Elizabeth Ann Duncan crosses her fingers during her murder trial.
 

CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Frank S. Duncan Has Come to Town

In a sparsely furnished office on the floor of a modernistic Sunset Boulevard office building, a young attorney opened up shop yesterday.

There was no celebration — no party to announce that he had joined the ranks of this town's multitude of lawyers.

His debut was most inauspicious.

But that — except for the fact that no clients were knocking down his door — is the way he wanted it. Lately, he'd been in the limelight a little too much.

The 30-year-old attorney, Frank S. Duncan, son of convicted killer Elizabeth Duncan, answered his own phone when I called him yesterday afternoon.

"I don't have a secretary yet," he explained. "In this business, you've got to have clients before you hire secretaries."

Then he laughed.

"I don't quite know where I'd put her, anyway," he said. "I just got my own desk and chair moved in today."

He added that the office furniture wasn't his own. The desk, a telephone stand, couch and volumes of law books were turned over to him by a friend who used to practice here.

"You should see the place," he told me. "Books all over. What a mess."

For a man with four and a half years of law practice (in Santa Barbara and San Francisco) behind him, Duncan didn't sound very prosperous.

"If you'll excuse a blunt question," I asked, "are you broke?"

"I haven't been active for quite a while, as you can imagine," he said. "I've used up my savings, if that's what you mean."

That he should choose Los Angeles, so close to the scene of his mother's trial, to go into practice also bothered me.

"The story was played up all over the country," he told me. "No matter where I went, it would follow me.

"Besides, I like it here in California. It never really occurred to me to move anywhere else."

I asked him how much of a hindrance he felt the notoriety would be.

"It's not going to do my business any good," he admitted. "But how much harm it's going to do, I'll just have to wait and find out.

"To be perfectly honest, I'm quite confident that I'll do all right here. I have a good background in divorce work and criminal work. That's the area I'll stay in."

With Duncan, it isn't the usual case of building up a reputation. With him, it's living one down.

"I had new business cards printed up last Wednesday," he continued. "Plus 200 printed announcements. I picked them up today.

"I'll send them out this week," he added. "Things might be slow at first, but you expect that when you branch out on your own and move into a new town."

Inevitable Question Is Asked

"Your mother?" I asked Duncan. "Have you seen her lately?"

"I've been visiting her every week," he said. "She's at the California Institution for Women at Corona. She's in solitary."

Frank Duncan paused.

Then he continued: "It's not very pleasant there. They treat her very well — but it's just that being alone. Four cold walls to look at. When I go, I take her little presents, but with regulations what they are, there's not too much I can take.

"Like next Sunday, I'll take her a couple of jigsaw puzzles. She likes those.

"Next Sunday," Frank Duncan pointed out, "is Mother's Day, you know."