Mary Browner (née Cushing) was the youngest of three Cushing sisters. When she was 29, she married Jim Browner and moved to Liverpool with him. Not too long after her older sister Sarah came to live with them as well. Not knowning about that Sarah had tried to seduce her husband, she was manipulated by her sister to mistrust her husband, straining in the marriage. Sarah introduced her to a friend, Alec Fairbairn, who Mary took a likening to and began a relationship with. But when her husband found out about it, he followed them to New Brighton where he killed them at sea.