On May 2, 1923, as the gray light of dawn broke the eastern prairie sky, the slim figure of a young girl flanked by two men could be seen walking forlornly across an open courtyard.

Twenty-two-year-old Filumena Losandro had refused breakfast. What she asked for was a bouquet of lilies, but she was hardly in a position to negotiate. What she got was a shot of booze laced with morphine to dull the gruesome reality that faced her. The slender, dark-haired girl climbed the eighteen steps to the gallows. It wasn't supposed to end like this, she thought.

Born in Italy in 1900, Filumena immigrated to Canada with her family when she was nine. Like other immigrants in the early 1900s, Filumena's parents sought a better life in Canada. Adopting the English name Florence, Filumena saw this new world as magical, a place where opportunities were endless. But it wasn't that easy to slip the bonds of old Italian customs; immigrants brought their old ways to the new country. When her parents pushed her into a loveless arranged marriage at fifteen, Filumena thought her future might be slipping away.

Her new husband, many years her senior, was the slightly built Charles Losandro, an accomplice in the illegal rum-running activities of the well-known Emilio "Emperor Pic" Picariello, known as "King of the Crowsnest Pass." It wasn't long before she became entangled in her husband's illicit underground activities, caught up in a world of flashy cars and beautiful clothes.

A Sicilian by birth, Emilio Picariello arrived in eastern Canada with little to his name but a resourceful nature and the willingness to work hard. Making his way west to British Columbia in 1911 with his wife Maria, the thirty-two-year-old first settled in Fernie, opened a small business, and raised a family of seven. The stocky man with the dark moustache soon became a successful businessman, affording his family a comfortable existence. A leading figure in the Crowsnest Pass area, he moved his family to Blairmore, Alberta, where he purchased the Alberta Hotel and a garage, and ran successfully for local politics, becoming a member of the town council.

From 1916 to 1924 the Prairie provinces were plunged into a drought of a different sort, when provincial governments established restrictions on the sale and consumption of liquor, making bootlegging across the British Columbia border into Alberta a lucrative proposition. Recognizing a golden opportunity, Picariello was not averse to taking advantage of his strategic location in the Crowsnest Pass. Ownership of the hotel and garage provided a legitimate camouflage for his illegal activities. Legal permission to serve the weak temperance beer afforded a convenient disguise for the stronger stuff, and thirsty patrons bellying up to the bar could ask for, and receive, a stiffer drink. Disappearing shelves and secret cupboards absconded with the evidence when strategically placed spotters signalled the arrival of the law.

A jovial and flamboyant family man who was known to be generous to the needy, the Emperor elicited mixed opinions...