Deborah Holt Larkin > Quotes

“The door at the back of Ventura Superior Courtroom One swung open, and a smiling, confident Elizabeth Duncan sashayed in like she owned the place. Her grand entrance was hindered only by the fact that she was cuffed to a deputy sheriff. Mrs. Duncan nodded and raised her finger tips to a few familiar faces in the press section that she'd come to know during the week-long jury selection process.

Reporters and photographers swarmed. 'How about a few pictures before we start?' one newsman called out. Mrs.'s Duncan's dapper little attorney, S. Ward Sullivan, nodded his permission. The deputy unfastened the cuffs. Mrs. Duncan stood next to her chair at the defense table and rubbed her wrist before turning toward reporters. 'Do you like my new outfit?' she asked as she fluffed the skirt of her two-piece, black and white dress. 'Frank bought it for me.' Flashbulbs popped.”
― Deborah Holt Larkin, A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California's Most Notorious Killers

“When I look back, Elizabeth Duncan's trial is linked inextricably in my mind to the sound of my father's voice--his dramatic, profanity-laced, sometimes humorous stories about witness testimony and crazy antics in the courtroom. Stories of blackmail, a Salvation Army man and a phony annulment, too many husbands to count, and Mrs. Duncan breathing fire to the end, often told in snatches between more chaotic attempts at home repair.

I read every work of his newspaper articles, and I scrutinized the front page photos of all the trial participants. But his nightly accounts brought the bizarre and brutal characters to life around our dining room table. Daddy had no filter. I hung on every detail of his spellbinding tales, and although I'd never met any of these people, I knew them all very well.”
― Deborah Holt Larkin, A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California's Most Notorious Killers