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She poisoned 21 people including her own mother, children and husbands. So why has no-one heard of Britain's FIRST serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton?
She poisoned 21 people including her own mother, children and husbands. So why has no-one heard of Britain's FIRST serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton? The motivating factor behind Mary Ann Cotton seemed to be money, but it was surely not the final motive of her evil deeds. Mary Ann Cotton was responsible for the deaths of three of her four husbands, and she is thought to have murdered 21 victims in all, which includes eleven of her 13 children as well as her own mother. The main instrument she used for her murders was arsenic poisoning, which caused great gastric pain and the speedy decline of life force in her victims. After a 20-year long spree of mysterious murders surrounding Cotton’s life, she was eventually arrested and put on trial in 1873. Mary Ann Cotton was convicted of the murder of three of her husbands and was sentenced to death by hanging. The execution was not a smooth one; Cotton’s trap door proved to be too short, and she writhed wildly at the end of her rope until she