After a long career spent caring for others, Elizabeth Manning, a 75-year-old retired nurse, deserved a peaceful and quiet life in her San Francisco apartment. Instead, her life of service ended in an act of brutal violence on September 4, 1955. On that day, police officers discovered her body inside her apartment on Webster Street, near Fulton Street. The scene told a story of a horrific struggle; she had been severely beaten about her head, face, neck, and chest, and ultimately strangled to death.
The investigation into the death of the elderly woman, a female victim who had dedicated her years to healing, revealed it was not a simple robbery gone wrong, although about $65 in cash and some silver were missing from her home. The nature of her injuries pointed to a deeply disturbed and violent perpetrator.
The case would eventually be linked to a man who preyed on the most vulnerable, a discovery that would bring both resolution and further horror as the scope of his crimes became clear.
The man responsible was Vender Lee Duncan, a house painter with a troubled past who had drifted to San Francisco. Born in Texas, Duncan had a history of violence, including losing an eye in a fight at age 17 and later serving a sentence for assault with intent to commit murder after stabbing a man 24 times. To supplement his income, he began committing burglaries, a path that escalated to sexual assault and murder. Duncan was a serial killer who targeted elderly women in the city between 1955 and 1957.
Duncan’s reign of terror ended following his arrest for another crime. In custody, he confessed to a string of brutal attacks, including the murder of Elizabeth Manning. He also admitted to killing another elderly woman, Ada Romig, in 1957, and a third, Marceline Herdlick. He told investigators that he was often drunk when he committed his crimes, which made him aggressive, and that he killed his victims because he couldn't stand their screams. His confession cleared his conscience, he claimed, and he expressed a preference for execution over a lifetime in prison.
Vender Lee Duncan, also known as Vander Lee Duncan, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Elizabeth Manning and Ada Romig, as well as rape, burglary, and assault with intent to commit murder. At his trial, he recanted his confession, claiming he only admitted to the crimes because he wanted to die. He asserted that he had learned details of the murders from newspapers and police reports.
A jury found Duncan guilty on all charges on April 15, 1958. In separate proceedings, he was found to have been sane at the time of the offenses, and the penalty was fixed at death for each murder count. His appeals to the Supreme Court of California and to Governor Pat Brown were denied. On May 29, 1959, Vender Lee Duncan was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison, bringing an end to the legal chapter of his violent spree.
