Description :

Mary Ann Cotton (31 October 1832 24 March 1873) was an English suspected serial killer, convicted of, and hanged for, the murder by poisoning of her stepson Charles Edward Cotton. It is likely that she murdered three of her four husbands, apparently in order to collect on their insurance policies, and many others. She may have murdered as many as 21 people, including 11 of her 13 children. She chiefly used arsenic poisoning, causing gastric pain and rapid decline of health.