Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. It said that this body
Speaker 1: snatcher once returned to the same grave side at which
Speaker 1: he had earlier been caught digging, after he'd bought those
Speaker 1: who had had detained him a dream. It's also said
Speaker 1: he dressed the bodies he stole, and that he had
Speaker 1: a quote villainous bald head. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarque,
Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Fry. Ohio was a hotbed of grave
Speaker 1: robbing activity in the United States in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: The first recorded account of a body snatched from its
Speaker 1: grave in the state was at Zanesville in the early
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. There are numerous stories about body snatching activities
Speaker 1: in Columbus, about fifty miles away, too, and nearly all
Speaker 1: were related to the supply and demand for cadavers at
Speaker 1: medical schools. One stands out for us among many snatchers
Speaker 1: from that town and state, who was a man named
Speaker 1: Charles Morton. Charles was a University of Michigan medical school
Speaker 1: dropout who went on to become well known in the
Speaker 1: body snatching business. He transported corpses in large vats that
Speaker 1: he had labeled pickles. But colorful though he is, Charles
Speaker 1: is not actually the only standout. This episode of Criminalia
Speaker 1: doesn't take place in Columbus, Ohio. It takes place in
Speaker 1: Cincinnati during the mid eighteen hundreds, during the time of
Speaker 1: the American Civil War. Cincinnati was a rapidly growing city
Speaker 1: during the nineteenth century. The Ohio River provided numerous business opportunities,
Speaker 1: and hotels, restaurants, and taverns quickly opened to meet the
Speaker 1: developing needs of those traveling along the river. The city
Speaker 1: was also becoming a significant meat packing center and was
Speaker 1: nicknamed the Porkopolis of the United States. We're interested in
Speaker 1: one of its notorious residents, the resurrection man William Cunningham.
Speaker 1: Thirty six years before William hit the Cincinnati body snatching scene,
Speaker 1: Daniel Drake established the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: which welcomed its first class in eighteen nineteen. The city
Speaker 1: became a center for medicine. Thirteen medical schools were operating
Speaker 1: there between eighteen twenty and eighteen eighty. William was born
Speaker 1: in Ireland. His age is disputed, but many historians estimate
Speaker 1: he was probably born around eighteen oh seven, when he
Speaker 1: died in eighteen seventy one. The corner estimated his age
Speaker 1: to be sixty five, which you know that matches up,
Speaker 1: But according to the US Census, William's self reported age
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy was fifty. He may or may not
Speaker 1: have passed through Virginia before settling in Cincinnati, but we
Speaker 1: do know that William was actively stealing bodies from grave
Speaker 1: sites around since in Addie from eighteen fifty five to
Speaker 1: seventy one. William's wife, Mary Cunningham, was frequently described as
Speaker 1: a quote fun loving woman that liked her whiskey and
Speaker 1: was rough around the edges. She sounds great. She was
Speaker 1: also described as quote a bony, brawny john Irish woman
Speaker 1: with a mouth like an alligator. She still sounds great.
Speaker 1: Good to say that still great. She may or may
Speaker 1: not have assisted her husband during his nighttime trips to
Speaker 1: the graveyard, at least in some capacity during his sixteen
Speaker 1: years in the business. We'll talk more about her later.
Speaker 1: No one seems to have called William by his given name.
Speaker 1: Those who didn't call him Old Man Dead called him
Speaker 1: Old Cunney. He was known to be the local boogeyman
Speaker 1: known as the ghoul of Cincinnati, and tales of him
Speaker 1: coming to snatch you were used to frighten badly behaving
Speaker 1: children into shaping up. He appeared in fulk Kills around
Speaker 1: Since and Eddie, including stories of his body snatching adventures
Speaker 1: as well as his luck eluding the law. The Cincinnati
Speaker 1: Inquirer on January nine, eighteen seventy described William in this
Speaker 1: charming way quote to have seen Cunningham is to retain
Speaker 1: him in your memory for a lifetime. For that ponderous
Speaker 1: yet gaunt frame, that strong marked face corrugated with age
Speaker 1: and crime, a canine mouth from the corners of which
Speaker 1: slowly trickles the generous saliva impregnated with the juices of nicotine.
Speaker 1: And that shuffling gait caused by a broken leg received
Speaker 1: from a charge of buckshot constitutes a tout ensemble, sufficiently
Speaker 1: striking to make a very vivid impression. I love that
Speaker 1: entire description. May I be described in such colorful ways.
Speaker 1: I will take care of business for you. He is
Speaker 1: also described as having been quote a big, raw boned am,
Speaker 1: was a protruding lower jaw, and an insatiable thirst for
Speaker 1: hard liquor. According to the William drove an Express wagon
Speaker 1: at least for his day job. That's how he's listed
Speaker 1: in the city directory at the time, and local papers
Speaker 1: note that as his occupation as well. Some records suggest
Speaker 1: he was a Draymond driver, which is a person who
Speaker 1: delivers beer at night. Though he snatched and sold fresh
Speaker 1: corpses and undercover job that was definitely not listed in
Speaker 1: the city directory. It's estimated that Williams snatched at least
Speaker 1: a hundred bodies during his career and sold each four
Speaker 1: between twenty and thirty dollars to medical schools without a
Speaker 1: legal way for people to donate their body for dissection.
Speaker 1: This is a problem we've talked at length about this season.
Speaker 1: The schools were eager to buy them, even if they
Speaker 1: were procured illegally. We're going to take a break here
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back,
Speaker 1: we're going to describe exactly how old Man Dead transported
Speaker 1: the bodies he stole. Welcome back to Criminalia. Go ahead
Speaker 1: and guess what was in the box william deposited at
Speaker 1: the US Express Office sent c O. D. Let's see
Speaker 1: if you're right. Being a body snatcher was hard work.
Speaker 1: It was physically demanding work. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer,
Speaker 1: the body snatching process was kind of like this quote.
Speaker 1: They don't really open the grave. They simply dig a
Speaker 1: hole about two ft square over the head of the coffin.
Speaker 1: When they get to that, they break out the coffin
Speaker 1: head and fastened big hooks to which strong ropes are
Speaker 1: attached under the arms of the corpse and haulowed out
Speaker 1: by main force. William, it said, it was fearless when
Speaker 1: it came to both digging up and transporting bodies greg
Speaker 1: hand Locals. Sinati historian describes William's transportation set up and
Speaker 1: we quote he would disguise the corpses that he had
Speaker 1: just pulled from the grave by having them sit next
Speaker 1: to him on his wagon as he drove through town,
Speaker 1: passing the police. After his death, a story about William
Speaker 1: told by a quote very knowing acquaintance appeared in a
Speaker 1: local newspaper on March first before It was very likely
Speaker 1: a physician who did business with him, and it goes
Speaker 1: like this. One night, I remember I met Connie driving
Speaker 1: into the city with a stiff and horrible as the
Speaker 1: site was, there was something grotesquely ludicrous about it. He
Speaker 1: had placed the corpse in a sitting position on the
Speaker 1: seat beside him, and had dressed it in an old
Speaker 1: coat and a vest and a plate out hat. He
Speaker 1: kept his arm round the waist of the corpse to
Speaker 1: steady it from the jolting of the vehicle. But every
Speaker 1: now and then the horrid thing would double up on
Speaker 1: the seat, and its head kept bobbing up and down
Speaker 1: in the ghastliest way you ever saw. Then Old Coney
Speaker 1: would give the stiff a slap in the face and
Speaker 1: sit up. This is the last time, by God, I'll
Speaker 1: ever take you home. When you get drunk. You ought
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of yourself, drunk as a boiled owl
Speaker 1: with a wife and children to support. Can you even
Speaker 1: imagine this scene? Can you? My? I have many times
Speaker 1: in my imagination. It's weekend at Bernie's. We've seen it,
Speaker 1: We've seen it all. As we talked about earlier, a
Speaker 1: growing number of medical schools opened and flourished in Ohio
Speaker 1: during the mid nineteenth century. During the years that William
Speaker 1: was active at his night job, there were at least
Speaker 1: five established schools operating throughout Cincinnati, including the Medical College
Speaker 1: of Ohio on Sixth Street, The Cincinnati College of Medicine
Speaker 1: and Surgery at Central in Longworth, the Eclectic Medical Institute
Speaker 1: at Court and Plum Streets, Miami Medical College on Twelfth Street,
Speaker 1: and the Physio Medical College on the corner of Seventh
Speaker 1: and Cutter Streets. Each of those schools had anywhere from
Speaker 1: a few dozen into a few hundred students, all of
Speaker 1: whom needed cadavers to study human anatomy. Medical schools needed
Speaker 1: a certain number of bodies not for season classrooms, but
Speaker 1: for anatomy training. Because they weren't able to secure them
Speaker 1: through legal means. Most worked with body snatchers, and some
Speaker 1: were pretty creative in their relationships with the local resurrection
Speaker 1: ment if you were delivering to Sixth Street. For instance,
Speaker 1: the Medical College of Ohio had a pretty convenient feature.
Speaker 1: The school, and we quote historian Greg hand on this again,
Speaker 1: had a drop off shoot for bodies, so that a
Speaker 1: wagon could drive down the alley out back of the school,
Speaker 1: unloaded body into the shoot, and it was picked up
Speaker 1: there by the anatomical professor the next day. Deliveries took
Speaker 1: place at night, and so did dissection demonstrations, which have
Speaker 1: been described as taking place in quote, poorly lit laboratories
Speaker 1: in the midst of a rowdy crowd of tobacco smoking
Speaker 1: and chewing students. William didn't let something like location hold
Speaker 1: him back from making money in his business, and unlike
Speaker 1: most body snatchers, his reach went beyond Cincinnati. He would
Speaker 1: ship bodies to out of town and out of state physicians,
Speaker 1: including as far away as Kansas, at least that's the
Speaker 1: farthest we know of. As reported in the Cincinnati Daily
Speaker 1: Gazette on January and note that there's some outdated language
Speaker 1: in this quote, Cunningham, the resurrectionist, deposited a box at
Speaker 1: the US Express office marked glass with care c O
Speaker 1: d Dr M. P. Hayden, Leavenworth, Kansas. Suspicions of the
Speaker 1: company's agents were excited, and when they opened the box,
Speaker 1: it contained the body of a Negro woman, prepared for
Speaker 1: the dissecting knife and served up in a sack. The
Speaker 1: freight was returned to Mr Cunningham. That's just crazy, they
Speaker 1: just sent it. So we're now going to take a
Speaker 1: break for from our sponsor. When we return, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the end of William's career as a resurrection man
Speaker 1: and how he's at least partly to blame for the
Speaker 1: invention of something called the coffin torpedo. Welcome back to criminalia.
Speaker 1: For more than a decade, William evaded arrest and punishment
Speaker 1: for his involvement in the illegal body trade, but nothing
Speaker 1: less forever. William is described as having been vindictive, and
Speaker 1: this came through in his work, at least in his
Speaker 1: graveyard work. In an act of revenge, William once sold
Speaker 1: and delivered a body infected with smallpox to naive medical
Speaker 1: students who had once played a joke on him, and
Speaker 1: several reports suggest that this was the beginning of the
Speaker 1: end for his career. That's a fast way to lose
Speaker 1: your goodwill with the medical community that's been covering up
Speaker 1: your stuff for a while, and new kidding, Just give
Speaker 1: a bunch of them smallpox. He had evaded arrest for
Speaker 1: roughly fifteen years when his good luck changed for the worse.
Speaker 1: On August thirty one, eighteen seventy one, the Cincinnati Enquirer
Speaker 1: ran a feature on William when he was finally arrested.
Speaker 1: They wrote, quote, everybody knows Old Cunney, the resurrectionist whose
Speaker 1: occupation for many years past has been to supply the
Speaker 1: various medical colleges of the city with subjects for dissection,
Speaker 1: and who, it is understood, has amassed quite a handsome competency.
Speaker 1: At his contraband employment. Twelve or fifteen years ago, when
Speaker 1: he was in the prime of manhood, Coney was so
Speaker 1: adroit and careful, though daring withal, that he carried on
Speaker 1: the business almost without molestation. But of late years, his
Speaker 1: increasing age and infirmity have several times thrown him into
Speaker 1: the hands of the officers, though by sing uller good fortune,
Speaker 1: he has hitherto escaped punishment. Their feature continued as so
Speaker 1: yesterday morning. About one o'clock, the attention of two police
Speaker 1: officers was attracted by the figure of an old man
Speaker 1: driving at a rapid rate down to Cincinnati Street, followed
Speaker 1: by a crowd of men and boys running after him,
Speaker 1: hooting and hollering stop him, shoot him, and the like.
Speaker 1: The officers called him to stop, but he only laid
Speaker 1: whip to his horse and drove past them. The horse, however,
Speaker 1: was lame, and the load in the wagon seemingly heavy,
Speaker 1: and after a short race, one of the officers grasped
Speaker 1: the bridle while the other took charge of the driver.
Speaker 1: The driver was old Cunney, who, returning after a night's
Speaker 1: work at his ghoulish employment, had been delayed on his
Speaker 1: road home by an accident to his vehicle. In the
Speaker 1: wagon was found a sack containing the dead body of
Speaker 1: a man, while a similar package on the seat beside
Speaker 1: him contained the remains of a child, a boy ten
Speaker 1: or twelve years old. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette reported on
Speaker 1: his arrest as well, but their take was a little different,
Speaker 1: though they wrote, quote, William Cunningham first fired his brain
Speaker 1: with whiskey, then fired off an enormous revolver on Central Avenue.
Speaker 1: On September twelfth, eighteen seventy one, local papers reported William
Speaker 1: had been indicted on five counts. We've actually seen that
Speaker 1: number also reported as low as two. He entered a
Speaker 1: plea of not guilty, paid three hundred dollars bail, and
Speaker 1: was released. He was to answer to the charge of
Speaker 1: a legal possession of dead human bodies at the next
Speaker 1: session of the Common Pleas Court on January thirty one, two,
Speaker 1: but he didn't make it. On October seventy one, local
Speaker 1: papers reported that William was a patient in the Cincinnati
Speaker 1: hospital and that he, as quoted from The Inquirer, regarded
Speaker 1: the announcement of his demise yesterday morning as an error.
Speaker 1: The article described William as suffering from a quote temporary
Speaker 1: derangement of his system from heavy alcohol consumption. He promised
Speaker 1: the press he'd be out in a few days and
Speaker 1: he'd be back to business, but William died on November two.
Speaker 1: After his death, William was on the other side of
Speaker 1: the dissection door. He sold his body to the Medical
Speaker 1: College of Ohio for fifty dollars, and after their students
Speaker 1: were done practicing on it, the faculty had the skeleton
Speaker 1: put on display, wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer on September two.
Speaker 1: His ghastly skeleton, neatly articulated and wired, sits on a
Speaker 1: tombstone in the cabinet of that institution. Well. In his hand,
Speaker 1: he grasps a spade, the emblem of his calling in life.
Speaker 1: Between his teeth, he holds a short pipe, as he
Speaker 1: was wont to in the days of flesh. The reporter
Speaker 1: noted that the only things missing from the exhibit were
Speaker 1: his gray horse and his wagon. And then there's Mary.
Speaker 1: It's possible that it was William's wife who sold his
Speaker 1: corpse for fifty dollars, but it's not the story most
Speaker 1: often pulled of his death. We do know she picked
Speaker 1: up or perhaps continued body snatching work after he died.
Speaker 1: As reported in the Ohio State Journal in December eight
Speaker 1: she was arrested along with four others for snatching the
Speaker 1: body of a child and selling it to Miami Medical
Speaker 1: College in Cincinnati. The article noted her as quote the
Speaker 1: widow of Cunningham, a former notoriety in this business. Historians
Speaker 1: estimate that as many as five thousand bodies were exhumed
Speaker 1: for dissection in Ohio in the nineteenth century, although these
Speaker 1: kinds of methods weren't in place yet when William was
Speaker 1: actively snatching bodies Ohioans. This was not limited to Ohio,
Speaker 1: we should be clear, developed a few inventive ways to
Speaker 1: prevent bodies from being stolen from the grave. A lot
Speaker 1: of it had to do with old man Dead in
Speaker 1: his work, though. Six years after William died, Philip K.
Speaker 1: Clover of Columbus, Ohio, for instance, invented and patented a
Speaker 1: device that was to quote prevent the unauthorized resurrection of
Speaker 1: dead bodies. Clover called his device a coffin torpedo, and
Speaker 1: here is how it worked. Buried underground the torpedo would
Speaker 1: fire several lead balls into anyone who disturbed the grave.
Speaker 1: A few years later, in former probate Judge Thomas and
Speaker 1: Howell of Circleville, Ohio, received a patent for an exploding
Speaker 1: shell that would sit above a coffin and go off
Speaker 1: if the grave was disturbed. Over time, the development of
Speaker 1: and and the improvement of embalming methods slowed down the
Speaker 1: high demand for bodies at medical schools, not only in Ohio,
Speaker 1: but also across the United States and outside of the
Speaker 1: United States as well. And donated bodies to made a
Speaker 1: big impact on supply. Under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act
Speaker 1: of the Ohio Revised Code, body donations, also called anatomical donations,
Speaker 1: became legal and commonplace at medical schools in the state,
Speaker 1: making names profession they're obsolete. Now that we just mentioned
Speaker 1: embalming methods, right time for embalming fluid. I'm for embalming fluid.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what we're going to tip back for Williams.
Speaker 1: I think this one will surprise you. The name is horrifying,
Speaker 1: so just know that upfront, because I'm calling it corpse juice.
Speaker 1: I'm playing a little bit with this and that I
Speaker 1: kept thinking about the idea of someone that would dress
Speaker 1: a corpse and play act in entire scenario as they
Speaker 1: drove along. There was a whole dialogue there, right, he
Speaker 1: had scenes written in his head to me that was
Speaker 1: all very funny, and so I thought it would be
Speaker 1: funny like that scene. Right. It's hilarious, but it is
Speaker 1: also grizzly as well when you think about it. We
Speaker 1: laugh a little bit in these episodes because there's some
Speaker 1: of it really truly is on one level laughable, but
Speaker 1: it's grizzly laughable. It's terrible. And so I wanted to
Speaker 1: come up with a drink that sounded and even looks
Speaker 1: a little like huh, but it's amazingly delicious. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: surprise you out of the gate with what the first
Speaker 1: ingredient is. I can't because you'll be like, wait, oh,
Speaker 1: this doesn't seem like where we're going. First, You're gonna
Speaker 1: chop some watermelon. It's as if I have conjured this
Speaker 1: in the universe. So watermelon is one of my favorite things,
Speaker 1: and I am looking more and more and more and
Speaker 1: more and more now that it's springtime to watermelon. So
Speaker 1: I am with you on it. That's exactly where I'm at.
Speaker 1: We are on the precipice here in the northern hemisphere
Speaker 1: of summer coming, and I also want to just have
Speaker 1: good summer drinks at ready. But this one is fun.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna chop some watermelon. You don't want uniform
Speaker 1: slices or cubes. You want it to look a little chunky,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna retain the juice along with your chopped
Speaker 1: fruit and set it aside. You don't need a ton
Speaker 1: of it. I would say a couple of table spoons,
Speaker 1: and you have more than enough. You can also do
Speaker 1: it the lazy way, which I have done, which is
Speaker 1: you buy a bunch of watermelon and chop it, or
Speaker 1: you buy pre chopped watermelon and you leave the juice
Speaker 1: and debris in the bottom of your bowl or wherever.
Speaker 1: I just use that. At the end. I eat watermelon
Speaker 1: at an alarming rate, so there's always plenty of this
Speaker 1: around the house. So then you'll have your little couple
Speaker 1: of tablespoons of sliced, chopped, chunked up watermelon and it's juice.
Speaker 1: Set that aside and into a glass with ice. You're
Speaker 1: gonna pour an ounce and a half of vodka. If
Speaker 1: you have a fruit infused vodka, this is a great
Speaker 1: time to pull it out. I have one that is
Speaker 1: watermelon and basil. Oh my god, that sounds delicious, Yes, delicious,
Speaker 1: And onto that. I just poured four ish ounces of
Speaker 1: ginger ale and then you just pour in your watermelon
Speaker 1: juice in the slurry, and so as it's falling to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the glass, it looks like viscera, and
Speaker 1: it looks a little like there's chunks of flesh in it.
Speaker 1: But it is so beautiful and taste like summer. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm so conflicted here with it. I'm like, if you
Speaker 1: started talking about chunks going and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is called corpus juice and has chunks and it
Speaker 1: is going to be fantastic and horrible. It's so good
Speaker 1: I first tried it. I will tell you in case
Speaker 1: anyone is listening and they're like, I know what I'll do.
Speaker 1: You could do this, Um, you might be tempted to
Speaker 1: throw your watermelon in a blender or food processor. I
Speaker 1: found that came out too smooth. You wanted a little
Speaker 1: chunkier than that. If you want to take away that
Speaker 1: sort of gruesome association. You could just pure it or whatever.
Speaker 1: That will work fine. Obviously, the mocktail on this is easy.
Speaker 1: Just leave out the vodka, You're fine. Just the ginger
Speaker 1: ale with the chunks of fruit in it is pretty
Speaker 1: darn delicious. I'm gonna keep saying the word chunks just
Speaker 1: to watch Maria's face squeak up every time. Chunky juice.
Speaker 1: It's so good, it's so delicious. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like one of the simplest ones we've ever done. And
Speaker 1: as you're sipping in and you get to the end,
Speaker 1: because they fall to the bottom, chunks, you'r chunks, Maria,
Speaker 1: those small ones. Towards the end, we'll start to creep
Speaker 1: into your SIPs and then you're reminded that you're drinking
Speaker 1: corpse juice, old man chunks. Delicious delicious is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So yes, I will drink this in mocktail form all
Speaker 1: day long, because delicious. I'm gonna go ahead and say
Speaker 1: that Mary I would serve this to her, I'd be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't think she'd like it. She would be like,
Speaker 1: please just give me a glass and eight ounce glass
Speaker 1: of whiskey. I don't mess with smaller portions. We could
Speaker 1: say to her, but the scruvy, that's good for you.
Speaker 1: This is like a nutritional cocktail exactly. There's chunks in it,
Speaker 1: like Okay, enough of the chunky talk. So gross, got Maria?
Speaker 1: What why it's wrong with you? Elicio? That all being said,
Speaker 1: this is a super yummy one. I'm gonna go have
Speaker 1: another one here in a minute. Thank you for spending
Speaker 1: this time with us. I hope you have enjoyed this
Speaker 1: story of old Cunney and his strange, strange vocation. We
Speaker 1: will be right back here next week with another episode
Speaker 1: of Criminalia, and we hope you join us. Criminalia is
Speaker 1: a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,