Speaker 1: There's a place in Scotland that has dominated the landscape
Speaker 1: of my childhood, much as it does the skyline of
Speaker 1: the city of Edinburgh, having risen three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million years ago, long before such periods of time were
Speaker 1: expressed in our numbers, longer in fact, than some believe
Speaker 1: the age of the universe itself to be. Arthur's Seat
Speaker 1: sits today as a duel in the Scottish capital, having
Speaker 1: first arisen due to volcanic activity, then later been carved
Speaker 1: by a glacier. It is, of course completely and utterly
Speaker 1: disinterested in the whims of humankind. Over the years, however,
Speaker 1: it has been gradually interwoven with many of its follies.
Speaker 1: Just a cursory glance at any map of its surface
Speaker 1: will reveal our attempts to tame it and claim it
Speaker 1: for our own names, tattooed across its steep crags and
Speaker 1: valleys and the surrounding undulations of Holyrood Park. There on
Speaker 1: each and every day of the year, walkers can be
Speaker 1: found trapsing over Haggis, snow gutted Haddie or Hunter's Bog.
Speaker 1: On the southern edge, you'll find the wells o'weary, a
Speaker 1: former hub of folk life and tradition. It was there
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century that many would come to socialize
Speaker 1: and wash their clothes, until those with the wealth to
Speaker 1: avoid such indignities declared that an improper site for a
Speaker 1: royal park. And to the west the high ridges of
Speaker 1: Salisbury Crags, where many a duel was fought in the
Speaker 1: sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was here too, in seventeen seventy,
Speaker 1: at the foot of the crags, that relatives attempted to
Speaker 1: bury the body of Mungo Campbell, an excise officer who
Speaker 1: had committed suicide after being convicted of murdering a local earl.
Speaker 1: His burial was interrupted by a local mob angered by
Speaker 1: the earl's death. Seizing the body, they proceeded to haul
Speaker 1: it to the top of the crags before throwing it
Speaker 1: back over the edge. Campbell's bashed and broken body was
Speaker 1: eventually gathered by his family and taken to be buried
Speaker 1: at sea. Turning up from Saint Margaret's Lock on the
Speaker 1: meadow bank side, you'll find yourself approaching Winnie Hill, also
Speaker 1: known as Fairy No an easy access point to those
Speaker 1: who lived nearby as it was for the five young
Speaker 1: boys who ventured onto the hill's northeast face one bright
Speaker 1: summer's day in July eighteen thirty six. You're listening to Unexplained,
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McClane Smith. The boys had been out
Speaker 1: hunting rabbits on the hill, digging into burrows with their trowels,
Speaker 1: when one of them spotted something unusual in the side
Speaker 1: of a cliff, three slabs of slate that had clearly
Speaker 1: been arranged to hide something. Pulling the slabs away, the
Speaker 1: boys discovered a small cave behind no more than twelve
Speaker 1: by eighteen inches, inside of which lay something very unusual. Indeed,
Speaker 1: Positioned neatly in rows across three shelves were seventeen small
Speaker 1: wooden boxes. Each were about four inches long and one
Speaker 1: and a half inches wide, and had been studded with
Speaker 1: tiny ornaments made from tin and put together with great care.
Speaker 1: Reaching into the hole, one of the boys pulled out
Speaker 1: a box and gave it a shake. There was something
Speaker 1: inside it. Hurriedly ripping off the lid, the boy, who
Speaker 1: had been hoping for some kind of treasure, was disappointed
Speaker 1: to find only a small wooden figurine inside. The enigmatic
Speaker 1: figure cut from a single piece of wood, was dressed
Speaker 1: head to toe in cotton clothes with a striking face
Speaker 1: that had been delicately carved by its maker. Another box
Speaker 1: was grabbed and quickly emptied, only to reveal yet another
Speaker 1: strange wooden figure inside. Dissatisfied with their find, the boys
Speaker 1: nonetheless grabbed as many as they could and spent the
Speaker 1: next few minutes throwing them at each other until they
Speaker 1: became bored and went back home, leaving the figures and
Speaker 1: the boxes lying broken and exposed under the afternoon sun.
Speaker 1: It was a few days later when the boys recounted
Speaker 1: to their schoolmaster, mister Ferguson, what they had found on
Speaker 1: Arthur's seat. Intrigued by their description of the figurines, mister Ferguson,
Speaker 1: who was also an enthusiastic member of a local archeological society,
Speaker 1: headed up the hill at the first opportunity, grateful to
Speaker 1: find all the pieces just as the boys had left them,
Speaker 1: with some still resting inside the cave. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: Ferguson got all the boxes and figures home that he
Speaker 1: realized what it was he was looking at. They weren't
Speaker 1: just wooden boxes. They were coffins, which would make each
Speaker 1: of the seventeen figures lying inside bodies of the dead.
Speaker 1: To this day, the precise meaning and purpose of this
Speaker 1: extraordinary discovery remains a mystery. Some at the time thought
Speaker 1: perhaps they had something to do with witchcraft, with even
Speaker 1: a local paper ascribing them to the infernal hags of
Speaker 1: Arthur's Seat. More recently, however, a new theory was proposed,
Speaker 1: with links to a story that began only a few
Speaker 1: years before the miniature coffins were first discovered. The ship
Speaker 1: rocked and rolled about in the waves as any one
Speaker 1: who wasn't part of the crew crammed themselves into every
Speaker 1: conceivable space and cowered against the wind and the rain.
Speaker 1: Up on deck, twenty four year old William Burke sits
Speaker 1: huddled in a group, sipping whiskey, serenaded by the distress
Speaker 1: calls of all the cattle, sheep and pigs with whom
Speaker 1: they were sharing their journey. It was the year eighteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: and due to a devastating post war recession, Burke, like
Speaker 1: everyone else on board, was traveling from Ireland to Glasgow
Speaker 1: in Scotland in search of work. Most would be hoping
Speaker 1: to take advantage of the Scottish harvests, where they could
Speaker 1: make anywhere between eight and twelvepence a day, the equivalent
Speaker 1: of about two pounds fifty to day, doing all the
Speaker 1: work that local workers wouldn't and at half the price.
Speaker 1: Though mainly men aged between sixteen and thirty six, there
Speaker 1: were women too, who, like now could look forward to
Speaker 1: earning on average only eighty percent of what their male
Speaker 1: counterparts took home. Most followed the harvest as the season dictated,
Speaker 1: heading first to the border towns, then following the work
Speaker 1: northwards up to Glasgow, before eventually returning back to Ireland. Others, however,
Speaker 1: like Burke, might choose to stay on in search of
Speaker 1: more regular work. By eighteen eighteen, having been demobbed from
Speaker 1: the army only a few years before, Burke had made
Speaker 1: this same trip a number of times, leaving behind his
Speaker 1: wife and children for months on end. That year, however,
Speaker 1: something had changed, either she had left him or Burke
Speaker 1: had decided to cut ties. In any case, having got
Speaker 1: wind of a vast new construction job requiring labor the
Speaker 1: extension of a canal system into Edinburgh, Burke made his
Speaker 1: way to the capital city, starting at Port Hopetown in
Speaker 1: the west of the city, Burke, alongside countless others, worked
Speaker 1: on and off for four years, chipping away at earth
Speaker 1: and stone with nothing but bare hands, pigs and axes,
Speaker 1: and the occasional mound of gunpowder to help carve the
Speaker 1: ambitious waterway from out of the land, With workers having
Speaker 1: to follow the progress of the canal sleeping by its
Speaker 1: banks at night in makeshift huts made from wood and straw.
Speaker 1: Burke soon found himself in Falkirk, a town some twenty
Speaker 1: five miles west of Edinburgh. It was here that he
Speaker 1: met Helen McDougall, with whom he struck up a relationship.
Speaker 1: Four years later, the canal was finished. With no reason
Speaker 1: to return to Ireland, William and Helen, now firmly in love,
Speaker 1: returned to Edinburgh. To day, Edinburgh is a veritable tourist attraction,
Speaker 1: being the second most visited city in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: But like any city, Edinburgh is and has always been
Speaker 1: a tale of two halves, a state that had perhaps
Speaker 1: never been more pronounced than in the early eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and as is often the case, it was in the
Speaker 1: most deprived areas that many immigrant communities were forced to
Speaker 1: seek comfort and communality For William and Helen. That place
Speaker 1: was West Portsborough or Westport, the main thoroughfare of Portsborough,
Speaker 1: an area of Edinburgh's old town, tucked away under the
Speaker 1: southern shadows of Edinburgh Castle. It was a place described
Speaker 1: by a member of the local sanitary committee at the
Speaker 1: time as one of the most unclean and badly ventilated
Speaker 1: areas in this or any adjacent country. It was, however,
Speaker 1: also one of the most vibrant parts of the city,
Speaker 1: with many of the cities monetarily poorest, buying for work
Speaker 1: and space crammed into vast, towering tenements, with some even
Speaker 1: reaching ten stories high, inside which you might find as
Speaker 1: many as forty eight families or one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: eight people living, with rarely a fireplace between them or
Speaker 1: anywhere to boil water. Outbreaks of infectious diseases were commonplace.
Speaker 1: Out on the street. Grocers, spirit sellers and textile traders
Speaker 1: sold their wares under the smog of the many tanneries,
Speaker 1: salt works and paper mills near by. Having found a
Speaker 1: lodging house, Burke and Madougall became hawkers, selling second hand
Speaker 1: goods throughout Westport and making do with what they had.
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty seven, the pair traveled south to Pennicook
Speaker 1: to take on some harvesting work, where they came friends
Speaker 1: with William Hare. Hare, who had also originally come over
Speaker 1: from Ireland, had spent the last few years in Edinburgh
Speaker 1: working as a coalman's assistant. During that time, he'd resided
Speaker 1: in a lodging house in Tanner's Close, a small business
Speaker 1: owned by Margaret Laird that was situated just off Westport.
Speaker 1: After being discovered having an affair with Margaret by her husband,
Speaker 1: Hare had been kicked out of the house, only to
Speaker 1: return soon after when Margaret's husband died due to reasons
Speaker 1: that are not entirely clear. When the harvest was over,
Speaker 1: Hare suggested to Burke and Helen that they move in
Speaker 1: with him and Margaret. Margaret's lodging house, located at the
Speaker 1: bottom of Tanner's Close, consisted of two relatively large and
Speaker 1: roomy apartments with seven beds for lodgers, which were little
Speaker 1: more than a straw mattress and a blanket. The beds
Speaker 1: would go for as little as threepence a night, often
Speaker 1: with as many as three people sharing one at a time.
Speaker 1: Occupants could range from any age, but most were itinerant workers,
Speaker 1: picking up jobs wherever they could find them. It was
Speaker 1: late in November eighteen twenty seven when Margaret noticed one
Speaker 1: morning that one of her guests, a man named Donald,
Speaker 1: had failed to get up from his bed. Donald had
Speaker 1: been suffering from what was then known as dropsy, an
Speaker 1: excess build up a fluid under the skin and in
Speaker 1: the cavities of the body. As Margaret soon discovered, Donald
Speaker 1: was dead. Having made the necessary arrangements to have the
Speaker 1: body removed, Margaret had little choice but to leave it
Speaker 1: in the lodging house until it could be taken away
Speaker 1: the next day. To make matters worse, Donald had owed
Speaker 1: her four pounds before he died. That night. With Margaret
Speaker 1: stewed over the lost revenue, Hair stared at Donald's dead
Speaker 1: body from the dim light of a doorway, working an
Speaker 1: idea over in his head. When Burke returned home later
Speaker 1: that night, Hair made him a proposition. It was widely
Speaker 1: known that the Surgical School of Edinburgh University, located only
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes walk from Tanner's Close, was one of the
Speaker 1: leading institutions of its kind in the world. In recent years,
Speaker 1: it had gained an especially vaunted reputation in the burgeoning
Speaker 1: field of anatomy, and as Hair also knew all too well,
Speaker 1: it was an industry that was in constant need of
Speaker 1: fresh corpses to experiment on corpses like Donald's. The next day,
Speaker 1: Air and Burke watched carefully as a carpenter constructed a
Speaker 1: coffin preparation for Donald's body's extraction from the lodging house.
Speaker 1: After the carpenter had left, with the porter not due
Speaker 1: to take the coffin away for another hour, Hair took
Speaker 1: a chisel to the lid and carefully prized it open.
Speaker 1: Having removed the body, Hair and Burke hurriedly stuffed the
Speaker 1: coffin with leather, scraps and straw, before replacing the lid.
Speaker 1: A short time later. With Donald's body carefully stashed away
Speaker 1: under a bed, Hair watched expectantly as the porter collected
Speaker 1: the coffin and took it away. That evening, the two
Speaker 1: men made the short journey along the Grass Market towards
Speaker 1: Surgeon's Square in search of doctor Alexander Munroe. At the time,
Speaker 1: Munroe was well installed as the university's professor of anatomy
Speaker 1: and medicine. The third in as many generations of Munroe's
Speaker 1: who had effectively had the position handed down to them.
Speaker 1: In this capacity, Monroe was entitled to all the legally
Speaker 1: procured bodies offered to the university. However, since doctor Monroe
Speaker 1: wasn't in at the time, her and Burke were instructed
Speaker 1: to try doctor Robert Knox instead, whose offices were also
Speaker 1: on Surgeon's Square. Moments later, they were greeted by Knox's assistance,
Speaker 1: William Ferguson and Thomas Jones, who told the men to
Speaker 1: wait until it was dark before bringing them their body.
Speaker 1: That night, the pair threw Donald's corpse into a sack
Speaker 1: and hawked it up to Surgeon's Square. Doctor Knox arrived
Speaker 1: soon after to examine it. Like many surgeons working and
Speaker 1: teaching at the university at the time, Knox was fiercely
Speaker 1: competitive and greatly frustrated by Monroe, who many felt was
Speaker 1: undeserving of his position. In response, he taken to setting
Speaker 1: up private classes students, which proved immensely profitable, just as
Speaker 1: long as he could keep a steady supply of bodies
Speaker 1: to dissect for them. After taking a quick look at
Speaker 1: the one in front of him, Knox offered Hair and
Speaker 1: Burke seven pounds and ten shillings on the spot, with
Speaker 1: no questions, asked the equivalent of five hundred pounds today, or,
Speaker 1: to put it another way, what would ordinarily take the
Speaker 1: pair the best part of two months to earn. Knox's assistant, Jones,
Speaker 1: duly counted out the money and handed it over to
Speaker 1: the pair, adding quickly as they left that the good
Speaker 1: doctor Knox would be grateful for any more should they
Speaker 1: ever happen to come across any And with that, the
Speaker 1: pair left the building and headed back to Westport. Are
Speaker 1: you always taking care of your family? Do you often
Speaker 1: take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time
Speaker 1: to take care of your self, to make time for you.
Speaker 1: You deserve it. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed
Speaker 1: therapist to help you get back to feeling your best,
Speaker 1: to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you can speak
Speaker 1: to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments
Speaker 1: are available seven days a week from seven am to
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Speaker 1: For free teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers.
Speaker 1: Download the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com
Speaker 1: slash Unexplained Podcast. What Burke and Hare had done was
Speaker 1: not illegal, and there was no need for their duplicity.
Speaker 1: Provided a body had died of natural causes and had
Speaker 1: not been buried, and there were no relatives or dependents
Speaker 1: interested in collecting it, it was more or less legal
Speaker 1: to sell it for medical studies. Most executed criminals or
Speaker 1: any who died in custody were also donated to the university,
Speaker 1: though there were many known as resurrectionists or body snatches
Speaker 1: that stalked the cemeteries at night, hunting for fresh flesh
Speaker 1: to disinter and sell to the highest bidder. Contrary to
Speaker 1: popular belief, Hare and Burke were never that they were
Speaker 1: going to become something far worse. It was a number
Speaker 1: of months later, in February eighteen twenty eight, with the
Speaker 1: money from Donald's corpse, well and truly spent that Margaret
Speaker 1: Hare noticed another of her clients, Joseph Miller, had come
Speaker 1: down with a bad fever. Surely, as she explained to
Speaker 1: her partner, it would only be a matter of time
Speaker 1: before he too would provide them with a fresh corpse
Speaker 1: for the good doctor Knox. But Miller clung on to life,
Speaker 1: and soon his infection was having a drastic impact on
Speaker 1: Margaret's ability to attract more customers. Perhaps it was Hare
Speaker 1: who suggested that they might merely hasten what was already
Speaker 1: inevitable in any event, one night, having sold Burke on
Speaker 1: the idea too, Hair and his compatriot shuffled into Miller's
Speaker 1: bedroom As he tossed and turned feverish in his bed,
Speaker 1: unsure as to whether the two men that were now
Speaker 1: standing over him were real or just an ominous fever dream.
Speaker 1: Then Burke pulled a pillow from another bed and slowly,
Speaker 1: forcefully brought it down over Miller's mouth. The man struggled frantically,
Speaker 1: but Hair was too strong, clambering on top of him
Speaker 1: and pinning down his arms, putting so much pressure on
Speaker 1: his lungs there wasn't even room to take a breath,
Speaker 1: and then he was stilled when Burke pulled the pillow away.
Speaker 1: Miller's face was frozen in a silent scream of terror,
Speaker 1: his eyes wide open and bloodshot, as a tiny spittle
Speaker 1: of blooded mucus collected in the corner of his mouth.
Speaker 1: Perhaps things might have ended that night had they taken
Speaker 1: a different turn, and there was no doubt some apprehension
Speaker 1: in Hair and Burke as they stuffed Miller's body into
Speaker 1: a tea box and wheeled it all the way up
Speaker 1: to Surgeon's Square. When asked where the body, now stiff
Speaker 1: with rigor mortis, had come from, the men replied simply
Speaker 1: that they had purchased it from relatives. Being only the
Speaker 1: second brought to in four months with obvious signs of illness,
Speaker 1: there was no reason to suspect otherwise, Such were the
Speaker 1: circumstances of the day. Hare and Burke had hit on
Speaker 1: a perverse logic that the bodies of the poor were
Speaker 1: worth far more dead than alive. Only days later they
Speaker 1: spied another opportunity when salt seller Abigail Simpson took a
Speaker 1: bed at Margaret's lodging house. The men applied her with
Speaker 1: alcohol until she passed out on a bed, then employing
Speaker 1: the same technique, as they had to Joseph Miller they
Speaker 1: murdered her, She too would end up on doctor Knox's
Speaker 1: dissection table, and now they had a taste for it.
Speaker 1: By late October eighteen twenty eight, Hare and Burke, with
Speaker 1: the apparent complicity of their partners Mark and Helen, had
Speaker 1: deposited a total of fifteen bodies with doctor Knox, each
Speaker 1: of them being placed on receipt in water or alcohol
Speaker 1: to draw out the blood, then kept in storage before
Speaker 1: eventual dissection, the youngest being a boy of twelve. The
Speaker 1: boy had been lodging in Tanners Close with his grandmother when,
Speaker 1: after being informed that she had left without him, he
Speaker 1: was taken tenderly to a nearby bed by Burke and
Speaker 1: given some whiskey to forget his troubles. Not knowing that
Speaker 1: the body of his dead grandmother was in fact hidden
Speaker 1: under the very bed he was sitting on, the boy
Speaker 1: was then also murdered. Soon, however, suspicions would be raised
Speaker 1: and Hare and Burke began to get sloppy. A young
Speaker 1: woman brought to Knox with no obvious signs of death,
Speaker 1: was believed by his assistant Ferguson to be someone called
Speaker 1: Mary Peterson, who'd only recently been released from a local asylum.
Speaker 1: Though it was never confirmed, the rumors were that Ferguson
Speaker 1: might have even been romantically linked with Peterson prior to
Speaker 1: her murder, but since her identity was never confirmed, Ferguson
Speaker 1: had little choice but to work side by side the
Speaker 1: body of his possible lover as it was kept in storage,
Speaker 1: decomposing piece by piece each day, right in front of him. Then,
Speaker 1: in early October, Ferguson and his colleagues received another body
Speaker 1: from Here and Burke, which they immediately recognized as Jamie Wilson,
Speaker 1: a popular character among the Westport community. Though not homeless
Speaker 1: and well looked after by his sister Janet, Wilson was
Speaker 1: prone to wandering the streets barefooted and entertaining passes by
Speaker 1: with his talent for naming the exact day of any
Speaker 1: date they could throw at him. But when Knox inspected
Speaker 1: the body later, he insisted that his assistance had been mistaken.
Speaker 1: On hearing that Jamie Wilson had indeed been declared missing,
Speaker 1: Knox ordered his assistance to bring the body that Here
Speaker 1: and Burke had last delivered ahead of any others he
Speaker 1: had in storage. Doctor Knox then ordered its head and
Speaker 1: feet to be removed before he later used it in class.
Speaker 1: By October, now earning decent money, Burke and McDougall had
Speaker 1: moved out of Tanner's Close and into their own lodgings
Speaker 1: a little further down the road. It was during this
Speaker 1: time that Helen's ex husband's daughter, Anne Gray, came to
Speaker 1: stay along with her husband James, and their newborn baby.
Speaker 1: Though Anne hadn't suspected anything at the time, having been
Speaker 1: told to clear out of the apartment. On the night
Speaker 1: of Halloween, she and James returned to find m'dougall and Burke,
Speaker 1: who had clearly had a late night in a strange move.
Speaker 1: When Anne, who was smoking a pipe at the time,
Speaker 1: tried to collect some stockings for her child from behind
Speaker 1: a bed, Burke pushed her away, warning her that the
Speaker 1: pipe could set the bed on fire. When Burke went
Speaker 1: out soon after, m'dougall, for no apparent reason, decided to
Speaker 1: lie down on the bed until his return, while the
Speaker 1: son of another lodger of theirs, named John, sat watch
Speaker 1: on a chair near by. When eventually m'dougall and John
Speaker 1: left the room for a moment, Anne stole in and
Speaker 1: searched the bed, recoiling in horror a moment later when
Speaker 1: she discovered a cold, limp body lying underneath it. Having
Speaker 1: informed her husband, Anne and James packed their bags immediately, and,
Speaker 1: despite McDougall's attempts to buy their silence, made their way
Speaker 1: straight to the nearest police station. With minutes, officers had
Speaker 1: arrested Burke and Medougal and would soon have William Hare
Speaker 1: and Margaret Laired in custody, two accused of murder. The
Speaker 1: body the sixteenth of their victims was identified as Margaret Docherty,
Speaker 1: a middle aged woman who had come to Edinburgh from
Speaker 1: Donegal in search of her son, who had moved on
Speaker 1: from the city only three days before. She had arrived.
Speaker 1: With Hair and Burke in custody, the most notorious murder
Speaker 1: spree related to the city of Edinburgh had come to
Speaker 1: an end. Incredibly, such was the carefully constructed method that
Speaker 1: Hare and Burke used to kill their victims, the police
Speaker 1: had no evidence with which to convict them. As such, prosecutors,
Speaker 1: following a well tried and tested method, selected one of
Speaker 1: the men at Brandam, in this case, William Hair, and
Speaker 1: offered him complete immunity from prosecution if he merely provided
Speaker 1: details of Docherty's murder and all the other murders they
Speaker 1: were suspected of. Unsurprisingly, Hair agreed in what's known as
Speaker 1: turning state's evidence or in those days, king's evidence. Hair
Speaker 1: effectively became the single piece of evidence for the prosecution
Speaker 1: in a highly publicized trial which began on Christmas Eve
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty eight. Despite at first pleading not guilty,
Speaker 1: William Burke eventually confessed to the killings, his account differing
Speaker 1: somewhatch from Hair's as both tried to heap the blame
Speaker 1: on each other. Many have since come to believe that
Speaker 1: Hair was most likely the more dominant of the two. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: Hair was duly exonerated in return for his earlier confession,
Speaker 1: while William Burke was convicted of murder and sentenced to
Speaker 1: death by hanging. Both Margaret Laird and Helen m'dougall were
Speaker 1: also released at the end of the trial and allowed
Speaker 1: to walk free, though both were later attacked by mobs.
Speaker 1: They were each given police protection, enabling them to return
Speaker 1: to their homes, with Margaret eventually returning to Ireland. Nothing
Speaker 1: is known about what became of them after William Hare,
Speaker 1: assisted by the police left Edinburgh in a disguise and
Speaker 1: was given passage to the town of Dumfries. However, after
Speaker 1: being recognized by a fellow passenger, Hare was also attacked
Speaker 1: by a mob on arrival in Dumfries, before police were
Speaker 1: again forced to help him escape. He was last reported
Speaker 1: heading over the border to England, from where he was
Speaker 1: never heard of again. For his part, doctor Robert Knox
Speaker 1: was effectively exonerated by Burke's confession and was not required
Speaker 1: to give any evidence in court. With his reputation tatters, however,
Speaker 1: with few believing he was unaware of the crimes, he
Speaker 1: was gradually excluded from academic life. After eventually finding work
Speaker 1: as a pathological anatomist in London, he died disgraced and
Speaker 1: debarred from the Royal Society of Surgeons in eighteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: On the morning of January twenty ninth, eighteen twenty nine,
Speaker 1: William Burke was hung at Edinburgh's Lawnmarket in front of
Speaker 1: a crowd reported to be as big as twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand and three. Days later, his naked corpse was placed
Speaker 1: on an operating table in doctor Alexander Munro's anatomy theater,
Speaker 1: where it was dissected in front of hundreds of gleeful
Speaker 1: medical students. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would
Speaker 1: like to help supporters, you can now go to Unexplained
Speaker 1: podcast dot com Forward Slash Support. All donations, matter how
Speaker 1: large or small, are massively appreciating. All elements of Unexplained
Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
Speaker 1: rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get
Speaker 1: in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can reach
Speaker 1: us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at
Speaker 1: Unexplained odd and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained Now, it's time to take care of yourself. To
Speaker 1: make time for you, Tell a doc gives you access
Speaker 1: to a licensed therapist to help you get back to
Speaker 1: feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone
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