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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, the podcast dedicated to serial killers, who they were, what they did, and how.
I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Vyborg Thun. And tonight, we are back in... More precisely, we are in Scotland. The land of bagpipes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Haggis. Your humble host's university. And, of course, many tales of grisly murder.
But we are not delving into the story of a contemporary killer tonight. As with last week's episode, we stay in the 1800s, more precisely 1827. Here, dear listener, is a poem to introduce this evening's subjects. Up the close and down the stair, butt and bend with Burke and Heave.
Burks the butcher, here's the thief, knocks the boy who buys the beef. Great things are happening to the Serial Killer Podcast, dear listener. Thanks to you, my sponsors, and of course my very dear Patreons. I am from now on able to publish a fresh new episode every single week.
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The Regency era in Great Britain was a period when King George III was deemed unfit to rule, and his son ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent. It ended in 1837 when Queen Victoria succeeded William IV. The Regency is noted for its elegance and achievements in the fine arts and architecture.
This era encompassed a time of great social, political and economic change. War was waged with Napoleon, and on other fronts, affecting commerce both at home and internationally as well as politics,
Despite the bloodshed and warfare, the Regency was also a period of great refinement and cultural achievement, shaping and altering the social structure of Britain as a whole. Even though the era is noted for its budding elegance, the dark and filthy streets of Edinburgh were anything like it at the time.
Hard-working Irish immigrants by day, scheming murderers by night. William Burke and William Hare were a unique pair of criminals who made a profit from providing dead bodies to the anatomy students of 19th century Edinburgh.
Edinburgh's population of university students and practicing anatomists created a unique market for fresh corpses that prompted Burke and Hare to enter into an illegal trade.
Acting on a strict code of no questions asked, the financial rewards of Burke and Hare's crimes led to a series of 16 murders spanning a period of just under a year. And had the two criminals not allowed their greed to consume them, they may never have been caught at all.
In early 19th century Britain, the law stated that only the bodies of executed criminals could be used for autopsy purposes. But with the ever-growing popularity of anatomy studies, the demand for fresh corpses soon outstripped the supply, and grave robbing became common practice among criminals who wanted to earn an easy pound.
Murder for money is not an original concept by any means. But Burke and Hare had a new perspective on killing for financial gain. Usually they had little interest in the wealth of their victims. All they needed was a fresh corpse to sell.
Burke and Hare are reported to have first met in Edinburgh, after both men had left their native Ireland to work on the Union Canal in Scotland. However, it was not until Burke moved from Leith to Westport with his partner Helen MacDougall that he and Hare actually met. Hare had settled at a boarding lodge with a recently widowed woman named Margaret,
The two had struck up a relationship soon after her husband's death, and they ran the lodge as if they were a married couple. After a chance meeting, it was Margaret who introduced Helen and Burke to her partner, and the couple soon became paying lodgers. The two couples were never the best of friends,
But their love for drinking and easy money-making schemes made them murderous much. Ultimately, their real dislike for one another would lead to their downfall. In 1827, one of Hare's lodgers, an old man named Donald, fell ill and died. His death was of no real concern to Hare,
except that Donald owed him four pounds in rent. Such was Hare's anger that he began to consider how the dead man could pay off his debt. Aware of the demand for corpses by anatomists, Hare hatched a plan. On the day of the funeral, Burke and Hare took Donald's body from the coffin and replaced it with a sack of bark.
Later in the day, they removed the body from the house and took it to the anatomy offices of Professor Robert Knox. They were asked to return after nightfall, and on doing so, they were paid £7.10 for their efforts. Back in 1827, £7.10 equalled about £800 today.
So it was immediately obvious to Burke and Hare that they had stumbled upon a very lucrative business model. This ready cash made the pair contemplate a risky, but ultimately effortless, money-making scheme. Grave robbing was labor-intensive, and the quality or freshness of a corpse was not guaranteed. However—
Committing the murder themselves would be an easy way to ensure the supply of fresh, quality corpses for sale. And they didn't have to look very far for their first victim. Another of Hare's lodgers, a miller named Joseph, had fallen ill not long after Donald's death. Though he was not seriously ill, Burke and Hare took it upon themselves to put an end to his suffering.
After several glasses of whiskey with the two men, Joseph passed out, and by holding his nose and mouth closed whilst the other restrained him, Burke and Hare had, by chance, discovered their very own signature murder method, their modus operandi.
By suffocating the victim, they provided the anatomy students with the fresh, undamaged cadavers that they needed. Here, dear listener, I think I need to expand a bit regarding the murder method. I have in other episodes described how strangulation often can be one of the most brutal and painful ways of murdering someone.
This is due to the larynx being crushed, the blood vessels bursting at the neck, and the windpipe being constricted and sometimes destroyed, causing internal bleeding. However, holding the nose and mouth close is actually one of the more humane methods of murder, if one can call it that.
It is still a traumatic way to die, as the panic of not being able to take a breath, followed by the increasing headache and convulsions caused by lack of oxygen, is very much a painful affair. But there is no physical destruction of tissue, and when the brain is deprived of oxygen, unconsciousness follows relatively rapidly, especially if the victim is caught by surprise.
as the case often was with Burke's victims. In addition, many of Burke's and his victims were severely intoxicated as they were being killed, and alcohol effectively dulls the pain of strangulation. From then on, their victims ranged from sickly lodgers to old prostitutes, and in the first four months of 1828,
Their killings were limited to nameless individuals that would cause no questions to be asked.
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But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging bears and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night. For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it.
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Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. However, in April 1828, local prostitutes Mary Patterson and Janet Brown were out drinking and met up with Burke.
He invited them back to his brother's, where they continued to drink. While Mary slept off her excessive drinking, an argument broke out, causing Janet to leave. She told Burke that she would return for Mary later, and went to visit her old landlady, Mrs. Laurie.
After relaying the morning's events to her old friend, Mrs. Lorry became seriously concerned for Mary's safety and told Janet to return for her at once. A servant accompanied Janet to Burke's, but on arrival they were told that both Burke and Mary had gone out. Janet insisted on waiting at the lodgings and asked the servant to return to Mrs. Lorry and tell her the news.
Still suspicious of the whole affair, Mrs. Laurie sent the servant straight back to Berks and suggested that Janet must leave. By this time Mary's body was already on the way to Dr. Knox, but thanks to Mrs. Laurie's warning, Janet had escaped a similar fate.
Following Mary and Janet's visit to the Burkes house, the next five victims were deliberately chosen so that they wouldn't be recognized by the students and the local community. And it was around this time that the two couples fell out. Burke accused Hare of supplying Knox with bodies behind his back, and it was agreed that Helen and Burke would move out on their return from visiting Helen's relatives.
Once they returned, Burke and Hare's greed and apparent laziness drove them to kill much closer to home. This time they picked Anne McDougall, a relative of Helen's, who was lured to the lodging house, attacked, and strangled to death. Whilst Burke had no qualms about Anne's final demise, he did ask Hare to carry out the actual killing.
Carelessly, their next three victims were central to the local community and therefore easily recognized by the paying students who attended Dr. Knox's classes. Mary Haldane was an aging local prostitute who agreed to partake of a dram at Hare's lodgings.
On being told that her mother had been seen with Hare, Mary's daughter, Peggy, decided to pay his lodgings a visit. On arrival, Hare said that Mary had visited, but had left. He then invited Peggy in for a drink, and before long she joined her mother and Dr. Knox's. Both bodies fetched ten pounds each.
The neighborhood grew suspicious at these disappearances. Mary and Peggy were familiar faces, but a risk-taking didn't end there. Known as Daft Jamie, James Wilson was a local entertainer and extremely popular with children. Easily recognized by his deformed foot, caused quite a stir at Dr. Knox's class.
Yet despite several inquiries, Dr. Knox strongly denied that the body was that of James Wilson. The events preceding their final killing undoubtedly led to the downfall of Burke and Hare, and had their new lodgers, James and Anne Gray, been of a similar moral disposition, they may have joined the foursome in their criminal careers.
Mary Doherty met with Burke by chance on the morning of Halloween 1828, having convinced her that she and his mother were related to Mary. She returned to the lodgings with Burke for a drink. Burke offered her a room, and the Grays were moved out and given a room at the Heirs'.
Late that night, after drinking and dancing, the Burks' neighbors claimed they heard arguments at the Burks and a voice calling murder. They set off in search of a policeman, but having no luck and hearing no more shouting, they decided to go home. The next morning, the Greys returned to the lodgings to find Mary gone.
Helen claimed that she had been overly friendly towards Burke, and they had kicked her out. In truth, Mary was yet to leave the building, as her body was laid under the spare bed and covered in straw. During the day, Anne approached the spare room and was sternly warned to stay away.
Suspicious of why Burke should be so defensive, James and Anne waited until they were alone in the house, and after a brief investigation, they found Mary's body. The Greys immediately confronted Helen, who panicked and offered them ten pounds a week to keep quiet. The Greys refused and left the house to get a policeman. Burke and Helen were taken to the police station for questioning.
and when interviewed separately, their stories didn't match up. At the same time, an anonymous tip led the police to Dr. Knox's classrooms. Mary Doherty's body was found and later identified by James Gray. The Heirs were also arrested, and slowly the police began to uncover the real reason for the sudden disappearances in Westport.
Unsurprisingly, none of the four had the chance to go over their story and Burke blamed Hare for the murders, claiming he knew nothing of what had been happening. After a month of indecision, the police offered Hare immunity if he testified against Burke and Helen.
and on agreement Burke and Helen were charged with Mary Doherty's murder, and Burke with the murders of James Wilson and Mary Patterson. The trial began on Christmas Eve, 1828. Both the Heirs testified against the Burkes, and several witnesses told of victims they had seen with Helen or Burke prior to their disappearance.
On Christmas morning, after just 50 minutes of consideration by the jury, Burke was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, and Helen was freed. During the month between Burke's sentencing and his execution, he made two thorough confessions detailing 16 murders that he and Hare had committed, though the order was inconsistent.
Contrary to popular belief, Burke and Hare were not infamous grave robbers. In fact, there is no proof to suggest they ever robbed a single grave. William Hare was released in February 1829, and many popular tales tell of him as a blind beggar on the streets of London, having been mobbed and thrown in a lime pit.
However, none of these reports were ever confirmed. The last known sighting of him was in the English town of Carlisle. Helen travelled south, but she never managed to escape her past. According to rumour, she moved to Australia, where she died in 1868. Margaret is believed to have returned to Ireland, though, like Helen, she was mobbed wherever she went.
William Burke was hanged on the 28th of January, 1829, after which he was publicly dissected at Edinburgh Medical College. The dissecting professor, Alexander Monroe, dipped his quill pen into Burke's blood and wrote, This is written with the blood of William Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh.
This blood was taken from his head. His skeleton, death mask, and items made from his tanned skin are displayed at College Museum to this very day. McDougall was released since her complicity to the murders was not provable. Knox was not prosecuted, despite public outrage at his role in providing an incentive for the 16 murders.
Burke swore in his confession that Knox had known nothing of the origin of the cadavers.
Forever!
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