Serial poisoner

THE WEST AUCKLAND POISONER. - A woman, named Mary Ann Cotton, who has been committed for trial on the charge of having poisoned her husband and four children at West Auckland, is now implicated in a series of other charges, which, if verified, will prove her to have been a systematic poisoner from her youth.

Cotton, who died in September, was her fourth husband. The first two had had their lives insured at her instance, and when they died, of what was medically certified to be “gastric fever,” she promptly realized her widow’s consolation. The third spouse, Robinson, would not insure himself, and it is said that she pledged his clothes, drew heavily on his bank account, and ran him into debt.

During the first marriage seven children died. The second appears to have had no issue {the third was fatal to six more; and the fourth, at West Auckland, had reached its fifth victim, when this horrible career of crime was stopped. It is now remembered that Cotton’s own mother died under mysterious circumstances similar to those noted in all the other cases, and with hers there will be twenty cases of suspicion.

Mary Ann Cotton went to Walbottle as Mary Ann Mowbray, and became acquainted with the man Cotton, who on July 9, 1870, installed her as his housekeeper, and in the early part of the October following married her at St. Andrew’s Church, Newcastle-on-Tyne, in the name of Mary Ann Mowbray. Within three months of the marriage the child Robert Robson Cotton was born, and the neighbours began to throw out unpleasant insinuations respecting her former life.

At this time a number of fat pigs belonging to persons with whom she was on unfriendly terms, died mysteriously, the symptoms being those of poisoning, and Mrs. Cotton was at once blamed for poisoning them. The feeling in the village ran so high against her, that Cotton thought it wise to leave the place, and he went to West Auckland, where he obtained employment at the colliery which bears that name.

Mary Ann Cotton’s first husband was William Mowbray, a pitman, who, with three children which were born to him, died. The name of the second husband does not appear. She then married James Robinson, a foreman in a shipbuilding yard at Pallion, near Sunderland, who is alive, but who lost five children by a former wife while he lived with the prisoner, and before they separated. And then, as already stated, she went to Walbottle and married Francis Cotton, and his family lived a quiet and apparently peaceable life for four or five months at West Auckland, when in September of last year Cotton fell ill in the pit, went home, and died after a few days’ illness, his death being followed in rapid succession by those of his eldest and youngest sons, both of whom died suddenly, after exhibiting the same symptoms.

The prisoner appeared on the occasion of each death to feel it acutely, and appeared much depressed and grieved at her loss, and she so far obtained the sympathy of her neighbours that a subscription was made in the village on her behalf. The owners of the colliery, also, besides contributing liberally, allowed her to live rent free, and supplied her with coals for some time afterwards. Cotton and his sons were buried at the expense of the parish; and though the prisoner was in receipt of parish relief after the death of her husband, and also received sums from an insurance company, where the deceased were insured for small amounts, she always appeared to be in deep poverty.

Natrass went to lodge with the prisoner after the death of her husband, and after staying with her four or five months, and making over to her his watch, money, and clothes, he became ill and died, after suffering great agony during about a week’s illness. The poor fellow evidently suspected all was not right, for, on being Visited by one of his companions, he remarked, “If I was only better I will be out of this.” The day before his death he told his medical attendant, who had been treating him for gastric fever, that he had no more fever than the doctor had, and if it was not for that grinding pain in his stomach he was all right, and he actually refused to take any more of the medicine prescribed for him shortly before his death, which occurred on April 1 last.

On July 12 the remaining child, Charles Edward Cotton, aged seven years, died after a short illness, and attended by similar circumstances.

With scarcely an exception, the persons who died in the Sunderland and West Auckland groups were treated by the medical men who attended them as suffering from gastric fever, and their deaths were registered as such. The woman seems to have had all the members of her household who have died, with the exception of Natrass, insured.

She received the money.