Most of us can appreciate our mothers. In most instances, they are nurturing and kind. Whenever we need a good meal, a small loan or just someone to lend a sympathetic ear, we often seek our mothers. But the best mothers teach us how to live without them. They are like the mother bird that prepares her nestlings for their independence.

Marc Hoover.

However, there are downsides to being a wonderful mother. Sometimes they must dole out tough love to their children who continuously make foolish decisions. Unfortunately, not every mother puts the needs of her children first.

For instance, take Elizabeth Ann Duncan, also known by crime enthusiasts as Ma Duncan.

Ma was born in 1904. She had little stability in her life. She wandered aimlessly through life. It’s been alleged she was married at least 20 times. She also once operated a brothel. She also gave birth to at least four children. But no one knows how many for sure. But it’s known Ma Duncan became obsessive over her son Frank Duncan.

She coddled him and made him the center of her life. As an adult, Frank became an attorney. Ma acted like it was just her and Frank versus the world. Life seemed somewhat manageable between mother and son until Frank wanted to leave his mother and make his own way.

Ma found this unsettling and pulled out all the stops to keep him at home.

After frank told his mother he wanted his own place, Ma tried to kill herself by swallowing a handful of sleeping pills. She was taken to the hospital and survived. A nurse named Olga Kupczyk, 30, from Vancouver, Canada cared for Ma during her recovery.

Here is when karma first visited Ma Duncan. Her second visit would come much later. While caring for Ma Duncan, Olga and Frank fell in love. They eventually married. Afterward, Olga became pregnant. Ma’s plan was to garner enough sympathy from Frank to keep him at home with her. But her plan backfired. Instead of having Frank to herself, she now had to share him with a pregnant daughter-in-law.

For several months, Frank, the dutiful son, spent his days with Olga and then spent his evenings at his mother’s house. If this isn’t a mama’s boy, what is? Frank found it difficult to appease two different women.

Ma Duncan wasn’t the type of woman to not get what she wanted. She decided Olga must go. Ma began harassing her daughter-in-law. She called her on the phone and made threats. And when she wasn’t on the phone, she appeared at Frank and Olga’s apartment, beating on the door and screaming at Olga. The couple changed apartments to get away from Ma.

Olga must have been terrified of her monster-in-law. But it probably made things worse when Frank didn’t stand up to his overbearing mother. Olga hoped that after her child was born, it would be enough to convince Frank to remove himself from underneath his mother’s thumb. This never happened.

In November 1958, Olga Duncan disappeared. The FBI began searching for the missing woman. They eventually caught up with two bunglers named Augustine Baldonado, 25, and Luis Moya, 22. They admitted to being hired to kill Olga. And who hired them? Ma Duncan, of course.

Ma had met with the two killers on November 13, 1958, at a café. She offered them $6,000 to kill Olga. The two men abducted Olga from her home, beat her with a pistol, and then strangled her. After killing Olga, they dumped her body into a shallow grave. So why a shallow grave? After forgetting to bring a shovel, the two “criminal masterminds” had to dig Olga’s grave with their bare hands.

Eventually, the two men and Ma Duncan were all arrested and convicted of killing Olga Duncan. On August 8, 1962, Baldonado and Moya were executed in the gas chamber. Ma Duncan got her turn right after her two henchmen were put down. Karma would once again revisit Ma as she became the last woman executed in California.

Her last words were “I’m innocent,” she told a warden. “Where’s Frank?”

Unknown to her, Frank wasn’t present because he tried using his legal skills to get a last-minute reprieve for his mother. Although Ma Duncan orchestrated her daughter-in-law’s murder, her son Frank desperately tried to save his mother’s life. If that isn’t love, what is?

Marc is a longtime resident of Clermont County and an avid reader. Contact him through his website at www.themarcabe.com or through Facebook: www.Facebook.com/themarcabe or his twitter account @themarcabe. Marc also has a podcast called Catch my Killer where he interviews family members seeking justice for their murdered loved ones. You can listen at www.catchmykiller.com.