On February 21, 1930, Eva Dugan was hanged for the murder of Tucson rancher Andrew J. Mathis. She was the only woman ever executed in Arizona, and her hanging brought the state national notoriety.

She had gone to work as a housekeeper for Mathis in January 1927 and apparently was fired after a couple of weeks. Shortly thereafter, Mathis disappeared along with his Dodge coupe and some personal possessions.

Pima County Sheriff Jim McDonald, investigating the disappearance, found Mathis's cashbox missing, but his house otherwise In order. Neighbors reported having been offered some of Mathis's belongings for sale by Eva, but she also had disappeared. A search of the ranch turned up a charred ear trumpet (Mathis was hard of hearing) but nothing else. Foul play was suspected.

McDonald began the work of tracing Eva, sending missing persons notices describing her and Mathis to police agencies all over the country. He found out she had sold the Dodge for six hundred dollars in Kansas City, Missouri (some accounts say Amarillo, Texas), passing herself off as Mrs. Andrew Mathis. She had told the salesman she needed the money for her husband's surgery.

McDonald arranged for her extradition, and on March 4, 1927 she was returned to Arizona. She was tried on charges of car theft, found guilty and sentenced to prison. Nine months later, a tourist camping overnight at the Mathis ranch uncovered a shallow grave while trying to set a tent post. The decomposing body was identified as that of Andrew J. Mathis. Eva Dugan was charged with murder.

The evidence against Eva all was circumstantial. There were no fingerprints, no witnesses, and the only thing Eva would admit to was that she and Mathis had quarreled. Nevertheless, after a brief trial, she was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to hang. For two years, her supporters worked to have her sentence commuted by the governor, while Eva gave interviews to the press, charging a dollar per visit.

On February 21, 1930, having exhausted all avenues of appeal, she was hanged. In a gruesome footnote, her body separated from her head, which rolled at the feet of the spectators.

Reproduced from Arizona Capitol Times, December 1, 1995.

Eva Dugan

By Bonnie Knapp

Eva Dugan was a part of Arizona History and gained worldwide attention. This bio was concieved from various public records, documents, and newspaper articles. Very little was known of her past and childhood or family. She gained notoriety by being the only woman executed in Arizona and the last person in Arizona to be executed by hanging.

She was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death, for the murder of an elderly Chicken Rancher, Andrew J. Mathis. She had went to work for him as a paid housekeeper, but was fired for some unknown reason after two weeks of employment there. Shortly after her sudden termination, Andrew Mathis disappeared, along with his Dodge Coupe and some personal possessions, his cash box he kept at the Ranch also turned up missing. A search of the Ranch turned up a charred ear trumpet, Mr. Mathis was hard of hearing. Pima County Sheiff James McDonald investigated the disappearance and tried tracing Eva Dugan. He learned Eva Dugan had a father in California and a daughter in White Plains, New York, neither had seen or heard from her in several years. She also had been married 5 times, all her husbands turned up missing under mysterious circumstances.

The Ranchers' neighbors reported they had been approached by Eva Dugan who was trying to sell some of Andrew Mathises belongings, shortly after that, she vanished. In Kansas City, Missouri she sold Andrew's Dodge for $600.00, saying she needed the money for her husbands surgery, she had been posing as his wife. Some reports said she tried selling the car in Amarillo, Texas. She was located in White Plains, New York by an alert Postal Worker who intercepted a card from her to her father in California. She was arrested and extradited back to Arizona on March 4th, 1927, at the time only convicted of Car theft and sent to jail. Nine months later, by sheer coincidence, a tourist from Oklahoma camping on Mathis Ranch uncovered a shallow grave when he was pounding in Tent Stakes. It was confirmed to be the decomposing remains of Andrew Mathis. Eva Dugan was charged with his murder, a brief trial ensued, largely on Circumstantial Evidence.

She was sentenced to be hung for the killing. Her appeals soon ran out, yet she remained confident. For two years her supporters tried having her sentence commuted by the Govenor. Eva gave interviews to the press for a $1.00 per interview. In the meantime she made her own burial dress, a beaded, silk jazz dress. She had paid for her own coffin by selling embroidered hankerchiefs she made in her cell.

The day before her hanging, it was rumored she'd cheat the gallows by suicide. A search of her cell turned up a bottle of raw amonia hidden in her bunk and three razor blades under the collar of her dress. The day and night before her scheduled execution she visited with and joked with, friends and newsmen. No mention of family being present. From time to time glanced over at the clock. She told a reporter from the Arizona Republic, " I am going to my Maker with a clear Conscience." Early the next morning she was led from the death house at Arizona State Prison in Florence, Arizona by a Veteran Guard known as "Daddy Allen."

She was flanked by two guards and followed by the Prison Chaplain. She seemed composed as she mounted the steps towards the gallows, telling the guards, "Don't hold my arms so tight, the people will think I'm afraid." She swayed slightly at the trap door as the noose was placed around her neck and tightened. The Warden, Lo Wright, asked if she had any final words. She closed her eyes and shook her head. As she flung down to her death, her head was decapitated from her body, her head rolled to a corner of the platform by her spectators feet, as the crowd that gathered, gasped. The gas chamber replaced the gallows after that incident. Eva Dugan, died at the age of 52.

Findagrave.com

A convicted murderess, 52-year-old Eva Dugan, was hanged at 5:02 a.m. Feb. 21, 1930, in Arizona State Prison's death house. It was the beginning of the end for the scaffold in Arizona. For when Mrs. Dugan plunged through the trap door and hit the end of the rope with a bouncing jolt, her head snapped off and rolled into a corner. There was an immediate, horrified widespread demand that a more humane means of execution such as a new gas chamber - be substituted for the unreliable gallows.

Mrs. Dugan had been convicted of killing A J Mathis, an elderly Tucson rancher, in January 1927. After the slaying she fled with a mysterious drifter, a young man known only as "Jack." Mathis' skeleton. encrusted with lime and with a gag still in its teeth, was found almost a year later in a 100-to-l happenstance. A camper from Oklahoma, J. F. Nash, discovered the rancher’s shallow grave while driving a tent stake.

The preliminaries to Mrs. Dugan's beheading were routine enough. During the day and night before the execution she visited with friends and newsmen. She made small jokes - some of them a bit macabre - and from time to time glanced at the clock. She told a reporter for The Arizona Republic that "I am going to my Maker with a clear conscience. I am innocent of any murder and God knows I am." Until she left the women's cell block for the death house, Mrs. Dugan was sure she would be spared, that "the attorney general is probably on his way here now."

The small procession to the death house was led by a veteran guard, "Daddy" Allen. Two other guards flanked Mrs. Dugan and they were followed by the prison chaplain, the Rev. Walter Hoffman, who in later years was chairman of the state parole board. She seemed composed as she mounted the scaffold and told the guards "not to hold my arms so hard: people will think I'm afraid" She swayed slightly as she stood on the trap door. She closed her eyes and shook her head when the warden Lo Wright asked her if she had any last words.

She was buried in a Florence cemetery in a beaded, jazz-age silk dress she had made while awaiting execution, and had paid for her own coffin by selling handkerchiefs she embroidered in her cell.  Seventy-five persons - including seven women - watched the execution.

Reproduced from the Arizona Republic, June 30, 1972.

DUGAN, Eva (USA)

In England, the year 1874 heralded a new era in execution technique when, having just taken over the scaffold, hangman William Marwood realised that breaking the felon’s spinal column would bring death faster than the current slow strangulation method brought about by using the ‘one length of rope fits all’ method. To achieve this, and thereby alleviate the victim’s suffering, it would be necessary to vary the distance he or she dropped, having first taken into consideration their age, weight, physical development and similar factors. This method of calculation was refined and improved by subsequent hangmen, and was in fact the basic measure used until capital punishment was eventually abolished.

However, it would seem that Marwood’s ideas were not embraced in America until much later, many states in the USA still adhering to the original system until well into the following century, much to the horror and distress of the spectators attending the execution of Eva Dugan.

Eva had been found guilty of the brutal murder of her employer, A. J. Mathis. At her trial she accused another alleged ‘employee’ named Jack, of the murder, letters signed by Jack later coming from Mexico, confessing to the crime; no explanation of how Eva arranged for these missives was forthcoming, if indeed she was responsible in any way for them. They had no effect on the jury’s deliberations, the verdict being one of guilty.

The inevitable petitions were submitted to the Arizona state governor, Eva even claiming to be insane in order to be granted a reprieve, but to no avail. In gaol she was reported as being full of bravado, one journalist quoting her as saying that she was going to die as she had lived, and that people loved a good sport but hated a bad loser.

On 21 February 1930 Eva stood on the scaffold, hooded and bound. The executioner positioned the noose around her neck and operated the drop. The trapdoors opened, the body dropped, but then the rope swung back up again – empty. Witnesses saw Eva’s torso sprawled in the pit, her hooded head lying some distance away. And as her heart had continued beating for some little time, copiously flowing blood was very much in evidence.

Eva had been given too long a drop, due regard not having been given to her physical condition, for subsequent examination revealed that the debacle had been caused by her having a flabby neck. Had prior checks such as those advocated by Marwood and further improved by a successor, James Berry, been in force, a shorter drop would have resulted in a ‘normal’ execution.

However, the severance of her head would have been so rapid that Eva would have suffered for only an infinitesimal length of time. Bearing that fact in mind, it is ironic to note that mainly due to that catastrophe, the Arizona authorities decided to dispatch victims by the gas chamber instead – a method in which victims usually attempt to hold their breath for as long as possible, and so suffer visibly for a number of seconds before and while inhaling the toxic fumes.

Inviting friends into one’s cell while awaiting execution seemed to be the norm in some American prisons in the 1930s, for Eva held a veritable soirée, it being reported in the gossip columns of the more popular papers that ‘she was gracious as a society woman entertaining at a tea, the conversation positively sparkling with the repartee’.

Amazing True Stories of Female Executions by Geoffrey Abbott

Introduction to Eva Dugan

Insroland.org

Born in 1876, Mrs. Eva Dugan somehow managed to survive a hard-scrabble childhood to become an adult with few skills, and even fewer expectations. In photographs, Eva seemed to always have a tentative expression on her face, as if she were waiting for the other shoe to drop – and inevitably, it did. She had been married at sixteen, and bore two children. Eva’s husband abandoned her and the kids, so she turned to prostitution to make ends meet.

By January of 1927, Eva was in her early 50s and working in Arizona as a housekeeper for Mr. Andrew J. Mathis, a wealthy reclusive rancher. Mathis was demanding, cranky, and cheap. Mathis and Eva butted heads frequently during the two months that she was in his employ. Mathis even accused Eva of trying to poison him! An acquaintance of Mathis’ said that he’d been present when the man had finally given Eva her walking papers. Mathis had told her in no uncertain terms to leave the ranch and never return.

A few days after his friend had overheard him banishing Eva from the ranch forever, a group of Mathis’ neighbors reported him missing. The neighbors had become suspicious when Eva offered to sell them some of Mathis’ livestock. She claimed that Mathis had departed for California, and had turned all of his property over to her. A notorious tightwad, Mathis wasn’t a man who would have willingly turned over his property to a woman who’d only worked for him for a couple of months.

Not long after Mathis went missing, Eva also vanished. A search of the ranch by local authorities didn’t turn up a body, but they did find some troubling clues. An ear trumpet belonging to the hard-of-hearing Mathis was found in a small stove in the front room of the ranch. Carelessly discarded clothing and bits of automobile equipment, including a blood-stained cover for a roadster, gave cops little hope that the rancher would be found alive.

It was months before Eva was finally discovered living in White Plains, New York. Returning to Arizona to face auto theft charges, Eva was convicted. The judge sentenced her to a three to six year term in the state penitentiary.

Nearly a year after Mathis had disappeared, a camper on the property near the ranch noticed an odd depression in the soil. The camper scraped away some of the topsoil, and after a minimum of digging he unearthed the skeleton of a man. Tattered clothing and hair on the skull indicated that the body discovered in the shallow grave was that of A.J. Mathis.

Once Mathis’ body had been found, Eva had some explaining to do; however, she preferred denials to explanations. She told cops that if she had been responsible for Mathis’ death and subsequent burial, she’d have buried him deep enough so that he’d never have been found. Far from convincing, her denial sounded more like a woman trying to extricate herself from a capital murder charge than one proclaiming her innocence.

Eva finally settled on a story and stuck with it. She alleged that she’d met a young man named Jack outside of a local restaurant. The two started a conversation, and Eva told him that he could get a job on Mathis’ ranch.

Jack went directly to the ranch, where he was employed on the spot. Unfortunately, his first day on the job didn’t quite turn out the way he had planned. Maybe things would have been different if Jack had known how to handle the basics. Mathis’ took umbrage when Jack failed to milk a cow as he’d been directed. Mathis complained: “If you can’t milk a cow, what the hell are you good for?’’ Mathis struck Jack. The young man quickly recovered from the blow and hit Mathis, who fell to the ground and did not get up.

Eva insisted that she and Jack had tried unsuccessfully to revive Mathis. She also claimed that she wanted to go for aid but that Jack told her if she didn’t help him get Mathis’ body into the car so he could dispose of it, he’d leave her to face the music on her own.

Eva’s story had more than a few holes in it – the biggest one being Jack. Not everyone was convinced that the young man had ever actually existed, because only one person was ever found who could corroborate Eva’s statement.

Just as Eva was being charged with A.J. Mathis’ murder, a young dark-haired young man was confessing to a grisly child murder in Los Angeles. The young man was the infamous slayer, Edward Hickman (aka “The Fox’’). Hickman had kidnapped, murdered, and dismembered twelve year old Marion Parker.

Arizona investigators began to suspect that Hickman had been “Jack’’ in Eva’s story. Hickman stated that he’d been in Phoenix for a few days prior to Mathis’ disappearance, and that he’d also been in Kansas City during the same time that Eva said she’d dropped “Jack’’ off in that city on her way to New York.

When Eva was shown photographs of Edward Hickman, she said that she thought he and Jack were one and the same but that she wasn’t absolutely certain.

Even if Eva had been sure about the identity of Edward/Jack, LA cops were not about to allow anyone to interfere with murder charges against him. Although Hickman was never charged in the Mathis case, “The Fox’’ was hanged for Marion Parker’s murder on October 19, 1928.

Eva was tried and convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. The only thing that could have saved her from execution would have been a successful insanity plea. Two doctors testified that her mental state had been compromised due to the “inroads made by a disease she contracted more than 30 years ago.” Eva was syphilitic. Despite the medical testimony, a jury determined that Eva was indeed sane, and plans for her execution continued.

Because she had no wish to be buried in the prison cemetery, Eva made and sold embroidered items so that she would have enough money to pay for a proper burial. She also wired her father and asked him to send her $50 to help pay for her funeral.

As the date of her execution drew nearer, Eva asked the Warden what she should wear to her hanging. He advised her not to wear any of her best things, so the handmade, lovingly embroidered silk shroud she’d created for the occasion was set aside to be used later for her burial.

It was during the long hours leading up to her hanging that Eva was visited by Mother Benton from the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles. Mother Benton believed that Eva’s soul had been saved as a result of their prayers.

Eva remained stoic as she walked to the place of her execution. She even recited an ironic bit of doggerel:
“We came into this world all naked and bare; Where we are going, the Lord only knows where; If we are good fellows here; We’ll be good fellows there.’’

As it turned out, it was fortunate that Eva took the warden’s advice and didn’t wear her handmade silk shroud to the hanging. Due to a miscalculation on the executioner’s part when she fell through the trap at the end of a rope, her neck wasn’t broken; she was decapitated! Eva’s head rolled within a few feet of the 60 witnesses – all of whom fled in terror.

On February 21, 1930, Eva Dugan was the first – and last – woman to be legally hanged in the state of Arizona. Three years after the horror of Eva’s botched execution, Arizona switched from the rope to the gas chamber.

Eva Dugan's Testimonial

Copied from LA Times Feb. 21, 1930

Poison given up by Mrs. Dugan as end nears. Slayer of employer recites doggerel and sings on death march.

Florence, Arizona. Feb. 21

Marching to her death with a firm step, and with never a show of emotion or breaking, Mrs. Eva Dugan, 52, was hanged here at 5:02am for the murder three years ago of J. H. Mathis, aged Tucson rancher, whose housekeeper she had been. To quote one of her guests, Mrs. Dugan “died like a man.”

When the trap was sprung the first impact of the knotted rope snapped Mrs. Dugan’s head from her body. She was the first woman to be legally executed in Arizona.

Collapse Expected

For use in case the woman collapsed four boards had been provided with which she was to have been strapped upright on the gallows, but they were unnecessary. Only the customary four leather straps were placed about her legs.

Given an opportunity to make a final statement as the back cap was adjusted, she merely shook her head to the negative.

Warden Wright clasped her hand.

“God bless you, Eva” he said.

“Good-by, Daddy Wright,” she said. Those were her last words.

Recites doggerel

The death march was accomplished quickly. as she walked to the execution chamber between two guards with her face set in a grim smile, Mrs. Dugan recited a bit of doggerel:

“We came into the world all naked and bare, where we are going, the lord only knows where, if we are good fellows here, we’ll be good fellows there.”

A sensation was created by the woman a short time before she was taken from the death cell when she voluntarily surrendered to her two women guards a safety razor blade and a small phial presumed to contain poison.

“Well, what do you thing it? Would your wait for the rope?” she remarked as she delivered the bottle and the keen bit of steel, indicating that she had considered cheating the gallows but had decided to let the law take its course.

Her request that she be given “one last pint of prescription whiskey” had been denied by prison authorities.

The execution was witnessed by approximately 100 persons who crowded into a small chamber that provided adequate accommodations for only 50.

Mrs. Dugan remained awake during all of her last night on earth, in company with the prison chaplain and a few friends from outside the prison and another woman prisoner.

Ignores death watch

Apparently she was unmindful of the death watch that paced firmly pack and forth outside her cell, while the hands of the clock raced toward the fatal hour when she was to pay her debt to society.

At Mrs. Dugan’s request she and her guests were served orangeade.

There was no outbursts of emotion from the doomed woman when Warden Wright and his assistants called at her cell this morning summoning her to begin the solemn death march.

She lighted a cigarette and inhaled deeply as she passed the corridor and joked with the guards as the party neared the execution chamber.

It was a leaden morning and a light rain was falling in the bit of open courtyard through which she was lead from her cell into the death house.

Sings on march

Mrs. Dugan apparently was trying to appear to be in higher spirits than any other member of the group. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way,” she sang as she crossed the courtyard.

Two of the women guards in the party left her at the door and she affectionately kissed them a last goodbye.

“I love everyone connected with this prison,” she said. “You have all been good to me and I can’t blame you for what the law is going to do to me.”

Then she walked firmly up the 13 iron steps to the death trap, said her last farewell to the warden Wright, and in a few moments her life was a closed book.

In the small prison plot behind the frowning grey concrete walls of the penitentiary Mrs. Dugan’s body will be buried with scant ceremony at 3’o clock this afternoon, it was announced by the ward.

She will have a better coffin then those provided the State of Arizona for hanged murderers, for by her sale of bead work, and by collecting 50 cents a piece from each of her visitors in the condemned cell, Mrs. Dugan raised the money to purchase a more elaborate casket.

Mrs. Dugan left instruction to send her trunk and her few small personal belongings to a cousin at Westin, Mo.

Among numerous telegrams and letter received by Mrs. Dugan at the condemned cell was a telegram from her daughter, Mrs. cecil lovelace, new york musician.

The telegram, dated South Bend, Ind, said: “My dear Mother: Be brave. God is with you. ALl my love. I will pray for you.”

Gold Rush Tale

A hitherto unrevealed chapter in Mrs. Dugan’s life came to light last night when she received from Seattle, Washington a telegram signed by Ada Hostapple. It read:

“you have my admiration and sympathy for your grit and courage in this, your hour of greatest trouble.”

Mrs. Dugan said that she and “Ada” where “pals” during the gold rush in the Yukon.

Mrs. Dugan seemed to enjoy a “kick” at a farewell “party” with newspaper men last night. She called one of them “big boy” provided by cigarettes and cigars.

A rainbow over the Arizona desert sunset brought tears to her eyes last night but her stoic calm otherwise was undisturbed as during the hour this morning when she was led slowly up the steps to the end of the rope.

She ate a dozen fried oysters and two boiled eggs last night. Her oder of three T-bone steaks and two lamb chops for breakfast this morning remained untouched.

By Pacific Coast News Service

Ceres, California Feb. 21—Alone in his little cottage here, William Mcdaniels, 82 year old father of Mrs. Eva Dugan, today received the news that his daughter had been hanged in Arizona for murder.

McDaniels had given up hope that she would be saved from the gallows, but his grief was uncontrollable when word of the Florence hanging reach him.

“She was innocent of that crime,” he declared. “They have hanged an innocent woman. I don’t think she was quite right in her mind, but I know that she did not commit murder.”