Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

Serial Killer: Mary Ann Cotton

Mary Ann Cotton (née Robson; 31 October 1832 – 24 March 1873) was an English serial killer, convicted of, and hanged for, the murder by poisoning of her stepson Charles Edward Cotton. It is likely that she murdered three of her four husbands, apparently in order to collect on their insurance policies, and many others. She may have murdered as many as 21 people, including 11 of her 13 children. She chiefly used arsenic poisoning, causing gastric pain and a rapid decline of health.

Early life

Mary Ann Robson was born on 31 October 1832 at Low Moorsley (now part of Hetton-le-Hole in the wider Houghton-le-Spring, part of the City of Sunderland), to Michael Robson, a colliery sinker, and Margaret, née Londsale, and baptized at St Mary's, West Rainton on 11 November. Her sister, Margaret, was born in 1834 but lived only a few months. Her brother, Robert, was born in 1835.

When Mary Ann was eight, her parents moved the family to the County Durham village of Murton. At the time of her trial, The Northern Echo published an article containing a description of Mary Ann as given by her childhood Wesleyan Sunday school superintendent at Murton, describing her as "a most exemplary and regular attender", "a girl of innocent disposition and average intelligence" and "distinguished for her particularly clean and tidy appearance."

Soon after the move, Mary Ann's father fell 150 feet (46 m) to his death down a mine shaft at Murton Colliery in February 1842. Her father's body was delivered to her mother in a sack bearing the stamp 'Property of the South Hetton Coal Company'. As the miner's cottage they inhabited was tied to Michael's job the widow and children would have been evicted. In 1843, her mother married George Stott (1816–1895), also a miner. At the age of 16, Mary Ann left home to become a nurse at the nearby village of South Hetton, in the home of Edward Potter, a manager at Murton Colliery. After all of the children had been sent to boarding school in Darlington over the next three years, she returned to her step-father's home and trained as a dressmaker.

Husband 1: William Mowbray

In 1852, at the age of 20, Mary Ann married colliery laborer William Mowbray at Newcastle Upon Tyne register office; they soon moved to South West England. At the time of her trial, there were reports of four or five of their children dying young while they were living away from County Durham. None of these deaths is registered, but although registration was compulsory at the time, the law was not enforced until 1874. The only birth recorded was that of their daughter, Margaret Jane, born at St Germans in 1856.

William and Mary Ann moved back to North East England, where William worked as a fireman aboard a steam vessel sailing out of Sunderland, then as a colliery foreman. Another daughter, Isabella, was born in 1858, and Margaret Jane died in 1860. Another daughter, also named Margaret Jane, was born in 1861 and lastly, a son, John Robert William, was born in 1863 but died a year later from gastric fever.

William died of an intestinal disorder in January 1865. The lives of William and of their children were insured by the British and Prudential Insurance office and Mary Ann collected a payout of £35 on William's death (equivalent to £3,371 in 2019, about half a year's wages for a manual laborer at the time) and £2 5s for John Robert William.

Husband 2: George Ward

Soon after Mowbray's death, Mary Ann moved to Seaham Harbour, County Durham, where she struck up a relationship with Joseph Nattrass. During this time, her 3½-year-old daughter, (the second) Margaret Jane, died of typhus fever, leaving her with one child of up to nine she had borne. She returned to Sunderland and took up employment at the Sunderland Infirmary, House of Recovery for the Cure of Contagious Fever, Dispensary, and Humane Society. She sent her surviving child, Isabella, to live with her mother.