Evelita Juanita Spinelli (October 17, 1889 - November 21, 1941) nicknamed The Duchess, was the first woman to be executed by the state of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. She was a gangster and ex-wrestler.

Criminal history

FBI profiler Candice DeLong described Spinelli as a "stone cold psychopath who had no use for anybody, other than what she could get out of them."(Deadly Women, season 4, episode 2). Young delinquent homeless men were regularly taken into her house in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. She would cook and clean for them and train them to be professional criminals. The men received a ten-dollar weekly allowance, with Spinelli receiving the

lion's share The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, wh ...

of their ill-gotten gains. Her daughter Lorraine, known as "Gypsy," regularly used a honey trap to snare drunken men, who were consequently mugged. Two of Spinelli's protégés, Albert Ives and Robert Sherrod, killed Leland Cash during a robbery in San Francisco (when he reached into his pocket to turn up his

hearing aid A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers su ...

, Ives assumed he was reaching for a gun and shot Cash in the stomach). Fearing Sherrod would confess to the police, Spinelli gave him whiskey that she had laced with

chloral hydrate Chloral hydrate is a geminal diol with the formula . It is a colorless solid. It has limited use as a sedative and hypnotic pharmaceutical drug. It is also a useful laboratory chemical reagent and precursor. It is derived from chloral (trichl ...

. The gang then beat him up whilst he was unconscious. To make his death appear accidental, they threw him off the Clarksburg bridge on the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–S ...

, just south of

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

, wearing only

swimming trunks A swimsuit is an item of clothing designed to be worn by people engaging in a water-based activity or water sports, such as swimming, diving and surfing, or sun-orientated activities, such as sun bathing. Different types may be worn by men, wome ...

. However, the autopsy showed there was no water in his lungs. Fearing for his own survival, Ives escaped and confessed to the police and was committed to

Mendocino State Hospital Mendocino State Hospital, formally known as Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane, was a psychiatric hospital in Talmage near Ukiah, California, was established in 1889 and in operation from July 1893 to 1972. The hospital programs included the ...

for life. Spinelli was consequently arrested. Her gang members testified against her at her trial. She was described by

Clinton Duffy Clinton Truman Duffy (1898–1982) was the warden of San Quentin State Prison between 1940 and 1952. He was a prominent opponent of capital punishment. Life His father was a guard at San Quentin, he was raised on the prison grounds, and his wife ...

, the warden at

San Quentin State Prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

, as "the coldest, hardest character, male or female, I have ever known, a homely, scrawny, nearsighted, sharp-featured scarecrow. . . . The Duchess was a hag, evil as a witch, horrible to look at, impossible to like."

Execution

Spinelli was executed on November 21, 1941, at the age of 52, in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

In popular culture

Her story was dramatized on TV in the

Gang Busters ''Gang Busters'' is an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered on January 15, 1936, and was broadcast over 21 years through November 27, 1957. Histo ...

episode,"The Duchess Spinelli Case".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spinelli, Juanita 1889 births 1941 deaths 20th-century executions by California 20th-century executions of American people American people executed for murder American female murderers Executed American women People convicted of murder by California People executed by California by gas chamber