We are led to believe that Lavinia Fisher was the first female serial killer widely recognized in the United States. While Mrs. Fisher, who died by hanging on February 18, 1820, for highway robbery, not murder, could have certainly been a female serial killer, was she the first?
If looks could kill, Becky Cotton from Edgefield certainly had it all and did, even before Lavinia Fisher’s alleged killings.
Cotton killed her husband, John Cotton, around 1794 by smashing an ax into his skull, avenging her father’s murder for the cowardice he showed. A few years earlier, three neighbors burst into her house and killed him in front of Cotton and her husband after a dispute. She was reportedly furious that her husband did nothing to stop it.
She fled to Kings Mountain, was caught, and brought back to Edgefield to stand trial. She was so beautiful that no one would convict her, and she was acquitted of all charges. Eventually, marrying one of the jurors, Mr. Ellis.
On May 5, 1807, she was killed by her brother on the courthouse steps.
The legend surrounding Becky Cotton has added more husbands to her story. Supposedly, she drove a mattress needle into a former husband’s heart, Mr. Smith, while he slept by the fire. Another husband, Joshua Terry, had a warm dose of poison in his herbal tea.
Becky Cotton lived on Beaverdam Creek on present-day Slade Lake. A notorious part of the lake has been infamously known as Beck’s Hole.
She supposedly had taken all of these men’s lifeless bodies, wrapped them in bricks, and thrown them down to the lake and into the hole to never be found.
Legend has it that she still walks the area, looking for a new husband.
If the rumors against Becky Cotton were true, she would be the first female serial killer in America.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.
Image Credit: John G. Clark Jr. (Picture near Cotton’s old house- Slad Lake)
