Mary Van Tassel in 1799.
Mary Van Tassel, formerly known as Mary Archer (1769-1799) was an American serial killer and the person behind the legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Biography[]
Mary was born in 1769 as Mary Archer, one of the two daughters of a happily married couple living in a cottage near Sleepy Hollow. When Mary was still a little girl, her father unexpectedly died for some unknown reason, and the family's landlord Sir Peter Van Garrett, evicted them and sold their home to the Van Tassel family. Due to Mary's mother being suspected of doing witchcraft, no one in the town was willing to take the Archers in, so the Archers took refuge in the Western Woods. Mary's mother later died within a year afterward, forcing Mary and her sister to scrounge for themselves in the Western Woods. One day, while gathering firewood, Mary and her sister ran into the bloodthirsty Hessian hiding from a group of American soldiers. Despite the Hessian's gesture to be quiet, Mary gave him away to his pursuers by snapping a stick into two while her sister ran away in fear. 18 years later, Mary came over to the Van Tassels' residence as a sick-nurse for Baltus' first wife Elizabeth, whom she secretly poisoned before proceeding to enter a relationship with Baltus and becoming his second wife. As New York police constable Ichabod Crane arrived to Sleepy Hollow following the murders of Sir Van Garrett, his son Dirk, and the widow Emily Winship, Lady Van Tassel pretended to be supportive with him. After much investigation it was discovered that she was the murderer, but she was never arrested due to her mysterious dissapear.
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