why was Wanda Skutnick so deadfast?

Good question. I was about to post something asking about it, then I saw your thread. Wish someone would explain why she refused to change her mind. Even if they simply told to us she was threatened by the gangsters, or something of that sort, it would have been kind of satisfactory and enough. It was really curious the way she behaved, so rude and stubborn.

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This was one of the main questions I was pondering over as well after watching this. I guess she could have done it for various different reasons which maybe we're meant to speculate but the confusing part for me was that she was described as someone that had a bad temper by that one lady in the bar. When McNeal goes to her apartment the description is confirmed because is not exactly pleasant and does have a very bad attitude. I guess what I was questioning was that when we saw her at the beginning of the movie she seemed very pleasant. She was nice to both of the guys that were in the speakeasy and she didn't seem to have a bad temper or be an unpleasant lady. Wonder if her personality had changed over the years maybe from having to be asked to do what she did or she felt guilty about putting Frank in jail and at that point she couldn't or didn't want to tell the truth after all that happened. I found this an interesting part of the story that I wish they had went into further but we are left to make our own guesses. Good film overall but like others on here I wish that was explained a bit better as well.

Wanda Skutnick was a small timer who had once run a speakeasy, she'd had ties with the Mob but was really just a small potatoes functionary and no more. As is clear in Northside 777 she's now living in poverty in a rundown apartment building, possibly an alcoholic; her life was bad enough before the newspapers began reporting on the Wiecek case. Now she could be in trouble with the law if she testified,--though she'd probably be given immunity of some kind--and then there'd be the Mob guys who might take revenge on her for talking to the police. Her life sucked anyway, and there was no way it was going to get better. The reward money would not "save" her if the Mob guys wanted to give her trouble, take her out. She was better off doing nothing. Her actions, or rather inaction, was not noble, but it did keep her out of harm's way.

i took it that it was the cops (e.g.the dead captain) who got her to frame Frank. She'd know they'd probably get her before she testified to the board.