Matilde Washington was fifteen when she killed her first man.
Her drunken step-dad Ellie Johnson, and his younger brother Ezra, had beaten and used her little body.
Mattie took her step-dad's pistol and unloaded all six bullets into his sleeping body. If Ezra had not left, he would have been victim number two.
The Judge believed her and she didn't get any jail time, however, her mother didn't believe her and Mattie was thrown out of the house to fend on her own.
Family friends Luke and Ruth Lincoln took her in. Mattie grew up hating most men.