Mary Ann Cotton: The Horrifying Case of the Victorian Child Killer

today's video is brought to you by warby parker more about them in a bit hello everybody welcome back to another episode of the casual criminalist this one written by arnaldo thank you arnaudo it's called marianne cotton the dark angel serial killer or victim of injustice ooh one where it's not just like yeah she murdered a lot of people or maybe she didn't i feel like there's not often a big gray area normally it's just around how many people did they kill how horrible was it did they wear their skin that's the normal questions we ask in these episodes but in this one maybe there's injustice if you're new here welcome to the show the format is that arnaldo has written this for me uh i'm gonna read it i've never read it before i've never never even heard of marianne cotton ring a bell never heard of her before however i have to say that and then halfway through i'm like oh this story does sound familiar to me um anyway let's just get on with it shall we if you enjoy this show please do consider leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts or if you're watching it on youtube yes it also goes out in a video format um please do uh what do i have to say click that like button make sure you're subscribed jolly good stuff and let's go [Music] note for simon this intro is an erie nursery rhyme about today's protagonist i've broken this into versus top with the right rhythm thank you arnaud that's very thoughtful uh let me let's do it jen cusabiri music [Music] jen edits the show marianne cotton she's dead as she's rotten lying in bed with her eyes wide open sing sing what should i sing mary ann cotton she's tied up with string where where up in the air selling black puddings a penny a pear oh god is she selling black puddings black puddings is like that sausage made with blood is she making blood from people is she using people's blood to make black puddings that's [ __ ] up black pudding is delicious though i can really go for some of that right now people think that's weird the erie nursery rhyme evokes the crimes of marianne cotton a serial killer active in victorian times known as the dark angel or the black widow and yet her death toll definitely outshines the mysterious murderer her claim to infamy would be obscured by another victorian murderer jack the ripper have we done jack the ripper on this show i mean it's one of those ones where it's like definitely covered in other videos that i've made on youtube but i wonder have we done a casual criminal span jack the rip if not it's definitely going to come this year for sure and yet her death toll definitely outshines the mysterious murder of white chapel in fact with up to 21 alleged victims the dark angel has been described not only as the first british female serial killer in history but also the most prolific british serial killer in general at least until a certain dr harold shipman started killing his patients and i this is still the the pinned video not the pin video but like you know youtube channels if you watch this is a youtube show when you go to the homepage there's like a video at the top and it's always supposed to be like a channel trailer and i can never be bothered to have that made or make that so i always just put like a video i like up there most young folks can't be bothered that's still the one even though it's an early episode and probably not like you know we were still settling into the format back in the early episodes um so maybe not the best ever but just the story is i think it's the second episode ever just the story is so crazy called like 250 people the poisoner [Music] marian cotton's modus operandi was poisoning by arsenic at the time difficult to detect symptoms of poisoning were similar to those of many of the lethal infectious diseases of the time especially those impacting the gastrointestinal system what makes mary ant crimes particularly hateful however is that her victims were close to her very very close it's alleged that she poisoned one of her friends one lover three husbands three stepchildren a mother and eleven of her own children i don't understand like i i don't understand murder and then i'm like wait if i was to ever kill anyone it would be like not that i ever would kill anyone but it's like yo you do that to protect your family like yeah if there was some like you know axe murderer coming after my family in some hotel in the middle of nowhere and he was like knocking the axe through the door and i had an axe you don't bob him in the head with that axe yeah um you're not supposed to do it the other way around the most widely reported motive was simple filthy lucra lucra oh my god the motive what is lucra i don't even know this word god i feel so dumb sometimes let me see lucra filthy lucra lucra money especially when regarded as sordid are distasteful or gained in a dishonorable way how do you luca i'm not even pronouncing it right all right filthy lucra i learned a new word today maybe you did too is that a word people know i don't know similar money cash hard cash ready money funds capital finances okay we get it oh it's a biblical term what is filthy lucra in the bible obsolete shameful it is obsolete oh shameful gain is obsolete to money whatever let's move on the opportunistic mary would raise life insurance policies on her husbands and children and collect the payments after their demise yo life insurance company after the 10th child dies aren't you like maybe we shouldn't give her another policy on the 11th because at some point the blood is kind of on your hands a little bit insurance company isn't it isn't it victorian true crime enthusiasts must have chanted a loud huzzah when marianne cotton was found guilty and sentenced to death in march of 1873. so those were the basic facts on a victorian villain who would not have been out of place in a penny dreadful or in charles or in a charles dickens novel conspiring alongside conspiring alongside some aura heap to wipe out entire families for profit her legend was kept particularly alive in the north of england and interests resurged in 2016 when itv aired a mini-series based on marianne's life the dark angel starring joanne froggett of downton abbey fame never seen downton abbey it doesn't really appeal like if i was gonna see something i definitely watched i haven't seen the crown either but i'm quite tempted to watch the crown i just haven't got around to it it feels like a really big commitment also i just not really interested in the royal family i just don't find that very interesting but apparently it's a good show the internet echo chamber has contributed to fan the flame of a infamy with web pages and videos listing the crimes of the victorian black widow and here we are being a part of that echo chamber i suppose but before we bang our gavel and issue the same guilty sentence let us pause for a moment did she really deserve such despicable fame was she guilty of the crimes ascribed and is the legend of the dark angel exactly that just a legend authors such as ian smith herdman and martin colony and wendy robertson have dedicated years of time and patience to reviewing trial transcripts medical records and registry entries file after file page after page a more complex version of events has emerged today we're going to review the facts about the numerous deaths that seem to accompany marianne throughout her life i'll leave it to you my dear jury of listeners and viewers to decide for yourselves if the alleged poisoner was to be hanged or spared well she was hanged i think we said that already boom spoiler alert or she was sentenced to death whether that was carried out we don't know but i mean like we're a page a bit in and i'm like okay wait hang on what was it let me just find it one of her friends one lover three husbands three step children her mother and eleven of her own children yo if that many people in your life die the police should be knocking on your door at some point just to make sure everything's cool right or at least child services or someone because good lord now just before we continue with today's video let me tell you a bit about today's video sponsor warby parker warby vodka is committed to providing excellent vision care online and in stores offering eyeglasses sunglasses eye exams and contact lenses the whole package really glasses also start at just 95 which includes the prescription lenses and best of all you can use warby parker's free try at home program you order five pairs of glasses they ship to you at home you keep them for five days all of this is for free by the way no obligation to buy and then once you're done you pop the prepaid label on there ship them back off easy as pie here's the reality of things it's the future it's 20 22. do you really want to go to the opticians you go in there you wait around they stick in a back room they measure your eyes then they're like okay well here's what you need for your prescription and then you go out there and you shop for frames yeah how much is that one hundreds of dollars how much is that one also hundreds of dollars and they're like okay great well i'll choose the one that's hundreds of dollars they're like oh yeah you gotta pay for the prescription above that because of course you do welcome to being in an opticians no with warby parker there's none of that like i say you try on the pairs you give them your prescription or you go into one of their stores and you get your prescription taken and then boom they arrive at your door the pay you've chosen from the three five pairs it's easy so yes try five pairs of glasses at home for free at warbyparker.com criminalist there's also a link below first deaths in the family marion cotton was born marianne robson in low moorsley durham county northern england the year was 1832 the day according to some records halloween how very fitting spooky music uh after two years marianne left home to work as a nurse and a dressmaker all right it seemed like two rather unrelated pigs but i guess she was by most accounts an independent-minded and strikingly beautiful teenager who enjoyed the attention of young men and sought to improve her standing in life at the age of 19 marianne returned time but only briefly this is when she met the man who would become her first husband the 26 year old william malbrey the two married on the 18th of july 1852 and lived in newcastle northern england before moving south to cornwall in 1856. in between those two dates something tragic happened to the young malbre couple according to later newspaper reports in that period marianne gave birth to four or five children all of whom died during infancy the names and causes of death of these infants has not been recorded did these unfortunate souls succumb to the many pediatric diseases widespread in victorian times or were they early victims of their poisoner mother what a better documented the events surrounding the marbury children who came next we know the dates of birth and unfortunately their dates of death between june 1856 and november 1863 the malbreys had four children by may 1865 all of them except a girl called isabella were dead william malbrey had also gone his death was recorded as the 15th of january 1865. in all cases family doctors reported symptoms such as vomiting and persistent diarrhea and the cause of death ascribed to gastric fever an old medical term which may refer to a number of gastrointestinal infections the most common in the victorian era were cholera typhus and typhoid fever typhus is acquired through the bite of an infected laos or flea typhoid and cholera are passed on through contact with contaminated water and food or with an infected human and all diseases present some symptoms which may be comparable to another cause of death arsenic poisoning well if it's like i mean it's still a lot of people to have died but it is the past as we all know it was the worst and it's entirely reasonable that all these people just got color and died because they were living near an infected well or they had fleas in their house or maybe mary cotton is just like super powerful like she's just got some sort of mega immune system and she's like drinking that cholera water like it's nothing and her family are all dying and she's like get come on drink it it's fine at the time there was no cause for suspicion however so by the summer of 1865 marianne widow malbrey had buried husband william and at least eight if not nine of her own children that's so crazy she and her only surviving child isabella had moved back to county durham marianne had cashed in william's life insurance equivalent to about 1 700 pounds in today's money i mean i know equivalent to 1 700 pounds in today's money what was it back in the day like 50p i mean that's i know money was different back in the past and that would obviously be in a lot more money because you can't yes okay one thing it's not exactly one thousand seven hundred pounds because like there was it's not as easy as just converting the money but still that's an insanely small amount of money but it wasn't enough to care for isabella in the long term no and marianne needed to move out again to seek employment with lister other options she left isabella in the care of her mother and stepfather and moved to the port city of sunderland a dozen leeches while there marianne found employment as a nurse in the sunderland infirmary she attracted the attention of patient engine driver george ward and the two married in august 1865. when was she wow she literally remarried the next year i know the past was different but wow that's savage little is known about this union save for three facts they did not have children they had very little money and on the 20th of october 1866 george ward died so basically almost exactly a year later his health had been deteriorating for months ward complained of dizziness weakness and nosebleeds medical science at the time did not help the prescribed treatment was the application of 12 leeches which left george ward even weaker yes because you know what's not a medical treatment bleachers the poor guy never recovered no surprises there his death certificate attributed his cause of death to typhoid fever once again we should note that all the ailments experienced by mr ward including dizziness and weakness could have been compatible with arsenic poisoning and as an employee of the sunderland infirmary mary had access to a full cabinet of medicines including vials of arsenic wait i guess maybe this poisonous substance has some medical applications didn't people used to put it on their face in the past to make their skin smooth or something not realizing that was extremely poisonous you may be puzzled as to why a known toxic substance was kept at the hospital on aldo and i same page the fact is that those mad victorian lads and lassies used arsenic for anything and everything in very low doses it worked wonders to kill pests such as rats and lice and even smaller doses it could even be administered as a tonic to recovering patients and it was a regular additive to cosmetics and wallpaper holy the past what are you up to naked pipes of lead and wallpaper of arsenic oh my god what's next you'll be like rubbing ebola into the carpet christ but again at that time george ward's doctor found no evidence of foul play and marianne was able to collect another insurance payout on his late husband's life april is the cruelest month it was time for marianne to move on once again she quickly found employment as a housekeeper with the robinson family of gateshead just south of newcastle their family was james robinson a wealthy shipbuilder in november 1866 his wife hannah died leaving him to care for five children marianne moved in with the robinsons on the 20th of december 1866 the day after the youngest of the robinson children died aged only nine months talk of bad timing i'm not sure if that's bad timing but medical records prove that the unlucky babies have been severely ill for some time before her arrival okay well there we go that was just bad timing okay despite this tragedy marianne settled in quite well for a new household making herself indispensable to both children and to james so much so that by march 1867 the two had started a relationship they had no time to discuss marriage as news reached mary that her mother margaret was very ill as a caring daughter she went to stay with her but it was all in vain as margaret died on the 15th of march it appears that death followed very closely marianne yes but her mom's old and she got sick and when she went to visit and yeah maybe she followed she finished it off but i don't know i don't think so maybe who knows maybe she was really sick and she was like i'll finish you off go on then but it may have been just another case of bad timing and no evidence was found a poisoning in fact margaret's records mention hepatitis as the cause of death okay there you go fine i mean obviously people are gonna have dark people die around them it's life like people are going to die before you and you're going to die before other people it's just how it is it's just like when 11 of your children die i mean come on you may remember that margaret was looking after one of marianne's children isabella with her gone marianne had to take care of the girl and she brought her back to the robinsons in april as a poet once said april is the cruelest month and april of 1867 was no different between the 20th and the 25th of april two of james robinson's children died reportedly foaming at the mouth and vomiting profusely cause of death gastric fever the following week also isabella fella were the same symptoms a local doctor noted how the young girl had wretched onto the face of the woman being her mother marianne was also in fact taken hill but recovered quickly isabella was not so lucky and succumbed to gastric fever on the 30th of april the doctors in attendance did not suspect poisoning at the time nor did james robinson in fact he decided to tie the knot with marianne and the two married on the 11th of august 1867. this is so intense there's so many children dying and i just know just because it's like the 19th century and medicine was and we didn't understand anything but it's like even that far back i'm not sure but i don't believe people got super attached to their children so early because they're like yeah chances are that a bunch you're gonna die which is so crazy nowadays it'd be like my kid died you'd be like oh my god this is the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person and in the past it was just like yeah i mean you know it happens doesn't it it's like hey i did get to attach them anyway there are only four christ on the wedding day marianne was already five months pregnant a girl was born on the 11th february 1868 17 days later she died of unspecified convulsions in the span of a little more than a year one adult two infants and three children had died in the immediate environment of marianne but it seems like back in those days widespread infant mortality was just accepted as a fact of life the robinsons bounced back and on the 18th of june 1868 they welcomed baby boy george they seemed set at taking a stab at life without tragedies but marianne promptly sabotaged it all in a matter of months she took control of james's finances and proceeded to raid his savings accounts moreover she took to pawning off linen and furniture from the house past was weird it's like what are you pawning today gold silver night but i got some nice duvet covers i got some nice sheets from my bed from you know from home mostly clean what can i get for that okay and furniture people are gonna notice the furniture's missing james is gonna come home he's like where's the couch i was gonna have a sit down it's not clear why she felt the need to rob her husband at this stage later reports claim that she had developed a gambling habit but there's no evidence of that when james found out and demanded explanations marianne simply took off leaving behind her last surviving son george probably for the best she's killed 11 children at the beginning we said there were 11 children dead so george survives fingers crossed i mean into old age obviously he's dead now because it's like 150 years later but hopefully i mean hopefully he's dead now he's just he is meeting mr cotton there are conflicting accounts as to marianne's movements in 1870 according to one version in 1870 a friend of hers margaret cotton introduced her to his brother frederick a grieving widower the two started a relationship and immediately afterwards two of fred's children's children died his sister margaret followed suit once more we're talking about seemingly natural deaths with a retrospective suspicion of poisoning according to a more complex and probably more reliable account frederick's children and sister had already died by february 1870. marianne and frederick may have only met in april of 1870. they immediately started a relationship and marianne got pregnant she then worked as a housekeeper for dr hefermann before being dismissed in june for stealing household items this is when she moved in with frederick cotton the two lived in sin for some weeks before getting married in september by the way marianne had never divorced from her previous husband james robinson which made her a bigger mist she acquired frederick's just like there's no records like this is the thing someone could get married they're already married so what are you going to do like send a horse down and go check at the other registry offices there's no central database and this is probably also why no one's checking in on her and making sure she's not a horrible poisoner because they're like no one's keeping track of the fact that she's that death is following her around only she knows there's no like records she acquired frederick's surname nonetheless and the two welcomed their baby robert in february 1871. marianne took great care of fred's surviving sons from his previous marriage frederick jr and charles edward the family moved to west auckland some 50 kilometers south of newcastle where frederick worked in a coal mine as such he was widely described as being healthy and strong i get like coal miners are healthy and strong at the beginning but they don't they then get that black lung and stuff i mean work in a coma it's gonna be horrible but in september 1871 he suddenly fell ill at work by the 20th he was dead cause of death typhoid fever in march of 1872 it was time for the children in the cotton household to depart on the 10th it was fred junior on the 28th robert causes of death gastric fever convulsions in the meanwhile marianne had taken in a lodger joseph nattress to supplement her income some time after frederick's death the two started a relationship although it was rumored that their liaison went back as far as 1861 but the affair would not go much further on the first of april about a typhoid fever took him away too following this last streak of deaths marianne collected insurance payouts and even a small inheritance from natchez for a total of 37 pounds the question may rise again another family had been devastated by marianne's presence was foul play at work and if yes was it justified for the collection of such a small son was it justified is that really a question we're asking on aldo of course he's not justified she murdered their family even if the sun was a billion pounds it's not justified you can't murder someone's family whether death followed marianne by chance or by design her journey would soon come to an end the last death [Music] marianne was now alone with the last surviving member of a family seven-year-old stepson charles edward cotton she needed employment and was hired as a nurse by a local excise officer mr quick manning quick by name and by nature the tax official swiftly started a liaison with marianne leaving her immediately pregnant this is a recurring story for her how many children have she bloody had it's a lot he was also quick to disappear from the scene later reports claim that he'd been poisoned by the scorned mary anne but records prove that he simply refused to marry her and moved to middlesborough in the meantime she was looking for a way to well get rid of charles edward wait she was looking for a way to get rid of him it sounds like he got rid of her he just left she could not look after him properly oh i'm sorry charles ed was the son um i what was the guy's name quick manning oh god okay sorry she's got a stepson then there was the other dude called quick manning there's a lot of characters i'm sorry she's left with the steps on who she needs to kill apparently she cannot look after him properly so she asked local businessman thomas riley if the boy could enter a workhouse under his supervision william when reilly replied that this was not possible marianne was quoted as saying perhaps it won't matter as i won't be troubled long a week later on the 12th of july 1872 charles died in the years in the days leading up to his death he had experienced vomiting stomach pain and loose bowels the family doctors kilburn and jamas had prescribed a series of drugs which included pneumonia bismuth morphine of the three only bismuth is still prescribed for gastrointestinal problems no surprise the cure was ineffective and the boy succumbed to what appeared to be gastric fever morphine does have gastric things right because it stops you from pooing there's a um oh god what was it there's an advert i can't remember where i was there's a hotel somewhere in america because of course that's where you get pharmaceutical adverts on tv i'm just having my breakfast and i'm watching this it's like something about like do you have problems because you take too many like painkillers or whatever it's like this helps you have more regular poos i'm like wait you're taking a drug because you're addicted to other drugs oh thank you i'll proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs please suck i mean of course these drugs it's good for people who actually need this but the fact that it's being advertised on television slightly worrying but thomas riley was suspicious it seemed like this woman was dead set on getting rid of her stepson and what was the significance of those words no surprise the cure was ineffective and the boy succumbed what appeared to be gastric fever but thomas riley was suspicious it seemed like this woman was dead set on getting rid of her stepson and what was the significance of those words i won't be troubled long she had said oh riley was the workhouse dude right wait to the guy running the workhouse is the good guy in this story holy [ __ ] i'm the good guy here that says something doesn't it on the 13th of july riley voiced his concerns to local police sergeant hutchinson and to the family doctor william kilbin hutchinson ordered an inquest and asked if kilburn and asked gilbert to perform an oi hop autopsy on the boy's body could we complied performing the procedure on a table inside the cotton's house dude what the [ __ ] the past where are we doing the autopsy uh in your kitchen the postmortem did not really reveal any evidence of foul play and the inquest concluded that charles had died of natural causes but riley was not convinced and he persistently voiced his suspicions to everyone in town now dr kilburn had preserved some of the contents of charles's stomach at riley's insistence he performed a very specific test to detect the presence of arsenic the reins test on the 17th of july the doctor noted that the test gave indications of the presence of arsenic uh-oh so was this proof that charles had been poisoned by mary anne not necessarily so the autopsy was performed on in a room lined with green wallpaper and victorian green wallpaper was famously doused in arsenic because of course it was which could sometimes flake and contaminate people and objects in the room marianne was also known to use low concentration arsenic powder to disinfect bedlinen as did many women at the time so the presence of arsenic could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that charles had been poisoned and yet the police superintendent henderson decided to arrest mary cotton for murder on the 18th of july 1872. i mean do they are they aware of just how how many people have died of like these suspicious things around her during her life or if it's just based on this one i'd be like that's a bit unfair but given a record it's like finally what the [ __ ] the trial of marianne cotton [Music] on the 26th of july local police and dr gilbert exhumed the body of charles edward cotton dissected it and sent samples of his organs to dr scattergood in leeds a recognized expert in poisons on the 21st of august a first hearing was heard held on the case thomas riley marianne's great accuser did not disappoint he quoted her as saying that she intended to marry her latest lover quick manning but her stepson was quote in the way but he will go like the rest yo marianne why did you spill your guts to this riley guy have you i guess the thing is she's killed so many people allegedly throughout her whole life and never got caught that she's just like yeah i murder people i kill people dear [ __ ] why not no one ever stops me and it makes life easier getting rid of people i don't need or like and she's just telling this riley dude he's like whoa okay a neighbor of marianne piled on claiming that she had bought arsenic powder shortly before the boy's death although admittedly it was in small quantities and to get rid of bed bugs the hardest blow came from dr scattergood the toxicologist from leeds i'm of the opinion that death resulted from poisoning by arsenic but this conclusion in itself could not convict marianne cotton the prosecution still had to prove that she had deliberately poisoned charles but first they had to wait for maryanne to deliver quick manning's child after the baby was born in january preparations were made for the trial to be held at the durham court of the sizes on the 5th of march 1873. the prosecution barrister at the trial was charles russell who filed charges against marianne for the murders of her stepson charles cotton her husband frederick cotton her son robert cotton and her lover joseph natras okay so they definitely knew about her her complicated past eventually she was tried only for the murder of little charles marianne declared herself innocent her solicitor thomas cavill foster argued that charles may have been exposed to wallpaper contaminated with arsenic or possibly that the local chemist had mistaken bismuth powder with arsenic this is i mean all you got to do is get to reasonable doubt right but i mean still come on the wallpapered events especially did make sense a much later article from the south london chronicle from march 1878 revealed that wallpaper at the time could contain to 25 grams of arsenic per square foot good lord that's a lot of arsenic moreover the substance was used in such a powdery form that the mere friction of a coat or dress against the paper is sufficient to bring off quantities of arsenic which can be detected by a fairly delicate chemical test but prosecutor charles russell was dead set on proving that marianne had used arsenic to poison charles he had to admit however that the police and toxicology experts had found no traces of the substance on any household implement which may have been used to administer the poison he then tried to demonstrate that marianne had purchased large quantities of arsenic in the past they brought as a witness a chemist from newcastle who claimed that back in january 1869 a marianne booth had indeed bought three pennies worth of the poison from his shop he confirmed to the court that mrs booth and mrs cotton were indeed the same person but his testimony was later contradicted by another witness present at the purchase that was not cotton russell went on to claim mary ann cotton had been abusive towards her stepson and that she had severely beaten him four days before his death this fact was supported by eyewitness accounts but the autopsy of the child did not report any bruise mark or cut you may remember that the initial post-mortem recorded the death as not suspicious yeah and i mean also this is a great example of why eyewitness testimony is kind of a piece of like no one remembers stuff accurately did i tell this story before i remember i witnessed a car accident i must have been like i don't know 19 20 years old driving along the road and boom i see this car i can't remember the exact details now but a car pulled out in front of another car and the other car just slammed into it like pretty full-on comes off the road all of this stuff and uh i pull over and i'm like is everyone all right there was a busy road lots of people were like i don't even remember any of the details now this is totally wild um and i think i end up giving my information to someone you know as a witness to this or whatever and a few months later uh a performer eyes from the insurance company can you just describe the accident for our record so we can like determine who's paying who and what and whatnot and i'm just like yeah sure of course i'll fill this out i haven't thought about it and then i'm like oh my god i just don't remember enough details for this to be accurate at all and it's like i saw this accident like fully and i just didn't remember anything and they're like can you draw a diagram and i'm like no no can't do that why not i'm really sorry i'm writing this and i realized it could be completely inaccurate i just don't remember it correctly and i mailed that off never heard from them again but it's like that the reliability of memory is just so bad and there's there's definite movements or like movements or there's considerations of just getting rid of eyewitness testimony as a thing like eyewitness testimony should not be allowed because it's so horribly unreliable the evidence of mistreatment was nonetheless used against marianne and this was not the only case of evidence being distorted or overlooked authorian smith herdmann has reviewed the transcripts of the trial and found that some statements if taken into account may have pointed to a different explanation as to what caused charles's death many of these statements implicate the incompetence of dr kilburn and dr chalmers the family doctors you remember that kilburn had carried out a rise test to determine the presence of arsenic in the victim's stomach the testimony evolved two stages at the first stage of the test the dull black deposit may appear on a copper wire used in the procedure this dull black deposit may indicate the presence of either arsenic bismuth or antimony to rule out the latter two substances a second stage was required by his own admission kilburn did not perform the second stage that okay so that test is completely useless because they prescribed him bismuth right so that's completely ignorable evidence however they later sent a sample from his stomach to the the the dr kitty good or whatever his name was in uh scattergood something like that it's a funny name um to him as a poison expert and he said it was but then there was the wallpaper thing it's all very circumstantial but also she had a bloody long list of dead people around her super suspiciously right she killed people i don't know if she killed this charles kid i feel like yes but also she definitely killed people in my opinion allegedly what are you worried about simon she's been dead a long time and there's more kilwan had reassured the court that the drugs he dispensed were stored in a separate cabinet from arsenic and other poisonous substances which as we know were commonplace in a victorian pharmacy but this statement was later contradicted by chalmers had there been a mix-up in the medicine cabinet leading to charles cotton's poisoning this seems to be corroborated by a statement from police sergeant hutchinson when he visited the cotton home with kilburn he noticed that the doctor removed all the empty bottles and medicines that he had prescribed charles quote when he conducted the search mayor of mary ann cotton's house dr cohen was present and i think he took some of the empty bottles of medicine away you think or you know that's a bit different isn't it but there's even more let's give the doctors the benefit of the doubt there was no mix-up in the dispensary but even so it emerged that they had been administering drugs in rather dangerous quantities to the child unbeknownst to each other this list includes prusic acid tartaric acid effervescence of ammonia bismuth and morphine kilburn himself admitted that the excessive doses of these drugs would cause severe vomiting diarrhoea and fits in other words these drugs could exacerbate the symptoms of the very illness that the doctors were trying to combat symptoms which may have been confused with those of arsenic poisoning and which may lead to the death of a young patient it appears that these points were not taken very seriously during the trial soon public opinion took an interest in the case of this heartless poisoner of children newspapers in northern england started looking to the events of maryann's past here we go we're going to find all the dead people around her everybody's got dead people digging out a string of deaths in which in in their eyes were highly suspicious and likely due to poisoning the legend of the dark angel was being built in those early weeks of 1873. in the minds of victorian readers every death by gastric fever every insurance payout clicked into place painting the picture of a monster who would poison her husbands and offspring out of greed self-interest or pure villainous madness recent accounts of the case report how authorities exhumed several of her alleged victims finding traces of arsenic in their bodies as we know this could be like a curtain a curtain a wallpaper thing but i would take this with a pinch of salt other accounts state that instead of authorities could not trace the burial places of maryanne's relatives the trial however focused only on the alleged murder of charles cotton and to that respect the jury had made up their minds on the 8th of march 1873 marianne cotton was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging i i mean i don't know how to appeal because partly it's like yeah she definitely seems guilty that of some of this previous stuff like that is more than a coincidence but also the evidence that she killed this one kid i don't think is strong enough to get her convicted and definitely not get her executed so that feels wrong but also she probably you know she they they should be able to get up something else but they didn't a bungled hanging [Music] marianne cotton's sentence by hanging was carried out on the 24th of march 1873 in durham prison the executors were william cowcraft and his assistant robert evans this was bad news for her as cowhercraft was known for being a drunken and clumsy hangman who insisted on using a short rope for the drop as a result the neck of his victims did not snap cleanly instead they were left hanging for minutes until death occurred by asphyxiation how is that allowed how is no one like how about we don't let the gut drunk guy do the hanging anymore how about we get him a different job or just fire him as marianne left herself for the last time she looked at her warders and said heaven is my home she then proceeded to the gallows mate evan is not where you're going and you know it in your mind if you're like you killed all those people you're like yeah i'm going i'm and you believe it's real i mean it's not but she that she knows where she's going she's going to hell a hood was placed on her head and assistant executioner evans drew the bolt under her feet marianne dropped sharply only about two feet as expected she did not die immediately her body swang around violently as her hands dressedly tried to break free of the leather restraints when cowcraft realized marianne was still alive he leaned down on her shoulders applying pressure to speed up her death several members of the present attendants wretched or fainted at the macabre spectacle especially when signs of splattered blood appeared on that marianne's white hood after three minutes the thrashing and convulsions of the convicted poisoner finally slowed down until only a faint twitching indicated that her body had once been alive the outline of her face could be seen through the damp hood strands of raven black hair gently fluttered in the breeze as prescribed by law mary and cotton's body was left hanging for another hour gently swinging like a pendulum um no one deserves to die like that you guys are sick even the convicted poisoners even the child killers just just quick break would be nice i mean nice better humane humane is hanging humane i don't know look the electric chair still a thing that lethal injection has been going horribly wrong for like a bunch of times seems all about the same doesn't it i still think the firing squad man someone was like how do you want to die you know you get to choose lethal injections or fire has got to be like firing squats good lord conclusion as the nursery rhyme goes marianne cotton she's tied up with string where where up in the air marianne's body swung gently for a single hour but for decades her legend has been metaphorically hanging in the collective memory of the british public swinging in and out of oblivion this is not one i mean maybe this is i'm not from the north and i think an aldo said that this was like a northern tale like northern uh not urban legends but like you know piece of history not one i knew when a story appears out of the shadows the narrative is consistent most of the times a ruthless poisoner who massacred her own children now i will not disagree with the fact that too many deaths happened in her families which may have raised suspicion she did display a tendency to rob and scam her benefactors in two occasions and she did profit although not exceedingly so from the deaths of her husband and children but the authors i quoted have a point in stating that there wasn't enough evidence to convict marianne beyond a reasonable doubt and too many elements in a trial warranted a re-examination of the poisoning charges moreover even if she was guilty of killing charles cotton there's no evidence that she may have done the same with the further 20 victims the point raised by smith and carol especially is that typhus typhoid cholera or whatever was described as gastric fever were widespread in all walks of life yeah okay but then compare it to someone else and just see what the statistics are of that happening to her so many times because if they if it if it wasn't hugely suspicious and hugely a huge statistical anomaly this wouldn't be a story would it therefore it may have been possible for a single individual to experience so many natural deaths in her immediate surroundings the point made me curious and sent me on a literature review through peer-reviewed medical journals looking for evidence of contemporary outbreaks of gastrointestinal fiction infections i found for example that newcastle was struck by a collar epidemic in 1853. if you recall marianne and her first husband william malbrey spent some time in newcastle around that period during which time they lost four or five unnamed babies they then moved to cornwall where they mourned the loss of three further children and cornwall was subject to periodic cholera outbreaks in that decade mariam was at the center of another extended death streak from december 1866 to april 1867 which claimed her daughter isabella and three robinson stepchildren the dates coincide with yet another cholera outbreak which affected the newcastle area to all these sporadic epidemics you might add the endemic scourge that was typhoid brought about by poor sanitation that claimed some 20 000 lives every year in the mid to late 1800s and when it comes to typhoid the word immediately recalls another infamous mary mary melon known as typhoid mary in the early 20th oh she could have been spreading she could have been immune to typhoid like mary melon well let's let aldo tell the story because i'm sure he'll remember it or have researched it better than i remembered this story because it's crazy in the early 20th century this american cook of irish origin infected 53 people with typhoid fever not by design mind you but because she was a healthy carrier of the salmonella typhi pathogen would it be plausible that marianne cotton ii was a healthy carrier of salmonella involuntarily infecting all of those around her this is a personal consideration mind you far from being peer reviewed but i'd be keen to hear your views that would be so crazy if that's actually what was going on this whole time i didn't even think about that but that is exactly what happened with typhoid mary now we can theorize as much as we like on the true nature of unfortunate events surrounding today's protagonist all we can do now is stare at the body of marianne's legend still hanging from a short rope but i like to think that the pendulum is not swinging between oblivion and infamy rather between guilt and innocence or at least between guilt and doubt i'll leave you esteemed members of the casual criminalist jury to issue a final verdict i think there's doubt that typhoid mary thing i mean that's there's doubt of course there's doubt there's of course there's doubt but also she abandoned her children she but then again he was eyewitness testimony and people's word against hers although that riley dude at the workhouse didn't really have any reason to lie that we knew of this is never going to be solved this is one of those ones where i said this happened 150 years ago it's never going to be solved it's kind of it's kind of like disappointing i'd like to know the answer you will never know dismembered appendices [Music] one charles dickens had attended several of william calcraff's executions the victorian author was a vocal opposer of capital punishment even more so when performed by an incompetent hangman such as cowcraft he once wrote about the man he should be restrained in his unseemly briskness to dispatch the felons without a bungle he should also refrain from his briskness of jokes and of his brandy number two i was surprised to find out that one of the authors i quoted ian smith herdman is the cousin of reg smythe the creator of andy kapp one of the uk's funniest and most beloved cartoon strips i don't know it is this relevant to the case no not at all but after hours of reading and writing about infant deaths alleged poisonings and a gruesome hanging i hope you can allow me a moment of levity so granted arnaldo and thank you for writing today's episode sort of unsatisfactory conclusion i want to know what happened uh there's been an episode of casual criminalist if you enjoyed it please do consider leaving a review for the show if you're listening to it as a podcast that would be wonderful i see those reviews piling up we got like a 4.9 out of 5 stars which is uh pretty pleased with that pretty pleased with that um spotify now does ratings so you can also leave a rating there would be wonderful if you're watching on youtube like subscribe all of that good stuff and i will see you next time [Music] you

Channel: The Casual Criminalist

Views: 220,131

Keywords: true crime

Id: ZUKLdgTwU24

Length: 44min 46sec (2686 seconds)

Published: Sun May 01 2022