True Crime All The Time - William Burke and William Hare

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

William Burke and William Hare were killers who murdered victims in the city of Edinburgh and sold the bodies to an anatomist who needed cadavers for lessons. They killed at least sixteen people in one year, but their greed made them reckless, and they were ultimately caught.  Join Mike and Gibby as they talk about Burke and Hare. Graverobbing was a big thing many years ago, so much so that some people hired guards to make sure their loved one's bodies were not disturbed. Burke and Hare discovered they could make a lot of money selling bodies to a local doctor. But they took their plan to the extreme, decided to cut out the graverobbing, and began killing people on their own. You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 391 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? Hey, I'm doing good. How about you? I'm doing great. You and I just had a little pizza before recording. Yeah, from my country of Italy.

Italia. Italia. Yeah. Where I'm 0.1% or point. What am I? Was that from your ancestry. Yeah, I can't remember what I am. I know it did not turn out anywhere near the way you thought it was going to.

No, no, but I dig out a little bit, a little bit. Like, you know. Yeah, 0.1%. Maybe when I did the swab or something, I might have had some marinara at my mouth. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. Yeah.

You're definitely no chef boy R.D. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had rags. Hey, rags. Michelle Chappell. Well, thank you, Michelle. Robin jumped out at our highest level. You're awesome, Robin.

Megan and Teddy. What's going on, Megan and Teddy? Susan Thompson. Ah, thanks Thompson. Ladasha Scott. That's a fun name to say. It is. Lethasha.

Beth Horn. What's going on, Beth? Jimmy Nix. What's it up, Nix? Carrie Kearns. Hey, Carrie. Lori Carlson jumped out at our highest level. You're awesome.

Thank you so much, Lori. Lisa Boik. What's up, Boik? And last but not least, Lane Marie. Hey, thanks, Lane. And then if we go back into the vault, this week, we selected Celine. Well, thank you, Miss Dion.

Yeah, appreciate that. Well, I've had a couple of great PayPal donations from Kelly Gilstrap and KCJ innovations. Look at that. Kelly and KCJ. Yeah. Appreciate all the support we get. So Gibbs, right now we have an episode out on True Crime All the Time Unsolved where we're talking about Colt Haynes and Molly Miller. This is a story that's about 10 years old, but it's got a lot of mystery, a lot of intrigue to it. you know, these two were involved in a high speed chase.

Now, they weren't driving. There was a driver with them. But after the chase, they kind of ended up supposedly lost in the woods. And then from there, they've just never been heard of or seen again. Yeah. This takes place in Love County. Oklahoma. It's like saying Love County.

Because you're all about love. All about love. All right, buddy. are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? Yeah, I'm set. Yeah, we've had some really big cases that we've been doing lately. We had the Jody Arias, we had the Phil Hardman case. So this is a little bit of a lesser known case. And we're also going back in time to talk about William Burke and William Hare. These two were killers who murdered victims in the city of Edinburgh. And then sold their bodies to people who needed cadavers for like medical teaching lessons.

Should I get the DeLorean ready? Because we're going back in time. I think you should get the Bill and Ted's excellent adventure phone booth. Ooh, that would be fun. That would be fun. But, you know, these are people who killed at least 16 people in one year, just out of greed. But it was this greed that kind of made them reckless and ended with them getting caught, the practice of grave robbing or body snatching was extremely common in the 18th and

19th centuries. In many cases, the bodies were sold to universities for anatomy studies. So I guess there was no practice where people could donate their bodies to science or, but you do see this in a lot of historical movies. You do. I know it came up in the gangs of New York, I think. Was there some in peeky blinders? where they were selling bodies? I can't remember. I think so. Yeah.

But it's come up in a lot of different historical type television shows and movies. There was a high demand for bodies in the U.S. and Britain because the only bodies legally available for dissection were executed criminals. According to the BBC, in 1505, a law was passed that allowed the incorporation of surgeons and barbers in Edinburgh to dissect the body of one executed criminal per year. Barbers? Yeah, for some reason, back in the day, they used to refer to some medical personnel, I think, is barbers.

It's very interesting. I need to go see the barber. No, you do not. No, because I think those were the ones that were into the leeches and, you know, some of that type of stuff. You know, good leaching, though. I mean, talking about, it just makes you feel so much better. Yeah, I mean, you still do it today, which I find highly irregular.

Yeah, you know, but it just, I don't know. It rejuvenates me. It'd be great if you didn't bring them to my house, though, like with them on you. I need somebody to take them back off. I can put them on. I just can't get them off. It's not so bad, like, on your arms or something like that. There are some places that I'm not as happy about.

Well, I'm not either. That's why I want them all. I have to take them off. But let's go back to this one executed criminal per year. You know back in the day they executed a lot of people. They did. So to say you can only do one, well, you know, how much teaching or learning can you really do? Because, you know, they did a lot of stuff by trial and error back in the day. Yeah, you think they would at least get one a quarter.

is that so four a year yeah is that's better than one i guess in 1751 the british government passed the murder act which ensured a swift execution for convicted killers and denied them the right to a normal burial their bodies were to be donated to medical schools to help advance science but the supply of bodies for dissection remained low between 1752 and 1800 on Only 43 criminals were sentenced to dissection in Scotland. Pretty low. That is low. It's not even one a year.

So I think what happened was it became especially difficult for Scottish medical schools to find bodies for dissection as there were only 50 crimes that carried the death sentence in Scotland compared to more than 200 in England and Wales. Wow, that's a big difference. 200 crimes that carried the death penalty. that seems like a lot. It is. Then in 1823, Parliament passed the judgment of death act, which removed the death penalty as punishment for a long list of crimes,

which further reduced the number of bodies available for legal dissection. Sounds fancy. The judgment of death. Well, you know, you have to come up with some name for all these different acts, right? That one is better than most. I will say that. But I do think it's important, right,

to talk about that you have people studying medicine. Well, how are you going to train someone? How are they going to learn if they don't have a cadaver? No, that's very true. You know, I mean, you're you're charging them tuition to learn how to become a medical professional for them to do that. They need to be able to work on something. So, for to find a way to get some corpses in your labs. So what ended up happening was that medical schools often source cadavers illegally. And this happens with just about anything. If you need or want something and you can't get it legally. Yeah. What always happens. Well, an illegal market kind of pops up. You know, weed was illegal for a long time. So you had people selling it illegally. Yeah, I get that like, hey, hey, you got any of that, uh, that weed man? But

What are they doing back then? Hey, you got any bodies laying around that we can have down here? I'm kind of looking for, you know, two females, one male. You know, you have that. We need it. Well, I don't know exactly how it went down. I wasn't there. But I don't know if it was all that different, right? You think about prohibition here in the U.S. Okay. Alcohol is made illegal. What happens? everybody and their brother starts making it in their bathtub and then you have organized crime who is essentially raking it in selling illegal booze. If you have a market, people will respond to the market needs. During the 1828 select committee on anatomy, one doctor stated that a body was worth between two and eight guinea, which was a gold coin worth 21 shillings.

The more recently a person died, the more valuable their body was. Fresh. Yeah. And I don't know anything about shillings or guineas or any of that. I was hoping you would do some of those conversions for me. Because I know you spent a lot of time at Oxford. Well, I had to. During my time that I was a Rhodes scholar.

To put it in perspective, though, the average laborer's daily wage was only one shilling. So if you could sell just one body, a person could potentially cover several months worth of wages. Oh, sure. It'd probably be like $50,000 today. You must be making a lot more a month than I am. No, no, no. I'm talking about the gold, the shilling. Okay.

Because I just said several months worth of wages, you jump to $50,000. That's telling me you're making. 15, 16,000 dollars a month? No, well, I'm thinking 21 shillings is a gold coin. Gold coin equals 21 shillings. Did you just say the invert? I said. And knowing that, you know, gold coin's probably worth, I don't know, $4,000 today.

Do do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, too. Where are you getting this information? How big is the gold coin? Wouldn't that have or play a large factor into how? how much gold. But I'm pulling it from the place I'm sitting on. Yes, you're rear in.

Yeah. I get it. Yeah. I do like the fact that you did the bo, bo, beep bo, be bo, beep bo,

I know, I know, but it's good data. It really is. Check it out. It's great data. Everything that comes out of your mouth, that you are calling data.

Right. And you say is great. Yeah. Generates really from my ass. It sometimes it does, but people love it. So stealing a body from its great was technically not illegal in Britain until the passage of the Anatomy Act in 1832.

It was illegal, however, to dissect the body and steal items other than a corpse. So that makes no sense to me. You could dig up a corpse. Yeah. Just leave the jewelry behind. But you couldn't take anything from the body. And once somebody dissected the body, that was. was illegal. So the grave, not even a robber, it's a grave taker because you can't really be a grave robber

if you're not really doing anything wrong. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So before the passage of this act, now after the passage, it was illegal. Right. But, you know, grave robbing was still considered highly immoral and the practice of dissection went against many people's religious beliefs, which is why it was used as a form of punishment for criminals after their exonerated. And executions. Now, I know we've already killed you for your crime, but we're going to further punish you by allowing you to be dissected and used for science. How do you like that person? And, you know, a lot of those things throughout history have been kind of influenced by people's religious beliefs. Sure have. The physicians and med students who purchased bodies didn't seem to

care much about where they came from and were more than willing to buy from body snatchers also called Resurrectionists. We don't already put that on a business card. Yeah, I don't know that they had business cards back then, but not like you. You have a whole stack of business cards and every one of them is different. Depends on what the need is. Yeah. It's like Mike Gibson, Body Snatcher, Rex West, entertainer.

You just have a ton of different business cards. When I hear someone that has a need, I'm like, hold on. And then I just kind of flipped through my little business card rolladex to find one. That's right. So what ended up happening was that body snatching became very lucrative, but it was also risky. Resurrectionists most frequent to lower class graveyards because they were unlikely to be guarded. They typically worked in teams because they had to dig, remove, transport bodies without detection.

So a lot of money involved, but my thinking is this is quite a bit of work. That's a lot of digging. Yeah, just to dig, that's a lot of work, to haul the body, and then, you know, somebody's got to be lookout, probably.

You think they put the dirt back in the hole? Hey, Luke, put that whole dirt back in that hole. You're talking about cool hand Luke? Yeah, yeah, move that dirt. I don't, I don't know why you would go to the trouble. I guess if you wanted to cover up the fact that you had just robbed the grave, but wouldn't it be pretty obvious that you have this fresh mound of dirt? Yeah, that's true. Unless you hit one that was just, you know, a day or two before.

And I would think a lot of times maybe that's what they did because remember, they're getting paid more for a person who had not been dead that long. It's going to be easier to dig because the soil is already kind of broken up and loose. Yeah, absolutely. In order to avoid their loved ones' graves being robbed, family members of recently deceased people, sometimes hired guards to watch over graves, built cages around the coffins, or used burial vaults. After the infamous Burke trial, a person who was killed for the purpose of selling their body to med school was said to have been burnt.

been burked. It's kind of like you've been gibbied. Yeah, but to be gibbied is a good thing. Really? Because I thought it meant like bamboozled, hustled. No, no. Stupified, discombobulated. You want to be gibbied. William Burke and William Hare were both from Ireland. But details about their early lives are hard to come by. Obviously, we're going back hundreds and hundreds of years here. William Burke was born in 1792 in or Rory, Ireland. Ireland. Oh, very Ireland. Yes. Actually, you probably said it much better than I did. Burke came from a middle class family.

He and his brother joined the British Army as teenager. But Burke left the military when he got married. According to the website, Historic UK, they had two children. The marriage didn't last. Around 1818, Burke got into an argument with his father-in-law over land ownership and abandoned his family. Those are my potatoes. Well, it must have been a heck of an argument to get into with your father-in-law that resulted in you saying, you know what, I'm out of here. I'm leaving.

I'll never see any of you again. He traveled to Scotland and got a job as a laborer working on the Union Canal, which runs from Falkirk to Edinburgh. Burke met a Scottish woman named Helen McDougal. They were in a committed relationship for the rest of his life, but they never got married. So sort of committed. Well, you can be committed without being married. Can you? Yeah.

Okay. Well, I can. I don't know about you because you're a mystery slash enigma. After Burke finished working on the canal, he and Helen sold secondhand clothes. And Burke became a cobbler. Ooh. Ooh, I like a cobbler. I do like a good cobbler, but this is not a person who makes pies.

This is working on my shoe? Yeah. I think that's what that is. He was known for being good-humored and singing and dancing for his clients. So I know another person, I'm looking at him right now, who is known to be good-humored and loves to sing and dance for his clients. Maybe I should change my state's name to the cobbler. The cobbler.

Burke met his accomplice, William Hare, in November 1827, when they were living in an area of Edinburgh called Tanner's clothes. He and Helen were out one day and saw Burke's common-law wife, Margaret Lair. in the street. Helen and Margaret were previously acquainted. They mentioned that Burke was considering leaving the city to find work. Margaret told them they had a room at their lodging house, which would allow him to continue working as a cobbler in Edinburgh. And it was soon after that Burke was introduced to William Hare. And I mentioned it, right? Hair was born in Ireland, but the exact location, as well as his birth date or unknown. When he was arrested in 1828, he claimed. He claimed,

he was 21 years old, but some historians believe he was older. And, you know, records were a little tougher to come by. Oh, of course. In the early 1800s, I know historically, you have lied about your age, um, a lot. I have. I'm actually 88 years old. Well, it seems like every time you get a new alias or make up a new alias, yeah, that alias is younger than the previous one. Oh, a, hey, If you don't think I look like 28, I don't know what you think. According to the University of Edinburgh, Hare was described as uncouth, illiterate, and quarrelsome. Altogether, a thoroughly unpleasant person.

Well, that is not how you want to be known. It's not. Although I know quite a few people who fit that bill. A few uncouth. Illiterate, quarrelsome, thoroughly unpleasant? Yeah. Like Burke, Hare was a manual laborer who came to Scotland, to work on the Union Canal. He settled in Edinburgh when the job was over and started living in a

lodging house in Tanner's clothes near the city's grass market. He started a relationship with Margaret Laird, the owner's wife. He was kicked out after they were caught. But the lodging house owner died in 1826 and Hare moved back in. He and Margaret managed the business together. And we're in a committed relationship. Sources refer to her as Hare's common law wife. And to me, that almost seems like there might be a scandal there. What? Sleeping with the lodge owner's wife? And then all of a sudden he dies?

Wonder how? That's what I was getting at. One of the residents of the lodging house was an elderly army pensioner who was called Old Donald. Okay. I guess if you were of a certain age, you were just old sown. Old son and so, like, good old. Like you would say, good old Marie. On November 29th, 1827, Donald passed away from edema.

Hair was angry because the man owed him four pounds and rent, so he decided to sell the body to earn what he was owed. And it was Burke who assisted him in this criminal operation. According to Burke, they weighed old Donald's coffin down with bark so no one would realize it was empty, then transported his body to the surgeon's square. Once they were there, they asked for directions to find a professor named Dr. Mono, but a student directed them to Dr. Robert Knox instead. Robert Knox was a fellow at the World College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. He gave anatomy lectures and did dissections twice a day. Hundreds of students attended his lessons. Knox was a highly respected teacher, and historians believed he helped progress the study of anatomy.

Knox ended up purchasing the body for seven pounds and 10 shillings. Good chunk of change. Well, the guy only owed him four, so, you know, he made almost, what, double. Burke later said as they left, one of Knox assistants told them they would be glad to see them again when they had another to dispose of. Basically saying, hey, go get us some more. Yeah. We'll buy whatever you bring us.

But again, you know, if you're this highly respected person, you've got hundreds of people attending your lessons and you're doing dissections twice a day. That's a lot of bodies. Yeah. That you would be in need of. Burke and Hare were happy with their profit over the following months. They would kill at least 16 people solely for the purpose of selling their bodies. They were allegedly assisted by their common law.

why so it you can kind of see here Gibbs that it didn't take long for them to realize that there was quite a bit of money to be made yeah some good profits there for them now the first one started out by selling someone who died of you know something other than murder but if you're trying to make all this money where you're going to find just people dropping dead all over the place And really, as a murderer, pretty good way to get rid of the body, right? But is it? Well, if they're going to dissect it and have their hands on it and... You mean like you could say, well, it wasn't me, it was them?

Exactly. See, I was thinking much different than, you know, bearing a body or putting it in a place where nobody would find it. There's going to be hundreds of people viewing this body while it's being dissected. At a certain point, is it possible that somebody would recognize the person, the police would be called, and then there would be an investigation of how this body ended up where it did. But I think greed outweighed all of that. Of course, yeah.

Their MO was to lure the victims into Hare's lodging house, get them drunk, then smother them. So there would be no signs of foul play, which would increase their profit. They targeted people in poor communities who are less likely to be missed. Now, that part really has not changed over the course of history. It has not. It still takes place today. Yes, when you talk about serial killers, by and large, most of them go out of their way

to target people who they believe are less likely to be missed. the bodies were then transported to Robert Knox's school of anatomy. Knox paid 10 to 12 pounds for fresh bodies per national geographic. And to me, I think this is maybe why they turn to murder versus grave robbing. I mean, you're going to get top dollar. You're going to get a very, very fresh body. but you're also taking somebody's life for profit. And wouldn't you wonder if you are Robert Knox?

Like, these are coming in pretty fresh. These are coming in pretty regularly. Wonder how. Yeah, I don't know how much like surgeons really thought about that. Back in the day, they just needed bodies. And I can understand, you know, that they probably wanted those bodies. They probably got, in a sense, off. You know, what I mean off?

Like, it excited them to dive into their work and see how the body was put together and how it worked and how certain things came together. Is that making sense to you? No. No. I'm just from the beginning. You ever tinkled? Tinkle? I have tinkled.

I have tinkled. I don't use that phrase, not since I was about three, but. You ever mess with something? Hang in there with me. You ever mess with something that, you know, you're... You got excited about. Sounds like you were messing with something quite a bit. You know, like, oh, this is so cool.

Messing with electronics or something. Oh, yeah. Taking stuff apart. Yeah. Yeah. I liked all that stuff. And I think this is how they felt about the body. You know, they're like, oh, okay.

Well, I think there's a part of that, but they're also teaching. Yeah. So there's a need for it because they've got to put on this class. Right. And to do that, they need a body. So I don't know, you know, back to your point, I'm sure they had a feeling that there was something not quite right. Yeah.

Maybe not quite legal about it. But don't ask. But yeah, I think it was more like, we don't care. Yeah. But we don't know. Doesn't hurt. Yeah. If we don't know, we'll just go with it.

In January or February. 1828, Burke and Hare decided to capitalize on an unfortunate tenant's illness. The men learned that a resident named Joseph had fallen ill, but they were too impatient to wait for him to die of natural causes. Burke and Hare gave him whiskey and hair suffocated him while Burke held him down. And my thought is, is that, you know, in the early 1800s, people died young and often. Yeah, I don't think the life expectancy rate was very high. No, not at all.

So here you have a guy who had fallen ill, but they're so greedy that they just can't wait for this guy to die. They have to hurry him along so that they can get their money. They enjoyed the payday. I think it was all about the payday. I don't know that they enjoyed killing like other killers that we talk about, right? There are some killers, quite a few, in fact, who. enjoy snuffing the life out of other people. For sure.

And then there are people who do it for money and all kinds of different reasons. I think they were all about the money. The next two victims were Abigail Simpson and an English lodger, but the order of events is disputed in Burke and Hare's confessions. The Englishman became sick while staying at Hare's lodging house, which is why he was killed, Abigail Simpson was, a pensioner who supplemented her income by selling salt. Got your salt right here. It's not bad. Governor. Not great. Not bad. Burke said in his confession that on February 12th, 1828, they invited Abigail to Hare's

lodging house and gave her alcohol. She was too drunk to return home and they killed her. They put her body in a tea chest and sold it to Knox. Burke recalled Dr. Knox approved of its being so fresh, but he did not ask any questions. Because he knew not to. And I think that goes back to your point. He had to have known that for these bodies to be so fresh that there was something nefarious going on all. But he was so happy to have these bodies in the condition they were coming in that,

that he was willing to overlook however it happened. Sure. He's in the forefront of medical discovery. I remember the time that when you were at university, that you had that one science class, I think biology or something like that. And he were studying manure. And you would tell me how excited you were

when someone brought in some fresh manure. I wasn't buying it. I wasn't paying for it. I just know you really enjoyed it. I even heard stories from some of your friends that you were the one that never wore their gloves. So what? Was I dissecting manure to find out what was in there? Yeah.

Okay. Very interesting. I don't know if the people out there listening know about that. I don't remember it myself, to be honest with you. You were into manure. In February or March, here's wife, Margaret Laird invited an elderly woman into the lodging house. She gave the woman enough alcohol to make her fall asleep.

and hair covered her mouth and nose with a mattress cover and left the room. They found her dead in the evening and Burke helped him transport the bottom. Burke met two women in early April. Mary Patterson and Janet Brown, Burke bought them drinks before inviting them back to the lodging house. Instead, they purchased whiskey and went to his brother's home to drink more. Mary eventually fell asleep at the table. Burke and Janet continued talking, but were interrupted by Helen McDougall.

who accused them of having an affair. Burke and Helen got into an altercation, and he threw a glass at her. Janet said she didn't know he was married and excused herself from the domestic dispute, leaving Mary Patterson behind. Helen left to get Hare and his wife, Margaret. When they returned, the women were locked out of the room,

and Burke and Hare killed Mary Patterson in her sleep. Janet Brown eventually returned and saw that Mary was gone. She was told that Mary and Burke left together. Janet waited a while for her friend, but eventually decided to leave. She had no idea that Mary was dead in the next room and that she had narrowly avoided being killed. Mary's body was then taken to Dr. Knox. So, I mean, you can see the pattern here. It's pretty obvious.

They're out scouting, just like a modern day serial killer would do. Right. But they also have this lodging house. to kind of operate from, it seems like alcohol was involved. And then at a certain point, they would suffocate the individual after they became drunk. But in this case, one of the students recognized Mary and asked Burke and Hare where they found her. Burke told him that Mary drank herself to death and they purchased her body from an old woman.

Meanwhile, Janet Brown was looking for her friend and was told that Mary had gone to Glasgow with a traveling salesman. You know, it's 1800s. A lot of times I think you just had to take people's word. Yeah. It was very hard to verify what people told you. They'd be really hard to verify. Around this time, Burke and Hare started to become greedy and careless. And isn't this what we see a lot of the time? I mean, you're already doing something that's illegal. You're doing it for money. But most of the time, people can't just stay on like a slow and steady pace. The influx of money becomes so powerful that they get greedy. They have to ramp up and therefore they become careless.

And that's how they end up getting caught. Yeah. You can also say they get overconfident. I think a lot of people do. You know, imagine getting away with something for a very long time. Like being a podcaster. who knows his stuff and has multiple degrees, all kinds of special abilities at a certain point. High IQ.

You can pretty much say anything you want because you've gotten away with it for so long. Now, I'm not talking about anybody in particular. You're just randomly suggesting. Yeah, this is just a wild example. Yeah. In the spring of 1828, an elderly woman. named Elizabeth Holden, Lodged with Hair, and was smothered after she got drunk and fell asleep in the stable. Months later, Elizabeth's daughter, a woman named Margaret or Peggy, staying at the lodging

house, asked questions about her missing mother. She and Burke drank together, and he killed her without hair's assistance, then took the body to Knox. And the other thing that I'm seeing here, Gibbs, is that they primarily are targeting women. And my thought is there's probably a couple of reasons for that. First and foremost, we're probably thinking easier for us to overpower. Sure. Yeah.

A woman. And maybe easier to get them back to the lodging house. I would think so. Based on maybe some type of ruse of a romantic encounter or something along those lines. But some of not. as students recognized Elizabeth Holden and her daughter when their bodies were delivered to the anatomy school. And, you know, this was something that I thought would come up. You know, you're talking about hundreds of students seeing these dissections. At what point would somebody in the crowd

happen to know one of these individuals maybe start to ask questions? Yeah. Hey, that's my friend. or that's my friend's mother or, you know, whatever it may be. If you think about it, this Dr. Knox is being pretty indiscriminate and buying bodies. He doesn't know who these people are. He just wants the fresh body. Well, and it's not like, you know, you're getting them from another country or even another city. These people are all coming locally. Yeah.

So a much higher chance that they're going to be recognized. Yeah. It's just a matter of time, right? Which it was before it got to this point. In May 1928, an elderly woman lodged with hair and was smothered by Burke alone, then sold to Knox. After this, a woman named Effie, who scavenged through trash to find items to sell, was lured into the stable by Burke. Burke knew Effie because she sold him leather scraps for his cobbling business. Hair also participated in this murder.

And I think what we're seeing here is, you know, they started out kind of doing this together. And then at a certain point, they must have felt comfortable each of them murdering on their own. Well, maybe they were doing this because they could kill more people. Well, yeah. If you have two people acting independently, I guess you could. I also thought it was interesting that Burke chose to murder a woman. woman with whom he did business. This wasn't a stranger. You know, so I feel like these two were taking a lot of risks. Number one, they were killing these people at the at the lodging house. What are the chances

that someone saw these women going to the lodging house with these men? Sure. And then they were never seen again. Now he chooses to kill someone who sold him leather scraps for his business. Burke found the next victim when he was out in the city. The woman was drunk and being escorted home by a constable. Burke offered to walk her home. The officer agreed and she was taken to Hare's lodging house where she was killed. To me, that seems risky. Very risky.

The police officer saw me with her last. But obviously it was not a concern. Yeah, they didn't seem to have really any concern. In June, Burke and Hare killed an old woman and a dumb boy, who was her grandson. This was a direct quote from Burke's confession. According to Burke, the boy was sitting by the fire in the kitchen. While his grandmother was smothered in a bedroom, they picked the boy up and carried him to the same room where he was also killed. According to historic UK, Hare broke the boy's back across his knee.

Burke would say that this murder disturbed him the most. I would think it would be very disturbing. Well, you would think all of them would, but they didn't seem to have a problem killing women at all. Burke seemed to have a problem with hair killing this boy. And maybe it is in the way that he did it. I mean, that's such a graphic scene. Yeah.

breaking a boy's back over your knee. I'm trying to figure out why he was called a dumb boy. Yeah, I don't know why he called him that. Maybe he had, you know, what we would today call some type of learning disability or something like that. Now, most of the bodies were transported in a T-chest, but the chest was too small to hold two bodies. Burke and hair put the woman and her grandson into a barrel, which was loaded onto a horse-drawn cart, Hare's horse refused to pull the heavy load all the way to Knox's lab.

So he had to call a porter to bring the barrel to Surgeon Square. Hare was so angry he shot his horse later that night. Wow, that solves the solution. You don't want to pull this body, this barrel? Well, I'm going to shoot you. Yeah, to me, it's just another indication of what these guys were all about. It seemed like to me everything in their lives centered around finding people to sell to the doctor. And here he's got a horse who doesn't want to pull the load.

And so his first thought is to get rid of the horse. And I don't know if he did, but I'm assuming get a new one. On June 24th, Burke and Helen McDougal traveled to Falkirk to visit Helen's father. Burke knew that hair was short on money. and had recently pawned some of his clothes. So he was suspicious when he returned to Edinburgh and saw hair with new clothes and cash. And I don't know how these guys could be short on anything. When it comes to money, they've been killing a lot of people and selling their bodies for money. But they could also have a spending problem. Well, that's true. There are some people who,

it doesn't matter how much they make, they spend it faster than they can make it. Hair denied selling another body. But when Burke asked Robert Knox, he told him he purchased the woman's body from hair for eight pounds. So, you know, this was not going to go over well. You know, this was a kind of a business Gibbs that I think they were in two together. They were not supposed to be operating independently. That's the thought that I got. Burke and Hare got into an argument that came to blow. Burke and his wife then moved in with his cousin.

But Burke and Hare soon patched things up. In late September or early October, Hare was visiting Burke when a washerwoman named Mrs. Hosler came to the property to do laundry. They got her drunk and killed her. And I get it, you know, you get into an argument, you don't like what one of the guys did, but you can also see why these guys would want to patch things up. You know, this is their livelihood. Now, they kill people and sell them to a

doctor for money. About a week later, Helen's relative, Ann McDougal, came to visit from Falkirk. She was also killed and sold to Knox. Burke would say that around this time, Hare's wife suggested killing Helen. She believed that. They couldn't trust her because she was Scottish, but he refused to go through with it. You know how those Scottish people are? Well, I'm Scottish, so. Hence the name, Fergson, son of Fergus. But now they're not just wanting to kill strangers or, you know, acquaintances.

We're into relatives at this point. It's all about the money. And if you believe Burke, it was Helen who suggested. killing her own relatives. The next victim was a mentally disabled man named James Wilson. James lived on the streets and was recognized by many people in the city. Herr lured James to the lodging house with the promise of whiskey and sent his wife to fetch birth. James was taken to a bedroom and Margaret locked the door.

James did not like to drink much. So he wasn't as intoxicated as other victims. He fought back. but was overpowered. We talked about it earlier, right, that the women were in on, you know, some of this as well. As we go through some of these details, I don't think there's any doubts that they may not have killed, but they participate in some form or fashion. And at the very least, they knew what was going on.

Yeah. Yeah, how couldn't they? I mean, they're locking doors. They're going to fetch people. At one point, Helen might have even suggested. one of the murders, you know, being her relative. And wouldn't at some point you'd want to know where the money's coming from? Not only that, but your, your husbands or your, your, your bows, your common law husbands,

whatever you want to call them, are bringing strange women to the lodging house and they're having drinks with them. Yeah. It's not like they weren't going to know that. I mean, I think they knew that and they knew exactly why they were doing it. But there was a problem with James because some of Dr. Knox's students recognized his body when it was brought to the anatomy school. And that doesn't surprise me. We said that, you know, here's a guy who lived on the street.

A lot of people knew him. They saw him every day. When it became public knowledge that James was missing, Knox removed his head and feet before the dissection took place. Well, he said, I'll take care of this problem. James had a birth defect that affected his feet, which would have made it easier for additional students to identify him and ask questions about how he died. So,

you know, the doctor's not looking great at all. I mean, we kind of knew that at the very least he would have a suspicion of how he was getting these bodies. I think at this point, kind of all doubt is removed. I think so.

If he's going to go to the length of, you know, cutting off this guy's head, cutting off his feet, that means to me that he was worried, that he was going to be, you know, implicated in some kind of illegal activity. I'm thinking he really enjoyed getting these bodies in. Well, I don't think he wanted that to end. I think he needed them. But he also didn't want to be, you know, put in jail or executed or whatever for doing something. illegal. This incident fueled suspicions about Burke and Hare's body snatching business. The final victim was an elderly Irish woman named Margaret Docherty. On October 31st, 1828,

Margaret was invited to stay with Burke and Helen at his cousin's home on the pretense that she was a distant relative of Burke's mother. There were two other lodgers in the house named James and Anne Gray. Burke invited. them to temporarily stay at Hare's lodging house that evening. At one point in the evening, Burke left Margaret with Helen and told the women he was going out to buy more whiskey. In reality, he was going to get hair. James and Anne Gray briefly returned to their original lodging house at 9 p.m. and saw Burke, hair, their wives, and Margaret Dockertie, singing and dancing. They were clearly intoxicated. At some point in the night, Burke and hair killed Margaret

and put her body in a pile of straw at the end of the bed in the gray's room. Well, you know, you used straw for your bedding back in the day, so I'm guessing there was some extra. Yeah. There was a pile there in case you needed to fluff up, put more into the bed. I know you like to fluff up. But here's the thing that we haven't talked about. You know, you're killing these people at this lodging house, well, there are other people staying there. So you also have that risk involved. But if you're going to kill this woman, why would you put her in the room of some other lodgers? That just made no sense to me.

It seems risky. When the Gray's return to the Burke's cousin's lodging house the next day, they were told that Margaret was asked to leave because she was flirting with Burke. they were suspicious because they were not allowed to enter the room where they left some of their belongings eventually when they were left alone they discovered margaret's body hidden in the straw when they questioned helen mcdougal about it she offered them a bribe of 10 pounds a week to keep quiet but they refused to accept it and went straight to the police so they're good people unlike pretty much everybody else that we're talking about in this story yeah but again just how dumb was it to stash this woman's body in their room?

And why would you leave them alone with it? Yeah, I don't know if they, you know, had just gotten away with this for so long, had done it so many times that they were just brazen, not as careful. I'm not sure. I mean, why not just move them to another room? Like, you know, we enjoy you staying here with us. We want to move you up to the executive suite. Or the night.

Maybe put this woman in a room that somebody's not currently occupying. Yeah. Or take him out back or something. Burke and Hare realized they were about to be caught and quickly transported Margaret's body to Dr. Knox. Margaret's bloody clothing was found under the bed. The police then raided Knox's lap and found Margaret. James Gray identified the body of Margaret Dockery.

Burke, hair and their wives were arrested that same day. During questioning, Burke and Hare gave conflicting accounts and blamed each other for the murders. During the postmortem exam, it was determined that Margaret was probably suffocated, but this couldn't be proven. I'm assuming in 1828 there was a lot that could not be proven. I would think so. Burke and Hare were suspected of other murders, but there wasn't enough evidence for charges at that time. I just like how they turned on each other pretty quick. Yeah, again, something that happens quite often today.

You know, everything is, we're bonded. We're in this together until the, you know what hits the fan. And then, you know, it's every person for themselves. I'm out to save my, my ass, and I'm going to throw you under the bus if I have to. I think you would throw me underneath the bus immediately. If it was between me and you, absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind. You would say, he did it.

And they're like, well, we just stopped by to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood. I'd cut a deal before you even said your first word. Like, they're not even accusing us in anything. You already tell them I did it. I'd be in witness protection somewhere in the Southwest before you even knew what was going on. All we know is Mr. Ferguson said you did it. Did what? We don't know, but you're under arrest.

Janet Brown read about the murder in the local paper. And identified clothing founded Hare's lodging house as belonging to her missing friend, Mary Patterson. So, you know, again, you know, you can talk about these guys doing what they did, but they also were obviously not the, the smartest because they didn't get rid of some of the victims clothing. No, not the smartest tool in the shed. No, not at all.

Or the sharpest. Yeah, I don't think it's the smartest tool. But the good catch, I didn't even catch it. The police were worried about the lack of evidence in this case. So the crown offered hair immunity in exchange for his testimony against Burke and Helen. He readily agreed and gave details about the murder of Margaret Docherty and 15 other deaths. And I wonder how that went down because you would think it could have just as easily been Burke getting the immunity. to roll over on hair.

Always comes down to the first one willing to make the deal. And maybe that's exactly, you know, how it went. You say that a lot and it is true. I've made a lot of deals in my day. And you've rolled on a lot of people. Got to do what you got to do. Uno number one right here. And it's amazing that you've been able to podcast

and do everything you've done in your life while within the witness protection program. It's a great program. It's my second time in it. Hare's wife Margaret would also testify against Burke and Helen. So it sounds to me like Burke and Helen are going down. William Burke's trial started on December 24th, 1828. The following day, Burke and Helen were charged with the murders of Margaret Docherty,

Mary Patterson and James Wilson. The trial was sensational because it exposed what went on behind the scenes in medical schools throughout the UK. And I could see why, you know, this would be sensational. I don't know that your everyday person would have known this was going on. And would you be shocked? Let's say if, you know, you sent your kid to medical school to find out that, you know, they were studying or being taught by someone who was using murder victims. Well, that would be pretty eye opening.

Robert Knox was not questioned in court, but one of his assistants testified that Heron Burke supplied him with several corpses. Under cross-examination, Hare testified Burke was the sole killer, and Helen McDougal was involved in bringing Margaret Doherty back to the house. He told the court that he assisted in delivering the body to knock. He was asked about the other murders, but was not required to answer because the trial focused on Dockerdie. Okay. You don't need to answer that.

Because it's not about anybody else right now. But isn't he also lying? Of course he is. He's saying that he didn't kill. But I don't know if the prosecutors care right now. They're trying to focus in on Burke. Yeah, I just get the feeling that it would happen differently today. If you were to make a deal, the deal would involve you telling the truth, even admitting

your role and your responsibility, you would just either get immunity or a reduced sentence. Margaret Laird got on the stand holding her sick baby. She used the baby's coughing fits to give her time to think about her answers and told the court she had a poor memory and couldn't remember anything. It's a pretty good scam. Well, how many times have you seen people, mothers, testify holding their baby? I don't think that would even fly. Why today? No, no, it wouldn't. But good trick, right? You need time to formulate an answer.

Well, if you take too long on the witness stand, it makes you seem as though you're formulating a lot. Yeah, I mean, you can take some time on the stand, but too much time. Doesn't look good. Yeah, it makes you look guilty. But if your baby's coughing, then maybe you get a little extra time. The defense called no witnesses, but Burke and Helen's pre-trial declarations were read to the court. Burke was convicted of the murder of Margaret Docherty and was sentenced to death by hanging. Helen McDougall was released after the jury determined the charges against her were not proven. This meant that she was acquitted but not declared innocent. After she was released, Helen was followed by vigilantes who wanted her death.

back in the day when they'd be like, just go ahead and let her out or take care of her. Don't worry about it, Judge. We got this. Well, maybe some of those were family members of some of these people who, you know, were killed in such a callous way solely for money. And they weren't happy. I'm assuming that, you know, she got off kind of Scott Free. Burke gave two full confessions after his trial.

He gave his first confession on January 3, 1829. and his second was published in the Edinburgh Current on February 7, 1829. His timeline differed between the two confessions, but he said that Robert Knox had no knowledge of their crimes. He explained that he and Hare were normally drunk when they committed the murders, and he couldn't go to sleep without a bottle of whiskey at his bedside. Burke said that with the exception of Margaret Doherty, they never grabbed a person by the throat or leapt upon them.

them when they killed them. He also claimed that Helen and Margaret Laird had no knowledge of the murders. So, you know, he is protecting some people. Sure he is. The doctor, his wife, Hare's wife. Now, he is saying that Hare committed murders, but it was this part about they never grabbed a person by the throat or leapt upon them. Well, what does that matter? You ended up killing them. Exactly. up there not. Burke was hanged on January 28th, 1829. Over 25,000 people, Gibbs, witnessed the execution. That's a big showing. That is a lot of people. People living in tenement buildings overlooking the scaffold, charged an admission fee, so that onlookers could get a better view. I wish I had those type of numbers on the weekends. At some of your shows? Yes, not the 25 that I hit. Well, I don't think there's

any doubt that people have always had some type of perverse infatuation or maybe that's not the right word curiosity with death oh yeah i believe that you go back to the roman times sure the coliseum public hangings people wanted to see it yeah people always showed up for that type of stuff it was a big event you know there have been people somewhat recently who have posited that you know if Executions were put on pay-per-view. They would do huge numbers. I think they would. I hope it never happened.

Yeah, I'm not advocating for it. After Burke's body was publicly displayed, it was donated for dissection. And it's kind of like the ultimate irony, right? He killed these people for money, but so that their bodies could be dissected. Once he was killed, his body was going to be dissected.

Now it's his turn. And it was publicly dissected on February 1st, 1829 at the University of Edinburgh's Anatomy Theater. Alexander Monroe III led the dissection and used Burke's blood to write, this is written with the blood of William Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh. This blood was taken from his head, per the University of Edinburgh. It's a little strange. It's kind of macabre. Yeah.

I mean, you're going to use your finger or an instrument, dip it in blood and write this? Kind of thinking maybe you should look into Monroe a little bit. Anatomy students made souvenirs out of Burke's skin, reportedly using it to bind their books and cardholders. That is so weird. I mean, that's some Ed Gein-type stuff there. Burke's skeleton is still on display at the anatomical museum in Edinburgh. And this is what? Almost 200 years later,

the Edinburgh Surgeons Hall Museum also has a pocketbook bound with Burke's skin, which is labeled Burke's skin pocketbook. I hear it smells really good. I don't know. When I was young, we used to take like paper bags.

You get it to supermarket. Yeah. And that's what we would use to make like textbook covers. Yeah, same here. Did you do that? Yeah. Never really used a person's skin.

No, never. thought about it actually. I mean, I never understood why we were covering the books anyway. It wasn't like I was going to open. Oh, did I just say that out loud? Yours was never going to get messed up. Yeah. It got returned brand new like it did what it got handed out.

I just thought that was so strange. The writing in the blood, allowing some of these students to make souvenirs out of his skin. And why would you want to walk around with this guy's skin? I don't know. Every time you get out a shilling. You got to crinkle this guy's skin, his little sack or whatever, to get your shilling out. They say they took his, you don't know where they made, you don't know where they took the skin from.

Yeah. Could have been his little sack or sacks. William Hare was released from prison in February 1829. He initially fled to Scotland, but was recognized. The police helped him leave town and get to the English border where he disappeared. So he didn't do hardly. any time in prison. And I'm assuming that's based on the deal that he made. Sounds like he made a good deal. No one's really certain what happened to him. Allegedly an angry mob caught up with him and threw him

into a lime quarry and he spent the rest of his days on the streets of London. Some believe he returned to Ireland. Helen McDougal and Margaret Laird fled Edinburgh after the trial. Helen reportedly went to Australia and Margaret to Ireland. it would be several years before Robert Knox was able to move on from the public condemnation of being involved in the scandal, the Royal College of Surgeons pressured him to resign. Knox moved to London where he failed to get a job as a teacher. He worked as an anatomist at the Free Cancer Hospital and published several books before he died in 1862.

So I don't know that, you know, really anybody came out of this thing unscathed. obviously Burke lost his life. He was hanged, but everybody else involved to a lesser degree, had their lives changed, altered, people were after them. They had to at the very least get out of town. Right. And this doctor's reputation was ruined, essentially, which it should have been. Burke and Hare inspired others to kill for profit. In 1831, a group of men, who called themselves the London burkers sold victims to anatomists. This guy was really famous, this Burke guy. Yeah.

I mean, not to mention the fact that people were walking around with purses made out of some of his skin, but, you know, the fact that his name became synonymous with selling bodies for profit. You know, it's kind of like a gibby.

You know, when you mess up something, we call that a gibby. I don't mess up. Ever. Ever. The Anatomy Act of 1832 gave doctors, lecturers and students

greater access to bodies from prisons and workhouses and allowed the public to donate their bodies to science. And it really was this act that helped in the body snatching trade. And you can see why that would be a good thing. Oh, absolutely.

It wasn't like the need for bodies was going to subside. I would think if anything it was going to increase, you're going to have, you know, a greater population. You're going to have more people wanting to be doctors. Cadavers are going to be needed to make that happen. So let's figure out a way to keep these people from either killing people outright, right? Or digging up bodies out of fresh graves to sell to these doctors. There were many body snatchers during the 19th century, but Burke and Hare became infamous because they murdered victims with the sole purpose of selling their bodies for profit.

Profiteers. And I think the fact that this guy's skeleton, Burke's skeleton, is still in, you know, that museum 200 years later shows you just how infamous they were. I'm sure there were tons of body snatchers. Nobody ever knew their name. Right. You know, these guys took it further. They decided to bypass waiting for someone to die and went ahead and killed individuals for profit.

Yeah, grave robbing is pretty low, right? It's pretty a nasty thing to do. Sure. You're messing with a dead body. You're also messing with the family. But killing people is obviously far worse. I just felt like they were very brazen. or not smart.

And I'm not sure which one in the way that they did think. It wasn't like they were doing things with a great degree of cover or planning. It didn't seem like. It was like, okay, let's bring people back, get them drunk, kill them. Well, it worked for a while. Yeah. They did kill, what, 16 people in a pretty short amount of time. Yeah.

It just seemed like a model that was unsustainable. the way that they were doing. It was just going to be a matter of time before somebody caught on. And that's what happened. That's it for our episode on William Burke and William Hare. We got some voicemails Gibbs. You want to check those out? All right.

Let's hear them. Did you say, like a pirate? R, I did. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Erica from Boston now. I'm calling because during the Dale Wayne Eaton episode from quite some time ago, you guys were talking about how the phones have now crash detection well i didn't even know that was a thing

until may first when my husband was in a very very serious car crash the phone sent a notification to ems as well as to me with the exact coordinates of his location if he had had to wait for someone driving by to make that call who knows what how long it would have taken not to mention that they wouldn't have the exact location results of the accident could have been far different if there were different kind of delay in medical attention. He's actually since passed away from a different medical issue, but I had guys, him listening to your show, and he absolutely loved it. So I thank you for bringing that joy to him in his last few months.

Anyway, keep doing what you doing? Keep your head on a swivel and keep your own time chicken. Oh, we love you. We do. And obviously, that was very emotional for her, but for us as well. And to me, Gibbs for two reasons. You know, number one, obviously, very, very sorry to hear that, you know, she lost her husband. But the fact that she was emotional about us bringing him a little bit of joy, that really touched me very much.

Yeah, me too. So I don't know what else to say about that because now I'm emotional. But we appreciate you calling in very, very much. Hey, what's up, Mike, Gibby? This is Tats and Katz, Colin from the LC of New Mexico. I just want to say, love you guys' podcast. You help me get through a lot. The days where I just don't want to be at work or at the gym,

talk to you guys on, making me laugh. I don't know where you guys' banter. Great. I was listening to another podcast, and then you guys randomly came on on the episode of The Nightstalker, which happened to be, or which happens to be sewer killer,

I'm most, like, fascinated with. Since then, I've been listening to you guys. I'm on Gacy right now. great coverage great information i love how you guys get in depth get gory i'm sorry mike team givie from love from mexico you guys keep doing what you're doing keep your own time kicking have a great there's an awesome guy right at the point where he said team gibby before that you weren't even listening oh no no i was all in all you don't you don't start to get animated until somebody says team gibby and then you're all in now we appreciate you calling in very much

we do and thanks for the kudos That's it, buddy, for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike, and give you. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.