The Mother-in-Law from Hell: The story of "Ma" Duncan

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW FROM HELL; “MA” DUNCAN

This is the story of Frank Duncan and his mother Elizabeth and how their “incestuous” relationship ended in the murder of Frank’s pregnant wife, Olga.

Elizabeth Duncan, herself, is an interesting woman. Depending on who you believe, she had from 11 to 15 husbands and 2 to 4 children, her favorite being Frank. It seems she would con younger men into marrying her by telling them she needed to be married to collect a sizable inheritance, and she would split it with them. Once they were married, she would fleece them and then leave, going on to the next man.

 Elizabeth tried to kill herself because Frank had decided to strike out on his own and get his own apartment. During Elizabeth’s confinement, Frank met Olga, one of his mother’s nurses. Olga and Frank dated in secret because every time Frank would mention dating his mother would try to kill herself. After she left the hospital, she would call Olga, threatening her and telling her she would never marry Frank.

When Olga got pregnant, Frank was forced to own up and marry her. To say the least, his mother was livid. She went so far as to hire a young man to pose as Frank and illegally had the marriage annulled. The young man certainly could have passed for Frank, but Olga as Franks young wife? The judge must have been blind or had recently come into a sum of money. She was also planning to have her son kidnapped and held hostage until he agreed to divorce his wife. None of this worked to get the pair to divorce.

To appease his mother, Frank moved out of his and his wife’s house and back in with ‘Mother.” This did not make the pregnant bride very happy.

Olga disappeared in November 1958 when she was 30 years old and 7 months pregnant. Two men who had been hired by Elizabeth came to the door and said that Frank was drunk in their back seat. When Olga came to get Frank, the pair hit her over the head and drove her to a remote location. There they tried first to strangle her. They would have shot her but the gun broke when they hit her in the head with it. They continued with their ineptitude when they realized they didn’t have any shovels to dig a grave for Olga; they ended up doing it with their hands. They didn’t bother to check to see if Olga was dead before they buried her. She ended up being buried alive.

Her body was eventually found when two men confessed that Ma Duncan had hired them to kill the girl. Olga was beaten, strangled, and then buried while she was still alive.

Police began to suspect Ma Duncan when then found out about the illegal annulment. At her trial, the nature of Frank and his mother’s relationship was called into question and it was hinted but never proven that it was an incestuous one. It did not take long for Ma Duncan to be found guilty and sentenced to death. Frank, who was a lawyer, worked tirelessly to

have the sentence changed, but Ma Duncan was executed on August 8, 1962.