Constance Hatchaway

Constance Hatchaway is a character from The Haunted Mansion attraction. She is the current incarnation of the bride character in the attic and in a retcon, one of the figures depicted in the Stretching Room's portraits.

Background
The murderous bride was a concept dating back to some of Marc Davis' stretching portrait concepts. It would serve as inspiration when Disney Imagineers would revamp the Attic scene and its popular Bride character in 2006. Utilizing a similar projection effect to Madame Leota's, Constance would have a filmed body and a separate voice actress. Kat Cressida is the voice actress behind her whereas Julia Lee was the performance model for her.

Character Biography
Constance Hatchaway came from Money County, California, and over the years, she married five different wealthy and powerful men, then murdered them with her hatchet and kept their heads as souvenirs inside of hatboxes. By her fifth husband she came into possession of the Haunted Mansion (whether it's in New Orleans or upstate New York depends on whether it's Disneyland or Disney World) and she wound up dying in her old age after a lifetime of happily living off of her blood money.

Her husbands, in chronological order, were:
 * Ambrose Harper, a naive but good intentioned son of successful farmers (1869)
 * Frank Banks, An eastern banker and community pillar (1872)
 * The Marquis de Doome, A foreign diplomat with a military past (1874)
 * Reginald Caine, A celebrated railroad baron, gambler and world renowned gourmand (1875)
 * George Hightower (1877)

The Haunted Mansion
Constance appears twice on the ride. She is seen in the Stretching Room in the elevator as an elderly black widowed bride looking straight at the guests who step back when the late Paul Frees' voice is heard as the Ghost Host. She sits on the tombstone that reads "Rest in Peace, Dear Beloved George" which is found in the cemetery. She is seen in the Attic where the photo changes while guests see and listen to the silhouette of a pianist playing a ghostly version of the bridal march on the piano. Constance holds her axe in front of her heart while reciting her wedding vows in a menacing tone while staring at the guests.

The Ghost Gallery
In the cast member-created Ghost Gallery storyline, the character who we now identify as the Black Widow Bride was two different characters, one being the Black Widow, the other being the bride.

The Black Widow
The Black Widow portion of Constance's identity was interpreted as having been named Mary Gracey née Gilbert. In this version of the story, Mary was the unhappily married wife of George Gracey Sr. (George Hightower) and the mother of George Gracey Jr. (the composite character based on Master Gracey and the Ghost Host) who she sent away to boarding school for his entire youth so that she didn't have to deal with him. At some point in time, Mary learned that her husband was having an affair behind her back and that he had accidentally impregnated his mistress, which Mary used as an excuse to murder him via hatchet. Due to George's cheating, Mary was acquitted from her sentence and finally freed from her life of domestic servitude she took her portion of the Gracey fortune and fled the country.

The Bride
The Bride portion of Constance's character in the Ghost Gallery is named Emily Gracey née Cavenaugh. Emily was the sole heir to the wealthy Cavenaugh family of Rhode Island and when she was 16, her parents died in a tragic carriage accident which left Emily with the entire family fortune. During her parents' funeral, the wealthy orphan became seduced and proposed to by George Gracey Jr. who wished to use her fortune to fund his obsession with the occult as he had depleted his own wealth. The night after her wedding to George, the young Emily wanted to play a game of hide-and-seek with her husband. Emily hid in the mansion's attic where she hid inside of a large chest only to be locked inside by her husband's jealous mistress, Madame Leota causing the young girl to suffocate to death.

Epic Mickey
Constance is mentioned as the former mistress of Lonesome Manor. Horace Horsecollar desires to solve one of the greatest mysteries of Wasteland and prove that she did indeed kill all of her husbands and asks Mickey Mouse to find her hatchet. The hatchet is located in the Library of the Manor.

Kinect Disneyland Adventures
She appears as a boss towards the end of the Haunted Mansion mini-game.

Trivia

 * One of her victims is George Hightower, prominently seen in the Stretching Gallery and Attic. George is a relative of Harrison Hightower III, the owner of Hotel Hightower (Tokyo DisneySea's Tower of Terror).
 * Her having been a former resident of Wasteland in Epic Mickey actually makes sense; she stayed a forgotten concept until 2006, but then was finally incorporated into the ride.
 * Original artwork of the bride is heavily inspired by the real life ghost "The Lady of Raynham Hall".
 * It is highly likely that she was the murderer of the Hatbox Ghost as the two are always featured alongside one another, the Hatbox Ghost died by being decapitated (which was Constance's favourite means of murder), and his head was stuffed inside of a hatbox (which was part of Constance's criminal modus operandi).