Hello! Hello!
Welcome back to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer.
My name is Kena. I'm Koelle.
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome!
I feel like I already have to clear my throat.
How's everybody doing?
Doing alright.
Yeah, just excited for the holidays.
Yes.
Right around the corner.
Just around the corner.
Do you remember that from elementary school?
Did they ever show you that video in,
when they made you watch a video about getting your period?
No.
It's a little, just around the corner.
They would sing that.
Like, it's just around the corner.
You gotta be prepared.
No.
Yeah.
I don't know if my friends would always go,
Just around the corner is your period.
Maybe a little jingle.
Just a little jingle for ya.
Well, I for one am glad to be back and talking to the listeners.
I know I speak for both of us when I say that as well.
And it's been a good past couple of weeks.
Yeah.
Yeah, everything's been going good.
We're getting into a groove, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, with balancing school and work and family and,
you know, the holidays coming up and all that.
Yeah, I'm really excited for the holiday season.
And thank you guys a lot for kind of diving into our mental breakdown Monday post.
Because I feel like we've gotten a lot of good interaction on those.
Yeah.
World Mental Health Day we also posted for.
I hope everyone took care of themselves and did a little TLC or whatever it is that makes you happy.
Yeah, it's been self care.
I did that today.
Yeah.
Just really needed it a little bit.
You know, we always do that.
Smelling a little ripe.
Oh my gosh.
Well, during the break, two of my friends got engaged.
So I do just want to say congratulations to Kirk and Abby.
We were able to be there, excuse me, be there with them when they got engaged via helicopter.
And it was pretty cool.
Helicopter.
Yeah, it was really cool.
We saw them like fly in.
I don't think I've ever been under a helicopter like the wind.
It was a lot of wind.
It was a lot.
Yeah.
But it was a beautiful day.
We had a great night.
And congrats guys.
That's awesome.
Congratulations.
Do you have anything before we get started?
No, not really.
I'm really appreciating everybody's circulating some of our older episodes.
We've noticed a little bit of a spike in those earlier episodes being shared, downloaded,
all that stuff commented on.
So thank you so much guys for continuing to support us by word of mouth or sharing our
posts and all that other great stuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's always nice to have some new listeners and then of course our lovely loyal listeners.
Triple L.
Lovely loyal listeners.
Triple L.
I was like, what are you saying?
That's so funny.
And then we also just want to shout out our Patreon members.
Of course you guys are awesome.
We had a new episode come out on the 29th.
I'm sure you guys enjoyed that one.
I am.
I don't know.
Should we announce at the end of this what we're doing for our Patreon?
I don't know.
You have it.
I don't even know what you're doing.
You don't know what I'm doing.
I think you might have told me but I forgot already.
Oh my gosh.
It's definitely something that shaped America.
Yeah, it's actually a request as well.
It is a request from a while back and it's really intense having to submerge yourself
into this world of something that was so shocking for the time.
And it's something that me and pretty much everyone around my age and older definitely
remembers.
Again, it's one of those topics that it's hard to talk about.
It's definitely going to contain some graphic content and some really kind of, personally
for me, feeling kind of this weird spot in my brain where it's like there is leftover
residual.
I wouldn't say trauma because I wasn't there.
It's definitely something that we still experience today on a scale that is beyond.
But this was an event that was, it just shaped the way that the world thought about this
particular topic.
Do you want to just go ahead and say it?
I'm pretty sure the listeners already know.
Well, usually we wait until the end of an episode.
Okay, let's wait.
We'll wait.
All right.
But look forward to that one and that's actually Halloween weekend and that one's coming out
as well.
And we are going to get into this episode, but one more thing I wanted to do is just
shout out Bryson and Sophia.
They are our listeners of ours.
I actually had the pleasure of meeting Bryson a couple weeks ago and his mom was telling
me, oh, he's a true crime fan, true crime fan.
You should tell him about your podcast.
And I said, what's the name of your podcast?
And I told him and he goes, oh, you mean this one?
He showed me on his phone.
He said, we listened.
We have my best friend, Sophia, listen.
So thank you guys.
And thanks for being so awesome and loyal and fun.
Yeah, supportive.
Absolutely.
And we are going to get into this case.
And I don't know if I said it just yet on the episode, but this is a requested case
as well.
This is requested by one of our lovely listeners, a fellow Texan by the name of Connie.
Hi, Connie.
So Connie, here it is.
We are going to be talking about Mary Ann Cotton.
Mary Ann Cotton.
Have you heard of Mary Ann Cotton?
I don't think so.
Okay.
Well, that's a British case.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
That's another British case.
Okay.
Content warning.
Child abuse, child neglect, deaths of minors, and execution.
If this episode is not for you, we encourage you to find another one of our episodes.
Remember, your mental health is very important to us and we love you.
Love you.
Bye.
So yes, another requested case.
I'm really excited to get into it.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Okay.
Mary Ann Robson was born on October 31st, 1832 in Laos Morsley County Durham to parents
Margaret Lonsdale and Michael Robson.
So this is our Halloween episode.
Yes.
I'm going to just say there is so many names that are the same in this case because they
didn't have any names back in the 1830s.
Okay.
They all had to have the same name.
So just keep that in mind as we go.
So a lot of Jim's and a lot of Mary's and a lot of Bob's.
A lot of Michael's, a lot of Margaret's.
Father Michael was a coal miner and mom Margaret was a homemaker.
Mary would be baptized very shortly after birth on November 11th and her sister Margaret
would also be born in 1834.
So the mom's Margaret and the little girl's Margaret.
Oh yeah.
Unfortunately, little Margaret would only survive a few months after being born.
This was nothing sinister.
It was just the 1830s.
It was the 1830s.
He said there's something.
Yeah.
That's sad.
The Robsons would welcome another child in 1835, Robert, just a year later.
When Mary was eight years old, the family would move to Merton from County Durham.
By the way, this is like not a lot of childhood because again from the 18 fucking hundreds.
Okay.
I'm gonna get as much information as I could.
Exactly.
Newspapers didn't even exist.
I don't think they did.
And you'll see why.
Okay, here we go.
According to a Sunday school teacher of Mary's, growing up, Mary was quote, a most exemplary
and regular attendee, a girl of innocent disposition and average intelligence and distinguished
for her particularly clean and tidy appearance.
Appearance, excuse me.
Okay.
So nice girl, right?
She's growing up.
Within two years of the family move in February of 1842, Michael Robson was involved in a
mining accident in which he fell 150 feet or 46 meters to his death down a mine shaft.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
When his body was returned to his family, it was actually noted as being in a sack with
a stamp stating quote, property of the South Hetten coal company and quote.
So it's like, Hey, yeah, here's your husband, but we need that bag.
We're gonna need that bag.
We wanted the bag back.
I don't know.
I was just suggesting.
No, it was more like to signify that he was property.
Yeah.
Not property, but you know, like this happened here and here's the, I don't know, maybe
the company horrific.
It's terrible.
But I feel like everyone was a coal miner back then.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like they were the employees were treated like, like they were.
Yeah.
Like they were owned by the company, like their property.
Yeah, for sure.
Along with returning Michael's body, the mine company had to break the news to Margaret,
Robert and Mary that they would be evicted from the home as it was owned by the company.
So they were living there because he had the job there.
They were paying for his lodging or whatever.
Yeah.
Or providing lodging for him.
Yeah, which is awful.
Oh, God.
Can you imagine?
Like, sorry, I know your husband is dying.
I know your husband is dying.
Can you like, get the fuck out of here?
Pack all your shit within the next three days.
Thanks.
No, it's terrible.
I honestly can't even imagine, even today, like can't even imagine.
In the year 1843, Margaret would remarry to a man by the name of George Stott, also a
coal miner.
That was just a year later.
This was, you know, this was, yeah, you write?
42, 43.
Yeah, you write.
So she was able to live back on the property that she's been providing.
Yeah, she's like, oh, you know what?
As a matter of fact, I'm married to someone else that you work for or that works for you.
So I'm just going to move my stuff right over here.
Yeah.
I mean, you got to do what you got to do, you know?
Yeah.
At the age of 16, Mary would leave home and would become a nurse at the nearby village
of South Hetton.
This job would be at the home of a manager of a colliery, Edward Potter.
A colliery is like a mining company.
Okay.
I kind of figured that out.
Mary would return back home with her mother and stepfather within three years and would
change careers to become a dressmaker.
So she was a nurse for three years and then she became a dressmaker?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And she's like 20 at this point.
So she worked for someone when she was a nurse.
Mm-hmm.
And she was like an at-home nurse.
It was like an at-home nursing service.
I can't talk today.
Bird.
Okay.
Well, this is what happens when we take an entire week off and for two weeks off in
between episodes.
I can't talk.
I forget how to podcast.
At the age of 20 in 1852, Mary would meet and marry a man by the name of William Malbray,
a collier laborer at Newcastle Upton Tine Registrar Office.
Whoa.
It's unmouthable.
No, it's unmouthable.
So she would soon move to Southwest England and would go on to have eight or nine children
together.
Eight or nine.
This is not exactly documented as the only child that who would have had a birth certificate
would be her daughter Margaret Jane, born at St. Germans in 1856.
So it's thought that they had eight to nine kids, but only one of them had a record of
their birth.
Like an actual birth certificate.
As time went on, four or five of Mary and William's children would ultimately end up
passing away from gastric fever or typhoid fever with their deaths not being recorded
either.
Yeah.
This sounds kind of silly to us like today because it's like, why didn't they report
their deaths?
But during this time, it actually wasn't illegal to not report a death because honestly, it
was really frequent.
And the law that enforced reporting deaths was actually not passed until 1856.
Okay.
Mary and William would move the family back to back to Northeast England where William
would work as a fireman on a steamboat sailing out of Sunderland.
He would then go on to become a colliery foreman and the two would welcome another child, Isabella,
in 1858.
So so far we only know of two children's names, Margaret and Isabella.
Yes.
Okay.
Margaret Jane would pass away at just four years old in 1860.
One year after their daughter's passing in 1861, Mary and William would have a get another
girl and would do the logical thing that any parent would do.
They named this child Margaret Jane.
No.
Middle name as well.
Margaret Jane.
So you had a daughter named Margaret Jane that died.
You're going to have another kid and essentially say, oh, this is Margaret Jane.
This is a deep, Margaret Jane.
Yeah.
Like I didn't think they were trying to pass her off as like Margaret Jane, but like,
why would you name her the same thing?
Like you can't replace that child.
Yeah.
It's also her sister's name and her mother's name.
So there's three Margaret's in this family now.
Very true.
Yeah.
Well, her sister's passed away, but still.
The couple would then welcome a son, John Robert William, in 1863, but he would unfortunately
pass away as well just a year later from gastric fever.
Do you see the correlation here?
Your eyebrows?
Get the hint.
No, it's not funny, but in response to these deaths, William decided to take out a life
insurance policy should anything happen to him.
He's like, okay, everyone's getting sick in this family.
Like I need to protect you guys just in case I get the fever.
Sure.
After all, he was in a household of people who were continuously getting deathly ill,
like I just said.
In January of 1865, William would pass away from an intestinal disorder, leaving Mary
and their remaining children with a life insurance payout of 35 pounds or about $4,000 today.
There's 35 pounds back then, obviously.
Right, but $4,000 back then.
Yes.
So how much is $4,000 today?
I'm glad you asked, because it would be just north of about 71K.
Okay.
That just makes sense, because he was like a foreman or something.
Yeah.
Okay.
Shortly after William's death, Mary would move to Seaham Harbor, County Durham, where
she would meet and quickly begin dating a married man by the name of Joseph Natras.
Was he also a minor?
Probably.
Around this time, Mary's three and a half year old daughter, the second Margaret Jane,
would pass away from typhus fever.
Mary Jane's death, excuse me, Margaret Jane's death would leave Mary with just one child
left out of the presumed nine that she had with William.
And that's Isabella?
Yes.
Following the death of her daughter, Mary would break up with Joseph and move back to
... I just realized her names are Mary and Joseph, I will.
And move back to Sunderland and begin working in the Sunderland Infirmary, House of Recovering
for the Cure of Contagious Fever, Dispensary and Humane Society.
That's the name of this...
What?
It's like stupid, stupid log.
It's so wrong.
Why?
I don't know.
You know, I don't know.
I don't know.
So, I guess, I guess it's like a different thing.
Is it a different thing?
Is it an infrequent?
I mean, a dispensary would be like a pharmacy.
Yeah, a pharmacy.
Yeah, there was still a fucking pond.
There was a...
Yeah.
Upon arriving in Sunderland, Mary would send her surviving child, Isabella, to live with
her mother Margaret.
Clearly, she can't take care of these children because they all keep dying.
They all keep dying.
She's like, oh, yeah, let me just send you my sick child.
Well, she's not sick.
She's fine.
She could be, though.
Are you true?
While working at the practice with the longest name in the world, Mary would have a patient
by the name of George Ward, and the two would begin dating.
The two would quickly get married.
Yeah.
Tying the knot on August 28th, 1865, just seven months after William died.
Seven months?
Oh, yeah.
She's just like her mom, right?
Turn around, marry another girl.
Yeah, you got... you have to.
It's the hustle.
So, George is one of her patients again.
George was seriously ill, suffering from paralysis and intestinal problems.
These complications would seemingly ultimately end his life just a little over a year after
the wedding date on October 20th, 1866.
Oh, no.
Okay, no.
This chick... okay.
We already knew, right?
I mean, we have our suspicion.
Her name is the name.
It's so true.
Every time I'm like, well, I can't speculate.
Well, also, yeah, there's no speculating who's the culprit, right?
That's the downside to our podcast.
Like, you already know who did it.
You already know.
This is not a who-done-it podcast.
Not a thriller.
Yeah, we're not a thriller.
But now she's like actually seeking to get a job.
Now she's like actually seeking sick people out.
Well, it kind of, yeah, it kind of seems that way.
And again, he was very ill, but the cause of death on his death certificate would say
that he died due to an English cholera and typhoid fever.
So, not what he was... his ailments were when he was in the home.
Other than the tummy stuff.
He said that he was sick.
Yeah, he had intestinal stuff, yeah.
The attending doctor at the practice had later stated that while George had been very ill,
the quickness of his death was very surprising.
I see.
He didn't expect him to die that soon.
I see.
So, once again, Mary would collect life insurance from the death of her husband.
A month later, Mary would meet and begin working for a man by the name of James Robinson,
a shipyard foreman.
Mary would begin her employment for James by becoming his housekeeper.
James was a widower whose wife, Hannah, had recently died, and the two had multiple children
together, so Mary began working for him to help around the house.
This is in November of 1866.
One month later, James' baby, John, would pass away of gastric fever, and he was absolutely
devastated.
Heartbroken, James would turn to Mary for comfort, and the two would become intimate.
So, his wife has already passed, then his baby passed.
One of his children.
That's awful.
Mary would soon become pregnant.
Ah.
Shortly after this, after getting pregnant, Mary would get the news that her mother,
Margaret, had become extremely ill with hepatitis, so Mary would make the drive to meet her and
see him harbour.
Once Mary arrived, she noticed that her mother was beginning to recover, until she started
complaining about stomach pains.
Hmm.
Those pesky stomach pains.
Oh yeah.
Surround me.
I haven't gone yet.
Margaret would pass away in the spring of 1867, just nine days after Mary's arrival.
Margaret?
Her mother?
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
Which Margaret?
The same year in 1867, Mary's stepfather would marry his widowed neighbour, Hannah Paley.
Again, Hannah, Margaret, Hannah, yes, all these names.
See that again, sorry.
Mary's stepfather would marry his neighbour who was widowed.
Oh, oh, his stepfather.
Her stepfather, Mary's stepdad.
Mary's stepdad married.
Yes.
His neighbor was a widow.
Yes.
Mary had a little lamb.
Yeah.
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So with her mother gone, Mary was forced to take care of her daughter Isabella, whom
she brought back to live with her and James.
Just forced to.
Oh yeah.
Well, I mean, she sure says that she fell.
She's like, oh god dang it.
Shortly after their arrival, Isabella began complaining about stomach pains, and she
would ultimately pass away as a result.
Did she have a baby by this point?
No, she was still pregnant.
Oh my gosh.
Along with this, two more of James' children, Elizabeth and James Jr., would also die from
the same complaints.
It's like all of these people are passing away around you.
But again, a lot of people were dying in this day.
She's probably like, well, I mean, wasn't Jack the Ripper prolific during this time
too?
I don't know, probably.
I want to Google that.
1888.
Oh, about 20 years later.
Yeah, before this.
This is before that, but it still speaks to the times that people just go missing and
people don't do shit about it.
For sure.
And again, this is probably only two years into being required to report deaths.
But still.
There's all this paperwork probably just fucking everywhere.
So again, this is Isabella, Elizabeth and James Jr., all of the children.
All three of them would be buried during late April and early May of 1867.
Mary would collect life insurance on Isabella after this.
Despite all of the deaths surrounding them, Mary and James would get married at St. Michael's
Bishop Wormouth, Bishop Wormouth, I don't know how to say it, on August 11, 1867.
They would have their first child, Margaret Isabella.
No, swear.
In November, she would ultimately pass away the following February, 1868.
I wasn't laughing about that.
I was laughing about this, because I'm hilarious.
But yeah, so Margaret Isabella, you're taking your children's names and making another child
and using those names.
But she would have been about three months old.
Did she think that she's paying homage to these children she's killed, obviously?
Maybe or maybe there's literally no other names that exist right now.
Honestly, at this time, there might just be no other names.
They can't just come up with something.
In 1955, it was only the Righteous Brothers' untrained melody, but four different people
recorded it.
It was the only song you could hear in 1955.
So the two being Margaret and James would have a second child, George, on June 18, 1869.
Remember George, the guy that she married and then killed and then took his life insurance?
Yeah, so she named her kid after him, too.
George?
Yeah.
The sick man?
George Ward?
Oh, the guy that was already sick.
Yes.
Yes, I'm sorry.
She's had so many.
Oh yes, I've already forgotten.
I know, it's a lot of names.
I was like, was any William?
Yeah.
Yes.
But that was another one.
In the end, Mary was continuously bugging James about making sure that he took out a
life insurance policy for himself, just in case.
Just in case.
You know, people around me drop by clients.
Really?
Everything I touch dies.
James would become increasingly suspicious of Mary's insistence that he ensure his life,
and he would refuse.
Good.
On top of this, James had discovered that she had run up a huge amount of debt behind
his back, and had stolen more than 50 pounds from him that she had previously promised
she would deposit at the bank.
50 pounds would be how much?
Well, if 35 pounds was 4,000, I mean, that has to be at least like 10, 15,000.
Yeah.
You know?
And then that would be, well.
Then, yeah, 10, 15,000.
Yeah, so it would be like 100,000.
Yeah, it would be a lot of money.
Following this, James further found out that Mary had been forcing his older children to
pawn items in the home, or out of the home, and she was pocketing that money too.
Yeah.
With this information, James would kick Mary out of the home and gain custody of the son
that they shared.
Probably saving his life.
Absolutely.
After being kicked out, Mary found herself homeless and living on the streets.
During this time, she would meet a woman by the name of Margaret Cotton, and Margaret
would introduce Mary to her brother, Frederick Cotton.
Okay.
It's just a coincidence that her name's Margaret.
Sure, sure.
Frederick was a pitman and a recent widower living in Wallbottle, Northumberland.
What's a pitman?
I don't know, maybe he digs like he's in the pits.
Oh, okay.
I don't know, I didn't look it up.
Frederick and Mary quickly found something in common, as he had lost two of his four
children as well.
After his wife died, Margaret had acted like a second mother to the remaining two children.
This is his sister.
The two children's names were Frederick, Junior, and Charles.
However, in late March of 1870, after Mary had met Frederick, Margaret suddenly passed
away due to an undetermined stomach problem.
The sister?
Yes.
She just hates Margaret's, I guess so.
Yeah, she's gotta have been dead against Margaret's.
This left Mary as the next best option for Frederick and his children, and soon Mary and
Frederick were living together.
Shortly after this, Mary would become pregnant with her 12th child.
Ugh, that's so many children.
I know.
But you would quickly get married on September 17th, 1870, at St. Andrew's Newcastle Upton
Tine, and their son Robert would be born in early 1871.
Robert again.
Her brother's name, yeah.
Soon after the marriage, Mary would get wind that her former boyfriend, Joseph Natress,
was living just 30 miles away in the County Durham village of West Auckland and was no
longer married.
She's like hehehehehe.
Yeah.
She would seek out Joseph, and the two would quickly rekindle their relationship.
So she's married?
Yes.
Has another baby.
She's Robert.
Yeah, she has another baby.
I was like, she's pregnant, but yeah, he's sharing it.
And then now she's hooking up with this boyfriend.
That's her ex, yeah.
Okay.
Mary would keep up this affair and even convince her own family to move closer to where Joseph
lived.
What the?
Oh, the husband and the baby?
The husband and the kid, yeah.
Oh my god.
He has two children as well.
Yeah.
So there's three kids in them.
They're like, they're so excited to hug because it's nicer.
Yeah, it's kind of easier for me to walk to my ex-boyfriend's house.
Yes.
They would oblige and they would move.
After moving, however, Frederick would pass away from gastric fever.
The husband.
Okay.
There's so many.
I know.
There's a lot.
Insurance was taken out on Frederick's life and that of his two sons, which Mary would
collect, his insurance.
After Frederick's death, Joseph would move into the home under the guise of being Mary's
new tenant.
She's like, well, we need the extra money.
We need someone to pay some rent.
He's just going to move it.
He's a tenant.
But people can't know that I'm banging you.
So he must have known that she was married.
Mary would begin working in the medical field again as a nurse to an excise officer recovering
from smallpox.
The name of this man is not known exactly, although most sources refer to him as John
Quick Manning.
Okay.
So there seems to be no trace of this name in the records of the West Auckland Brewery
or the National Archives.
The census records, birth, death, and marriage records also never mentioned this guy.
So it seems like she kind of made this name up.
Huh.
However, a man by the name of Richard Quick Manning has been found and sources think
that this is the true name of this man.
This is important for later.
Either way, Mary would become pregnant with her 13th child from this man.
From this other guy?
Yes.
Not Joseph.
This is one of her patients.
It's another patient that's ill.
Mary.
Yes.
So I'll explain it right here.
Husband died, boyfriend moved in as a tenant.
She's working for this guy and then she gets pregnant by this guy.
Yes.
So Mary was still seeing Joseph at this time as well and Frederick's children were still
living with her since they had nowhere else to go.
They don't have any parents.
Frederick Jr. would pass away in March of 1872, excuse me, he's a vet boy.
And Mary and Frederick's infant son Robert would also die shortly after.
Seeing one child left behind and a pregnant Mary.
And she's pregnant from the other guy.
Following this, Joseph would become ill as well and would pass away from gastric fever
very shortly after he and Mary had revised his will.
Okay, so this is the tenant.
The tenant.
Okay.
Yeah.
Meanwhile, Frederick's last child, seven-year-old Charles, was still alive with an active
life insurance policy in place.
After these series of events, a parish official by the name of Thomas Riley had hired Mary
with the premise of her helping a woman who was ill with smallpox.
Her and Thomas would begin talking throughout her visits and she would open up to him about
the fact that Frederick's last surviving child, Charles, was getting to be a little
too much to handle.
Imagine if you had 12 fucking children.
Cause you gave birth to 12 children.
Right.
And you also have all of these other children that are these men's children that you're
also killing.
Yeah, exactly.
She would ask Thomas if Charles could be sent to the workhouse, which is a place where
people would usually go to receive assistance, mostly financial, I guess they take children
as well.
Mm-hmm.
Thomas, who was also West Auckland's assistant coroner, told Mary that if she wanted to send
Charles to the workhouse, she would need to accompany him as his guardian.
Okay.
She can't just send him off on his way.
Mary would respond to this by telling Thomas, quote, I won't be troubled long.
He'll go like all the rest of the cottons.
And quote.
What?
So she just like straight up is like, yeah, just like, by the way, I'm just gonna kill
him.
By the way, I'm gonna kill him like I killed everybody else.
Yeah.
Five days later, Mary would inform Thomas that Charles had passed away.
Five days after this conversation.
Thomas would become extremely concerned after hearing this and he would contact the village
police and even urge the doctor to delay the writing of a death certificate until a full
evaluation had been done on the death.
Sweet.
Is this like the origin of the autopsy?
No, maybe.
No, it's not.
Mary on the other hand did not first go to a doctor after the death of Charles, but
instead her first stop was to the insurance office.
I thought you were gonna say the fertility clinic.
Oh my gosh.
No, she said to have more children.
Well this honestly kind of explains maybe why she was having a lot of children because
she knew that she could collect life insurance on them.
That's terrible.
That is terrible.
Well, there the insurance agent informed her that she would not be collecting any money
until there was an official death certificate.
Yeah, there had to be, especially at this point, right?
But she wasn't really used to because we haven't needed death certificates until this
point.
True.
And I've asked, sorry.
Sorry, do you think that she sought out men that already had children specifically
to marry them?
That's actually a good point.
I didn't think about that, but maybe.
Like cute.
And like widowed men that were like willing to-
Sad and desperate?
Yeah.
I mean not sad and desperate, but you know what I mean?
That's terrible.
But yeah, men that she knew that you know were going through this grieving process, it was
easy for her to swoop in.
She's already had children of her own, so that's probably got to have their guard down
or feel like maybe she's a good mom.
She could even just say like, oh I have multiple children, they live with my parents.
Exactly.
They'll die, you know?
Yeah, but that, yeah, she probably thought, oh, you know, instead of just marrying one
man and then having children, I'll just marry men that already have children.
That's true.
I would just collect three times as much.
That's awful.
That's gross.
An investigation was launched into the death of Charles with a verdict coming back as natural
causes.
Hmm.
When questioned originally, Mary stated that Charles had fallen ill and that she had
used an error route to treat his symptoms, but it was no use.
As far as Thomas going to authorities, Mary stated that he was upset because she had rejected
his advances.
She said, oh, he's trying to get me in trouble because he wanted to sleep with me and I said
no.
Yeah.
I totally know what happened.
Though Mary thought she fooled everyone yet again with Charles's death case closed, the
local newspaper was not going to let the case go.
And I say it like that because earlier you were like, did they even have news?
Did they even have the news?
They would begin by investigating Mary's life and would quickly find out that she had
moved all around Northern England and had lost three husbands, a boyfriend, her own
mother, and 11 children, all of which died from the same illness, stomach fevers.
That's a lot of people.
It's a lot of people.
It's not a fucking coincidence.
That's not a coincidence.
Like come on, the newspaper's probably like, what the fuck?
This is the, yeah, this is also the origin story of investigative journalism.
No, seriously, this is the biggest story we've gotten in years.
What Mary did not know was that while Dr. William Byers Kilburn signed off on the death
certificate for Charles, he first collected samples of tissue as well just in case.
Oh, okay.
Smart man.
With the suspicious rumors surfacing about Mary's death trail, Dr. Kilburn decided to
test the samples he took and what turned up was traces of arsenic.
Yeah.
Dr. Kilburn immediately went to police who would immediately arrest Mary simultaneously
proposing an exhumation of Charles' body.
Exhumation?
I guess to make sure that the arsenic didn't come from somewhere else in the lab or something.
I just feel like exhumations also weren't really a big thing then.
That's true.
That's not something you did.
That's probably one of the first cases of it.
Mary would be charged with the murder of Charles Cotton, although the trial would be delayed
until after January 7th of 1873 due to her being in labor with her 13th and final child.
Take that baby away from her.
Snatch that baby up.
Guess what this final daughter's name is?
Margaret.
Margaret Edith Quick Manning Cotton.
Quick Manning Cotton, sorry.
Margaret again.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
Okay, this is gonna sound like a really sick question.
I'm not trying to be gross when I say this, I'm being serious.
Do you think that she named her children Margaret so it was easier to get rid of them because
other Margaret's are already gone?
Yes.
Yeah.
I do think that.
I think that maybe something, maybe she disliked her mother or something enough.
You know?
True.
I mean, or the sister or maybe, you know, or maybe she just got so much attention the
first time she named a daughter Margaret because it was after her sister and her mother that
she continued to do it because it would have garnered her some attention.
True.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So, Margaret was 1873 with a delay being caused by a problem with the selection of the prosecution.
One prosecutor, Mr. Aspenwall, was originally selected to be the prosecutor for the case,
but the attorney general, Sir John Duke Colleridge, had the ultimate decision and he would go
with his friend and protege Charles Russell to be the prosecutor.
Okay.
He's like, I want to make sure that this is like happening.
Right.
The defense attorney in the case was one Thomas Campbell Foster who argued during the trial
that Charles had actually died from inhaling arsenic that was in the dye of the green wallpaper
of the cotton home.
Oh.
Well, why didn't anybody else get sick?
That's what I'm saying.
It was a dumb argument.
Yeah.
There was other testimony from a chemist and a doctor that went back and forth on how the
child could have ingested arsenic, but ultimately after only just 90 minutes of deliberation,
the jury came back with a guilty verdict.
90 minutes?
Yeah.
It's like hours now.
Yeah.
A correspondent from The Times would report on March 20th, quote, after conviction, the
wretched woman exhibited strong emotion, but this game plays in a few hours to her habitual
calls, reserved demeanor.
And while she harbors a strong conviction that the royal clemency will be extended towards
her, she staunchly asserts her innocence of the crime that she has been convicted of.
End of quote.
It's a lot of words in there that I've never fucking used before.
I certainly wanted to hear you say that in an English accent.
Shit.
Well, the English listeners probably don't.
I'm like, fuck you.
After conviction, the wretched woman exhibited strong emotion.
Okay, that's all I'm saying.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
You're welcome, you're welcome.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
I'm going to go to your all night.
Thank you.
Mary Ann Cotton would be hanged at Durham County Gowl on March 24th, 1873, just 19 days after
her child.
What?
Just kill her.
They don't have anything else going on in the justice system in England at the time?
No, they're like, go.
Go ahead.
Why are we waiting?
Mary would not die from her neck breaking, however, but from strangulation, which is something
that is thought to have been deliberate.
That's why I put that in there, because they think it was like on purpose.
They think that they rigged it in a way that, uh, that's awful.
Of Mary's children, only two would survive out of 13.
That's Margaret Edith, who lived from 1873 to 1954.
That was like yesterday.
And her son, George, from her marriage to James Robinson, I didn't get his birth and
death dates.
Right.
But that's the one that the husband took, right?
Yeah.
Oh, gosh.
And the husband saved himself, too.
Again, he saved him and his son's life.
Though Mary never confessed to any of the murders, it is thought that she killed upwards
of 21 people throughout her lifetime.
While some people believe that Mary was Britain's first female serial killer, there were other
women that have known to have been hanged for the murder of multiple people.
Mary and Cotton was widely recognized as the country's deadliest killer until Harold
Shipman came around and he outkilled her.
Wow.
Yeah.
And lastly, while Mary was never diagnosed with any mental disorders, it is clear that
she had something, however, mental disorders were not something that were even known about
at this time, let alone talked about and discussed.
So there's really, I mean, I don't even know, based on the lack of information in general,
I couldn't even speculate.
It might be a Munchausen by proxy issue.
Maybe, yeah.
I mean, it could just be a greed personality disorder.
I think it might be narcissistic or antisocial, honestly, because that would be like, I don't
care about anything, all I want is this one thing, which is money.
Right.
I think I've stated on that.
Yeah.
But yeah, that's the story.
It's a little bit of a shorty today, but again, that's the case from the 1800s.
It's about all I could fucking find.
Still a lot of detail though.
Yeah.
I mean, they clearly have a trail of hers.
So that's incredible.
I know.
And I don't think we've ever done a case from the 1800s.
We have, but it's very rare that we do.
Yeah.
I know, because well, you did AGH, right?
That was made to the 1900s.
I did AGH, yeah.
Yeah.
That was all the way up until the 1900s or the 1900s.
Yeah.
But isn't that wild that her last born daughter, the 13th, is still alive?
Yeah.
The 13th, she passed away in 1954.
That's like, our parents were alive during that time.
Yeah.
Like this.
Well, one of them.
Okay.
Dad was alive.
But still.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
Thanks for the suggestion, Connie.
We really appreciate it.
I'm glad that.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and let us know what you thought.
We'll make sure to tag you in the post.
Yeah.
But yeah.
Do you have anything else you should tell everyone about the Patreon episode?
That's true.
We are gonna...
We do our handles as well.
Sorry.
Yeah, absolutely.
We do our social media anywhere at Dignity of Killer, other than X, which is at Killer
Diagnosis.
Buy some bracelets from us.
Buy some bracelets, please.
They're so cute.
And I love the ones that we made at the con.
I'm obsessed with them.
And we have lots of different options.
We have that order form on our link tree, I think on our Instagram, right?
Yeah.
I was gonna say something else, but I was like, wait, you just said it all.
Let us know.
Leave us a review, guys, please.
If you like what we're doing and you wanna hear more, which you will anyway, but leave
us a review that really helps us get into the recommended of other people's streams
that they listen to like a similar podcast and things like that.
Yeah.
That'll help boost us on the page.
For sure.
And it'll actually help us be able to make more content as well.
So please do that.
So the announcement, Patreon exclusive coming out October 29th.
We are going to be discussing Columbine.
And it is a doozy.
And that is why we've decided to make that a Patreon or I've decided to make that a Patreon.
Content heavy, pretty graphic.
The topic overall is really sensitive.
For sure.
And I would like everybody to know that me personally, I wouldn't say directly affected,
but I do know people that were directly affected.
And I would like to tackle it with as much understanding, compassion, grace.
And at the same time, really bring awareness to something that again shifted out, especially
our nation into kind of this, it propelled us in a way that was just a very, very interesting
time during that time in the 90s and the early 2000s and school and school shootings.
And it's just kind of the one that just stuck with me.
It stuck with a lot of people my age and a little younger than me and definitely older
than me.
And it just became this thing.
And again, I just want to be really respectful.
However, I'm going to bring the raw content because it's the reality.
Absolutely.
And I was just thinking while you were talking, it's a hard topic, but it still happens every
day.
And so it needs to be talked about.
And we will be the ones to talk about it.
Well, you will be the one.
I will be the one.
I'll be the comment.
And I'm so glad that we decided to do these once a month because, like I said at the beginning
of the episode, we satiate ourselves into these worlds with who these people are and
what they did and their crimes and their mental disorders, whether they're present or not
and or at least a speculation of sometimes.
And it gets so heavy that it's really hard to pull yourself out of it.
It's almost like you're going through it all over again, especially if it's something
that you feel particularly attached to.
And so I'm grateful that these really tough cases that we bring on Patreon, we're only
doing once a month because we go through it, rewrite it, we live it, we breathe it, we
dream about it sometimes.
And then we deliver it and then it's kind of like, ugh, it's like a wash, you know.
It's like standing in the rain like Andy Dufresne and just washing over you and just
Andy Dufresne and just letting it go and it be out there and, you know, not necessarily
have to think about it ever again, but it's nice to kind of cleanse yourself of it and
then start tackling the next one.
For sure, and this is also a requested case by our listener from India, Ashana.
So Ashana, if you're listening, that's Patreon exclusive, go ahead and if you would like
to hear that episode, help tier two and three.
Actually, we didn't even say this to all the listeners.
Two and three is going to get you that exclusive bonus episode and thanks for the suggestion.
For sure.
Yeah.
I think we're done for the night.
Do you have anything else?
No, I think that's it.
Okay.
Well, thanks for listening, you guys.
We love you very much and we'll see you later.
Love you.
Bye.
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