Mary Ann Cotten ~ Blog 5

     

        Who is Mary Ann Cotton and where is she from? Mrs. Cotton was born on October 31, 1832 in England. She was married four different times and had thirteen children. She was unlike most serial killers she didn’t beat them with something or strangle them. The way she preferred to kill people was by poisoning them with arsenic. Mary was only convicted of one crime, though everyone believes her to be a serial killer. Many say she killed eleven out of her thirteen children. Along with three of her spouses that she used for their insurance policies. Charles Edward was the murder that she convicted of doing. Thomas Riley, a person that asked Mrs.Cotton to help her with a case of smallpox. He was one day asked by Mary if he could send Charles to work in the workhouse because he kept getting her way. Charles was one of the last remaining cotton boys. About five days after Mary had asked for this from Riley, Mary informed Riley that Charles had died. Riley was very suspicious of Mary killing her child because of all the rumors plus she wanted him out of her way. Riley went to the village police station and asked them not to write the death certificate so they could run test on him and see if he was actually murdered. She went in front of a Jury one day and they called it natural causes on how Charles died. Until a local newspaper got told about the story, They started investigating Mary's background as she had moved around Northern England. After they kept looking for more information they found she had lost a great deal of people in her lifetime. For example, three husbands, a lover, a friend, her own mother, and eleven out of thirteen of her children. The one thing they all had in common was that they died from stomach fevers. Rumors started to happen so more people started looking into her background. Even the doctor who had run a test on Charles said he had arsenic in his body when he died. They had to wait to charge her for the murder of Charles because she was having her thirteen child. The ending of her life was a little strange though. Usually when someone is hanged their necks break and that’s how they die, not for Mary. She was hanged and strangled to death by the rope being too short. Some people believe it to be deliberately placed like that but no one knows for sure. Out of all thirteen kids only two survived her, which were her newest baby that had just been born and one of her sons.