Four of the women were in their early-to-mid-twenties. Mabel Smith was the oldest at 32 years of age. The records don’t indicate that any of the five women were criminal masterminds or part of a large scale operation, although what the U.S. Marshal attached to their cases suggested that they were involved in prostitution.

Some of the anecdotal evidence painted a vivid picture of their prior activities. Katherine Hicks had been fined for “speeding and street fighting,” and Mary Smith was also fined $25 because she also “had a street fight.” She also indicated that she had once used an assumed name “to cross line as mans [sic] wife.”

The most compelling case of the five involved Mabel Smith, who spent part of her sentence at the Oregon State Hospital. The notes from her asylum case file vividly describe her illness, which included “complaining of electrical influences over her body” that she believed were done by the Secret Service; that she had been married seven or eight times and had been a prostitute for eighteen years; and that she “hears voices at times” and that a light was thrown on her. A Wasserman blood test returned a positive result for syphilis. She was a patient at the asylum from August of 1930 to February of 1931.

In some cases, best illustrated by Marilyn Carroll, the convicts were the beneficiaries of numerous letters of testimony in which the writers characterized them as unfortunate “victims of circumstance” and that their crimes constituted a “slight indiscretion” due to “evil influences.” Writers of these letters sometimes included local law enforcement officials; family friends; and even past teachers and school administrators.

Although they were each sentenced to serve one year plus one day, they were all discharged on March 2, 1931 after serving slightly less than ten months. Following release, Mary Smith wrote a letter from Arizona to the penitentiary superintendent in April of 1931 addressing an incident involving the stopping up of a prison lavatory, pinning it on specific inmates and adding “we all had a good laugh.”

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