In November 1958, Olga Duncan disappeared. Her mother-in-law first drew suspicion when police discovered she had illegally obtained an annulment by hiring a man, Ralph Winterstein, to pose as Frank while she posed as Olga. Nearly a month later, investigators found Olga's body in the Casitas Pass of
Carpinteria. Baldonado confessed that he and Moya had been offered $6,000 by Duncan to kill Olga, then directed the police to the site. According to the coroner and their confession, the two men kidnapped her, beat her with a pistol, strangled her, and buried her in a shallow grave. She may still have been alive when buried. Frank Duncan (who was an attorney) got his mother's bail reduced from $50,000 to $5,000, then went into hiding. Elias Kupczyk traveled from his home in
Benito, Manitoba, but could not bring his daughter's remains back to Canada until her now-missing husband, by law, her next-of-kin, was located. The trial began on February 24, 1959. Duncan testified that Moya and Baldonado attempted to blackmail her, refuting the accounts of every witness called by the prosecution, including Moya and Baldonado. Her attorneys then presented the theory that Olga was the victim of a ransom plot. The jury took 4 hours and 51 minutes to find her guilty on March 16, 1959; she was sentenced to death four days later. Frank,
Burt M. Henson, and two other attorneys represented her in the appeals process; Henson was appointed by trial judge Charles Blackstock to represent Baldonado and Moya. Governor
Pat Brown, an opponent of capital punishment, ultimately allowed the executions to proceed. Right up until the minutes before her execution, Duncan fought to save his mother's life. On September 15, 2023, Frank Duncan, by then in his nineties, was disbarred by the State of California after having received three prior disciplinary actions. ==See also==