Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The London Body Snatchers Pt. 1

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

In November of 1831, four men tried to sell a fresh body to the anatomist at King’s College in London. But a quick look at the body revealed it to be a little too fresh. Had these bodysnatchers robbed a new grave or murdered an innocent human to keep up with rising demand? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes dramatizations and discussions of murder, violence against children, death, and gore. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. 1830s London saw thinner socioeconomic barriers than it ever had before. People from all walks of life packed the city streets. Pickpockets brushed elbows with early morning commuters, and beggars walked. alongside horse-drawn carriages. This social blending was largely due to the city's wave of innovation.

In just a few years, its first railroad would stitch together distant regions. Science was also rapidly advancing. Hospitals reached new medical milestones on a regular basis. But these new developments left many in the dust. As London elites built higher and further, other residents never knew where their next meal would come from, and the medical and industrial achievements only benefited the wealthy. The poorer part of London saw the Drek left behind.

The smell of horse manure lingered in the air. Raw sewage clogged the Thames River, and chimney sootts sprinkled the cobblestones. Under all that filthly secrets, those on society's fringes reaped, what they could from those at the center. Soon, shady dealings propped up the most renowned industries.

And the darkest secrets eventually bubbled to the surface. Welcome to Solved Murder's True Crime Mysteries, a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm your host, Carter Roy. And I'm your host, Wendy McKenzie. Every Wednesday, we step into the world of true crime's most fascinating murder cases

and tell the tale of how real life to take close the case. You can find episodes of solved murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free, exclusively on Spotify. This is our first episode on the London Body Snatchers. This week we'll follow a murder investigation all the way to the discovery of a criminal underworld, unlike any other. Next time, we'll watch this world unfold in an unforgettable trial.

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believe that the people around you are monsters. The battle isn't over. There comes a time and you have to take action when you have to choose your own destiny. Watch the new Hulu original series, The Testaments. Streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. On November 5, 1831, a cold wind sent a shiver through London. The pitter-patter of raindrops cascaded against the roof of King's College. The school's anatomist, Richard Partridge, was upstairs delivering a lecture. All of a sudden, the dissecting room porter, a man named William Hill, called for Richard. He sounded alarmed.

Is everything all right, William? I need your help, sir. We've received our delivery. The men just dropped it off. So all's going to plan then? I'm afraid not. It's not what I expected. Could you come with me?

It would be easier for me to show you what I'm talking about. Richard excused himself from his lecture and followed William down the stairs. They headed to the dissecting room where a strong, foul odor hit them immediately. Four young men stood in the center of the room. They each looked boyish, young but confident. and all in their late 20s to early 30s. They carried a large sack, and Richard knew what was inside. The four men possessed a dead body,

but William's concerns had nothing to do with this fact alone. He pulled Richard to the side to tell his colleague the problem. There's something strange about this body. What do you mean? When they first walked in, they let the body slip from the sack. I could see instantly that it was fresh, suspiciously. fresh. There's also a cut on the left temple. I asked the men about it, and they said it was from when the body slipped out and hit the floor. But the cut looks older, not brand new. Huh, I see.

There's more. The left hand is clenched, like the deceased was in distress. The left arm also appeared twisted above the head. The men couldn't have simply exhumed this body. We're in trouble, Richard. Richard stepped towards the group of men to examine the body for himself. From what he could tell, the body belonged to a boy in his early teenage years. His face was swollen, blood trickled from his left temple, and his eyes were bloodshot and bulging out of his skull. It looked like William was right about foul play. Richard knew that he was mixed up with criminals.

After all, just about everyone was. But when the college first began enlisting below boys, Suppliers, he never imagined things would go this far. In fact, the path to the events of this night began back in the 17th century. As the medical field made great strides, the demand for research cadavers increased. Colleges often received the bodies of hanged criminals to meet this need. But by the early 19th century, capital punishment became less frequent. It became difficult for medical researchers to obtain bodies to study.

That's when the body snatching market appeared. Many working-class people realized they could meet the demand for corpses. All they had to do was retrieve the bodies. It was worth the effort. For comparison, Sarah Wise, author of The Italian Boy, A Tale of Body Snatching and Murder in 1830s, London, explains that in 1831, a silk weaver could earn about five shillings a week. A servant to a wealthy household made.

around a guinea week or 21 shillings, body snatchers, on the other hand, could earn 8 to 20 guineas per body. So under the sheath of night, body snatchers snuck into graveyards, sometimes right after a person's funeral, to exhume corpses. Then they'd sell the bodies off to anatomy schools. This was morbid enough, but the market shifted for the worse when body snatchers started going to great lengths to provide the freshest bodies possible. They understood the demand. The less decay, the higher the research possibilities. And the medical research field was competitive. In 1828, two men became the first known to create their own supply of bodies.

William Burke and William Hare were caught and convicted of 16 serial killings in Scotland. posing as body snatchers, they sold the corpses to anatomy schools. Medical professionals became wary of such grim practices, but that didn't stop the body snatchers from trying to pass off murdered bodies as freshly exhumed ones. This was the exact concern Richard and William now faced as they stood in the dissecting room at King's College. Richard had seen a lot of gruesome bodies in his line of work. He was used to the smell, the splotches of coagulated blood and the bruising. In fact, he could easily separate the human from the body, the person's life from their anatomy.

And that's exactly why he knew this boy's life had been senselessly stolen not long before his body arrived in the building. He returned to William's side so the two could hatch a plan. William, you're right. This body wasn't exhumed. I don't believe it was ever prepared for burial. What do we do now? I'll say that I only have a 50-pound note and that I need to go make change. You wait with them and I'll fetch the police. The police? Don't you think we'll look suspicious too?

Maybe we've taken this too far. No, we haven't. We rely on these bodies and we're certainly not the only ones who do, but they may have killed a boy. You're right. Go on then. I'll make sure they don't go anywhere. Richard excused himself and dashed from the room.

The band of men who stood before William appeared eager and pleased. Even though William knew their demeanors would soon change, he also knew that this was just the beginning of a long, dark journey. Coming up, Londoners struggle to put past horrors behind them. What could be more shocking than uncovering the dark secrets behind history behind history's biggest stories, realizing that everything you thought was true was a lie. Hi, it's Molly from the Parkhouse series Conspiracy theories. Each week, we take a closer look at the blurred line between fact and fiction,

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Seeful terms at mintmobile.com. Now back to the story. On Saturday, November 5th, 1831, Richard Partridge, the anatomist at King's College in London, dashed from the school grounds to summon the police. Four grave robbers had approached his colleague, William, with a suspiciously fresh body. Richard and William created a ruse to keep the four men at the school until Richard could return with officers. When he arrived at the station, he had to convince police superintendent Joseph Sadler Thomas that something was wrong. Officer, I need you to come with me. What's the problem?

I work in the medical department at King's College, and my colleague and I have just received a very troubling-looking body. Isn't it your job to figure out what's wrong with it? You must understand. Grave robbers brought us this body, but when I saw it, I had reason to believe it had never been buried. I don't think they stole this body. You think they murdered someone? Precisely. Do you know where they are now?

They're waiting for me back at the school. They think I've run out to make change. We should hurry before they catch on. Twenty minutes after he departed King's College, Richard returned with Superintendent Thomas and a handful of other officers. The four body snatchers showed instant panic. An officer marched over to them and demanded to be shown the body. Oh, that stench.

There's blood oozing from this boy's skull. How old was he? Can't be more than 15. Someone must be looking for him. What did you for do? The officers cuffed the men and learned their names. John Bishop, James May, Thomas Williams, and Michael Shields. They were all arrested on suspicion of improper possession of a subject.

However, the police explained to Richard and William that the matter was far from over. They needed to identify the body and determine whether higher charges were warranted. In the meantime, detaining the four men was no easy feat. James put up a fight when he was told that he wasn't allowed to speak to John. Several officers were forced to restrain him, and he had to enter the station on all fours with his shirt over his head. Once in his cell, James argued that the corpse wasn't his property. He said it was John's, and that he had just gone along to collect the money.

This intrigue Superintendent Thomas, who found John and sat down with him for questioning. If you're not a killer, then what are you? A mover. I was just moving the corpse from one place to another. Nothing wrong with that. These places need bodies. So the boy was a criminal.

He'd been hanged and you supplied his body to the college? I know nothing of his life. Like I said, I'm just a mover. Where did you move it from? I brought it from Guy's Hospital to King's College. Why would a hospital let you take it? You said so yourself. These places need bodies.

The body... It belonged to me. So you knew the deceased. I don't see what that has to do with anything. This body is fresh, Mr. Bishop. It matters if you knew him. So did you know the boy or not? No.

Hmm. I wonder. How would someone with no association to a teenage boy come to possess his dead body. All right, you could stop. I'm a body snatcher. Are you happy, huh? Not quite, Mr. Bishop.

I need more answers. Before he could put any sort of faith into John's claims, Superintendent Thomas had his men plaster notices of the boy's unidentified body all around the neighborhood. They hoped to catch the right person's attention,

so they listed the boy's approximate age along with a physical description. They were under a lot of pressure. A coroner's inquest was scheduled and fast approaching. They needed as much information as they could get to present to the court. The police scheduled a viewing of the body on November 6th, hoping they could speed up the identification process. Parents of missing sons, as well as other members of the community,

came to view the victim. While none of the viewers claimed to be related to the boy, many said they recognized him as a local beggar. who had immigrated from Italy. There were descriptions of him carrying a tortoise, a cage of white mice, or performing music for spare change. For two days, the police were hard-pressed

to learn anything more. No one knew the boy's name. Instead, because of rumors that he was a poor Italian immigrant, he became known as the Italian boy. Police hoped this wouldn't benefit the four accused of his murder come the coroner's inquest.

The autopsy was, performed that night, and it only made the potential killers look worse. A surgeon named George Beeman examined the body further, with Richard Partridge and another man assisting him. They found that the boy's skin was covered in bruises, like he'd been gripped very tightly, and his chest was caved in as though someone had knelt on it. Finally, Beeman concluded that the boy had been killed

by a blow to the back of the neck with a sharp object. On November 8th, the inquest opened at a local public house. Almost immediately jurors and witnesses debated the boy's identity. Many posed theories and even names, but they were all discredited one way or another. Those present did all agree on one thing. This case strangely mirrored that of William Burke and William Hare. That case still sent shivers through people's spines, and they recalled the gruesome details. Once Burke and Hare resorted to murder, they began luring victims to Hare's lodging house.

They would get their victims intoxicated and then strike once they were most vulnerable. The people of Edinburgh suffered the losses of family and friends never to be heard from again. Burke and Hare were the first to become known for obtaining bodies for anatomists in this manner, so medical professionals never questioned the identities of the deceased. Once the bodies had been dissected and disposed of, there was no evidence left from the crimes. It was like people disappeared into thin air. But the two men got greedy and careless. Their murder of one local woman on October 31, 1828, finally landed them into the hands of law enforcement.

An investigation unearthed the horrifying truth of Birkenhair's business. The case soon went to trial. Burke was found guilty of at least one murder and sentenced to death. Heir had been granted immunity after he provided all the details of the most recent murder and confessed to the 16 other killings. No one knows what became of him. The court members couldn't stand the thought of yet another murderer flying under the radar or walking free. If they couldn't yet determine the boy's identity,

then they wanted to learn everything they could about the four men in custody. Authorities brought the group of grave robbers, John Bishop, James May, Thomas Williams, and Michael Shields from their holdings to the public house. The room fell silent when they entered. The men's respective backgrounds were soon divulged. John and Thomas were apparently roommates. Their two families shared a cottage in an area known as the Nova Scotia Gardens, and they had both been arrested for very similar things in the past. John had been a body snatcher for about 12 years. He was cautious, intentional, and experienced. He'd taken corpses from coroner's premises, bribed watchmen,

and knew how to play the role of a relative in mourning. John had essentially perfected his strategy. He had built up an intel network, so we always knew where to find his next hall. He would show up to funerals, graves, or even people's houses to snatch the body as soon as he could. could and carry the body off in a large basket under the cover of night. But John didn't get away every time.

In 1825, he served two months in prison for the possession of an illegally disinterred corpse. After his release, he went right back to his schemes. Thomas had been caught up with the law much more recently. On October 15th, he'd stolen the body of a 14-year-old neighbor, whose coffin was still held in his family's home. Thomas broke into the house when the boy's mother stepped out to run an errand. When she returned, she found her son's body missing. She reported the incident and police interviewed witnesses.

Neighbors saw what he did and were able to provide officers with a perfect description of him. He was arrested the next day. However, authorities couldn't find the boy's body and with no other evidence, Thomas's charges were dropped. Thomas had likely already sold the body to an anatomist, which meant it was likely no longer identifiable. This was a common reason body snatchers could evade the law. But this time, the King's college employees chose to go to the police

instead of accepting the body. Jury members also learned that James and John had worked together for a few years and that Michael was new to the group, but they might have felt there was still more to the story. For James's part, they may not have dug into his past as much because he had already made claims to Superintendent Thomas about his role. As for Michael, we don't know whether the court prodded him, but by the time the men had to explain how everything went down,

Michael took control of his own fate. Coming up, the London body snatchers retrace their steps. Now back to the story. John Bishop, James May, Thomas Williams, and Michael Shields were all suspected of murdering a teenage boy. On November 8th, the young men testified at a coroner's inquest. The court leaned in as John explained how the body ended up at King's College. He began the tale by claiming he'd dug up the body. He was a veteran of the body-snatching business and could tell when a grave was fresh.

He took advantage when he noticed a clean headstool. and loose soil. Once the body was unearthed, he tried to find a buyer. On the morning of Friday, November 4, 1831, John met James and Thomas at a pub known as the Fortune of War. Many pubs and inns served as meeting spots for body snatchers and informants, as well as occasional storage spaces for bodies. The Fortune of War was John's pub of choice.

The three men talked over lunches. lunch, and some rum. John and James had worked together for years, but Thomas was relatively new to the business, so he was filled in on their way of doing things. James asked John where he got his smock, an outer garment worn by laborers to protect their clothes from any mess they might encounter or create. James said he wanted one for their work that day. So the men left the pub and made their way to a district known as thieving lane. It was named for. for the windows adorned with brightly colored handkerchiefs that had been stolen and put on display by pickpockets. The district's surrounding area was drowned in sewage as the nearby Fleet River often flooded.

James bought a smock frock and some trousers, and then he and John joined a female shopkeeper for some rum. Already drunk, the two men stopped for a few drinks on their way back to the fortune of war. When they returned, they kept the liquor flowing while John and Tom. ventured out to visit potential buyers. First, they went to Edward Tucson's private medical school. However, Edward had been waiting so long for John to get him a body that he'd already bought one from another gang just the day before. The two men then walked to Joseph Carpue's school.

When they arrived, Joseph invited them into his lecture theater. Ah, you two must come in and meet my students. Your students? Yes, yes. This will be a great learning opportunity for them. If you insist. Class, we have some visitors. These men are from the foundation of modern medical research.

Without them, our field would have no bodies to study. They are the backbone of innovation. Um, hello. Pleasure. You know, it's not easy to find cadavers these days. So take note of their dress, their rough hands and heavy eyes, and ask yourselves, where might you find men like this? Professor, if I may.

Go on? I have a question for our guess. I presume you're here today because you have a body for our professor. Indeed we do. How fresh is the body? Oh, the freshest. We only supply top grade. We are the backbone of medicine, after all.

Well, now, I better make the most of this opportunity. I'll offer you every day. for you eight guineas for this body. You've got yourself a deal. John said they'd bring the body the next morning at 10 sharp. Then he and Thomas returned to the fortune of war. They filled James in on their deal. But as John drank, greed seeped in.

He wondered if he could sell the body for an even higher price. He motioned for James to join him outside. I'm curious, James. How much money have you made off a body before? Well, just yesterday I sold two corpses to guys' hospital for 10 guineas each. Oh, we should be getting more. If I'm being honest, I'd never accept such a young, fresh body for only eight guineas. Let's make a deal.

If you could help me and Thomas sell this body for a higher price, you can keep anything that we make over nine guineas. Deal. Eager, the two men headed out to find a coach driver to transport the body. This time, Thomas stayed behind a time. the pub. Throughout the early evening, John and James trolled the district for a driver. They approached men on the street, but just as their appearance benefited them at Joseph Carpue's school, it worked against them now. Many drivers were suspicious of the men. They didn't

want to be involved in the body-snatching business. John and James were met with lots of rejection. One driver at the inn even told them he might be interested just to sneak away when their backs were turned. That same driver spotted them later that evening, still searching for someone. The men didn't give up, though, and eventually they were able to convince someone to help them pick up the body. But first, they drank some more. They eventually got into the driver's coach, rejoined Thomas at the Fortune of War, then went back to the Nova Scotia Gardens. Once at the gardens, John, James, and Thomas brought the body out to the coach. Thomas must have been filled in on John and James's deal at some point, because at seven,

the men visited a couple hospitals to try and strike a better deal than the one they made with Joseph. But they had no luck. All they were able to do was store the body at Guy's hospital. They try again the next day. They paid the driver and went back to the fortune of war for another round. Then they all went home for the night. The next morning, John and Thomas were back at the fortune of war with a newly hired driver, Michael Shields. The three men had some drinks, then made their way back to Guy's hospital to pick up the body. James met them there. They all took a ferry to King's College where William Hill greeted them. John and James had been in business with William for some time already.

They hauled the body inside, and William looked a bit alarmed. Once they were all in the room, John asked William if he had any interest in buying a body. William said he had to check with his colleague, the anatomist, Richard Partridge. Not long after, the police arrived and arrested him James, Thomas, and Michael. The only man of the four to contradict John's story was Michael. He claimed to not know what the other three did for a living. It seems the court didn't believe him, but they let him go anyway. This might have given the other men the impression that the court would go easy on them,

but then another member of the court stood up and opposed John's claims. Richard Partridge, the King's College anatomist who fetched the police on November 5th, argued that the boy was killed with a blow to the back of his head. He and the autopsy surgeon George Beeman said the child's death was not an accident. John fired back. He said he was a body snatcher, not a murderer. But Richard urged the court to examine the body as evidence. The wounds would tell them everything they needed to know.

John's face turned white, but he said nothing. On the evening of November 10, 1831, the jury reached a verdict of willful murder against a person or person's unknown. The court emphasized that they were especially suspicious of John and Thomas, and that they trusted the police to investigate further. Oddly, their opinion of James was left open-ended, but he was far from off the hook. Hearings were set for November 18th. When magistrates embarked on their investigation,

they had no idea of just how much of the criminal underworld would come to light. Thanks again for tuning into Solved Murders. We'll be back next Wednesday with Part two of the London body snatchers. For more information on the murder of the Italian boy, amongst the many sources we used, we found Sarah Wise's book, The Italian Boy, a tale of murder and body snatching in 1830s, London, extremely helpful to our research. You can find all episodes of Solved Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Solve Murders, True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast. It is executive produced by Max Cutler, sound designed by Michael Langsner, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Nick Johnson, Trent Williamson, and Carly Madden. This episode of Unsolved Murders was written by Arohi Sheff, edited by Sarah Batchelor and Giles Hofseth,

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