Hattie LaPierre

Hattie LaPierre was a naive Southern girl who fell in love with sweet-talking Frank McKinney, alias "Harry Black." In the beginning, Harry showed her a good time and was a perfect gentleman. With a promise of marriage, he persuaded her to leave Thermopolis, Wyoming for Lander, where they moved into a hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Black.

In Lander, Harry lost big in his gambling ventures. He passed out markers and was soon threatened if he didn't make good on his debts. Hattie's life soon became a nightmare when the man she loved turned into a monster before her eyes. It started when he took her to a local whorehouse and subcontracted her to the local madam. Hattie refused and quickly learned Harry was not above beatings and death threats to secure her obedience.

Harry's reputation as a tin horn, and his abuse of Hattie, won few friends in Lander. Even the whorehouse madam fired Hattie in order to restore peace to her establishment. So the pair left Lander and returned to Thermopolis, where he hoped his luck would change. Much to Hattie's horror, Harry made arrangements with to put her to work at the Stone House brothel ... the beatings and death threats escalated.

Things turned ugly in 1905 and there are two versions of WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. But the end result was that Hattie LaPierre shot and killed her abusive lover. Thermopolis authorities, who were familiar with Harry's constant physical and mental abuse of Hattie, initially sentenced her to only three years in prison for Black's murder. A short time later Governor Bryant B. Brooks kindly cut her sentence to 15 months, and she was paroled in 1907.