Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “Lady Rotten” - Mary Ann Cotton

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

She was determined to pull herself out of poverty, but the path towards financial freedom meant murdering her three husbands, 13 children, and family friends, who dared to stand in her way. This 19th century killer became known as Britain's Black Widow Killer, and the first female serial killer in England. Sponsors! Ring - Get a special offer on a Ring Starter Kit by going to Ring.com/SerialKillers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. That's ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything, website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars.

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You'll remember the old rhyming couplet. Man may work from son to son, but woman's work is never done. This couldn't be more true than in Victorian England, where freedoms, like owning property and managing finances, were legally out of a woman's control. Their fates were defined by the men they married, and then served. Mary Ann Cotton despised this wifely servitude. She soon found that she valued her husbands

far less than the insurance policies on their lives. Time and time again, she found widowed life suited her, but she didn't stop there. Eventually, everyone, proved more valuable dead. Marianne Cotton may have murdered as many as 21 victims over two decades, including stepchildren, lovers, friends, even her own daughters.

Almost no one in her life, it seemed, was safe from death at Marianne's hands. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. From the Parcast Network, this is serial killers. Today we're going to examine the life of Mary Ann Cotton, Britain's forgotten first female serial killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. Many of you have been asking us how you can support the podcast. If you enjoy the show, one of the best ways to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. While you're there, you can listen to previous episodes of serial killers, as well as Parcast's other podcasts. A new episode comes out every Monday. You can also

find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and on Twitter at Parcast Network or in our website, parcast dot com. Almost two decades before Jack the Ripper terrorized the streets of Whitechapel London, there was Marianne Cotton.

Between 1850 and 1872, Marianne took the lives of well over a dozen people throughout northeast England, though she was only ever tried for one murder. Marianne is thought to have murdered. as many as 21 people, including her own friends and family.

By comparison, the infamous Jack the Ripper only managed five. Her killings were calculated and quiet, and her victims went out with a whisper rather than a scream. Mary Ann's method of choice was poison, or more specifically, arsenic. A silent killer easily slipped into food and drinks. And why these people so near and dear to her? The answers lie in Marianne's modus operandi. Marianne would take out life insurance policies on her victims

and then promptly administer poison in the guise of tea, soup, or medicine until they inevitably died painful deaths. The poisoning symptoms were misdiagnosed as cholera or the more vague, gastric fever. Once Marianne successfully poisoned members of her family one by one, she would cash in their life insurance policies and use it to move to the next village and find her next husband. She seemed not to discriminate among the loved ones she killed and is thought to have murdered six or more of her biological children. Three husbands, five or more stepchildren, a lover, a friend, and her own mother.

Murder in itself is indicative of a mental pathology, but the murder of loved ones is deeply dissonable. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. As we dive into Marianne Cotton's background and into the details of her crimes, you'll find that there are many contradictions in her actions that make her case particularly complex. For instance, Marianne had a strict moral upbringing, which clash. with the immorality of her crimes. This would have created cognitive dissonance within Marianne,

a theory originated by psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957, which suggests that each individual has an inner drive to hold their beliefs and actions in harmony. Marianne would change her perception of her crimes in order to fit them into her moral worldview and resolve this dissonance. But to better understand this cognitive dissonance, we need to understand Marianne's upbringing.

Marianne Cotton was born Marianne Robson, fittingly on October 31st, Halloween, in 1832. She was the first child to young parents Michael and Margaret Robson, who were just 17 at the time of her birth. She began life in a small mining village called Low Moorsley in northeast England. The town was defined by its coal industry, and her father, Michael, was a pitman. a workman in the mines.

Like many coal towns, life as a mining family in Lowe-Morsley was harsh to say the least. Mining was a dangerous industry. Ill health and poverty ran rampant, and many miners turned to strict Christianity and alcohol to cope. British historian Arthur Bryant noted in his book English saga that these families usually fought, quote, a long losing battle with poverty, undernourishment, and insecurity. the risk of accident and maiming, the rod of body and soul, and the dread of the workhouse at the end of that bitter road, end quote. Marianne's parents very much fit into the picture of the people of Lowe Morsley,

a hardy and resourceful stock who came from mining families themselves. Both Marianne's parents, Michael and Margaret, were devoted Methodists with a strong work ethic and an unwavering acceptance of whatever hardships they believe, God sent their way. Marianne was raised, God-fearing, with a clear sense of right and wrong. But living under the strict rule of her father, who demanded obedience and uncompromising observation of her faith, Marianne developed a resentment toward her Spartan upbringing. Mining life was a rootless one.

Workers' contracts with coal companies usually lasted no more than a year, so families often packed up to move to one of the surrounding towns. to seek new work. When she was a toddler, Marianne's family moved to another nearby mining village, called East Rainton. In their new town, Marianne was described by friends and neighbors as a pretty girl with black hair of average intelligence and having an innocent disposition. Her mother made sure to send Marianne to school consistently and always with a perfectly tidy appearance. The same was true with Church, and the entire Robson family were dedicated members of their congregation. Though the Robsons were lower class, how they were viewed in the community in

East Rainton was of the utmost importance to Marianne's parents. But the picture of such a devout household with a clean and well-behaved little girl, no doubt, came at a price. According to those close to the family, Marianne's father, Michael, was a fiercely authoritarian man. Marianne was punished physically for any disobedience as a child and experienced regular abuse in order to help keep up the appearance of her father's perfectly behaved and pious family. Her father's strict control and abuse would have been the origin of Marianne's resentment of future restrictions on her freedom. Not to mention the trauma associated with physical abuse would have greatly impacted her interactions with other male authoritarian figures.

According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, victims of childhood trauma can have trouble in relationships for the rest of their lives. and often fall into a cycle of repeating their past trauma. The effects of this on those who later become killers is evident. A 2005 study published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology showed that serial killers were six times more likely to have experienced physical abuse in their childhood than the average population. Startling context for Mary Ann's story.

Set in a desolate town where the work was hard and dangerous, abuse and sickness flourish. and poverty was a constant threat. While this hardly excuses Marianne's future crimes, at a time where many lower-class English people were experiencing similar hardship, it helps us understand what would drive her to kill. In 1834, just after their move to East Rainton,

Marianne's mother, Margaret, gave birth to Marianne's younger sister. The baby, unfortunately, didn't last long in the inhospitable environment and died of illness a few months later. A sad reality for many young children of poor families, and a reality that Marianne would come to know all too well. However, a short year later, Marianne's younger brother, Robert, was born, and the family began to share their meager resources with the new edition. Her impoverished upbringing taught Marianne cruel life lessons from a tender age. In February of 1842, her family relocated to a mining town called East Rainton. It's there that her father, Michael, began a new job as a sinker in the South Hettin coal mines.

Sinkers had particularly hazardous jobs that specialized in digging new mine shafts. On a cold February morning, Marianne's father fell to his death and was crushed as the shaft he was digging collapsed on top of him. Marianne was only nine. The death of a parent in early childhood is a very complex experience that can make sure. children at risk for psychopathology as adults. A 2014 study by Luca Cernelia showed the loss of a parent was found to affect a child's capacity to form and maintain intimate relationships later in life, and increase their risk of developing psychiatric disorders to five times that of their peers.

And the death of Marianne's father was nothing short of scarring. Marianne's father's broken body was delivered to Marianne's mother in a car. wrapped in a sack bearing the stamp, property of the South Hetton Coal Company. In the end, for all of his backbreaking labor and grueling hours, Michael's life's work amounted to nothing more than a coal sack. This moment would reverberate with Marianne for a very long time after. She was highly aware of her limited opportunities and of just how easily one's life could be upended.

She knew all too well the grim fate of the working class under the work. a corrupt system. It would ignite in her a determination to rise above the class she was born into and find her way to financial stability. Her father's broken body would be the first to push her towards a life of wealth. But she would soon add many bodies to that pile. We'll see how Marianne clawed her way out of poverty in a moment. Now back to the story. In February 1840, Mary Ann Robson's father was crushed to death during a coal mining accident, leaving his family penniless. Margaret Robson, struck by grief and newly widowed, was not spared much sympathy by the South Hetton Coal Company. The miners' cottage they lived in, along with most of the village, was owned by the mines.

With no labor to offer, Margaret, Marianne, and Robert were soon evicted. Michael Robson's death meant not only the loss of a husband, father, but also of income and shelter. Life for a family headed by a widowed woman was almost impossible in 19th century England. The fear of being sent to a workhouse, where the poor were forced into hard labor and returned for squalid and crowded conditions, was a dark shadow on Marianne's childhood. Marianne's life had collapsed in on her, from experiencing the brutal death of her father

to being forced out of her childhood home and into her life. to uncertainty, Marianne was terrified of what was to come for her and her family. Marianne's mother was under mounting pressure to find security for herself and her children, and was left with little choice than to remarry, and quickly. Within a year of Michael's death, Margaret married another minor, named George Stott. Now ten years old, Marianne was not welcoming to George. He was a stranger who took up the role of authority figure too soon, after her father's death. She loathed her stepfather, and according to her biographers, the feeling was mutual. Once she was a teenager, Marianne sought the opportunity to escape her family

home. She took up the position of the town's Methodist Sunday school teacher. Decades later, the irony of this was not lost on Marianne. While awaiting trial for murder years later, Marianne wrote, quote, there will not be any more Sunday school teaching for me now, end quote. But she soon found a job more suited to her interests. At 16, Marianne Robson left her small village to take up a position as a nursemaid to the Potter family in South Hedden. Edward Potter was a coal mine manager, and they lived in a house known as the Hall, a grand home with many domestic servants. It was the most beautiful house Marianne had ever seen. She was envious of the wealth and social prestige that those at the top enjoyed.

The wealth that was built on the backs of minors like Marianne's father and stepfather. But this did not inspire a sense of injustice in Marianne. Quite the contrary, it became the beacon of hope for a lifestyle that she aspired to obtain. Marianne held her post at the Potter household for nearly three years. Edward and his wife Margaret spoke well of Marianne and her work in their home. For Marianne, these were perhaps some of the happiest times of her life. But when Marianne was 18, the Potter children were sent to boarding school, and the family was no longer in need of Marianne's help. She was forced to leave the elegant house and returned to her stepfather's home.

Eager to dive back into other work, she became the apprentice of a dressmaker in town. Dressmaking allowed her to create the beautiful clothes she longed for that connected her with the lifestyle she had left behind. But Marianne would not be able to continue dressmaking for much longer. longer, fate had other plans. Marianne met a man named William Mowbray and soon got pregnant. Given her strict religious community, she needed to marry William as quickly as possible to legitimize the pregnancy and avoid local gossip. On July 18, 1852, at 19 years old, Marianne married 35-year-old coal miner, William Mowbray.

Miner's wives at the time had a miserable existence. Historical scholar Tony Whitehead wrote that the wives of minors were usually seen as a child-bearing drudge whose existence was completely absorbed with the maintenance of her husband and the rearing of their usually large brood of children. The idyllic future that Marianne had pictured for herself while working at the beautiful Potter House was quickly slipping from her grasp. She was now married to a miner in the same desolate town she sought to escape. As she exchanged vows with her new husband,

Marianne also handed over the legal freedoms that would have helped make that dream possible. In the 1850s, marriage meant a woman's legal existence was completely surrendered to her husband. She lost the right to sign contracts herself, make a will, even the right to her own personal belongings. William and Marianne soon moved south to Cornwall. And while William managed to find work as a shopkeeper,

the local railway. Mary Ann prepared herself for life as a new mother. She went to work setting up a nursery in their new home in a strange city. She used her dressmaking skills to make beautiful blankets and clothes, and she made plans for the new life she was about to bring into the world. But the promise of a child was not meant to be. In the middle of the night, Marianne woke up to violent, stabbing pains, and when she threw the blankets from her body, she saw that everything, the mattress, her nightgown, was soaked through in blood.

She had lost the baby. Mary Ann was beside herself. The shotgun wedding, the months of preparation for the arrival of a child, and then the sudden loss was emotional whiplash, a devastating, cruel joke. But soon, Marianne found herself pregnant again. The old nursery was set up, the baby's things taken out of cupboards in anticipation,

names were discussed. Marianne always loved her mother's name, Margaret. But like horrific deja vu, Marian's second pregnancy ended in another night of pain and bloody sheets. Then it happened again. And again, it was a nightmare she couldn't escape. She went on to lose five children in those first four years with William Mowbray, a high infant mortality rate, even for the Victorian era,

and a devastating start to a marriage. Losing so many children in such a short period of time would have a disturbing effect on Marianne. Women who experience miscarriages or infant deaths are at high risk for postpartum depression and anxiety and sometimes post-traumatic stress disorder. In a study published in 2016 by Jessica Farron and other researchers entitled

Post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression following miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, psychologists found that symptoms of post-traumatic stress affect 40% of women following the loss of a pregnancy or infant. And distress from these failed pregnancies did not help matters. Many people believe that a mother's actions or a tumultuous state of mind during pregnancy would negatively affect the baby,

making it disfigured, mentally ill, or too damaged to be born at all. And further, infants who died before they died before they had a chance to be baptized were a subject of great social stigma. With Marianne's strict religious upbringing, the guilt of having children who left the world without being baptized was a tremendous weight on her conscience. And because any small action during her pregnancy could have been the cause of the lost children, she thought it was all her fault. Mary Ann sat with this shame for years before successfully giving birth to a healthy baby.

This living child, Margaret Jane, was born on June 23, 1856, and named after Marianne's mother. Soon after the birth, Marianne found herself returning home to the Merton area mines with William and the new baby to be closer to her family. But once back in the mining village, things for Marianne and William took a dark turn. Marianne and William's marriage, perhaps soured by five miscarriages, was not a happy one. They argued frequently, oftentimes about money, a subject brought on by Marianne's obsessive worrying about slipping into poverty. In an attempt to escape the constant conflict, William took up work on a steamboat out of nearby Sunderland, a job that would have him away at sea for long stretches of time. However, this did not stop Marianne from becoming pregnant with her second daughter, Isabella Jane, before he left.

Marianne delivered in December 1858, and Isabella joined her two-year-old sister in the family of four. But the new baby only added to financial woes, and with William away at sea, Marianne's life as a new mother raising two young children on her own was isolating and overwhelming. It was during this uncertain time that Marianne and William's first daughter, Margaret Jane, mysteriously passed away, not long after her first daughter, fourth birthday. According to her death certificate, Margaret Jane died of scarlet fever and exhaustion, but she very well could have been Marianne's first victim. At four years old, Margaret Jane was the biggest burden to Marianne, who was struggling to care for both Margaret Jane and a new baby while

William was at sea. Though there is no explicit evidence that Marianne murdered Margaret Chain, It is very likely, given that she died while under Marianne's nursing care. Because of the trauma caused by Marianne's miscarriages, it would not be far-fetched to conclude that Marianne would eventually take matters into her own hands. In Mona Rodelin's 2012 article, female serial killers in the modern age, she examines multiple infanticide cases that occurred in Finland around the same years as Marianne's murders. Dr. Rodelin found that in most cases of serial infanticide, the women who got away the longest with their crimes were the ones who fully planned their killings, usually as a way to get rid of infants born from accidental pregnancies. Marianne may have done the same in the beginning of her murder career, eliminating her child to avoid the trauma she had already experienced repeatedly. Ending their lives on her own terms may have meant protecting herself from further. trauma. Though it's important to note that Marianne murdered almost all of the children in her care,

not just the ones who came in the wake of her failed pregnancies. Which means, at a certain point, murder as a means of survival evolved into something much darker. In fact, it started to seem like Marianne liked murder with few scruples over whose life she took. We'll see what pushes her over the edge to commit confirmed murders in a moment. Now back to the story. In 1859, a mere 10 months after the death or possible murder of Marianne's first daughter, Margaret Jane, Marianne gave birth to another daughter, who she also named Margaret Jane. After the death of the first Margaret Jane, William and Marianne decided to take insurance policies out on William's life,

and on the life of the next baby Marianne was to carry. Life insurance policies were a burgeoning industry in Victorian England. With infant mortality rates so high, policies were commonly taken out on babies as soon as they were born. Marianne's first son, John Robert William, was born in July of 1863. Marianne and William would have been overjoyed at the arrival of their first healthy baby boy. However, that joy wouldn't have lasted long. In the following summer, around John Robert's first birth, he suddenly fell ill.

The baby constantly cried in obvious pain as he experienced violent symptoms, vomiting, diarrhea, and scorching fevers in the middle of an English summer. Marianne and William gathered the little money they had to call in the local doctor, who they hoped could save their only son. But the baby's fever was unrelenting.

Despite treatment and medicine, young John Robert's symptoms continued. Marianne, the vigilant mother, continued to give the baby a bottle, even though he could hardly keep any food down. The more he nursed from the bottle, it seemed, the worse he would get. Which was no coincidence. Marianne was swiftly poisoning her baby's son right in front of the doctor and her family. John Robert continued to grow weaker until finally his body succumbed to the poison.

As written on the death certificates of many of Marianne's children, John Robert was recorded as having died from gastric fever, but gastric fever was just one of the many disguises for Marianne's murders. Her murder weapon of choice? Arsenic. Almost all of Marianne's victims were recorded as having died from some gastric ailment. Illnesses like cholera, typhoid, and dysentery were running rampant in Victorian England and had similar symptoms, diarrhea, gastric pain, and vomiting.

These symptoms mirrored arsenic to the tea. It was cheap, too, not to mention readily available in high concentrations in everyday household items, such as wallpaper, cosmetics, and of course, rat poison. It was even a common disinfectant used in day-to-day life without suspicion. In large doses, arsenic victims would die swiftly. But if the poison was parsed out into several small doses over the course of a few weeks, the victim's death would look natural. It caused a great deal of suffering for the victim,

but the murderer barely needed to break a sweat. As it turns out, doses could be dissolved easily in hot liquids, like soups and tea, with little to no recognizable taste. This made arsenic the perfect weapon for women who did all the cooking for their families. Cooking may have been a mundane chore, but it also served as the perfect cover-up to murder. Most female murderers don't kill strangers, but people they have an intimacy and familiarity with. Because of this, women were at first never included in classic definitions of serial killers.

According to a 2016 study by Radford University, female serial murderers make up less than 15% of serial killers, a percentage that scholars recognize may be underreported due to a historical lack of interest in the female killer in mainstream criminology. With this historical underrepresentation came a lack of insight on how political and socioeconomic discrimination were perhaps impacting the behavior of female murderers. But though discrimination may have affected the actions of these women, the typical female serial killer is almost always a white woman in her 30s, and most often their murders are done through poisoning. And so Marianne Cotton had begun her evolution to almost perfectly fit this true

definition of a murderess. Because she created phantom sicknesses in her victims by poisoning them under her care, some may mistakenly diagnose Marianne with FDIA, or fictitious disorder imposed on another, previously known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. According to Iman Ahmed Zaki's 2004, 15 article in the Journal of Childhood and Adolescent Behavior, FDIA involves the exaggeration or fabrication of an illness by a primary caretaker in those who are in their care. Though Marianne did poison her loved ones creating the illusion of an illness, her case is a bit different. A diagnosis of FDIA centers upon the caretakers' need for attention and compassion from doctors and community members, and to be sure, Marianne would have received

copious amounts of sympathy from those who thought the couple had simply been experiencing a string of horrible luck, but this doesn't seem to have been her main motivator. Instead, her psychopathy is defined by a different disorder entirely, and it's her behavior after her murders that helps explain why. In January 1865, William finally returned from his work at sea to rest an injured foot. With William having been gone at sea for the better part of seven years, this should have been a welcome homecoming. For those seven years, Marianne had essentially raised their children alone, a sacrifice she and William made so he could support the family from afar. Those years were long and arduous, and Marianne resented William for leaving

her to bear the burden of being the sole parent. But Marianne knew they needed his income from the steamship to keep the family afloat. So when William returned earlier than expected and injured, Mary Ann was furious. If William was unable to walk, he was unable to bring in money. And if he couldn't stand on his own two feet, then he was simply another mouth to feed. He was useless to her now. And day after day, with William making demands from his recovery bed,

while Marianne struggled even harder to meet the family's needs, Marianne had finally had enough. Just a few days after returning home, William began having dramatic gastrointestinal symptoms and was declining quickly. The local doctor had told Marianne that William would die within the week. William struggled through the writhing pain and vomiting from arsenic poisoning. He experienced delirium and high fevers, weakening every day as toxins poisoned his blood, until he finally wasted away.

Just two weeks after returning, William died from a violent. violent intestinal disorder, which he had shown no symptoms of before coming home. His death certificate would show that he had gone the same way as his baby son, gastric fever. Shortly after William's death, Marianne paid a visit to the Office of British and Prudential Insurance and collected payment on the two policies that she and William had put in place earlier that year. She received 35 pounds on William's life, and two pounds and five shillings on the

life of baby John Robert. At the time, this was the equivalent to six months wages for a manual laborer. But finally, after 12 years of marriage, she once again had rights to the legal possession of her own assets and finances. And they say crime doesn't pay. It certainly can. And in Marianne's case, money was a major motive. In their 2015 book entitled Female Serial Killers in Social Context, authors Elizabeth Yardley and David Wilson describe a school of thought in criminology that divides serial killers into two categories, purpose-oriented and pleasure-oriented. Most male killers tend to fall into the pleasure-oriented category, meaning that their murders often involve torture or sadomasochistic elements that usually

satisfies some perverse sexual need. Like John Wayne Gacey or Gary Ridgeway, who we've covered before. Most women fall into the purpose-oriented category. Their murders are related to attempts to gain wealth, control, or in some cases, to generate sympathy. This is all true for Marianne. As we discussed beyond monetary reasons, she also would have sought out the pity and support as a young, newly widowed woman. It would have played to her advantage. Hence her moniker, the Black Widow Killer. In their book, Murder Most Rare, Michael.

and C.L. Kelleher described the Black Widow Killer. Black Widows like Marianne Cotton murder multiple family members, husbands, and partners. On average, these murderers begin killing after the age of 25 and continue doing so for a decade or longer before being apprehended, amassing a victim count somewhere around five to a dozen. Black widows usually poison their victims and their motives can be diverse, but are usually centered around profit. In the same way that Marianne took out insurance policies on her son and husband's lives,

in a sort of morbid bid for a better life. With the chapter of Mrs. William Mowbray nearly closed, Marianne was finally free to chase the future she always wanted and assume any identity she needed. In 1865, just a month after William's death, Marianne used her new money to move her and her daughter's Isabella and the second Margaret Chain to seeham Harbor, a bigger, bustling seaside town, more prosperous than the one they came from. It was a new lease on life, away from East Rainton and one step closer to the dreams of luxury she had left behind. Marianne was finally able to return to dressmaking by setting up her own in-home store.

She would hang her dresses outside her cheap ground floor apartment, where Isabella, just seven years old, kept shop. However, with two mouths to feed, subsisting entirely on the measly wages of a dressmaker, Marianne would have been extremely anxious as she watched her resources quickly dwindle in her new city. Providing for two young daughters was not a weight she could easily shoulder, and she didn't. Only four months after their move to see M. Harbor, the second Margaret Jane Mowbray swiftly fell ill. She suffered from severe stomach pains, nausea, vomiting, and an extremely high fever. Typhus is what the local doctor concluded. Her symptoms were classic.

Doctors took note of how steadfast Marianne was at her daughter's sickbed, as she tended to her every need. The vomiting made Margaret Jane dehydrated, which Marianne treated diligently. with soups and homemade medicinal teas. But in this case, homemade meant lethal. Marianne had been steadily poisoning her daughter for days. Sadly, Margaret Jane died in April 1865 at just three years old. Marianne probably realized that of her two children, Margaret Jane was the greater burden.

Whereas Margaret had been a mere toddler, Isabella at seven had use. Marianne could put her to work in the shop. With her death toll coming to four victims, Marianne had now truly secured herself the title of serial killer. Through her own abuse as a child, Marianne would have been taught at an early age

that the pain of children would be of no consequence to their parents. As suggested by the psychology of female violence by Anna Mott's, in disassociating from her loved ones, Marianne had always been able to give herself distance she needed in order to survive her abuse as well as her many miscarriages. But it also meant that she removed herself from the suffering she would inflict on her living children. Instead, she came to view her children and others under her care, more like possessions.

She believed it was her right to kill them because she owned them. Loved ones were tools to be used for her own personal gain and disposed of when they hindered her progress. It's no coincidence that Margaret Jane's death seemed to coincide with the introduction of Marianne's lover. When she met Joseph Natress in Seam Harbor, he had been married to another woman for five years, but nothing stopped Marianne. It's possible that Joseph and Marianne's extramarital affair had actually started while William had been away at sea, and Marianne had simply followed Joseph to see him Harbor when he had moved with his wife. This is a potential additional motive to kill William, to get him out of the way so that she could follow her lover.

But Marianne's biographers are not certain if Marianne Cotton and Joseph Natras had known each other then. Whether they met in Marianne's hometown or in Seam Harbor, their affair would have been hidden all the same. And now that Marianne was free from William and Margaret Jane had been taken care of, Isabella was the last barrier between Marianne and her ability to move freely, which meant she had to go. Next week, we'll continue our journey into the twisted life of Marianne Cotton. We'll examine her motives and the methods that allowed her to elude police, her community, and her own family for almost two decades.

We'll also explore the type of psychosis that earned her the chilling, moniker of Britain's Black Widow Killer. But as for now, Marianne was just beginning to spin her web, waiting for unsuspecting prey to fall into her trap. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. You can find more episodes of serial killers as well as parcasts, other podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, CastBox, tune-in, or your favorite podcast directory.

Several of you have asked how to help the show, and if you enjoy the show, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler Media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Bill Holmes, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie. Maggie Admeyer. Serial Killers is written by Alex Garland and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving,

the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed, and there was a full of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up, getting ready for bed, is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks.

You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year. but they're not Crime Beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.