Elizabeth Thompson born Mary Elizabeth Haley ; 18 October β 13 April was a prostitute and dance hall girl who worked in Dodge City, Kansas and other frontier cattle towns during the s. She remained a captive until when her parents paid a ransom for her release. From this point forward, Haley was a marked woman. Even though she was only thirteen, many people assumed that she had sexually submitted to the Indians during her captivity. Haley found herself shunned and ostracized from society.
She soon took up with an older man who did not care about her past, but James Haley found the idea of an older man taking advantage of his daughter so objectionable that he shot and killed the suitor. Haley's reputation was soiled even further. At the age of fourteen, Haley ran away from home in search of a fresh start.
She wound up in Abilene, Kansas , but a young woman alone had few options. So she became a dance hall girl and prostitute. In , at the age of seventeen, Haley was plying her trade in the cattle town of Ellsworth, Kansas , while Billy worked the gambling halls.
Haley bore her first child on the open prairie and, to make the child legitimate, she and Billy got married that year. In the summer of , Billy Thompson, in a state of drunkenness, shot and killed Ellsworth town sheriff Chauncey Whitney. He was arrested but got the cattle company he worked for to bail him out. Because he was fearful of being shot himself by vengeful family members, Billy and Mary Thompson ran. The couple wound up in Dodge City, where Billy gambled and Mary worked as a dancer and prostitute.
It was here that the Thompsons made the acquaintance of Wyatt Earp and his paramour, Mattie Blaylock. After Dodge City, the Thompsons drifted to Colorado , but by , they had moved to Sweetwater, Texas , which became their permanent home.
