Etta Place - The Mysteries of Etta Place

The Mysteries of Etta Place

Those who had met Place claimed the first thing they noticed about her was that she was strikingly pretty, with a very nice smile, and she was cordial and refined, but an excellent shot with a rifle. She was said to have spoken in an educated manner, and she indicated she was originally from the East Coast, although she never revealed an exact location.

Eyewitnesses indicated years afterward that Place was one of only five women known to have ever been allowed into the Wild Bunch hideout at Robbers Roost in southern Utah, the other four having been Will Carver's girlfriend Josie Bassett, who also was involved with Parker for a time, Josie's sister and Parker's longtime girlfriend Ann Bassett, Elzy Lay's girlfriend Maude Davis, and gang member Laura Bullion.

She was speculated to have once married a school teacher, and at least one person claimed she was a teacher who abandoned her husband and two children to be with Longabaugh. The claim that she met the gang while working as a prostitute is widely considered the most likely scenario. There have also been claims that Place was first the lover of Parker, becoming involved with Longabaugh later, and that she met them both while working in a brothel as a prostitute. Both of those claims are possible, as members of the Wild Bunch gang often alternated girlfriends.

Possibly, she met Parker and/or Longabaugh in the brothel of Madame Fannie Porter in San Antonio, which was frequented by members of the Wild Bunch gang and which resulted in several gang members meeting girlfriends who later traveled with them, including Kid Curry's meeting of prostitute Della Moore. Gang member Will Carver also began a relationship with one of Porter's "girls", Lillie Davis, and Wild Bunch female gang member Laura Bullion is believed to have worked at the brothel from time to time. None of the women working at those places during those times ever declared to have known her.