Mary Bateman had been playing people for fools for years. The problem was, too many of her dissatisfied customers stuck around to complain about her trickery. Her solution? Murder. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who was Mary Bateman and what did she do?
due to the nature of this case listener discretion is advised this episode includes discussions of murder consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen By the time her story ended, Mary Bateman was known by another name, the Yorkshire Witch.
And though many women throughout history were persecuted for being witches, we now know that it was unlikely any of them were actually practicing witchcraft. But what about Mary Bateman? If she wasn't a real witch, she certainly wasn't innocent by any stretch of the imagination. She lured her victims in, bled them dry, then cast them aside without a second thought.
And before long, her schemes became deadly. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. If you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts.
This week, we're concluding our story on Mary Bateman, also known as the Yorkshire Witch. We'll dive into Mary's dabble into poison and the doomsday plot that angered an entire city. Stay with us. In 1803, England was plagued by a major societal shift, the Industrial Revolution. Cities boomed before housing could accommodate rising populations.
Chapter 2: What were the societal conditions during Mary Bateman's time?
Factories went largely unregulated and workers' rights were practically non-existent. Not that many people were paying attention to their rights as employees. Most people were grateful for any job they could get. The lower classes were hard hit by growing gaps in the social caste, which kept them from living truly comfortable existences.
Many accepted their grim lot in life, sometimes reduced to scouring trash bins for extra food when times were especially tough. Still, others saw petty crime as a way to deal with scarcity. Among them was 35-year-old Mary Bateman. Her husband John did his best to support their family as a wheelwright, making and repairing wheels for wagons and carriages.
But even he struggled to bring in a consistent income at times, not to mention Mary and John had several children to feed as well. So it's hardly surprising that Mary resorted to cons for extra cash. It's unclear whether Mary's thievery ever truly benefited her loved ones, but their financial burdens may in part explain her penchant for pilfering.
By 1803, she'd already swindled a handful of people with her ominous fortunes, promising that her magical charms would help people evade tragedy. To legitimize her preposterous claims, she invented a character named Mrs. Moore, who had the gift of divine insight. She'd fooled at least five people with this lie, and one of her schemes even led to an innocent woman's death.
Anyone else might have felt something resembling guilt after killing someone, even if it was an accident. Not Mary. She didn't seem the slightest bit remorseful in the wake of the tragedy. It's possible she told herself that the killing had merely been accidental, but even if that was the case, it couldn't have escaped her notice that the death had been somewhat convenient.
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Chapter 3: How did Mary Bateman exploit her victims?
All of a sudden, Mary had stumbled upon a new method for shaking off her hapless victims. If the people she stole from were dead, there would be no one around to protest as she picked over and profited from every single one of their belongings. Emboldened by this thought, Mary set out in search of her next target. There was money to be had.
In early September 1803, 35-year-old Mary befriended the Kitchen family. There were three of them, a mother, who we'll call Dorothy, and her two maiden daughters, who we'll refer to as Eleanor and Isabel. The sisters ran a draper's shop, where people came to get fabrics for their homes tanned and dyed.
It's unclear how the women first met Mary, but she took to them like a leech to blood, frequenting the shop and soon helping them out with their business. For all intents and purposes, the time that Mary spent building a rapport with the Kitchens increased their likelihood of trusting her down the line. This may have been her plan all along.
If so, it worked perfectly, because when Eleanor got sick that fall, she didn't question Mary's offer to nurse her back to health. If anything, the young woman was grateful she had such a tender companion. So when Mary told her that she knew a woman who could prescribe special treatments to make her healthy, Eleanor gratefully accepted.
Unlike her past cons, Mary didn't make mention of her made-up helper, Mrs. Moore. Perhaps worried that the name had garnered a poor reputation in Leeds, Mary invented an entirely new character. This one was Miss Blythe. She wasn't the sacred seventh child of a seventh child, as Mrs. Moore had been, but she did have a convenient knack for miracle treatments.
According to Mary, Miss Blythe could interpret the stars and fully predict the future as well. With these fibs, Mary convinced Eleanor that her health would soon improve. In the days that followed, Mary brought powders to the sick woman, claiming Miss Blythe had prescribed them. She administered the mystery medicines, but they didn't work.
Instead of getting better, Eleanor felt a burning in her throat, nausea, and abdominal pain. And less than a week after accepting Mary's help, Eleanor Kitchen was dead. Naturally, Dorothy and Isabel were grief-stricken. Mary insisted on taking care of them while they mourned. Despite Eleanor's sudden and unexplained death, they didn't seem to suspect a thing. They trusted Mary completely.
It was a grave mistake. Over the course of the next week, Dorothy and Isabel fell sick with the same symptoms Eleanor had suffered. As neighbors heard the news, they whispered how odd it was that both women had been in great health mere days earlier, and now they were desperately ill. No one seemed to guess that Mary was behind it all. The mother, Dorothy, was the next to die.
Then, not more than ten days after Eleanor had passed, her sister Isabel did too. The entire family had been wiped out in less than a fortnight, and no one could work out how. Doctors attributed their tragic ends to cholera morbus, a gastrointestinal disease that wasn't widely understood at the time. But Mary herself insisted that the Kitchens had died of the plague.
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Chapter 4: What happened to the Kitchen family?
In fact, if caught, he could face the death penalty. So he was happy to have somewhere to stay while he decided on his next move. Mary didn't care about her brother's legal woes, however. She was more concerned with how she could profit off him. So she got to plotting. One day, Mary pulled a repeat of a trick she'd used on her husband about a decade prior.
She told her sister-in-law that she'd received word that the woman's father was on his deathbed. Of course, this was a complete lie, but Mary feigned sorrow before rushing her brother's wife out of the house. Alone with her brother, Mary was able to carry out the next part of her con. She told him that his wife had been disloyal to him and was spending his money recklessly.
Shoving a pen and paper into his hands, she urged him to write to his wife, explaining that their marriage was finished. So he did. Then, as he set out to send the letter, Mary zeroed in on what had motivated her from the start, the couple's traveling trunks. She pulled out anything of value and likely pawned it off. As far as plans go, it wasn't foolproof.
Mary's brother was sure to ask questions when he saw the ransacked trunks. As for her sister-in-law, well, Mary suspected that woman would be gone for good once she received the letter. Unfortunately for Mary, that wasn't the case. The besmirched wife returned to the Bateman house, now fully aware that Mary had tricked them both.
It was only once she told her husband all about the scheme that they realized Mary had raided their luggage. They were outraged and confronted her, but Mary had no interest in righting her wrongs. Instead, she sought to get her latest victims out of her hair for good. She went to the town magistrate and told them her brother was a deserter.
She did so, likely knowing full well that his crime could be punishable by death. Luckily for him, it seems he didn't face the noose. Even then, Mary wasn't done exploiting her brother. She wrote to their mother, claiming he'd been jailed and she'd need 10 pounds to get him out. Her mother obliged, and Mary pocketed the cash. And after that, she went right back to planning her next scheme.
Thinking back to her older tactics, Mary decided that for her next con, she would bring back her imaginary advisor, Miss Blythe. She just had to find a willing target. It was the spring of 1806 when 38-year-old Mary met the Perigos. For some reason, Rebecca, wife to William, suspected that someone had cast an evil charm upon her. She heard about Mary's skills as a witch and reached out to ask her.
Of course, Mary was all too eager to help the distressed woman. As a first order of business, Mary requested one of Rebecca's belongings, namely a garment worn next to the skin. Mary assured her this would help break the curse. So William delivered one of his wife's petticoats to the witch. According to Mary, Ms. Blythe would perform magic on the clothing and prescribe other remedies for Rebecca.
Sure enough, a few days later, Mary produced a letter from Ms. Blythe with special instructions. The document said that Mary was to place four guineas into the corners of Rebecca's bed, where they should be left for 18 months. There was also one other condition. The Perigos were to tell no one about the magical assistance they were receiving.
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Chapter 5: How did Mary Bateman's schemes evolve?
She blamed Rebecca for disobeying orders, saying that Rebecca's death was her own fault. And somehow, despite his better judgment, William accepted this. Though he believed his wife had done all she could to follow the witch's orders, Mary was the one with magic insight. So he carried on with life as it had been, meaning he continued to take directions from Mary for the next year.
She had him wrapped around her finger, keeping him terrified with warnings that without her protection, Rebecca would rise from the grave to haunt him. So William gave Mary whatever she asked for, which was mostly food, though he also handed over some of his wife's clothes too. This carried on until the fall of 1808. That was when the spell was finally broken.
Chapter 6: What was the role of Joanna Southcott in Mary Bateman's life?
That October, it seems William was running out of money. That might be why he decided to reopen the silken bags that Mary had sewn into his mattress two years earlier. He ripped them open, only to find scrap paper and half pennies where there should have been guinea notes and gold. He felt delirious with a mix of anger and shock. She'd told them the guineas were important for the spell.
She'd promised they would give them protection. She'd sworn it. She'd lied. William decided to confront Mary immediately, but she didn't seem phased. She convinced him to return the following day for another meeting. Surprised at Mary's willingness to resolve the issue, William agreed. The next day, he set off to meet her and brought the chief constable of Leeds with him.
It was then that 40-year-old Mary tried one last con. She faked a vomiting fit and was subsequently taken to the local magistrate, where she announced that William was trying to poison her. By this stage, she was a well-practiced performer, but the chief constable wasn't buying her act. He took Mary into custody and ordered that her home be searched.
There, authorities found many of the items that the Perigos had given to Mary over the years. It was enough to support William's story, but not enough to hold up in court. So investigators got to work building a case while Mary was kept in custody. It took nearly three months, but in January of 1809, police finally charged Mary with murder.
Her court date was set for that March, and in the interim, the story of the Yorkshire Witch started spreading through Leeds. Before long, it seemed everyone in town knew about Mary Bateman's crimes, and they all wanted to see what happened next. So on March 17th, a large crowd gathered to watch her trial. The proceedings lasted 11 hours,
and included many witnesses who came forward to share what they knew about Mary's dealings with the Perigos. There was no question that she'd been conning the couple, but what the authorities wanted to prove was that she'd set out to kill Rebecca. Of course, there was a reasonable case for her guilt, even just circumstantially.
But the most damning evidence came from Dr. Chorley, who attended to William just a day after his wife had passed. He'd known immediately that William had been poisoned. Wanting to confirm his suspicions, he'd fed Mary's special honey for Rebecca to a dog. The canine vomited immediately and died four days later.
When Dr. Chorley opened the dog's body, he found a high degree of inflammation, as well as what he called a corrosive sublimate of mercury. In other words, the honey was poisoned. Still, it's likely that even without this evidence, the court had made up its mind about Mary before the trial even started.
Female criminals were treated especially harshly in those times, and the gossip about her had already damaged her reputation beyond repair. At the end of the day, the jury announced their verdict. Mary was found guilty of murdering Rebecca with poison and sentenced to death by hanging. Just three days later, 41-year-old Mary was led to the gallows.
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