The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-02-21
WOMAN DIES
ON GALLONS
FOR MURDER
End Comes Instantly for
Mrs. Dugan as Moose
Snaps.
CALM TO VERY LAST
Bids Warden Farewell and
Firmly Walks Up
Thirteen Steps.
BIZ United Press

| BIZ United Press
STATE PRISON, Florence, Ariz.,
Feb. 21.-The first woman ever to
be ----- - by the state of Arizona,
Mrs. Eva Dugan, So, was dropped to
her death from a gallows here to-
day.
Her body. draped only in a cheap
wrapper, went through the trap at
4:26 a. m. She fell through a hole
in the floor of the execution cham
Der to a room below Death came
instantly as the trap was sprung.
In the room where she died for
the murder, in 1927, of A. J. Mathis,
Tucson rancher, we're the pic
lures of sixteen persons, all men,
who we're hanged on the same gall
lows.
Around each picture was the
moose which caused death, and Sat-
urday Mrs. Dugan'S picture and her
moose will be placed among the grim
collection.
CalmeSt in Assembly
Mrs. Dugan appeared to be the
calmeSt one in the assembly as she
entered the death chamber She
paused at the foot of the galloWs
and shook her head in the negative
when Warden Lorenzo Wright asked
her if she had anything to say.
You're a good scout" the wardeu
said as he shook hands with her.
With a guard on each side she
walked firmly up the thirteen steps
to the gallows. One guard adjusted
the moose, another pulled a black
hood over her face and the trap
was sprung.
Immediately after she went to
death, the Rev. Walter Huffman,
who gave her spiritual solace to
the gallows, spoke to the twenty-five
witnesses in the death chamber.
"Now," he said, please take
good look and see what capital pun
iShment does"
Mrs. Dugan maintained her inno-
cence to the very last.
Just a few minutes before she
started the walk to the galloWs she
admitted reporters to the death cell.
Maintains Innocence
Shoot your questions boys, there
isn't much time left" she said. Then
she added: I'm not guilty. That's
about all I have to say"
She kissed one reporter and then
the interview was at an end after
she collected one dollar from each
to aid in the purchase of a better
coffin"
To the last moment, Mrs. Dugan,
once known as Eva Davis in her
dance hall days at Juneau, Alaska,
was calm. She played cards until
almost midnight with two women
from Tucson and then she prepared
her last meal.
Refusing offers of aid from prison
officials she cooked an oyster stew
over the heater in her cell. A glass
of orange juice was the only thing
she took.
Mrs. Dugan, apparently unaffect-
ed, walked without help the $50
yards to the death cell. Once there
she posed, dressed only in her
nightgown and slippers, for pho
tographers.
Warden Is Shaken
A 1ast-minute rumor that Mrs.
Dugan intended to take poison to
cheat the gallows sent guards to
search her cell.
Il won't cheat" she told them.
"I'll go to the gallows like a man"
Wright, the warden. appeared to
be more upset by the hanging than
Mrs. Dugan. He told reporters he
had been falling through a trap
for the last ten days"
The warden received a telephone
call at l a. m. from Governor Phil
lips.
What am I going to do?" ne
said. Wen hang her, although
God knows we hate to do it."
"She was the best prisoner we
ever had here" the warden said.
Mrs. Dugan lost her chance for
life in an asylum or the state peni-
tertiary when a jury of twelve men
late Wednesday reached the decision