Mary Ann Cotton Research Paper

Elizabeth Syvanen

Eric Kestner

Psychology

24 May 2016

Serial Killer of Choice; Mary Ann Cotton

Motive; Money (as per usual)

Psychological disabilities/behaviors/ mental illnesses; none recorded.

Victims; 21 (Mother, Husband, Lover, Husband, Husband, Daughters and sons)

Weapon of choice; Arsenic

If someone were to ask “Who was England’s First Serial Killer,” the name that would more than likely come to mind would be that of a man known to many as “Jack the Ripper,” but was he truly the first? No. There were many more that came before him—they have just been forgotten. They weren’t as glamorous as him. They weren’t known for murdering prostitutes, mocking the police by sending internal organs in the mail, or slashing open arteries. There

Mary Ann Milner, who killed her own in-laws as well as her niece. All though all of these people were interesting and gave me a reason to research more into a fascinating topic, one stood out more than the rest to me. She’s not as fascinating and she didn’t have as good of reasons to kill as most killers. She didn’t have an awful (horrendous) back ground. I picked her for one reason and one reason alone. To prove a point that not only can money corrupt when used by some, that it can also drive people who wouldn’t normally do something so incredibly horrific or stupid, to doing something that’s, well, stupid and horrific. So let’s move on to the main Protagonist in the story, shall we. Among all of the women that are known for being some of the

Some say she was nineteen, some say twenty, and some just don’t put her age. His name was William Mowbray, and it is said that the ceremony took place at twenty-some miles away from her family. Why? Because she was pregnant and trying to evade the news becoming something huge. At this time, to be pregnant out of wedlock was considered a sin and a scandal. Because of this, He, and her would be the only two that were present. Marriage seemed like a way out, but was it? No. Not to this man, at least. He took his new teenage bride to a town on the outside of England’s fair city. And the town of choice? Plymouth, Devon. It was here that she would have four to five children, although this number is not exact due to the fact that at the end of her life, she couldn’t recall exactly how many children she had given birth to in that particular place and at that particular time. They would later move north, with their one living daughter but she, too, would die. Soon after they moved, she supposedly died from “Scarlentina agnosia and exhaustion.” And we all know all too well, what kind of emotional damage that can be caused from not only losing her children in infancy but also that what seemed like her to be “inescapable poverty,” might’ve done to a person. After they moved back north, she lost 3 more children to “gastric fever.” Her husband became both a fireman, and a Foreman, before supposedly dying due to an unknown