Evelita Juanita Spinelli (October 17, 1889 – November 21, 1941)[2] nicknamed The Duchess,[3] was the first woman to be executed by the state of California.

Spinelli, who fled Detroit and the so-called Purple Gang she ran with—earning her the nickname "The Duchess"—settled in San Francisco, where she regularly took in young, delinquent, homeless men.

[4] On April 8th 1940, two of Spinelli's protégés, Albert Ives and Raymond Sherrod, killed Leland Cash during an armed robbery in San Francisco.

[6] Fearing Sherrod would confess to the police, Spinelli gave him whiskey that she had laced with chloral hydrate.

[11] She was described by Clinton Duffy, the warden at San Quentin State Prison, as "the coldest, hardest character, male or female, I have ever known, a homely, scrawny, nearsighted, sharp-featured scarecrow.