Mary Ann Cotton
Mary Ann Cotton was an Englishwoman who was convicted for the murder of her stepson. After her hanging, investigators and researchers concluded she murdered up to 21 people, including three of her four husbands, eleven of her thirteen children, two boyfriends, and servants who had become suspicious of their mistress. Mary Ann preferred the use of arsenic poisoning as her murder weapon.
Contrary to what many believe, arsenic does not kill rapidly, but causes long and agonizing gastric pain and distress as it does its work. Medical opinion of the day was insufficient to diagnose its use unless there were reasons to suspect it, and various “fevers” were blamed as the cause of death in such cases. Mary Ann killed for money, in the form of life insurance, or for self-preservation by eliminating the suspicious.
Mary Ann was caught after learning that a former lover had returned to live nearby. Desirous of joining him, she used arsenic to murder Frederick Cotton, her fourth husband and third to die of poisonous ministrations. After his death, she applied the same attention to her late husband’s son, Charles, who died after a short illness. Mary visited an insurance office to file a claim prior to arranging for the boy’s funeral, prompting notice of her numerous visits to the insurance company in the past. Soon the sheer number of people around her who had died from “stomach ailments” convinced the authorities and the general public of her crimes; a post-mortem of the late Charles confirmed arsenic in his hair samples, and Mary Ann was tried for his murder.
Mary Ann was found guilty and sentenced to hang, going to the gallows strongly asserting her innocence, despite the overwhelming nature of the evidence against her.