Dark Angel

Mary Ann returns to Seaham after a four year hiatus and eloping with Billy Mowbray. The couple then move to Sunderland, where Mary Ann decides she has had enough of Billy.

Mary Ann returns to her home in County Durham several years after eloping with her husband, Billy. The couple have one living child, and Mary Ann is pregnant once again after losing four babies. Their hard times continue as more children die, and Billy loses his job following an injury. Mary Ann makes an impulsive choice that sets her on a deadly path.

Furious to find that James has had a change of heart about their relationship, Mary Ann carries out a sinister act. .

Mary Ann starts work as a housekeeper in the middle-class Robinson household, where grief-stricken widower James is father to five children, whom his sister Helen has been caring for. Mary Ann sets about seducing James but is called home to care for her ailing mother. When her mother voices her suspicions about Mary Ann, she becomes the next victim-and soon Mary Ann poisons several others as well.

Mary Ann moves to the town of West Auckland with her new husband, Maggie's brother, Fred Cotton. She is now married to two living men at the same time, and she soon takes up with her lover Joe again. When Fred dies in a mining accident, Mary Ann gets a new job and sees another opportunity for a better life-but how many more people will she kill to get her way?

Will Mary Cottoon tries to shed her old life without arsenic but finds again that it is her only remedy.