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Burke & Hare: Murders for Medicine, Part 2
29 Plays5 days ago
This week's episode takes us back the city of Edinburgh during the year 1828. Grace explores the end of Burke and Hare story and how their murder spree would go on to change not only the city of Edinburgh but medical history forever. Additionally it shows the true meaning of Karma's a B*tch
Sources mentioned: Anatomy of Murders by Lisa Rosner
Trial of William Burke and Helen M'Dougal
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Part Two of Burke and Hare
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Harlots and Horses. It's me, Grace Artis, the host of this podcast. Today's episode is a continuation of the Burke and Hare murder for medicine story. So this is part two. so if you didn't listen to part one, just go hop on back and give it a listen or else you're going to be very confused because we're going to be jumping into the other half of the murders and you're not going to want to miss out. So grab a coffee. i Lord knows it's been a long day and long night. I'm already on my like second or third cup.
00:00:51
Speaker
So grab your coffee, grab your favorite drink and like let Let's dive into this and we're just gonna continue the story. So, excuse me a while I take a sip.
00:01:02
Speaker
We got this.
The Murders Begin: Elizabeth Halden and Daughter
00:01:03
Speaker
We're going back to Edinburgh during the spring of 1828 and the seventh and eighth victim were actually a mother and daughter. The mother went by the name of Elizabeth Halden.
00:01:13
Speaker
All we know about her was she was a stout old woman who according to Burke had but one tooth in her mouth and that was a very large one. Burke know he knew nothing further about her and that when he found her, she was sleeping among some straw in the Hare's stables.
00:01:29
Speaker
She was already apparently drunk at the time. Then he got her more drunk, and it was at that point that he and Hare suffocated her, burking her, if you will.
00:01:41
Speaker
And little like recap of the previous episode, Birking is where either Burke or Hare would lie on top of the victim. Because remember, that would compress the lungs.
00:01:52
Speaker
And then whoever wasn't lying on top would then go to the victim, put their hand over their mouth, and then plug the nose as that would cause the victim to die faster. And thus, Birking was born. making it almost impossible to tell if the person died from a strangulation or suffocation. And they did this with nearly all of their victims. So going back to Elizabeth, that is how they killed her, just like the others.
Shifting Victim Profiles: Effie and Others
00:02:18
Speaker
They kept her in the stable overnight, and they took her to Dr. Knox's the next day. The eighth was the daughter of Elizabeth. She went by the nickname Peggy, but her full name was Margaret, and she was actually murdered several months later during the summer.
00:02:34
Speaker
She too had lodged with Margaret Hare, and much like her mother, Burke said she was of idle habits and given much to drinking, which back in the eighteen twenty s was their way of saying politely she was a known drinker. She was like prone to alcoholic tendencies.
00:02:54
Speaker
Burke actually murdered her on his own and without Hare being involved at all. Peggy was not Burke'd. Instead, she drank a great deal and then she laid on the bed with her face downwards.
00:03:06
Speaker
And what Burke did is he kept pressing her down and she was soon suffocated. Burke argues that she was so drunk at the time that she thinks she was not sensible of her death as she made no resistance whatsoever. Like with Mary Patterson, she was taken to Dr. Knox's in the afternoon in a tea box, and she was given eight pounds for her body. The ninth victim was a woman who sold cinders whose name may have been Effie.
00:03:34
Speaker
Burke knew her. So once again, we're doing a shift in the victim profile here. So now we're starting to get more and more where Burke and Hare are getting kind of a little more like edgier with who they're going out with.
00:03:49
Speaker
because Burke knew this woman. He said her name may have been Effie, and Effie was known to actually do business with Burke. She would sell him pieces of leather that she found on the streets and thereabouts, and she would sell them to Burke as part of his shoemaking business for him to use. Burke led her into Hare's stable. She was given whiskey to drink until she was drunk.
00:04:14
Speaker
She laid down in a straw until she fell asleep, and then they laid a cloth over her and suffocated her as they did the others. She was brought into Robert Knox's dissecting room, and her cadaver sold for 10 pounds.
00:04:26
Speaker
I do want to give little bit of a like trigger warning for the next two as there is a child involved. So if that is not your thing, please feel free to skip ahead. So the 10th and 11th victims were an elderly woman from Glasgow and her grandson.
00:04:45
Speaker
It was late June, around mid-summer, and as Burke recalled, it was an old woman from Glasgow. He does not recall her name with her grandson, who Burke describes as being a dumb boy of around 12 years old who seemed to be weak in the mind.
00:05:00
Speaker
And this is all Burke's description. They were lodgers at Margaret Hare's house, and a woman was given a dram of whiskey and she fell asleep. Burke and Hare suffocated her afterwards. They removed her clothes, covered her with a bedding.
00:05:15
Speaker
The boy, on the other hand, was sitting in the kitchen. And this is kind of one of the most damning pieces of evidence that Margaret, Hare, and Helen McDougall, Burke's common-law wife, had to know at least some bit what was going on.
00:05:31
Speaker
Because the boy was sitting in the kitchen, Burke and Hare grabbed the boy, brought the boy back into the bedroom, carried him onto the bed that the grandmother was laying under.
00:05:43
Speaker
The men may have given the boy some whiskey too. They waited for the boy to fall asleep and they murdered him in the same manner and then they laid him alongside his grandmother. Now during the trial, and there are some pieces of press that circulate around there at this time, that
Recklessness and Public Murders
00:06:03
Speaker
Burke had murdered the boy by setting him ah upon his knee and breaking his back.
00:06:09
Speaker
I just want to point her out, and like Risa Rosner also goes into this as well, that this most likely not true at all. And just kind of like another piece of the fable to stir and create an even greater and eviler image of Burke.
00:06:25
Speaker
Because just want to remind everyone that... And like my friend Nicole, who shout out to Nicole, Burke was a little lad. He is 5'5", Hare is five four And the boy for even being like, and as Rosner points out in her book,
00:06:44
Speaker
Even a 12-year-old skeleton of being malnourished, the force it takes and requires to break a 12-year-old's spine, that is a severe amount of force. that is it Rosner says it would be near impossible to break pawn mat of someone the size and girth that is Burke. So she she points out that that story is most likely fabricated, and there is little probably truth to that story. and burke does describe it too. He doesn't say much about nearly all of the murders. Like we remember the story when Burke was describing the case of Mary and he had a whole interaction with Mary where remember he met her at the spirit shop. He took her to the brother-in-laws. They spent like a whole good part of the morning together and all he could say about her was about a sentence less than that. But with this boy, he describes it as a murder that as one that lies most heavy upon his heart and says he is constantly haunted by the the recollection of the piteous man I wish a boy looked in his face. So with that being said, it's very probably unlikely that Burke...
00:07:56
Speaker
did that upon his knee. Burke himself does confess that he, the boy, was suffocated in the same manner. These bodies as well, they weren't placed in a tea box like the other bodies were. These bodies instead were placed in a herring barrel. In the trial itself, Burke was very peculiar and very adamant on saying that the barrel was dry with no brine in it. He and Hare put the barrel in the stable and the next morning, transferred it to Knox's at the Surgeon Square. Because they had waited so long between the murdering of the grandmother and the young boy, rigor mortis had already begun to set in, the cadavers were so stiff, and the two bodies themselves had only received 16 pounds.
00:08:46
Speaker
for the two bodies and now we're deep into the summer of eighteen twenty eight and this marks another really kind of drastic shift in the victim selection of burke and hare because now they're very getting very sloppy in witnesses and doing this more so in public. They saw one opportunity, specifically Burke, in the 12th victim. Burke was seeing a woman who was drunk who was being dragged away to the watch house by two policemen. Burke, feeling very bold, calls out to the policemen, let the woman go to her lodgings. The police officer said, you know, we don't know where she's lodging.
00:09:28
Speaker
Burke responded that he would take her to the lodging. The woman was murdered the same as the others. She received 10 pounds from her from from Dr. Knox. And this just kind of points out like Burke and Hare were feeling so bold and so kind of like sure of themselves and like what they were doing that they were willing to like essentially like steal and go like right under the police's nose.
00:09:52
Speaker
to find and get victims now. And I believe at one point Burke was questioned about it and asked if he had a good standing with the police and he said he did or else why would he the police given over this woman to him. So it just also shows like kind of this like illusion of grandeur that these two men had as well. Now, as we move out of summer into the fall, there would be a brief break in killings as this would be kind of the period that Burke and Helen MacDonald had moved actually out of the Hare's lodging house.
00:10:28
Speaker
There were several reasons Rosner gave. One of the most, and I think kind of interesting, is that Burke was actually scared for Helen MacDougall's safety. And I can actually see kind of truth in that because as we see like later on and also previously, we see Burke kind of recalling that Margaret Hare was actually kind of trying to call the shots with a lot of the victims she was choosing.
00:10:55
Speaker
So it would make sense of why he was kind of wanting to get under the thumb, out of the thumb of these two people, especially his business partners who were now trying to seemingly call shots.
Miss Hostler and Landlord's Suspicion
00:11:07
Speaker
The 13th victim follows that same trend just as the 12th victim, and it's, in my opinion, it's kind of even more ballsy than taking a victim right from the police.
00:11:19
Speaker
When Burke and Helen had moved out of the Hare's lodging, they had moved into another house of lodging. That was owned and they rented from a man by the name of John Brogan. That house that they rented from had a washerwoman who was a well-known washerwoman.
00:11:39
Speaker
Her name was Miss Hostler. She had been washing one day, and Burke explained she came back the next day to finish up the clothes. And when done, hare and Burke gave her some whiskey to drink, which made her drunk.
00:11:53
Speaker
It was still daytime, but the two men were able to persuade her to go to bed, then murder her the same way they did the others. Then they put her in a box and sent her to the coal house in the passage, and they carried her off to Dr. Knox's in the afternoon of the same day.
00:12:08
Speaker
Knox gave them eight pounds for her. Not only are they choosing to murder a known washerwoman in their area, they're choosing to murder a woman who is under the employment of their like landlord. all like The audacity of these men.
00:12:27
Speaker
I just, it's kind becoming like outstanding at this point because like I just really want to know like how they thought they were going to get away with it. just want to know how they thought they were going to get away with it.
00:12:40
Speaker
I don't, so I don't know. don't know. And Rosner does point out that it was most likely that their landlord, John, did start to get suspicious. especially after their 14th victim, who was a cousin of Helen McDougall's first husband. So what we know is her name was Anne McDougall, and she, like I said, was a cousin of Helen McDougall's first husband.
00:13:07
Speaker
According to Burke, she was married and had come to Edinburgh on a visit. She, like the others, was given whiskey until she was drunk. She was put to bed. Burke said he did have some misgivings about killing her, and he told Hare he would have to have most to do to her as she, being a distant friend, he did not like to begin first. Hare, therefore, murdered her by stopping her breath with Burke acting as the assistant. Just like with the murder of Miss Halster, this also happened when the whole Brogan family was out. So the whole landlord and his family were out.
00:13:43
Speaker
But when Brogan returned from work, he noticed that there was like a fine trunk. He asked Burke, he's like, hey, there's this trunk here and it's a nice trunk. And it wasn't here when, you know, I left for work. So kind of tell me about it. And also, you know, I'm a little bit suspicious because, you know, our washerwoman has disappeared and we haven't heard from her. And now there's this really nice trunk that's sitting here and our house. And your cousin-in-law was here and now she's not here. And there's a body-sized trunk. Burke offered some whiskey and the three men discussed the situation. And the upshot was that Brogan would receive...
00:14:26
Speaker
one pound and 10 shillings from each man then and there, an additional three pounds after they delivered the body. And then in return, he would agree to leave Edinburgh for an unspecified period of time. So essentially he was paid off. For Anne McDougall's body, Knox paid 10 pounds for it. And then if we remove the pound fee for Miss Hare and then Brogan, Burke and Hare netted less than two pounds each from that body. So all three of these victims, while they didn't garner really much attention, you know, in the community itself, what Rosner points out and kind of like really what they shows is they all have a personal connection to both. They all have plenty of witnesses who saw them together.
00:15:12
Speaker
Like we have the policeman who saw the drunk woman give them to Burke. We have the Brogans who, I mean, not Mr. Brogan, but the wife of Brogan, the son of ah Brogan, and then all of the neighbors
Murder of Jamie and Community Impact
00:15:26
Speaker
of Brogan who probably employed the washerwoman as well.
00:15:30
Speaker
And then we have Anne McDougall's husband and other, like, relatives who knew that she was in Edinburgh staying with Burke and Helen McDougal, who now don't know where she is, but they do know the last time that she was seen was there. So it's all just like showing like how reckless these men were becoming for money and how just kind of like extreme they were getting. And this kind of like really just does cultivate in the 15th victim. who was at the time kind of like a beloved like member of the street. I mean, he was well known. I just want to say like the nickname that he has was something he was given at the time. That's the only reason I'm going to be saying it. His name was James Wilson and he was given the nickname of Daft Jamie. He was known to wander barefoot and bareheaded no matter the weather. Rossner says he was not so much daft or crazy as what would now be called mentally challenged. for he could be prevailed upon to perform odd but useful forms of calculation, such as telling the day of the week on which a given date would fall. Indeed, for the boys in Edinburgh, it was said he served as a walking calendar. Jamie sang as well and told jokes and broad scots.
00:16:47
Speaker
He didn't beg, that's not what he was known for, but he was often given gifts of food, drinks, snuff, and small coins. And a lot of households, like, made it a point to provide him with dinner and see that he was kindly entertained.
00:17:03
Speaker
He'd come from a local family. His mother was still alive. He lodged with his sister, Janet, who was married to a porter. She and her daughter, Mary, like looked after him. He was always said to be clean in person and his clothes. And even though he walked barefoot, his hands and feet, though uncovered, were observed to be always clean.
00:17:23
Speaker
So it just shows that like this Jamie was well looked after. It also separates him from all of the other victims. Like he wasn't a transplant. He wasn't a transient. He was someone local. He had people looking after him. He had people who were constantly checking in after him. And he had someone who was always a no about his whereabouts.
00:17:45
Speaker
So this automatically sets him apart from everyone else. During his confession, Burke said it was Margaret Hare's idea to murder Jamie. He said that she found Jamie in the grass market one day early October, that he was thinly clad looking for his mother.
00:18:03
Speaker
She persuaded him to come home with her leading him, Burke said, as a lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep to the shearers, as he was always very anxious, making inquiries for his mother, and was told she would be there immediately. Leaving Jamie with her husband, she went in search of Burke.
00:18:21
Speaker
So she left Jamie at her house. She went and found Burke at the store and essentially, like, let him know that there was a mark at the boarding house for him and Hare to take care of. If this is true, and that if what Burke is saying about Margaret Hare is true, just like Marguerite in the story I did over the casket girls, Margaret Hare can also like burn in the fiery beds of hell. Same with, honestly, like same with Burke and same with Hare. Like the, all these men can burn. They can all burn.
00:18:54
Speaker
But especially like if you were to like lure a young man who you can obviously tell is is going through this and he's anxious and you're luring him under the pretense that your mother is going to be there and I'm trying, like you can tell he's worried.
00:19:09
Speaker
Fuck you. Fuck that. You're a horrible person. like How dare you? And I know like as a historian, you're supposed to be like unbiased and everything, but I'm sorry, like that's fucked up.
00:19:22
Speaker
It's fucked up. So little
Confessions and Public Outrage
00:19:24
Speaker
rant over. So Margaret Hare got Burke, took him back to the house. She left Burke, Hare and Jamie in the room. The three men all shared a drink together and then perhaps another. All we know is that at some point, Jamie laid down on the bed.
00:19:40
Speaker
hare laid down next to him this sounds weird to me but this is what burke says when they had laid there for some time according to burke hare threw his body on top of jamie pressed his hand to his mouth and held his nose with the other hare and him fell off the bed and struggled burke then held his hands and feet they never quitted their grip till he was dead he never got up or cried any it was all twelve noon by the time they were finished This one with Margaret and with the boy really just like set in and just show like the monster activities that and the monster like behavior that is just like kind of lying and hiding underneath like Birken hair to me.
00:20:22
Speaker
That they can be just so willing to just do this and throw their body on top of poor Jamie and that he never got up and he never cried and that it was over by noon. And at the end of the day, this was just a boy who was looking for his mom.
00:20:35
Speaker
Burke and Hare also gave themselves and kind of died themselves into trouble here as well because Jamie had more personal effects than most of their victims. He had a brass snuff box which Hare took and he also had a copper snuff spoon which was a form of tobacco that you could inhale and sniff. Burke took that. Burke and Hare usually destroyed the clothes of the victims but instead Burke gave Jamie's clothes to his brother-in-law.
00:21:04
Speaker
A baker said he saw Constantine Burke, which is the brother-in-law, wearing a pair of trousers that he had originally given to Jamie. He saw Constantine. He's like, I didn't give you those pants. I gave those pants to Jamie.
00:21:18
Speaker
You're not Jamie. And then one of Constantine's sons was also likewise observed wearing one of Jamie's handkerchiefs. This also would be the second body that one of Knox's assistants would recognize.
00:21:32
Speaker
It was customary for you like on assistant to first arrive to the dissecting room in the morning and then Knox would come after. the body would already be on the table when Knox and his other assistants would arrive.
00:21:47
Speaker
When one of the assistants who went by the name of William Ferguson arrived that day and saw the body, he exclaimed, that is the body of Jaff Jamie. And the other assistants too agreed it was Jamie's body or his striking likeliness. the first assistant who went by the name Patterson, he said he looked at the body and he thought that it was a daft Jamie, but he said he could hardly credit the circumstances as he saw that person in the street a few days before in perfect health. So Patterson was like, there's no way it can be Jamie because Jamie was fine in perfect health. So there's no way he can be here. There's just no way.
00:22:27
Speaker
Knox to try and comfort the men or, you know, get on with business. He took one look at the cadaver, ordered it to be made ready for a dissection, and he assured his students that it could not be possibly anyone they know. Once the scandal, once the news broke, once everything and once word got out, all of Edinburgh was ready to believe and pretty much pretty much was on the defense that Knox must have recognized Jamie. Jamie was always wandering. Jamie was always on the street. Jamie was well known.
00:23:00
Speaker
Knox had to have known that this is Jamie. And then after four or five days, there were rumors circulating that Jamie had gone missing. No one had seen Jamie. Some years after, but Patterson, one of the assistants, he would appear certain in his published statements that and he would keep saying that, you know, the body looked like it could be, it could be Jamie's.
00:23:22
Speaker
But he said, you know, he hadn't examined it closely since since Dr. Knox stated that, you know, it wasn't. Yes, Jamie can be assumed to have some sort of physical deformities. He had been known to have a distortion upon one side that had a halt in his gait and was in the practice of walking with one arms contracted upon his breasts.
00:23:43
Speaker
But Patterson said, you know, he never saw the subject walk. And Jamie's feet were known to be peculiarly formed with one foot twisted or diseased by contraction, but he never observed the feet on the table or diseased or not.
00:23:58
Speaker
Ferguson, however, the one who exclaimed, that is the body of Jamie, he never wavered in his conviction that the body was Jamie's. He actually developed a reputation, and he became a one of the most impotent London surgeons of his generation and developed a reputation for never forgetting the face of a pupil. He told the police the toes were distinctively wide, and he believed it was Jamie's.
00:24:23
Speaker
So Jamie just like really shows just how bold
Margaret Doherty's Murder and Police Investigation
00:24:26
Speaker
the men have gotten. So the final victim, what we know about her is that she kind of just encompasses how bold the men had gotten and kind of like the story of Icarus. It's just like how far the men would fall and how pride becometh before the fall. So what we know about her is her name was Margaret Dougherty. She went by the name Magi, and this would all take place over All Hallows' Eve weekend, what we know in America as Halloween weekend. So the description of her, of what we have, is we know that she was between 40 50 years old.
00:24:57
Speaker
She was originally from Donegal, Ireland, but was lately residing in Glasgow. She had a few belongings with her, mainly a petticoat of in a few gowns. The reason that she was in Edinburgh at the time, it's not clear if she had originally come with her son or if she was looking for her son and got separated.
00:25:16
Speaker
Her son was older, he was an adult, but she was essentially looking for her son. And that is where she would cross paths with Burke, who upon meeting at a store, he would say, you're Doherty as well. It just so happens that i also am from Ireland and I am a Doherty. And you know, come the morning, come the next day, like I can also help you find your son. You also need a place a lodging. That's perfect.
00:25:42
Speaker
I can provide you a place of lodging. You can come with me and my wife and you can stay with us. So he takes her back to his his house, which was like a one-bedroom house. it's ah It was a tenement house, very small, and it was not big enough. And he actually, to make room for Maggi and the plan he has, because keep in mind, he brought her there with a purpose. He knows what he's going to do.
00:26:08
Speaker
He actually had to kick out a family who was residing there. a family whose last name were the Grays. and that would ultimately end up being his downfall he told the greys who it was ann gray and her husband i'm so sorry you can't stay with us anymore but you can go stay with my friends william and margaret hare we're back at Burke's place.
00:26:32
Speaker
Burke is sitting there. He gives her food and drink and then he leaves Maggi there all alone. Maggi then, according to the neighbor, whose name is also Anne, but she is Anne Conaway, Maggi wanted to leave and go find, you know, the news and words about her son and like, you know, where he was in Edinburgh. And at this time, she's like, you should...
00:26:57
Speaker
not go. You should not go on. You know, you would not find your way back. You know, you should let the police help you find him, you know, tomorrow. And you have also been drinking and you won't find your way back here if you if you go out.
00:27:12
Speaker
Anne Conaway was also very confused as to why Magi kept saying that she was staying with a man with Burke Donogherty.
00:27:24
Speaker
dawn on alerty Doherty, because there was no man with the last name Doherty there. it was William Burke. So, you know, that's what happened. Burke and his wife were still out.
00:27:38
Speaker
Ultimately, the greys, the hares, the Conways and Maggi, they all had dinner. They all had a bottle of spirits and and Conway, you know, because Maggi was staying at her place, you know, kind of like waiting for Burke to get back. And she was like,
00:27:55
Speaker
hey, can you leave to Magi? And, you know, she's like, need you to leave because my husband has to get up early for work tomorrow. And, you know, and we have to be up at 3 And Magi refused to leave until, you know, the Berks got back around 10.
00:28:14
Speaker
tenn And even though, like, Anne got Magi to leave, she said she still wasn't able to give much sleep because then the whole party of the hairs and the burks and then magic.
00:28:28
Speaker
It continued on over at the burks place. But a fight would ultimately end up breaking out around 11 p.m. A witness would hear a woman scream out murder.
00:28:38
Speaker
The witness, a man would go check it out and he would hear more murder screams from the woman and he would try to find police. He couldn't find a police officer. He went back to the rooms where he thought he heard the screams. He didn't hear anything else. And then he went back to to his lodging and he just blamed it on being Halloween. When he was called to the trials, he said he didn't push it further because he was more worried about it being a fire. And then he said, because there was no fire, i wasn't i wasn't worried anymore.
00:29:09
Speaker
It was estimated that Maggi was killed around 12 o'clock. So we don't know much about really how Maggi died, but this is what Burke said. It was probably around midnight. Maggi had been drunk and dizzy.
00:29:22
Speaker
She had laid down or had been pushed, Burke was not clear, onto the bed after she had tried to intervene in a fight between Burke and Hare. Burke positioned himself on top of her to compress the lungs and hair covered her mouth and nose with with his hands. Once she was dead, they stripped her of her body and put it under a quantity of st straw laying at the end of the bed. So Burke had already made preparations earlier. He had gone to the assistant of Dr. Knox, David Peterson.
00:29:48
Speaker
earlier. That's why he was late to the Halloween party. Peterson essentially said, come back when you have the body. Burke called Peterson after the deed was done Patterson came round to the tenement housing. Once Patterson was at the house, Burke, Hare, and the women had hoped that Peterson would take the body away at once.
00:30:08
Speaker
But it was after midnight and Patterson let them know that he's not a porter, he's not a transporter, and he's not going to be moving the body. so that they can handle this all in the morning.
00:30:20
Speaker
And that he let them know that he will be dispatching his 15 year old sister to discuss ah how they can transport the body the next day. The next day at nine, Patterson's sister went to call on Burke and he had told her that he has other things he has to take care of.
00:30:37
Speaker
However, come that morning, everyone in that that little neighborhood, their whole question was, you know, where's magic where's miss where's miss doherty what what what happened to her and some of the statements that you know helen mcdougall made did not put her in the best light because what she said is that she kicked the damn bitch of hell's backside out the door because she had been using too much freedom with William.
00:31:06
Speaker
And essentially, like, that came off a lot more suspicious and a lot more ill at ease, considering this woman, like, all that she had previously talked about was, like, I'm searching to find my son, I'm searching to find my son, like, that's all I want to do. And so now that this woman is mysteriously gone...
00:31:25
Speaker
There's kind of talks of a fight breaking out. And then to top it all off, Burke is now acting weird as well because Anne Conaway and Anne Gray kept saying how weird Burke was being because the Grays were allowed back into their house, back into the Burke's house where they were staying and back into the room specifically where Maggi was murdered because that was their room. Anne Conaway said Burke spilled and threw liquor all over the room, the bed, the straw, the ceiling, with the excuse saying he could just get more. The Greys were allowed back into their lodging room, but Burke yelled at them, saying that you know they could not approach the bed and not approach the straw pallet, and Anne Greys said it kept making her feel uneasy. So kind of the whole day passed, everyone's feeling, the whole occupants kind of like around this like little area are all feeling really uncomfortable, like all tensions are really high.
00:32:28
Speaker
Burke had to leave because he had to find a way to get the body out of there, out of that room, the sooner or better because... no matter the amount of liquor that he is spilling to try and hide the smell of the body and the smell of what they'd done, like no amount of liquor can like hide that.
00:32:43
Speaker
So he went to go find a porter. He had known this porter from previous deliveries. The porter knew what he was transporting. At one point, hair fell out of the tea box and he placed the hair back into the tea box.
00:32:58
Speaker
They had taken it to Knox's surgery, into the dissecting rooms. And one of Knox's staff received it at 6.30 p.m. It took nearly like a whole day for Maggi's body to be transported. However, earlier that evening, Anne Gray, because she knew something was wrong, because something was not adding up, her intuition was right, at one point, and because keep in mind, Maggi's body was sitting there under that straw and was probably not removed until like...
00:33:32
Speaker
say 6, 5 or 6 p.m. So there was a long period of time where that body was just hiding underneath the straw. Helen McDougall was gone from the house.
00:33:43
Speaker
Burke and Hare were gone from the house. So it was just Anne. And Anne went straight to the straw because she knew something was wrong. She said, I was looking for a purpose. I thought something was not right because Burke was throwing about the whiskey. And the first thing I got on lifting the straw was the woman's right arm. Her clothing was entirely gone, and when James Gray lifted her by the hair, they could see blood on the mouth and on the side of their head with her face turned towards the wall.
00:34:12
Speaker
The Grays knew that the dead bodies, stripped bloody, did not turn up under straw mattresses. They quickly packed up the belongings and left.
Trial and Burke's Conviction
00:34:20
Speaker
On the way out, they ran into Helen McDougall, who was just returning.
00:34:24
Speaker
They asked her straight what was going on. Helen McDougall fell to her knees, begging not to inform on them, offering James Gray a few shillings until Monday, following it with an incredible offer of 10 pounds per week. However, the Greys declined it. God forbid I should be worth money for dead people.
00:34:43
Speaker
How can McDougall bring such disgrace upon their family? My God, I cannot help it, McDougall replied. You surely can help it, said Anne Gray, or you would not stay in this house.
00:34:54
Speaker
The Greys hurried out the door only to run into Margaret Hare. What are you making a noise about, she asked. When told, the reason suggested that the whole matter could be cleared up with a few drinks at the local tavern.
00:35:08
Speaker
The Greys refused again. and they headed to the police station. Then the criminal officer at the police station, listened carefully but to the James Gray story. They took a patrolman as well as a James Gray, and they proceeded to the tenement house where they met Burke and his wife. They left McNewell there. They went back inside with Burke and Gray into the room. Fisher asked Burke what but had become of his lodgers. There was one of them, Burke replied, and he said there was a former lodger, for he had turned the Grays out.
00:35:40
Speaker
for bad conduct what had become of the little woman that had been there on friday the day before the policeman asked she was away burke replied she left about seven that morning burke said william hare can vouch for her fisher looked around the room noted blood near the bed and went back outside to talk to helen mcdougall So the police returned to the room later that night with the ah with a police surgeon, and they asked the neighbors additional questions, and they searched more carefully.
00:36:08
Speaker
They found Madgie's striped bed gown and fresh blood under the bed. They learned more about the Halloween party and its aftermath, and then they had been informed by a girl of the neighborhood.
00:36:19
Speaker
how she had seen Burke, his wife, and Hare, and his wife in the porter going up the stairs and then carrying a tea box coming out after. So because of hearing that testimony with the tea box and of the porter, it led them to the porter itself, which led them back to the Surgeon's Square and the dissecting rooms itself. William and Margaret Hare were arrested and taken to the police station. And same with Burke and Helen. So this is where things get interesting because even though they now have the body of Magi and they have her body, neither Burke or Hare or the two women will confess.
00:36:58
Speaker
And even though they have her body, because of the method of burking, They cannot tell, like I said, if she died of strangulation or suffocation. So they don't know if she died of natural causes or if she died because she was murdered.
00:37:13
Speaker
So the justices are kind of like all kind of, they're kind of at a standstill. And what they're realizing is if they don't get these men to turn on each other, nothing is going to happen. Some of these people are going to walk free. And so Sir William Ray, who had become the legal officer in this case, he realized he would need an informer.
00:37:36
Speaker
He knew the women would not work. Helen McDougall would not speak. Margaret Hare could not give evidence against her husband. He figured looking at Burke, Burke was the oldest. He was 36. Hare was 21.
00:37:49
Speaker
And so with that, Ray thought he might be more impressionable. And moreover, there was a stronger case to be made against Burke than there was against Hare. So they approached Hare and offered immunity, and Hare ended up turning on Burke. And Hare could have chosen to remain silent, and, you know, if they did, they never might have found hard enough evidence to indict Burke.
00:38:12
Speaker
But because Hare chose to turn against Burke, and because, spoiler alert, Burke does get found guilty. and sentenced to death.
00:38:23
Speaker
Burke does end up confessing later and that's where how we get all of this. So the trial itself would be against Helen McDougall and William Burke and it would take place on December 24th, 1828.
00:38:36
Speaker
And it only would take a day. For the trial would run continuously for 24 hours. It convicted Burke and executed him on Wednesday, January 1829. twenty nine And what Rosner states, and I think she put it very well, is in the end, it was neither the police nor medical men who were responsible for putting a stop to the murders.
00:38:56
Speaker
Who we have to thank for all of this was the lodger Anne Gray, because she recognized that something was wrong. She trusted her gut and she went with it. Burke and Helen McDougall were arrested that Saturday, November 1st, and they were placed in separate cells.
00:39:11
Speaker
William and Margaret Hare were arrested a day later, and they did not see each other again until the trial. So what it essentially ended up happening with the trial? Burke was formally charged with the murders of Mary Peterson and James Wilson.
00:39:26
Speaker
Maggie. Margaret. Doherty. Doherty. And the the defense said, you know, these are three unconnected murders committed at each at different times in different places. What the defense argued and challenged was like, we want to charge these each separately. And, you know, if he's found unguilty,
00:39:45
Speaker
of the first one, then we'll charge him of the second one. And if he's found unguilty of that one, then we'll move on to the third. And that way, it's essentially saying like, so you can be unbiased and not group them all together.
00:39:58
Speaker
There is few hours negotiating the points and they ultimately decide, you know, that for a fair and unprecedented trial, they should split them into three separate murder trials instead of one huge big murder trial. and They decide like which murder charge do you wish to try first?
00:40:16
Speaker
And it was that of Magi. And the cornerstone of the prosecution case was, of course, the testimony of William and Margaret Share. And it was also their testimony. And it was also the testimony of Anne and James Gray as well for recognizing the bodies, finding the bodies and going to the police and reporting them. So the whole case, like I said, would only end up lasting 24 hours from start to end.
00:40:44
Speaker
They would ultimately end up finding Burke guilty. And then with Helen McDougall, she would be pronounced not proven, which was a unique a Scottish verdict at the time. And it indicated that they thought that she was probably guilty, but there was just not enough evidence at the time to produce a guilty verdict and a death warrant, essentially. At the time, so he was found guilty and he was sentenced to death.
00:41:10
Speaker
He had a period, Burke had period of a month of waiting essentially for his hanging. During his time, he produced several confessions and portrayed the full extent of his involvement to the body supply. And that is how we get this full account of all 16 of his victims.
00:41:27
Speaker
And what's interesting is that after his death, after he would be hanged, Burke's body itself would be sent for medical dissection. So it's kind of a cycle. Helen McDougall was essentially escorted out of the courthouse after that.
00:41:44
Speaker
She made her way back to Constantine Burke, her brother-in-law's. She tried to see William Burke one last time. She sent a message to him that all she wanted was the money.
00:41:55
Speaker
Burke left her all she had with his watch. She left the town the next day. it was said she had returned to her father's house Stirlingshire, but we will never know. There's no further record of her. Margaret Hare was set free on January 19th.
00:42:09
Speaker
She was reported to have burst into tears about her unhappy situation. All she said was she wished to get across the channel and end her days in a remote spot in her own country in retirement and penance. If she did or not, we don't know.
00:42:23
Speaker
There is no record, and we know William Hare did not accompany her. On January 16th, we know that Hare was also tried again for the murder of Jamie, but he was found later that he could not be put on for trial for or anything could be found against it. So he was actually let go. There was a huge trial and public uproar. The crowds were upset.
00:42:45
Speaker
He was placed in Dumfries Jail for safekeeping, and he travels from Dumfries to... Port Patrick. From Port Patrick, he made it to Carlisle. Essentially, that's all we know of him, that crowds and mobs followed him. The last that we ever have of him in public record is that he was last seen Sunday morning last, about two miles beyond Carlisle. He seemed to be moving onwards, trusting circumstances without any fixed purpose.
00:43:13
Speaker
There's no reliable information has ever been reported of what happened to him. and then we know by the time harry left edinburgh burke was already dead and dissected after his execution in front of an audience of twenty five to thirty thousand people his body was displayed at the medical school and then it was dissected talks about his body skin being removed and and turned into products such as calling cards or a book cover. At the Surgeon's Hall Museum in Edinburgh itself, there is a pocketbook that you can see that is reportedly made of the skin of William Burke following his execution.
00:43:51
Speaker
The interior of the book holds a pencil and on the back cover of the date is the execution itself, January 1829, is inscribed in it. twenty nine and is's inscribed in it his skeleton remains in the animatomical museum of the university of edinburgh to this day so it's kind of like a righteous sense of justice of what happened to his body and him himself so the murderer essentially becomes the murdery the hunter becomes the hunted this never ending cycle.
Aftermath and Anatomy Act of 1832
00:44:23
Speaker
And what ultimately like comes from this and then what it reveals is the horror in the cadaver medical society itself.
00:44:32
Speaker
What it shows and what I'll also link as well as this bodies and bureaucracy, the demise of the body snatchers article from the American association of anatomy. And it talks about kind of how Burke and Harris case and What other cases like it revealed and allowed for and showed is just the horrors that were in the cadaver and so surgery scene and education scene that was going on in the 1820s and the early 80s.
00:45:02
Speaker
the early 1800s of the UK of this time. And this also like revealed to society, to British society, that you know something had something had to change. And what that did allow for is the Houses of Parliament in 1832, they did pass the Anatomy Act.
00:45:18
Speaker
they did pass the anatomy which was in part due a lot of moving factors, but it was because of cases like Burke and Hare and other body-snatching cases where they were so finding out that a lot of other victims were becoming murdered so they could get money for these victims because the cadaver scene was so dire. So essentially what the Anatomy Act allowed for is now these medical universities could now receive cadavers from the unclaimed poor and from poor houses and from infirmaries and from sick houses.
00:45:59
Speaker
bodies of the recently deceased could only be claimed by family members, not friends, and the family had to demonstrate sufficient funds to pay for the funeral. And they had to do so all within 48 hours of death. So again, well, this is as good as that as it allows for more cadavers to enter into rotation. It also is making a good majority, not of the blame, but of the fall and of the byproducts still fall and of the labor, I guess.
00:46:32
Speaker
It still makes the labor still fall within the fort to supply these means. The Anatomy Act is not actually asking any of the rich to supply these bodies. It's not asking any of the anatomists to die.
00:46:45
Speaker
to supply their bodies back to these schools it's all falling within the poor who were the victims of the cadavers of the body snatching in the first place so it's just kind of showing that while situations are improving they're still not improving by much now within the anatomy act do believe, and Rosner does point it out, that that once the dissection was complete, the lecturer whom the cadaver had been assigned was required to provide a coffin and burial for remains.
00:47:15
Speaker
Remains were investigated with dignity of a name. They were appropriated in a way to honor the service of the living. And although the illicit sales of cadavers did not altogether disappear, it did become as rare as motivated for murder. And putting a stop to the body trade, what the Anatomy Act also did was remove the competitive advantage Knox had derived from his extensive cadaver procedure network.
00:47:40
Speaker
So that is what we can thank the Anatomy Act for, according to Rosner. It's removing the the environment and getting rid of the environment in which Burke and Hare were able to thrive and And it also required that the inspectors for whoever these bodies were procured from, they had to keep records of the name, age, date, and place and cause of death for each cadaver. So that accepting materials were retained a human identity by which it could be traced and accounted for. So the anatomist could no longer accept late night parcels and ask no questions.
00:48:18
Speaker
The corpses, while still a commodity, retain connections to the community in which it came. So it's still retaining parts of its humanity.
00:48:30
Speaker
It's making, like what I said in last episode, it's making it no longer a thing, but it's making it a person. And that's what makes all the difference.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:48:39
Speaker
Because Burke and Hare were no longer viewing these these victims as people.
00:48:45
Speaker
they were viewing them as objects as means to an end and that is where the problem lies and that is where i'm going to leave tonight's episode please like share subscribe if you have any ideas or comments of what i should do next please leave them in and the comments below or follow me on instagram and let me know there have a good one bye