The Same Mother

She once madamed a San Francisco "massage parlor." She was, at one time or another, involved in abortion, forgery, check-kiting and theft. She married something between eleven and 20 men, tried to con other men for make-believe pregnancies. But Elizabeth Duncan, 54, was on trial for murder in a Ventura, Calif, courthouse last week because she was a mother--with a vengeance (TIME, Jan. 5).

Witness after witness took the stand to tell how she had conspired to have her daughter-in-law killed to reclaim the affections of her son Frank, an owl-eyed, 30-year-old lawyer who held hands with her in public, talked with a lisp, was known around the courthouse as "Wicked Wascal Wabbit." Most explicit of all the witnesses were two Santa Barbara ex-convicts, who testified that mother Duncan offered them $6,000 to kill Frank's pregnant wife. They lured her into a rented automobile, beat her into unconsciousness with a pistol, strangled her, then dumped her body into a ditch. For all this, they complained, mother Duncan paid them only $300.

After 29 days of trial and testimony (sensation seekers paid up to $10 to more favored folk to get seats in the tiny courtroom), a jury of eight women and four men wound up disbelieving Elizabeth Duncan's protestation of innocence. The jury recommended death in San Quentin's gas chamber, left it for Judge Charles F. Blackstock to decide if she should be sent instead to a mental hospital.

Wherever she went, she could take along one consolation. Testifying in her behalf last week, Frank Duncan said sadly: "If I had a choice for a mother, much as I have been humiliated and hurt, I would still choose the same mother."

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