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FREE MARY ANN COTTON - DARK ANGEL: BRITAINS FIRST FEMALE SERIAL KILLER PDF Martin Connolly | 186 pages | 28 Sep 2016 | Pen & Sword Books Ltd | 9781473876200 | English | Barnsley, United Kingdom Mary Ann Cotton and Proven Victims List - Female Famous Serial Ki Please refresh the page and retry. When the gallows trapdoor opened, Mary Ann Cotton dropped just two feet, a fall insufficient to break her neck. The hangman leant over and pushed down on her shoulders to hasten strangulation. She took several minutes to die. There was little sympathy for Cotton. Convicted of the murder of her seven-year old stepson, she was suspected of killing with arsenic as many as 20 others — including her mother, several of her children and stepchildren, three husbands, a lover and a friend. She was a working-class woman whose perpetrations were almost certainly motivated by money. C otton was born on October 31,in a village near Sunderland. Her father, a miner, was killed in an accident when she was just nine. Many of these family deaths resulted in Cotton receiving insurance payments. T he body count in this tale beggars belief. Even more astonishing, to modern eyes, is that nobody connected the deaths for so long. Yet you have to look at the case in the context of Victorian England. Policing was still in Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer infancy, and although there was forensic testing for arsenic poisoning, it was incredibly hard to detect, symptoms often being misdiagnosed as gastric ailments. In Mayshe was living with Charles Edward, the son of her fourth husband. A parish official asked if she planned to marry John Quick-Manning, the man that she had started a relationship with. I ndeed, the boy died a week later and the parish official reported the conversation to the police. C otton is regarded by some as the first British serial killer, but there are other female candidates. Sarah Chesham murdered four people. She was executed in In the middle of the century there was even a panic, somewhat whipped up by the press, that there was an epidemic of poisoning. H ow was Cotton able to get away with it for so long? Professional considerations aside, there were also the social implications. Of course, the contemporary fascination with female killers suggests that there is still something shocking about women who commit murder. Yet for all the nastiness of her crimes, Mary Ann Cotton is capable of arousing our sympathy. Hot and cold running water. We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. Visit our adblocking instructions page. Telegraph Culture TV. We've noticed you're adblocking. We rely on advertising Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer help fund our award-winning journalism. Thank you for your support. Mary Ann Cotton - Wikipedia T he story of Mary Ann Cotton, at first glance, mirrors that of the typical Black Widow ; a woman who murders her husbands for financial reward. Arrested and charged with the murder of her 7-year-old stepson Charles Cotton inthe deaths of three husbands and up to eleven children along with her own mother soon became under suspicion. The question is, however, how many people did she actually murder if, she was guilty of murder at all? Martin Connolly is a researcher and writer who felt compelled to write the full story of Mary Ann Cotton after living in the village where she is thought Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer have carried out many of her murders and hearing the folklore. An intelligent and well-behaved child, there were no indications of the destruction and murder she would be accused of in later years. Like many children in the mid th century, she lost her father in a mining accident, leaving her family with no income and no home. Her mother remarried quickly providing the young Mary Ann with a new head of the household. Her path then follows that of a Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer Victorian girl where she meets and marries her husband, William Mowbray, aged 19 and starts a family in By however, she has lost six young children and her husband to gastric fevers and intestinal illnesses. It was not unusual for wives to be left widowed from such illnesses or industrial accidents or for their children to never make it to adulthood. What was uncommon was in the following 7 to 8 years, for such women to have lost a further two husbands, five children and their mother to a range of illnesses, all having the familiar signs of a gastric origin. However, in few were aware of the collective number of unfortunate deaths which had surrounded this young woman and suspicions were yet to be raised. Another Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer for Mary Ann and the village folk continued to view her with pity. Martin Connolly has clearly spent time and patience in research for this book. Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer narrative is very detailed to the point where it can be confusing and difficult to follow in early chapters. A repeated flick back to earlier pages is required to follow these chapters coherently and if you do put the book down and pick it up again another day, it can cause havoc with your following of the story as a whole. Each new chapter provides another layer of events involving Mary Ann Cotton, all of which appear to have resulted in the death of individuals close to her. The collection of life insurance emerges as a regular theme among the deaths of her husbands and curiously the only husband to outlive Mary Ann Cotton was her third, James Robinson, who reportedly refused to have a life insurance policy at all. The suspicion for Mary Ann Cotton arose after the death of her stepson from her fourth marriage to Fredrick Cotton. His small body had been tested and found to contain arsenic, Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer to the conclusion that Mary Ann Cotton had intentionally poisoned the child. Mary Ann Cotton: Dark Angel is quite heavy reading with a great deal of information to digest. In later chapters which cover the trial of Mary Ann, this level of detail does work better giving an insight into how a criminal trial proceeded in and the full proceedings against the accused. The case of Mary Ann Cotton may not have been as straight-forward as it first appeared. After her Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel: Britains First Female Serial Killer charge for the death of young Charles Cotton, the number of deaths surrounding her in previous years became under scrutiny and exhumations were ordered for further testing to be carried out. Very little by way of defense was offered during her trial. The strongest and loudest evidence heard were the traces of arsenic discovered through the exhumation and testing of earlier victims suggesting arsenic was the cause of their death. One wonders if this can be called justice. Martin Connolly uses his research skills to highlight plausible defense theories in the case of Mary Ann Cotton. He, for example, discovers the article published in the respected medical publication The Lancet which discusses deaths which have occurred due to the arsenic present in green wallpaper. Arsenic which can be released into the air when such wallpaper is heated through the presence of a fireplace in the room. Further findings which suggest that the damning medical evidence of arsenic found in the bodies of her earlier supposed victims may have come from samples not stored or tested correctly. All plausible reasons for reasonable doubt and a strong indicator that should such a trial have taken place today, it is highly unlikely Mary Ann Cotton would have been convicted based on largely circumstantial evidence. For true crime historians, fans of intriguing true crime tales and those interested in how criminal justice operated in the Victorian era, this is a well-presented book on a complex case. Furthermore, it is a book which explores all the evidence available and questions whether or not the conviction and execution of Mary Ann Cotton in was the correct outcome. The Mary Ann Cotton case is one which has featured repeatedly in history. In Mary Ann Cotton: Dark Angel author Martin Connolly who lived in the same village as her crimes were thought to have taken place, explores the life of Mary Ann Cotton and her murder trial in remarkable detail. Including photographs and excerpts from newspapers of the time, her own personal letters, and the trial itself, this book is an extensive account of an intriguing case. While the level of detail and the complexity of the case can be confusing in places, Martin Connolly has provided a well- presented and thoroughly researched narrative alongside raising his own questions on the credibility of her conviction and the evidence held against her. A good read for the true crime history fan and an excellent resource on a famous case that few can forget. In captivating detail this book examines the brutal murder of Patricia Burton Lonergan in and the criminal trials of her estranged husband Wayne Lonergan. Dark Angel (British TV series) - Wikipedia It is likely that she murdered three of her four husbands, apparently in order to collect on their insurance policiesand many others.

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