Professor Wilson States, “all of her victims died from arsenic poisoning.” (gastric Ailments)

The Accurate Facts are: (1) Joseph Nattrass. “Dr. Richardson refused to change his diagnosis in line with Scattergood, he would also stand up at the Court and tell the Judge that he was certain that Joseph Nattrass had died of Brights Disease (a kidney disease) and that his mind would not be changed. I think I attended to him on seven occasions, and I never once heard him say a bad word against Mary Ann Cotton. He did on several occasions say that his landlady Mrs. Cotton was the only true friend that he had and who cared about him.”

  (2)  George Ward.  After several weeks of illness and debilitating weaknesses on the afternoon of the 20th of October 1866 George Ward aged just 33 died in his sleep he never regained consciousness for 5 days before his death. When he died he was reduced to skin and bone and could be carried out of bed by a middle-aged woman. No more a strong and able minded person but another statistic of a diseased ridden Sunderland. Dr. Evans was present at the death and certified the death as “English Cholera and Typhoid fevers death resulting after 14 days.”

  (3)  William Mowbray. In the New Year of January 1865 the District Doctor had thought that William (Mary Ann’s first husband) would die within the week and he had told Mary Ann to expect the worst. William struggled on weakening every day until he succumbed to the terrible wasting disease of Typhus. He had suffered from high fevers, confusion, toxaemia and deliriums.

It is therefore evidence alone, recorded on those death certificates, which categorically do not associate Mary Ann Cotton as responsible for poisoning those persons with arsenic. Again those authors, are factually incorrect, the documents speak for themselves!

Professor Wilson States that “Mary Ann Cotton had a lover for 20 years (Joseph Nattrass) and she followed him around from coal mine to coal mine.”

The Accurate Facts are: This never occurred, as Joseph Nattrass was married and was living in the north-east of England well away from Mary Ann Cotton. She did however become his landlady and lover in 1871.