Mattie Troy Thomas

Serial Killer

Mattie Troy Thomas: The Kansas Insurance Poisoner

Background

Mattie Troy Thomas, more commonly identified in contemporary newspaper accounts as Mattie Troy or Mary Troy, was an early twentieth-century suspected serial poisoner associated with Kansas City, Kansas, and Topeka, Kansas. She reportedly lived in the Argentine district of Kansas City and was married at different times to men whose families could potentially be insured for her financial benefit. Historical descriptions portrayed her as an imposing woman who weighed approximately 300 pounds, but surviving records provide little reliable information about her childhood, birth date, or early family life. Thomas became notorious for an alleged scheme involving vulnerable children, assumed identities, fraudulent life-insurance policies, and arsenic. Rather than attacking strangers impulsively, she was accused of selecting people whose deaths could be converted into insurance payments. Children were particularly useful to the scheme because she could present them as sons, daughters, or stepchildren, obtain policies under false names, and then take them away from relatives who might otherwise recognize the deception.

The Death of Jessie Watson

One of the earliest deaths later connected to Thomas was that of Jessie Watson, a 12-year-old Black girl living in Kansas City, Missouri. Jessie died on April 24, 1909, at 621 Holmes Street. Her officially recorded cause of death was meningitis, and she was buried the following day. Years later, historical researchers examining Thomas's activities identified Jessie as a possible earlier victim. The precise evidence connecting Thomas to Jessie's death remains incomplete. No surviving record establishes that arsenic was detected in Jessie's body, and the child's recorded death from meningitis was not formally replaced by a homicide ruling. Nevertheless, researchers found Jessie's name while investigating reports that Thomas had insured children, presented them as relatives, and profited when they died. Jessie is therefore generally treated as a suspected victim rather than a judicially confirmed murder victim. ...

Confirmed Victims: (1)

David Marshall Age: (16), Date of Death: 1909-11-06

Suspected Victims:

Jessie Watson Age: (12), Date of Death: 1909-04-24

Unidentified young girl , Date of Death: 1909-11

Young 'history detectives' track 1900s serial killer