WEBVTT - Mary Ann Cotton: 'She's Dead and She's Rotten' 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.120 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:11.520 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.920 latest episode of Criminalia, where this season we're exploring the 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.080 lives and motivations of some of the most notorious lady 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.560 poisoners throughout history. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Maria Tremarquie. 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.919 And the poisoner that we're talking about today is Mary 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.840 Anne Cotton, who is best known for lethally poisoning as 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.040 many as twenty one people, and she used this season's 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.640 most popular poison. That's right, you're getting more arsenic talk today. Arsenic. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.320 It's my it's my favorite. We always talk about I 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.400 Heart Arsenic shirts coming soon, right exactly, I'm going to 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.279 open a store. But with those kinds of numbers, she 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:55.440 became known as Britain's first serial killer. So let's look 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.800 first at how Mariann grew up. She was born on Halloween, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:01.440 which I don't know if everyone knows, this is Holly's 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:07.760 favorite day of the year. Every day is in my heart. Uh. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.040 And she was born in eighteen thirty two to um 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.480 Michael and Margaret Robson, and their family was working class 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.160 and they were very strict Methodists. So that's that's her 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.279 scene as a kid. And during her childhood, mary Anne 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:25.000 was described as and we quote exemplary and distinguished for 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:30.399 her particularly clean and tidy appearance. She regularly attended Wesleyan 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:32.760 Sunday School, and it was also said of her, and 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.240 again we're quoting here, she was regarded as a girl 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:41.279 of innocent disposition and average intellect. All pretty good things 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.400 right right right up to that average intellect, right, I 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:52.400 like my life to the heart, right, things like complimentary, complementary. 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:57.560 So outside of that clean and tidy appearance and average intellect, 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.560 mary Anne's childhood doesn't actually sound very much like a 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.120 happy one. Her father when she was young, he was 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.280 a strict disciplinarian and he worked as a coal miner, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.880 and as a coal miner, one day tragedy struck um, 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.680 which you can imagine what tragedy and coal mining could be. 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.200 So in February of eighteen forty two, he fell to 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.120 his death down a narrow three hundred foot mine shaft. 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.040 So at a very young age, she was probably only 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.600 about ten when this happened, mary Ann was forced to 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.120 go to work and within a year or just a 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.239 few years, depending on what you're reading. Mary Anne's mother 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.720 married another miner. This was a man named George Stott 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.080 with a T or his name was George Scott with 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.400 a C. Or it might have even been Robert Scott 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.839 there a pentence. Sorry. It happens a lot when you're 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.720 looking at at historical records, particularly when you're going by 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:02.840 people's recollected a counts, right, You'll find some interesting variations 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.800 and handwriting could be very difficult as well to read. 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:10.360 And it's just Scott or Scott or maybe Robert. And 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:15.080 there are references to all three of these names, and uh, 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.639 the Robert is kind of a surprise among the George's. 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.240 But I think so these things happen, but we feel 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.440 pretty confident that her stepfather's name was, in fact George 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.960 stopped with a T, and so we're sticking with that, right. So, anyway, 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.720 regardless of whether or not he was a George or Robert, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.000 Mary Ann did not like her new stepfather, and she 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.640 didn't like how strict he was, so she left home 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.320 at the age of sixteen to pursue nursing, which she 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.240 did for about three years before she returned back to 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:46.520 her child home. So that she could train as a dressmaker. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:52.840 So this will obviously sound sexist, uh to listeners today, 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:55.640 but it was certainly very true at the time that 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.160 it was hard for a working class woman to make 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.880 her way in the world in the midnight teenth century 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.800 without the financial security that marriage offered. Certainly happened on occasion, 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.000 but those were the outliers. So mary Anne went the 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.400 traditional route sort of. And as we're about to get into, 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.040 she was actually married four times in her life, although 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.760 one of those times big amous Lee, Yeah, which we'll 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.080 get into in a little bit, but it's a little early. 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.760 But we're gonna take a quick break for a word 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.040 from our sponsor, and when we returned, we're going to 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:44.960 go into detail about each of these four marriages. Welcome 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:50.400 back to Criminalia. All right, let's dig into the wedded 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.680 bliss of mary Anne Cotton. Yeah, call it that. So 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.880 let's talk about her first husband. So in eighteen fifty two, 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.320 mary Anne married William Mowbray and William worked as a 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:05.480 foreman and then later he was a fireman on a 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.800 steam vessel. He was a working class man. They had 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.440 five children together quickly while they were married, but four 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.040 of them died of typhoid fever. The couple then went 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:20.040 on to have and also lose three more children during 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.160 their marriage and later, And I really feel this is 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.960 just sad statement of her mental health that this statement 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:30.240 gives us. Marianne would struggle to remember just how many 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.760 children she had and had lost during that marriage to 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.119 William just a few years into the marriage, so again 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.680 she was having children at a pretty quick pace. William 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.719 unexpectedly died of an intestinal disorder, another suspected case of 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.800 typhoid fever, just as what had taken the lives of 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.599 his children. The newly widowed mary Anne was left with 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.640 one child and an insurance pay out equivalent to half 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.760 a year of William's salary. So we always mentioned that 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:03.040 it's really hard to get you know, exact at all 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.160 when you're trying to calculate what, for example, thirty five 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.120 pounds at this time would be equivalent to in today's money. 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.719 But our estimation is that mary Anne's payout was about 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:18.719 forty pounds. For Americans, that's currently just shy of about 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:23.680 six thousand dollars, not a huge amount, but not unsubstantial either. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.680 Still pretty significant, I think in mary Anne's time shortly thereafter. 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.560 They're actually turning out to me that many of the 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.880 loved ones in mary Anne's life began dying under some 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:42.560 mysterious circumstances. So not long after William's death, mary Anne 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:47.080 began a relationship with Joseph Natris. She also was involved 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.960 at the time with a man named John quick Manning. 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:55.040 But when it comes to John, there's something a bit strange, Dear, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.440 don't appear to be any records of any kind. We're 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:04.240 turning like sensus birthday mentions, anything to prove John quick 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.479 Manning's existence. So we talked about this Alton all the time, 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.320 that records were not perfectly kept. They weren't perfectly kept 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.160 in the eight hundreds, you know, they were trouble with 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.720 them in the before that, there might have not even 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.720 been any um But there have also been a lot 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.360 of records lost over the years, whether it's fires or 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.040 wars or even just you know, something boring like organizational failure. 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.120 But it's difficult to know exactly what was going on 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.160 with her relationships at this time. However, there was also 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.640 a man named Richard Quickman and Richard does appear to 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.920 have in fact existed. He can be found in some records, 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.640 and many believe that this may be the real name 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.600 of her lover. You may notice that Richard Quickman and 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.000 John quick manning some similarities there. This could have been 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.880 another one of those cases where there's a whoopsie in 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:57.160 the communication. So soon Mary Ann became pregnant by this 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.720 man Richard. That is not Joseph, who she is on 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.360 record as having been involved with. Right, she got married 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.960 at this time as well, But she didn't marry Joseph 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.040 or John or Robert or whatever names we can come 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.760 up with. She married George. George Ward was an engineer, 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.200 and I am sad to say that he actually plays 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.320 a very small role in this story. They had no 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.880 children um and just a little more than one year 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.840 after they had wed, George died after an illness and 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:36.160 his primary symptoms which by now we can all guess 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:41.560 we're intestinal problems. Once again. Marianne collected insurance money from 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:46.360 his death. Yeah, if you're putting together a Criminalia Bingo card, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.679 they should probably make sure arsenic and intestinal issues are 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.680 on there to make sure you're a winner. Arsenic and 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:59.640 vomiting after on there. Somebody. Uh, mary Anne did get 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.640 married again. Her third husband was a man named James Robinson, 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.160 a widower whose wife had died and left him with 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.199 young children to care for. James is a really interesting 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.160 part of mary Anne's story, and we're going to get 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.360 into that in just a little bit. It started though 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.400 their relationship when he hired her as a housekeeper. That 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.240 was in November of eighteen sixty six, and shortly after 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.640 she was hired, one of his children, who was still 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.680 just an infant, died in her care. Devastated by the 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.839 loss of his child, James turned to mary Anne for 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:37.320 comfort and the pair quickly became a couple. So their 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.880 romance was blossoming. But mary Anne's mother became ill, and 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.760 it was probably with a hepatitis flare up. Although it 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:47.960 changed a little bit, most of the records suggests that 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.199 that's what it could be, and so mary Anne traveled 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.280 to be with her to be her caregiver, and despite 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.160 having been on the mend for a few days before 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:02.160 her daughter's arrival, just nine days after Maryanne arrived, her 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:07.560 mother died. When Marianne returned home, things were pretty quiet 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.480 for not very long at all. In fact, by the 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.880 end of April eighteen sixty seven, three of James's children 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:20.280 had died. Despite all of that bad luck, though, mary 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.640 Anne and James got married that summer and their first child, 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:28.199 a daughter named Margaret Isabella, was born that November, so 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:33.080 she was a healthy baby. Margaret Isabella became ill and 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.920 by March, she too had died. Mary Anne and James 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.000 had a second child, named George, and George was born 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:45.320 in June of eighteen sixty nine, So unlike her former husband's, 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.400 James actually, and this is what we when we said 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.679 he's an interesting character in her life, and this is 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.800 why he began to grow suspicious of Marianne, and not 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.720 just because of the number of deaths that seemed to 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.400 surround her. Marianne was adamant and we say that with 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.439 all caps, that her husband take out a life insurance 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:12.040 policy on himself, but James pretty much Fratto refused the request. 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.080 And it wasn't just that she harped on him about that. 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.960 He had also found out that she had been forcing 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.560 her stepchildren to pawn items from their home for cash. 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.280 So James wasn't having any of this, and he asked 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.320 Marianne to leave. Um he did, and a surprisingly great 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.880 move for his son, retained custody of George, and of 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.400 the four husbands that she had, James is the only 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.800 one who survived being married to mary Anne. And we 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.400 haven't talked about all of her husbands, so we've gotten 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.000 to the point where she moves to a fourth marriage. 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.960 This was to a man named Frederick Cotton. Desperate without 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:55.920 a husband, mary Anne's friend Margaret Cotton, introduced Marianne to 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.560 her brother, Frederick. Frederick was a recent widower as well. 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.240 He had two children who were named Frederick Jr. And 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.600 Charles Edward, and it was not long before Marianne and 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:10.200 Frederick Cotton were married. But there was a small, big 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.440 problem with mary Anne's marriage to Frederick though. Um she 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.080 was still actually legally married to her third husband, James, 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.800 which makes this fourth marriage to Frederick an active bigamy, which, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.000 as we all know, not legal. Definitely. I always find 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.480 this to be an interesting aspect of her story because 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.240 she is known publicly as mary Anne Cotton. But that 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.880 was the one last name that never legally was hers. 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.400 I know it's it's it's sort of cookie, but it's 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.120 the last name she took, so I understand why it stuck. 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.920 But yes, so bigamy, though was not the only thing 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.000 that was complicating this, this marriage. We're going to use 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.440 air quotes when we say marriage to Frederick. You'll recall 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:56.160 earlier we mentioned a man named Joseph Natraz who was 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.920 one of mary Anne's lovers. She was in a relationship 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.400 with him women you know earlier in this episode. Um So, 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.840 shortly after she married Frederick, mary Anne learned that Joseph 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:11.359 had become single again, and hearing about this, she convinced 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.720 Frederick to move closer to where Joseph lived. But the 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:20.520 why of the move was most definitely not known to Frederick. 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.080 But they packed up and they went, and then she 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.960 secretly rekindled her old romance. She stayed married to Frederick, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:33.600 but spoiler alert, not for a whole lot longer. Frederick, 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.960 their infant son, Robert, Frederick's child from a previous marriage, 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.960 Frederick Jr. And Frederick's sister Margaret, who had introduced them, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:47.760 all died very quickly, and all from undetermined stomach ailments. 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:53.880 And then, of course, right Joseph then became ill with 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:58.880 suspected typhoid fever, and he also died not long after 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.880 Frederick had passed a way and conveniently from mary Anne 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.120 his death happened just after he revised his will in 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:12.280 her favor. Yeah, even though they were not married, right, 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.240 but she got everything. She still got everything. By eighteen 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.400 seventy two, mary Anne had lost an astonishing number of 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:26.040 family members and close friends sixteen sixteen, but there was 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.880 one left, her seven year old stepson, Charles Edward, who, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.080 just to help everybody keep track, was the son of 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.280 her fourth husband, who she wasn't legally married to, Frederick. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:38.760 If it feels like this is the time for a 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:44.080 flow chart, we concur. I completely agreed. There needs to 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.800 be columns and colors right the branches that is there, 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.840 more than one Charles is there. I have to just 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.720 have to keep it all together. So Um, things get 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.800 a little bit odd and suspicious at this part of 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:02.680 this story. And I'm not suggesting that they weren't suspicious 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:08.440 before now. But then this happened. Marianne went to a 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.280 local workhouse and tried to give Charles this is Charles 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.400 Edward to them. Yes, she did try to give away 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:21.280 her stepchild, um, but they refused to take him a workhouse. 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.600 If you happen to be wondering what that is um. 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:28.880 In Victorian England, workhouses were primarily where poor and homeless 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.680 people worked for food and accommodation. Women usually had domestic 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:37.720 jobs like sewing, mended hard laborers such as stone breaking. Uh. 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.720 They there's the people who live there were also It 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.240 could include people who were physically and mentally ill, those 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.480 who were disabled, elderly people who would now where to go. Um. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.840 And additionally, unmarried mothers also lived in the workhouses and 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.520 so in general though, these were not places that you 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:58.520 really wanted to be, and there were also orphaned and 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.320 abandoned children who lived there. If you kind of look 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.000 around in history for very long, you'll find instances of 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.880 families who were simply too poor to provide for their 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.880 kids and would give them to a workhouse. But no 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.160 one ever wants to do that. Uh. Maryanne did not 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.280 come under suspicion until she showed up at a workhouse 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.280 looking to be done with her stepson. But there are 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.120 actually two versions of the workhouse story that we want 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.200 to get into here, right. So the first one was 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:29.400 like this um when asked if she a recent widow, 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.360 was planning to marry the man she was having a 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.480 relationship with, Richard quick Man, she had gone back to him, 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.840 if you recall he was one of her lovers we 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:43.520 mentioned earlier, and she allegedly replied, and we quote this reply, 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.040 it might be so, but the boy is in the way. 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.240 Perhaps it won't matter, as I won't be troubled long. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.479 It's an aluminous a little bit, a little bit suspicious 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:59.920 little bit is that could be long, like uneasy making. 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.520 I'll figure this out with your help or without it. Um. 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.320 The second version of this workhouse story goes like this, 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.720 that the coroner in town asked Marianne to help care 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.840 for a woman who was ill with smallpox. She was, 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.080 as you'll recall, trained as a nurse after all, at 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.560 least for a while, but her response probably was not 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.320 as he might have expected. Instead of a yes or 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.199 a no, she replied that if he wanted her to 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.000 do this, she was going to have to commit her 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.640 stepson to a workhouse first. When the workhouse thing didn't 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:34.119 work out either whichever story you know, it's true or not. 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.399 It didn't work out, and poor Charles ended up staying 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:43.120 with Marianne, and he died when in five days um So. 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.560 Unlike the dozen or so deaths before him, Charles's death 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.560 didn't go unnoticed. We were looking at multiple versions of 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.920 what went down here, and there are two versions of 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:59.480 this story about the death. Yeah, it's the dovetail of 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.240 like splitting realities. There are two versions of the workhouse 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.000 part and two versions of what actually happened when Charles died. 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.320 So in the first version, Charles's death seemed suspicious to 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.320 the manager of the workhouse that Marianne had spoken with, 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.679 and he contacted the police. This is probably not the 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.960 real version that happened though, right, you know, it's it's 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.400 difficult to think that, and it's it's hard to find 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.760 sources that would suggest that five to you know, even 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.760 a week later, the manager of the workhouse would even 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.320 know that that happened. Um, but it is out there, 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.720 so we want to address it. The second version is 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.919 where the coroner, who was also a parish official, was 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.560 suspicious of the child's death after Marianne's comment, and he's 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.920 the one who went to the police. He also convinced 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:51.240 the attending physician to delay writing a death certificate until 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.959 the circumstances of the boy's death could be investigated. And 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.480 it's this version where we hear that Marianne also went 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.960 to the insurance office and discovered that no money would 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.480 be paid out to her for Charles's death until the 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:10.240 death certificate was actually issued. But regardless of which of 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.600 these stories is the real deal, the story ends with 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.159 the authorities concluding that Marianne had poisoned the boy, and 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.000 they also suspected that they knew how she had done it, 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:28.400 with that magical star of the season, arsenic arsenic. So finally, 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.879 after twenty years of mysterious deaths and probable poisonings, it 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.280 was only after the death of her one stepson that 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.840 finally the suspicion fell upon mary Anne and the authorities 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.520 were totally right. We're going to take a quick break 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.480 from Marianne's story, uh, and we will hear from one 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.080 of our sponsors. But when we return, we're going to 0:19:50.160 --> 0:20:08.840 dive into mary Anne's trial. Welcome back to from Analia. 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:13.560 So let's get to talking about mary Anne's trial and 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:19.879 her boxed execution. Arsenic was mary Anne's weapon of choice, 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.639 as it was for a lot of people who poisoned 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.320 in Victorian England. As we have talked about throughout this 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.919 entire season, Arsenic was a very popular poison because it 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:35.080 was both easy to administer and easily accessible. It's believed 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.679 that mary Anne's method was to brew poisoned tea and 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.680 serve it to her victims. She was suspected of all 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.040 of these poisonings, but at this point in her story, 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.160 no one had actually performed any tests, taken any samples. 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.960 Nothing had happened yet. And in the meantime, a local 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.240 newspaper became interested in the story and they started their 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:01.879 own investigation into mary Anne, and their stories inspired a 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.359 doctor by the name of William Kilburn to do his 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:09.120 own scientific investigation. He had actually attended to Charles when 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.840 the boy was ill, and he had taken and kept 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.520 samples from his time with him, and when put to 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.360 the test, doctor Kilburn confirmed that the samples from Charles's 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.960 body contained arsenic He took his results to the police 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.440 and Marianne was arrested and charged with murder. So we 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:32.800 talked a lot about women who have murdered many people, adults, children, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:37.720 doesn't matter, friends, family, So there is this world where 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.480 husbands and children can be poisoned without the attention of authorities. 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:45.080 But there are there are reasons. This was a time 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:49.119 when there was a problem with substandard nutrition among working poor. 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.159 There was a high infant mortality rate, which was just 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:54.879 a fact of life at the time. And as we 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.240 talked about before, let's not forget that the record keeping 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:02.640 well sketchy at this time as well. Right, the life 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.359 expectancy was a little different. So when people died it 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.200 was tragic, but kind of a shrugger in many ways. Yes, 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:13.000 it was. It was a part of sort of daily life. 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:17.280 In March eighteen seventy three, Marianne Cotton was put on trial. 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.960 The prosecution was led by Charles Russell. His team called 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.960 several of mary Anne's neighbors as witnesses. According to two 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:29.720 local newspapers, The hailes Worth Times in the East Suffolk Advertiser, 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.440 these witnesses did not paint a flattering picture of mary Anne. 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:38.480 Little Foster and his team were responsible. From mary Anne's defense, 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:43.359 Dr Kilburn testified that he had found arsenic in Charles's body, 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:47.880 and interestingly, the defense team then asked the doctor about 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:52.840 wallpaper in the boy's room. And this actually isn't as 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.159 weird as it sounds, because during this time arsenic was 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.520 used to make a lot of things green clothing, you know, 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.760 he's sort of fabrics, wallpaper, lots of things turned green 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:07.120 because of arsenic, and it was suggested by the defense 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.400 that Charles had been poisoned by fumes from the wallpaper, 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:16.679 but not by mary Anne. And Dr kil Warren discounted 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.880 this whole proposition, and he replied that not only were 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:24.080 the walls in the boy's room not green, he thought 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.239 that the idea of death by inhaling arsenic from your 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:31.440 wallpaper was dubious at best. Yeah, it's such an odd 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:33.879 defense because it would bring up so many other questions, Well, 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:39.560 why isn't anybody else sick? That was, Yeah, it was. 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:45.280 It's an interesting way to try to defend her. But 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.800 going back to scientific evidence, it was not only doctor 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:52.760 Kilburn who found arsenic in Charles's body. A doctor at 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:57.200 Leeds College of Medicine also tested samples and also concluded 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:00.000 that the boy had died after being small but repeated 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:04.160 doses of arsenic. He too suggested that death by green 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:09.560 wallpaper was highly unlikely. Additionally, both doctors also reported that 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:13.520 they noticed similar symptoms were reported in three other people 0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:17.720 who Maryanne was accused of murdering. So let's get back 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:20.159 to Marianne for a second. So how was she holding 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:22.360 up through all of this, I mean this is she's 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:25.919 on trial for murder. The local papers reported that she 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:29.879 paid very close attention to the evidence, that she occasionally 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:34.200 smiled during her trial, but mostly she held a demeanor 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:37.119 that you could expect from someone who's on trial for murder. 0:24:37.720 --> 0:24:42.159 She appeared fearful. The trial lasted three days before the 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:44.720 jury went out to deliberate, and it only took them 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:48.399 about an hour before they returned. She was found guilty 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:51.840 for the lethal poisoning of her fourth husband's son, Charles 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:55.280 Edward Cotton, in the court of public opinion, though she 0:24:55.440 --> 0:25:00.280 was convicted of many, many more killings, many so though 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:02.639 she was never put to trial for any of these murders, 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:05.680 she was held responsible for the lethal poisonings of and 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:10.840 this is a list eleven of her children, three of 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:15.280 her four husbands, one lover, one friend, and her mother 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:19.640 and in almost every instance, in fact, I think it's 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:23.439 the I think it's only Frederick's sister Margaret that this 0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:27.520 doesn't hold true for mary Anne collected life insurance on 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:31.879 every single one of them. An interesting note about the 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:35.000 man mary Anne did not poison. She didn't kill her 0:25:35.040 --> 0:25:39.040 third husband, James Robinson, who seems to have survived because, 0:25:39.160 --> 0:25:41.680 if you recall from earlier, he refused to take out 0:25:41.680 --> 0:25:45.320 a life insurance policy on himself and in regard to 0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:49.600 her children to survive. Her daughter, Margaret Edith Quickmanning, who 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:53.360 was born while Marianne was in jail awaiting trial, survived, 0:25:53.440 --> 0:25:56.040 although we don't actually really know what became of her 0:25:56.119 --> 0:25:59.479