The Erstwhile Housekeeper
True Crime Historian
Richard O Jones
4.4 • 730 Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2025
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ad-Free Safe House Edition
Episode 131 concerns the murky relationship between the mysterious hired wife, a Tucson rancher, and a young man who came to stay. It’s also about the dogged chase for the fugitive conducted by a determined sheriff, but the scene that strikes me most takes place in the office of a prison warden when they confront the suspected murderer with an unsettling relic of her crime.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Popular.com |
| 0:03.0 | Tusson, Arizona, January 22, 1927. |
| 0:15.3 | A.J. Mathis, 60, who has been missing from his home near Pastime Park since last Friday, has not been found, |
| 0:24.3 | and Mrs. Eva Dugan, 47, formerly housekeeper for Mathis, is being sought by the sheriff's office |
| 0:31.8 | in hope with throwing light on his disappearance. Mrs. Dugan was discharged by Mathis last week. She left the Mathis home |
| 0:41.3 | Sunday night or Monday morning, traveling in a car said to have been at one time the property of her |
| 0:47.3 | former employer. The officers were also told Mrs. Dugan attempted to sell a cow and some chickens from the Mathis home. |
| 0:57.3 | Sheriff McDonald last night expressed the opinion that Mathis had either met with foul play |
| 1:03.2 | or was a victim of amnesia. The latter supposition was doubted, however. |
| 1:09.9 | McDonald declared the only motive he could find for doing away with the aged man was for the purpose of obtaining the car or for fancied revenge. |
| 1:18.6 | The officers were not informed of the aged man's disappearance until Tuesday night, and it was 30 hours later before they could obtain the license number of the car |
| 1:28.8 | in which Mrs. Dugan left from California, where it was registered. |
| 1:34.8 | Acquaintances of Mrs. Dugan told officers she told them she was going to Nogales, |
| 1:40.1 | but no trace of her there has been found. |
| 1:43.5 | Neighbors were told by the woman that Mathis had gone to California to visit relatives there, |
| 1:48.0 | but telegrams sent there brought answers that Mathis has not been seen. |
| 1:53.0 | Other relatives in El Paso were also queried without result. |
| 1:59.0 | According to McDonald and Deputy Sheriff Duncan, Mathis was last seen |
| 2:04.2 | Friday morning when he drove into Tucson in his car. He was never seen to return. The |
| 2:11.6 | woman brought the car back to the ranch Saturday morning. According to a woman neighbor, Mrs. Dugan attempted to sell her Mathis' cow and chickens |
| 2:22.3 | Sunday, telling her that the aged man had turned over all his property to her with the authority to sell it if she wanted to. |
| 2:30.3 | Hard feelings are said to have existed between the aged man and Mrs. Dugan, who had been his housekeeper since last summer when Mathis' wife died. |
... |
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