The inventor of the cruel business was struck by an ironic fate after his death.

1827-1828 These two men made a living killing people and selling their bodies to the anatomy of a local university. At least 16 accidents have been reported, said historicmysteries.com.

There is a market for bodies.

Edinburgh’s reputation as a place for advanced medical studies has led to a large influx of students and a growing need for anatomy studies. Even in 1764. With the construction of a 200-seat anatomy department, there were more than enough students to give anatomy lectures by Dr. Robert Knox at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in the 1820s. Everything went so well that The lectures for the 400 enrollment students took place in two shifts.

18. in the late 19th century In the early 1990s, a new Prison Law came into force in England, under which doctors could only use the bodies of death row criminals for training material. As a result of this law, death sentences themselves have been reduced, and there has been a growing shortage of studies on the anatomy of bodies, and their prices have inevitably increased. W. Burke and W. Hare urgently tried to take advantage of this, deciding to make money by killing.

The situation is changing. Not only did the murder of people begin, but the bodies began to be stolen. The guards were near some of the cemeteries, protecting themselves from digging graves. Another protection against gravediggers was a grid mounted on freshly poured graves. It is true that W. Burke and W. Hare did not dig graves, they had a different plan.

Who were W. Burke and W. Hare?

Both were Irish from the province of Alster. After the famine in Ireland in 1818. They came to Scotland. They worked for Union Canal for several years, then became shoemakers, and Hare began working in agriculture.

W. Burke fell in love with prostitute Helen MacDougall, with whom she quickly settled. 1826 Mrs. Hare confronted Maggie Laird as soon as her husband died. Maggie and her late husband Logue had their own pension, Tanner’s Close, which she and Hare continued to administer after her death.

Maggie met W. Burke while working on the Union Canal. Once on the street, she saw H. MacDougall and W. Burke selling their old clothes, offering to rent a room in their house. The two couples got along perfectly, had a drink together and had fun.

Deaths in pensions

Of course, W. Burke and W. Hare rejoiced when one of the residents of the boarding house, Donald, fell ill and died. The deceased was in debt for the rent. Knowing that anatomists would pay handsomely for the corpse, the friends put a bag full of tree bark in a coffin and sold Donald’s body to Dr. Knox for a whopping seven pounds at the time.

Hare was said to have taken five pounds, Burke earned a pound, and Laird earned a pound as a pension owner. Even Helen appears to have contributed to some of the murders.

After that, the friends began preparing the residents of the pension themselves and selling their bodies. For their first new victim, a woman named Abigail Simpson, or an old man named Joseph, asked Dr. R. Knox for £ 10, which became his standard rate.

After depleting the stock of guest bodies at the home, the couples began searching for new hunting grounds.

Deaths in taverns

Edinburgh taverns turned out to be a great place to hunt. The killers watered the victims, put them in tongues, then brought them home and killed them, and sold the bodies to R. Knox. Most of the victims were walkers or short-term travelers. The farther, the more arrogant, the less cautious W. Hare and W. Burke became. At least two of his victims were known locals. Mary Paterson was a beautiful famous prostitute and Jamie Wilson was 18 years old. A young person with a deformed body and mental retardation. The whole old town of the city loved the guy and took care of him.

Mr. Laird lured Jamie into his home and handed him over to two friends. They listened to him and killed him. Locals quickly noticed that the guy was gone. Dr. R. Knox cut off his head and feet so that no one would recognize him, and then took the body for lectures.

Last drop

W. Burke and H. MacDougall moved into their home, where another Gray couple lived. The last murder to interrupt Operation Hare and W. Burke was the murder of Margaret Docherty of Ireland. The woman pleaded with the tavern. W. Burke tricked her into being a distant relative and brought her home. At home, he lied to Gray’s partner that Mr. Docherty would spend the night and asked them to spend the night at Tanner’s Close.

Upon returning home the next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Gray found the body of a woman in a straw mattress and reported it to the police. As they were writing the statement, Mr. Docherty sold his body to Mr. Knox. Upon arrival, the police found blood on W. Burke’s mattress and found the body of a woman in Dr. Knox’s room. Friends of body vendors, H. Mac Dougall and M. Laird, were arrested.

The W. Burke and W. Hare cases

Prosecutors had plenty of evidence, but there were no witnesses, so they agreed with Hare that he would testify in court against Burke in exchange for immunity. Mr. Laird also received protection. W. Hare testified that W. Burke was guilty of all the murders. The court failed to prove Ms. Mac Dougall’s guilt and was therefore released.

1828 In December, W. Burke was convicted of three murders: M. Docherty, J. Wilson, and M. Paterson. That is far from the 16 murders, but that was enough to carry out the death penalty. In court, Dr. Knox said that W. Hare and W. Burke told him that they had allegedly purchased bodies from non-presenters. True, many thought that the doctor knew what was happening, simply pretending not to understand.

Jury members pleaded guilty to Mr. Burke, although the decision was not unanimous. Two jurors suspected that he was truly guilty of all three murders. Still in 1829. January 28 W. Burke hung up.

An ironic fate after death.

Ironically, but naturally, W. Burke gave his body to anatomy training. Many students saw the anatomist cut his body into parts. W. Burke’s skeleton went to the Edinburgh University Museum of Anatomy and can be seen to this day. The Edinburgh Surgeon’s Salon Museum features a deadly mask and W. Burke’s leather-covered book.

Like all assassins, no one buried Mr. Burke, he did not fix it for him. And according to the Christian faith, the body used for anatomical purposes will not be resurrected on Judgment Day.

W. Hare was released from prison in 1829. in February. To escape the wrath of the locals, he fled to England. His additional fate is unknown.

Dr. Knox was completely acquitted, but people wanted him punished for his contribution. His home, the Anatomy Department, was attacked and the academic community withdrew from it. With only a few students remaining at his school, he left Edinburgh in 1842 to London to work in anatomy.

New law

After a wave of killings by W. Burke and W. Hare, a new duo of murderers appeared in London: Bishop and Williams. They were hung in 1831. in December. Their crimes showed the need to change the previous law on bodies. In August 1932, Parliament passed the Anatomy Act, which allowed medical students and faculty to use donated bodies.

Immediately afterward, there was a reduction in homicides in England and an increase in the number of bodies donated for investigation.

W. Burke and W. Hare have made several films, plays, books, painted paintings, and have repeatedly blogged. Fortunately, anatomists and medical schools today receive the corpses of people whose bodies nobody recovers, and people themselves serve science by dedicating their bodies to science. Na or 19 a. The human body market flourished and the two Irishmen accumulated considerable wealth.