1. Eva Dugan was a convicted murderer whose execution by hanging at the state prison in Florence, Arizona, resulted in her decapitation and influenced the state of Arizona to replace hanging with the lethal gas chamber as a method of execution.
18 Facts About Eva Dugan
1. 2.
Mathis fired Eva Dugan and told her to leave his property by morning.
3.
Neighbors reported that Eva Dugan had tried to sell some of his possessions before she disappeared as well.
4.
The police discovered Eva Dugan had a father in California and a daughter in White Plains, New York.
5.
Eva Dugan had been married five times, and all of her husbands had disappeared.
6.
Eva Dugan sold the Dodge coupe for $600 in Kansas City, Missouri.
7.
Eva Dugan was arrested in White Plains when a postal clerk, alerted by the police, intercepted a postcard to her from her father in California.
8.
Eva Dugan was extradited to Arizona to face automobile theft charges.
9.
Eva Dugan was tried for murder in a short trial based mostly on circumstantial evidence.
10.
The prosecution proved to the jury's satisfaction that Eva Dugan had murdered Mathis with an axe.
11.
Eva Dugan made for her hanging a silk, beaded "jazz dress", but later relented and wore a cheap dress as she was worried that her silk wrapper "might get mussed".
12.
Eva Dugan remained so upbeat that Time magazine called her "Cheerful Eva" in a March 3,1930 story about her execution.
13.
Eva Dugan's cell was searched, and a bottle of raw ammonia and three razor blades hidden in a dress were confiscated.
14.
Eva Dugan was the first woman to be executed by the state, and it was the first execution in Arizona history that allowed women to be witnesses.
15.
Eva Dugan cooked her own last meal in her cell and played cards with other inmates until almost midnight.
16.
Eva Dugan preferred not to be buried in the State standard issued coffin and so she bought her own more elaborate coffin by way of selling bead work and collecting.
17.
Eva Dugan's heart continued to pump blood out of her severed neck, spurting blood for several minutes after the decapitation.
18.
Eva Dugan was one of the last persons to be hanged by Arizona.