Editing Cordelia Botkin (section)

==Biography==
Botkin was born Cordelia Brown in 1854 in Polk County, Missouri. She moved to California and married a man named Welcome Botkin. In 1895 she met ''Associated Press'' reporter John Dunning in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Botkin became smitten with Dunning despite the fact that both were married and Botkin was nine years older than Dunning. They began an affair which lasted three years. 

In 1896, Dunning's wife Mary Elizabeth Dunning discovered his various affairs and left him, returning to her family home in Delaware with their daughter. Dunning was also sacked from his job for embezzling money, forcing him to rely on financial support from Botkin, who received a regular allowance from her estranged husband. Dunning moved into a hotel room with Botkin and was forced to live there until he was re-hired in 1898 in order to serve as lead overseas reporter for the [[Spanish-American War]]. Before leaving, he told Botkin that he would not return and reconciled with his wife.

Jealous, Botkin began sending anonymous letters to Elizabeth Dunning detailing Botkin and Dunning's affair. On 9 August 1898, she anonymously sent Dunning a box of candies addressed "With love to yourself and baby". "Passionately fond of candy", Dunning ate some of the candies and shared others with her sister, Ida Deane, and several visitors. Six people who had sampled the candies, including Dunning and Deane, came down with arsenic poisoning after eating them. Dunning and Deane died after two days in agony, whereas the other four survived. 

During the investigation, the handwriting on the note attached to the box was matched to that of the writer of the anonymous letters. John Dunning identified the author of the letters as Cordelia Botkin. Botkin was arrested and identified by two witnesses as having bought the box of candies a few days before it was received. Love letters between her and Dunning were examined by handwriting expert Theodore Kytka, who determined that her handwriting was the same as the handwriting on the anonymous letters and the box. She was convicted of murder, but the verdict was overturned due to the judge having given a prejudicial summing-up. Botkin was convicted again and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A few weeks after Botkin's conviction, Judge Carroll Cook, the judge who presided over her trial, saw her getting out of a streetcar outside the Branch County Jail. Judge Cook's investigation concluded that she was performing sexual favours for the guards in return for being allowed to leave prison whenever she liked, but this could not be proved and Botkin remained in the Branch County Jail until overcrowding following the 1907 San Francisco earthquake forced authorities to transfer her to San Quentin State Prison. She remained in San Quentin until she died from "softening of the brain" in 1910.
[[Category:List]]
[[Category:United States of America]]
[[Category:Deceased]]
[[Category:Early Modern Villains]]
[[Category:Femme Fatale]]
[[Category:Imprisoned]]
[[Category:Deaths in prison]]
[[Category:Adulterers]]
[[Category:In love]]
[[Category:Envious Villains]]
[[Category:Female]]
[[Category:Obsessed]]
[[Category:Murderer]]
[[Category:Perverts]]
[[Category:Wolves in sheep's clothing]]
[[Category:Faux Affably Evil]]