Nobody knows anything about Abigail Moorland's life before she became the Prairie Witch. Her first crime was a series of robberies in Opal City and then a bunch of bizarre murders. To insure the success of her crimes, the Witch made ritual sacrifices to whatever Dark Forces empowered her. During one of her robberies at a pawn shop, 5 officers stopped and attempted to arrest her. She brutally murdered three of these and the other two were taken hostage. The crime attracted the attention of Starman, who had been trying to crack the case for over a week. Not only did Starman want to stop the robberies and catch the robber, but he also wanted to prove that Prairie Witch was a fake and didn’t have real powers.

As the Witch attacked a local jewelry store, Starman arrived in an attempt to foil the robbery. However as Starman thought that she was a fake, he didn’t take her seriously and was easily captured by her gun. After murdering one of the captured officers in a dark rite, the Witch and her gang abandoned Starman and other officer, Billy O'Dare to stage another jewelry store robbery. However when the Witch left, Starman used some extra circuitry in his cape to escape. He then went and intercepted the Witch and her gang, quickly defeating them. To the hero's amazement however, the Witch's principal mode of transportation, a flying broom, turned out to be a simple broomstick. Its powers of flight remained a mystery. In 1943, the Prairie Witch went big time by staging a brazen robbery at a Washington, D.C. ball. At the same time she made an enemy of Phantom Lady as she was at the ball. After making off with thousands of the dollars worth of jewelry, the Witch fled back to Opal with a reward of her head and Phantom Lady of her tail. Phantom Lady, the cousin of Starman, called him up and asked for his help. Starman, as it happens, was also in pursuit of her for other crimes. However when Starman caught up with the villainess, she blew up a child’s home to escape. As Starman fled to rescue those that he could, the Witch fled towards home. However Phantom Lady never left, and trailed the Witch invisibly, captured her and her gang for the Washington theft. The reward was then used to buy War Bonds. Since then she has reduced her crimes. However 50 years later she was quite elderly and suffering from emphysema. Despite this, she maintained a hand in the black arts and when contact by Culp, nemesis of the Shade, she provided information on several sites of mystic importance to facilitate his transfer of Opal into the Dark Dimension. In return, she was given sufficient funds to move to warmer Florida, where she has remained since.