Beyond that, no one seems to know for sure anything else about Etta Place. When and where she was born, where she grew up, what she did for a living, how many times if any, she married, how many children, if any, she might have had, when she left Sundance, where she lived following her return to the U.S. and when she died all remain a mystery. Compounding the mystique of Etta Place is the fact five women are known to have used the name Etta Place as aliases. Three of the women who used the false Etta Place name journeyed to South America. Unknown to most movie buffs whose only knowledge of Butch, Sundance and Etta is based on Hollywood s version of the trio, is the fact that several members of the Wild Bunch, as Cassidy s gang was known, fled to South America during the first decade of the 20 th Century.
Some historians place the number at more than one dozen.
Most took women with them. Many died at the hands of South American authorities. She was also alleged to have been a prostitute with roots in Texas. Others maintain she was born and reared in Denver, Colorado. Some maintain she was a school teacher with music as her primary discipline.