The Merry Widow

A notorious serial killer who went down in British criminal history as ‘The Merry Widow of Windy-Nook’ was Mary Elizabeth Wilson, who poisoned her husbands in order to get her hands on their fortunes. Mary was born on 11 June 1889 as Mary Elizabeth Cassidy in Catchgate. In 1914, she married the chimney sweep John Knowles, whom she had met whilst working for his family. Friendship turned to love. After the wedding, the couple moved into a house in Windy Nook, where Mary’s lover, John Russell, soon moved in as a lodger. After 43 years of marriage, John Knowles died in 1955. Five months later, Mary married her lover John Russell, who passed away shortly afterwards. According to their doctor, both men had died of natural causes. Mary now became the heir to 42 pounds, a substantial sum for the time. Shortly afterwards, in June 1957, the now 64-year-old Mary married the 75-year-old retired estate agent Oliver Leonard, who, according to the local doctor, died of heart failure just 12 days after the civil wedding. Mary inherited his estate, amounting to 50 pounds. She then moved in with Ernest Wilson at his council flat in Windy Nook. She knew that he owned 100 pounds in the housing association and had a fully paid-up life insurance policy. Shortly after she married Ernest Wilson, he passed away. The doctor cited heart failure as the cause of death. Mary did not even attend his funeral. Due to her strange behaviour and the sudden deaths of her husbands, Mary soon became the talk of the town, gaining a reputation as a black widow. For despite the loss of her husbands, Mary was always in the mood for macabre jokes. This was also the case at her last wedding, where she joked about the leftover sandwiches, which were probably still fresh enough to be used at the next funeral. Furthermore, Mary had negotiated a discount for the funerals with the local undertaker. This aroused the police’s suspicion, which is why the bodies of her last two husbands were exhumed. The pathologist confirmed that both bodies had died of phosphorus poisoning. Mary was charged in March 1958 with the murders of her last two husbands. Her defence claimed that both men had taken sexual stimulant pills containing phosphorus. However, the jury saw things differently. Mary Elizabeth Wilson was found guilty of the murders of her last two husbands and, on 1 June 1958, became the last woman in Britain to be sentenced to death. This sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on 1 June 1958. Although the remains of her first two husbands were later exhumed and also found to contain high levels of phosphorus, there was no second trial. Mary died on 5 December 1962 at the age of 70 in Holloway Prison. And so the ‘merry widow’ was finally consigned to history.