Feb. 21, 1930, front page: Eva Dugan hangs

Download a PDF that you can enlarge for easier reading

EVA DUGAN DIES IN PRISON

WOMAN'S DEATH FINAL CHAPTER IN MATHIS CASE

Slayer of Tucson Recluse Calm in Last Hours At Penitentiary

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.

EVA DUGAN CALM IN FINAL HOURS

Plays Cards with Companions; Caresses Letter From Her Daughter

STATE PRISON, FLORENCE, Ariz., Feb. 21.—(AP)—Mrs. Eva Dugan — sentenced to pay with her life on the gallows for the murder of A. J. Mathis within a few hours — was the calmest person in the prison this morning.

She sat at a card table playing whist with two women friends and a woman prisoner — outside the death watch paced back and forth — at her elbow was a telegram from her daughter, Mrs. Cecil Loveless. The daughter told her condemned mother she was praying for her. Occasionally Mrs. Dugan's hand would caress this farewell message of love and cheer.

Shortly before midnight, Eva asked that she and her "guests" be served with orangeade. It was ordered and several minutes had passed without the drink being served, she called the guard and told him, "please bring me and my guests the orangeade. I want it now, tomorrow will be too late."

When told that a friend had sent her some cut flowers, she said, "please, I don't want that. I like to see flowers growing, but cut flowers have always been my jinx. Don't bring them here."

In the whist game she was lucky and played as if her own life depended upon the outcome.

"Lucky" she said, "when it makes no difference."