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hey weirdos I'm Elena and I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] Den [Music] hey guys hey what's up what's up fellas
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what's up fellas and Fellers Flores faunas and boxes okay getting cute with the Spring Equinox I see the spring of
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it all um what is it ostara I just learned about something like that yeah it's something something like that it's
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witchy yeah it's like welcoming spring yeah and I feel like we're all kind of feeling this way usually I'm I never
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want to hang on to winter but I've never super eager to get out of it I'm usually
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just like okay spring is coming like cool that's how I feel that's usually here but this year I was like get me the
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[ __ ] out of winter this has been a [ __ ] terrible winter it's well we had a lot of family stuff going on we had
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which sicknesses sicknesses yeah like it's just been a [ __ ] winter too much going on yeah I've lost lots of gloss up
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in the air that's yeah just it's it's been [ __ ] a lot of stress so much stress
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like you guys were all feeling it in our voices I think because we got so many which like we can't say it enough like
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we really appreciate that you guys give a [ __ ] because the amount of messages we've gotten that are like you guys okay
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but it's so crazy like clearly we've been going on this for a while with you guys because like you you know you can
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hear the change in our voice even when we don't think we're showing it we think we're putting on the show like The Show
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Must Go On get rid of whatever's going on behind the scenes I feel that sentiment so hard it's true because it
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has to and you never want to like we never want to let you down when [ __ ] happens like we we are here to entertain
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you you know I mean to yeah to inform you of things you know so it's like we're very much in that mindset of the
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show must go on but to know that like you said you guys always know yeah even when we think we're hiding it like that
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tells us like how close we are to this community Amelia and it's and we just appreciate
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you this is like it's like really nice it's nice but I also it was like a slap because I was like oh [ __ ] so it's
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leaking out a little bit I know the good news is like where spring is here yeah we're feeling a lot more
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we feel like we are in a good place like schedule wise like you know how we went
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we kind of changed it to the OG way of things it's feeling good well and astrologically things are changing a bit
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right now and like planets are moving into different um signs and houses that like things are
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a little more stable that's what we need except I think Aquarius is moving into Pluto next week and that's gonna bring
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like some kind of major transformation um the last time that Aquarius was I think it's Aquarius entering Pluto is
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what it is and the last time it happened was in the 1700s oh damn isn't that nuts
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and it's a time of like um what's the word the war that happens it's the time of like Revolution oh wow yeah crazy so
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that could be like great or really bad well I think like Revolution like Revolution or it could be really bad
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it's gonna probably coincide with like all the alien [ __ ] that's happening right now I'm not even joking your butt
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I mean I'm not even joking your butt I'm not even I'm not even [ __ ] you Nick no way you're not I can tell yeah but
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you know what we're in a good place it's Spring's aside Happy Spring I'm feeling
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good I got some good cases coming up that I'm feeling excited to tell you guys about just because like you know I
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love an old-timey one like his weird history case you do and I got it I got a good one here that I'm really excited
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about and it just burped a little I'm sorry that's okay it happened in the microphone sometimes you just you can't
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you can't make a stop it's just a rough can't stop won't stop you know but I'm gonna be doing Birkin hair today
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and it's gonna be a two-parter so it's going to be this week I'm going to be doing Birkin hair damn girl you're on a
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two-parter like yeah you know I love the multi-part yeah I'm gonna know I like when you do that I love some really
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really intense long cases when it gives me a little more time to wrap mine there
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you go so it works out and I just think it's good you know you get a whole week of one really intense long case I like
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it I'm excited about it this one's a wild one and it also takes place in Edinburgh for at least part of it
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and this is a wild one because we're going to do I'm going to do this case and then we're going to talk about maybe
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next week or whenever we're going to talk about those um these little mini coffins that were found okay way later
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and we're gonna get into detail don't worry but they there's a theory that it's connected to this case which is a
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nice like continuation okay so you have to look forward to a lot of Birkin hair in the recent in the coming days okie
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dokie so throughout the first three decades of the 19th century doctors and Med schools
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all across Europe they really struggled to find enough bodies that they could use because this is the time when they
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were using bodies like corpses for anatomical teaching surprising that they were having a hard time finding bodies
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back in that time because they didn't want to get like plague bodies or anything like that you know you wanted
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like fresh yeah fresh bodies that were not sick presumably you know if you could get them where some there's no
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trauma and stuff it would be helpful because you're really trying to do like I mean those would be good too for
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certain things but yeah now um they basically this demand for fresh bodies and how it was becoming so hard
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to find them this led to the rise of what was called Resurrection men oh which that doesn't sound good cool band
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name um this is kind of a tongue-in-cheek name that was given to grave robbers yeah who medical students turn to a lot
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for fresh corpses isn't that crazy thinking of like just like like hoity-toity people in the medical field
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like yeah well it is because they're looking they're basically overlooking the crime
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of gray bro yeah and the ethics surrounding that just for the pursuit of medical advancement and they're like
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really I guess but you kind of have to you know you don't have to but at the time that's what was going on it was
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very frequent Resurrection men were a real thing it wasn't like a weird thing and in Edinburgh Scotland Dr Robert Knox
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was a very highly respected surgeon and he found what he believed to be a very reliable pipeline of fresh bodies okay
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and he found because and it was really hard to find that you would find this Resurrection man maybe you could get a
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couple out of them but you were gonna have to look around for it it was not easy this guy however was like I found a
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good steady stream of bodies to use see that makes me feel like he's working alongside a serial killer well he was
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working alongside William Burke and William Hare the two Williams no it's like Tom and Tom yeah that's not good
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did anyone see that mid-season trailer the mid-season trailer those in case you don't know what we're talking oh my God
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the end of it I when he says what can I do for you can I get you anything I think or no she says do you want
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anything do you want anything and she says I want you to die she says for you to die like whoa yeah but that's that's
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for another day but once we get to the just wait once we get to those reunions and those episodes come and we'll talk
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more about it real but yeah so this Dr Robert Knox he was absolutely comfortable with the fact that William
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Burke and William Hare were providing him a steady stream of bodies to use in his medical teachings and throughout
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1828 Burke and Hare supplied Knox with nearly 20. corpses uh-huh uh they got a very decent
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profit out of that I bet they did but we're we're working here just Resurrection men no I don't think so
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they just really good at their jobs no always finding fresh bodies nothing is like ever like if it's too good to be
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true it's not true exactly so during the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Western World kind of strayed away from
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the original thinking that you know a dead body was the most it's hard to explain like you know how in the
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beginning in Victorian times and whatnot death and bodies were treated a certain
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way there was a lot of respect it was a big to do it was a big to do like a lot of Ethics surrounding a dead body a lot
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of virtual importance placed on the body a lot the body itself was a real like Beacon of ethics and all that kind of
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stuff sure this you know in the late 18th early 19th century that's when they began to stray away from that a bit and
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it was more like a bodies a body it kind of did it was like a more enlightened era where advances in medical science
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were kind of reshaping this thought process a lot because people didn't think that anybody was still lurking
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around in their body right it became more of a clinical situation you know like medical theaters became more of a
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thing people were watching these dissections it was just it really flipped the whole thing on its ear and
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in the early 19th century England uh trainee doctors so medical students and those hoping to become surgeons were
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required to dissect at least three corpses before moving forward in their training that's which I like that now
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that's a similar thing you're required to do gross anatomy you're required to do that so it stuck around and as these
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trainees needed more and more hands-on experience the availability of bodies for dissection kind of became
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entangled a bit with the with the medical school student fees okay so to put it simply the more bodies a school
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had access to the more Hands-On training they could offer and the more Hands-On training they could offer the more they
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could charge in student fees makes sense so this what once was like we need to do
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this training that's important so they can become good doctors suddenly became entangled with money and then it becomes
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something totally different money is the root of all so of course for the purposes of
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training exercises like we were saying only recently deceased bodies would really suffice
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here that's where that issue came from that we were just talking about um so this created a demand that was far
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outweighing the supply at the time and the only legal supply of bodies for the purpose of dissection were those who had
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actually been executed at The Gallows oh okay yeah would that make sense which at
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the time was only about 50 people per year okay well so that's good but good enough for this it's not giving you a
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great supply of people um but like the like at the time executions themselves were heavily
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attended by Spectators the dissections were also heavily attended social events they often took on kind of like a like a
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carnival atmosphere yeah there was a lot of Showmanship involved a lot of theater
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it's like the I think you did a whole episode on that um way early on in the podcast it's like
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and we were talking about how like the uh how execution executions yeah yeah and that's definitely what happened with
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like dissections in medical theaters well it was like a new a new Carnival to go to that's probably how they saw it
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Macabre thing that was happening before your very eyes um and at the Royal College of Surgeons
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in London for example um early 19th century instructor professor professor professor Giovanni
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aldini he was known to perform tricks in the form of like basically Macabre experiments on corpses don't love uh he
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would make disembodied heads open their eyes with like electrical shock oh no uh he
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would have like a a dead hand clutch things he's having a little too much fun with it yeah he would use galvanic
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experimentation and this involves using electrical Sparks like static electricity to demonstrate that it could
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cause different muscles to Twitch and even move a dissected specimen wow it's yeah it's interesting and it's
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fascinating that you can do that it's just a matter of should you do things exactly that's the thing you can do that
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yes which should you also you saying took me to a place of failing every science course I've ever there you go
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well and this made me look into galvanism a little bit because I was like I'd never heard of that so I I
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heard like a little bit about making things move yeah but a little side note about galvanism it's really fascinating
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in 1751 England passed the murder Act and this act allowed the bodies of recently executed murderers to be used
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for medical experimentation so that's how they were able to get the bonds from The Gallows this way the demand for
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corpses for medical colleges would be aided and also the murderer in their eyes was suggested to also subjected
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excuse me to having his body dissected which at that time was still considered a desecration and just another form of
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posthumous punishment um okay so this is important in a second so just remember that putting it in my pocket but in 1780
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in that Italian Professor Luigi galvani was the one who suddenly found or excuse
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me wasn't that Professor it was a relation to that other sure um he was the one who suddenly found
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that he could use jolts of electricity to make the muscles of deceased and dissected frogs at the time uh twitch
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around and look like they were alive I love frogs once he discovered this others quickly started using this method
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of experimentation on other animals as well dead end yes um galvani's nephew a physicist named Giovanni aldini who just
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talked about actually used the body of an ox to do this wow he cut the ox's head off and used electricity to make
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its tongue move around it's like don't think you have to I just like like don't want to I don't want to
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go to that show yeah I'm all set a little weird but yeah it's a little weird and once word got out about this
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though people began to attend the demonstrations where people where they would like Electrify cows pigs other
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animal heads as like a show the human species species a human species yeah um so in November 1818 a Scottish
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chemist Andrew Yuri I believe it is took [ __ ] to another level oh no he had not
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only conducted these experiments but he did so on recently executed murders because of the murder act and he did it
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for the reason of believing he could use electricity not just to reanimate particular muscles in a corpse he
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believed that he could bring an entire corpse back to life well Dr Frankenstein on this November evening in 1818 Yuri
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did a truly theatrical demonstration in front of a theater of onlookers on a 35 year old murderer named Matthew
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Clydesdale he had murdered his fellow coal miner who is an 80 year old man Jesus Christ yeah that guy and he had
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used a pickaxe oh my God monster so you're gonna try to bring this man back to life that's the thing so he was in
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the anatomical theater full of people watching and he managed for over an hour to use electrical current directed
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through rods at different nerve points to make it look like the dead murderer was breathing like his chest went up and
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down and they made his hand point at people in the crowd wow they needed a hobby they need a different topics yeah
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they did something I was going to say this was their home maybe unfortunately Bravo they need a Bravo uh so he
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actually wrote about these experiments and the demonstration and some of the entries that were found in his like
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journals and on Atlas obscura I found some of those entries and one of them says every muscle in his countenance was
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simultaneously thrown into fearful action rage horror despair anguish and ghastly Smiles ew United their hideous
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expression in the murderer's face surpassing far the wildest representations of a fuseli or Akin an
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actor and a painter at this period several of the spectators were forced to leave the apartment from Terror or
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sickness and one gentleman fainted same and he said he thought the experiment was important but not really fruitful
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because even if he had managed to revive this man from the dead he was bringing back a murderer exactly and that's not
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awesome so either way interesting and since this was something happening at the time in a medical colleges it seemed
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like an interesting side quest for me to take I just had to so back to the resurrection man of this
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time in the early 19th century skilled trades people could kind of they could expect to make in their trades like
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regular trades they could make between 5 and 10 Shillings for a 72-hour grueling
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Work Week yay yeah by contrast selling a fresh cadaver could net you as many as 20 Guinea guineas which is around 420
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Shillings oh [ __ ] that's from the medical training schools under the circumstances the imbalance between
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supply and demand created an economic opportunity that while it's pretty ghoulish and a little hideous it would
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be hard for a lot of people of the time to pass up yeah because remember like this is these are people hard up in
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really bad situations they're a little desperate at this point makes sense so that's at least what you have to think
00:18:00
of when you think of the perspective at the time I'm not saying I would do it I'm just saying I'm not in those Dire
00:18:05
Straits that they were in right now also in England the penalty for unlawful disinterment was a small fine or up to
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six months in jail wow so certainly horrified the public grave robbing but grave robbing in general
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wasn't really taken that seriously by the authorities either because that's not that big of a penalty penalty at all
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yeah so in fact while procuring fresh bodies was typically left to Crave robbers and Resurrection men
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and sometimes to a lesser extent students would actually go out and find them themselves it was like a like a
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hazing ritual yeah literally it was not entirely unheard of for a professor to help in the process getting desperate
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especially if they hope to obtain a special prize so there's that now it was the promise of good money that caused
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normal people to head out to cemeteries and collect these bodies they would use grappling hooks and wood Spades
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um because these were less noisy than like metal tools that would get them caught in the act and these Resurrection
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men um they would also be called ex exumators I believe it's how you say yeah or lifters that's also what they're
00:19:17
called they could put in like very little effort with the right tools and they earned you know more than they
00:19:23
would earn in a week's time in one night damn yeah now in Edinburgh several safeguards were actually installed in
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cemeteries across the city to make sure this wasn't happening because it was such a big problem yeah these included
00:19:38
watchtowers they had Mort safes which were large you can look them up online they're large iron cages that sat over a
00:19:46
grave site to prevent body snatching oh I might have seen photos at the obituary
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show they yes they showed a picture so if you haven't gotten your tickets to the obituary uh US tour you should do
00:19:58
that because it's [ __ ] hilarious and you learn a lot yeah uh but these protective measures they definitely
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limited more the procurement of cadavers which was making things harder and making medical the medical colleges in
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Edinburgh get cadavers from London Liverpool or Ireland they were costing more money in that situation and
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probably the reward went up because it was a harder thing to do exactly so the more the harder it is to procure
00:20:28
something people find nefarious ways to get it I love the way that you just said
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nefari I know I don't know why I said it like that you were in Scott but I don't know why I was like
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nefarious yeah um oh what was I gonna say I don't know and that's that's where the problem lies
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it's like if something's harder to get people are gonna find nefarious ways to get oh that's what I was gonna say yeah
00:20:52
it's not the catch it to the chase exactly so with the dissection of dead human bodies serving both a scientific
00:20:58
and entertainment attention at the time and the value of the recently dead now shooting up there at a premium it was
00:21:08
only a matter of time before the criminal and pretty unscrupulous people turn to not only
00:21:15
digging these bodies up oh God but turn two other ways murder you get bodies that's exactly we're gonna turn to
00:21:22
murder to meet demand oh no and at the time none were going to be as prolific or dare I say efficient at doing this
00:21:31
than Edinburgh is Birkin here oh no so let's talk about Birkin hair both Burke and hair had a tendency to
00:21:39
um exaggerate their lives okay both of them their origin stories their achievements it's giving Henry Lee Lucas
00:21:47
and an artist tennis tool yeah so at this point it's difficult to really discern fact from fiction and you know
00:21:56
there's some things frustrating I know because they're just liars they lie out of their face into your face so it's
00:22:01
just not good but there are definitely some facts that we know are true okay so William Burke was born in Liam de burka
00:22:07
in 1792 in County Tyrone Ireland he was the son of Neil Burke who was a laborer and while many in late 18th century
00:22:16
Ireland were very poor and made a meager living performing manual labor William Burke's upbringing seems to be a little
00:22:24
more fortunate than those around him huh he received a fair education it's described as okay he created right you
00:22:31
know and he found work as a servant to a presbyterian minister but it didn't take long for him to get a
00:22:38
little tired of that work and he moved on so from there he tried his hand at being a weaver a baker a Shoemaker a
00:22:45
Candlestick maker I was waiting for that and then he turned to the Donegal militia in 1809 where he served as a
00:22:54
personal attendant to one of the senior officers I was gonna say that sounds intense it is and it was during this
00:22:59
time that the militia with the militia that William Burke married Margaret Coleman who was a young woman from the
00:23:05
town of balina well that's a pretty Town name right bolina he that's actually uh
00:23:10
it's like the chicken's name in Return to Oz bellina I believe it's bellina look at you yeah look at you quoting
00:23:18
horror films go watch Return to us I love that that's a horror film I love it it is it really is uh but he went to
00:23:24
live with Margaret Coleman after um after the militia was disbanded in 1816 and he found employment with a quote
00:23:32
Country Gentleman and continued living with his wife and her family okay that wasn't until that they lived together
00:23:40
with the family until an ongoing argument with her father made it a little unlivable that'll do it the main
00:23:48
point of their contention was Burke's obsession with leasing his father-in-law's land but his
00:23:54
father-in-law refused to transfer the lease of his land into Burke's name so Burke was just pissed and just straight
00:24:01
up abandoned the family in 1817. that wasn't even his yeah he was like [ __ ] you guys and he just went to
00:24:09
Scotland he never returned to Ireland and he never saw his wife again holy I was gonna say they were married
00:24:16
I'm out what did well that goes to show you exactly who this man he is we're working with his father-in-law wouldn't
00:24:23
transfer the lease of his land into his name and he was like well I'm out he's like I don't know her I don't know her
00:24:29
no way rolls up the window so while there are some surviving documents to verify William Burke's origin
00:24:36
we can't say the same for William Harris his life before and after this whole story is a little mysterious but
00:24:47
some of it's questionable we can find bits and pieces of it but by most accounts he was born in Ireland in the
00:24:53
early 1790s according to George McGregor who is the author of um a history surrounding this case and the
00:25:01
resurrectionist times and movement okay um hair was quote brought up without any
00:25:06
education or proper moral training and rapidly slipped into a vagabonding kind of Life his temper was brutal and
00:25:13
ferocious and when he was in liquor he was on perfectly unbearable oh no uh like his later pal Burke William Hare
00:25:21
left Ireland for Scotland in late 1817 or maybe early 1818 and he found work as a lumper at the docks in hopetone what's
00:25:30
that basically Lumbers unloaded the shipments they were just called lumpers which is hilarious uh but in the it was
00:25:37
1818 during his early days of working at the canal that William Burke met Helen McDougall she was a widower at a very
00:25:46
young age and McDougall had two children to support so she took up with Burke in
00:25:51
Madison and the couple lived for all intents and purposes as a married couple I was going to say they just couldn't
00:25:57
get married because he already had a wife back although they would remain together for the decade leading up to
00:26:04
Burke's eventual death it seems they never really had a uh loving or nice relationship they both were heavy
00:26:12
drinkers they fought constantly their Arrangement seemed like it was tolerable and acceptable to both of them but it
00:26:20
wasn't like a lovely situation out of convenience yeah which is unfortunate for everybody especially the kids yeah
00:26:27
and due to economic instability Burke and McDonald Dougal moved around a lot and eventually made their way to
00:26:34
Edinburgh in 1827. there they took up residence in a boarding house in portsburgh portsburgh excuse me where
00:26:42
Burke had planned to set up a cobbler shop the home was actually owned by ding ding
00:26:48
ding William Hare I knew it and Margaret Laird so I wish it was Lair Lair and hair layer and hair uh Burke had
00:26:56
actually William Burke had met Margaret Laird a few months before actually so he
00:27:01
knew her that's how they got the room at the boarding house and Laird had convinced Burke and McDougall to move
00:27:06
into the boarding house she had inherited from her previous husband who had died I think two years earlier
00:27:11
everybody dying it's that time you know yeah like many accommodations in edinburgh's
00:27:19
Westport at the time the boarding house was not great yeah it was known as Tanner's close
00:27:26
um it catered to poor immigrants who'd come to the city looking for work so they didn't they were not treated well
00:27:33
you know so this house was not well maintained it was what historians have since described as dirty low and
00:27:41
wretched awesome the rooms of these boarding houses were filled with a ton of beds as many beds as you could get
00:27:47
Windows were at Street levels so they looked directly in so there was no privacy
00:27:53
um but there was one smaller room at the back of this boarding house that had only one window looking out over a
00:27:59
pigsty nice so you know we're actually moving on outside um and this is actually the particular
00:28:07
setting where a lot of the crimes of Birkin Hare would eventually unfold looking out over a pigsty oh God that's
00:28:15
awful yeah it's giving Willy picked in yeah it's not great so it would be easy and probably reasonable to assume that
00:28:21
body snatching for profit was the work of lazy men hoping to get rich on a very short night of work yeah but like we
00:28:29
said before that's not necessarily true in the case of Birkin hair both were very hard workers like that is one thing
00:28:37
you can say about them that's what it sounds like they actually continued to work their respective trades Burke was a
00:28:43
cobbler and hair was a Boatman or a Salesman and to keep up with appearances even after they were selling bodies and
00:28:49
in fact looking at the year where their spree began author of broken hair broken
00:28:55
hair the book Owen Dudley Edwards describes them as quote excellent examples of immigrant Enterprise whose
00:29:01
ultimate business diligently answered the needs of the host culture basically despite the horrific acts and very
00:29:09
ghoulish nature of the business that they were entering Birkin hair saw need for cadavers and were able to meet the
00:29:16
need through hard work and Ingenuity making them a good representation of work ethic at first
00:29:25
keywords at first at first but then because remember we are talking about a time where people are desperate we're
00:29:32
talking about a time where people are living in [ __ ] terrible conditions especially immigrants yeah we are
00:29:39
talking about people just desperate to get enough food on the table for their family or feed their you know feed their
00:29:45
kids keep a roof over the kids house those are the people that would turn to this for quick money yeah
00:29:52
Birkin hair in the beginning we're doing just that yeah but then they turn to murder and that's not okay I'm not
00:30:01
saying the grave robbing is okay I'm saying that desperation is a part of this story totally in the
00:30:08
beginning right this is where it ends this is where the desperation Meeker working you know living conditions all
00:30:16
this stuff that's where we there's always a line we're drawing a line right here so nobody say that I'm saying that
00:30:22
it's fine that you murder people for medical schools I'm saying that right now no don't say that this is where it
00:30:27
ends not okay so again this is before [ __ ] got really real oh so Burke hair and their women Laird and McDougall
00:30:37
we're all trying to make at least a slightly on honest living again they were working at Burke was a cobbler hair
00:30:44
was a Boatman Laird was a landlady and McDougall was selling Burke's shoes Okay so they were all working together they
00:30:50
were all working an honest living but around November 29 1827 things turned nefarious and then imagine saying that
00:30:58
you had a pair of Burke shoes yeah I bet sales went down that'd be wild now this
00:31:03
evening one of Laird's tenants who was an aged pensioner that's how he's described named Donald he died in the
00:31:10
house sure and he died of natural cause oh okay he actually did this is one where he actually did
00:31:16
um some sources say he died of dropsy which is edema um and it that was honestly so this was
00:31:23
often the case for pensioners and transients at the time Donald was live was on living credit
00:31:28
which means he had an arrangement with Laird that he would pay for his um living his the roof over his head
00:31:35
when his pension came okay he would receive that quarterly but unfortunately Donald had died before receiving his
00:31:43
next pension so Laird and Hare had also loaned him money at one point so they are like the the runners of the sporting
00:31:53
house obviously they'd loaned him money they were letting him live on this like you pay me when your pension comes so
00:31:59
now he's gone they're not getting the pension they're not getting their money back so he actually owed them a fairly
00:32:06
large sum of money which is not like a bad thing they they loaned him the money yeah everything was fine it was on the
00:32:11
up and up they were now expected to Forfeit that but in his confession later given after
00:32:17
his arrest Burke explained that hair had informed the authorities of the man's death as you should and he was hoping
00:32:24
that if nothing else they would just take the body out and the Paris Parish would pay for the burial because he was
00:32:29
like not only am I not getting paid for the living expenses I'm not getting the money back that we loaned him and now
00:32:37
I'm expected to bury this guy oh but he would have been expensive to pay for the
00:32:42
burial so he was like I'm not doing that so he called the authorities being like
00:32:45
you just got to take him out of here yeah and again the parish would hopefully pay for it okay so they waited
00:32:51
because they were like sure we'll come pick him up and they waited for the coffin to come and hair continued to be
00:32:55
really pissed and bummed about the Lost income and expenses that he wasn't going
00:33:00
to get back and this is when Burke suggested why don't we just sell the body to the surgeon for the purposes of
00:33:06
dissection because he's got no one around he's got no family well that's really we can't pay for him he owes us
00:33:13
money anyways again I'm not saying this me I'm saying this is what they were thinking right right so they're thinking
00:33:18
you know and although the practice was illegal and very seriously discouraged from
00:33:24
social speaking a lot of people were doing it Burke had extensive experience experience with medical practitioners
00:33:31
from his days in the militia and he knew that they were often willing to pay a pretty good sum for a recently deceased
00:33:36
body that didn't have signs of trauma so he's looking to get his money back so they talked a little bit about it and it
00:33:41
was decided that they were going to sell Donald's body and recoup pair's losses but they are how he saw it didn't they
00:33:48
already call the people to come pick him up well this so this is what ended up happening because when I read that too I
00:33:52
was like what did you tell those people that came yeah they were just coming to drop off the coffin they hadn't even
00:33:57
arranged yet for the parish to bury him okay but these authorities were coming to bring the coffin gotcha gotcha so
00:34:03
they figured they could recoup pair's losses get this whole thing taken care of get him out of the house get a new
00:34:09
person and there you go and they said Burke was the one that was going to do the negotiating for the price and two
00:34:14
days later when the coffin was delivered birkenhair stood by they watched as the
00:34:18
delivery men loaded the body into the car often nailed it shut then they left and it was going to be picked up by
00:34:24
whoever was going to transfer it to the cemetery but as soon as those people were out of sight
00:34:28
broken hair Pride open the lid removed Donald's body they hid it in a nearby bed and
00:34:35
they uh stuffed things in the casket that would uh make it heavier mimic the weight of a human being oh my God
00:34:44
exactly I think they used Tanner's bark that they collected from the backyard then they resealed it and then they had
00:34:50
it picked up to be interred at the West churchyard [ __ ] so it was a filled casket of something else that was
00:34:57
interred oh my God so with the first part of the plan success in their eyes broken hair next set about finding a
00:35:04
buyer for Donald's body so they first stopped at the surgical college and they asked a student where they could find Dr
00:35:11
Monroe who they assumed they would want to see for selling a body he was like the head guy right so the student gave
00:35:18
them directions to Monroe's home but through a series of like weird really weird mistakes and coincidences
00:35:24
they instead found themselves at another doctor's home it wasn't intentional okay
00:35:29
this doctor was Dr Robert Knox who was I don't know if you remember him from the beginning that's what he talked
00:35:36
about right I thought you said his name he was from the top of the episode um he was a private Anatomy teacher who
00:35:41
had the most students and they used the most bodies in the city okay so they just happened to come across this guy
00:35:47
when they were looking for another doctor right and they've come across the doctor who needs the most bodies that
00:35:53
they can get I see so whether or not things would have been different if they had come to Monroe's door
00:36:02
or some other teacher that had some more snorkels there you go we don't know right maybe honestly I
00:36:13
think most doctors at the time would have taken this body they were just because of the way [ __ ] was but who
00:36:18
knows things could have been different we'll never know if they were turned away and they couldn't find anything
00:36:23
they didn't get paid for it I think they would have ended up murdering people for
00:36:27
some other reason right later down the line because I don't think these are good men so I think it would have gone
00:36:33
down that road differently but I think it could have been a different story okay but whatever Knox was desperate for
00:36:40
bodies so he was thrilled by this offer yeah so he gave the men 10 Shillings for
00:36:45
Donald's corpse this one transaction was the thing that set into motion the awful
00:36:52
chain of events that was going to happen after this the deaths of at least 16 people 16 in one of the worst crimes
00:36:59
freeze in Scottish history wow so until this point birkenhair's only crime and this is what I was talking about before
00:37:06
if they committed one at all in the eye of the time was unlawful disinterment okay because they had they hadn't killed
00:37:14
him right they hadn't done any that's all they had died yeah however they hadn't actually exhumed the
00:37:20
man's body they only sold this corpse so it's unclear whether there was even a crime here at all because they didn't
00:37:26
because technically nobody had really done he was never buried yeah unlawful disinterment was digging up a body grave
00:37:32
robbing rice man was never buried because nobody thought they would have to make another law of like hey if you
00:37:38
know someone that died yeah like this so there's like a a loopy hole here that I
00:37:42
think they were banking on but technically I wonder if they could have been charged with disinterment because
00:37:47
he was in the coffin and they took him out of his car and that's what I wondered yeah I wondered if maybe who
00:37:53
knows I couldn't I didn't find what the specific language of the um crime would be sure but I wonder that's a that's a
00:38:01
very good point because I wonder if them prying open that coffin even though he was only in there for a moment you're
00:38:08
disintering him you are yeah you know like technically so I I guess it would be like how a jury would see it yeah so
00:38:14
it's like you can't you can look at this as like all right they haven't murdered
00:38:17
anyone yet but then you also look at it and go well maybe you did commit a crime
00:38:21
here yeah you disturbed ability committed an ethical crime but like a technical crime like a crime perhaps
00:38:26
yeah but either way the what would be looked at at the time as a pretty petty crime that they had
00:38:35
just committed like somebody died naturally in their home they owed these people a debt that they
00:38:41
didn't pay they were put in a coffin these people just took them out of the coffin and
00:38:46
sold them for that debt yeah at the time that would be like wow that was [ __ ] up but like that's really all that would
00:38:51
happen so that being such in the in the eyes of the time of petty crime makes it
00:38:58
really surprising how brutal and quick they escalated from that so they probably like you were just saying like
00:39:04
you were like oh I think they would have done it anyway I think you're right because it's like you don't just go from
00:39:09
that to this what they end up doing oh no it's just it's one thing to sell the body of a man who dies by natural causes
00:39:16
again and settling you with getting rid of the body at the time it's quite another
00:39:23
thing to systematically seek out a particular type of victim and murder them purely to be paid right that is a
00:39:31
very different series of girls yeah that's you're so it's kind of like a Hitman and I think that point yeah and I
00:39:36
think that's why it's so shocking the crimes have broken hair because it is such a
00:39:41
like they went so quickly and just really brutality um and to sell a body outside of proper
00:39:49
channels well in poor taste is in again entirely understandable given the impoverished circumstances of Scotland's
00:39:56
immigrant working class at the time but that next step would never be murder for
00:40:01
most of these people like most of these people that would be the end of it it would be tough you're gonna have trouble
00:40:06
sleeping at night with what you did but you didn't murder anybody yeah but that's what that's why this also doesn't
00:40:12
make sense I'm like there's got to be more in here that we don't know about and people do think there are more
00:40:17
murders that we don't know about from them really that maybe aren't even tied to this medical industry that like
00:40:22
because it really there's not a lot of sense here for this jump one I wonder too if there's murders that they
00:40:28
couldn't have used the bodies because they had to be more pristine exactly I wonder there's got to be more right now
00:40:35
when it comes to identifying the first victim of Birkin hair there is a little bit of a discrepancy with their
00:40:41
confessions but you just work with what you have because this was a long time ago according to Burke the first victim
00:40:47
of their scheme was Abigail Simpson she was a minor Hawker which is like a like they would Hawk things you know what I
00:40:55
mean like oh oh oh I see like did you say Throw yeah like [Music] um but she was a minor Hawker from the
00:41:05
nearby Village of Gilmerton who stopped at the boarding house for an evening in hair's confession he identifies the
00:41:12
first victim as a man named Joseph so Joseph was a Miller who was also staying at the boarding house at the time and
00:41:19
was very ill with a fever oh it's so they both died so it's like whether they were first or not well they
00:41:27
probably killed so many people that that's why there's a discrepancy and we kind of go with hare's confession here
00:41:32
because Harry's confession was the most consistent and unchanging oh Goldbergs would kind of jump around a little bit
00:41:38
um it's generally generally believed that hair's version of events is probably the most accurate
00:41:44
um it also makes more sense that they went from the first crime of somebody dying naturally in them just selling the
00:41:50
body to maybe killing someone who is ill already and dying yeah it does make more
00:41:56
sense if we want to make any sense out of it but either way it's [ __ ] but I'm just trying to make some sense of the
00:42:02
escalation here yeah now it was in late January or early February 1828 just a month or two after having sold the body
00:42:10
of pension or Donald that Joseph the Miller became very ill with a fever that I think made him stay in bed he couldn't
00:42:17
get out of bed uh he was unable to speak he was like delusional oh God and fearful of having a man so very
00:42:25
close to death in their home Laird so um though the other owner of the boarding house
00:42:31
she was eager to get rid of this man as soon as possible yeah and she had no idea how to go about
00:42:37
doing it she she wasn't staying until like let's kill him she was just like we gotta get him out of here because I
00:42:42
don't want him to die in my boarding house which is oh my God that is the like mentality and brutality and
00:42:48
callousness of the time no it's true it's get it I keep saying it's giving it reminds me a lot of the Jack the Ripper
00:42:55
when you hear like you can't die in my boarding house you know like it wasn't even it's foreign to us but at the time
00:43:02
that was it was desperation there was such a lack of empathy there was and it was it was a lack of empathy that was
00:43:08
beaten into people like this it wasn't a lack of empathy that there was something
00:43:12
you know like yeah exactly it was like no this was like beaten into people who just were treated like [ __ ] scum
00:43:21
twazas Harry would say a sign of the times it truly was a sign of the times but sensing so this so this was
00:43:29
happening Laird is a little like what do we do here yeah sensing another opportunity to make a quick buck and
00:43:36
hair began discussing the best ways to get rid of this man woof ultimately they decided they should suffocate him oh yes
00:43:43
Scottish historians Sir Walter Scott suggested that rather than a giant like crazy Olympic leap from
00:43:54
opportunistic body snatcher to Cold's blooded killer this killing might be that like I said that like line in
00:44:02
between yep the gray area sent them into that whole thing like the the really dark area because they would frame it as
00:44:11
a mercy killing right and an act to protect the rep the reputation of hair and Laird's sporting house because you
00:44:19
don't want people dying in your boarding house people are going to hear about it
00:44:22
right that's how they framed it and that's how they were kind of taking it as that like little transition period
00:44:28
between being a totally just shitty grave robber and being a [ __ ] life killer the cold
00:44:36
blooded killer so whatever the case it was here that Burke's preferred method of killing was
00:44:41
established he placed his hand over Joseph's mouth and nose and he instructed hair to lay across the man's
00:44:49
chest to prevent flailing and to make it harder for him and to breathe wow and that's how they can do it like hand over
00:44:56
mouth and nose the other one would lay on the chest so it was a very brutal way of killing someone very scary and
00:45:03
terrifying and awful for the person that was being killed yeah now before the evolution of modern forensics this
00:45:10
murder method which had become known later as birking oh I don't like that at all yeah it was very ideal for what they
00:45:17
needed to do because it wasn't leaving anything right and there was again without the modern forensics we have
00:45:23
that somebody could tell when somebody is suffocated right right you couldn't tell back then hit one hand over the
00:45:28
nose and mouth or sometimes they would force the jaw shut uh it was very difficult if not
00:45:33
impossible for the victim to draw any breath that way and then the weight of the second man on
00:45:39
the victim's chest prevented the diagram of diaphragm and lungs from expanding so
00:45:44
it was very fast it was effective for what they were trying to do and there were no visible signs of trauma that
00:45:50
would affect the price that Knox was going to offer is there particular hemorrhaging when
00:45:56
you get suffocated yeah but they just didn't know what that was they didn't know what that was that was not a a very
00:46:02
common thing that they would be like oh you suffocated this person um this technique was used in the murder
00:46:07
of Abigail Simpson very shortly after this or what we believe was shortly after this
00:46:13
according to Burke's confession Abigail Simpson had arrived at the boarding house on February 11th and quote was
00:46:21
decoyed in by hair and his wife the three spent the evening drinking and after several drinks uh Simpson began
00:46:30
talking about how difficult it had been to support her daughter as a single mother oh God that's what makes this
00:46:36
even worse to me is like she literally brought that Force to you well in like you spent hours drinking with her and
00:46:42
got to know her yeah like then did whatever you did and got to know that she was talking about how hard her life
00:46:48
was how she had a child that's fine she was Raising that child by herself like you're an [ __ ] now you're just gonna
00:46:53
like orphan a baby yeah so at some point hair told Abigail that he was a single man and suggested that he would marry
00:47:01
her and provide financial support yeah right which convinced her to stay the night at least
00:47:07
the next day Abigail was violently ill and was vomiting from drinking the night before so hair gave her quote some
00:47:15
Porter and whiskey which caused her to become so intoxicated that she passed out in the
00:47:21
bed in the back room do you think were doing anything to her drinks beforehand I could see that for sure but there's no
00:47:29
indication of it like no like you know official indications but I could see that happening for sure yeah but she
00:47:37
passed out on that bed in the back room the one that overlooks the Pigs die and once she'd passed out Burke entered the
00:47:43
room and then he laid across her legs and feet while hair covered her nose and mouth with his hand until she suffocated
00:47:50
so scary when the sun had gone down and it was darker outside They carried her body to knox's dissecting room where he
00:47:58
paid them 10 ceilings for the body and remember Knox isn't asking where they're getting these bodies from see that's the
00:48:03
problem because it's you're turning a blind eye yeah like sure the blindest device um and there's a point which I
00:48:10
believe we're probably gonna get to him part two where there's one that you're like you turned a real Blind Eye on that
00:48:16
one yeah so the pair's third victim uh which Burke mentioned in his confession he called him simply an Englishman a
00:48:26
Nader of Cheshire uh he said not even a name just an Englishman yeah he was killed under
00:48:33
circumstances that were pretty similar to Joseph the Miller so the man was described as being 40 years old and he
00:48:40
used to sell spunks in Edinburgh he's got spunk what we could see is that spunks are like some kind of like a
00:48:47
woody Tinder okay I don't know why it's called spunks but at the time that he met broken hair he was unemployed
00:48:54
and he'd come to the boarding house and when he'd come to the boarding house he appeared to be ill he was suffering from
00:49:00
jaundice they believe um just like the others the man was taken to the private back room near the
00:49:06
pigsty he was smothered and then the body was removed once it got dark that night taken to Knox paid him out 10
00:49:14
Shillings and didn't ask any questions now if there was any kind of emotional conflict over the murders of these three
00:49:23
the first three victims neither Burke nor hair seems to have indicated any kind of like you know emotional turmoil
00:49:33
guilt any kind of remorse so they probably would have murdered even if it weren't for the money they seemed like
00:49:41
they were total they just went about their lives though nothing was affecting them they didn't seem off to people
00:49:46
around them like you know how you'll hear that sometimes like I don't know we seemed off like you know he didn't none
00:49:51
of them seemed off and the people that were around these schemes meaning the two women in The Boarding House
00:49:57
specifically Laird they didn't seem like they were really asking questions either oh I don't like
00:50:04
that at all yeah and what would happen was Burke would explain to Dr Knox that the men had come across these bodies
00:50:11
either through a relative or some kind of close you know a relative a personal friend or some
00:50:19
kind of acquaintance there's always close to them but not close to them far enough away where it wasn't weird yeah
00:50:26
it was always like that arm's length like I know this person who knows this person but and obviously that's a very
00:50:32
flimsy explanation like he like Knox is like oh yeah you got another one and they're like oh yeah like my cousin's
00:50:38
brother's friend you know he died and why not he said it was fine and Knox is just like okay like I don't need to ask
00:50:46
anything else I was like maybe ask like two questions at least and then wildly in at least one of the murders Abigail
00:50:53
Simpson Margaret Laird is implicated in that crime she was drinking with them she
00:50:59
knew what was going on she was in the house when it happened like she was at the very least to an active participant
00:51:05
in luring Abigail into the house that's what I was going to ask I had a feeling at some point she was going to be
00:51:10
involved in this all and author of the anatomy murders the book of another book about this case which will like um we'll
00:51:18
put them in the sources Lisa Rosner she said the earnings for each body were split three ways with hair getting six
00:51:27
Burke getting four and Laird getting one so she was an active participant weird and and active in the sense like she got
00:51:37
one shilling because she was luring or getting them drunk and turning a blind eye not actively like physically
00:51:46
murdering someone but she was an accessory yeah so Burke and McDougall who is Burke's lady Yup she's the other
00:51:54
piece of this four-person puzzle Burke maintained until his death that McDougall knew nothing of these murders
00:52:01
well you don't really hear much about her other than nope he married her and that's why she was never really and she
00:52:08
wasn't included in the split either like that I split three ways it wasn't split four and she would have been in it
00:52:14
if she was part of it and she wasn't so interesting that's interesting or did hair get more because and like like she
00:52:22
she was cut into his like his Shillings were part of her earnings her earnings it absolutely could have been the case
00:52:29
because it's like how because hair is coming home with all this money and you're not wondering where it's coming
00:52:33
from well that's the thing I don't think she had a physical part in it I don't even think she had really the physical
00:52:38
part that Laird did but she had to know something was awry like he's getting money somewhere like you said exactly
00:52:45
she's got to be asking where's this coming right and who knows maybe he again these people are good liars like
00:52:51
he could have said anything oh I did some extra work at The Boarding House these guys are [ __ ] bags so it's like
00:52:57
you know you're with a [ __ ] bag you know he's not getting money via wholesome means like come on like
00:53:05
you gotta know I'm sure you don't know that this is what's going on but then at the same time you're in the boarding
00:53:09
house true you're not seeing anything I don't know yeah maybe she just kept quiet but he maintained Burke was very
00:53:16
clear till his death said she knew nothing about it did not participate in it had nothing to do with it damn or
00:53:22
hair right um yeah sorry yeah um but for the most part Burke and Hare chose their victims like most serial
00:53:30
killers choose their victims they were typically transients so it was like one of those things and honestly
00:53:37
marginalized people they would pick so it was like the less dead fewer social connect connections people that weren't
00:53:44
going to be in their opinion missed right um there are however a few exceptions to
00:53:49
this method that they went with um their fourth victim Mary Patterson was definitely going to be missed she
00:53:57
was known by a lot of people in town by face and name according to her landlord lady Mary quote much was quote much
00:54:06
given to drink and had even been jailed or uh for at least 10 days the previous year for being drunk disorderly and
00:54:13
creating a Crowd Oh which meant she was also known to police which is another reason to not pick this person see it
00:54:21
now this is where I wonder if they were escalating and they wanted some more excitement out of it that's the thing
00:54:27
like this wasn't just financially profitable but they wanted a little more right now on the evening of April 8th
00:54:33
the Mary went out to a public house with her friend and roommate Janet Brown the
00:54:38
two of them ran into William Burke so he was apparently liking the two ladies and he ordered a bottle of
00:54:45
whiskey and invited them to join him at his table because these really good guys yeah
00:54:49
totally during the trial Janet Brown the friend said that that Burke's Advantage
00:54:54
Vance has made her uncomfortable and she was actually very reluctant to join him
00:54:58
but Mary was quote always a forward Fearless disposition and had no reservations so they stayed there they
00:55:06
drank with him all night the following morning Burke took both women to the nearby Home of his brother Constantine
00:55:13
there they had a big breakfast they drank two more bottles of whiskey [ __ ] and after that Mary passed out and she
00:55:22
was moved to a small bed while Burke and Hare went out to get more food and more
00:55:26
alcohol okay several hours later the scene was discovered by Helen McDougall she was pissed to find Burke hanging out
00:55:37
with two women who he was clearly like wooing yeah and so they began arguing the couple okay and during this it got
00:55:45
violent and during this whole thing Burke hit her hard enough to open a huge gash on her forehead oh my God yeah like
00:55:53
pieces of absolute [ __ ] and Janet Brown the friend of Mary would later tell the
00:55:58
court that she was quote much alarmed by their proceedings and tried to wake her
00:56:02
friend Mary so they could get the hell out of there yeah but Burke ushered her out the door before she could wake up
00:56:08
her friend what the [ __ ] so even though he wouldn't let her go wake her friend
00:56:14
she was like okay well I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna get her later yeah I'm gonna get her and she said return
00:56:21
within a half an hour to get her now brown is gone Janet Brown she's out of the house and McDougall is sitting in
00:56:28
the adjacent room remember McDougall supposedly doesn't know anything about this she's
00:56:34
turning a blind eye okay and Burke and Hare decided to employ their usual method of Suffocation and they killed
00:56:40
Mary Patterson so when Janet Brown came back a half an hour later to remember this isn't even
00:56:46
the boarding house this is Constantine's house right this is the brother she comes back a little while later and
00:56:54
she's told that Mary had gone out to town with Burke and it was unknown when they would return
00:56:59
okay so she was like um I don't know about that so she came back to the house again several hours later but this time
00:57:06
she was told that Mary and Burke had never returned what okay so Janet Brown was like um I'm gonna come back again so
00:57:14
she returned back later and even reported Mary's disappearance to the police but because of their low social
00:57:20
status and having a reputation of being heavy Drinkers and you know other unsavory in the time behaviors the
00:57:28
report wasn't taken seriously at all and it was never investigated good so they just didn't investigate it we're like
00:57:33
well that's probably fun that's really shitty now four or five hours after killing Mary Patterson the two men
00:57:39
loaded her body into a large tea crate and They carried it over to knox's dissection room when they got there with
00:57:45
the body one of knox's assistants recognized Mary from town and asked about how they'd come into
00:57:52
possession of her body right to which Burke replied that he'd purchased it from an old woman at the back of
00:57:59
Canongate so the student at Dr knox's School were like what the [ __ ] but they were also so
00:58:07
taken with Mary's Beauty they said that she was quote so handsome a figure and well-shaped in body and limbs that the
00:58:14
professor called in a local painter to create a portrait of her instead of inquiring further y'all as to how this
00:58:22
man these two men are saying they bought this woman's body from a woman behind somewhere they're like yeah that
00:58:32
probably checks out she's so hot though we should get a painter in here and we should get a [ __ ] portrait taken of
00:58:38
her like wow what oh and what's crazy is before he painted her the painter asked
00:58:44
Burke to cut off the woman's hair till they cut off some of the hair gave him a pair of scissors to do it and
00:58:51
before leaving Knox gave birth eight Shillings and allowed him to keep the two and a half Shillings that were found
00:58:58
clutched in Mary's hand when she arrives I have to go at this point in time yep I
00:59:04
actually have to leave yep so the murder of Mary Patterson was definitely a large departure from
00:59:12
birkenhair's pattern yeah Not only was the woman known to tons of people in town and they actually she was
00:59:18
recognized immediately but other unlike other victims he'd been seen socializing
00:59:24
with her at a public house for hours yeah like even gone so far as to seduce her and go back to his brother's house
00:59:33
with her like that's a lot of like Brazen yeah a lot of a lot of eyes on you and the surprisingly limited details
00:59:41
of the murder that basically were only provided by Burke's confession um they it suggests that Burke kind of
00:59:48
felt differently about this killing than he did to others because the way he described this one was different
00:59:54
the amount of time he spent with the victim was different people are like what the [ __ ] happened there like it's a
01:00:00
that's a weird departure and the you know the weird intimacy that were shared was shared between Burke and Patterson
01:00:07
put the scheme and both of their freedom at risk to be honest like Burke really put them in a really bad position here
01:00:18
one might call it a pickle a very big pickle they again they had been seen multiple places by multiple people
01:00:25
countless people and she was well known she was well known people know her by name and face and the last place she's
01:00:32
seen alive is that Constantine Burke's home right like Burke's own brother that does how that doesn't
01:00:41
the fact that they weren't arrested really can only be explained by really bad policing and a complete disinterest
01:00:50
in the safety and Welfare of the lower social classes here totally because even her friend knows the last two people she
01:00:55
was seen with and they're like yeah and we're telling the authorities sorry yeah
01:01:00
they were just like yeah I don't know like that sucks to suck I guess like what the [ __ ]
01:01:06
so given the inconsistencies in their confessions and the namelessness of most of their victims it's pretty impossible
01:01:13
to create like a really accurate chronology chronology chronological order of the murders committed between
01:01:21
April and October 1828. instead you can you can like group them together to kind
01:01:27
of form an approximate picture I would say of when the really big things happened
01:01:34
Burke's friendliness with Mary Patterson had caused a number of minor problems for the pair who whether they knew it or
01:01:42
not made the decision to return to the more convenient and less familiar victims I don't know if that was a
01:01:49
conscious effort like they were like we can't do that again or they just did it because they were like well that was
01:01:54
attic right and just like didn't think about it but either way they went back to the beginning where it was like
01:01:59
people they didn't think were going to be missed very well now the first of these victims unfortunately was
01:02:04
Elizabeth haldane who showed up at Harris boarding house sometime in early spring of 1828. he knew nothing more
01:02:12
about her than her name but he described her as quote a stout old woman she had but one tooth in her mouth and that was
01:02:19
a very large one in the front oh that's how he described her that's [ __ ] now Burke found the woman sleeping off drink
01:02:27
in a pile of straw in the stable that's so sad and retrieved more alcohol to give to her once she was sufficiently
01:02:35
drunk and very unstable and unable to take care of herself they suffocated her with the usual Manner and left her in
01:02:43
the barn until the following day and that's when they took her body to Knox a few months later Elizabeth haldane's
01:02:50
daughter no Margaret was also murdered by Burke what and was murdered by Burke alone and did they did he know that
01:02:59
there was a connection there so that's the thing we're not really sure so she was briefly staying at the boarding
01:03:05
house and this murder is one that you can read a lot about and it gets distorted a lot through a lot of
01:03:11
fictional accounts for the murder um a lot of them portray her as like this daughter searching for her mother
01:03:18
and then the woman's Killers get the jump on her before she can find them out like this really like intensified you
01:03:25
know detective Noir kind of thing yes in reality Burke described marbet as someone quote of idol habits and much
01:03:32
given to drinking and it's really likely that they met at a public house or just
01:03:37
somewhere else okay he enticed her back to the boarding house with drink so just
01:03:42
a terrible one she passed out laid uh Burke laid her face down on the bed and pressed her face until the bed until she
01:03:49
suffocated Jesus and it really does seem like purely coincidence that she had been killed by the same Killers who
01:03:56
killed her mother that is so beyond bizarre it really is and tragic it's so sad now around the same time of Margaret
01:04:05
haldane's murder Burke had gone into town looking for another victim and that's there that he made friends with a
01:04:12
frail elderly man who he believed was the perfect fit for the next victim but just as Burke was about to invite
01:04:19
the man back to the boarding house he spotted what he would describe to police as quote an old woman and a dumb boy her
01:04:27
grandson from Glasgow oh through conversation he learned that the woman and child were Irish and had walked from
01:04:34
Glasgow to Edinburgh they were looking for shelter along the road like um during the night yeah and the woman was
01:04:42
not from this area and was completely unfamiliar with Edinburgh she's lost and so this made them ideal victims to him
01:04:51
because no one Edinburgh doesn't know her either exactly so the elderly man with who Burke was talking he just kind
01:04:59
of abandoned that whole thing he was like well you were going to be next which I can't imagine wow Batman someone
01:05:05
was with him yeah but he invited the woman and boy back to the lodging house now by most accounts the woman had been
01:05:12
traveling to Edinburgh to visit friends and was told by Burke that her friends resided at The Boarding House of his
01:05:17
friend William Burke or excuse me William hair once they'd reached the boarding house and they
01:05:24
settled in Burke brought out the bottle of liquor which immediately they got drunk the woman retired to bed for the
01:05:31
evening and according to George McGregor the author the two killers snuck into the room quote at the dead hour of the
01:05:37
night and she was murdered by the human ghouls while Burke and Hare were murdering the
01:05:42
old woman her grandson was in an adjoining room with Laird and McDougall who are attempting to soothe his
01:05:49
agitation over his grandmother's absence McDougall was there uh-huh unsure of what to do the men decided
01:05:57
they needed to get rid of him as well so they suffocated him as well and looted both bodies into an old Herring barrel
01:06:03
and then Burke was quick to note that the ball that the barrel was quote perfectly dry there was no brine in it
01:06:10
oh just in case you were worried about that so that was a Briny Barrel I would have
01:06:15
been pissed but I mean I'm pissed either way like hello but so that implicates McDougall now too so goodbye and I feel
01:06:24
later sitting there going she has nothing to do with it she didn't know anything
01:06:27
so what did she never she never said like hey what happened to that little boy that I was [ __ ] calming down
01:06:32
while you murdered his grandma in the Next Room exactly like this is just hi Eric yep that's how I feel now later
01:06:38
that morning the two men tried to transport the barrel to knox's dissection room by horse and cart but
01:06:44
after a few miles the horse refused to go any further because the horse was like you guys are [ __ ] and I'm not
01:06:49
doing this yeah the horse was like I'm not being implicated in this [ __ ] so I guess they got a Porter's cart from a
01:06:54
nearby shop and pushed it the rest of the way they got to knox's Burke carried the barrel the remaining distance to the
01:07:01
dissection room the students struggled to get the bodies out of the barrel because they were so stiff and cold and
01:07:08
as a result Knox paid them a slightly reduced rate nice of 16 Shillings now according to Burke the pair shot the
01:07:16
horse on their return to the boarding house because it wouldn't walk any further I did not need to know that so
01:07:20
there like the worst kind of people soulless women children elderly animals they
01:07:28
don't give a fish no there's no line with them and shortly after the murder of this
01:07:33
woman and her grandson birkenhair murdered a cinder gatherer that Burke thought maybe went by the name Effie
01:07:40
maybe possibly who knows during the spring and summer months most laborers left the city to work in the farms and
01:07:47
Fields that surround the city and this kind of limited Birkin Harris victim pool during that time because laborers
01:07:53
are gone so according to Lisa Rosner the author Effie was a hawker who would occasionally sell odds and ends
01:08:00
door-to-door and she was actually known to Burke like Burke knew her and because
01:08:06
she had sold like bits of leather to him I think for you says like um in his cobbling business that's crazy and
01:08:12
despite being known to both the killers and many people in town as well the pair
01:08:18
enticed Effie into the barn with alcohol and they said you can rest in the barn as well and once she had fallen asleep
01:08:24
they quote laid a cloth over her and suffocated her as they did the others and then they transported her to knox's
01:08:31
dissection room where they were paid 10 Shillings for the body oh my God and that is where we're going to end for
01:08:37
part one of broken hair uh good when we return we are going to talk about the final
01:08:45
murders things are gonna go awry for the two of them we're gonna talk about how they were caught and we're going to talk
01:08:51
about what happened to them I'm excited yeah it's I'm excited to talk about what
01:08:57
happens to them like and when they get caught and sentenced to prison because I'm like you need to be caught at this
01:09:02
point and again like thinking about like um at the very least two people but most
01:09:08
likely a group of people that are willing to do this kind of [ __ ] and like the most vulnerable people too the most
01:09:14
vulnerable vulnerable people and like two just yucky scary terrible couples oh it always freaks me out when couples
01:09:22
yeah I don't like it yeah so this is this is quite a tale and a real sign of the times for real
01:09:30
but that is part one of Birkin hair well thanks for listening to that guys hope you keep listening and we hope you keep
01:09:38
it weird but not this weird because that's too weird no it's not that time anymore or guys don't go gray Robin it's
01:09:47
not that time [Music] foreign [Music]