing Olga and hated her daughter in law and
Speaker 5: had threatened that she would kill her daughter in law.
Speaker 5: So Frank when they interviewed him, Frank was actually there
Speaker 5: when Olga was reported missing. She was over at the
Speaker 5: apartment and talked to the detectives and told them that
Speaker 5: he thought she just you know, disappeared on her own
Speaker 5: and that she'd be back. But he also said his
Speaker 5: mother never did say any of these things, So Frank
Speaker 5: was very much trying to downplay everything when Olga disappeared.
Speaker 5: He didn't feel that it was that anything had happened
Speaker 5: to her and denied that his mother had made threats.
Speaker 4: They found the police found that her purse was still
Speaker 4: in the apartment. What else led them to believe that
Speaker 4: maybe she hadn't run off.
Speaker 5: Well, the apartment was left, the lights were on, the
Speaker 5: dishes from the refreshment that she'd served to her two
Speaker 5: nurs friends that night were still just sitting there on
Speaker 5: the counter. And also the bed was turned down, but
Speaker 5: it had not been slept in, so that made them
Speaker 5: think that possibly she had left in the middle of
Speaker 5: the night. She had two cases of luggage that Frank
Speaker 5: insisted were gone, but that was sort of contradictory to
Speaker 5: the purse still being there. And that was one of
Speaker 5: the things that Detective Hanson thought right from the beginning,
Speaker 5: was that he doesn't know any women that would go
Speaker 5: off and leave their purse behind, so that made him wonder.
Speaker 5: And then when they started interviewing Olga's friends, the nurses
Speaker 5: at the hospital and called her family in Canada, they
Speaker 5: learned that Olga had been fearful of her mother in
Speaker 5: law and that missus Elizabeth Duncan had been harassing her,
Speaker 5: wanting her to leave her her son alone.
Speaker 4: And meanwhile, as you say, Frank seems to have denied
Speaker 4: anything like that, that his mother would be capable of
Speaker 4: anything like that, and that's what they have to deal
Speaker 4: with moving forward. Meanwhile, you write that November twenty first,
Speaker 4: in Santa Barbara, California, Gus Baldonado and his buddy Lewis
Speaker 4: Moya is with Esperanza Esquibel, owner of the Tropical Cafe
Speaker 4: in bar what's happening that day and what are they discussing?
Speaker 5: Well, in that chapter they are meeting up. They say
Speaker 5: they drive Missus Escoval to a drive in restaurant in
Speaker 5: Santa Barbara and she is there to collect money. We
Speaker 5: discover now during that scene we don't know exactly what
Speaker 5: she's collecting the money for, but she meets with Missus
Speaker 5: Duncan at the restaurant and Missus Duncan tries to give
Speaker 5: her a two hundred dollars check, which Missus Askerbaal says no. No.
Speaker 5: Lewis Moya, she's there representing them, says no, checks has
Speaker 5: got to be cash. So that leads to sort of
Speaker 5: a wanderer down State Street in Santa Barbara. First meeting
Speaker 5: with Lewis Moya and Gus Baldonado at the Woolworths and
Speaker 5: she tries to get them to take the check, and
Speaker 5: finally Louis Moya does agree. He's not happy about it,
Speaker 5: but he wants to go on a vacation. His parole
Speaker 5: officers told him he can leave town, so she goes
Speaker 5: over and cashes the check at a bank, and then
Speaker 5: that was Lewis's idea. And then they meet again at
Speaker 5: another store in Santa Barbara, and that's where she turns
Speaker 5: over part of the money. But Missus Tuckan did not
Speaker 5: want to give the whole two hundred dollars, so she
Speaker 5: keeps fifty for herself and gives the rest to Lewis.
Speaker 4: But there is a much bigger financial deal that is
Speaker 4: supposed to culminate the next week. You tell us about
Speaker 4: what she tells them.
Speaker 5: Right, Lewis says, they apparently have asked for a lot
Speaker 5: more money than two hundred dollars, And Missus Duncan says
Speaker 5: that she is going she calls it Frisco in the
Speaker 5: next week and selling some of her stock certificates. And
Speaker 5: these men are not well, not very sophisticated about those
Speaker 5: kinds of things, so she just kind of says what
Speaker 5: she wants about how she will be getting that money.
Speaker 5: And because she is going to give them the full
Speaker 5: six thousand dollars, she says, they have agreed that they
Speaker 5: will take this partial payment.
Speaker 4: Now, meanwhile, you have Detective Hanson is interviewing Frank Duncan
Speaker 4: and I think he understood that Frank's mother was supposed
Speaker 4: to accompany Frank to this police station interview, and so
Speaker 4: he asked, Frank, where is your mother? Tell us about
Speaker 4: this in the between them.
Speaker 5: Well, the reason why Frank is going to bring his
Speaker 5: mother to the police station is because when Missus Duncan
Speaker 5: got home that day after you know, giving money to
Speaker 5: Lewis and Gus, he wants to know where that check
Speaker 5: is because it was supposed to go to pay for
Speaker 5: a typewriter that he had bought, and she can't come
Speaker 5: up with a receipt or the check or anything. So
Speaker 5: she decides to say She tells him that she has
Speaker 5: been blackmailed and that she had to give the two
Speaker 5: hundred dollars to these two men that work at the
Speaker 5: Esperanza Escovaal's cafe because Frank had actually represented mister Escovall
Speaker 5: in a criminal case and Missus Eskovall was not satisfied
Speaker 5: with the outcome. Her husband had to go to jail.
Speaker 5: And so that's what Missus Duncan tells her son, that
Speaker 5: she's being blackmailed by these people because mister Escovall went
Speaker 5: to jail. So that's when Frank then says, well, he
Speaker 5: first he wants to go over to the Tropical Cafe
Speaker 5: and take care of this himself. He thinks it's ridiculous
Speaker 5: and he's furious, and she begs him not to that
Speaker 5: they'll kill him, that they threaten to kill the both
Speaker 5: of them if they don't get money back, and so
Speaker 5: Frank insists that they go to the police department and
Speaker 5: he takes his mother there. But at first, when Frank
Speaker 5: goes in to sit down with Detective Hanson, his mother
Speaker 5: isn't with him. She's sitting in the car because she
Speaker 5: doesn't want to go in. She doesn't like police, and
Speaker 5: she doesn't want to go into the police station with
Speaker 5: her son. She wants him to just tell them about it.
Speaker 4: Well, that won't work with police, so they have her
Speaker 4: come in. They suggest that if she has seen these
Speaker 4: people that have threatened her, well, then she will be
Speaker 4: able to identify them. What about that idea that she
Speaker 4: will be able to identify them and a line up
Speaker 4: and to look at some photos. Is she warmed to
Speaker 4: that idea at all?
Speaker 5: No, No, She claims that she was so afraid when
Speaker 5: she was approached. She just happened to be walking by
Speaker 5: the cafe. And they grabbed her and pulled her in
Speaker 5: that she was so afraid that she really can't remember
Speaker 5: what they looked like, and she's insisting that she wouldn't
Speaker 5: be able to identify them.
Speaker 4: They suggest that they will put a listening device on
Speaker 4: her phone, so she again is kind of hesitant to
Speaker 4: to help out police. But Frank is seriously considering putting
Speaker 4: the tap on the phone. He's in agreement, isn't he correct?
Speaker 5: Yes, he really prods his mother that we have to
Speaker 5: do this. We're not going to pay blackmailers, and so yes,
Speaker 5: he tells the police that they will have it on
Speaker 5: their phone.
Speaker 4: So what happens as moving forward with this investigation, Well.
Speaker 5: Missus Duncan doesn't seem to be able to record it.
Speaker 5: She claims that the listening device won't work, but that
Speaker 5: the callers did call in Augustine Moya called another time
Speaker 5: and she did pay them a little bit more money.
Speaker 5: But Frank is very very annoyed with his mother because
Speaker 5: it's a very simple procedure to do, but she claims
Speaker 5: it just won't work.
Speaker 4: So what about this lineup and about her reluctance to
Speaker 4: think that she can confidently identify these people? Well, what's
Speaker 4: Frank's reaction.
Speaker 5: Well, Frank, they're in that room looking through the other
Speaker 5: side of the two way mirror to see the people
Speaker 5: in the lineup, and she claims at first know that
Speaker 5: she doesn't see anybody, she doesn't recognize anybody, and Frank
Speaker 5: just gets in her face and said, come on, mother, oh,
Speaker 5: because she has already she eventually did pick mug shot out.
Speaker 5: Frank kept prodding her and prodding her. She picked a
Speaker 5: mug shot out. They brought the guy in, and when
Speaker 5: she sees in the lineup, she says, no, no, his
Speaker 5: hair's not right. That's not the guy. And Frank is
Speaker 5: really angry and gets in his mother's face and says,
Speaker 5: you know you recognize him, mother, You see him. He
Speaker 5: was one in the mugshot. And at that point the
Speaker 5: detective kind of intervenes and says, no, please, mister Duncan,
Speaker 5: You've got to leave her alone. She needs to make
Speaker 5: this investigation or this identification. But she's still him and haunted,
Speaker 5: and Frank goes at him again, and this time the
Speaker 5: detective disc is quiet because he is thinking that this
Speaker 5: extortion case is not going to go anywhere, and by
Speaker 5: that time they've already started to suspect that it is
Speaker 5: somehow linked to Olga's disappearance. So he decides to just
Speaker 5: let Frank, you know, say whatever he wants to his mother,
Speaker 5: and so after that she's sticking with it. She doesn't
Speaker 5: recognize anybody, and so when they leave that room and
Speaker 5: they go to a different part of the police station,
Speaker 5: Frank suggests that they should bring the number I forget
Speaker 5: it was number four, whoever it was that he thinks
Speaker 5: it is in the room for Missus Duncan to meet
Speaker 5: to see if she can identify him. And the two
Speaker 5: detectives talk and this is highly irregular, but they think, well,
Speaker 5: we'll just take it and see where it goes. They've
Speaker 5: sort of given up on the extortion case. And so
Speaker 5: they bring Lewis Moya in and he tries to shake
Speaker 5: hands with both of them, and Frank won't shake his hand,
Speaker 5: and again she says, no, no, this is not the guy.
Speaker 5: And when they take Lewis Moya away, she Frank just
Speaker 5: goes ballistic and he's saying, you know, that's the man
Speaker 5: that you saw in those mugshots, and this point she
Speaker 5: finally says, well, he just looks like such an innocent
Speaker 5: little lamb, I just don't like Prison's a terrible thing,
Speaker 5: and I wouldn't want anybody to have to be there.
Speaker 5: And so at that point, Frank says, I'm leaving tonight, mother,
Speaker 5: I'm going to I'm going to go and live. I'm
Speaker 5: leaving you if in the apartment, if you can't identify
Speaker 5: this man. And again the detectives know, well, this isn't
Speaker 5: going to stick for the extortion case, but they just let,
Speaker 5: you know, let it go and see what happens. And
Speaker 5: she finally says, okay, yeah, that's the guy, but I'm
Speaker 5: not going to testify against him. And if I do,
Speaker 5: the other man is still at large or you know,
Speaker 5: he's still and he will kill us and we should
Speaker 5: be afraid that he will kill us. So then the
Speaker 5: textors say, okay, well, we're done investigating the extortion case.
Speaker 5: But they're of course realize that this is possibly linked.
Speaker 5: Those two men could possibly be linked to the disappearance,
Speaker 5: because they have come to believe that Missus Duncan is
Speaker 5: involved in her daughter in law's disappearance, but they have
Speaker 5: no evidence, and so they decide to just keep moving
Speaker 5: with it in that direction.
Speaker 4: There was a woman, a very important character that is introduced.
Speaker 4: You introduced. It's an older woman, she's eighty three or
Speaker 4: eighty four years old, and her name is Emma Short,
Speaker 4: and she is with Betty Duncan Elizabeth Duncan, and so
Speaker 4: the police think, well, maybe we should interview this woman.
Speaker 4: And of course not to raise arouse suspicion, but when
Speaker 4: they say we'd like to speak to your friend, of
Speaker 4: course Missus Duncan says, you don't need to talk to her.
Speaker 4: She doesn't know anything, you don't need to talk to her.
Speaker 4: So they go talk to her. What does Emma Short
Speaker 4: have to say?
Speaker 5: Well, yes, they live in the same apartment building. Emma
Speaker 5: lives downstairs, Missus Duncan lives in the upstairs apartment just above,
Speaker 5: so she kind of keeps an eye on Emma. And
Speaker 5: so they decide to have to both go to the
Speaker 5: apartment building. A Detective Hanson goes upstairs to talk to
Speaker 5: missus Duncan and try to work out things with that
Speaker 5: listening device that she's having trouble with that's just to
Speaker 5: keep her busy. And Detective Thompson goes to see Emma
Speaker 5: and at first she just doesn't want to say anything.
Speaker 5: She's very afraid, but she is like I would call
Speaker 5: a sidekick. She goes everywhere with Missus Duncan, so she's
Speaker 5: been a witness to all that has been going on.
Speaker 5: And so finally Detective Thompson convinces her that she needs
Speaker 5: to tell them what happened, and Emma says she's afraid
Speaker 5: that Missus Duncan does things to people who cross her,
Speaker 5: but Thompson convinces her that they will protect her, so
Speaker 5: they leave to go to the Santa Barbara police station
Speaker 5: to have a real interview with missus short and little
Speaker 5: at a time. When they're there, she tells them about
Speaker 5: the the extortion case, that she made that up about
Speaker 5: that because she had to tell them something about the checks.
Speaker 5: She lets them know that there was a phony andnlment
Speaker 5: that Missus Duncan try impersonated her her daughter in law
Speaker 5: and got another guy to play Frank. That she went
Speaker 5: to get their marriage galed, and then when that didn't work,
Speaker 5: she started looking shopping around, as they've said, for someone
Speaker 5: to get rid of Olga.
Speaker 4: Now, how do they get to back to Esperanza Escoval
Speaker 4: and the names Lewis Moya and Gus Baldonado come to
Speaker 4: police's attention.
Speaker 5: Well, it actually at first is not through Missus Escoval.
Speaker 5: I mean, she doesn't tell them the names right away.
Speaker 5: But when they see that, they know that Lewis Moya,
Speaker 5: who was finally identified in one of the mugshots and
Speaker 5: was in the lineup, They know that he hangs out
Speaker 5: at the Tropical Cafe, and so they decide that they're
Speaker 5: going to talk to missus who absolutely at first denies
Speaker 5: that she was upset with her her husband's legal representation.
Speaker 5: There was no blackmailing, no anything. But once Missus Short
Speaker 5: starts to talk, she says that Lewis Moya and she
Speaker 5: can't really remember Gus's name, she calls him Gus Baldo.
Speaker 5: So then they go back and they talk to Missus Eskivall.
Speaker 5: They bring her into for questioning. After Missus Short has
Speaker 5: sort of spilled the beans, they bring Missus Eskovall in
Speaker 5: for questioning and she tells how Missus Duncan came looking
Speaker 5: for somebody to help her get rid of her daughter
Speaker 5: in law and that she introduced them to Lewis Moya
Speaker 5: and Gus Waldonado.
Speaker 4: Now with this information, the police have to make a
Speaker 4: decision on how to conduct themselves. Most effectively so many times,
Speaker 4: and in this particular case, they look for ways to
Speaker 4: arrest them without revealing what the actual charges are in
Speaker 4: this particular cases conspiracy to murder. Tell us how they
Speaker 4: go about that with these two persons.
Speaker 5: Well, Lewis Moya was on probation. He had recently got
Speaker 5: out of state prison before he came to Santa Barbara,
Speaker 5: so he had broken some of the terms of his
Speaker 5: probation just by hanging out at the Tropical Cafe with
Speaker 5: Baldinado because there were other ex felons there and actually
Speaker 5: driving a car while you were on probation was something
Speaker 5: that you weren't allowed to do. So they arrested Lewis
Speaker 5: Moya on probation violations and put him in the Santa
Speaker 5: Barbara jail, and then Gus Baldonado in their investigation of him.
Speaker 5: He had three children for three children too had just
Speaker 5: recently been born, and he never paid any child support. Well,
Speaker 5: in nineteen fifty eight, you could actually be jailed for
Speaker 5: failure to pay support, and they got his. It was
Speaker 5: an ex wife at that point, even though he fathered
Speaker 5: those two new children. She did file the complaint. They
Speaker 5: pressured her to do that. So they picked up Augus
Speaker 5: Baldonado on failure to support charges and he was put
Speaker 5: in the Ventura jail because that's where his ex wife lived,
Speaker 5: was in Ventura County. And then they started to interview them.
Speaker 4: Okay, so they get to the interviews. What did they
Speaker 4: realize again about weaklink? How they're going to approach them,
Speaker 4: who to approach, who has decided that is the weak
Speaker 4: link and why? And then how do they approach him?
Speaker 4: How do they get confession from them?
Speaker 5: Well, I think maybe I'd like to talk a little
Speaker 5: bit about that phony and noment as Missus Duncan was
Speaker 5: arrested at the same time as all of this. So
Speaker 5: once they got the information from Missus Short about her
Speaker 5: getting this phony and Noma for her son and Oga
Speaker 5: by impersonating Oga and getting somebody to impersonate Frank, they
Speaker 5: decided that they sent people down to Ventura, which is
Speaker 5: where she went. She went to Ventura County across the
Speaker 5: Santa Barbara line to get this phony and Noma because
Speaker 5: she was too afraid that people in the courts would
Speaker 5: know Frank. And so once they did they got that information,
Speaker 5: they realized that they would need to talk to the
Speaker 5: Ventura County District Attorney who was Gustison, Roy Gustison, and
Speaker 5: to get him to file a complaint for the arrest
Speaker 5: of Missus Duncan. So she was also in jail in
Speaker 5: Ventura and on the charges of forgery for forging things
Speaker 5: and that a moment, so they're all three in jail
Speaker 5: and so now with the weak link, Thompson, Detective Thompson
Speaker 5: is sent to the preliminary hearing of Missus Duncan on
Speaker 5: this forgery charge in case he needs to give testimony
Speaker 5: because the DA in Santa Barbara does not want Missus
Speaker 5: Duncan let out on bail. He's afraid at this point
Speaker 5: she is going to run if she gets out on
Speaker 5: bail when she knows they've arrested Mooyan and Baldon Autumn
Speaker 5: two and so after the hearing and Missus Duncan is
Speaker 5: held over on a very high amount of bail that
Speaker 5: she can't you know, wouldn't be able to come up
Speaker 5: with the money to pay, Thompson goes up to gustuson
Speaker 5: office and they talk about who would be the week link.
Speaker 5: And here's where Roy Gustison comes in. This isn't really
Speaker 5: a crime that happened in his county. He is the
Speaker 5: Ventura DA and it happened at kidnapping at least disappearance
Speaker 5: was in Santa Barbara. But Roy is a very ambitious guy.
Speaker 5: He's in his starting his third term as the DA
Speaker 5: Ventura County and he's only forty two years old. He
Speaker 5: got first got elected in his early thirties, so and
Speaker 5: he is a very much a hard line guy as
Speaker 5: far as crime and punishment, so he would really like
Speaker 5: he's very he feels very strongly about these people having
Speaker 5: taken Oga and what has happened to her, so he
Speaker 5: really wants to help and he decides that when this
Speaker 5: discussion that Gus Baldonado would be the week link. Gus
Speaker 5: is not the brightest guy in the world, where Lewis
Speaker 5: Moya is a very savvy guy. He started as a
Speaker 5: dishwasher at this restaurant in Santa Barbara and within about
Speaker 5: six months worked his way up to night manager. He
Speaker 5: is very intall he's been to prison before. No way
Speaker 5: is he going to talk and Missus Duncan has Frank
Speaker 5: advising her to be to stay silent, so they feel
Speaker 5: that Gus is the only way that they're going to
Speaker 5: find out what really happened.
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Speaker 4: anywhere anytime. Now. We talked about the week link and
Speaker 4: all of the information that comes from Gus Baldonado, and
Speaker 4: you chronicle in your book the assistance of a reverend
Speaker 4: and a pastor and these people's contribution to extracting or
Speaker 4: soliciting these confessions from these two killers, first from Baldonado
Speaker 4: and then reluctantly and then finally from Lewis Moya as well.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about the details that the police learned through that.
Speaker 4: And as a result, you already mentioned Roy Gustafson and
Speaker 4: his need and desire to prosecute these two these three
Speaker 4: killers to the utmost of the law. Tell us what
Speaker 4: he finds out as well, because he is part of
Speaker 4: this investigation. He wanted to be part of this investigation
Speaker 4: to help solve this case. What did they find out
Speaker 4: from these two killers.
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I think i'll mention that there
Speaker 5: was no miranda warning in nineteen fifty eight, right, so
Speaker 5: these men were not They could not afford an attorney
Speaker 5: and so none was appointed to them while they were
Speaker 5: being questioned. At that point people got three attorneys, but
Speaker 5: it wasn't until they were actually charged in court for
Speaker 5: the crime, so they had nobody giving them advice on
Speaker 5: what they should do. Moya was interrogated by two men.
Speaker 5: One was the investigator, Roy Gustusen's DA investigator and another
Speaker 5: by a deputy sheriff who it turns out had known
Speaker 5: best Baldonado when he was a boy in Camerio. Gus
Speaker 5: had been in minor trouble his entire life, and he
Speaker 5: had a very dysfunctional home and so he tried to
Speaker 5: use that connection that he had in the investigation. And
Speaker 5: so eventually it took a while. The deputy to deputy
Speaker 5: Deputy Higgins convinced Baldonado that he needed to talk now
Speaker 5: because if he waited till Moya and Missus Duncan talked,
Speaker 5: then they would probably blame everything on him. So he
Speaker 5: did confess to what had happened, and he agreed that
Speaker 5: he would lead the detectives to where Ogus's body was buried,
Speaker 5: and he told them that they did this because Missus
Speaker 5: Duncan paid them to do this. So then once the
Speaker 5: body was discovered, you know, that was huge news in
Speaker 5: the community. And they went up to see Moya, who
Speaker 5: is still in jail on parole violation charges in Santa Barbara,
Speaker 5: and they went up to get him because they had
Speaker 5: arranged for the parole officer that was okay to hold
Speaker 5: him in Ventura as much as Santa Barbara. And when
Speaker 5: they were bringing him back, he'd said that he was trying.
Speaker 5: He had tried to get his mother to get him
Speaker 5: an attorney, but she hadn't hadn't been able to get
Speaker 5: the money together to do that yet. But he wanted
Speaker 5: to speak to a reverend when he got to Ventura.
Speaker 5: This was discussion was taking place on the drive down
Speaker 5: to Ventura, and he said, that's free, right, I could
Speaker 5: speak to a reverend, somebody who has a real church,
Speaker 5: and you know, I think that. The detective said, then
Speaker 5: you mean a priest, and he said, no, no, I
Speaker 5: want to speak to reverend who has a church of
Speaker 5: his own. So when they got to Ventura, they tried
Speaker 5: to oh, Reverend Gilbert, who is the reverend that used
Speaker 5: to come and help out with prisoners, helped counsel prison
Speaker 5: prisoners at the jail. It was just before Christmas and
Speaker 5: all this body was born was discovered on December twenty first,
Speaker 5: and rosistant plan to have grand jury indict them if
Speaker 5: possible on December twenty sixth. So Reverend Gilbert was just
Speaker 5: too busy with all of the things going on at
Speaker 5: church for Christmas time, and he said he couldn't come
Speaker 5: over until the night of Christmas, December twenty fifth, and
Speaker 5: when he did come over, and I know this because
Speaker 5: Reverend Gilbert later testified it at Moya's triable about what
Speaker 5: happened in that room. He told Moya. Moya wanted to
Speaker 5: save his soul. He really was worried that he was
Speaker 5: going to go to hell because he knew he had
Speaker 5: committed this terrible murder right, and he told the reverend
Speaker 5: that he wanted him to pray with him and asked
Speaker 5: him if he could have a Bible. And Reverend Gilbert said,
Speaker 5: you know, as long as you're going to lie about
Speaker 5: this to men, you cannot Your soul cannot be saved.
Speaker 5: And he said if if you unless you confess to men,
Speaker 5: it's not good enough just to confess to God that
Speaker 5: you have committed his crime. So Moya accepted that, and
Speaker 5: the reverend left and he told I guess it was
Speaker 5: Roy Higgins. On the way out, the deputy Ray Higgins
Speaker 5: that he thought he was ready to talk to you soon,
Speaker 5: and Ragis waited around the jail, and eventually, somewhere around midnight,
Speaker 5: Moya said that he was he'd like to talk to
Speaker 5: Deputy Higgins. And that's when Moya confessed, and he pretty
Speaker 5: much told the same story as as Gus Baldonatto. So
Speaker 5: Roy Guphison, the DA ventured, DA got wored that night
Speaker 5: and he started redoing his questions for the district attorney
Speaker 5: and for the grand jury. And the next morning is
Speaker 5: when they held the grand jury, and there was Moya testified,
Speaker 5: Baldonado testified, Missus Barnett, the land lady. All of these
Speaker 5: witness testified to what had happened in the grand jury
Speaker 5: and died. Missus Duncan didn't testify, hurt, and Roy Guphison
Speaker 5: decided not to worry about that, not the caller, and
Speaker 5: Frank Duncan even testified, and of course trying to say
Speaker 5: his mother was innocent. But the grand jury indicted all
Speaker 5: three of the best suspected killers for all of us murder.
Speaker 5: Something interesting I think happened. As a reader, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm a true crime I'm interested in those kinds of things,
Speaker 5: and so I always read about current crimes in the
Speaker 5: newspapers and I just don't think this ever happens. But
Speaker 5: what happened is the day after the grand jury Roy
Speaker 5: Guftuson it was his prerogative to do this, released all
Speaker 5: of the transcripts from the grand jury to the press.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: So, as Lord Sullivan, Missus Duncan's attorney said, you know,
Speaker 5: it was like all of the potential jurors in the
Speaker 5: county reading a serialized account what went on in the
Speaker 5: grand jury. So people all over the county were reading
Speaker 5: what Moya had said, and what Aldanatto had said, and
Speaker 5: what Missus short had said. So and that's why Lord
Speaker 5: Sullivan that the attorney for Missus Duncan tried to get
Speaker 5: a change of venue for the trial, but the judge
Speaker 5: did not grant that.
Speaker 4: We haven't mentioned that your father all along the way
Speaker 4: has been reporting on this, but also that he had
Speaker 4: some insider information within the police, person by Charlie de Tech.
Speaker 4: We already mentioned Charlie Thompson. What are some of the
Speaker 4: kinds of things that your father was privy to and
Speaker 4: had information which helped inform some of his articles as well.
Speaker 5: Well. He did have. It was you know, it was
Speaker 5: a much smaller towns and the police, and there wasn't
Speaker 5: quite the boundary that goes up I think today between
Speaker 5: the police investigation and newspaper reporters. So I can't tell
Speaker 5: you exactly everything that he knew, but he was talking
Speaker 5: to witnesses about Missus Duncan, about her history. He was
Speaker 5: talking to Charlie Thompson, and Charlie was didn't of course
Speaker 5: release all of the details about his interview with Missus
Speaker 5: Short and then some of the interviews, but he was
Speaker 5: giving him things that he thought was important to the
Speaker 5: investigation of the crime and how maybe the public would
Speaker 5: be able to if they had seen something or heard
Speaker 5: something that that would be important, and then they would
Speaker 5: go to the police. So those are the kinds of
Speaker 5: things that Charlie released. And I don't believe that Roy Gustuson,
Speaker 5: although my dad felt like he was later years almost
Speaker 5: a friend of Roy's. I mean, he was a very
Speaker 5: meticulous da and he wouldn't have done or said anything
Speaker 5: that he thought might have a negative effect on his
Speaker 5: ability to prosecute these killers.
Speaker 4: Now let's talk about this incredible trial, but also along
Speaker 4: the way you have been following this case, reading what
Speaker 4: your father has written, to seeing all of the reports.
Speaker 4: This has been covered by, as you say, in the
Speaker 4: trial a thirty journalist. There's TV, radio, newswire services. There
Speaker 4: is a newspaper, so this is a big deal and
Speaker 4: these are sensational headlines that accompany these stories. And Missus
Speaker 4: Duncan is a highly awaited person at this trial, isn't she?
Speaker 4: With her son? Even though he's a witness, He is
Speaker 4: allowed to be in at the trial through the entire
Speaker 4: duration despite being a witness, and that would again is
Speaker 4: non typical to be allowed.
Speaker 5: He sits right behind the defense table and what Sullivan
Speaker 5: has asked for him to be allowed in court because
Speaker 5: he says that he's a vital piece of her defense
Speaker 5: and so it's up to the DA whether he would
Speaker 5: allow that. And Roy Guphison says, well, okay, if Frank's
Speaker 5: going to be in the courtroom, then any of my
Speaker 5: witnesses can also be in court when others are testifying.
Speaker 5: And so that was agreed to, and Frank was there
Speaker 5: the entire time.
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Speaker 4: Now back to the trial, Missus Duncan. Is there this again?
Speaker 4: Vivid picture of what's going on at this trial with
Speaker 4: all these characters present, Frank comforting his mother, but his
Speaker 4: mother exhibits. Her demeanor at this trial is very very interesting.
Speaker 4: Tell us some of the things that she does when
Speaker 4: witnesses testify against her right.
Speaker 5: She's very volatile to say the least, and she sometimes
Speaker 5: just disrupts court and will call out that they're lying,
Speaker 5: that they're liars. She's called the da a son of
Speaker 5: a bitch a couple of times, and at one point,
Speaker 5: when she feels he's too close to her while he's
Speaker 5: asking the questions since she's in the witness box, she
Speaker 5: actually raises her hands as if she's going to hit him.
Speaker 5: But that's those things. Also, she can also be very
Speaker 5: charming and so when she gets and that's why Guphisen
Speaker 5: is trying to provoke her when he's asking her questions,
Speaker 5: because he's afraid that from the beginning of the trial,
Speaker 5: where she has been charming when Sullivan first asked was
Speaker 5: asking her questions, that they might think that she's just
Speaker 5: this sweet mother who maybe was too attached to her son,
Speaker 5: and she's always worried it only takes one to hang
Speaker 5: a jury, and so he's very concerned about that. And
Speaker 5: you know, I realized also, if you want me to
Speaker 5: discuss it now, is we started to talk about my
Speaker 5: reading of the newspapers and my really obsession with this
Speaker 5: case because it is a true crime memoir and I
Speaker 5: have kind of in the chapters that have to do
Speaker 5: with my family. My father wrote this somewhat whimsical column
Speaker 5: about our family that was appearing in the same newspaper
Speaker 5: as the stories of the crime that he was covering.
Speaker 5: And so so I go back and forth about my
Speaker 5: concern about Olga, my worry about her and what has happened,
Speaker 5: and my you know, it's kind of a hard nosed
Speaker 5: little girl, maybe a little like Roy Gufsison, and I
Speaker 5: think children sometimes are. That's very black and white about
Speaker 5: right and wrong, and as I can tell you as
Speaker 5: a school principle that yeah, children don't see the gray areas.
Speaker 5: They feel that if somebody is done wrong, they should
Speaker 5: be punished for it. And my dad also there is
Speaker 5: humor in this book because his columns were humorous and
Speaker 5: he was just kind of a very funny guy. And
Speaker 5: I know that that sounds odd to pair that with
Speaker 5: a true crime story, but this is the life that
Speaker 5: I lived, and it seems very normal for me to
Speaker 5: have kind of a dark humor life going on at
Speaker 5: the same time that there was a true crime pace
Speaker 5: going on. And I sometimes when people used to ask
Speaker 5: me about the book I used, and they say, well,
Speaker 5: what's about And I said, well, it's kind of like
Speaker 5: Dave Barry meets and Rule in Fargo, because it's Dave
Speaker 5: Barie wrote. Some of your listeners aren't familiar with him.
Speaker 5: He wrote a very humorous column that was frequently about
Speaker 5: his family and Rule everybody knows wrote True Crime and Fargo.
Speaker 5: That movie it was these Bumbling Killers, and there were
Speaker 5: parts that were almost humorous. So I think that that
Speaker 5: somewhat describes the book because there is a lot about
Speaker 5: what was going on life in the nineteen fifties. It
Speaker 5: was a much more innocent time and it was really
Speaker 5: just sort of on the cusp of when everything started
Speaker 5: to change in society. It's just before the beginning of
Speaker 5: the nineteen sixties, you know, when President Kennedy was elected
Speaker 5: and then assassinated, and you know, things changed during that time.
Speaker 5: And I do believe that part of what I was
Speaker 5: so taken with this crime, and it was such a
Speaker 5: pivotal moment for me to discover that she'd been kidnapped
Speaker 5: and then murdered, was that things like this didn't happen
Speaker 5: in small time America. Maybe it happened down in Los Angeles,
Speaker 5: are up in San Francisco, I didn't know, but not
Speaker 5: in my very unsophisticated little community. So there is kind
Speaker 5: of a contrast between what goes on in everyday life
Speaker 5: in the nineteen fifties and then what has happened to
Speaker 5: Olga Duncan.
Speaker 4: Back to this trial, and this is a death penalty case, again,
Speaker 4: something that California has grappled with in many states, and federally,
Speaker 4: society has grappled over the death penalty itself. In this
Speaker 4: particular case, you talk about Roy Gustafson, their attorneys Baldonado
Speaker 4: and Moya, approached him about the possibility of having a
Speaker 4: life sentence and what was his reaction. And let's get
Speaker 4: back to the trial and the details that Frank Duncan,
Speaker 4: the person that didn't believe his mother could hurt a chicken,
Speaker 4: apparently the details that he gets to unfortunately hear about
Speaker 4: how his wife was killed.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, yes, Moya and Baldonado, who both had very
Speaker 5: good attorneys appointed for them, tried to get Roy Gushison
Speaker 5: to agree to take the death penalty off the table.
Speaker 5: But the death penalty in nineteen fifty eight was that
Speaker 5: you were eligible for parole after seven years, and Roy Guftison,
Speaker 5: even though that would have been unlikely, was not about
Speaker 5: to do that. He did agree to separate their trials
Speaker 5: from Missus Duncan if they would testify against her. And
Speaker 5: so that's why Moya and Baldonado testified against Missus Duncan
Speaker 5: with no assurance that they wouldn't receive the death penalty,
Speaker 5: and Frank heard he listened to. It was when Moya
Speaker 5: was testifying the excruciating details of how they had taken
Speaker 5: all out of her apartment beat her and strangled her
Speaker 5: in the car as they drove away. The car was
Speaker 5: having car trouble, so instead of going all the way
Speaker 5: to Mexico, which was the original plan, they drove off
Speaker 5: on a road and headed towards Ohi and there about
Speaker 5: six miles across the county line into Ventura. They killed
Speaker 5: Olga and buried her in a shallow grave. And it
Speaker 5: was very detailed what Moya said about the killing, the
Speaker 5: beating her with the gun, the breaking the gun, strangling her,
Speaker 5: finally hitting her with a rock, and Frank just couldn't
Speaker 5: listen to it. He finally jumped out pat part way
Speaker 5: through and ran from the court the courtroom, and his
Speaker 5: mother was calling after her after him at the time.
Speaker 5: And there's a picture in the book, an associated press picture,
Speaker 5: that shows Frank leaning down with his hand on his head.
Speaker 5: He looks very upset, and Missus Duncan is sitting there
Speaker 5: looking at her son with her her arms crossed and
Speaker 5: just kind of giving him a disgusted look. And it
Speaker 5: turns out because I have the associated press picture, so
Speaker 5: they give the caption that this picture was taken when
Speaker 5: Moya was discussing the details of his wife's murder.
Speaker 4: Incredible, It doesn't take long for this jury, despite the
Speaker 4: vigorous defense by war Lord Sullivan and his team, what
Speaker 4: is the verdict?
Speaker 5: Well, and I will say Ward Sullivan insisted that this
Speaker 5: was still the extortion that these men were trying to
Speaker 5: get money out of Missus Duncan to pay back Missus Escobal.
Speaker 5: So the jury takes I believe it was three hours,
Speaker 5: three and a half hours into a guilty verdict.
Speaker 4: And a death penalty, and then the trials of Baldonado
Speaker 4: happened shortly after and OI as well, there's the same
Speaker 4: results death penalty right, Well.
Speaker 5: They had already pleaded guilty because obviously were testified, so
Speaker 5: it was just over the penalty phase. And they also
Speaker 5: received the death penalty. And I thought that the judge
Speaker 5: in the in the book, he was also in his eighties.
Speaker 5: Judge Blackstock said before he passed their death penalty, is
Speaker 5: anybody who thinks that I haven't thought about this penalty
Speaker 5: day and night and every hour all in between is
Speaker 5: wrong and that if you're going to be a judge,
Speaker 5: you have to be a judge. And he pronounced the
Speaker 5: death at least for those.
Speaker 4: Two also absolutely and as per typically there was an
Speaker 4: appeals process in California. They went through that entire process
Speaker 4: and all those sentences and convictions were affirmed was.
Speaker 5: Right they were. And at the time it was Governor
Speaker 5: Edmund Brown was the governor and he had run on
Speaker 5: a campaign. He mentioned it. It wasn't like a big thing
Speaker 5: in his campaign, but he wanted to do away with
Speaker 5: the death penalty when he was in office, and he
Speaker 5: turned the ultimately appealed to him to commute the sentence
Speaker 5: at the end, and he wouldn't do it. Even for him.
Speaker 5: Somebody who was opposed to the death penalty couldn't step
Speaker 5: in for these three because it was just such a
Speaker 5: heinous crime.
Speaker 4: You speak about these any kind of sympathy for these
Speaker 4: two criminals. In July of nineteen sixty, what are these
Speaker 4: two guys involved with?
Speaker 5: They try to make They try to escape from San Quentin.
Speaker 5: From San Quentin for a very big prison in California
Speaker 5: where death row is and I don't know exactly what
Speaker 5: they were thinking, but they they really didn't have a prayer,
Speaker 5: but they when a guard was down in the cell block,
Speaker 5: one of them attacked and they were with other inmates
Speaker 5: and they eventually got him out of there too with
Speaker 5: tear gas and died the jail.
Speaker 4: Break when finally all the appeals were exhausted and their
Speaker 4: execution date was finally set. There are certain people that
Speaker 4: attend this execution. Your father, Bob Holt, was he one
Speaker 4: of those people that attended.
Speaker 5: Yes, all the executions happened on the same day, August eighth,
Speaker 5: I believe it was nineteen sixty two. Moya and Baldonado
Speaker 5: were Actually they had two chairs in the gas chamber.
Speaker 5: We believe that, so that both of them were executed
Speaker 5: at the same time in Missus Duncan later that afternoon,
Speaker 5: and my father was there to witness all three of
Speaker 5: the executions.
Speaker 4: Was there any statements, any interesting statements from any of
Speaker 4: the defendants.
Speaker 5: Well, when and Moy and Baldonado were led into the
Speaker 5: gas chamber, Moya Moya was very subdued, but Baldonatto was
Speaker 5: just being very jovial and kind of joking around and
Speaker 5: waving at people that we could see on the other
Speaker 5: side of the glass that were there to witness the executions.
Speaker 5: And Missus Duncan when she was brought in, just before
Speaker 5: she went into the chamber, she asked the warden where's
Speaker 5: my son? Where's Frankie? And he wasn't there. He was
Speaker 5: down at the appeals court in San Francisco making one
Speaker 5: last try to get the execution stopped.
Speaker 4: Now, this book, you say, is a tribute to your father.
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about the effort to put
Speaker 4: this book together and that tribute to your father.
Speaker 5: The effort to put this book together, it took me
Speaker 5: nine years, obviously not constantly writing, but you know, I
Speaker 5: tried to write it in a number of different ways.
Speaker 5: At first, I thought I was going to fictionalize the story,
Speaker 5: but that just didn't work. It was stranger in fiction, right,
Speaker 5: So that all of these transcripts, there's five thousand pages
Speaker 5: of trial transcripts, also had an unpublished account written by
Speaker 5: Roy Gushison that I was able to look at to
Speaker 5: give me insight into the trial. So a lot of
Speaker 5: what you see as far as dialogue in the scenes,
Speaker 5: I got from the transcript. So these people actually said
Speaker 5: these things both in the trial, and then I got
Speaker 5: some of the stuff from the I decided not to
Speaker 5: have to write about the grand jury, just the results,
Speaker 5: but there was a lot of testimony in the grand
Speaker 5: jury that I could use, so that what the people
Speaker 5: involved said was authentic, that these were words that they'd
Speaker 5: actually set in court or that they had given in
Speaker 5: a newspaper story, and a lot of them were interviewed
Speaker 5: for newspaper stories.
Speaker 4: And so you write near the end or at the end,
Speaker 4: you say that this book was something an idea that
Speaker 4: your father had, but you just never got around to it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: He was always going to be said he was going
Speaker 5: to write an account of the Duncan cases. That's what
Speaker 5: he referred to it as the Remarkable Duncan Case. But
Speaker 5: you know, I thought of writing it in just a
Speaker 5: straight true crime at the beginning, but it's very complicated
Speaker 5: and it's kind of it's not easy to do that
Speaker 5: way because we sort of knew who the killer was
Speaker 5: right from the get go. But he died suddenly. He
Speaker 5: retired at sixty five, and that's when he was going
Speaker 5: to write this, But he passed away suddenly when he
Speaker 5: was sixty nine, so there were only four years, and
Speaker 5: he did have a lot of files, but he hadn't
Speaker 5: written any chapters or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Well, I want to congratulate you on this book because
Speaker 4: I'm certainly certain that he would be very, very proud
Speaker 4: and very very happy with what has happened with this book,
Speaker 4: A Lovely Girl, The Tragedy of Oga Duncan and the
Speaker 4: Trial of one of California's most notorious killers. I want
Speaker 4: to thank you very much Deborah Larkin for coming on
Speaker 4: and talking about this book. Is there any social media do?
Speaker 4: Do you have a website? Tell us about that if
Speaker 4: you can't.
Speaker 5: Yes, I have a website Deborahholelarkin dot com. I have
Speaker 5: an author page on Facebook Deborah Hult Larkin Author and
Speaker 5: I also well, I don't. My Goodreads author page isn't
Speaker 5: really up and gone going yet but.
Speaker 4: Soon another source. Yes, thank you so much again, thank
Speaker 4: you so much. A Lovely Girl, The Tragedy of Olga
Speaker 4: Duncan and the Trial of one of California's most notorious killers.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for this interview, for great evening.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me Dan.
Speaker 4: Thank you