Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Murderous Moms: Amelia Dyer & Mary Ann Cotton

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

There's a common belief that all mothers are inherently good. But these two women have something to say about that misconception. Amelia Dyer ran a business where the more kids she killed, the more money she made. Mary Ann Cotton found that it was hard to support all the extra mouths to feed as a working woman, so she poisoned her family. And for years, authorities were none the wiser. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of these killers' crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, child murder, child abuse, and neglect. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. On a bitterly cold January day in the Riverside Town of Reading, Mrs. Bennett was waiting for her husband to finish work. Mrs. Bennett, who will call Emily, stood in the foyer of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, trying to keep warm by the fireplace. Despite the harsh weather, she always enjoyed coming to meet Charles at his office.

The NSPCC had been formed 12 years earlier in 1884. Its creation was sparked by a number of upsetting news stories, tales of babies being given up for foster by well-meaning parents, then starved or smothered to death by their so-called caregivers. These stories rattled Emily to her core. As a mother, she couldn't imagine anything worse than being forced to give up her child, never mind the idea of hurting one. Snapping out of her thoughts, Emily noticed an elderly woman outside, peering at the photographs

and newspaper clippings displayed in the front window. She looked stricken, close to tears. She couldn't blame her. The front window was an exhibition of abused and neglected children, designed to raise awareness of the NSPC's work. Emily stepped outside and asked the woman if she was all right. The answer was obvious, when the woman broke down in tears. Emily led her gently inside by the arm, sat her by the fireplace, and put the kettle on to boil. A cup of tea was an order, she thought. After their tea was brewed, Emily put a comforting hand on the woman's arm. She told her she understood. Some of the images were just too much. She told Charles so before. But the woman shook her head. It wasn't the pictures that had upset her, at least not directly.

In a haunted whisper, she said, I think something terrible is happening in my house. Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. This is the first in a two-part special to celebrate Mother's Day. Ordinarily, a mother's love is held up as one of the fiercest protective forces in the world. But there are dark exceptions to every rule. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone.

You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Today, we'll introduce you to Amelia Dyer, a 19th century nurse who murdered hundreds of infants as a baby farmer. Then we'll delve into the story of The Dark Angel, Marianne Cotton, widely believed to be the first known British serial killer. Next time, we'll explore the tales of two more recent. moms who killed their own children and passed off the deaths as a result of sudden infant death syndrome. Though these stories are all different, they share a common, unsettling truth. At their center is a woman, a mother who was downright murderous. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring

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and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. A mother's love is a powerful force. It's not an emotion, but a biological imperative that works almost like a drug,

releasing potent brain chemicals that cement the bond between mom and baby. But not all women feel the maternal instinct, and in the modern era, it's no longer assumed that they should. Today, statistics show that a growing number of American adults are choosing to remain child-free. In Victorian England, though, this choice barely existed. A lack of access to contraception and abortions led to a huge number of unwanted babies, and children that women simply couldn't afford. This was dangerous both for mothers and especially for their babies, as we'll see in the two stories we're exploring today.

First, let's talk about Amelia Dyer, a nurse and foster parent who's believed to have murdered hundreds of babies in her care. You might assume that a person capable of this must have been abused or neglected themselves. But as far as we know, Amelia had a privileged upbringing in a small village in the southwest of England. Amelia's father made a good living as a shoemaker, and she and her siblings received a good education. She learned to read and write at a church-run school in her village and seemed set for a productive life.

But the family's fortunes took a turn. When Amelia was 11, her mother, Sarah, contracted typhus, a bacterial disease that was common in the overcrowded cities of Victorian England. The illness was vicious, and over the course of several months, Amelia spent time taking care of her ailing mother as she descended into feverish madness. Sarah endured terrifying hallucinations,

and seizures before finally dying. Watching this surely had a profound impact on Amelia. She probably came to see the world as a merciless and dangerous place, one in which life could be snatched away without warning. Vanessa is going to take over in the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg.

Losing a parent at any stage of childhood is a deep, a deeply traumatic experience. A study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2018 indicated that the effects are especially pronounced if a child is under 12 when their parent dies. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are both more common in children in this category. But it's also worth noting that this wasn't a straightforward loss.

Amelia witnessed not only her mother's death, she experienced her madness, too. In their book Amelia Dyer, Dyer Angel Maker. Authors Alison Rattle and Alison Vale wrote that Sarah became gradually detached from reality and had violent outbursts. It's likely that in the later stages of her illness, she didn't even recognize her daughter and might have lashed out at her. This may have been the most traumatic aspect of all for an 11-year-old. The mother-daughter bond was suddenly and violently severed, and it had a lasting impact.

After her mother's death, Amelia's life transformed in tangible ways. First, she was sent to live with an aunt to live nearby. Then she left school at 14 and went to work as a corset maker's apprentice. After that, she became estranged from her family and was determined not to rely on them for anything, but she knew that as a single woman, her economic prospects were limited. In 1861, when she was 23, Amelia moved into a boarding house on the east side of Bristol. There, she began seeing a fellow boarder, 57-year-old widower George Thomas, and the pair were married within six months. George made a good living as a master carver and gilder, and for a while the pair lived off his income.

But Amelia didn't want to be a housewife, and realistically, she knew her husband's best working years were behind him. So, two years into their marriage, Amelia began training as a nurse at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. She'd been interested in medicine since childhood, but found that the reality of nursing didn't measure up to her fantasy. The hours were grueling, and the pay was low. Though she knew she was earning a much better living than most women, she still resented the grind. So when she became pregnant with her first child, she was only too happy to stop working. she gave birth to a daughter in 1864.

This should have been a peaceful, joyful time for the family, but George's health was faltering, and he had to stop working around the same time, which meant money was suddenly tight. As a new mother, Amelia had to find a way to earn a living again, and when she confided in a friend, Ellen Dane, she discovered an unorthodox solution. Ellen was a midwife who Amelia met during her time as a nurse.

Hearing about Amelia's money troubles, Ellen revealed that she was more than just a midwife. She was also a baby farmer. Here's the story behind that strange term. At the time, British law didn't require men to provide financially for a child born out of wedlock. In theory, this was supposed to discourage extramarital sex, but all the law did was penalize unmarried mothers and their children. If an unmarried woman got pregnant, she had no good options. Single mothers were stigmatized and safe abortions were almost impossible to come by. Tragically, many women in this situation resorted to abandoning their children on the streets.

Baby farms offered a more humane solution to this problem. In exchange for a fee, a woman could discreetly drop off her unwanted baby to be fostered by a farmer who would find the child a loving home. The money was good, Ellen told Amelia, especially if he knew how to play the game. and that's when she revealed the horrific truth behind her thriving baby farm business. Ellen never found homes for any of the babies she fostered. Instead, she pocketed the money from her clients that was meant to pay for their care. Then she let the infants die from neglect or hastened their deaths using poison or suffocation.

Babies dying in Victorian England was sadly not uncommon. And since their mothers had already abandoned them, Nobody really noticed their deaths or asked too many questions. Intrigued, Amelia filed this information away, but didn't act on it, yet. For several more years, she and George carried on as they always had, but about five years later, George died at the age of 65. Now a widow and a single mother, Amelia's financial situation felt suddenly precarious, and so in 1869, she placed an advert in the newspaper.

Under a pseudonym, she offered to foster unwanted children at a nice country home for the price of 10 pounds. The ad attracted plenty of takers, and Amelia put on a good front. From all her experience as a nurse, she knew how to put people at ease. She told prospective clients that she was a recent widow who wanted to do some good to ease her grief. It worked like a charm. Over the next year, Amelia took dozens of babies from their mothers, claimed the fee, then murdered them. Her methods varied. She starved some babies, others she poisoned or smothered. It's hard to imagine how Amelia could so easily adapt to this horrific new lifestyle,

but there is one detail that may help to explain it. Around the same time she placed her first ad, Amelia began taking laudanum. Known as the aspirin of the 19th century, laudanum was a cheap and popular opium-based painkiller. But, But unlike aspirin, it's incredibly addictive, and it was widely over-prescribed at the time. Like many opiates, laudanum creates an intense sense of euphoria and well-being. Amelia was apparently taking it in large quantities, probably enough to smooth over any doubts she had about her new venture. The drugs kept her from thinking too much, and for a while her plan worked exactly as she hoped.

She was making at least 10 pounds from each struggling mother she tricked, which would have been around four months' wages for the average female worker at the time. But in 1870, two things happened to give Amelia pause. First, Ellen Dane fled to the U.S. to escape the attention of the authorities. Then another baby farmer Amelia knew in South London, Margaret Waters, was arrested after police found 11 babies in her home, drugged and on the brink of starvation. When five of those children later died, Margaret was found guilty of their murder. She was executed by hanging in October 1870.

Amelia was shaken. She didn't just know Margaret. She'd worked with her and even provided her with infants to kill. Plus, the trial had sparked a public outcry, which meant that baby farming was attracting a lot more attention. So Amelia tried to reform herself. She took a nursing job at an asylum, and during the low pay and long hours,

She also married her second husband in 1872, William Dyer, and had two children with him. William didn't make much money, and the family soon fell on hard times. By 1877, Amelia had returned to baby farming, but she wasn't prepared for the increased scrutiny she'd be under. In 1879, doctors became suspicious after four children died in Amelia's care within two weeks. That August, police raided her. home. As the authorities seemed to close in, Amelia attempted suicide, but she survived. As soon as she was well enough to walk, the police arrested the mother of three. But despite searching her home, they couldn't find evidence of any malicious intent. They couldn't prove she'd killed children

intentionally. They did find enough to convict Amelia of gross negligence, though, and she was sentenced to six months of hard labor. And if anything could force her to mend her ways, it was surely going to be the harsh conditions of a Victorian prison, right? In a moment, Amelia emerges from prison forever changed. What could be more shocking than uncovering the deep, dark secrets behind history's biggest stories? Realizing that everything you thought was true was a lie. Hi, it's Carter from the podcast series Conspiracy theories. Every Monday and Wednesday, take a closer look at the blurred line between fact in fiction

and discover that there may be more to the so-called truth than you think. From the government's link to Bigfoot and the otherworldly secrets of the Vatican, to the Grateful Dead's role in the spread of LSD and more. On conspiracy theories, we leave no stone unturned and no skeptic unheard. Some may just be outlandish claims. Others may make you rethink everything. Follow the Spotify original from Parcast, conspiracy theories. Listen free only on Spotify.

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Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. UN? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Now back to the story. In 1879, 41-year-old Amelia Dyer had escaped the noose, but only just. And after she was sent to Shepton Mallet Prison, her life was never the same. The horrific conditions and the back-breaking work she was forced to do took a totally on her. By the time she was released in February of 1880, her body and mind were both fragile.

Afraid of going back to prison, Amelia tried to keep her nose clean. She found a job in a warehouse as a corset maker, returning to her professional roots. But just like every other time she'd ever tried to make an honest living, Amelia couldn't stand the grind for long, not when she knew how much more money she could be making. So sometime in the late 1880, she'd she went back to baby farming. But she made a few changes. She couldn't risk the authorities finding more dead infants in her house or any more death certificates piling up. So she developed a new M.O. Rather than letting babies die from starvation or neglect, she began killing them immediately, within hours of being dropped off. Afterward, she placed the body into a box, waded it down with

rocks, and disposed of it in the nearby River Avon. The plan worked perfectly for several years. But in 1890, Amelia took on a client who caused her an ongoing headache. This woman was a young, educated governess whose name isn't available. For the purposes of this story, we'll call her Charlotte. Charlotte had become pregnant outside of wedlock, and initially she seemed happy to give the baby to Amelia. But unlike most of the women who farmed out their babies, Charlotte checked back in after

a few weeks. wanted to know what had happened to her child. Amelia wasn't prepared for this. The truth was that Charlotte's baby was long dead. Still, she tried to fool her by bringing her a different child. But it didn't work. The baby was missing a distinctive birthmark. For months, Charlotte pressed Amelia for answers,

and when they didn't come, she contacted the police in January of 1891. But when officers arrived at Amelia's home, she disappeared. Her husband and children told the officers that she was dead. Really, Amelia was in hiding, and her family knew it. Sensing that trouble was coming, she'd taken a nursing job in the nearby town of Woodhill. She laid low at a boarding house there for several months, possibly using a pseudonym to avoid detection. But eventually, that fall, the authorities tracked her down.

In a tense confrontation, they quizzed her about what had happened to Charlotte's baby and about her treatment of the children in her care. Amelia stuttered and faltered her way through nonsensical explanations, but she had no real answers for them. The police left, promising that they'd return the following morning. As soon as she was alone, Amelia attempted suicide again. Amelia's husband found her afterwards. She was barely coherent, and said she was hearing voices that told her to hurt herself.

This was the beginning of a long period, of mental decline. Over the course of the next three years, her marriage broke down, and she was repeatedly committed to an asylum, though that might have been her plan all along. Remember, Amelia was once a nurse at a psychiatric institution. While the conditions there were far from pleasant, she surely knew they were better than prison. It's possible Amelia was faking her insanity. She'd witnessed her mother's psychosis as a child, and more recently had treated patients on the ward. She surely knew exactly what to say and do to get herself committed. There's a long history of criminals faking mental illness in order to avoid prison time. There's even a term for it,

criminal malingering, and it's seemingly more common than you'd think. One 2013 study published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry investigated almost 900 subjects who'd been found incompetent to stand trial because of mental illness. According to the study, 17% were found to be faking their symptoms. If this was true in Amelia's case, it worked for a while. Though Charlotte stayed hot on Amelia's trail, it seemed the police investigation stalled every time she was committed. But she couldn't hide at the asylum forever.

Eventually, Amelia's doctors began to suspect she didn't need such a high level of care. She was always calm and cooperative, a perfect patient. There was no reason to think such a woman couldn't re-enter society. And in early 1895, Amelia was released for the last time. Though she was free, her prospects had never seen bleaker. Now 59, she was almost penniless and had no husband to support her, so she had no choice but to go to the workhouse. Also sometimes called the Poor House, this was an institution designed to provide both work

and housing for people with no other way to support themselves. Though it was a public good and saved thousands of people from dying starvation. The workhouse was seen as a last resort. The elderly and infirm lived in fear of ending up there because conditions were often horrific and the work could be backbreaking. But Amelia didn't plan on staying long. She had no intention of dying destitute. At the workhouse she met Jane Smith, a widow in her 70s. Like Amelia, Jane was facing the possibility of spending her twilight years doing manual labor. So when Amelia told her there was another way, she listened. Amelia told Jane that together they could make ten times what they made at the workhouse.

She pitched baby farming as a good deed, taking care of innocent children who just needed a mother's love. Of course, she left out the more unsavory parts of her business model. Jane fell for it and agreed to move in with Amelia to a small house in the Riverside town of Reading. She also agreed to let Amelia call her mother in front of clients. Amelia probably suspected that having at least one mother in the equation would make people more trusting. She was right. The pair were soon making a comfortable living as baby farmers. And though Amelia killed dozens of infants, she managed to conceal the grisly truth from Jane. It's likely that whenever a baby disappeared from the house, Amelia simply claimed she'd founded a home.

She was careful to dispose of their bodies in the Thames, leaving no evidence behind. By 1896, however, Jane was suspicious. She was timid by nature and didn't dare challenge Amelia herself, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was happening inside her house. One afternoon, in the center of Reading, Jane happened to pass a branch of the newly established National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, aka the NSPCC. She was overwhelmed by the sight of the office and began crying.

When the wife of an NSPC officer came to her aid, Jane revealed her suspicions about Amelia. Disturbed, the moment passed the information onto her husband who promised he'd investigate. But before he could get far, a horrifying discovery brought Amelia back onto the police's radar. On March 30, 1896, a bargeman on the River Thames noticed a parcel floating on top of the water. Using his hook, the bargeman retrieved it. As he unwrapped the paper, he became aware of a terrible smell. And then, with a wave of horror, he saw a tiny human foot. It was the body of baby Helena Fry, one of Amelia's victims.

The bargeman took the parcel to the police, who found a faded label inside the brown paper. It led them right to Amelia's home. As the authorities looked into Amelia, they uncovered her prior conviction for negligence. They also discovered that she was on the NSPC's radar. On April 3rd, the police arrested Amelia and searched her house. They soon turned up a grim pile of evidence, including pawn tickets for baby clothes, as well as letters and newspaper adverts that proved she was operating under aliases. Most damningly, there was a smell of rotting flesh inside the house,

which officers traced to a trunk underneath Amelia's bed. though it was empty, they knew it must have been recently used to conceal a body. Amelia was arrested and charged with Helena Fry's murder, but authorities soon realized that was the tip of the iceberg. Over the next several weeks, police dragged the Thames and pulled another six infant bodies from the riverbed. At her trial, Amelia tried to plead insanity, but there was little medical testimony to support that claim. It took the jury less than five minutes to declare her guilty. On June 10, 1896, 60-year-old Amelia Dyer was executed by hanging. Asked if she had any final words, Amelia responded,

I have nothing to say. But we do. Amelia Dyer's body count is estimated to be more than 300, all of them, infant victims. And it's a horrific number, if true. But despite the undeniable nature of her evil, she at least had something of a code for herself. The one line she never crossed was killing her own children. In contrast, there was another female serial killer active around the same time as Amelia, and killing her own loved ones was her specialty.

In his book, Marianne Cotton, Britain's first serial killer, criminology professor David Wilson suggests that female serial killers are on Often denied, ignored, or glossed over because to acknowledge their existence is too frightening. Society is deeply uncomfortable with the idea that women can be vicious, cold-blooded killers. Partly because of motherhood, women are believed to be the gentler sex. They're inherently nurturing, incapable of causing harm to anyone, especially to children. But the reality is, that's not always true. Up next, the story of Marianne Cotton.

Now back to the story. Mary Ann Cotton grew up in a very poor family and lost her father to a mining accident when she was six. Like Amelia Dyer, she learned at an early age that the world was merciless and that resources were scarce. At 16, Mary moved out of her family home in the Port City of Sunderland and took a job as a nurse. But she didn't take to the work, and after three years, became a dress. maker instead. This may sound eerily familiar. Amelia Dyer also trained as a seamstress before going into nursing, but this just reflects how limited women's choices were at the time. For those who had to work, being a nurse or a seamstress, were two of the only available options, and neither

paid well. Mary knew only too well that she couldn't survive on her own, and in 1852, when she was 19, she met and married a coal miner named William Mowbray. The couple moved to the southwest of England as far away from their roots as they could get. They settled in Cornwall, a picturesque coastal town known for its sandy beaches and resorts. There are large factual gaps in the record of Mary's life, so we're going to piece her story together for you as best we can.

We know that during their time in Cornwall, the couple had a daughter, Margaret Jane, and when she was around four, the family moved back to the North Carolina. of England. Soon after they arrived at their new home in Merton, Margaret Jane died. The cause of death on her death certificate was Scarletina and Genosa, a form of scarlet fever. We don't have any further information about her death, but we do know that Margaret Jane wasn't the last of Mary's children to die under mysterious circumstances. In fact, over the next decade, Mary and William had

another eight children together, seven of whom died from the same apparent cause. Their death certificates all listed gastric fever. This is a vague term that could refer to typhoid fever, or more broadly, to any illness involving digestive symptoms as well as fever. Either way, there was clearly a lot more to the story. Based on what we know about Mary's later crimes, it's likely she was in fact poisoning her children using arsenic. During Victorian times, arsenic was cheap and readily available, which meant it was everywhere. In rat poison, wallpaper, fabric, plant fertilizers, and even skin care products.

It's also long been considered the perfect poison. It's odorless, colorless, almost tasteless, and easy to disperse in food or liquids. Its effects are also gradual and mimic the symptoms of conditions like food poisoning or, for that matter, gastric fever. For that reason, arsenic, Poisonic poisoning is often not detected, so it would have been easy for Mary to get away with slipping it into her children's food. Killing your own children is an incomprehensible act. There's no motive that can explain it, but Mary's reason seemed to be financial. It's well documented that women's serial killers are much rarer than men, and that they tend to use very different methods, poisoning being the most common.

In a landmark 1991 paper published in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, three criminologists propose a typology for female serial killers, breaking them down into five types. The most common type of woman serial killer, according to this paper, is a comfort killer, also sometimes called a comfort gain killer. This type of murderer kills for material reasons, like money, shelter, or other forms of comfort. Mary falls squarely into this category. Her reasons seem to be solely pragmatic. It's possible that she also resented William for getting her pregnant so many times, and her children for needing so much from her. They represented the economic struggle she'd felt ever since childhood. Perhaps this is how she justified

killing them. They were burdens to her. It's worth noting here that some of Mary's children really may have died of natural causes. But we know that a at least some died at the hands of their mother. And eventually, killing her children wasn't enough. By 1864, the couple had just one surviving daughter, six-year-old Isabella. But even with only three mouths to feed, they were barely scraping by.

So Mary yet again resorted to extreme measures to secure a windfall. In January of 1865, William died, supposedly of gastric fever, the same affliction that had taken so many of his children. But in reality, Mary killed him with arsenic. After her husband's death, Mary received a payout of 35 pounds from his life insurance, which was close to what the average worker made in a year at the time. She used this money to fund her next move.

She took her daughter, Isabella, and moved to see him, a coastal town about 30 miles away. This was reportedly so that she could be closer to her lover, a married man named Joseph Natress. Clearly, Mary was a woman of many secrets. We don't know much about her relationship with Joseph, but their affair lasted for a number of years. In the meantime, Mary began working as a nurse again

and sent Isabella away to live with a grandmother so that she could work longer hours. And her work wasn't the only thing keeping her busy. Her affair with Joseph didn't keep her from going on the hunt for husband number two. Mary was charming and beautiful and knew exactly what to say to put a man at ease. She presented herself as a hard-working young mother, just looking for the right man to share her life with.

It soon worked. During a shift at the hospital, she met her second husband, an engineer named George Ward. The couple wed quickly, but it wasn't a happy marriage. They had no children, and it seems Ward was unemployed for most of their time together, receiving four shillings a week in poor relief. As far as Mary was concerned, her husband wasn't holding up his end of the bargain. So she found a way to make him pay up. In October of 1866, just 15 months after marrying Mary, George Ward died.

His cause of death was listed as typhoid fever. Mary received another handsome life insurance payout, which helped to make up for his failure to provide. But she still needed to make a living of her own, and she soon found work as a housemaid for a man named James Robinson. Unfortunately, the job involved taking care of his children. Less than a month into Mary's time there, one of the Robinson children died of gastric fever. The following year, in 1867, two more of Robinson's children died from the same condition. So did Mary's own daughter, Isabella, who moved back in with her mother shortly before her

death. Mary's mother also died that year while her daughter was visiting her. Though her cause of death was apparently hepatitis, her main complaints were stomach pain, diarrhea, and vomiting. All signs of arsenic poisoning. It's not clear what Mary had to gain from killing her own mother, if indeed she did. It wouldn't be common for a parent to have a life insurance policy benefiting a child. Perhaps by this time she'd simply gotten a taste for the kill. We know very little about Mary's childhood, but it's possible she held a grudge against her mother for marrying a stepfather she hated. Either way, nobody seemed to suspect anything. Despite three of his children dying in her care, even James Robinson had no misgivings about Mary.

In fact, the two began a relationship, and in 1867, they married. That same year, at 35, Mary gave birth to her first child with James, Margaret, She lived for only five months before dying of gastric fever. It doesn't seem that this loss had an impact on their relationship. Mary soon became pregnant again and had a son. It was around this time that James finally started to get suspicious. It wasn't Margaret's death that raised red flags for him. Rather, it was Mary's insistence that he'd take out a life insurance policy on himself and on their baby.

James's son William also revealed that Mary often sent him to pawn their belongings, and once he began looking into his finances, he found money missing from his bank account. At the end of 1869, their marriage broke down, and James asked Mary to move out. This decision may well have saved his life. Mary wasn't phased by James kicking her out. After all, she'd never had any trouble finding a husband before. This time, she confided in her friend. Margaret Cotton, she told Margaret that after all of her bad luck in love, she wanted to find a good

man, one who would keep his promises. Margaret was only too eager to play matchmaker and introduced Mary to her brother Frederick, who was recently widowed. Just as she'd predicted, the two hit it off and were soon engaged. But Margaret didn't have long to bask in the success of her match. In March of 1870, she was struck down by a mysterious stomach ailment. which ultimately killed her. Six months after Margaret's death, Mary married Frederick, and three months after that, Frederick died. The cause of death noted in reports?

Typhoid fever, which features similar symptoms to the gastric conditions that killed so many of Mary's loved ones. Frederick had a life insurance policy when he died, and it's likely that Mary killed Margaret to make sure there were no competing beneficiaries, his payout went solely to her. Though Mary was pregnant with Frederick's son at the time, she had another man waiting in the wings.

Joseph Natris, with whom she'd been having an on-off affair for years, was back in her life. Joseph moved in with Mary in early 1871 in the village of West Auckland. Mary had three children in her care at the time, two stepchildren from Frederick and a newborn son. Of all the men Mary had been with, Joseph seemed to be the one she was most attached to. She'd once moved just to be close to him.

Yet not even he was safe. Within the year, he became violently ill. He had abdominal pain and a terrible fever that wouldn't lift. A neighbor who saw Joseph on his deathbed, noticed that Mary kept insisting on giving her husband something to drink. Though he was too delirious to speak much, the neighbor also heard Joseph say, it is no fever I have.

Perhaps he'd finally realized the dark truth about Mary. Unfortunately for him, it was too late. He died in the spring of 1872. Of course, before his death, Mary had persuaded him to update his will to include her. Another death from what looked like typhoid fever, another windfall for Mary. Her infant son, Robert, whom she'd been pregnant with when she killed Frederick, had also died just days before. It seems unbelievable that so many adults and children could die all from such similar causes without anyone pointing a finger at Mary.

But we know that she moved around a lot, which probably made it easier to avoid detection. But soon, for reasons that aren't clear, Mary implicated herself. Shortly after Joseph's death, she found yet another unsuspecting suitor. John Quick Manning initially hired Mary to work as a nurse, but he soon became romantically involved with her. Joseph hadn't been dead for more than a month when Mary became pregnant with John's child. By this stage, Mary was starting to resent her steps on Charles,

Frederick Cotton's last surviving son. In her mind, the boy was a leech on her limited resources and was getting in the way of her new life with John. During one of her stints as a nurse, Mary complained about this to an overseer of the Poor Relief Fund, Thomas Riley. She told Riley that Charles was getting in her way and asked if he could be sent to a workhouse. Then she said something strange. Explaining to Riley that the boy was sickly, she said,

Perhaps it won't matter as I won't be troubled long. He'll go like all the rest of the Cotton family. Riley was unnerved by the comment, especially since Charles was in the room at the time and seemed perfectly healthy. Still, he tried to put it out of his mind. But five days later, Charles died so. suddenly. Riley, who also happened to be West Auckland's assistant coroner, went straight to the police. He told them about Mary's remark and convinced them to investigate before the boy's death

was certified. Mary was furious, at first because she couldn't claim the life insurance policy on Charles without a death certificate, but as she realized what she was being accused of, her anger curdled into fear. She insisted she was innocent, that Riley was lying. But she was, but she was the case was gathering steam in the local newspapers, and public opinion quickly turned against Mary. John was horrified by the accusations against his soon-to-be wife and abandoned her that summer. Shortly afterwards, in July of 1872, justice finally caught up to Mary. Preliminary tests suggested that Charles had been poisoned with arsenic. The authorities arrested Mary the very next day, though she continued to insist she was innocent, and that

Riley was leading a witch hunt against her, the evidence was damning. The authorities exhumed Charles' body to confirm the arsenic poisoning, then did the same with several of her other recent victims, including Joseph Natrice and Frederick's two other sons. In the end, though, she was only charged with Charles's murder. Mary was found guilty on this sole count in March of 1873, but her full body count is believed to be over 20, including three of her four husband. husbands, and at least a dozen children. No matter how many people she truly killed, Mary's fate was sealed.

She was hanged at Durham Jail at the age of 40. After her execution, Mary became a mythical figure of terror to children in Victorian England, so much so that there's even a nursery rhyme about her. Mary Ann Cotton, she's dead and forgotten, lying in bed with her bones all rotten. It's curious how true that nursery rhyme has become, at least the part about her being forgotten. Today, Mary's believed to be Britain's first known serial killer. Yet she's far less well-known than Jack the Ripper, who was active a decade after her. Similarly, Amelia Dyer has been largely forgotten, despite an estimated body count that tops 300.

Perhaps Mary and Amelia's crimes are less discussed because they go against core social ideas about the role of women. We assume that women are more emotional than men, more sympathetic and safe to be around. In fact, the belief that all women are inherently nurturing is what allowed both Amelia and Mary to get away with their crimes for as long as they did. Society turned a blind eye to their crimes for decades, because to face them was too monstrous. These women were nurses, wives, caregivers, and crucially, they were mothers. For both Amelia and Mary, motherhood was a smokescreen, allowing them to conceal the evil in their hearts.

These women also both had a clear motive. They killed for money. While that's horrifying, it's at least a concept we can all understand. But not all mothers who kill have a story that's so straightforward. There are cases where a mother wants her children, loves her children, and still kills her children. That's the story we'll be telling in the next episode. You don't want to miss it.

Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with the conclusion of this Mother's Day special, when we'll dive into a pair of mothers who murdered their own children for years, then basked in the sympathy. For more information on these stories, amongst the many sources we used, we found Amelia Dyer, Angel Maker, by Alison Rattle and Alison Nasson. Vail, and Mary Ann Cotton, Britain's first female serial killer by David Wilson, very helpful in our research.

You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. If you enjoyed this episode, check out my other Spotify original from Parcast, Malicious Moms. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Anthony Valsick, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Bruce Kitovich.

This episode of Serial Killers was written by Emma Dibdin, with writing assistance by Joel Callan, fact-checking by Cheyenne Lopez, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial Killers stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. 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.

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