Britain's first serial killer, 40, who was hanged in 1873 for killing her stepson is feared to have 21 victims including three of her husbands,her 11 children and an 'inconvenient' neighbour

A woman believed to be Britain’s first serial killer is feared to have used arsenic to murder 21 people including 11 of her children and three husbands.

Mary Ann Cotton was hanged in March 1873 in Durham after being found guilty of murdering her stepson, but she is said to have killed many more relatives.

And the never-seen-before letters of Cotton that offer an insight into her final days have now emerged for sale 143 years later at an auction on Wednesday.

Cotton - known as the 'Black Widow' - is said to have used arsenic to poison and kill three husbands, 11 of her 13 children, seven stepchildren, her mother, a lover and an ‘inconvenient’ friend.

Now letters cleared from her cell by the matron of Durham Jail are being sold for the first time at Tennants Auctioneers in Leyburn, North Yorkshire.

A renewed interest in Cotton was sparked in 2012 with the publication of a book by criminologist David Wilson, whose research was featured in the Mail.

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