This book is a supplement to the only other full-length book about Great Britain's suspected greatest murderess - 'Mary Ann Cotton, her story and trial' (1973) by the late Sunderland-born Arthur Appleton. In a classic which has stood the test of time, Appleton took the conventional line that Mary Ann was as guilty as sin of most of the murders attributed to her. In this book, using newly unearthed birth and death certificates, Seaham historian Tony Whitehead, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, casts doubt on many of the earlier alleged killings, though conceding that it would have taken a jolly smart lawyer to exonerate her regarding the four corpses actually exhumed at West Auckland and subsequently found to contain high levels of arsenic. The other 17 suspected victims were never exhumed.

Follow Mary Ann's life, from its beginning at East Rainton in 1832 to its end on the scaffold in Durham prison, via four husbands (the last one bigamous) and several circuits of the north east. Her victims lie at South Hetton, Seaham, Sunderland, Walbottle and West Auckland. She is still remembered in Durham and Northumberland and is mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records because of her sex but has since been overtaken as greatest British murderer (either sex) by Lancashire's 'Doctor Death' Harold Shipman.

Contains many photographs and images of birth, marriage, and death certificates, parish register entries, and census returns associated with Mary Ann Cotton's turbulent life.

Paperback, 72 pages.