In August 1966, Bettie met Harry Lear at the Miami’s Palace Ballroom. Harry was a WWII veteran, father of three children and recently divorced, working for Bell in Florida and also for a funeral home as a chauffeur. They wed on St.Valentine’s Day in 1967, and how would you bet on the success of this union? Everything worked fine with Harry, but the three kids, according to Bettie, hated her and believed their natural mother’s gossips about her. Of course, Bettie insisted on incessant daily prayers. In 1969, the family hoped for the best in a road travel taking them to Quebec. Soon after, Harry claimed that Bettie began to write religious parables and declared herself a prophet. In January 1972, they divorced. And Bettie found herself in a religious community in Boca Raton.
Some days later, she was arrested for going around armed with a pistol and proclaiming that God’s wrath would be terrible. Ex-hubby Harry reclaimed her, and down on the sofa she went for sleep. On April 13, 1972, Bettie ordered Harry and the kids to stand before a picture of Jesus and pray, at the point of a butcher’s knife. For the following four months, Bettie was detained at a psychiatric facility. Harry had a room built for her for her return home. On October 28, police once again seized her, as she was beating on her husband and breaking everything in the house. She voluntarily accepted to go back to the asylum for another six months.