Little wonder that the life of Welsh teenager Elizabeth Jones inspired a film - it sounds like a wild story dreamt up by a Hollywood writer. Aged just 18 and leading a fantasy life in war-time London she went on a week-long crime spree with a wannabe American gangster and deserter from the US Army which culminated in a cold-blooded murder, and in one of pair hanging for their crimes.
The killing and the couple's subsequent trial made headlines around Britain, featured in an essay by George Orwell, and later became the basis for the film Chicago Joe and the Showgirl.
Elizabeth Maud Baker was born in Neath in 1926 and spent her early years in the town before the family emigrated to Canada. They returned to Wales when Elizabeth was eight, and she began attending Neath's Alderman Davies school. However it seems the youngster was an unsettled child and her parents struggled to cope with her, and on a number of occasions she ran away from home. At the age of 13 she was sent by a court to an approved school - a residential school for youngsters who had committed crimes or were deemed to be beyond the control of their parents - in Sale in Cheshire.
