By Tim Lambert
Mary Blandy
Mary Blandy was convicted of murdering her own father and was hanged for the crime. Mary was born in 1720 into a middle class family. Her father was a well-to-do lawyer and the town clerk of Henley on Thames, in Oxfordshire. Mary was, by all accounts, an intelligent woman and she was well educated.
Keen to see his daughter marry well, Francis offered a dowry of £10,000 (a huge sum of money at that time). However Blandy’s entire estate was only worth about £4,000 and he could not have honoured the bargain. Still, the offer attracted a man named Captain William Cranstoun in 1746. Cranstoun was the son of a Scottish nobleman. In 1747 he asked to marry Mary. Francis agreed and even invited him to move into the Blandy home.
However Cranstoun was already married. When Francis Blandy found out, naturally he was enraged.
However Cranstoun managed to persuade Mary and her mother that his marriage was invalid and would soon be annulled by the Scottish courts.
Cranstoun moved to London to await the court’s decision. Unfortunately the Scottish court ruled that his marriage was legal.
Cranstoun persuaded Mary that he had a ‘love powder’ that if she mixed it with her father’s food and drink it would change his attitude. He would start to like Cranstoun. The ‘love powder’ was actually arsenic. It’s not clear if Mary naively believed Cranstoun of if she realised what the powder actually was. In any case, her father fell ill and gradually worsened. He died on 14 August 1751.
Nevertheless, Mary was not arrested until the following year, 1752. Cranstoun heard of the arrest and fled abroad to France. Mary was hanged on 6 April 1752.
Gesche Gottfried
Gesche Gottfried was born Geshe Timm in Bremen, Germany in 1785. She poisoned fifteen people with arsenic between 1813 and 1827, including her two husbands and her three children. She also poisoned both her parents and several of her friends.
Geshe’s father was a tailor and her mother was a seamstress. Gresche grew up in modest circumstances, but in 1806, she married a saddler named Johan Mittenberg. They had three children. However, Mittenberg died in 1813. In 1815, Geshe poisoned her mother. Geshe then poisoned her three daughters. She also poisoned her father, her brother and her son. Geshe remarried but she poisoned her second husband in 1817.
She then poisoned several of her friends. However, as more and more people known to Gesche died inevitably, people began to get suspicious.
In 1827, she poisoned her landlady. She also poisoned the landlady’s maid and the maid’s daughter. The landlord fell ill, too, but he was suspicious and noticed white granules on his plate. He took it to a chemist who discovered it was arsenic. Unfortunately, Gottfried had fled to Hanover, where she poisoned one last person. However, she was arrested in 1828.
Investigators gradually gathered evidence that she had murdered many people. Eventually, realising the game was up, she confessed to 15 murders. She was tried and found guilty of all charges. Geshe Gottfried was beheaded in public in Bremen on 21 April 1831. She was the last person to be beheaded publicly in the town.
Catherine Wilson
Catherine Wilson has the distinction of being the last woman to be hanged in public in London. Public executions drew big crowds as they were free entertainment. Catherine Wilson was a female poisoner. Her poison of choice was colchicum, a kind of crocus. In small doses, it was used as a medicine, but in large doses, it could kill. Wilson was born in 1822.
She became a housekeeper to a man named Captain Peter Mawr. However, Captain Mawr made the mistake of telling Wilson he had left something in his will for her. Captain Mawr suffered from gout, and he took colchicum to treat it. Unfortunately, he died from an overdose in 1854. At first, it was believed it was accidental.
Wilson then moved to London with her partner, a man named Dixon. Wilson worked for a woman named Maria Soames. However, Dixon died in 1856, probably poisoned. (He was a heavy drinker, and Wilson was probably tired of him). Her employer, Maria Soames, then became ill and died.
Wilson next worked for a woman named Sarah Carnell. However, she unwisely tried to poison the woman by giving her sulfuric acid to drink. Carnell spat it out, and it burned the sheets. Wilson then fled, but she was arrested and put on trial for attempted murder.
Wilson claimed that a pharmacist had given her acid instead of medicine by mistake. The jury found her not guilty, but as she left the courtroom, Wilson was arrested again, this time for the murder of Maria Soames. This time, she was found guilty. Catherine Wilson was hanged on 20 October 1862.
Edward Pritchard
Edward Pritchard was born in Southsea, Portsmouth, on 6 December 1825. His father was a naval officer. At the age of 21, Edward became an assistant surgeon. In 1851, he married Mary Jane Taylor, a woman from a wealthy family. The couple moved to Hunmanby in Yorkshire. They had 5 children.
However, Pritchard had a reputation for being a liar. He was also a womaniser. In 1858, he moved with his family to Glasgow. Pritchard continued womanising. Then, in 1863, a servant girl named Elizabeth McGirn died in a fire at his home. Strangely, the girl had not attempted to escape; she was found lying on a bed. Nothing was ever proved, but it’s possible Palmer drugged her and then started the fire. Perhaps Pritchard made her pregnant, then decided to kill her to get rid of her.
In 1865, Pritchard poisoned his mother-in-law, Mrs Taylor, and his wife. Pritchard’s wife, Mary Jane, fell ill, and her mother moved in to nurse her. Mrs Taylor fell ill and died on 28 February 1865. Her daughter died on 18 March 1865. A Dr Paterson, who attended the sick woman, refused to sign a death certificate, so Pritchard signed one himself.
However, someone (probably Dr Paterson) wrote an anonymous letter to the police accusing Pritchard of murder. The bodies of both victims were exhumed and were found to contain antimony. The police also discovered that Pritchard had purchased large amounts of poison shortly before the two women died.
Pritchard was charged with murder, and he went on trial in July 1865. He was found guilty and he was hanged in front of a large crowd in Glasgow on 28 July 1865.
It was the last public execution in Glasgow. (Public executions were banned in Britain in 1868).
Mary Ann Cotton
Mary Ann Cotton was one of Britain’s worst serial killers. It’s not certain how many people she killed. She may have poisoned up to 21 people.
Mary Ann was born in Durham County in 1832. Her father was a miner, but he died in an accident when Mary Ann was 10. When she was 16, Mary Ann became a domestic servant. In 1852 she married William Mowbray. The couple moved to Cornwall, where William had a job on a railway. The couple had 4 or 5 children in Cornwall but only one of them lived (unfortunately, due to a lack of documentation many of the details of Mary Ann’s life are uncertain). Infant mortality was very high in the 19th century, and the loss of several children was not unusual.
In 1857 Mr and Mrs Mowbray returned to County Durham with one surviving child. The couple soon had more children. However, the only surviving child from their years in Cornwall died in 1860.
Mary Ann persuaded her husband, William, to take out a life insurance policy. Soon afterward, another of their children died. William himself followed in 1865. His death was ascribed to an infectious disease and Mary Ann Cotton gained £35 (a large sum of money at that time). Mary Ann was left with two daughters. Sadly, one of them died, apparently of an infectious disease. Mary Ann then sent her only surviving child, a girl named Isabella, to live with her mother, leaving her free of children and with no husband.
Mary Ann soon remarried. She met a man called George Ward and they soon married. The unfortunate man died in 1866, once again seemingly of an infectious illness. Mary Ann then became the housekeeper of a man called John Robinson, a widower. Shortly after she moved in one of Robinson’s children died.
In 1867 Mary Ann went to visit her mother, who died shortly afterward.
Mary Ann then moved in with Robinson. Her daughter with William Mowbray, Isabella, also moved in. Sadly, Isabella died in 1868.
In 1867 Mary Ann married Robinson and they had two children, but only one survived. Fortunately, Mr Robinson discovered that Mary Ann had stolen money from his building society account.
He also reportedly became suspicious when Mary Ann kept trying to persuade him to take out life insurance. Robinson threw Mary Ann out of the house.
However, in 1870, she met a widower called Frederick Cotton. Soon afterward, Cotton’s sister and one of his children died.
Yet, he married Mary Ann in September 1870. By the end of 1871, Frederick Cotton and two of his children had died. Once again, Mary Ann benefited handsomely from a life insurance policy. But she was left with a stepson, Frederick’s child.
Like so many murderers Mary Ann became foolishly overconfident. Having got away with murder several times she seems to have started feeling that she was invincible and she would never be caught. In 1872 Mary Ann took a lover named Joseph Natrass. However, he soon died, leaving his possessions to Mary Ann. Meanwhile, she became pregnant by a man named John Quick-Manning.
Mary Ann then tried to send her stepson Charles Edward Cotton to a workhouse. She told a workhouse official that she could not marry because of her stepson. Unwisely, she also told him ‘I won’t be troubled long. He’ll go like all the rest of the Cottons.’ Soon afterward the boy died and the official went to the police.
The body was exhumed and was found to contain arsenic. The bodies of Frederick Cotton and two of his other children were also exhumed and were found to contain arsenic. So was the body of Mary Ann was charged with the murder of the boy, Charles Edward Cotton. However, her trial had to be delayed because she was pregnant again. It did not begin until she had given birth for a final time in January 1873.
She went on trial on 5 March 1873. Not surprisingly, the jury found her guilty. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged in Durham jail on 24 March 1873. However, her neck was not broken, and she took about three minutes to be strangled to death.
It will never be known exactly how many people Mary Ann Cotton poisoned.
Thomas Neill Cream
Cream was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 27 May 1850, but his family moved to Canada when he was a child. Cream trained to be a doctor. He was first convicted of murder in 1881. While living in Chicago, he gave strychnine to a man named Daniel Stott, who suffered from epilepsy. Cream managed to convince Stott that he had a cure for the ailment. Stott’s death was, at first, ascribed to natural causes.
However, Cream did something very strange. He wrote to the coroner accusing a pharmacist of poisoning Stott.
The body was exhumed and was found to contain strychnine. Cream was arrested and tried for murder. He was convicted but he was treated with surprising leniency.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and he was released in 1891. Why did Cream write to the coroner? He could have gotten away with murder. Perhaps Cream wanted to be caught.
At any rate, after being released in 1891, he moved to Lambeth, London and began poisoning sex workers. Presumably, Cream got some sadistic pleasure from poisoning people.
The first victim was a 19-year-old woman named Ellen Donworth. She collapsed in agony on the street on 13 October and she died on the way to the hospital. Before she died, she said that a ‘tall gentleman’ had given her a bottle with ‘white stuff’ in it. An autopsy showed she had been poisoned with strychnine.
Again, Cream wrote letters to people about the murder. He wrote to the coroner, using a false name, offering to name the murderer in return for a large sum of money. He also wrote to the owner of the booksellers W.H. Smith, accusing him of the murder of Donworth and offering to keep silent in return for money. Again, he used a false name.
Next, Cream murdered Matilda Clover. On 20 October 1891, she was found writhing in agony in her room and died shortly afterward. She said a man had given her some pills. Cream wrote to a doctor, William Broadbent and accused him of murdering Matilda Clover.
In April 1892, Cream met a sex worker called Louise Harvey. Cream helpfully offered her some pills, which he said would clear up her complexion. Fortunately, she only pretended to take them. Cream left, presumably believing he had poisoned her.
Two other women were not so lucky. On 11 April 1892, Cream met two sex workers, Alice Marsh, aged 21 and Emma Shrivell, aged 18. Cream spent the night with them but before he left, he gave them some pills.
Unfortunately, both girls took the pills and died of strychnine poisoning.
Cream was caught because he could not resist talking about the murders. He met an American tourist and offered to take him on a tour of the places where the murders were committed.
However, the tourist was a policeman and he was suspicious of Cream. He informed the British police and they placed Cream under surveillance. They found that he often paid for the services of sex workers and they also found out about his criminal record in the USA.
Cream was arrested on 3 June 1892 and his trial began on 17 October. He was found guilty on 21 October and was sentenced to death. Thomas Neill Cream was hanged on 15 November 1892.
George Chapman
George Chapman was born in Poland on 14 December 1865. (His real name was Severin Klosowski). He trained to be a barber-surgeon. He married in London, but he later left his wife. He moved to London probably in 1888. Klowoski was a barber in London. He eventually started calling himself George Champman.
Chapman lived with women whom he called his wives, although he was already legally married. He physically abused his ‘wives’. He also poisoned three of them. The first victim was Mary Spink. Chapman gave up barbering and leased a pub. However, his ‘wife’ fell ill and died on 25 December 1897.
Her death was ascribed to natural causes (many people died of diseases with symptoms similar to poisoning in those days, so it was often possible to poison someone without arousing suspicion).
The second victim was Bessie Taylor. While Chapman was the landlord of a pub, he employed her as a barmaid, and she moved in with him. She, too, was abused by Chapman. She, too, fell ill and she died on 13 February 1901. Unfortunately, her death was thought to be due to a disease.
Chapman’s third victim was Maud Marsh, whom he employed as a barmaid. He persuaded her to move in with him. However, Maud’s family did not trust Chapman. Maud fell ill in 1902. Her mother suspected her daughter was being poisoned, and when Maud died, the doctor refused to issue a death certificate. An autopsy showed that Maud had been poisoned with antimony. The bodies of the first two victims were exhumed, and they too were found to have been poisoned.
Chapman went on trial for murder on 16 March 1903. Not surprisingly, he was found guilty and he was hanged on 7 April 1903.
It’s not clear why Chapman poisoned women. Maybe he grew tired of them and decided it was a convenient way of getting rid of them. Maybe he also got some satisfaction from poisoning people.
It has been suggested that Chapman was Jack the Ripper. However, there is no evidence to link Chapman to the Whitechapel murders. The murders he committed were different. Jack the Ripper killed strangers by cutting their throats and then mutilating them. Chapman married women and then poisoned them. Furthermore, at the time of Jack the Ripper, Chapman was only 23, which makes him younger than the man eyewitnesses saw.
Herbert Rowse Armstrong
Herbert Armstrong was the only British solicitor to be hanged for murder. He was born in Devon, England on 13 May 1869. He qualified as a solicitor in 1895 and he moved to the small town of Hay-on-Wye in Herefordshire in 1906. In 1907 he married a woman named Katherine and they had three children. Armstrong served in the British army during the First World War and he reached the rank of major. After the war ended to returned to being a solicitor.
By all accounts, Armstrong was dominated by his wife, Katherine. For instance, she would not allow him to smoke, except in one room and never outdoors. However Katherine became mentally ill. In July 1920 Armstrong persuaded her to make a will leaving all her money to him. Then, in August 1920 she was admitted to an asylum. She was released in January 1921.
Unfortunately she then became physically ill and she died on 22 February 1921. At first, her death was ascribed to natural causes but she had actually been poisoned with arsenic.
Armstrong wrote in his diary ‘K. died’. Perhaps he grew tired of her controlling ways but he also benefited financially from her death.
Later that year a rival solicitor in the town, Oswald Martin received a box of chocolates, in the mail from an anonymous person. He did not eat any of them himself but a guest did and became violently ill. The chocolates were examined and it was found that arsenic had been injected into them from the bottom.
On 26 October 1921 Armstrong invited Martin to tea. When Martin arrived Armstrong selected a buttered scone from a plate and handed to his guest saying ‘excuse my fingers’. Shortly afterwards Martin became violently ill. His father-in-law was a chemist and he suspected Martin had been poisoned. He sent a sample of Martin’s urine to be examined and it was found to contain arsenic. It was now obvious that Armstrong was trying to poison his business rival.
The police began investigating. Armstrong kept inviting Martin to come to tea again. Fortunately Martin kept thinking of excuses to refuse.
On 31 December 1921 Herbert Armstrong was arrested for attempted murder. The police found that Armstrong possesed a considerable amount of arsenic, which he had divided up and put into twenty small paper packets. The body of his wife, Katherine Armstrong was exhumed and was found to contain arsenic. On 19 January 1922 Herbert was charged with her murder. The trial began on 3 April 1922.
The defence claimed Katherine had committed suicide by swallowing arsenic. But a doctor testified it would have been impossible for her to rise from her bed, just before she died and obtained the arsenic.
A nurse testified that Katherine said ‘I am not going to die am I?
Because I have so much to live for, my children and my husband’. It was obviously murder not suicide.
Armstrong claimed he used arsenic for killing weeds but he could not satisfactorily explain why had had sachets of arsenic. He was asked why he put arsenic into paper packets.
Why didn’t he simply pour a small amount of arsenic from the original container onto the roots of weeds?. Armstrong replied ‘I really do not know. At the time it seemed the most convenient way of doing it.’ It seemed more likely that Armstrong kept sachets of arsenic to poison people.
Armstrong was found guilty of the murder of his wife, Katherine and he was sentenced to death. Herbert Rowse Armstrong was hanged on 31 May 1922.
Charlotte Bryant
Charlotte Bryant was convicted of poisoning her husband with arsenic. She was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1903. In 1922, she met a British soldier named Frederick Bryant. The two married, and after leaving the army, Frederick worked as a farm labourer. Charlotte had five children, though they may not have all been Frederick’s. In 1933, a horse trader named Leonard Parsons began lodging with the Bryants. He also began sleeping with Charlotte.
Frederick Bryant accepted the situation. In May 1935 he fell ill. A doctor was called and he diagnosed gastroenteritis. This time, Frederick recovered. However, he fell ill again in August 1935. Once again, he recovered. Leonard Parsons left their home in November 1935.
On 21 December 1935, Frederick fell ill for the last time. He complained of severe stomach pains.
A doctor was called and Frederick was taken to a hospital. He died on 22 December 1935. An autopsy showed he died of arsenic poisoning.
The police naturally suspected his wife, Charlotte. A search of her house revealed a burnt can of weed killer in the garden. It contained traces of arsenic. The police discovered that a chemist in the town of Yeovil sold the weed killer. The law required anyone who purchased arsenic weed killer to sign a poison register.
Whoever bought the weed killer had signed it with a cross. (Charlotte Bryant was illiterate). Charlotte was made to stand in an identity parade but the chemist did not pick her out.
On 10 February 1936, Charlotte Bryant was charged with murder. On 27 May 1936, she went on trial in Dorchester. A witness named Lucy Ostler testified that on 21 December 1935, she saw Charlotte give her husband a drink. Later, he vomited and complained of stomach pains.
Lucy said she found a burned can of weed killer in the ashes in a boiler, and she threw it out.
A chemist testified that he found an abnormally large amount of arsenic in the ashes under the boiler, far more than he would normally expect to find. It was evidence that someone had tried to burn something containing arsenic in the boiler.
Leonard Parsons was also called as a witness, and he testified that he had seen Charlotte with some weed killer.
The court also heard about Charlotte’s relationship with the lodger, which did not help her case. (It was, after all, the 1930s when attitudes were far less liberal than they are today).
On 30 June 1936, Charlotte Bryant was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death.
However, a different chemist claimed that the expert at the trial had greatly overestimated the amount of arsenic found in the ashes in the boiler. That, of course, would cast doubt on the claim that Charlotte burned a can of weed killer in the boiler. The defence appealed against the guilty verdict, but her appeal was dismissed. She was hanged on 15 July 1936.
While awaiting execution, Charlotte Bryant began learning to read and write with help from the prison guards. She wrote a letter in which she named the person she believed poisoned Frederick. However, the prison authorities redacted the name.
Was Charlotte guilty? We will probably never know.
Dr Marcel Petiot
Dr Petiot was a French doctor who killed 27 people. Petiot was born on 17 January 1897. Like many murderers Petiot had a history of petty crime before he started killing people. At the age of 17 he robbed a post box. In 1916 he was conscripted into the French army. However Petiot showed many signs of mental illness. In July 1919 he was discharged from the army with a disability pension.
Despite that he was able to study medicine under an accelerated education programme for war veterans. and he qualified as a doctor in 1921. Petiot practiced medicine in Villeneuve.
Marcel Petiot became mayor of Villeneuve in 1926. In 1927 he married and they had a son the next year. Following many accusations of stealing he was suspended as mayor in 1931. He later resigned and in 1933 he moved to Paris. He purchased a building in Rue Lesueur.
In 1940 the Germans conquered France. The German army occupied northern France, including Paris. From November 1942 they occupied the whole country. Dr Petiot thought of an ingenious way to make money. Many rich people were desperate to escape from occupied France. Dr Petiot offered to arrange to smuggle them out of France to South America in return for a large sum of money.
He told them they would need a vaccination against malaria or some other infectious disease. He told them that, as a doctor he could give them the vaccination himself.
When the victim arrived at his surgery Petiot told them he would give them the required vaccination. Instead he injected them with cyanide. When the victim was dead Petiot would dispose of the body with quicklime or he burned them in a stove.
Dr Petiot killed people during 1942 and the early months of 1943. In May 1943 Petiot was arrested by the Gestapo and held on suspicion of helping people to escape from France. However he was released in December 1943. Why they released him is not certain but Dr Petiot soon returned to killing people.
Hic crimes came to light On 11 March 1944. Black smoke was pouring from a chimney of a house in Rue Lesuer. A neighbour called the police. The police phoned Dr Petiot who promised to come to the building. Thinking a chimney must be on fire the police called the fire brigade. Firemen who entered the building discovered human remains burning in a stove. When Dr Petiot arrived he informed the police that the dead bodies were those of traitors. The police allowed him to go. Petiot promptly disappeared.
Dr Petiot was arrested on 31 October 1944. He claimed he was a member of the resistance and that all the people he killed were collaborators.
However the police could find no evidence that he had ever been part of the resistance. Dr Petiot went on trial on 19 March 1946. On 4 April he was convicted of 26 murders.
(He was acquitted of one of the murders he was charged with though it is very likely he was guilty). Marcel Petiot was guillotined on 26 May 1946.
Louisa Merrifield
Louisa Merrifield poisoned a woman with phosphorus. She was born in Wigan, Lancashire, on 3 December 1906. She married her third husband, Alfred Merrifield in 1950. In 1951 they moved to Blackpool.
In March 1953, she was employed as a housekeeper to a 79-year-old woman named Sarah Ann Ricketts, who lived in a house she owned in Blackpool. Both Louisa Merrifield and her husband moved in with Mrs Ricketts.
Mrs Ricketts was so taken with her new companions that she made a will in their favour. They would inherit her house. That proved to be a deadly mistake.
Perhaps Merrifield was impatient to inherit the house. Or maybe she was afraid the old woman would change her will. At any rate, she turned to murder.
Sarah Ricketts had the odd habit of eating jam from a jar with a spoon and drinking rum with it. It’s believed that Merrifield added rat poison, which contains phosphorus, to it. Mrs Ricketts died on 14 April 1953, although a doctor visited her shortly before she died and found her to be healthy.
Louisa Merrifield did not call a doctor until the next day. He was suspicious and he refused to issue a death certificate. Instead, he phoned the police.
An autopsy was conducted and the body was found to contain poison. Several witnesses told the police that they had seen Sarah Ricketts the day before her death and she seemed normal. She certainly did not seem ill.
The police found that Merrifield had purchased rat poison from a chemist. (At the time, anyone who bought poison was legally obliged to sign a poisons register). The police also found a spoon with traces of poison, although Louisa had carefully disposed of all the jam jars Sarah Ricketts ate from.
Both Alfred and Louisa Merrifield went on trial on 20 July 1953. On 31 July, Louisa was found guilty and she was sentenced to death. Alfred Merrifield was acquitted, and he was released. Louisa Merrifield was not so lucky. She was hanged on 18 September 1953. She was the third-to-last woman to be hanged in Britain.
Mary Wilson
Although Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain the last woman to be sentenced to death was Mary Wilson in 1958.
Mary was born on 11 June 1889. She married a chimney sweep named John Knowles in 1912 He died in August 1955. Early in 1956 she married a painter and decorator named John Russell but he died early in 1957. At first the two men were believed to have died on natual causes but later they were found to have been poisoned.
In June 1957 Mary married Oliver Leonard. He soon fell ill and died on 3 October.
A doctor ascribed his death to heart failure, although the truth is Mary poisoned him. On 28 October 1957 she married a fourth man, Ernest Wilson but he lived for only a short time after the wedding. He too was poisoned. He died on 12 November 1957. At first his death was ascribed to natural causes.
However people who knew Mary were suspicious. It was not just that her husbands kept dying; it was also the cheerful way she dealt with the deaths. It’s said that at her last wedding reception Mary was asked what to do with the leftover sandwiches she said they would still be fresh for his funeral. (Such brazeness is common among multiple murderers. They often seem to think they will never be caught). Police began investigating and they exhumed the bodies of Oliver and Ernest.
She was convicted of poisoning two of her husbands, Oliver Leonard and Ernest Wilson with phosphorous, which was found in rat and beetle poison. She was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because of her old age (She was 68). The remains of her two other husbands, John Knowles and John Russell were exhumed and found to contain poison but it was felt there was no point in having another trial.
Mary Wilson, the merry widow of Windy Nook died in prison in 1963.
