Ann Bassett - The Alleged Ann Bassett-Etta Place Connection

The Alleged Ann Bassett-Etta Place Connection

Ann Bassett has often been accused of having actually been Etta Place, the girlfriend of the Sundance Kid, and who mysteriously disappeared from all public records in 1909 not long after his death. According to these speculations, Bassett led a double life, dating Cassidy as Ann Bassett, and dating the Sundance Kid as Etta Place. This would mean that she was involved with both outlaws at the same time, apparently with their full knowledge, but by 1900, when in their company, she simply went by the name of Etta Place.

Ann Bassett and Etta Place would have known one another and were alleged to have been at the "Robbers Roost" hideout at the same time on more than one occasion. Pinkerton reports give almost identical descriptions of both women, listing both with classic good looks, articulate speech and intelligence, the same hair color, describing both as being good with a rifle and riding a horse, and describing both as being promiscuous with both having taken several lovers. When comparing the best legitimate photograph of Place with the best photograph of Bassett, the two women could be mistaken for one another. Both are pretty, with similar facial features, hair color, and physical build. Michael Rutters' book "Bad Girls" details how Bassett often faked a New England accent in order to appear more cultured. Similarly, Place was said to have indicated that she was from the East Coast, though she never revealed an exact location.

Dr. Thomas G. Kyle of the Computer Research Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who had previously performed many such comparisons for government intelligence agencies, conducted a series of tests on photographs of Etta Place and Ann Bassett. Their features matched and both had the same scar or cowlick at the top of their forehead. He concluded that there could be no reasonable doubt they were the same person.

Author and researcher Doris Karren Burton indicates in her 1992 book, "Queen Ann Bassett: Alias Etta Place" that when Bassett is absent from historical records, Place is actively traveling with Cassidy and the Sundance Kid/Harry Longabaugh, and when Place is absent from historical records, Bassett is visible.

However, Burton did not account for documented instances showing Bassett to have been in the United States at the same time that Etta Place was known to have been in South America. While Place was in South America with Cassidy and Longabaugh in 1903, Bassett was under arrest for cattle rustling in Utah. Furthermore, she was also recently married. On the other hand, Place had departed for South America with Longabaugh in August, 1902, not to return to the United States, specifically New York City, until the summer of 1904. During that time, Bassett was married, incarcerated, tried, and released over a span of several months in 1903. Finally, Basset never claimed to have been Etta Place, even in her memoirs.