Black Widows of Liverpool
Encyclopedia
Catherine Flannigan and Margaret Higgins (1843 – 3 March 1884) were Irish
sisters who were convicted of poison
ing and murder
ing two people in Liverpool
and suspected of more deaths. They were both hanged
on the same day at Kirkdale Prison.
In 1881, Thomas Higgins, his wife and his young daughter Mary, 10, all took lodging at Catherine Flanagan's house at 5 Skirving Street, Liverpool where after a short while, Thomas's wife died. Flanagan's sister Margaret, recently widowed (under suspicious circumstances) married Thomas on 28 October 1882. By the end of that November, Mary died. Thomas Higgins died on 22 October 1883 was poisoned by arsenic obtained by flypapers. His death was premeditated and was carried out shortly after his insurance had increased.
His brother Patrick made inquiries about Thomas's death and contacted Dr. Whitford, who had certified his death due to dysentery. The coroner was alerted and a postmortem was carried out. The chemical analysis of this examination confirmed the fears of Patrick. Thomas was a strong and healthy man with no signs of disease, so it was proved that arsenic was the cause of death, not dysentery. Following this revelation, other recent sudden deaths in the Flanagan household were recalled and permission was granted for the exhumation of three more bodies.The three bodies exhumed were those of Catherine's son, John, who had died in December 1880 at the age of twenty-two, and for whom his mother received an insurance payment of 71.8s.0d (pounds sterling); Maggie Jennings, an eighteen-year-old lodger, whose death in January 1883 netted 79(pounds sterling); and little Mary Higgins, daughter of Thomas from his first marriage, who had brought a quick profit for her stepmother (she paid out 1/6d in premiums and received 21.18s.6d (pounds sterling) on Mary's death). The postmortems showed that their deaths were all due to arsenic poisoning.
Labeled in 2002 as The Black Widows of Liverpool the two sisters poisoned their own family members in the 1880s in an attempt to claim insurance payouts. The pair was led by Catherine Flanagan, 55, and her sister Margaret Higgins, 41.
Four other women were involved, but the courts decided that they were not involved in the poisonings but were part of the crime.
Their final death toll after a decade of killing was four, but modern historians have claimed that the group may have killed as many as seventeen people.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
sisters who were convicted of poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ing and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ing two people in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and suspected of more deaths. They were both hanged
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
on the same day at Kirkdale Prison.
The crime
On the third of March 1884, The Black Widow Sisters of Liverpool, Catherine Flanagan, 55, and sister, Margaret Higgins, 41, were hanged at Kirkdale Gaol in Liverpool, for the murder of Thomas Higgins, Margaret's husband.In 1881, Thomas Higgins, his wife and his young daughter Mary, 10, all took lodging at Catherine Flanagan's house at 5 Skirving Street, Liverpool where after a short while, Thomas's wife died. Flanagan's sister Margaret, recently widowed (under suspicious circumstances) married Thomas on 28 October 1882. By the end of that November, Mary died. Thomas Higgins died on 22 October 1883 was poisoned by arsenic obtained by flypapers. His death was premeditated and was carried out shortly after his insurance had increased.
His brother Patrick made inquiries about Thomas's death and contacted Dr. Whitford, who had certified his death due to dysentery. The coroner was alerted and a postmortem was carried out. The chemical analysis of this examination confirmed the fears of Patrick. Thomas was a strong and healthy man with no signs of disease, so it was proved that arsenic was the cause of death, not dysentery. Following this revelation, other recent sudden deaths in the Flanagan household were recalled and permission was granted for the exhumation of three more bodies.The three bodies exhumed were those of Catherine's son, John, who had died in December 1880 at the age of twenty-two, and for whom his mother received an insurance payment of 71.8s.0d (pounds sterling); Maggie Jennings, an eighteen-year-old lodger, whose death in January 1883 netted 79(pounds sterling); and little Mary Higgins, daughter of Thomas from his first marriage, who had brought a quick profit for her stepmother (she paid out 1/6d in premiums and received 21.18s.6d (pounds sterling) on Mary's death). The postmortems showed that their deaths were all due to arsenic poisoning.
Labeled in 2002 as The Black Widows of Liverpool the two sisters poisoned their own family members in the 1880s in an attempt to claim insurance payouts. The pair was led by Catherine Flanagan, 55, and her sister Margaret Higgins, 41.
Four other women were involved, but the courts decided that they were not involved in the poisonings but were part of the crime.
Their final death toll after a decade of killing was four, but modern historians have claimed that the group may have killed as many as seventeen people.