1930: Eva Dugan hangs

EVA DUGAN DIES IN PRISON
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WOMAN'S DEATH FINAL CHAPTER IN MATHIS CASE
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Slayer of Tucson Recluse Calm in Last Hours at Penitentiary
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SIXTY IN DEATH HOUSE
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Last Minute Reprive (sic) From Prison and Parole Board Is Denied
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STATE PRISON, FLORENCE, Ariz., Feb. 21.—Mrs. Eva Dugan, convicted slayer of A. J. Mathis, Tucson rancher, paid the extreme penalty on the gallows this morning. She was pronounced dead at 5:02 o'clock.

Mrs. Dugan walked to the gallows unaided, asked if she had anything to say, she remained silent and someone said for her "She has nothing to say." She mounted the scaffold at 5:01 and the trap was sprung immediately. As it fell, her head remained above the trap, while her body, completely severed, dropped below into a pool of blood. Two minutes later the room which had contained 60 witnesses was empty.

Shortly before the execution, searchers found three razor blades in Mrs. Dugan's waist and announced that a half hour earlier they had found a bottle of poison in her cell.

Mrs. Dugan will be buried in the little prison graveyard southeast of the tall penitentiary walls.

At 4 o'clock this morning the twelve reporters present were taken to Mrs. Dugan's cell. They found her outwardly calm. She shook hands with each of them and seemed to bear no resentment toward any. Her handshake was firm with no sign of a tremble, but there was noticeable a slight quaver in her voice.

She avoided making direct answers to any questions put to her, but repeated that she would walk to the gallows without assistance provided some one went with her. She displayed no emotion whatever, appearing to be unconcerned, saying goodbyes to the ones with whom she was acquainted in the same way she would say it if she were going away on a short journey.

Warden Lo Wright told the 60 witnesses who were waiting in the execution chamber that no one but himself would ever know who sprung the trap.