A Lovely Girl: An Interview with author Deborah Holt Larkin

November, 1958, a pregnant nurse Olga Duncan goes missing from her apartment in Santa Barbara California, the story that follows is one that author Deborah Holt Larkin explores in her book A Lovely Girl. We talk to Deborah about her new book, the connections that she has to this case as her father, a newspaper reporter covers this case from Olga's disappearance to the arrest of her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Duncan, who will become the last woman put to death in California. On this episode of California True Crime “A Lovely Girl.”

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Dark Cast Network. The Light shinesBrightest on our indie podcasts. In November
of nineteen fifty eight, pregnant nurseOlga Duncan goes missing from her apartment in
Santa Barbara, California. She willnever be seen alive again. The story
that follows involves a jealous mother inlaw, two killers for hire, and
a fake extortion racket, one thatauthor Deborah Holt Larkin explores in her book

(00:24):
A Lovely Girl, the tragedy ofOlga Duncan, and the trial of one
of California's most notorious killers. Wetalked to Deborah about her book, growing
up in Ventura, California, andthe work of her father, a local
newspaper reporter, who was the primarysource and inspiration for the book, on
this episode of California True Crime,A Lovely Girl. Welcome to this episode

(01:18):
of California True Crime. I'm Charlesand I'm excited to be with you on
this episode because we're doing something alittle bit different than our normal episode.
We have the honor of having DeborahHolt Larkin, whose book A Lovely Girl,
the tragedy of Olga Duncan, andthe trial of one of California's Most
Notorious Killers, is our guest todayon California True Crime. Her book is
coming out October fourth. Welcome Deborah, and thank you very much for coming

(01:42):
on and talking with us. Thankyou for having me, Charles. I'm
excited to talk to you about alovely Girl tonight. Now, this book
covers a crime in California that is, it's very infamous. We were lucky
enough to get an advanced copy ofthe book. I can honestly say that
everyone who's listening to this needs togo out and get a copy of this.
It was an excellent read and reallyas crazy as you might think the

(02:07):
story is, it's not half ascrazy as when you really get into the
meat of it. So this mustbe a really exciting week for you.
Your book's coming out in just afew days. So first off, congratulations,
thank you. And before we diveinto the book, can you tell
us a little bit about yourself andwhere you're from and how you got your
start at writing well as from youcan see from the book, I grew

(02:30):
up in Ventura where this trial,this famous trial took place, and I
then went on to the University ofCalifornia Davis and got a degree in American
literature, and when I went awayto college, I told myself, well,

(02:52):
I'm not sure what I want tobe, or we tell other people,
I'm not sure what I want tobe, but I know I don't
want to be a teacher. Ihad that, Damn, I don't want
to be a teacher, And secretlyI hoped to be a writer, but
you know, that seemed like sortof a lofty goal, and I didn't
My dad was a writer, anewspaper reporter, and so I kind of
knew that it, you know,what writing took, but that always was

(03:15):
in the back of my mind.And when I got to Davis there was
no real creative writing program or anything. So I ended up majoring in that
literature American leadership program. And whenI graduated, I got sidetracked because,
like a lot of women in thenineteen seventies, I got my went on,
got my teaching credential, ended upbeing a teacher, and I absolutely

(03:38):
loved education. I loved my career. I was a teacher, and then
I was fifteen years at principle ofan elementary school. But I really never
quite gave up my dream of beinga writer. So I started while I
was still a principal. I startenrolling. I enrolled in the a creative

(04:03):
writing program at University of California atSan Diego, and I started writing,
and this case, the Olga DuncanMurder and the story of Elizabeth Duncan just
stuck with me because when I wasyoung, I became I was ten years

(04:24):
old, what had happened, andit was just this pivotal moment in my
life that something like this, thatsomeone could just disappear into the night and
something so terrible could be, youknow, could be this good person could
end up murdered and buried on aroad that I was very familiar with.
So it always it stayed with me, and my dad covered the case.

(04:48):
I had a lot of his files, and when I started writing, I
planned to fictionalize it. That's whatI thought. I thought I was going
to write mysteries fiction, and butyou know what, I wrote numerous chapters
and not on the number of unfinishedbooks to try to tell this story in

(05:13):
fiction. But I always got stuckbecause I realized for my classes that the
story is so really crazy and unusualthat a publisher editor might say that this
is too unbelievable to be a fiction. So the truth is stranger than fiction.

(05:34):
And then I started and I decidedI wanted to go ahead and write
the true crime version, that writeit in the creative nonfiction genre, so
it would read more like a novel. And so so that answer a question,

(05:54):
No, that's perfect, and beforebecause before we dive into that,
because we have a lot of questionsthat really want to get it to meet.
But this, this case of Elizabethand Olga, like you said,
it's so crazy that I'm with you. If you pitch this to some you

(06:15):
know, to a met producer orlike, they wouldn't believe you. This
case is one that we've actually inCalifornia true Crime I wanted to cover almost
from when we started. Actually,Jessica has had this on the list from
almost day one. And it involvesthis horrific murder in nineteen fifty eight.
And you know you talk about inyour book that and you just mentioned that

(06:36):
it really draws you to true crime. Can you give a little background on
this case and maybe just the highpoints of really what who are these women
and what was involved in fifty eight? Okay, Well, a young Canadian
nurse had come to Santa Barbara,California because she got a job at a

(06:57):
hospital in Santa Barbara. And inthe no good de gooes unpunished, Missus
Duncan tried to commit suicide by takingan overdose of pills, and this Elizabeth
Duncan ended up in the hospital.Olga was one of the nurses that was,

(07:17):
you know, helping, you know, bringing her back her health.
She was she was one of missusDuncan's nurses, and she met missus Duncan's
son, Frank, who was ayoung criminal defense attorney in Santa Barbara.
And from the get go, ElizabethDuncan hated Olga. She didn't want her

(07:38):
son to have anything to do withher because she really she didn't want to
Frank to get married because she didn'twant to lose his financial support so well
me so once they got married,secretly Frank didn't tell his mother they were
getting married. They got married.By this point, Olga was already pregnant.

(07:59):
He probably only lived with her fulltime. Frank only lived with her
for about three weeks, and MissusDuncan just started harassing Oga and calling her
and telling her she was no goodand she and she she was called her
a foreigner. Olga was from Canada, and missus Duncan said she didn't want

(08:22):
her son to be married to anyforeigner, so that was supposedly one of
the things that she didn't like aboutOlga. So Frank got uh they he
kept seeing Olga and when Frank testified, he said he thought that if he
could just keep kind of things onan even keel, that his mother would

(08:46):
come around when the baby was born. So he really that's why he was
living, according to him, athis mother's apartment. So the belief that
if he if he stayed, ifhe stayed there with his mom kind of
coaxing her and showing, Olga's mywife, We're going to have a child,
and right, that's what Frank thought. He should have known better because

(09:09):
he knew his mother. But hetestified on the stand that he at the
trial that he felt like a yoyo trying to please two women and it
was impossible. So Olga was livingon her own apartments in Santa Barbara and

(09:31):
she disappeared. She disappeared from herher apartment one night and her she had
her nurse friends reported her missing becauseshe didn't show up at her work the
next morning, she was a surgicalnurse and she didn't come in and that
wasn't like her at all. Andso the Santa Barbara Police were investigating this

(09:56):
crime for this whole month. Theywere they just they kind of had suspicions,
they had what they had heard aboutmissus Duncan's treatment of Olga, but
they had absolutely no evidence, andshe was insisting that she had nothing to

(10:18):
do with it, didn't know whereOlga was, that Olga probably just ran
off, and even Frank was sayingthat. He was saying, Oh,
I think she's mad at me becauseI was living with my mother and she's
just really doing this to upset meand make me look bad. And so
eventually the Santa Barbara Police were ableto interview some of missus Duncan's acquaintances and

(10:45):
they had a breakthrough. So MissusDuncan, Olgu's gone, and the two
killers are trying to get their moneybecause she had hired these two men,
and so she has to She hasno money, she never has. Everything
she has is Frank, so thatshe has to ask for She takes a

(11:05):
check that Frank had given her andcashes it and makes it down payment with
these guys. But then she hasto explain to where Frank to Frank,
where what happened to that check Soshe accept this lie. The woman's a
pathological liar, and said, wellshe had to pay off blackmailers. There
was guy's blackmailing her because of this. Really it was a ridiculous story.

(11:28):
So Frank gets is really furious aboutit and drags his mother down to the
police station to report this blackmail.And so the police started to kind of
figure out and they had something.So anyway, so that was going there,
and eventually they got to one ofthe killers, got him to confess

(11:48):
and show them where the body was. And so when they found the body,
they discovered that it was just insidethe Ventura County line, and they
had evidence that old was killed atthat grave side. So that transferred the
whole case to Ventura, where Iwas living, where my dad was a
reporter, where the trial took place, and where the journalists from all over

(12:11):
the country came to that trial.And so that's in a nutshell what happened.
And then the trial comes along anda lot more comes out. So
really that was just that's that wasjust the tip of the iceberg. There's
so much more in the book aboutthe details of what what happened. It's
those details that really come alive inthe book and that that really highlight not

(12:33):
only Ventura, but kind of theramifications of the crime. And one of
the things that you do in thebook that we really liked was that you
really paid tribute to the places andthe culture of Ventura, and then we
try to do that on this show. And your own personal story is woven
throughout the book and this you said, this crime happened in fifty eight and

(12:58):
you're a child living in there withyour inventor, with your family. Could
you tell us a little bit moreabout your personal connection. You mentioned your
father is a crime reporter. Whohe is, and he's a crime reporter
for the was a crime reporter forthe Ventura County Star Free Press, and
it was, you know, itwas Ventura was about thirty thousand people back

(13:22):
then, so it's a reasonably smallpaper. So he did a lot of
things. He covered politics, hecovered crime, but he also wrote a
weekly column that he wrote about everything. But he also wrote a lot of
funny things about our family. Atthe time, I was embarrassed about it.

(13:43):
I don't like it. But nowI don't know, you know,
I don't know. I sometimes sayto describe the book, would people know
your your generation? Uh, IrmaBombeck or Dave Barry. Yeah, okay,
I think my Dave Berry. Idon't necessarily know, but you know,

(14:03):
in case you're listening to this anddon't, there's we and there's those
are the big kind of the biggerones. But yeah, well we've seen
a lot, especially doing newspaper archivalresearches, a lot of communities have those
type of of community columnists that arethat are really writing about you know,
everyday life from a humorous perspective thatshows and kind of um, the intricacies

(14:26):
or the you know, pull backthe curtain a little bit on what life
is like in our area. Right. And my dad was a great writer
and he wrote and so when hewrote about the family, it was all
humorous things. So I sometimes whenthey used when I used to just describe
my book, I'd say, well, it's Dave Barry Meets and Rule in
Fargo. And because there it is, um, every every family chapter,

(14:52):
that's what I call the ones thatabout my life has something about what's going
on with the crime and the investigation, so it is just intertwined. And
again, I was an obsessed littlegirl about this. I was obsessed with
Olga, so upset that this hadhappened to her, you know, why
would this happen? And then thethe crime procedurals and so that's all written

(15:22):
in first person. The crime proceduralsare isn't a third person, So that
idea of because I think this isreally and if you haven't caught on,
if you're listening to this, oneof the really interesting things about about your
book ever, was the fact thatit is woven like that that it is.
It's not just the standard true crimebook, which I think why Why
appealed to us because it was morethan just the case. You do an

(15:46):
amazing amount of research on Olga's lifein the case and Elizabeth and the and
the trial. But juxtaposed with thatis your chapters on your life and your
connections to that. Was that yourplan from the start or did that develop
as a result of your research?Right? Well, it was really just

(16:07):
kind of, you know, anaccident. I'm a part of the writing
community in San Diego called San DiegoWriters, Inc. And I many years
had gone to have gone to areading cochique group, and I used to
bring in pages that were personal essays, a lot of about my family,
and then I would also sometimes writeabout, you know, and my attempts

(16:32):
to write about the Duncan case.And so one night I brought in an
essay about how my dad had namedhis new his first power lawnmore than Missus
D after Missus Duncan, and thatit had cut off the ends of two
of his fingers while I was tryingwell, the lawnmar apparently was hard to

(16:56):
start, and so he didn't liketo stop it. He was trying to
get gas grass out of there.So anyway, that's how that happened.
So in that essay I said somethings about the crime and who this Elizabeth
missus D was the real one.And the leader of the group said,
you know, why don't you putthose two things together, Why don't you

(17:18):
write about what's going on your family, because these these family essays you're writing
are so great. And then becauseyou were so obsessed and your dad was
he was the only reporter. Therewas media from all over the country,
but he was the only reporter thatcovered all three of the trials. He

(17:40):
was in every session, all threeof the trials and all the way to
a witness to the executions. SoI had, you know, plenty of
that to work without my dad's filesand the transcripts. That's another story at
how the book couldn't have been writtenwithout the five thousand pages of transcripts from
their trial. Now did you getthose directly from or is that something that

(18:02):
your father had in his research?Now, he did not have it.
I got it from the DA's officein Ventura and I called them and I
think around I don't know, sometimein middle two thousand or something. And
thankfully the DA's back then she wascalled a secretary, I guess personal assistant.

(18:25):
Now. Anyway, she was thesame woman that had been there all
the way back man, and sheshe knew my dad. She was just
about to retire. She was ayoung woman during the time, and she
was just about just she was ayoung woman back there. But she she
liked my dad and everybody did.And so I just said, well,
you know, I'm writing this book, it's about my dad and the trial,

(18:48):
and I would like to get those. And she was so nice,
and she said, you know what, I'm going to get them for you
at our cost. So she ranthem all off herself. Wow, and
I got all five thousand, someof them pet pages. But then I
found out later that somebody else whoI also know and I met, I
mentioned him at the end of thebook and the acknowledgements. He was a

(19:11):
paper boy at the time of theDuncan case, and he when he was
folding his papers to take on hisbicycles to deliver um. I think he
said he was he was over thirteenat the time. He was a little
older than I was, and hebecame fascinated with the case and was reading
all the articles. Then he becamean attorney, and eventually he was hired

(19:33):
by a law firm in Oxnard thatwas started by the district attorney who had
prosecuted the case. Oh wow,And he was dead by the time.
He passed on by the time thatBob was hired. But anyway, he
knew that he was the founding attorney. So the law the law firm closed

(19:56):
and was closing up, and Bobwas, uh, you know, cleaning
out their law library. And hefound these old, dusty bound transcripts up
on this top shelf and he reopensit up well as his the paper point
that he was because he grew upin Ventura, he knew exactly what they

(20:17):
were. And he contacted the DA'soffice and they said, oh my god,
we have been looking for these theyhave been lost for all these years.
And it turned out that Roy Gustersonthe DA, after everything was fully
adjudicated, he took the transcripts withhim because he was trying to write a
memoir about what had happened, andthat unpublished memoir was also up there.

(20:41):
So after I talked to Bob becauseI was missing a few sections of the
transcript and he had them all electronics. So I got him. He says,
well, you know, I havethis memoir that Roy Gusterson wrote that
was never published if you'd like tolook at that. And I said,
well, yeah, I really would. So I had I knew what kind
of what was in his head,what he thought about some of these witnesses,

(21:03):
how he worried about the trial goingbad at one point, and so
that was very helpful. So Iwas just a lot of luck involved in
writing this, you know, andyou alluded to it, I think earlier
when we were talking about this,is that this this book is it's written.
Parts of it are written like almostlike a story or with the conversations

(21:25):
and descriptive details. Um, it'snot a like a and I wan't not
all true crime is dry obviously,but you know it's not just an antiseptic
look at a case or or acourt you know, retailling on the court
transcript. How did you develop thethe people's tone of voice or things like
that? Did that come from thisunpublished manuscript? What you extrapolated For a

(21:48):
lot of the voices, it camefrom their testimony at the trial, because
the das was obviously talking all thetime, and those transcripts were a gold
mine. When I was reading them, it was like I almost felt at
some top points that I was inthe courtroom with all these people because it
was it was, you know,quite dramatic a lot of it, but

(22:14):
I felt like I could get butsome of the just by the way they
spoke. So and then of coursemy dad I heard his voice in my
head all the time, so Icould write that. And there was the
way that the press covered it.It's a little different than I think it

(22:38):
goes on now. For instance,that they would describe um witnesses on the
stand, everything that they were wearing, what their hairstyle was, and and
and they did a lot of descriptionof those kinds of things. And I
was researching four newspapers, and whenall of them said, you know,
kind of a similar thing, Ifelt, Okay, I really have got

(23:03):
this. And that's how I coulddo that. I could write I'm feeling
like I'm telling the truth because Ihad so much material to work with.
And so when I wrote a scene, and again I mentioned that I wrote
this in the genre they called creativenonfiction. When I wrote a scene,

(23:25):
for instance, when the police detectivewent to interview Frank at his apartment,
when right when Olga had disappeared,everything that came out of Frank's mouth had
come out somewhere else in a newspaperinterview or the trials transcript or a lot
of he gave a lot of interviews. The only thing that I might have

(23:48):
fictionalized is when the defective walks inthe room saying, oh, I'd offer
you a cup of coffee, butI don't have it, and made right
now or um. I haven't describedthe furniture, because at some place along
the way I had found that missusDuncan had ordered a bunch of Danish modern

(24:10):
furniture that was in the apartment orsomething. So I described it that way,
and so there was the only theonly things that were fixed, my
maybe little details. Even the weatheris for real. I looked up all
of that weather and the things thathappened the same day when we're coming back
from my grandmother's on the day thatMissus Duncan was arrested, and my dad

(24:33):
hears it on the radio, andyou know, he was so mad.
But where my sister is really interestedin this monkey that has been shot into
space called Gordo or something, andI remembered that I looked it up,
and sure enough, that is whatthat that space monkey was shot into space
the same day that Missus Duncan was. So if I put in another fact

(25:00):
in that chapter the time that youcan count on it that that really happened
that day. And I think that'sone of the things that we've talked about
going over going over the book andpreparing for this was that again, if
if one thing that we kind ofreally like we'll pride ourselves on, I
think is is our research on aparticular place or or do as much as

(25:22):
we can about a crime. Andto see the exhaustive amount of research that
you've done on this um it's it'samazing. But it also gives a real
sense of place of again not justthe crime, but of Ventura at that
time. And I think that it'sif you you know again, if you're

(25:44):
listening to this and enjoy California truecrime, this is this is right in
the vein of what we what wetry to do. So yeah, and
I really wanted to give that senseof crime because nineteen fifty eight was just
before you know, the the dramaticchanges that happened in the nineteen sixties,
and in nineteen fifty eight it wasreally, you know, pretty innocent that

(26:07):
that that's what I think with effectedyou. We didn't expect this kind of
violent crime in our small town.Might have been happening up down in Los
Angeles or up in San Francisco,but but not in our small town.
And I another way that I wasable to get and remember some of the
details. It's like I said,my dad wrote this weekly column and a

(26:30):
lot of times it was in ourfamily, and he saved many of those
columns. In his home office.He had a big black trash bag that
he threw the columns in. Andso when he passed away, my mother
let me take them, and soit was, you know, it was

(26:52):
it was a treasure. It wasreally to have those, to read those,
because it just brought back so manymen memories. And also I spent
a lot of time on the microfishmachine microfish machines right in both the La
Library, the Ventura Library, especiallythe Ventura Library in the Santa Barbara Library.

(27:17):
Well, when you're going through those, you have a whole page of
a newspaper. And so yeah,I would get to part on the case
and read that and make a copy. But I also was reading all these
other things, and so that really, you know, I would take notes
and think, oh, okay,this happened the same day that this happened

(27:40):
in court, and you know,and plus I do I have got my
dad's memory. I really have.I can't tell you exactly what I had
for dinner two days ago, butI remember, you know, what happened
in nineteen fifty eight. I havea really clear memory. But those columns
were were great, you know,to help job my memory. Well,

(28:00):
And if you follow us on onsocial media, you know, that we
are huge fans of microfish Monster.We do microfish Mondays. In fact,
a lot of our research is donein libraries and archives around central California,
and we can get to southern andeven further north. But it is true
that you don't now. So muchof what we consume is just the just

(28:26):
the article, aside from the appson electronically. But when you do look
at those old newspapers, you arecapturing a community in a moment of what's
important to that community at that timeexactly. So yeah, I absolutely love
that. And so speaking of yourfather, because his voice was so prevalent
as you wrote this and put thistogether, do you feel that how was

(28:51):
his influence on your outlook on thecase. Did you go in knowing having
a clear idea of how you weregoing to put this together? Did your
father's influence kind of sway you ina direction or was this more of a
discovery as you went Well, heyeah, it was, there was some
discovery, But yes, he influencedme, and he he talked about that
case long after the trial. AndI think that I've quoted something in the

(29:17):
book at the end, in theaftermath, what would happened everybody, and
when he wrote something in the paperand I think when the dam passed away,
but he said it was the mostmemorable crime that he had ever covered
and that he expects that if helives for another twenty years, he will

(29:41):
still be boring young reporters in thenewsroom talking about the Elizabeth Duncan case.
And yeah, it was with him, and he was really you know,
I kind of considered the expert onit. Later on, they would write
articles every you know, five yearanniversary, ten year anniverse, three,
twenty year anniversary, and he wasthe go to guy for anything about that

(30:04):
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(30:27):
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(30:55):
kind of shifting gears a little bitback to the case, you know,
as you as you alluded to andyou and everyone will find out when they're
reading your book. And if youif you haven't already researched a case or
know that three people are actually guiltyor of the actual murdering of Olga.
But a lot of focus gets puton Elizabeth Duncan as as the architect of

(31:18):
this entire tragedy. Yeah. Um. And one of the most unbelievable things
and is is how her son iswrapped up in this. Can you tell
us a little bit about like hisrole? Um? You kind of talked
about his role leading up to like, which is again, it's absolutely fascinating
that he drags his mom in toreport a crime when she's guilty of another

(31:41):
one. But what's his what iswhat becomes his role after she gets arrested?
Well, he jumped on her defense. He was our only defense attorney.
He um. And so if youtalk to people inventor that grew up,
but you know, they just havea little information. A lot of
people think that somehow Frank Duncan waspart of the conspiracy and that he got

(32:02):
away with murder. And that's youknow that. My dad certainly never said
anything like like anything like that.But I certainly discovered from all the research
that no, even the district attorneydidn't believe that Frank had anything could do
with it. He In fact,the DA said in his memoir that they
would have never solved the case ifFrank hadn't dragged his mom down to the

(32:22):
Santa bar Police Department to report thatthat supposed blackmail scheme. So, no,
Frank didn't have anything to do withit. But I think that as
crazy as missus Duncan was. Andat first I also want to say,

(32:42):
there's things on the Internet that suggeststhat there was an incestuous relationship between Frank
Duncan and his mother, and Ido not believe that. And even in
the DA's one of the closing arguments, because the defense attorney had called it,
no objected and called out about him, you know, kind of insinuating
he would insinuate um, And theDA said, well, I never I

(33:04):
never said that. I said thatthere was an unusual relationship. I never
meant to suggest that there was asexual Well, he did, and I
think he kind of jommed that upin the interviews without ever seeing it directly,
to maybe help uh with the jurypool, you know, for everybody
to think that that's what was reallygoing on. I do believe that he

(33:29):
probably did that. M. Gufsisonwas a really competent, competent a district
attorney, and he had his eyeson being the governor of California. So
a lot of people after I afterI read all this, we're saying that,
you know, Guftison was going touse this case as a stepping stone

(33:51):
to run for governor and that uh, you know, the more interest he
could generate, the better. ButI think what I think was Frank's motivation.
I mean, I think he lovedhis mother. His mother certainly thought
he was the most wonderful kid thatever walked the earth. I mean she

(34:12):
did. She just thought, andso you know, I think a child
responds to that when somebody thinks thatyou are so wonderful. Yeah, there
was a love connection between them.But Frank, I believe, was trying
to save his mother from the gaschamber. And he was a criminal defense
attorney and this is the nineteen fifties, and I think that he felt that

(34:35):
district attorneys did not play fair,and that they were unfair to criminal defendants.
And so I really think that Frank'smain motivation was to be like a
consultant, to consult with his mother'sdefense attorney, and also to be there

(34:57):
by her side through the whole thing. I think that he was interested in
saving his mother Friendly from being executed. And California was at the time this
happened there was no such thing aslife in prison without the possibility of parole

(35:17):
if you got convicted, of all, if you got a life sentence,
you were still eligible for parole afterseven years, and boy Gushers had really
played that up. But do wewant to see missus Duncan walk in the
streets in seven years? And youknow, her attorney tried to say,
well, that really is not goingto happen. That never happens. She'll

(35:38):
be an old woman if she,you know, they ever let her out.
But I think that swayed the juryto Tom to pronounce this death sentence.
Well so much. You know we'veseen it too, and I'm sure
you know you being part of thetrue crime community as well, you see

(35:59):
how people can kind of conflagrate andblow up certain facts without seeing everything the
whole context, and it's it's something, it's something again. I think that
that you do really well in thebook is you take the factual approach and

(36:19):
try to make sure that you seethe whole picture of the people involved.
But on that part about the deathpenalty, the thing that really struck us
one going through this was and asLewis, Moya and Baldonado, who Duncan
hired to kill Olga. They testifyin the case against her and plead guilty

(36:42):
to the crime. But unlike whatwe've seen in other cases that we've researched,
there's no plea deal there sends todeath. All how interesting I know
what happened was Baldonado, Augustine Bottle, Baldinatto was not a super smart guy.

(37:04):
And this was before Miranda. Thiswas before you had the right to
right to an attorney when you werebeing questioned questioned. You had a right
to an attorney only after you werearraigned in court. And so they were
poor, they couldn't afford any attorneys. And he was eventually interviewed by a

(37:25):
policeman, a ventre As Sharaf,who had known Baldinato when he was a
young boy and he came from Imean, this guy said that his family,
the kids, and Gus Baldinato's familymight as well been raised by wolves,

(37:46):
that they were so neglected, andyou know, it was a really
terrible situation and nobody could. Hejust was sort of a follower. I
don't think he had really cared aboutdoing this, wanted to be involved in
it, but he just let himselfget get taken away. And so he
did it. And then the detectivewho who gave interviews about this, that's

(38:09):
how I know how how it went. And all later testified at his trial
about how he was questioned. Andhe convinced Gus that he had children too,
and that how would he feel ifhis children were murdered and disappeared and

(38:30):
he never knew what happened to him, and so and he encouraged him to
tell his side of the story beforethe others, you know, totally blamed
it on him. So he toldit. He told them what they did,
and uh, you know, signedhis confession and they said, well,
would you be willing to take usto where you buried her? And

(38:50):
so he said yeah, I thinkso. They put him in a car
and they took him out there.So you know, once that was all
done, there wasn't And so thenLewis Moya he was trying to say,
well, you know, Gus islying. I didn't have anything to do
with that. That's crazy. Buthe was kind of worried about his own

(39:12):
salvation. This was the fifties andhe was very worried about that, and
he kept asking what he was arrestedon a parole violation and bald and not.
It was in jail on a failureto provide child support, if you
can believe that back then, sometimesmen got thrown in jail for I was
always men got thrown in jail fornot supporting. So they were held in

(39:37):
jail on these charges, and sohe asked if he could. He was
trying to get money from his motherin Texas for an attorney, but you
know, she wasn't coming up withit, and so he asked them if
he could talk to a minister,that that wouldn't cost anything, right,

(39:57):
and they said, yeah, youwant to see a Catholic priest. And
he said, I want to seea minister with a you know that's in
charge of a church so they hadjust the guy for him, because this
guy, Reverend Greshet, that hada church in Ventura, was frequently came
to the jail and help prisoners andtalk to prisoners, and he was also

(40:20):
sort of a friend of police.So he came at night. And I
know what happened in this interview becauseReverend Greshat testified about it all at Moya's
trial. And he came in andhe said, you know, he was
immediately crying and can you help meand can we pray together? And the
reverend said, well, you know, it doesn't do you any good to

(40:45):
just confess to God if you're goingto lie here on earth to the police.
And Moyas said, well, couldn'tyou get me a Bible? Could
we read from the Bible? Andhe said, well, okay, yeah,
but it's not and I'm not usingthe phrases he used because they were
some of them were Bible phrases,and so he talked to him about that,

(41:08):
and eventually Moya said, okay,I'm ready to tell the truth.
And they got down on their kneesand they prayed, and Baldinado didn't exactly
confessed to what happened. He justsaid he was ready to tell the truth.
So then Reprogression left and he toldthe police. He says, well,

(41:30):
I think he's ready to invest,but they just went ahead and standing
back to a cell. About anhour later, he called for the detective
and said, okay, I wantto tell you what happened. And his
story was pretty much the same asso. Then when they got to the
enraiment and they were finally provided attorneys, their attorney who was they were appointed

(41:52):
really good attorneys by the judge.They one of them later became a judge
himself and was a state sent herfor a while, um from Vintora to
the state legislature. And he saidin an interview I read you know,
by the time I got to him, he confessed four times already you know

(42:12):
the grand jury, um at youknow all these times he confessed. So
he said, all I could dowas try to get them a life sentence
instead of the death penalty. Butum so he tried to deal that,
but Broy Goshison would have none ofit. He said, huh. So
all he could do was he feltthat that if that that Moya would be

(42:37):
better off if he was tried separatelyfrom missus Duncan and Baldonano's attorney was sort
of following along whatever he said.So he went to the v A and
said, well, he'll he cantestify for at ear. He'll testify if
he can get a separate trial andhe won't get the death penalty. And

(43:00):
the DA said, well, I'llgive him a separate trial if he testifies,
but I'm not taking the death penaltyoff the table. And that's what
they both did. Wow, theyhad a pet. So after Elizabeth Duncan's
trial was over, they each hadtheir own penalty trial and that's when they
put on all this mitigating circumstances.Their attorneys attempted to but the juries weren't

(43:22):
going along with its posted the deathpenalty. Yeah, and I would be
interested to. I mean if ifa jury in twenty twenty two would would
do the same thing or would theywould they go with the life without the
possibility parole. I think I don'tthink that Elizabeth Duncan would get the death

(43:43):
penalty today because I don't think shewas really in danger to committing any other
crimes, right, so I thinkI doubt that she would have As far
as the other two. I mean, they were really, they were kind
of petty criminals before this, nevervile or anything, but that was such
a violent crime. But their testamentmoney is really what convicted Elizabeth Duncan.

(44:07):
So I think that the DA ifthey had, if they well, if
they'd had, if they'd had lawyerswhile they were questioning, I'm not sure
the case would ever have been solvedbecause the fact that that Gus Baldinato said
yeah, okay, I'll do thisfor my children and I'll show you.
I mean, I just don't thinkthat that would happen. They almost pulled

(44:28):
off the prayer to crime. Wellin another instance of this crime going on,
could have went an entirely different way, you know, but for the
act of this, you know,the person who actually committed the crime confessing
that's right, that it's um,it's it's crazy. They had some other
evidence that Missus Duncan had a sidekick, an eighty year old woman named Emma

(44:52):
Short who was her sidekick who wenteverywhere with her when she shopped all over
Santa Barbara looking for criminals. Sothey would have had some circumstance page but
they wouldn't have it a body.Yeah, if you're listening to this and
you and you had to rewind becauseDeborah said an eighty year old sidekick.
Again, this is all in thebook, and another reason why you need
to pick this up, because thestory is we're just scratching the surface of

(45:15):
what's in here and it's amazing.One thing that really, I guess not
we always say this, but anotherthing that stood out to us and really,
you know, upon reading it reallykind of made us all angry.
We've been talking a lot amongst ourselvesand we've done recently done an episode on

(45:36):
clemency and one of the things thatwe like to look at is the trial
and how the trial is the processof that as well as just the crime.
But in this case, during thepenalty phase, when Elizabeth Duncan's lawyer
is making his closing argument, hetells the jury that Olga forgives her.
Olga forgives Elizabeth. Yeah, thatshe would she was a nice lady.

(45:59):
She would have probably forgive her.And is there this This is something that
really stuck with us and really madeus angry. We've covered a case at
least one crime in our in ourresearch where somebody tried something similar, but
um, is there something like thatthat stuck out with you when your research

(46:20):
this, and that really got youangry while you were writing it. You
know, I don't know about angry. I just accepted that this was this
case was you know, a longtime ago, and that people approach things
very differently, and UM, youknow, I guess maybe that's there was
there's this religion in this book aboutum. The DA was very eye for

(46:43):
an eye, tooth for a tooth, and that kind of thing. And
so I think Sullivan was trying toanswer some of that. Well, Christianity
is built on forgiveness, and soOlga I think would forgive her. But
the DA he got to speak againafter because the prosecution always gets to speak
after the defense and the closing arguments, and he said something like, you

(47:08):
know, I don't think that OlgaDuncan would be appreciate the way she left
this earth, and I know Iwouldn't be there, and I forget.
His words were really quite cutting,and they kind of took care of what
Sullivan and said. So we're gettingclose to the end, and before we

(47:29):
before we end, is there somethingwhat's one thing you want your readers to
take away from this book? Iguess I want my readers to take away
from this book is that, youknow, the life's a little bit random.
And what I was looking for asa child, I wanted things to

(47:49):
be you know, I had alittle girl's mind. I was actually quite
more and I for I was withGuftison. I wanted everybody to really get
punished this. But in the end, after the executions, I'm reading the
h and I had been, youknow, ten years old, but I'm
pressing that I think she should beexecuted. And I had read my dad's

(48:13):
articles about the executions that he'd writtenthat were quite thoughtful. And there was
an interview with the warden and thewarden said, you know, a reporter
asked him some sort of a questionand he says, you know, we
do this on behalf of the peopleof California. Nobody here wants to do

(48:36):
this, and I don't really thinkit lowers the murder rate in California when
we are executing people. So,you know, I read that and that
was sort and then you know,right on the same page there's an article
about a voying girl college student whowere swimming and in a swimming whole up

(49:00):
in northern California, and uh,some guy comes along and the girl's murder
or the man's murdered and she disappears, And you know that that kind of
stuck with me. Is okay,it maybe this what I thought would solve
things, this this stepth penalty,it maybe it really doesn't. And and

(49:24):
so I guess that. But alsothat life's complicated. You know, everything
wasn't as simple with Frank Duncan asI thought it would be when I started
doing the research. You know,he I think that I had a better
understanding of what he was trying toaccomplish. And yeah, he was a
jerk that he left his pregnant wifeand went back and lived at home with

(49:47):
his mother. But you know,he was afraid she commits suicide. He'd
already she'd already attempted it, andshe was really a nut job. So
yeah, I think I had alittle more appreciated. I could see a
little more nuances in people. Umthat they weren't all bad, and you
know I really knew that. Butand also of Gus Baldonado and Lewis Moya,

(50:10):
Um, there were interviews that Iread and about them where they interviewed
some of their previous elementary school teachers, and one just said, you know,
I can't believe this. He wasjust such a nice boy, and
just you know, he lived insuch a terrible environment. And I get
went over to the house and wetried to help and it was awful.

(50:32):
And then Lewis Moya's teacher said,he was the captain of the safety patrol,
he was on the district's basketball histeam won the district's basketball tournament,
and he had lots of friends.And he said, all I can remember
is this um, this really sweetboy who wanted to join in and be

(50:53):
join in and everything, and Ijust can't fathom what could have possibly happened
to him. I love how yousay that, because I think what we've
always tried to do is show somethinglarger than just the crime, and how
not only do these crimes affects thepeople involved, but also the communities involved,
and these have ripples that go out, and the nuanced sometimes can be

(51:17):
lost in what you read on aquick Twitter feed or a snapshot online or
in a blog post. And Ithink, you know, I think your
book does an excellent job of notonly showing that nuance, but also showing
the larger scope of what's going onaround so and I would like to say
fantans this to the end because Ifeel like that one of the just as

(51:40):
a couple of lines that Roy guffisand said the DA setting his summation,
because I think those of us thatare interested in true crime, especially those
of us, are women. Atleast for me, I became interested because
I felt vulnerable. Not because Iwas interested in the you know, the
gory murders and violence. I'm nointerested in that, But I felt vulnerable,

(52:02):
and I was part of why Iwas reading that. I was interested
to read about, you know,the kind of the psychological motivations, but
I was also reading maybe to pickup some tips on how I might avoid
this. I was particularly interested inreading about the women who got away from
some serial killers. So okay,maybe I can employ that. But anyway,
Roy Gusterson Gustus and the Venture DistrictAttorney says an insummation to the jury

(52:29):
at Missus Duncan's trial, he said, one of the pities of this case
is that girl who was so brutallymurdered on the night of November seventeenth might
have been any girl, anybody's sister, anybody's daughter, any girl could have
been Elizabeth Duncan's victim if she happenedto marry Frank Duncan. Now I realized

(52:50):
I'm not likely to be murdered bymaniac, ma homicidal maniac, but any
more likely somehow it's a personal andthis was a person killing. But that's
it could have been at anybody.It was nothing that Olga, no mistake
she made. She wasn't a recklesswoman. She was just described as this
really lovely, sweet girl who wasvery devoted to her nurse, to being

(53:13):
a nurse, and but she gotherself in the wrong situation. Again.
Thank you so much, Deborah.This has been amazing. The book is
A Lovely Girl, the tragedy ofOlga Duncan and the trial of one of
California's most notorious killers. It's publishedby Pegasus Books. Deborah, where can
people find? Where can they?Where can they find the book? Where

(53:37):
if they want to see more theycould go to? My website has lots
of links to Amazon, to Barnesand Noble, to a whole bunch of
different places. And that's Deborah HooleLarkin dot com just all one my three
names altogether, Larcase dot com andthat will take you to it. But

(53:58):
also if you it's in the system, So if you go to your local
bookstore that you like, you canask them about it. They'll they'll pull
it up on their computer and ifthey don't have it, they can order
it for you. And of courseyou can get it on Amazon on October
fourth, if you put in apre order, it will be delivered to
you on Tuesday. What's next foryou? Another book in the works,

(54:22):
or well, this time, Iwant to write a fiction. I want
to write a mystery. Okay.I had this story that I really felt
needed to be told, and Iwanted to tell it, and non fiction
was definitely the best way to goabout it, even though it took me
forever to do all that research andreally learned to be a writer as I
was writing it, because I wroterewrote it so many drafts. But now

(54:47):
I liked I would like to writejust a fiction book, a mystery,
and I have a lot of ideas. But as for me, now,
I'm going on a book tour.I'll be leaving here next week and I
will be in Chaucer's Books in SantaBarbara on the day of the book comes

(55:07):
out. Tuesday, October fourth,at I think at six o'clock. It's
on State Street in Santa Barbara,and I'm there because that's where it all
began. That's where Olga was kidnapped, and that's where I launched my book.
And then two nights later, Iwill be at Timber Books in Ventura
and that because that is where Olgawas murdered and that's where the trial was.

(55:30):
And then I after that, Iwill be down back in San Diego,
back home in San Diego, andI'll be at Warwick's Books in La
Joya on the night of October tenth, and then there's a book festival in
Coronado. I think the day beforeour Saturday before the eighth that I'll be
there too, with my books andmeeting people at the Cornado Writer's Festival or

(55:57):
the San Diego Writer's Festival that wouldbe in Coronadle. I'll be there in
a booth with my books and meetpeople and talk about my book. So
we'll have those dates on our website, California Chuecrime dot com. Check out
our social media because as after oraround the fourth, we're going to be
doing a giveaway or copies of Debora'sbook. We have two copies that we're

(56:19):
going to give away to listeners,so make sure that you're watching our social
media feeds for that for more detailson how you can win, and make
sure that if you're anywhere that Deborais going to be, check her out.
If nothing else, go out andget a copy of the book.
It's a great read. It's again, if you like California True Crime you're
listening to this, this is aperfect opportunity. We would not share you're

(56:42):
wrong. We think that you willdefinitely enjoy this. So again, we
really want to thank you for joiningus today. We're excited to have our
listeners read it. If you're listeningto this and you've read it, please
give a shout out tag us onsocial media. Again, congratulations Debora on
the book, and we hope youcome back and join us. Thank you

(57:04):
for listening to this episode of CaliforniaTrue Crime on the Darkcast Network. For
a full list of sources as wellas more information on the case, head
over to our webpage at California Truecrimedot com, where you can support the
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(57:25):
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(57:46):
engineer, Melanie Duncan. This wasrecorded at snail Rand Studios and The Hangar