Grave Robbers Turned Murderers: The Sinister Story of Burke and Hare
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The early 19th century was a time of great medical and anatomical innovation in Europe. Universities often held anatomy shows during which doctors gave demonstrations of human anatomy on cadavers. The general public could buy tickets for these shows to learn about a brand new academic field, as well as satiate their own morbid curiosities.

At this time, the University of Edinburgh Medical School in Scotland was one of the leading centers of anatomical study in Europe, so they were naturally trying to profit as much as they could from these anatomy shows. Doctors who performed these demonstrations would use cadavers for their dissections. However, Scottish law only allowed dissections of prisoners, people who had committed suicide, and abandoned children or orphans.

Since not enough of these people were dying throughout Edinburgh to keep the university stocked with material, they were only receiving about five cadavers a year. Since anatomists paid good money for donations of bodies, around 7 to 10 pounds per body, which is between 770 to 1100 US dollars in today's money, people took to grave robbing to provide them.

These grave robbers became known as resurrection men, and anatomists would rarely ask questions as to how the bodies were acquired. At this time in Scotland, grave robbing fell into a legal loophole. It was illegal to disturb a grave, and it was illegal to steal property from a grave or buried body. But it was not technically illegal to remove the body itself.

Since grave robbing for profit became so prolific, graveyards began placing armed guards in watch houses all day and night as a deterrent.

Some graves were also protected with something called a mort safe, which was a cage that was placed over the grave to protect it from robbers until the body was too decayed to be valuable to robbers. This culture is what allowed two men with sadistic intentions, William Burke and William Hare, to wreak havoc on Edinburgh. When the payment in exchange for a dead body was too good to pass up, they would stop at nothing to keep their supply flowing.

Part 1: The Backstories William Burke was born in 1792 in County Tyrone, Ireland, to parents who were known to be devout Christian farmers. He was taught to read and write by a local Presbyterian minister, and reportedly had a comfortable upbringing for the time period. He eventually joined the British Army with his brother and served for seven years, until he became a manual laborer.

Around this time he met a woman and they got married, but this didn't last long. By 1818, he left her and the children and escaped to Madison, Scotland, where he got a job working on the Union Canal for another seven years. Here, he met a woman named Helen McDougall in 1819, who he would later marry.

The couple moved to Edinburgh when the work on the canal finished, where they briefly became clothed sellers, before Burke became a cobbler. Burke had a good reputation around Edinburgh. He was known to be hardworking and well-liked, and was described as jovial and kind. In 1827, Burke crossed paths with William Hare.

While in Edinburgh, Burke ran into a woman named Margaret Laird, who he had known in Ireland. Margaret introduced Burke to her common-law husband, William Hare, who ran a lodging house on Tanner Square in the west of Edinburgh. Burke and his wife Helen soon became residents at the lodging house. Less is known about the backstory of William Hare. While he could have been born around the same time as Burke, it is also likely that he was a bit younger.

Hare was also Irish, and likely worked as a laborer in Ireland before moving to Scotland, where he probably also worked on the Union Canal for a few years. Upon moving to Edinburgh, he began running a lodging house called Tanner's Clothes with his wife Margaret. Though Hare never learned to read or write, he floated between jobs in order to make enough money to pick up slack from the lodging house.

He had the opposite reputation of Burke and was not known to be pleasant to be around, often acting very violent and reactive, and often being drunk. Once they met, Burke and Hare were fast friends and visited the pub together most evenings. Part 2: The Murders

On November 29th, 1827, an elderly man named Donald began staying at Hare's Lodging House. Donald was a Napoleonic War veteran with no surviving family, and he depended on his military pension as he had no possessions or estate. While staying at the lodging house, he died of dropsy, the antiquated diagnosis for what we now know as edema.

Since he had nothing to his name at the time of his death, the local Catholic church was to give him a burial. A local carpenter who worked with the church made a coffin for Donald, which was delivered to the lodging house. The church undertaker put Donald's body in the coffin before it was bolted shut and left at the lodging house until they could come retrieve it on the day of his burial. Burke and Hare met at the pub that night to discuss this event.

They were furious that Donald's four-pound rent was left unpaid when he died. Drunk and enraged, the pair came to the only fair conclusion they could think of: they must sell Donald's body. Donald's barrier would be happening soon, so they had to act fast. Burke and Hare took Donald out of the coffin and put his body under the bed in his former room, before filling the coffin with waste and scraps from the tanners in the area.

It was enough to have the coffin weighing roughly the same as it would with a man's corpse inside. They headed to the University of Edinburgh that very night with Donald's body in tow. When they arrived, Burke asked around, looking for Professor Monroe. But a student they spoke to ended up sending them to Dr. Robert Knox, a freelance anatomy teacher who had set up a private class nearby that was in direct competition with the university.

Knox paid the pair seven pounds and ten shillings for Donald's body. Hare took four pounds and ten shillings, while Burke took three pounds and five shillings. Cash in hand, the men went on their way, with one of Knox's assistants telling them that they would be glad to see them again when they got their hands on another body. At this point, however, the men saw this as nothing more than a good opportunity, but it was nothing that they foresaw ever doing again.

About two months later, however, they would be back in Knox's office. Victim one. In February of 1828, a miller named Joseph checked into the lodging house. The man had a fever when he arrived, which Burke and Hare saw as the perfect coverup for him to end up passing away. Burke and Hare entered Joseph's room with a bottle of whiskey, kindly offering it to Joseph to help ease his symptoms.

Joseph obliged, and after he had had enough to drink, Burke and Hare shared a knowing nod, the signal that it was time to act. Their demeanors quickly changed. Hare grabbed a pillow and held it over Joseph's face, while Burke sat on Joseph's chest to prevent him from fighting back. This method of murder would be called "Burking" and would be even difficult by today's forensic standards to pin on anyone in particular.

Joseph died, becoming the pair's first murder victim. They stripped Joseph of his clothes, which would have been valuable at the time, and placed his body inside a wooden tea chest. After nightfall, they carried the chest to Surgeon Square, hiring a porter to help. When they arrived, Burke and Hare were greeted by Dr. Knox, who was pleased with the freshness of the body.

They were compensated 10 pounds for it, which is equal to about $1,130 in today's money. At this point, the men negotiated a contract, agreeing that this would be a regular arrangement. For this contract, Knox would give Burke and Hare 10 pounds per body during the winter when they could be stored and preserved better, and 8 pounds during the summer.

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Victim 2

Burke and Hare's second victim was an unnamed Englishman who was roughly 40 years old and stood just under 6 feet tall. The man was a match seller from Cheshire, who would come to live at the lodging house a week or so after Joseph was killed. The man had jaundice, which, again, led the men to believe that he would be the perfect victim since he was already sick and no one would question a thing.

Additionally, Hare did not want sick people staying at his lodging house, since he thought that might dissuade other people from wanting to stay there. They used the same method of burking to murder this man and brought him to Knox, who paid them their rate of 10 pounds. After this murder, Burke and Hare began expanding their operation beyond just lodgers at the house, and they began prowling the streets, since not enough sick people were coming in.

They preyed on the poorest populations in Edinburgh, thinking that they would be least likely to be missed. It was also at this point that Hare's wife, Margaret Laird, began taking part in the murders. Victims 3 and 4 The next murder is believed to have taken place on February 11th, 1828. Abigail Simpson was an elderly pensioner living in a nearby village who came into Edinburgh to sell salt.

She was lured into the lodging house by Hare and Margaret with the promise of a party with their friends Burke and Helen. Abigail was supplied with alcohol until she was too drunk to leave. In conversation, Abigail mentioned having a daughter, Hare, posing as a single man, offered to marry her, knowing that Abigail could not turn down the opportunity to get her daughter out of poverty.

After gaining her trust, the pair offered Abigail a room for the night where she could sleep off the whiskey. Abigail, in a drunken haze, was burked, but the men changed it up this time. Instead of using a pillow to suffocate her like their previous victims, Care used his bare hands. Her body was given to Knox and returned for 10 pounds.

Victim 4 in the spring of 1828, in a similar situation to Abigail's, Margaret lured a woman to the boarding house. She was offered whiskey, and the men assumed she would quickly become disoriented and tired. However, unlike the others, she had to be put to bed three times because she was having trouble sleeping. When Hare returned back to the lodging house after being away, Margaret told him that she had lured someone in and needed help.

He single-handedly killed her by smothering her with a blanket. He called Burke in to help bring the body to Knox, and they got another 10 pounds in return. Victims five and six. The next murder occurred on April 9th, 1828. Burke lured Mary Patterson and her friend, Janet Brown. They were two 18-year-old sex workers. Rather than bringing them to the lodging house, they brought them to Burke's brother's house, claiming it belonged to Burke.

Janet was very reluctant to go with the men, but ended up obliging. When Mary passed out from the liquor the men were providing for them, Burke tried to seduce Janet, and she reciprocated. Fortunately for Janet, Helen Burke arrived back at the house. Seeing her husband with another woman, she flew into a rage, causing Janet to flee. After Janet left, Burke and Helen killed Mary, who was still sleeping upstairs.

When Janet returned later looking for Mary, they told her that Mary had been taken to Glasgow by a client. Burke's wife kept Mary's clothes and her hair was cut to help mask her identity. They brought her body to Knox and were paid eight pounds. When one of Knox's assistants asked where they had gotten her because he recognized Mary, they told him that she had drunk herself to death at the lodging house. Unlike the other victims, Mary's remains were put on show since she was reportedly very beautiful.

Knox even commissioned a painting of her remains. Her body was on display for months until she was finally dissected publicly for an inflated ticket price. Victims 7 and 8 In the spring of 1828, Elizabeth Haldane stayed at the lodging house where she was suffocated in her sleep. A few months after this, during the summer, her daughter Mary showed up inquiring about her mother's whereabouts since she hadn't seen her in a while.

Burke and Hare reassured her that her mother was in good health when she left the lodging house, so she would surely be showing up soon. They offered her whiskey, which she drank until she passed out. The men suffocated her as well, brought her to Knox, and were given 10 pounds, the same price they had gotten for her mother. Victim 9

The identity of Burke and Hare's next victim remains unknown, and there is no information at all about this person, except for the fact that they were killed using the same method as the others, and the men were given the same rate of payment. Victim 10. Their next victim was a woman named Effie, who made a living by scavenging for scraps on the streets of the Tanner's Close area of Edinburgh.

Burke knew her because she had previously sold him scrap leather, which he used for his job as a cobbler. He lured her into the lodging house with the promise of whiskey, but she fell victim to the same operation as the others, and they received another 10 pounds for her body. Victim 11 After Effie's murder, Burke prowled the streets looking for another victim. When he noticed an intoxicated woman being assisted down the street by two policemen,

He figured that the men probably did not know the woman, so they would be none the wiser if he convinced them that he was her friend and that he would help her home for the night. He approached the men and thanked them for assisting his friend, assuring them that he would get her home safely. The policemen passed the intoxicated woman over to Burke, who took her to the lodging house, suffocated her, and brought her to Knox for payment that same night. Victim 12 and 13

That June, Burke and Hare noticed a frail old man on the streets and invited him in to have a drink at the lodging house. While this was happening, an old Irish woman with her 12-year-old grandson had also stumbled in to ask for help finding some friends and family who lived in the area. Seeing these two victims as more profitable than just one, they sent the old man out of the lodging house. The grandmother shared some whiskey with her hosts while her grandson sat by the fire to warm up.

After drinking a good bit of whiskey, the grandmother went upstairs to a room to rest for a bit. While in bed, she was suffocated by the two men, while Helen kept her grandson occupied downstairs. When it came time to kill the grandson as well, Burke and Hare were feeling conflicted. They didn't want to kill a child, but they saw him as a loose end that now needed to be tied up.

Burke was haunted by the fact that he had killed a child and began drinking even more to drown it all out. Since both the grandmother and grandson didn't fit in the tea chest that the pair normally used for transport, they were placed in a large barrel. Burke and Hare intended to use a horse-drawn cart to bring the barrel to Knox, but despite much persuasion, the horse refused to pull the cart.

The men instead hired a porter to help and were paid 16 pounds for both bodies. Later that night, in a fit of rage and frustration, Hare shot the horse for not cooperating. Soon after these murders, Burke and Hare had a falling out.

Over the summer, Burke and Helen left Edinburgh to visit some relatives. Upon their return, they found Hare and Margaret with a large sum of money that they didn't have before, shown off in the form of nice new clothes. Burke asked Hare where they had gotten all this money, but he was never satisfied with any of Hare's responses. So he turned to Dr. Knox, who confirmed Burke's suspicions.

Knox informed Burke that Hare had recently brought in a body and was given the usual pay. Burke felt betrayed by this, taking out his anger with Hare both verbally and physically. The Burkes moved out to another nearby lodging house, but just a few short weeks later, the men made up and were back on good terms. Victim 14. In September of 1828, Burke set his sights on Mrs. Hostler, a washerwoman who regularly visited the lodging house.

She befell the same fate as the others, and the men received the summer fee of £8 in exchange for her body. Victim 15 A week after the murder of Mrs. Hostler, Anne McDougall, one of Helen's relatives, was visiting Edinburgh. She was killed in the same manner as the other victims, but Burke had told her that he would have to do the bulk of the killing since Burke didn't want to kill family.

Not long after Anne McDougall's murder, the men had another falling out when Helen Burke suggested that Margaret Hare should be the next one killed since she was the only Scottish one of the four and therefore couldn't be trusted. From this moment forward, Hare was a bit distrustful and had doubts about the whole operation. Victim 16: James Wilson, a vagrant from the local area, would be the next victim.

Burke and Hare assumed that, since he was homeless, he would be an easy target because no one would miss him. It turns out that many locals in Edinburgh knew James from seeing him around town, and he was very well liked. James made a living by begging on the streets of Edinburgh, but was known to be friendly and always telling jokes to passersby.

Burke and Hare lured him in with warm food and whiskey. But unfortunately for the men, James wasn't a big drinker, so it took a bit more energy to restrain him. And he ended up punching Burke and throwing Hare off of him. Despite putting up a good fight, the men managed to overtake him, and they ended up successfully killing him.

when they arrived at Surgeon Square with James' body. One of Knox's assistants immediately recognized James and raised questions about how he died and where they found him. Knox immediately shut down this inquiry, denying that it was James at all. Knox removed James' head and distinctive club feet and put them into storage, hoping to remove any way of other people identifying James.

When Knox caught wind that people had noticed that James was missing and were looking for him, he quickly dissected the body before discarding the remains. Victim 17. On October 31st, 1828, Burke and Hare would commit their final murder. That night, Burke was at a pub where he came across a middle-aged Irish woman named Margaret Docherty. Margaret was a beggar who Burke donated money to, winning her trust.

Upon hearing that her last name was Docherty, Burke played upon his Irish roots to gain even more trust from Margaret. Burke lied and said his mother's maiden name was also Docherty, so they must be related. Burke invited Margaret to the lodging house, which Margaret happily accepted. Helen entertained her while Burke went to get hair and inform him that he had gotten their next victim.

While this was happening, James Gray, a former soldier described to be very tall and muscular, and his wife, Ann, had showed up to the lodging house. Burke asked James to leave temporarily, covering his rent for the night, claiming that Margaret was a relative that they hadn't seen in a while, so they wanted a bit of privacy. After murdering Margaret, they hid her body behind a pile of straw in the lodging house. Part 3: The Investigation

A passerby named Hugh Alston walked past the lodging house, where he had heard thuds and screams of help and murder coming from upstairs. He ran around for a while trying to find police to help, but he ultimately could not find anyone. He returned to the lodging house where he had no longer heard any noises, so he decided to just go home.

The following morning at 9 a.m., Mr. and Mrs. Gray returned to the lodging house. The house was eerily quiet, and there was no sign of Margaret, only Burke, who seemed a bit aloof and nervous. Upon their return, Anne Gray went to retrieve a pair of stockings that she had left lying near the pile of straw. Burke panicked and tried to dissuade her from going near the straw.

The couple reported that Burke was exhibiting very strange behaviors, such as sprinkling whiskey around the room. When asked why he was doing this, he replied that he was making room in the bottle. Later that day, Burke left the lodging house and the Greys, determined to find out what Burke was hiding behind the straw, went to investigate. The couple never could have imagined what they would find in the lodging house.

There, behind the pile of straw, was a lifeless body staring back at them. The body of Margaret Docherty. In a panic, the couple attempted to flee the lodging house, but Helen intercepted them at the door. She begged them not to tell the police what they had seen, offering them five, then ten pounds a week if they would keep quiet. But James Gray pushed past Helen, and they continued down the street in search of a police officer.

While the Greys were reporting what they had seen, Burke and Hare quickly brought Margaret's body to Knox for disposal. At 8pm that night, James Gray returned to the lodging house, accompanied by Sergeant Major Fisher of the Edinburgh Police. Burke tried to dodge the police by fleeing from the lodging house, but was quickly brought right back by Fisher. Burke claimed that he had thrown the Greys out for bad behavior, and they were falsely accusing him out of spite.

Fisher searched around the house for a bit and found nothing except for some bloodstained women's clothing under one of the beds. When Hare and Helen were asked about Doherty, they claimed that she had left on her own accord the previous night.

Despite this, the Hares and Burks were promptly arrested and questioned for hours the following day. The police immediately went to Knox for questioning, but it is unknown whether someone tipped them off or if Knox had garnered a reputation for buying bodies of people with questionable deaths. Knox protested the police's entry, but they pushed their way in and immediately found Margaret's body. She was brought to the police station where James Gray identified her.

The Burks and Hares were placed in four separate cells and questioned in four separate interrogation rooms. At first, Burke denied ever seeing Margaret Docherty, but he eventually changed his story. Burke alleged that an unknown man in a long coat approached him and asked Burke to mend his shoes.

Burke claims he brought this man to his room in the lodging house and lent him a pair of shoes to use while his were being mended. The man then asked Burke if he could leave a package in the lodging house, to which Burke obliged. This package contained the dead body of Margaret Docherty. Burke said he then chastised the man, who promptly removed the body, and Burke never saw him again.

After this story, Burke changed it again, reporting that Margaret simply got drunk, passed out, and died naturally. Though in this version of events, he did actually admit to selling her body to Knox. When Knox was interviewed, he freely admitted to buying bodies from Burke and Hare, since he knew that he technically hadn't committed a crime.

Additionally, since the victims' bodies had been long dissected, they couldn't be used as evidence. William and Margaret Hare and William and Helen Burke were all charged with the murder of Margaret Docherty, and their trial would be prosecuted by Sir William Ray, the Lord Advocate of Edinburgh at the time.

Sir William Ray had problems with the shoddy eyewitness testimony, lack of forensic evidence, and constantly changing stories. And he didn't think that much could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. He knew that if he attempted to try all four defendants, there would be insufficient evidence and they would all be acquitted. Because of this, in November of 1928, Sir William Ray offered William Hare full immunity if he gave information about the murders. Hare told him everything. Part Four:

the trial and execution. On December 24th, 1828, William and Helen Burke's trial began and was presided over by Lord Justice Clerk David Boyle. There was an immense amount of public interest in this case, and the courtroom was immediately flooded with spectators as soon as the doors opened at 9:00 a.m. Outside the courtroom, the Edinburgh Police Department posted 300 constables throughout the city to help keep the peace.

The trial began at 10:00 AM and ran non-stop for 22 and a half hours until they adjourned the following day. Court members even ate their lunch and dinner in the courtroom during the trial to save time. The trial began with the charges for Margaret Docherty's murder since her remains were the only ones still present. Of the 55 witnesses that were referenced, 18 of them were called to testify at trial.

including one of Knox's assistants, who reported being called to the lodging house to inspect the body. The final witness to testify allegedly caused Burke to scowl with anger as he took the stand. It was William Hare, and he told the court everything. At 8:30 a.m. on Christmas Day, the jury retired to deliberate for only 50 minutes. The jury was undecided on the verdict of Helen Burke, but they found William Burke to be guilty.

Burke was sentenced to death, and the judge ruled that he would be hanged, with his body publicly dissected, anatomized, and preserved for future generations to see. Burke's hanging took place in the early morning of January 18th, 1829, and it was a huge public event with as many as 25,000 people in attendance. Burke was reportedly calm and in good spirits on the morning of his execution,

The executioner allowed him to pray one final time before he was hanged and died instantly. On February 1st, his body was publicly dissected at the Anatomy Theatre of the University of Edinburgh, the same place where his victims were mutilated without their consent. Dr. Monroe, the surgeon performing the dissection, preserved Burke's skin as leather and bound it into a notebook, which is still on display to this day.

Dr. Monroe then dipped his quill into Burke's head to collect some blood. Using this blood, he wrote, "This is written with the blood of W. M. Burke, who was hanged in Edinburgh. This blood was taken from his head. Burke's skeleton was kept at the medical school at the University of Edinburgh and is still on display there to this day." Part 5: The Hares After the Trial

After the trials, William and Margaret Hare found it difficult to do much of anything in public without being accosted or even attacked. On December 16th, Margaret attempted to go to the grocery store, but the building soon became packed with volunteer executioners yielding various weapons such as knives and firearms. She was brought to a police station for her own safety, but the crowd followed her there and she had to escape out the back window.

The following day, December 17th, 1828, Margaret left Edinburgh, changed her identity, and was never heard from again. William Hare was released from jail on February 15th, 1829, where he had been staying in custody for his safety. Hare attempted to quietly escape the city in disguise on a mail coach, but the man who was sitting across from him was Erskine Sandford, the legal representative for James Wilson, one of Hare's victims.

Sandford created a scene aboard the coach, causing the other passengers to join in and attack Hare. When the passengers arrived at their destination, they told everyone in town who Hare was and what he had done, causing immediate attempts on his life. 100 constables had to intervene and help Hare escape via a police coach. When he got in the clear, he was told to start walking toward England and never return. He was never seen or heard from again.